#except he is very small and has toddler balance so he falls over and starts crying whenever he tries

[lovelybarnes]

dad- l. laufeyson

pairings: loki laufeyson x doctor!mom!reader, mentions of tony stark, natasha romanoff, steve rogers, oc, and thor odinson warnings: a child, y/n is a mom, dad!loki who is probably a little ooc but i hope that’s okay, y/n is a doctor but there’s no real detail, it’s just alluded to, mentions of an absent father, mentions of adoption about: requested! They’re dating and she has a toddler from a previous relationship that ended badly. Loki treats the baby like she’s his own and brings her to the compound once in a while to show off ‘his’ baby. The little one adores Loki and started calling him dada, making the soft side of him comes out. And also the very protective side. He eventually asks reader if he can officially adopt her to be the father figure. Since reader never put down the fathers name on the birth certificate, they put Loki’s down. a/n: thank you so much for requesting! i hope you liked this!!

tiny fingers splayed your cheeks wake you up, wet lips pressing continuously on your nose as familiar laughter rings in your ear. your nose scrunches, prying your eyes open to meet the mirror image of them in front of you. at the grin that splits daisy’s face, a smile sneaks up on your lips, too, “hey honey,” you say quietly, brushing away a strand of hair that falls in her eyes as your daughter’s warm hands hold your face.

“hi mama,” daisy replies, snuggling into your side, “pancake day,” she informs happily, a chubby finger reaching to trace the slope of your nose.

you tilt your head at her, raising an eyebrow, “really? who says?”

daisy doesn’t get a chance to reply, the crack to your door widening when loki steps through it, balancing a large plate stacked with pancakes and fruits in one hand. “loki!” daisy cheers, sitting up to reach for the food. you sit up, too, cocking your head at your boyfriend as you observe the platter.

“you made food?” you ask, eyes scanning the little cubes of cut-up strawberries and bananas before looking back up at him in pleasant surprise.

loki ducks his chin, “you were asleep. and today is pancake day. i simply could not disappoint daisy,” he explains, letting daisy take a piece of banana to shove in her mouth.

you gently run your fingers through her hair, a soft smile tugging at your lips, “hey, dais, let’s go eat at the table and watch some cartoons, hm?” at the sound of cartoons, she nods quickly, bouncing off of the bed to tug at loki to follow her, the god not making a peep when her grubby hands leave a smear of banana on his wrist. you watch as they head to the kitchen, listening when loki turns on the television and flips it to her favorite show without her needing to tell him. you take a second to remind yourself that the god in your house, sneaking homemade whipped cream--because store-bought whipped cream is not fit for her--to your daughter, is the same god who, not too long ago, physically recoiled at the mere mention of midgardians. you stand when you hear daisy’s voice calling you over when you take too long to follow, peeking around the corner to see loki cutting her chocolate chip pancakes into little squares. “any left for me?” you ask, your body burning hot when loki turns to look at you, a twinkle in his clear sea glass eyes.

“good morning, darling,” he greets, his lips kissing your cheek when you come closer to him, an arm wrapping around your waist. “pancake?” he offers, showing you a plate with two perfectly shaped pancakes, whipped cream piled high just the way you liked it and berries surrounding it in the way you always tried to do but were never able to. you pecked his lips, smiling against him when you heard your daughter protest loudly.

“what are we watching today?” you ask her, fingers taming the mess of bedhead that sits atop her head. she turns to the television after shoving pancake into her mouth, pointing at the image, “clifford,” she says simply. you sit next to her, exhaling, “that’s a good one.” daisy nods, “i want a dog,” she states after a second, “like clifford.”

you glance at loki, “finding a big red dog is going to be a little hard, sweetie--”

“i’m sure there’s one in asgard, if not, there must be one somewhere else,” loki shrugs, squinting at the show, “i’ll find one. worry not.”

you shake your head, chuckling, “maybe a normal-sized dog, daisy.” daisy pouts but nods.

the sounds from the television are the only ones for a few moments until you speak up, “oh, i completely forgot, i have to go meet with some big shot hospital reps for almost the whole day today, do you mind taking care of daisy?” you ask loki, an apologetic look on your face.

“of course not, she can accompany me to the compound today,” loki reasons, not missing the excited look that crosses daisy’s face.

you brighten, “that’s a great idea!” you turn to your daughter, who has smeared red on her cheek and a strawberry in her fingers, you huff a laugh, wiping it away with one of your fingers, “what do you think, dais? wanna go visit the other avengers with loki?”

she nods immediately, hurrying to swallow the fruit in her mouth before turning to loki, “can i wear your cape again?” she asks enthusiastically, patting wildly at your arm, “loki lets me use his cape!”

your eyebrow raises as you look at loki, “does he, now? i thought no one could even touch it?” you tease, appreciating the pale blush that takes over the snow of his cheeks as he shrugs, clearing his throat.

“there are always exceptions to rules,” he states.

-

“i love you,” you say, pressing a kiss into daisy’s hair, she parrots the phrase back to you, leaning further into loki’s arms when you pull away. “i love you,” you continue, kissing loki’s lips, “thank you again,” you whisper, feeling him chuckle against you.

“it is my pleasure,” loki assures before kissing you again. you pull away after a second, smacking your lips on daisy’s forehead as another goodbye.

“i’ll be back later, have fun, okay?” you request before finally walking out the door to head to work. you don’t see daisy’s pout as she lays her head on loki’s shoulder, balling her hand in his shirt. a soft smile tugs at loki’s lips, looking down at her to ask her if she’d like to go to the compound now.

a little while after she nods at his, he finds himself clicking her seatbelt in, making sure she’s safe in her booster seat before he begins to drive. he knows he could easily go there with a flick of his hand, but the travel makes daisy nervous, and, besides, she prefers to ride in the car with him, singing along to the playlist of the songs loki found himself liking in midgard.

daisy squeals when loki pulls into the driveway of the compound, jumping out of the car when he unbuckles her to hurry loki up. she pulls at his pant leg, growing more excited by the minute when she sees the red white and blue of steve’s shield flying behind the compound. “i do not understand why you like that thing so much. so boring,” loki grumbles, grabbing her hand and opening the door.

“ah, there she is!” thor’s voice booms nearly the minute loki and daisy step in, daisy’s grin grows wide, looking back at loki before running to thor. “uncle!” she squeals, oblivious to the way loki freezes when she says the simple word. thor carries her in his arms, holding her up like simba.

“my favorite niece! i brought the hammer for you today!” thor exclaims, sitting her down on one of his arms before holding his other hand out. loki looks to the side, realizing his brother is calling for the hammer with his daughter in his arms, quickly stepping over to him to take her away just as said hammer flies into his open hand. he twirls it, before handing it to daisy in loki’s arms, still keeping a hold on it as she wraps her small fingers around the hammer.

“brother…” loki hisses quietly, refusing to upset the little girl in his arms but wanting nothing more than to knock some common sense into his brother. “i would like to remind you to not do that while daisy is near you.”

daisy barely looks up at her name, too entranced with the intricate carvings in the hammer, “oh, she’ll be fine,” thor shrugs, clapping loki hard on the back, “i am very careful, brother.”

loki purses his lips, “yes, i remember how careful you are.”

“hey! reindeer games and little grey!” tony cheers from around the corner, natasha catching his words from the kitchen and heading for loki. loki can spot the captain in the hallway. “haven’t seen you in a while, kid,” tony tells daisy, ruffling up her hair, “thought you ditched us.”

loki rolls his eyes, concentrating on daisy, who reaches for the electric blue in tony’s chest, murmuring “pretty.”

“isn’t it?” tony brags, tapping a nail on his arc reactor, “built it myself. you want one?” daisy agrees enthusiastically, but loki makes sure to send tony a glare that tells him if he even dares. loki will finish the job in new york.

“how’s the doc?” natasha asks, coming cilently from the kitchen with a bag in her hand.

“y/n is good, she’s at the hospital right now.”

“hey, dais,” natasha starts, her green eyes sparkling, “you remember the toys you wanted from the mall last time we went?” daisy nods. natasha holds up the bag in her arms, “you wanna go see what’s in the bag?”

daisy’s eyes go wide, and she turns to loki, “can i dad? please?”

loki chokes down the uncharactersitic lump in his throat so he can nod, putting daisy down so she can grab natasha’s hand. when they’re out of hearing range, steve raises an eyebrow at loki, “‘dad’? that’s a big one.”

“yes,” loki clear his throat, “she had never called me that before.”

the other men exchange looks, before thor claps loki on the back with a beamng grin, “congratulations.” loki has never felt luckier.

-

it’s a few hours later, when you’re back at home, exhausted and sprawled on the couch next to loki with daisy sleeping on your and loki’s lap. “how was your day?” you ask quietly so you don’t disturb daisy.

“as excellent as a day with the avengers can be. i took daisy to the compound, everyone adored her, natasha spoiled her…” loki trails off, the clear cut reminder of the events of that day bright and new in his mind, “she called me dad,” loki finishes, allowing himself to look into the deep nooks and crannie of his brain that urges him to tell you what he’s been thinking about for far too long. there’s a second of silence.

“she’s never said to you that before,” you finally say softly. loki shakes his head, “she’s slipped up before, though. sometimes she calls you papa when she talks about you.” loki turns to you, searching your features for a lie he won’t find. “you are her father, loki. you’re way more of a father than her biological dad ever has been. you’re her dad, she loves you.” there’s more silence, the question you’re implying hanging in the air, waiting to be grasped and asked.

“would you adopt her?--” you grasp.

“i would like to adopt daisy--” he grasps.

you stare at each other before quiet laughter bubbles from your mouth, a nod tilting your chin, “you know, i never put her biological father’s name in her birth certificate.”

“we could go tomorrow,” loki offers, admiring the beaming smile that brightens your tired face.

“we should,” you agree, staring at loki for a few more moments before connecting your lips, looking down at daisy and brushing away some strands from her face when you pull away. you nod, meeting loki’s eyes again, “tomorrow.”

[5-falsehoods-phonated]

Dee Little Snake

Series Summary -  Janus uses age regression as a way to destress but has little control over it whenever he grows upset. Trying to keep a secret like that can be hard when you're only four years old, and thus family bonding ensues in a way nobody expected, least of all Deceit.

Chapter 1 - A Little Upset

Chapter Summary -  Still not over the events of the last video, Roman "accidentally" breaks something very important to Janus. Upset and stressed with seemingly no one to turn to, Janus' age regresses to that of a four year old, locking himself away in his room to wait it out. The last side he expected to care finds him and helps make it better.

Warning: Blood and Injury

Patton smiled encouragingly as Janus took a seat at the table, turning back around quickly to poke at the pancakes intent on not burning them this time. He took his hat off slowly, wanting to be respectful, and fidgeted with the thermos he had brought from the other kitchen. It was a translucent pale yellow with little snakes with bowties patterned all over the surface of the plastic. Virgil and Remus had worked on it together some years ago as a gift for Christmas and dispite their now rocky relationship he was hoping that seeing the old gift would make Virgil...tolerate him? Maybe start a conversation? Sighing he got up to look for a drink from the fridge just as Roman walked into the kitchen.

He and Janus froze as they caught sight of each other and the air immediately turned tense. He saw Patton's shoulders rise slightly and guiltily looked away, offering Roman a hesitant nod while he unscrewed the thermos and set it on the table as he continued towards the fridge. He didn't expect Roman to not be upset with him; he understood completely that he had taken it too far but then again so had Roman. He knew the creative side had laughed at Virgil's name as well and that had honestly made it even harder for him to even consider making himself that vulnerable, but it had been the only thing he had known to do to establish some level of trust between him and the others. Plus, he glanced back over to Patton, it was worth it for pancakes.

He turned around holding a jug of milk that was thankfully not expired just as Roman brushed past him, purposefully bumping his hip against the table as he did. The thermos wobbled and Janus was not nearly quick enough this early in the morning to prevent it from falling. Time felt like it slowed as it smashed onto the ground and a piece from the bottom broke off from the spidering cracks. Distantly he heard Patton gasp and plates clanking together as Roman hummed a simple tune but for all the distractions he couldn't bring himself to look up yet. He slowly leaned down to pick up the peices, tearing up as he realized he wouldn't be able to fix it like how it was before. His powers didn't fix things, they disguised things. Virgil and Remus had worked hard on making this together and now...

"How childish can you be?" He growled out, effectively cutting off the semi-cheerful humming.

Roman scoffed, not sparing him a glance as he set the table - with only four plates he noticed - and crossed the floor again to get glasses. "It's only a cup, just conjure a new one."

Janus stood up angrily and clutched the ruined peices to his chest. "I can't conjure things like that and you know it! I don't even have the capabilities to fix this and you think nothing of ruining the one thing I brought up with me? Your immaturity is-"

"Is what?" Roman whirled around. "As bad as Remus'? Worse? You think just because you're out here with us that means everything is somehow fine?!"

"Roman." Patton was looking at the creative side with a mix of concern and...anger? The pan was thankfully empty as it seemed to be forgotten for the time being.

Hearing the warning in his voice, Roman deflated a bit before turning away. "Whatever."

Patton shot Roman a hard look before looking over at the man still clutching the broken thermos to his chest. "Janus-"

He quickly turned away from Patton's gentle tone, sinking down into his room without a second glance.

Tears threatened to spill over as he tried in vain to blink them back, cursing as he collapsed in his bed and pulled the covers over himself completely. Roman was right, this was completely childish. Crying over something as small as a broken cup. He curled around it protectively even as the jagged edge cut into his palm. But Virgil and Remus had worked so hard on this. Virgil keeping Remus' more suggestive designs off of the gift and Remus reigning in his creativity enough to make something they knew Janus would actually like. Even if they had put the snakes on it as a joke he still loved it, they even managed to get it his favorite shade of yellow.

But now it was broken. The one thing he had from before their unit became tense, when they had been like a little family of their own. Now he couldn't use it and so he had no reason to bring it out again, which meant Virgil would never see it and that meant there would be no conversation starter other than 'what are you doing here?'; no neutral ice breaker to start them thinking about how things used to be and to start them talking about how things could be again. It would just be him and his unwanted presence and stupid dishwashing yellow gloves and cape he wore because he couldn't have his blanket weight around his shoulders and hat to hide his curly hair that none of the others had so he didn't understand why he did and...and...

In his frazzled thoughts he barely noticed the bed becoming larger around him, the hill of blankets becoming a small mountain while he curled further into himself. He only noticed his drastically reduced size when he cracked his eyes open and realized just how difficult it was to hold the thermos when his hands were so much smaller than they had been.

A sob escaped his throat as he realized what had happened, the stress of the situation bearing down on a mind that was ill equipped to deal with it. Not only did everyone hate him for trying to help in the only way he knew how to get their attention but now he was small and his hand hurt where the broken plastic still dug into his palm and he couldn't stop crying. He wanted comfort but there was no one outside his room that would be willing to give it to him, especially since no one knew this happened when he got upset enough. No one except...

He cried harder, clutching the cup closer to him and burying his face onto the suffocating blankets further to try and drown out the sound, resigned to being trapped in his room for the foreseeable future.

------

Virgil stepped into the warm kitchen carefully, having heard yelling just an hour earlier and wanting to be sure the air was relatively clear before following the smell of pancakes. Patton was still at the table picking at his stack with an uncharacteristic frown on his face, Logan sat across from him with his usual coffee and phone while Roman stabbed angrily at his plate as if it had personally attacked him. Debating whether or not to stay the rumbling in his stomach made the decision for him, making him sigh with hunched shoulders before fully revealing himself to grab the stack set aside for him.

"Morning kiddo." Patton mumbled, the usual cheerfulness gone from his voice.

Raising an eyebrow and looking at each of them in turn he grabbed the syrup to drown the unsuspecting pancakes in front of him. "Morning, Patton. What's uh....is everything good?"

His eyebrow raised higher as Roman huffed loudly. "I broke a cup by accident and hurt Deciet's feelings and now he won't come out of his room even though I already tried apologizing through the door."

"Janus. And Roman, you really upset him-"

"It was just a cup, Patton!"

"To you!" Patton raised his voice slightly, Dad Mode fully activated as he tried to drive his point home. "You don't know what kind of significance that might have held for him and if him crying was any indication it must have been important! He has every right not to forgive you right away-"

"He was crying?" Virgil cut in, worry curling in his gut despite the tension that had been present between them since Janus revealed his name.

Roman's cheeks burned with what Virgil hoped was shame as he quickly left the room, Patton turning back to his plate with a sigh. "Yes, he was. He was very upset and still is if his door being locked is anything to go by."

Virgil nodded, standing up with his pancakes to leave. "Thanks for the breakfast, I think I'll eat in my room."

He didn't hear Pattons response as he sunk out.

-----

Trying to pick a lock while balancing pancakes on your lap was not as easy as it sounded, but Virgil was determined to get in the room. Anxiety burned through his veins as the lock finally clicked, hoping his worry was unwarranted.

Opening the door and looking immediately towards the tiny lump on the bed confirmed his worries. He closed and locked the door behind him before making his way quickly to the bed, setting the plate on the nightstand and crouching down carefully.

"Janus?" He said softly, wincing as the quiet sobbed cut off abruptly as the shaking stilled underneath the blankets. Virgil hadn't seen the other side like this in a long time, not since he left to join the "light sides" years ago. He still remembered to be gentle however as he tugged on the covers, pulling them down slowly when he didn't hear any protest.

"Dee?"

A red faced four year old curled up further into himself, tears still running down his face and snot smearing grossly across his cheek. His hat was gone allowing for tangled curls to splay across the pillow. Virgil gave him a hesitant smile as he held out a hand.

"I heard a little about what happened, do you wanna talk about it?"

The toddler hiccupped loudly and buried his face into the pillow, mumbling something that he couldn't catch.

"I can't hear you if you hide your face." Deciding to risk it he laid a careful hand on the others shaking shoulder, rubbing it softly when he wasn't pushed away. As he lowered his gaze to try and see what the other was holding he caught sight of something red staining the bedsheets underneath his hands.

His heart leapt in his throat. "Did you hurt yourself?"

Swallowing when all he recieved as an answer was another mumble he carefully slipped his other arm underneath the child, guiding him upright to try and find what was wrong. Janus, well Dee he supposed since at the moment he was little, was clutching what looked like a thermos to his heaving chest, sobs still suppressed as he gazed at Virgil fearfully. His heart broke at the expression, feeling horrible for making the child feel as if he had stopped caring. Looking closer he recognized the thermos; it was one he and Remus had made for him for Christmas years ago and suddenly everything clicked into place. Dee had most likely brought this to breakfast as a sort of peace offering and Roman had ruined what Dee had probably considered his only way of starting a conversation with Virgil. And he had been in here for an hour, upset and crying and afraid to seek help because he didn't think he could.

Virgil felt tears welling in his own eyes as he brushed them from Dee's, holding out his other hand in offering.

"I'm sorry if you felt like you couldn't come to me. Will you let me help you?"

Dee sniffed and looked down, slowly unclenching his fingers and leaning closer which Virgil took as consent. He slowly stood up and leaned down, scooping him up quickly and heading for the door. Unlocking and opening it with practiced ease he glanced out to make sure no one was around before heading quickly to the bathroom, making sure to lock the door behind him.

Plunking Dee down on the sink he gently took the thermos from his hands, glancing up quickly as he winced. The poor kid must have been gripping it for the entire hour he had been curled up, cramping his hands in the process. He smiled with sympathy and took the tiny hands in his own, flipping them while massaging slowly as he inspected the cut he assumed had come from the broken plastic. It had cut through the glove and pierced his palm though thankfully it didn't look very deep. Retrieving the first aid kit from under the sink he slipped off both gloves and set them aside, grabbing out antiseptic wipes and bandaids.

"This will sting a little." He warned before gently wiping up all the blood away from the wound, grimacing as the cleaning revealed several small cuts and punctures rather than one singular cut he had assumed to be there. Once it was clean he grabbed a roll of gauze instead, wrapping the hand securely and taping up the loose end. Smiling at his work he put everything away and stood back up.

"Better?" He asked.

The toddler pouted slightly. "Still hurts."

Taking the hand again Virgil threw away all of his scraped up dignity and brought the palm to his lips, blowing an extremely gentle raspberry and grinning as Dee snatched his hand away giggling. Humming soothingly Virgil wet a washcloth and brought it to his face, wiping up the accumulated snot and tears thoroughly before throwing it aside.

Dee looked back down and hesitated for a second before tears gathered in his eyes again and he thrusted out his arms, making frantic grabby hands at the older side.

"Hey, hey it's okay." Virgil quickly scooped him back up and bounced slightly, continuing to croon as he made his way back to the bedroom while his shoulder became more and more wet. "I got you, Dee, I promise."

He sat on the bed and continued to rock the small side while rubbing his heaving back to try and calm him down. "Would talking about it help?"

He began to panic as Dee only sobbed harder, cursing himself for becoming so bad at this.

"I was mean t-to Ro-Roman so he- *hic* he broke my fav- my favorite cup and I- I can't fix *hic* I can't fix it and it's the o-only th-thing I have left from when- from when you liked me and now it8s gone!"

Virgil's arms tightened around Dee as he wailed, regret stabbing through his stomach painfully. "Dee, I still like you-"

"No you don't! You n-never want me ar-around since you *hic* since you left!"

"Dee, sweetheart, I promise I still like you. Things are just...complicated right now because everything's still trying to smooth out." Virgil pulled him away slightly so he could look at him properly, reaching forward to wipe at his cheeks. "This is something we need to discuss more when you're big again, but for right now, I'm not lying Dee. I still love and care about you very much. What Roman did was wrong no matter the circumstances and you are completely within your right to be upset."

Dee calmed slightly, still looking unsure but thankfully he had stopped crying. Virgil smiled and gently booped his nose earning a small giggle in response.

"If you want, I can ask Remus about fixing your cup for you and maybe making it so it won't break?" Dee nodded frantically, twisting his fingers in his shirt as his tears stopped completely.

"Then that's what we'll do, but later okay? For right now I brought you some pancakes." He gestured over to the bedside table before stopping and making a face, almost mirroring the disgusted way Dee's nose scrunched up at the prospect of eating the now cold and mushy pile of breakfast.

"Gross." Virgil laughed at Dee's declaration, agreeing completely.

"Should of thought that through I guess. I can make you another stack if you want? We can even make shapes!"

Dee glanced over at him, dubious expression completely out of place on his young face. "Not hungry. And you only do blobs."

"Maybe I've gotten better!" He countered indignantly, grinning at the raised eyebrow his statement earned him. "Alright well we'll try that later then. Let's get you changed into something more comfortable for right now, yeah?"

He lifted the child up and over to sit on the bed rather than his lap and walked over to the dresser where he knew Dee still had his favorite pajamas. He looked exhausted and Virgil had no doubt that as soon as he was comfortable he'd be nodding off.

Digging through various articles of clothing he hummed in triumph as he found what he was looking for. He laughed at the look on Dee's face as he presented the article of clothing, quickly helping him change.

A few minutes later he was tucking the yellow snake onesie clad four year old snugly into his blankets, biting his lip to keep from squealing as Dee's tongue blepped out happily. He made a mental note that if Patton was ever trusted enough to care for Janus when he was like this to make sure all of them were wearing ear plugs.

He was just turning to grab the thermos, intending to get Remus to help him fix it when Dee called out to him quietly.

"Vee?"

Virgil turned and smiled gently. "What is it, Dee?"

"Will you stay?"

His heart melted at the small vulnerable face, his vocal chords unable to form "no" even if he had wanted them to.

"Of course I will."

Much later, when Janus woke up from his impromptu nap definitely feeling better than he had in a while, he startled at the feeling of another's arm wrapped around him, twisting to see Virgil still fast asleep behind him. And if all he did was smile and lay back down, closing his eyes contentedly to soak in the feeling of being warm and safe, no one had to know.

He knew they would be talking later, but knowing Virgil of all sides still cared about him enough to care for him at his most vulnerable made him a lot less nervous about his future.

This work is also available on AO3!

Next

[ghostofstudentspast]

More than Perfect

Sirius x Reader 🌻

This was requested by @kashishwrites and I loved writing this so much! Hope you love it too!

After a year of imprisonment Sirius comes home to find you and three little ones. I got very invested in this and I love Sirius so much. It’s entirely fluffy!!

“Harry, honey don’t touch that!” you rushed to grab the toddler off the floor as he made to stick his fingers in the fireplace. He let out a disgruntled shriek as you put him down in his chair next to the twins. “You’ll burn your fingers darling.” you kissed his forehead and placed his plate of food in front of him.

While your babies were all munching away on their mashed peas and potatoes you cast a quick charm on the dishes and ran around wiping up the spilled food from their little hands. Three kids was a lot to deal with in any given situation, but yours was even harder. After Sirius had been imprisoned for a crime you knew he wasn’t capable of committing, you were left in the early stages of pregnancy. You hadn’t even had the chance to tell him. On top of that, you’d taken in Harry after his parents died. Dumbledore had thought giving him to his wretched aunt would be the best idea but you fought to have him stay with you. You were his godmother after all.

No time to dwell on that though, there was always something to do. The four of you had been staying in the Black family estate. Sirius was the last of the true Blacks which meant as much as his mother’s portrait hated the idea, the house was legally his. Which meant you could stay there and raise his children while he resided in a cold cell, a hundred miles away.

Tidying up the mess your little ones had made you shook the image of Sirius wasting away in a cell for the millionth time. There were people who needed you here and they needed you to be present. Balancing your twins on each hip, Harry clutched onto your trousers as you guided the three of them over to the little play pen in the living room. You were thankful everyday that Harry could walk now as the other two took up your arms. Balancing three babies was not a skill you had mastered. Harry was almost two and a half now and proud of it. He had been a quiet baby, he rarely cried and preferred to sleep in your room for the first year you’d been his parent. Now he was a bright eyed little boy who loved to prattle on using the small vocabulary he had. It never ceased to amaze you how much he understood.

Your little boy, Leo, was the spitting image of his father. The same dark curls and dark eyes that looked at you as if you held the world in your hands. He was fussy, just like his dad, but in a good mood he was the funniest baby you’d ever met. He was keen to try and stand on his own and spoke often with his three word vocabulary.

Your little girl, Lyra, was a very clever baby. She looked a little more like you, though she still had her fathers eyes. She was quieter than her brothers and liked to sit and play by herself most of the time. She had the chubbiest cheeks and the roundest eyes and her smile was radiant. She usually wouldn’t say much and preferred to point at things to communicate.

They were the loves of your life and you did everything in your power to give them a good childhood. But it was hard. Alone you had to dedicate all of your attention to the three of them. The minor improvements to the house you’d been able to make had been painstakingly slow and required a lot of energy. The kitchen was clean and painted a light white now, the upstairs bedroom had been mostly cleared out of old Walburga’s stuff and the nursery was Sirius’ old bedroom. Gryffindor paraphernalia still glued to the walls. But his mother’s portrait was still a screaming mess and the dining room held an ungodly amount of black magic and there was little you could do about it.

Sitting down on the carpet with your kids you made to entertain the little ones with their plush toys until they’d tire themselves out. Somewhere in the back of your brain you registered a faint click, followed by a knock on the door. You shook your head, you must’ve been tired, the fidellus charm kept you hidden away safely and no one was due to visit until later this week. A second knock made your heart race however.

“Mummy will be right back,” you whispered to the kids and stepped over the side of the playpen to tiptoe through the hallway. You cracked open the door slowly and peered outside, promptly dropping the stuffed dragon you were still holding. “Sirius?” You flung open the door to look at the man standing on the other side.

“Y/N,” his skin was grey and he’d lost weight but his eyes sparkled just the same when he looked at you. A smile broke onto his face and he looked just like the handsome man you’d seen shipped off to Azkaban a year ago.

He let out a roaring laugh and scooped you up into his arms, pressing you close as tears escaped your eyes and a sob escaped your lips. He was home. Your legs were shaking when he put you down and held your face in his hands.

“How-“ he cut you off by pressing his lips to yours desperately. You’d almost forgotten how he tasted, how his lips fit perfectly against yours and how he made you weak in the knees every time.

“They let me out, they found Peter and they let me out. I tried to write to you but they wouldn’t let me until the trial was over. They kept it completely under wraps, afraid of public backlash. but they let me out love,” his eyes shine with tears as they flicked across your face, desperate to memorize every detail.

You’d barely noticed the muttering of Walburga’s portrait, rudely awakened by your laughs and shared sobs. But Harry’s little voice cut through them and reminded you where you were.

“Mamma, lady’s mad!” he called from the living room as Mrs. Black started shrieking at the sight of Sirius.

“Who do you think you are showing your face here again- this halfblood scum has been all over my house and not a word from your cousins-“ you flicked your wand violently and the curtains shut on her once again.

“I couldn’t figure out how to remove her,” you fiddled with your wand awkwardly as Sirius never took his eyes off you, afraid you’d disappear.

“We’ll figure it out,” he smiled gently and kissed you again, everything falling away for the two of you. He finally felt safe, after a year of absolute hell, he was home and you were still there.

At the sounds of your kids making a ruckus you drew back and sighed dragging Sirius down the hall. All he could think was how beautiful your hair was, the low light bouncing off of it. Nothing else mattered but you, except you were talking to him and he hadn’t heard a word.

“Sirius?” You waved a hand in front of his eyes.

“Sorry love, you’re just even more beautiful than I remember,” he smiled his charming smile and you felt your cheeks flush the same way they did in school.

“This is serious,” you looked at him with a small smile.

“No darling I’m Sirius,” he teased and wrapped his arms around your waist.

“Siri...”

“Fine,” he dropped his arms and looked you in the eyes, you had all of his attention.

“I have Harry,” you smiled softly, “Dumbledore wanted to give him to Lily’s sister but I know that’s not what she would have wanted so...I’ve been raising him.”

“Harry?” his eyes lit up as he glanced behind you at the closed door where you knew you kids were playing, “that’s amazing I- you’re amazing,” he smiled brilliantly at you.

“That’s not all though,” you hesitated, would he be happy? “I was pregnant, when you- when you-“ you took a shuddering breath and looked to the floor. “You have kids Sirius, twins.” You refused to look up.

“I’m a dad?” he whispered as the wheels in his head turned, “we have babies?” he felt himself smile as he tilted your chin up to meet his eyes, “We have kids.” he grinned and wrapped his arms around you in a hug again as pure joy filled his chest for the first time in a year.

“And they’ve been alone for the past few minutes so I think it might be time for you to meet them,” you chuckled through the happy tears that streaked your face.

You turned and opened the door to the living room again to find your babies playing happily with their plush toys and Harry colouring on a piece of paper with a marker. You led Sirius through the room and let him step into the play pen with you.

“Harry, this is Sirius,” you said softly to the little boy who was staring curiously at the new stranger.

“I’ve met you before Harry,” Sirius said with a small smile, “you might not remember cause you were only this big,” he held out two hands to show how little he had been.

“Now I’m two!” Harry held up two little stubby fingers to show his age, “I’m big!” he exclaimed with a smile and kept colouring.

Meanwhile you had pulled he twins into your lap as Sirius asked Harry about what he was drawing. Harry told him in great detail about how the orange blob was actually a werewolf, like Mr. Lupin.

“Sirius, this is Leo and this is Lyra,” you held the twins who were looking at Sirius with big eyes, “darlings this is your daddy,” you whispered to the twins. You’d shown them all pictures of Sirius over the year of course but they were only little and didn’t understand.

“You named them after constellations?” his voice was small, hesitant almost.

“I wanted them to have a little bit of you, even if you couldn’t be here,” you stroked Lyra’s little arm with a gentle smile.

“You’re amazing,” he sighed and looked at you in that same way, as if you held his world. Which to Sirius, you did. “You never fail to remind me how absolutely incredible you are.”

“Mamma?” Leo looked up at you in confusion.

“No baby, that’s dad,” you chuckled and kissed his little head as Sirius fawned over the twins.

“She looks just like you,” he whispered, not taking his eyes off the babies.

“And he looks just like you,” you laughed quietly.

Harry took to Sirius very quickly, recognizing him from old photos you’d shown him. He was happy to try and explain all of his favourite dinosaurs to his new father figure and Sirius was patient as could be. Leo was also happy to have another person to annoy with his grabby hands and loved to be carried around by Sirius because it was “High!!”

Lyra was the only one a bit hesitant to accept Sirius into the household. She was so used to the way things were and always got a little uncomfortable around new people. It took weeks for her to let Molly hold her, let alone Remus. But Sirius was kind and much more patient than you remembered him. He’d sit down next to her and just do his own thing, letting Lyra get used to his presence. Slowly but steadily she too started to warm up to the idea of him being around.

For the first month you constantly had things to do. Friends were desperate to pop round and reconnect with Sirius, he and Remus had a good heart to heart in your kitchen for a few hours while you took the kids out for a stroll. On top of that, Sirius was all for tackling the horrid left overs of his ancestors, happy chucking things in the garbage or destroying them with a curse. You’d managed to get his mother’s portrait unstuck from the wall eventually and burned it in the backyard with a lot of shrieking from the woman.

Things were more than perfect. You could see the effect home was having on Sirius. His bags disappeared, he bulked up well from how much you were feeding him and he almost constantly had a smile on his handsome face. Everyone could see the love radiating between you two. The way Sirius would wrap his arm around your waist and kiss your cheek as you cooked. How you would fix his shirt collar without even thinking. How you looked at each other as if there was no one else in the world that you could love as much as you loved each other.

Before you knew it a year had gone by and your kids were becoming their own little people. With big ideas and bright little minds. You made sure they were kind and that they knew that no matter what, you would always be there for them. Sirius made sure they knew how to have fun and how to stand up for themselves when push came to shove.

When the kids went to bed, you would share a cup of tea or a glass of fire whiskey and talk about everything and nothing at all. Reminiscing about your days at Hogwarts and planning the countries you would visit once the kids went to school. Sirius always held you as close as he possibly could, never wanting to forget the way you fit against him. You constantly reminded him that he would never have to try and remember, because you would always be there with him.

You got married once the kids were less of a handful, always joking about how you did everything in reverse. Kids, house then marriage. Neither of you minded. While you hadn’t planned to have three kids before the age of twenty five, your family was the most perfect thing in the world to you.

Sirius knew he was loved for the first time in his life and he could never be more grateful that he had you. I love you tumbled from his mouth more freely than he ever thought possible. He was determined to show his kids what happiness looked like and how healthy love felt.

House Black would from now on be filled with laughter and smiles and love.

[enby-and-f-fics]

Little Libero {AsaNoya}

--F

Summary: Littlespace - the act of regressing into a childlike state; such as a baby, toddler, or a child.  Nishinoya is a little that has no caregiver and is not out to his club members. One day he slips and practice and everything escalated from there.

Word count: 4077

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

It had been a long day for Noya. He was tired, and practice hadn't even started yet. He hadn't been getting as much sleep because exam season was coming up and he hadn't been able to slip for a while. All of the stress had started piling up.

He was so tired and stressed that he wasn't as accurate with his receives and the whole team could tell something was off about the little libero.

After missing the ball for about the tenth time, he couldn't take it anymore. He just froze. He couldn't move, he couldn't speak, he just froze.

Of course a few people were concerned. "Hey Noya," Asahi said, "Are you ok?"

Noya could feel himself slipping "No, I can't, not here" he said under his breath and realized he was close to crying. He started running out of the gym before anyone could see. Except one person did.

"Shit."

Tsukishima could tell something was off with Noya when he saw him freeze. He could definitely tell something was off when he heard what Noya had said. He had only heard that type of desperation from one person before. It was the first time that Tadashi had slipped in front of him.

Tsuki ran after Noya. Almost everyone on the team got immediately more scared for Noya because they thought that Tsuki was going to hurt him or something but, Yamaguchi stoped them, as he had also heard what Noya had said. Everyone skeptically returned to practice after a little more convincing from Yamaguchi.

~~~in the hallway~~~

Once Tsuki got into the hallway, he started looking for Nishinoya. After about 30 seconds of searching, he found him. He was hunched over his knees leaning against a wall. Tsuki could hear the faint sniffling of a child who was crying but didn't want anyone to notice (and was not doing a very good job).

"Hey," Tsuki said softly as to not scare the boy, "Are you little?"

Noya didn't know how to respond. He couldn't tell if Tsuki was going to judge him. His mind being younger didn't help, as Tsuki was pretty intimidating if you didn't know him.

Tsukishima could see the hesitation from the smaller boy, so he knelt down to be on the same level as him. "Bubba, you can talk to me. I won't hurt you."

Hearing him use that nickname made Noya calm down considerably. He peaked over his knees to see Tsukishima with nothing but care in his eyes. Noya jumped up and into Tsuki's arms. The taller was slightly taken off guard but quickly regained his balance.

After about 10 minuets of Tsuki talking with a babbling Noya sitting on his lap and playing with his fingers, Noya started to nod off. Tsuki realized and waited for him to fall asleep before picking him up. Noya immediately snuggled more into Tsuki's shoulder for safety. Tsuki chuckled slightly at the clingy libero as he started heading back to the gym.

Once he got back to the gym, he hesitantly opened the doors as to not wake Noya. He walked in and everyone went silent. They saw the strong headed libero curled up into Tsukishima's arms and their jaws dropped. They all started to stammer our questions when Noya started to stir. Tsuki cooed and shushed him back to sleep and glared daggers at the rest of the team.

He walked over to a corner of the room where it would be less noisy and he could make sure that Noya got the sleep he needed while he was still able to watch the practice.

Yamaguchi walked over to when they were sitting and knelt down to their level. "How's the little guy doing?" Tsuki looked down and pet the sleeping boy's head "He was really tired. He fell asleep after like 10 minutes. This should help." Yams nodded and when back to practice.

For the next hour, everyone else continued practice while Noya continued sleeping on Tsuki's lap. When Noya started to wake up, Tsuki checked to see if he was still in little space.

"Nishinoya?"

"Hmm...? Oh... Oh my god Tsukishima I'm sorry!" Noya frantically scrambled out of Tsuki's lap. Seeing the struggle, he lifted him off his lap so that he could make sure that Noya didn't hurt himself.

"How did you...?"

"Tadashi. I've been his caregiver for quite a few months now."

"Oh."

"Do you want us to help you tell the rest of them?" Tsuki wanted to make sure that Noya wasn't stressed right out of little space to prevent him slipping again.

"Yes please..."

"Yamaguchi, can you come over here?"

"Of course!" Yamaguchi came bounding over so that the three of them could discuss a plan to tell them.

Once, they figured out their plan, Yamaguchi called everyone over and gave Noya an encouraging pat on the back.

"So, I'm a little,"

"...A little what?" Asahi asked.

"Not a little something. Just a little. I sometimes slip into little space when I'm stressed or haven't slept in a while as a way to release some stress."

"Oh," Daichi said, "Okay."

"So you're not mad?"

"No, of course not," Suga said, "why would we be mad for something that helps you?"

"Well I don't know. Some people just find it really weird." Noya explained.

"Yeah, we don't care." Tanaka joined in, "I'm just really curious as to why Tsuki was such a good... what is it called?"

"Caregiver," Tsukishima answered, "I've been Yamaguchi's caregiver for months now so I've gotten the hang of it."

"You WHAT??" Tanaka exclaimed, "YOU'RE ACTUALLY GOOD AT TAKING CARE OF SMALL CHILDREN?????"

"Umm, yeah. I work at a day care."

"WHAT??"

~~~~~~~~

Asahi was intrigued the whole time. Having come to the conclusion that he had a crush on the libero, he had tried to pay more attention and learn about the things that he liked.

For example, this thing called "little space".

He was intrigued by the concept of regressing into a different headspace. The more he read, the more he wanted to be Nishinoya's caregiver. He felt tinge of jealously of Tsukishima, him really being the only to see him little. He wanted to see the soft, child like side of his crush.

He decided that the next day at practice, he would ask Tsukishima a few more things about how to be a good caregiver and such. He really did want to be Nishinoya's "primary caregiver" as he learned that night.

~~~~~~~~

Asahi had decided to start with asking Yamaguchi for help with being a good caregiver, as he was a little as well, and much less intimidating than Tsukishima.

"Hey Yamaguchi," he said to the pinch server across the room, "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course!" Tadashi bounded over to the ace as he spoke, having a feeling what this conversation was about, based one the events of the previous day. "What's up?"

"Umm... well I was wondering what it takes to be a good caregiver, and since you have Tsukishima, and apparently he's good at this, I thought you could give me some pointers?" Asahi said as he fumbled with his hands.

Yamaguchi chuckled, "Well it's usually specific to each little but based on how I've seen you interact with people I think your biggest problem would be setting rules and sticking to them."

"Hey! What do you mean?" Asahi was mildly offended. He did see that he was less than intimidating to someone who knew him but he could hold rules if he needed to.

"You're talking to me instead of Tsuki. Isn't that enough?" Asahi couldn't really defend himself. He was, indeed talking to the less intimidating person in the duo. "Also, why are you so adamant about being his caregiver? I mean everyone else did some basic research but you seem to want to go the extra mile."

"Umm..." Asahi was flustered. Was he really that obvious that he felt something more toward the spiky headed libero? Had anyone else noticed?

"Ah! I made you uncomfortable! I'm sorry! Tsuki and I have seen the way that you look at each other and it looks like more that's friendship."

"Well... I mean you are right..." Asahi didn't know what to do with this information. "Wait, did you just say that he looks at me that way?" Tsukishima, having heard the ruckus of Tadashi frantically apologizing, wanted to make sure everything was ok. "Are you blind? He quit volleyball because of you. He wouldn't come back if you didn't too."

"Oh," Asahi said, "I see your point. I guess he might like me too?" He was still quite skeptical, as Nishinoya seemed to be lusting after Kiyoko at the very same moment.

"You'll never be sure if you don't tell him," Yamaguchi said, "Have you thought about confessing? I mean it worked for me."

"Well sure bu- wait, what? What do you mean it worked for you?" Asahi was quite confused, he never really saw Yamaguchi interact with anyone besides Tsukishima, but he was still kind of mean to the pinch server. "Who?!"

"That would be me." Tsukishima said, slightly wrapping his arm around the shorter's waist, "Caregiver and boyfriend."

Just as he finished saying that, they heard a cry from across the gym. Someone had gotten hurt, and it just so happened to be the one who could slip into little space.

"Oh my god, Noya! Are you ok?" Tanaka, as he had been the one closest to him, heard the impact. He could tell this was more than just a little trip. "Asahi." Daichi said quickly. Asahi ran to get the first aid kit.

They had had incidents before but there hadn't been any major injuries, he was hoping this one wasn't.

"Here you go, Daichi," Asahi frantically brought the first aid kit that they had, up to this point, only had to use for cuts and bruises. The wounded libero was still crying. Almost the whole team had tried to calm him down. Almost.

"Asahi, will you try to get him to calm down so we can see where he hurt himself?" Daichi said, who was still hurting at the sight of one of his children crying. "Please?"

"Umm, okay," Asahi really still had no idea what to do but he just wanted to badly for his crush to stop crying that he was willing to try anything. "Hey baby, can you come here?" He said, picking the boy, his small frame fitting perfectly in his arms.

"Hey, shhh, you're ok. Shh shh shh." He slightly rocked the crying little from side to side, trying everything to get his baby to calm down. Soon, after some more cuddles from the ace, Nishinoya's crying was reduced to small sniffles. "Hey, baby, can you tell me where it hurts? We're gonna make it better, okay?"

The little just buried his face into the taller's chest, whimpering, seeming to not want to talk. "Hurts."

"Aww, honey I know, I know," Asahi stroked the smaller boy's face, "Can you show me where it hurts?"

Nishinoya turned his head slightly and pointed at his ankle, whimpering. Asahi looked at Daichi, who had been watching, and gave the nod to start treating his ankle. He had only just touched it and the poor boy started to tear up again. Everything was magnified when he was little, feelings, affections, and most definitely, pain. "Oh, poor thing. It's ok, sweetheart, I'll be gentle." Daichi could see how much pain the small libero was in and could only wonder what he had done to hurt himself. "Asahi, will you try to distract him while I do this?"

"Of course," he was still stroking the younger boy's head in an attempt to calm him. It seemed to be working until Daichi tried to turn his ankle to see if it was broken and Noya started crying again. "Hey, shh, you're ok, I'm right here, okay baby? I'm right here," Daichi started to wrap his ankle, "Just keep looking at me, you're doing so well."

It was clear to everyone in the room that Asahi was a natural. He knew just what to say to calm the boy, it seemed as if he had been his caregiver for years.

Nishinoya was still whimpering slightly but with being in Asahi's lap and his calming words, the tears had once again stopped.

"Okay, well it's nothing very major, it's a little sprained and very bruised. It should be better after a few days of rest. Just to be sure, Asahi, will you take him home and stay with him? I don't think he will completely remember to take it easy, considering he is in little space right now." Daichi said, ever the worried captain.

"Oh, ummm... Sure, I guess." Asahi was quite worried, knowing that his parents were out of town, so he would have to stay the whole weekend to make sure he didn't hurt himself more.

"You two can start to head home since neither of you are gonna do any more practice," Suga said, "Right, Daichi?"

"Yeah. Go home and get some rest, both of you."

Asahi started to gather their bags and carried Noya to the changing rooms to help him get ready to go. He started to set the boy down on one of the benches in the changing room so that he could help him change but before he could, the boy started whimpering and clutched his shirt even harder.

"Oh, I'm sorry baby, is everything okay?"

"Don wanna leave you." Noya whispered, barely being loud enough for the ace to hear, "Please don leave."

"Aww, honey," Asahi's heart broke. He could never leave the little and his remark made him wonder who hurt the small libero for him to be that desperate to not even let go of him. "Don't worry, baby, we just need to get you changed so that we can go home and sleep. Does that sound okay to you?"

"Okay, promise you won leave?"

"I promise, honey."

~~~~~~~~

They had both gotten changed, Noya wanting to cling to Asahi the entire time. "Okay, baby. Are you ready to go home now? We can go home and cuddle more, okay?"

The smaller boy nodded sleepily and cuddled further into the ace's shoulder. "Mhm."

Asahi couldn't help but chuckle at the actions of the little. It was definitely time for a nap. He stared walking in the direction of Nishinoya's house, all the while talking to the smaller boy to keep him calm and lull him to sleep. Fortunately, the slight bounce of the tall boy's walk did put the second year to sleep.

Soft snores from the ace's shoulder alerted him of this fact just as they were walking up to the steps of the Nishinoya household. Asahi slowly walked up and opened the door as to not wake the sleeping little.

He was able to drop his and Noya's bags at the front door and take his shoes off before heading toward the younger's room.

He reached the room and set the sleeping boy down onto the bed and made a move to leave as to alert his mother that he would be staying at Nishinoya's house for the weekend. Before he could get to far, he felt a hand clutch his shirt. "You said you won leave." He heard a small voice coming from the bed, slightly groggy to tell his that the little was still asleep.

"Okay, honey, I won't" Asahi could hear the desperation in his voice so he crawled into the bed with him, wrapping his arm around the smaller boy so that he was sleep on his chest. He decided to text his mom, instead of calling like he had originally planned as to not disturb the libero.

Me: Hey, just letting you know that I'm going to stay at Noya's for the weekend. He hurt himself at practice and his parents are on a work trip.

Mom <3: Okay, hun! Let me know if you need anything!

Me: Thanks, mom. Love you!

Mom <3: Love you too!

Now that that was taken care of, he was able to focus all his attention on the boy currently sleeping on his chest. For about an hour, he just laid there and watched the younger's breaths. 'He looks so vulnerable, just sleeping there,' Asahi thought to himself, 'He's so cute. I really am in love with him.'

"I love you. I know you're asleep and can't hear me and I don't know whether I'm disappointed or relieved. I love you so much that every time I look at you my heart flutters. Today has been one of the best days because I've gotten to take care of you." Asahi couldn't help but voice his feelings to the sleeping libero. He had fallen completely head over heels for the boy and couldn't bear to hold it in any longer. This didn't mean that he suddenly had the courage to actually confess, but at least telling a sleeping Noya was better than keeping it to himself any longer. "Thank you for being who you are."

With that, he decided to get some sleep too. The weight on his chest actually comforted him and made it much easier to fall asleep.

Little did he know that Nishinoya had woke up in big space and heard everything that the ace had said.

~~~~~~~~

Nishinoya was silently freaking out. The boy he had liked for a year had just unintentionally confessed to him. 'Okay, I can do this,' he thought to himself. 'I can't do this.'

He really didn't know what to do. It's not everyday that your crush just confesses that they LOVE YOU. The smaller boy looked at the clock and realized it was 10:00. 'Wow, how long did I sleep?' He tried to stretch his legs without waking Asahi, only to feel a sharp pain in his ankle, which made him wince. The taller male drew Noya in closer to try and smooth the boy. He was a natural even when he was asleep.

Nishinoya couldn't ignore how comfortable this position was. He was warm and comforted by the arms wrapped around him, and the beating heart under his head provided white noise to lull to sleep as soon as he closed his eyes.

'Okay, I'll do something about this tomorrow.' He thought just before falling sound asleep.

~~~~~~~~

Asahi woke up to his phone alarm, quickly turning off the alarm, trying not to disturb the sleeping Nishinoya. He couldn't help but to reach out and pet the smaller's hair. The libero made a slight purring noise, indicating that he enjoyed it, which amused the ace. He sure didn't expect that noise to come out of Noya.

Nishinoya's eyes fluttered open with a smile on his face as he looked at the taller, 'God, he looks amazing in the morning.' The sunlight was just barely peaking through the curtains, illuminating Asahi's face with a golden light.

"Hi." Asahi's voice was gruff with sleep. Noya couldn't hold himself back anymore. He reached up and put his hand on Asahi's cheek.

"Umm, Noya, what are yo-" Asahi was cut off by soft lips being placed on his. Asahi was shocked for a second before he realized what was happening and started to kiss him back. Their lips moved together in perfect synchronization as if they were made for each other.

They both had to eventually part for air. "Wow, that was... wow" Asahi couldn't believe what just happened. His crush had kissed him out of nowhere.

"I love you too." Nishinoya, feeling bold after the kiss, decided that now was the best time just to spill all of his feelings. "I heard you last night. You were so sweet and I didn't know what to do. And then your voice was just... I couldn't hold myself back anymore." He finished with a slight chuckle, looking at the flustered ace.

"I... just.... umm..." Asahi didn't know what to do with himself, he had just had a make out session with his crush AND he confesses to him AND he had heard all of the things that he had said the previous night. "Will you be my boyfriend?"

Nishinoya blushed slightly at the offer. "Yes, of course." He leaned up to give the taller boy one last peck before moving to get up, completely forgetting about his ankle, only to be very abruptly reminded as he fell trying to get out of the bed.

"Oh my god, Noya! Are you okay?!"

"Agh, yeah. I kinda forgot." He tried to lighten the mood with a chuckle, only to be shot down with a look from Asahi. "Come on, I'll cary you to the kitchen and make breakfast. We have about two hours until we need to be at practice."

Asahi picked up the injured libero and brought him to the kitchen island. He then started to make breakfast as he had said. He practically lived at the Nishinoya residence, so he knew where all of the ingredients for various meals were. Nishinoya couldn't cook so he would often come over and make meals for him.

"Pancakes?"

"YES!!!!" The smaller boy seemed very excited about the prospect of pancakes, so the Asahi started on them. They filled the time with small talk, just like they always had. Except this time was different. Nishinoya couldn't keep his eyes off of his now boyfriend, he just couldn't believe it. "I love you," he said.

"I love you too, but if you keep staring at me I'm gonna mess up the pancakes."

~~~~~~~~

"Ok, time for practice!" Nishinoya said enthusiastically, starting to get up from where he was sitting on the bed.

"Not so fast, mister," Asahi caught Nishinoya before he could stand up completely, knowing he was going to hurt himself further if he started to run out the door. "You're not going anywhere by yourself. Come on." Asahi picked up the younger boy, making sure that he had a secure hold before setting off to get their bags.

They started out the door, with Nishinoya carrying the bags, him insisting that he can at least do something. The walk to practice stayed in a comfortable silence between the two boys.

Asahi walked in the door to see almost everyone chatting around. He moved over to a bench and sat down with Noya in his lap. Daichi came over to check his ankle and frankly because he was curious about why they were being so touchy. Nishinoya was always touchy with the taller but never this much and without Asahi excessively blushing.

"What's going on between you too, huh?" He said with a raise of an eyebrow, at a low voice as to not alert any others that something was happening between the two, in case they weren't quite ready to tell other people.

This is when Asahi became flustered. "Um w-what do you mean? There's n-nothing going on."

"Oh please," Nishinoya scoffed. He lowered his voice so that just Asahi could hear, "You say that as if you weren't making out with me just this morning."

Asahi let out a small squeal, which surprised Daichi as he had never seen Asahi this flustered. "Ahh, so there is something. Come on, spill."

"Well," Nishinoya started, seeing as Asahi was in no condition to explain, "I won't go into details be we are dating now."

"Finally." Suga said, coming up from behind Daichi, wondering what was taking so long. "Did the coward finally confess?"

"Hey, I'm not a coward..." Asahi wavered, his voice getting smaller with each word.

"Aww, it's okay, honey." Nishinoya said, "You're my coward."

"Awww." Daichi and Suga said in unison. "Well, Noya, your ankle is better than yesterday but you still can't practice today. Sorry. But we do need to start practice now."

"Ok, fine." Nishinoya said, getting up in the process to let Asahi stand up. Once Asahi was up, he sat back down in order to avoid being scolded by both Asahi and Daichi for being on his feet when he's not completely healed.

Daichi and Suga had moved away by then and had called everyone to start warming up. Asahi had moved to go with them before Nishinoya grabbed his arm and pulled him down to give the ace a small peck. "I love you."

Asahi blushed before looking back at the small libero.

"I love you too."

[kosmosian-quills]

An Adventure in Getting a Drink

I wrote a little interlude between the YOB pieces I am writing. This one is set between the Fear piece and the Joy piece (that i am currently writing).

I wanted to include this in the fear piece but I felt that it would make it too  long. I wanted to emphasise the length of time between the events though, and this came to me XD

Once again, huge shoutout to @shark8-my-leg​ for their help in answering all my prosthetic questions :D also to @cirianne​ for her idea on how this could go!

I hope you enjoy!

POV: Zofia

I need a drink.

Talk about bad timing though.

Mum said that she was going to do the food shop and wouldn’t be back for another hour, traffic dependent. Dad is busy in the garden changing the gate so that it’s more accessible for me. I can hear him drilling into the wall outside. It’s drowning out the noise from the TV that my parents had left on for me.

Besides, why should I wait to ask my parents to do something that I could just do myself?

A month ago, I would never have dreamed of asking my parents for something whilst I am sat here watching TV. ”You have two perfectly good legs there that you can use, young lady. Your programme will still be there when you come back.”

Oh, that sentence certainly didn’t age well.

What I wouldn’t give to have “two perfectly good legs”.

But one is good enough, right? At least to get me some juice.

Releasing the brakes on my wheelchair, I swirl around on the spot, slowly pushing myself between the two comfortable, navy coloured sofas in the living room. There’s a spot on the ground where you can tell that the seat had been placed for years. It’s dipped into the blue carpet, in the shape of the foot of the sofa, a large round circle. My right arm brushes against the fabric of the right-hand seat because I started to turn towards the door a split second too soon. It’s going to take some practice. I have only been using this wheelchair for two days.

The hallway has ample room for me, thankfully, even with the cabinet by the wall, the one that holds all the family pictures behind the glass windows. My latest school picture is front and centre - taken almost a year ago now. The wheels of my chair make a funny noise as they track along the wooden floor. A small noise, yet one that I have grown very accustomed to in the last few days.

The way the wheels bzzzzt ever so slightly on the wood, but then - silence - on the rug just before the kitchen door.

The door was closed, but it doesn’t have a latch. It never has - something Dad had intended to sort out, but I suppose now he does not have to. A gentle push with my functional leg and it swings open.

Getting around the house is so slow now, with my chair. I’m sure I’ll get faster eventually, but for now, it takes me much longer than it used to if I wanted to go from one room to the next. At least I can move around by myself in it. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I was supposed to stay in one spot without moving at all, like if I was still in the hospital and having to stay in bed.

The thought of not being able to move myself… compounded with everything else, I don’t think I would like that at all. Even now, going to the bathroom is a humiliating struggle - my mother has to help me in and out of the bath when I need to clean myself, like I am a toddler again. It’s irritating, but I know she’s only making sure I’m okay. I’m very grateful that I have a mother that does care so much.

I roll to a stop in front of the kitchen counter, looking at the spot where the plastic beakers are kept. This is a problem.

The beakers are kept right against the wall, out of my reach from where I am sitting. Honestly, I don’t know if I will even manage to get the beaker if I stand up. The only thing stopping me is that I am not sure I will be able to sit back down if I do get up.

I look around the kitchen, trying to see what I can reach. There’s the towels hanging off the hooks just on the edge of the counter but I doubt they will be much use. It would be helpful if I had something that I could use to just pull them away from the wall ever so slightly…

My eyes catch sight of the dustpan and brush leaned against the wall by the back door. The handle for the brush is almost like a closed loop. I bet I could use that to pull the beaker towards me! And even if I knock them over, they’re plastic, they’re designed to withstand some rough treatment, I think. At least they aren’t made of glass.

I put the brush on my lap, holding it between my upper legs, as I wheel my way back over to the beakers in question, stopping right up against the counter. I apply the breaks, just to make sure that I don’t move too far away, and carefully use the handle of the brush - the bristles tickling at the inside of my arm - to gently tug one of the beakers my way. The one I picked has a vibrant orange base that gradually gets clearer until it’s at the very top, where it is colourless. It takes me a few seconds, but eventually the cup is close enough to the edge of the counter that I can reach it from my chair without much effort.

Yes!

I prop the brush up against the counter as carefully as I can - I have no idea if I will need it again just yet - but place the cup between my legs.

Next, I need the blackcurrant cordial.

The drinks cupboard is just in front of me, under the counter. I wheel a little closer and reach to open it. It’s there, in front of me, among the bottles of lemonade and orange juice, the flavoured waters, and the other sugary drinks that are reserved for mealtimes only. The dark purple bottle is closest to me, and I reach in and grab it. It’s a lot heavier than I thought it would be, and I almost lost my grip, before resting it on my leg.

This is fine. This is something I have done dozens of times before. Well… before this. I used to grab the cordial, then climb on to the counter, pour the drink and dilute with water, all by myself, crawling around on the counter before jumping down and taking my drink away.

But this is already proving awkward.

The bottle is heavy, but the armrest is making it difficult to pour my drink. There is an unfortunate distance between the bottle and my cup. I don’t want to spill it, I don’t want to end up with a sticky, purple mess on my clothes.

Nevertheless, I manage it, slowly and carefully pouring it into my cup. I probably put a little bit too much in, but I prefer it stronger than weaker anyway. I replace the cap on the bottle and leave it on the floor for now. I’ll put it back in the cupboard in a moment.

But here is where I’m running into a problem.

I don’t think I can reach the sink whilst sat here in my chair. The taps are at the very back of the sink, and I can barely reach them if I am sat down.

I used to be able to reach the taps if I was stood on my tiptoes, but I’m not sure if I would be able to at all like this.

Well. I suppose there is no time like the present to find out.

I gently place my cup down on the counter beside the sink. I move my chair as close as possible to the counter, apply the brakes, and take a deep breath.

Gripping the armrests on either side of me, I tried to push myself up. I felt my leg tremble as I put all that pressure on it. I feel strangely lob-sided - well. Of course I do. I am missing an entire leg!

Once I have some semblance of balance, I quickly move my left hand from the rest and grab the edge of the marble counter, the lip is small, but it’s enough for me to grip and get my balance from. It doesn’t take much for me to move my other hand to join my other hand on the counter. Using my left hand to keep me steady, I move the cup over to the back of the sink, as far as I can reach it. Using the same hand to move the tap around until it is just over my cup.

Technically it’s on the surface rather than the sink, and I would rather avoid making a mess I cannot clean up. Turning on the cold water, I watch the liquid fill the glass all the way to the top, and quickly turn it off before it ends up everywhere. Yes! Another success!

I take a quick sip out of the cup, absolutely treasuring the sweet taste of the cordial as it slips down my throat. Oh, it’s lovely and cool. Just like we used to have during summer days spent in the garden.

I move the cup back to the edge of the counter, before trying to tackle the task of sitting myself back in my wheelchair. Slow and steady, that’s all I need to do. Carefully. I got up here just fine, so I know I can get down again.

I look over my shoulders, trying to see just where my chair is. I try to shuffle back a little, almost like a weird game of hopscotch, except all I can do is skip on the single  squares every time. I can do this. It’s perfectly simple. All I have to do, is let myself go, and I will land perfectly -

The feeling of falling sends my arm sweeping off the counter to reach behind me, except something was caught on its way around. Something that flew off the counter and clattered to the ground, the sound of liquid sloshing as it escapes the container.

My drink.

For a moment, I just sit there staring at it. The mess of purple liquid on the wooden floor, the beaker helplessly on its side. There’s a trail of juice sliding down the cupboard door that it managed to splash on to.

All that. I did all that, only to lose my balance at the very end, and ruin everything.

I can’t even think of a decent way for me to clean this without getting on the floor, and I’m worried that if I get down I won’t be able to get back up. Crawling around when you’re missing a leg is something I am still not used to.

That taste of cordial that lingers on my lips is taunting me.

I wheel around the puddle and reach for the brush once more, also making sure to grab a tea towel from the rack.

Fishing up the cup from the floor is a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. I push the cup towards the cupboards, just about forcing the bristles under the beaker. All I have to do is roll it up the side and on to the counter. It makes some small noises as it rolls around, coming to a stop on its own before it falls of the counter again.

The problem now is cleaning up the mess.

I throw the towel down, before using my new tool to try and push it around. I can’t properly get the juice that’s on the counter drawers, and I know that’s going to set and be all sticky soon.

This isn’t very efficient. The towel keeps pushing slight bits of juice out of my reach, making my attempts at soaking it up very difficult to keep on top of.

“Oh, Zosia, what are you -?”

I turn around and Dad is there, still holding his toolbox. I didn’t hear him come in, and it sounds like he’s just walked in. He takes in the scene. Me, holding the wrong side of a brush handle, a towel on the floor cleaning up a sticky mess, the cup I knocked over probably dripping on the counter.

Without me saying anything, he drops the tools and comes over. “I knew it wouldn’t be long before you started creating chaos, Princess. Making messes all over the kitchen? I should have known.” He says with a smile, taking the brush from me and picking up the purple-stained towel from the floor, taking it over to the washing machine over in the corner.

“I’m sorry, I wanted a drink…”

“Don’t worry, Princess. It was an accident, right?” he grabs some paper towels from the counter and finishes cleaning up the mess I made, “Honestly, I’m very impressed you managed all that by yourself. It’s just a shame you fell at the last hurdle.”

He picked up the cordial from the floor and grabbed a clean beaker from the collection, pouring some into the cup, before looking over at me.

“Do you want to try again? Without the spill this time? I’ll sweeten the deal for you - if you manage to not spill it, you can have a biscuit, just don’t tell your mother.”

I can feel the smile rise on my face at his offer. It’s made the entire house feel so much warmer than it’s felt in days.

[burnedbyshoto]

Welcome Home - Part Three

todoroki shouto x first time parents fem!reader

warnings: fluff :D

word count: 4,564

A/N: im so sorry if y’all are sick and tired of pregnancy crap from me, because im not and neither are these anons. you can definitely read this independently from the other two parts theres nothing that connects them except Kaito but hes just your child so its no biggie honestly, i hope you two anons enjoy this so much! and im sorry that these aren’t h/c and i went with a super self-indulgent scenario instead.... anon if you want that hc still i will gladly write up a hc of this entire thing for you!! >:) anyways like subscribe at my youtube channel for more ;) enjoy

Part One  Part Two  Part Four

Todoroki Kaito was a force to be reckoned with. At only four years old he was able to evade most babysitters his parents had for him on the days neither or both of them could not be home with him, or when Kaito wasn't in school. His bright red hair was something that everyone figured would make him easy to spot, but he was just so slippery and quick. 

In fact at ten at night on a Tuesday night, when you and your loving husband Shouto were on route home after being in the office since four in the morning, he escaped. You smiled up at your husband who had his arm wrapped around your shoulder, his head resting upon your own as the two of you walked leisurely.

“Do you need me to carry you?” You teased Shouto as you seemed to be doing the heavy lifting during this walk, not that you minded carrying him.

“I do like being carried by strong women.” Shouto agreed as he suddenly put the mass majority of his body weight on you, catching you off guard as you shrieked stumbling many steps forward before catching your balance. “There we go.” Shouto murmured into your ear as you giggled now walking--dragging--Shouto with you as he refused to wrap his legs around you.

“MAMA!” The all too familiar and recognizable voice of Kaito sounded through the empty streets, and your eyes immediately spotted the tiny figure of your son running at what could only be his breakneck speed toward you.

“Kaito-chan?!” You shouted back, suddenly leaving Shouto to fall forward as you went racing for your child who flung himself into your arms.

“Mama, I missed you so much! It was nine p.m. and you and papa weren’t home so I had to go find you!” Kaito explained himself without you even having to ask. You sigh softly pushing your baby’s shaggy hair out of his eyes and you looked into Kaito’s eyes that were identical to your own.

“You know you can’t just come looking for us,” You reason with you toddler who was squirming in your arms to be given to Shouto, and you easily passed him over, and Shouto took the small child giving him an affectionate kiss on his forehead. “Besides where is Midoriya-san? Did you tell him where you were going?”

“Well, Midoriya-san said that I couldn’t, but then I decided that my mama was in trouble so I left anyways,” Kaito said as he decided to go back to your arms. “Kaito-chan, you can’t be doing that, at least tell Midoriya-san that you are leaving.” Shouto reasons and you kick your husband softly on his leg, giving a pointed look.

“Kaito-chan, mama, and papa are Pro-Heroes and sometimes we will get home late, but we will always be back to kiss you goodnight.” You whisper to your son who has his head nestled into your neck.

“I know,” Kaito understands, you know that, “But I’m stronger than papa, so I needed to make sure.”

You laugh as you ruffle his hair and look at Shouto who has rolled his eyes, but the smile never left his face. It was kinda cute how much Shouto loved his son, even when he made backhanded comments like that. “And I’m stronger than the both of you, so if we don’t make it home in two minutes I’m going to ground the both of you.” You threaten as you begin walking again knowing your house was just around the corner of this block.

The next thing you knew, Shouto was carrying the both of you and started running with the two of you in his arms, “Go, papa! GO!” Kaito cheered on as in under a minute the three of you were outside the door.

“Now, I’m sure Midoriya-san hasn’t noticed you’re gone, because you’re supposed to be asleep like a good boy,” You tell Kaito as he holds your hand as you all search for wherever Izuku is in the house, “So you are going to apologize to him.”

“You’re going to make Midoriya flip,” Shouto states as he wraps his arms around your waist, his face pressed into your neck as he places a chaste kiss there.

“It’ll be hilarious,” You respond back, gently leaning into your husband as your son apologizes to Midoriya who had not noticed his disappearance.

You grinned looking at your husband as you watched Midoriya sprinting into the hallway of your house, Kaito tossed onto his shoulders like a sack of potatoes.

“Y-Y/n-chan! Shouto!” Midoriya laughs awkwardly as he places a hand to his neck, shifting his body as if to hid Kaito who’s feet were dangling very obviously in the front.

“Kiss mama, Midoriya-san! That’s what papa does to get away with things!” Kaito screams from his position as if unaware of how far away they were from him 

“Kaito-chan, I-I can’t do that!” Midoriya stutters as he shakes a hand in denial to the married couple in front of him.

“Yeah, Midoriya, kiss y/n, so you can get away from it,” Shouto repeats Kaito’s command and Midoriya splutters completely flustered.

You let out a few laughs as you can’t believe the situation you were in currently, “Kaito-chan, only mama and papa can kiss each other; if anyone else tries to do it that's wrong.”

Kaito struggled to rise up from his hanging position from Midoriya’s shoulder, and there are fat toddler tears in his eyes, “So I can’t kiss you any-anymore, mama?” He bawls as you realize your mistake scooping your son from Midoriya who was still beet red. 

“No no, baby.” You coo softly at Kaito as you give Shouto a pointed look as he was giving you a teasingly stare for making Kaito cry. “You can kiss your mama as much as you want, but adults can’t go kissing me or your papa.”

Eventually, you manage to say goodnight to Midoriya, and Kaito slams his forehead to his cheek as a way of saying goodnight. Shouto and you take Kaito back into his room as the sleepy redhead boy was falling asleep on your shoulder, murmuring about how he wanted chocolate milk but Shouto wouldn’t buy him chocolate milk.

“Goodnight, my baby Tenshi.” You whisper lovingly to Kaito as you press a kiss to his cheek.

“G’night, Mama…” Kaito sighs as he wraps his arms around you tightly, “I missed you today…”

You smile wider as you muzzle your nose into his cheek, “And I missed you, but I love you, and go to sleep before you make mama miss her beauty sleep.”

Kaito giggles as you stand up, letting Shouto give his own bedtime routine with Kaito. And you watch on as you always do as your husband playful tickles your son, who goes and starts screeching in mercy only to fling himself into Shouto’s arms and you smile as they exchange: I love you’s.

By the time the two of you exit Kaito’s room, your baby is long since knocked out.

You showered first the night, as apart of your guys designed schedule.

As Pro-Heroes, being in a happy marriage and a loving family with a toddler son required some work. Ever since you were off maternity leave from heroics, the two of you had a schedule that had yet to fail.

Monday’s were your day off, that day you were taking care of Kaito by yourself and doing whatever necessary around the house. Wednesday’s, or tomorrow, was Shouto’s days off, and he took care of Kaito and ran necessary errands outside of the house. Friday’s were the best days though, the two of you didn’t work, so you would spend half the day with Kaito and then go out together that night. It worked flawlessly, and even after four years, Friday nights were always something you looked forward too.

You sat on your bed, already under the covers as you heard the shower turn off. You were currently texting Mina about if she was sure she wanted to take care of Kaito on Thursday. Most of your friends were always eager and ready to take care of your guy’s son, most likely because he was still a baby and with his quirk still unmanifested, it made taking care of him easier.

Your eyes snapped up to see Shouto walking out of the bathroom still wet from the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist, and even after how many years of seeing a sight like this you froze and blushed.

“Look away, pervert.” Shouto teased you and you playfully scoffed, turning on your side and turning off your light, you needed to sleep.

In only a few seconds, Shouto was climbing into bed, dressed for sleep. His arm pulling you closer to him, and you smiled softly before turning around to be properly held by him.

“So what are you doing with our son tomorrow?” You ask Shouto as your fingers trailed in soft stroking motions on his shoulders.

“Well, we don’t need any errands to be done, so I was thinking that park after lunch, and then maybe I’ll convince him to make dinner with me for his gorgeous mother.” Shouto sighs softly as your fingers gently massage a knot you found in his neck.

“Oh, his mother? I’ve always heard good things.” You say nonchalantly as Shouto’s hands move from your back to your hips.

“She’s the best, honestly, well… if I’m being honest she does have this fatal flaw.” Shouto grins up at the ceiling as your eyes sharply squint.

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah…” Shouto agrees, starting to laugh at what he’s going to say next, “She is a little bitch.”

He catches your hands that went to smack him, and immediately rolls his weight over so that you’re trapped between him and the mattress, “Oh, did I mention to add she’s predictable?” Shouto continues as he smirks down at you.

“You’re annoying.” You retort weakly as you watch your husband come down to kiss you softly.

“That sucks for you,” He mutters against your lips and you kiss him back ready to prove to him just how unpredictable you really were.

⋆✭⋆✭⋆⋆✭⋆✭⋆

Shouto woke up the next morning to you leaving for the day and smiled when you gave him a sweet kiss goodbye. “Don’t you dare hurt my child.” You threatened playfully as he grabbed you pulling you back into the bed.

“I’m sure there will be a nearby Pro-Hero to save him just in case,” Shouto whispers as he tries to steal a few more minutes in bed with you.

“Bakugo and Mina will yell at me if I’m late again!” You squeal as you squirm hopelessly against him.

“Alright, mama, go kick some ass today.” Shouto relents as he lets you go.

“I’ll kick your ass,” You mock as you press a final kiss to his lips.

“I’m sure you will.”

After watching as you kiss your still sleeping son goodbye, he walks you out the door and upon returning to his bed Shouto then falls back asleep.

“PAPA, WAKE UP!” A voice roared and Shouto’s eyes shot open as Kaito was sitting on his chest his y/e/c eyes centimeters from his. “Oh papa, I thought you were dead…” Kaito groaned as he collapsed onto Shouto's face.

“I was sleeping, Kaito-chan.” Shouto laughs as he sits up, catching his son in his arms.

“Well, I didn’t know that and was going to perform C-P-P,” Kaito exasperates with a pointed look, a smile never leaving his face.

“C-P-R.” Shouto corrects Kaito as he throws him gently onto the bed.

“C-P-R…” Kaito mutters, his face scrunching as he shakes his head, “No, papa, it’s C-P-P!” He screams in defiance.

“Hm, you may be right,” Shouto says, pretending to think about the spelling as he gets out of bed, “I think we’ll ask your beautiful and smart mama tonight, huh.”

“If I win, I get to sleep in the bed with mama, and you take my bed!” Kaito grins with his teeth on full display as he shimmies off the bed.

“I’ll take that bet,” Shouto agrees, grabbing the edge of the sheet and sees Kaito mimicking his actions and together they make the bed.

“Alright, piggy let's go brush some teeth!” Shouto says throwing his son up onto his shoulders, and can’t help the warm feeling in his stomach at the roar of giggles coming from Kaito.

Shouto spends the rest of the morning attempting to make his son some pancakes while Kaito attempts to paint his toenails, although Shouto is nearly positive he’s only managed to paint the flesh and not the nail. “Wow, I really like the neon yellow you chose.” Shouto points out as Kaito nods his head against his calf.

“Mama does it so much better, but I think mine is still pretty,” Kaito said as he looks at the disaster of the nail polish over his foot. Shouto looks down and has to physical bite his tongue to keep himself from laughing.

“We have to show mama this, huh Kaito-chan,” Shouto says as he puts the pancakes on a plate. “Hold on.”

Kaito latches tighter onto Shouto’s leg as he easily walks to the table despite the extra weight on his leg. Kaito screams of laughter made everything better and Shouto even went around the kitchen table one time after Kaito begged for more.

Shouto watched as Kaito poured syrup onto his pancakes with a concentrated look on his face, his chubby hands barely able to hold the bottle. “You got enough syrup there, Kaito-chan?” Shouto asked as he waited for Kaito to be done so he could also pour on some syrup.

“Nope! I want it to fill the house with syrup.” Kaito explains cheerfully as Shouto chuckles.

“I don’t think your mama would appreciate sleeping with syrup in her hair, remember the time she found a feather in her hair?”

“Mama is pretty silly.” Kaito agreed as he handed the syrup over to Shouto.

“And we can go to the park afterward?” Shouto offered when pancakes were stuffed into Kaito’s face, and his eyes sparkled in excitement.

“YESH, PWEASE?!” Kaito shouted food spraying everywhere.

The two males stared at the food on the table and echoes of laughter sounded through the house.

Shouto tried dressing his son who was in the middle of playing the part of a superhero, “I want to be just like mama!” Kaito shouted as his hand thrust out pretending to do who knows what. Your quirk definitely did not depend on you shooting anything.

“I do, too.” Shouto agrees as he manages to pull a blue t-shirt with your Pro-Hero costume printed on it.

“But papa, you’re a Pro-Hero already! Why would you wanna be like mama?”

“She’s amazing.” Shouto simply states and Kaito looks at his dad with curious eyes.

“Papa, are you in love with mama?” Kaito asks as he sticks out his legs for Shouto to put on his shorts and socks.

“Very much so,” Shouto tells his son as he ruffles his hair, “Just like I love you.”

Kaito laughs as he stands up and jumps into Shouto’s arms, “I love you too, papa.”

“Ready for the park?”

“YES!”

⋆✭⋆✭⋆⋆✭⋆✭⋆

Shouto was sitting on a park bench watching as Kaito ran around the playground following a group of slightly older kids. “I’m sorry, but you’re the Pro-Hero: Shouto, correct?” A lady’s voice asked from behind Shouto, and without looking, Shouto nodded his head.

“I am, is there anything you need? Sorry, I’m just looking after my son today.”

“Oh, I know, I was just wanting to see if you would be willing to sign this for my child? He’s a huge fan!”

Shouto looks away from Kaito who was climbing up the jungle gym, standing up to face the mother who was clutching a piece of his merchandise. Smiling gently, Shouto places his signature on the item and returns to sit down.

“You don’t mind if I sit here? It seems that my daughter is playing with your son?”

Shouto’s eyebrows scrunch slightly, “You have a daughter and a son?” He asks looking back to the group of kids Kaito was playing with none of which looked remotely related.

“Uh, yeah, I, um, I do!” She stutters rubbing the back of her head as the two of them sit down on the bench, Shouto watching Kaito look over at him, and he waved.

Shouto allows the lady to sit next to him and he watches as Kaito is coming down the slide, and his face scrunches up as it normally does before he needs to sneeze, except it’s not just a sneeze. Shouto watches as Kaito sneezes, fire emitting from his body and burning the asphalt of the playground, Kaito shrieked and moved his hands around and the emitted fire followed the movement of his hands.

“PAPA!!! HELP ME!!” Kaito bellowed as parents immediately raced to their children as the flames seemed to grow in Kaito’s anxiety and fear. Shouto is already by Kaito’s side, ice emitting from his footsteps to counteract the flames that were set as Kaito sobs.

“Are you okay, Kaito-kun?” Shouto asks as he quickly examines his son for any potential injury.

“I JUST SNEEZED OUT FIRE!” Kaito wailed as his hands went to cover his eyes. “AND NOW I CAN NEVER EVER SNEEZE AGAIN!”

Shouto had to bite his tongue to keep himself from laughing at Kaito, “I don’t think that’s true…”

“I’m gonna be mama’s sidekick with a quirk called sneezing fires!” Kaito complained as tears continued to flow down his face, and Shouto paused feeling his old self reflected in the troubles of Kaito.

“You know what my quirk is, right?” Shouto asks as he sinks to the floor of the playground, Kaito looking up at Shouto as he sniffled loudly. Kaito nodded his head as his hand touched the scar on Shouto’s face.

“Half cold-half hot.”

Shouto nodded as he opened his left palm and demonstrated to Kaito a small wisp of fire that danced gently across his palm. “I have a fire, just like you. You wanna know a secret?”

Kaito’s eyes brightened, he did love secrets, and Shouto grinned back at his smiling toddler, “Okay, my secret is that I used to hate my fireside.”

This causes confusion to hit Kaito’s face, his fingers going to touch the flame that gently swirled in a hypnotic dance. “But you’re so strong, papa, how could you hate your fire?”

Shouto paused, noticing the audience nearby watching a rare moment of a Pro-Hero discussing the hardships of his childhood in public, “I thought I would hurt someone with it, become someone I wasn’t, but with the help of your mama and Midoriya-san, I’ve come to love my fire. I think you’ll love yours as well.”

Kaito stares at his father with a newfound love, one that was forged when two people endured the same hardships with their thoughts of their quirks. “I’ll love my quirk if you love yours.” Kaito compromises, sticking his pinky out for him to seal this secret between the two of them.

“Deal.”

Later that day, “Pro-Hero: Shouto, saves son from himself!” was the biggest news of the day.

⋆✭⋆✭⋆⋆✭⋆✭⋆

Shouto stood in the kitchen preparing for dinner as Kaito sat coloring in front of him, casual singing some theme song Shouto knew by heart. Shouto heard his phone ring, but since he was in the middle of cooking the salmon, he asked Kaito to retrieve the phone.

Kaito skipped over to Shouto’s phone, picked up, and put it to his ear. “Hello? What do you want, this is Kaito!”

Shouto smiled softly as his son who was using two hands to hold the phone to his ear, although he wasn’t sure if it was upside down or not. Kaito’s face lightened only by 100% and hearts only seemed to manifest in his eyes, and Shouto knew exactly who was on the other end of the call.

“MAMA, I GOT MY QUIRK TODAY! MY QUIRKY! JUST LIKE PAPA! PAPA EVEN LET ME IN ON A SECRET!” Kaito shrieked excitedly, always one to be excited to have you on the phone. “Yes mama, I didn’t get hurt! Hello, I’m a big boy with a quirk.”

Shouto flipped the salmon as he watched Kaito walking over towards him, the phone still clutched to his ear, “Well now I can be a Pro-Hero, like you and papa, and I can save you and take care of you! But yeah, here’s papa, bye! I love you.”

Kaito handed Shouto the phone, who took it with ease watching as Kaito went back to his spot to color. “Hello?” Shouto finally said after Kaito managed to climb up the chair safely.

“Why hello there my beautiful husband,” your voice immediately responds and Shouto smirks slightly.

“You jealous?”

“YOU KNOW I AM!”

“Mm. I don’t blame you, it was just as good as his first steps.”

“Don’t sound so smug!” You complained through the phone, your voice seeming defeated.

“I’m not,” Shouto laughs at your fretting as he reaches out a hand to assist Kaito with his juice box.

“I guess I’ll believe your deceptions, anyways I’m glad it happened during his school break and not during class! Could you imagine the chaos that would’ve happened if he lit the school on fire?!”

“I can only imagine, we’ll have to take him to the doctors on Friday for the actual diagnosis,” Shouto says regarding the naming of Kaito’s quirk.

“Yeah, agreed! I already made an appointment.” You inform Shouto.

“Oh?”

“Yeah! Sorry!! I was going to go anyways, and I called again to add Kaito! Also, your ass looks great today babe, I saw all the photos of the park incident.”

“Wait why do you need to go to the doctors—?”

“MAMA!” Kaito yells overly excited as Shouto watches the four-year-old scrambling off the chair and running full speed at you as you entered the house.

“Hi, my baby!” Your joyful voice rings through the house, and Shouto ends the call as he watches you, still dressed up in your costume, clutch the red-headed son close to your body as you twirled around with him in your arms.

“I got my quirk today, and it’s like papa’s, uh, his, right side? I think I can’t remember!” Kaito laughs as he throws his head back.

“Left side, baby, left side.” You day grabbing Kaito’s left arm and shaking it so that he can learn once again the difference.

Shouto watches as you walk over Kaito sitting on your waist, and you smile at your husband who presses a gentle kiss on your lips. “Welcome home,” Shouto whispers.

Much to his surprise, you rise back up to capture Shouto’s lips into another kiss, and the two of you stand there taking a long and high-emotional kiss. Shouto pulls away after hearing the sixth long sigh from Kaito who immediately wrapped his arms around your neck.

“See,” Shouto whispered to your blushing face. “We Todoroki’s are mama’s boys.”

When the three of you are finished eating dinner, which was delicious by the way, and you had changed into much more casual clothing, you all went to the backyard to play some soccer as Kaito insisted he had learned a new trick he wanted to show you. The three of you played soccer together for what felt like hours, the teams, rules, and scores always changing.

Nearing the end of the final match, Shouto had you thrown over his shoulder as he was chasing down Kaito who had abandoned all rules of soccer and was carrying the ball to the goal. “Come here Kaito-chan!” Shouto bellows softly, running at a pace quick enough to be a threat to the toddler's pace and step size, but not quick enough to catch him.

“Save me, Kaito-chan!” You cried out between laughter as you held on tightly to Shouto’s back.

Shouto smacks your butt softly as a sign that your laughter is a bit too obvious, and you pathetically kick your legs in rebuttal. “Mama, is he seducing you?!” Kaito asks shocked, he had thrown the ball far away and was circling behind to look directly into your flushed face.

“SEDUCING?!” The two parents spluttered as they had no idea how their four-year-old had that sort of vocabulary in his set. A grin broke out on Kaito’s face and then he went and grabbed your hands.

“Alright, papa, let's beat mama!” Kaito roared and Shouto shouted back in agreement as suddenly your sides were being tickled and your shrieks of laughter echoed through the quiet night.

“Goodnight, my beautiful boy.” You whisper to Kaito as you pressed a kiss to his forehead, his arms wrapping around your neck softly as he didn’t want to let go just yet. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, mama,” Kaito whispered, yawning heavily as you stood up. Shouto replaced you at the side and went to hug and kiss Kaito, who at that very moment remembered something.

Kaito, momentarily renewed with energy grabbed the piece of paper he had been secretively drawing on and thrust it forward towards Shouto, “This is us, papa! We are gonna save the world together with our fire.”

Shouto looked down at the two circle people with red fire everywhere, and he smiled softly at the written Kaito and Papa under the people as well as the drawn hearts. “Goodnight, Kaito-chan, I, uh, well, I love you so much. Thank you for this drawing, I’ll cherish it forever.” Shouto says as he pulls his son's forehead in for a kiss.

“I love you, too, papa. So much….”

You watched on with tears in your eyes for the amount of love that you could feel between the father of your child and said, child. Shouto eventually stood up, and with an arm wrapped around your waist, the two of you left while turning off the lights.

Shouto showed you the drawing as the two of you retreated to your bedroom, the overall feeling in the house right now was overwhelming love and joy. “Wow, you two are in fact the reason why I live every day.” You say as you hopped onto the bed, Shouto climbing on seconds afterward, his head on your chest as he held you close.

“I’m glad,” Shouto confesses feeling the same way as you did as he sighs softly.

“Um, Shoucchan?” You say softly, and Shouto hums in acknowledgment, too comfortable right now to even dare look at you even if he wanted to. “Well, uh, you see I have- I have something to confess…”

“You’re pregnant again, right?” Shouto says taking your overall hesitation to say what he had gathered from your doctor's appointment, refusal of a glass of alcohol, your early release home, and of course the unprotected sex that happened a few couples of times weeks ago.

“I am…”

Shouto sits up, watching your face swim with millions of emotions as in parallel to the first time you confessed. A smile covers his face and yours breaks out in one as well as far tears roll down both your cheeks, and another kiss is placed between the two of you, “Oh, I’m so glad.” He whispers against your lip as he places his warm hand against your stomach.

sorry, ive fallen in love with kaito and i cant get up D: requests are open still!!!

[stevesnailbat]

How about a soft!Steve where he sees the reader with a baby (idk why) and starts to experience baby fever? Idk, I just think Steve would be so soft around babies and it gives me heart eyes just thinking about it

warnings: mentions of sex at the end but mainly just soft!steve fluff

word count: 1.3K

Steve knew his girlfriend was having a long week. She’d been going straight from school to work every weekday and she worked until 10 p.m. on all of those days, so she was just exhausted. She had been so busy that they had only talked on the phone twice and seen each other once, when he dropped food off for her during her shift at the arcade on Thursday. The weekend was supposed to be her time to fully relax, though. So, Steve decided that it’d be a good time to surprise her at her house.

He saw that only her car was in the driveway when he got to her house around 6 p.m., which might’ve excited him a little too much. Still, he knocked on the front door with one hand while balancing a supreme pizza and a tub of ice cream in the other. She looked downright exhausted when she opened the door, but still managed to light up when she saw Steve on the other side of the door.

“What are you doing here, Stevie?” she asked with a tired smile on her face.

“You’ve had a long week and I’m sure you want to stay in tonight, but I thought we could stay in together—What was that?” he said after hearing a small whine come from her living room.

“I didn’t tell you, did I? I’m babysitting for my sister tonight—baby Olivia’s here right now.” she said, looking apologetic as she spoke. “I—I’m sorry, Steve, I should’ve told you.“

“Why are you sorry? I should’ve asked you what you were doing, I just wanted to surprise you since you’ve been so stressed. But, I can just leave the pizza and ice cream here and go if—“

“Will you stay with me?” she asked, reaching for his hand. “My parents won’t care and I honestly hate staying here alone.”

“Of course I’ll stay, Y/N. All you had to do was ask.” he chuckled, finally walking inside as she smiled excitedly at him.

“You haven’t met baby Livi, have you?” she said while reaching for the smiling baby in the rocking seat.

“No, I don’t think so.” he remarked as he put the ice cream into the freezer.

When Steve turned around to see his girlfriend holding the little girl with a wide smile on her face, something felt different. There was something about the way she was cooing at the baby that made his heart flutter a little more than it usually did, that made him think a little further into the future than he ever had. When she brought the Olivia over to him, seeing the baby cuddling into her arms made him want something like this with her someday.

“Hello there, Livi!” he cooed as Y/N slid the baby into his arms, trying to ignore the overwhelming butterflies in his stomach. “Aren’t you the cutest?”

Y/N couldn’t deny the fact that seeing Steve with the baby was making her feel some type of way also. He seemed like a natural, like he was meant to be a dad. She watched as he played with Olivia and tried to make her laugh, which made her want something like this with him someday.

Their night was filled with toys and toddler shows, but neither of the minded. It was nice to have a night together where they didn’t have to worry about anything except being present. Steve was happy to spend any time he could with Y/N and this night was solidifying any thoughts he might’ve had about their future together. They entertained Olivia for a few hours, switching between peek-a-boo, kid’s books and nursery rhymes multiple times to keep her attention.

“We should probably get her to bed, don’t you think? She looks awfully tired and so do you.” Steve said around 9 p.m. after seeing Y/N nearly falling asleep while holding Olivia in her arms.

“Yeah, you’re right.” she laughed, smiling over at Steve before looking down to the sleepy baby in her arms. “I’ll get her ready and put her in the crib, then we can go to bed.”

He nodded and kissed her forehead before she stood up, rocking Olivia slowly in her arms. Olivia was a relatively easy baby, so getting her to stay still while changing her and getting her ready for bed didn’t take long at all. Steve walked past the room where Y/N was putting her down for bed and couldn’t help but stop in his tracks when he heard her singing softly to the baby. He smiled to himself as she kissed Olivia’s cheek before making sure she was settled in the crib. She set up the baby monitor and walked towards the door to see Steve standing there with an unmistakable grin on his face.

“What’re you so giddy about?” she giggled as he pulled her into his arms.

“I’m just happy to be here with you. I missed you this week.” he hummed, leaning down to kiss her sweetly. “Let’s get to bed.”

They had never really talked about a future together, except for on those drunken nights when everything comes out in whispers never spoken of again. Neither of them felt the need to talk about it, mainly because they didn’t want to scare each other away. But it was the only thing on Steve’s mind as he sat on her bed while she slipped into one of his t-shirts she had stolen from him at some point.

“Okay, you’ve been staring at me the whole time I’ve been changing.” she stated while climbing into the bed and onto his lap. “Which usually means you really want to have sex or something’s on your mind. And right now, I can’t tell which one it is because you’ve been smiling like an idiot all night. Which one is it?”

“I’m just so in love with you, Y/N.” he confessed, staring up at her adoringly.

“And you know I’m in love with you too, Stevie.” she replied sweetly, kissing him quickly while massaging his scalp with her nails. “But, that doesn’t answer my question, like at all.”

“I guess there has been something on my mind tonight. It’s not bad though! Well—You could think it is but I don’t think it is so—“

“Steve, please, you’re rambling.” she laughed.

“Right, sorry. I don’t know, I guess just seeing you with Livi today just...did something to me? I never really cared about being a dad, but seeing you holding her and caring for her made me want that with you.” he said, blushing slightly from his divulgence.

“Like, as in, it made you want a baby with me?” she asked, raising her eyebrows at him as he nodded.

“I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to scare you away or anything. Because if you don’t want that I understand—“ he started, but was cut off by her lips pressing against his in a swift kiss.

“Steve, of course I want that with you.” she said after pulling away, making his expression soften and his heart skip a beat. “I’ve known I wanted that with you for months, but I didn’t know how you’d feel about me saying it.”

Before she could say anything else, he pulled her in for another passionate kiss while pulling her towards his chest by her waist. Their kisses grew more intense as time went on and she became very aware of the length that was pressing against her leg from beneath her. She let out a giggle against his lips and pulled away quickly, leaning over to her bedside table to grab a foil packet from the top drawer.

“As much as I love you and want to have a family with you, I don’t want to start that family right now.” she teased, waving the condom between her fingers as he watched her with a furrowed brow.

“Oh, definitely. You don’t have to tell me twice.” he chuckled while grabbing the foil from her hand, pulling her in for another kiss.

[bread-elf]

DWC 2020 - Day 29

Hallow’s End

Post invasion of N’zoth

It had been a long time since there was so much peace able to be achieved, especially with something as devastated as the assault from the Black Empire. With the change of season just around the corner, nearly the whole world focused on the festivities of fall, and Jiroki is no exception.

A distraction of the mind was greatly needed, and she knew many of her own people could use it as well. And so, she decided to reach out to those that she knew who had children, to see if perhaps they would be interested in a gathering for trick or treating in Elwynn Forest, and some had attended.

Jiroki of course had brought her family. Her sister, Estal'anar, is currently taking her turn walking with Jiroki's twins. She knew her children did wonders for Estal's mental health, and even her human 'boyfriend' Szadek walked along with them. Both of the twins dressed like faerie dragons, in hoods and having little wings attached to their costume, holding hands together and with the couple as they walked. They almost looked like their own family, and Jiroki wondered when in the fel Szadek would man up and take the next step with her sister.

Aridren, their uncle, carried Jiroki's littlest one, Taldreath. The small boy still small enough to be cradled, a bit small for Kaldorei babes as is. The boy wore a warm hoodie designed to look like a Murlock, keeping him cozy in the chilly air as his great uncle carried him in his arms while bouncing lightly. Aridren followed behind Estal and Svadek and the twins, going up to a house to get some candy. Jiroki's dear friend, Relliea "Moon" Wilder, walked alongside the red headed human Nathiria Vetrose. Their sons had taken a liking to each other, Nathiria's boy Jaxon dressed like a green dragon whelping, and Andorus a warrior with a color scheme similar to a Blood Knight. They played and pretended to fight against one another as they ran off for more candy. Moon carried her youngest born in her arms, a darling little elf girl with bright silver eyes, yet brown hair and slim ears similar to a Sin'dorei. As the two mothers chat Sheamus stood with them, a worgen in his human form as he carefully watched over Jasper from afar, anxious and wanting to impress his love interest Nathiria. But beside him his attention kept getting drawn, Eric Parthilan, a human priest of balance, chatting away as his wife Ilysaraeth stood nearby, and both carried their newborn twins. Ilysaraeth also walked the path of a Demon Hunter, but took recommendation from Jiroki of her own Azerite treatment she got in order to attempt to have a child. By a miracle they successfully conceived and now the haflings babbled happily in their parent’s arms. The couple named the boy Galadend, and they even had decided to name the little girl Jiroki. The Darkstars and Moonshadows walked together up ahead. Ia and Zanheaaen Darkstar had brought their toddlers Eylennia and Zevris, halflings between humans and Quel'dorei. Though the stoic couple had never really participated in Hallow's End before, and their children wore just plain orange onside. But Kengah Moonshadow found them endearing, much more so than what her partner Cylan Moonshadow had dressed up their children. Nina and Zorba, as well as halflings of humans and Kaldorei, the little children had been dressed up as puppies, Cylan playfully trying to irk his Worgen wife. Even now she glared at him as he hurried along with their 'puppies', making a fool of himself and walking while in a low squat, squirming his arms like waves as he matched forward, his children laughing behind him and trying to catch up to their silly An’da. Merli'neath P.P. Glaivefall dressed as a fantasy fairy princess. Pink wings sparkled on her back while little sticker stars dotted all over her the bridge of her nose and high cheekbones, a tiara crowned on her while her lovely long hair cascaded down. Allerian Windspyre is with her, a young Kaldorei that Jiroki had a bit of a fondness for, almost like a son. Though at an age to be considered a young adult in their culture, the young monk-in-training dressed up as well, as a member of the Shado-Pan. But both Merli and Allerian were occupied trying to assist a frail old Kaldorei. Rather large for an elf, hunched over even and using a crane to help walk. A long white beard nearly touched the floor as it swayed side to side, and the man wore a mask similar to what Shadow Hunters wear. He wore large mittens to keep his hands warm, his ears rather short and looking rather strange for a Kaldorei. Merli and Allerian helped the man walk and take his stroll for candy as well, but Jiroki had suspicions as she saw a chicken walking after the ‘old man’. Daniel Farington the death knight enjoyed partaking in the seasonal events that occurred around the world. His memory has been lost years ago, every year he always experienced something new, and he enjoyed it the most with his beloved. A young human druidess, given the name Fawn’s Step in the Willow, a woman with tribal markings from the Furblog tribe who had named her, walked together in silent steps with him. Daniel wore a cut out mask with the face of a human man on it, pretending to not talk as himself as Fawn carried what they considered to be their child. A black kitten, wearing a little headband with antlers of a stag on them, though the kitten didn’t seem to look to enjoy it much as it’s carried around. Sharpen Jadescythe had heard of parents in the Greyshields coming to hang out, and he brought along his little moose pet he named Venidaughter. Once he had seen that a couple actually had a small animal they considered their child, the sweet himbo immediately attached himself to them, getting to know them and trying to make plans for a ‘play date’. Jiroki herself attended all this as well, watching everyone mingle with one another as children played and were stopped from gorging on candy. She had dressed up as well, in her Saurok costume that she had worn for a few events as is. But in the moment, she stood off at the side of the road, having a wardrobe malfunction that she had her mate Aztook try to assist with. The demon hunter wore a large carved pumpkin on his head similar to the Headless Horseman, she wondered if he could even breath with that thing on. But thankfully he didn’t have need of his eyes, his hands trying to fix the buckles on the back. As annoying as the malfunction is, that wasn’t the most annoying thing on the forefront of her mind. The most annoying thing is in front of her, in fact. Four of them. Drake Duskrunner leaned against a fence post with his arms crossed as he chatted with others. Fa’don Blackshade stood next to him, another Kaldorei wearing a druidic garb of an owl mask as a costume, though he’s nearly quite the opposite of a druid. Two Ren’dorei stood by them, both males. Ianasril Azureflame dressed like a pirate, a large hat and an eyepatch, but currently had the eyepatch moved aside while talking with the other two. Sol’athen Dawnvale didn’t even bother to dress up, standing there with a rather grim look on his face, sighing to himself as he looked to have been dragged along by Ian to yet another outing. All four of them just chatted idly with one another, having followed Jiroki the entire time this night thus far, even waiting for her as Aztook tried to help with her costume. “I know why you’re here.” Jiroki butts in the conversation, making a motion at Drake. “But I don’t know why you three are here. Don’t you have anything better to do?” She says as she looks at the three stooges. “No. I mean- hoot.” Fa’don answers. “Arrg, Shield Mother!” Ian once more starts up his fake pirate accent. “We ‘ere fer de booty!” Raising up his bag of candy. “Hurry up, scallywag, or ya’ walkin’ the plank!” “I really wish I wasn’t here.” Sol’athen laments with a grim expression. Drake just shrugs, giving a smirk towards Jiroki. “Then why are you loitering here if you’re collecting candy?! Go somewhere else- OW- watch the claws!” Jiroki turns her head back towards Aztook. “Sorry!” Though Jiroki could hear the grin on Aztook’s lips. “Just so many buckles and the like. I’m- more used to taking them off…” His voice dips lower at that, genuinely having trouble trying to fix her buckles with his leathery and clawed fingers. “Ugh.” Jiroki rolls her eyes and looks back towards the group. “Well you’re embarrassing me with your stupid costumes! Just go already!” “Hey we’re not that stupid!” Fa’don says in rebuttal, thinks on his words, then realizes his flaw. So, in retaliation, he turns to Drake. “Hey Drake, you know Rebbecane, right? From the Wandering Exchange? She used to be in the Greyshields, right?” “Huh? Yea?” Drake turns his head towards the other male, a brow raised as he gives him his attention. “Oh you should have seen it! Jiroki thinks our costumes are bad, but Rebbecane was teasing her for hers!” “Hey don’t tell him about that!” Jiroki immediately starts to blush stubbornly, taking a step forward, but Aztook yanks her back as he still is trying to fix her costume. “Oh yea? What she say?” Ian gives a gnarly grin, very much anticipating the mischievous deed Fa’don is beginning. “Heh, she kept trying to make Jiro curl her arms up like a dinosaur.” Fa’don rears his hands back in demonstration. “And to ends her sentences with a ‘rawr’! I totally heard her play along, too!” “H-Hey!” “That wasn’t even the funniest thing; she even said someone should put a leash on her! Ho ho, that got a reaction out of some of the security!” “Oh really now?” Drake glances back at Jiroki with a wide and devilish smirk, ideas dancing in his head as he gives her a wink, and Ian just laughs at the story Fa’don shares. Sol’athen sighs with a roll of the eyes; at times, Jiroki could relate with Sol’athen on a spiritual level. Jiroki growls, clearly getting angrier, but Aztook holds her back. “Just a minute deary.~” Aztook has a chipper tone in his voice despite the taunts given at his wife. But she could feel his sightless gaze on him, enjoying her reactions, thriving for them, waiting until she’s riled up just enough before setting her loose. “You think you can so brazenly talk about me like that right in front of me?!” Jiroki hisses. “I just don’t think you should call our costumes stupid when you’re the one that should be on a leash!” Fa’don crosses his arms, head tilted back as if triumphant in the discussion. “Maybe I should call Sharpen over here!” Jiroki blushes immediately, Ian continues to erupt in laughter. “She’s going to kill you.” Sol’athen shakes his head at Ian, giving a sigh. “Done.~” Jiroki clenches her hands, itching to move. Just as she hears her mate finished helping she turns back and looks at him, then does a double take at the pumpkin mask he wore. “... Let me borrow that.” As the others continue to laugh and mock their boss Jiroki grabs the pumpkin off of Aztook’s head, shoving her own Saurok mask into his hands, and Aztook has one of the widest grins he’s had in a long time as he carefully watches his wife. “Prepare yourselves, the bells have tolled…” Jiroki starts, causing the others to look at her. “Shelter your weak, your young, and your old.” Bringing up the helm, she dons the mask of the Headless Horseman. “Each of you shall PAY the final sum!!” Whirling around she faced the four, her face covered entirely by the mask. “CRY for mercy! THE RECKONING HAS COME!” Drake, being the former mate of Jiroki, knew very well just how his ex could get. Giving Aztook a look, he throws up a peace sign, takes a few steps away, and then melds entirely into the shadows. The other three are left startled, giving their Shield Mother a few strange glances and looking amongst one another, and Ian is the one who manages to let out a loose laugh. “Haha, that’s a great impersonation Jir-” A thrum of magic in the air, and Jiroki’s glaive is summoned from mid air, the weapon soul bound to her. “We’re fucking dead, RUN!” Ian quickly pats Fa’don’s chest and starts to move back, the taller elf doing the same and the pair quickly bolt it down the path. As Jiroki begins to run, Sol’athen just stands there, squeezing his eyes shut and hoping upon hope not to get in the crossfire of Jiroki’s wrath; maybe she wouldn’t see him if he stood still. He’s left to wonder that fact as Jiroki just barrels past him, running after Ian and Fa’don. “How mad do you think she is?!” Fa’don asks mid run. “I don’t know-” Ian begins to respond, only to hear a swishing sound in the wind, and suddenly her glaive shoots past them and slams into the ground a bit ahead, causing Ian to jump out of the way. The Void elf lets out a high pitched shrill of a scream, and in his haste is consumed in his shadows and vanishes from sight. “That little shit- TRAITOR!!” Fa’don calls out as he’s left alone to run away from Jiroki, the she-elf still hot on his tail as they run into the forests of Elwynn. There’s a taunting laugh that echoes, Ian doing so from whatever depths of void he disappeared to, then silence follows as now it’s just the Kaldorei. “Kiki I’m sorry!!” Fa’don begins his rushed apologies, still running like the wind as Jiroki runs after him. “Can I take you out?! We can go to Dalaran! Boralus?!” He’s suddenly nailed in the back of the head by the pumpkin mask, nearly making him stumble and offsetting his own mask a bit, having to yank it off and shake his black hair out while running, almost ripping out his snake bite piercings in the process. “KIKI STOP!!” “GET BACK HERE!” (( @daily-writing-challenge​ ))

[caelesjjk]

Hellion (Demon!Ashton)

Hello sweet babies. This is the beginning of a supernatural series I’m going to be writing. The worlds are going to intertwine a bit, and you’ll see how thats going to work :)) I loved writing this so much and I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I do. It’s 9k words that im very proud of.

warnings: a bit of violence but thats about it, a small mention of alcohol use

Ivy Jane was what most people would consider a prodigy.

She began her career as an artist at the young age of 14. She painted, sculpted, welded, and drew like nothing anyone had ever seen. It didn’t seem possible for someone so young to have perfected their talent in such a short span of time. But she seemed to be the exception.

She sold her pieces for large amounts of money, far more money than any teenager should be able to get their hands on. But she was alone, thrown into the system as a toddler when she could no longer be cared for. She hated not having anyone to share her money with, but her success pulled her out of foster care and into her own penthouse high above New York City where her manager cared for her, or at least kept her alive so she could continue making him money. Richard was the closest thing she had to family.

But what no one knew was how Ivy Jane became such a good artist. When she was asked this question by interviewers, she simply played it off on her dark past and that she was projecting all of her teen angst into the art. But dark was only one word one might use to describe her past.

Ivy Jane made a deal. Not the type you make with a pinky promise, no this was the type of deal you made with blood. The type of deal that you make at a crossroads. The type that requires you to sell your soul to a handsome devil dressed in all black clothes. He makes 10 years sound like you’ve got all the time in the world.

“Come on then, sweetheart. What else do you need to know?” The demon asked. He was tall with broad shoulders and perfectly shaped lips.

“What happens after ten years?” Ivy asked.

“Your soul is mine, and you’ll be on your merry way to hell. But, as part of this deal I can come to you at any time for a favor.” He picks at his fingernails as if he’s bored to death.

“A favor?” She asks.

“Yes. And you’ll comply, or the deal is void and you’ll go straight to the pits with no questions asked.” He steps around her, his unhuman movements too quick for Ivy to follow, as he is suddenly about 10 feet away from her, sitting on one of the low branches of a tall oak tree.

“What’s it like in hell?” Ivy asks yet another question, driving the demon crazy.

“Listen, sweetheart, I don’t have all night. Either you take the deal or you don’t. Either way your choice isn’t going to hurt my nonexistent feelings.” He rolls his red eyes and lounges against the trunk of the tree.

She didn’t want to go back to that foster home. All she wanted was to be a famous artist, and in her fourteen year old mind, ten years of that was better than any amount of time in foster care.

“Okay.” She finally sighed. “You’ve got a deal.” Ivy put her hand out to shake his.

“Tsk tsk, sweetheart. That’s not how these things work.” The demon jumps down from the tree, his red hair that matched his eyes shining in the moonlight. He grabs her hand flipping it over so that her palm is facing upwards. “This deal requires blood.” He pulls out what appears to be a pocket knife, its silver and decorated intricately. And before she can protest, he’s slicing it across her palm, making her flinch from the pain.

Ivy can feel the blood pooling in her palm and dripping between the spaces of her fingers. The demon keeps hold of her hand, pulling out his contract and pressing her palm against it. After her blood has soaked into the paper, he throws the contract up into the air just as it bursts into flames and disappears behind a puff of smoke.

“That’s it? What now?” She asks.

“So many questions.” He rolls his eyes again and begins to walk to the center of the crossroads. “Don’t forget about my favor, Ivy Jane.” He drops his eye in a wink and then disappears. It happens so quickly that Ivy isn’t even sure she really saw him standing there at all.

Her fame began as quickly as she hoped it would. A painting that she had posted online, was suddenly getting the attention of millionaire art collectors. She had people begging for her work faster than she could create it. She thrived on the feeling of being wanted by so many people.

Richard, her manager, scooped her up and managed everything she was too busy to take care of herself. She was the most sought after artist for several years. But then everything stopped almost as quickly as it had started. She was lucky if she could sell enough to feed herself. Ivy had to move out of her penthouse and into a one bedroom apartment in much dingier part of the city. It was always impossibly noisy, making it impossible to work on anything new. Everything was falling apart even before her ten years was up and she had no idea why.

Ivy saw the demon now and then. He mostly haunted her dreams, but sometimes she would see his face in a crowd or on a random billboard as she rode the bus through the city, always making sure that she didn’t forget about him. But no matter how many times she asked, he never told her why her fame had suddenly stopped.

She was a mess, to say the least. She had turned to alcohol and practically drank herself into oblivion every night just to make life seem a little less shitty. But it didn’t matter what she did, she always woke up in the same hellhole apartment filled with half painted canvases and ashtrays filled with cigarette butts.

Tonight, Ivy found herself in the bar just around the corner from her apartment building. It was filled with smoke and the smell of cheap whiskey. She could hear the clanging of pool balls as they were hit around the tables. But she was currently having a hard time seeing straight after the bottle of vodka she had been nursing the past couple hours was suddenly half empty. The clear liquid burned her throat after each drink, but she didn’t care.

When she tried to stand up from the barstool, she stumbled and knocked over a few drinks of the people sitting beside her at the bar. Ivy didn’t stop to apologize and just kept walking towards the bathroom. She wanted to wash her face and try to sober up before she attempted to walk home.

The sink was disgusting and covered in grime and motorcycle grease, but Ivy turned on the cold water and started splashing it on her face. It wasn’t really helping at all. She straightened up slowly, closing one eye and trying to see herself in dingy old piece of glass that was being used as a mirror. And in her drunken haze, she could have sworn she saw someone in the mirror behind her. She spun around, almost falling over in the process, to see no one there. Alcohol must have been playing tricks on her tonight, but when she turned to look in the mirror he was there again, the demon, propped against the door of one of the empty stalls. This time when she spun around, he didn’t disappear, he only smiled wickedly as fear washed over her entire body.

“I see you’re doing well, sweetheart.” He stands up straight, disappearing momentarily and then reappearing right next to Ivy. “I’ve missed you.” He whispers against the shell of her ear, making her shiver uncontrollably.

“My ten years isn’t up for 6 months asshole, what the hell has been going on?” Her voice shakes a bit when she tries to back away from him.

“Whatever do you mean?” He pretends to be innocent with a smile on his face.

“No one’s bought a piece of art from me for years. Your end of the deal isn’t holding up.” Ivy stumbles a bit, reaching out to balance against the cold red bricks of the wall. She uses her arm to try and wipe the water and sweat from her face onto her leather jacket.

“I said I would make you a famous artist. I didn’t say I would make people want to buy your work or that your work would be any good. The fact that you’re washed up, isn’t my problem.” He waves her off and slowly walks around her.

“That…that’s not fair. You cheated me out of my entire life!” Ivy can feel the anger coursing through her veins and her hands ball into fists.

“You’ve spent the last nine and half years of your life as pathetically as possible. You travelled from city to city and did nothing with your time. Blaming me for your shit decisions, is just an excuse sweetheart.” His voice is deep and serious as he watches her through his round frame sunglasses.

Ivy hated knowing there was a small part of what he said that was right. She had gotten to a certain point in her life where she relied on the deal they had made to get her through, thinking that nothing could screw it up. But making her a decent human being wasn’t part of the deal. She chose to drink and party and let herself and her talent waste away. What kind of person trusts a demon anyways?

“So why are you here now?” She manages to choke out, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Remember that favor?” He wets his lips and pushes back some of his hair that had fallen on his forehead. Ivy’s stomach twisted but she nods ‘yes’. “I’ve come to collect on it, sweetheart.”

“What kind of favor are we talking about?” Ivy hiccupped, still half-drunk, but less than she was before she came in here.

“I need you to help me get to something. Something that I can’t get to on my own.” He continues to walk around her in a circle that is almost dizzying.

“There’s something the big bad demon can’t get by himself?” She hiccups again with a laugh.

“It’s Ashton, doll. Start calling me that.” He finally stops in front of her, looking over the rim of his dark sunglasses.

“You have a name?” Ivy starts to wobble on her feet, feeling dizzy.

“Yes? Why wouldn’t I?” Ashton says.

“I don’t feel so good.” She stumbles forward into Ashton’s chest, but he doesn’t move.

“Ridiculous human. Let’s get you home then.” Ashton grabs Ivy by the waist and hoists her over his shoulder.

She’s too drunk to protest, so she closes her eyes and lets him carry her out of the bar. Ivy can feel the crisp fall air of New York City practically hit her in the face just before she completely passes out in the arms of a demon.

___________________________________

The next morning, or maybe it was afternoon, Ivy slowly opened her eyes. The sunlight pouring in through the sheer white curtains, stinging her eyes and making her squint to try and see around the room. She couldn’t remember much, but there were definitely some weird things happening in her dreams last night. When she tries to sit up, her head starts to spin and the room starts to tilt.

“Fucking hell.” She says to herself.

“Not quite, sweetheart.” His voice comes from the doorway, making Ivy jump practically halfway across her bed.

“You…You’re actually here?” She breathes.

“Do we really need to go through all of this again? You owe me a favor, Ivy Jane. And I’m here to collect on it. End of story.” He walks into the room, leaning across the bed balancing one hand against the mattress and the other holding out a glass of water. Ivy flinches away at first. “I’m not going to bite, sweetheart. We barely know each other.” He smiles wickedly, the dimples in his cheeks showing in a way that made Ivy’s whole face heat up.

“I suppose there’s no way I’m getting out of this?” Ivy sighs, taking the glass of water and putting it to her lips. He watches with fascination as she drinks every drop. “What are you looking at?” She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Human essentials interest me. All the things you require to function are kind of pathetic.” He sits on the edge of the bed and watches Ivy’s nose scrunch up in confusion.

“What did you say your name was again?” She shakes her head and rubs at her temples.

“Ashton.” He replies, eyes never leaving her.

“Are you going to stare at me like this all day or?” Ivy pulls the blankets up higher on her body. Ashton scoffs.

“We have a very long trip ahead of us. I suggest you shower and pack a bag.” Ashton stands up from the bed and starts to walk back towards the doorway.

“A trip? You aren’t serious?” Ivy laughs a little, nervousness evident in the sound.

“I’ll get you some food. Take a shower, you smell like a biker bar.” Ashton smirks before walking out of Ivy’s room. Ivy quietly mocks his instructions when he’s out of sight. “I can still see you, sweetheart.” Ashton says from the kitchen.

“Fucking demon.” She grumbles, flinging the blankets off of her body and standing up off the bed to stretch her dehydrated muscles.

“Heard that too.” Ashton says.

“Can you turn off your super demon hearing so I can bitch about you in peace?” Ivy shouts as she enters her bathroom and closes the door. Her back presses to it and her eyes close. She had no idea what she was in for, or what she had gotten herself into but there was no taking it back. She made a deal with a crossroads demon that could never be undone.

_________________________________

“Rome?! As in Rome, Italy?! That’s where we’re going?!” Ivy whisper shouted at Ashton as they walked swiftly through the airport.

“Is there any other? Do try to keep up, sweetheart. We’re in a hurry.” Ashton’s long legs allow him to move in much faster strides than Ivy as she struggles with her suitcase and carryon bag.

“Why me?” She suddenly asks, coming to a halt. Ashton stops, turning on his heel to walk back towards Ivy.

“Because you belong to me, understand?” He says through gritted teeth.

“Don’t you have other contracts? Someone else you could get to do your bitch work?” Ivy stands her ground and doesn’t back away from him.

“Of course I do. But I prefer to torture you and only you, Ivy Jane. Now move your pretty ass, and get it onto this plane, yeah?” Ashton takes off his round frame sunglasses and looks down at her.

“Why aren’t your eyes red?” She asks, ignoring the ass comment. They were a newly gorgeous green color, one that reminded Ivy of the soft moss that covers the rocks in the woods. She didn’t hate looking at them when they were this color.

“I swear, you ask more questions than any other human.” He grumbles.

“It’s a gift.” Ivy shrugs her shoulders and begins walking towards the gate to their plane. Ashton rolls his eyes with a small smile on his face before following her onto the plane. When they find their seats, Ivy becomes curious again.

“Please don’t ask another question.” Ashton sighs.

“Why can’t you just teleport us to Rome? Would have saved some cash on these first class tickets.” Ivy reclines in her seat and relaxes her arms over her head. Ashton laughs quietly.

“Halfway across the planet is a bit far for teleporting. I’d like to make sure we get there, and don’t end up in the middle of the ocean, if that’s okay with you?” He slips his black blazer off of his shoulders and settles in his seat next to Ivy.

“Would it matter much for me? My life is practically over at this point.” Her voice didn’t show any signs of worry, and that was a little unsettling to Ashton.

“Maybe you should try to enjoy what you’ve got left, yeah? “ He doesn’t look at her.

“I’m sure this trip to Rome isn’t for vacation purposes, Ashton.” Ivy sighs.

“No, but I promise it will be better than drinking yourself to death in that bar.” His voice is serious, but he pops in some earbuds and closes his eyes. The perfect way to get her to stop asking so many questions.

Ivy watched the world by pass by her through the window of the plane. The sun was going down over New York and it was more beautiful from up here than it had ever been down there. Something about the way the oranges and reds painted the blue sky and made some of the prettiest purples Ivy had ever seen, was calming. She itched to paint it, to appreciate it just a little. But any time she felt that way, she always picked up a bottle of vodka instead, because she knew she didn’t deserve to feel good, not after what she had done.

“Champagne?” A flight attendant asked as she stopped her drink cart.

“God yes.” Ivy leaned her body over Ashton to take a glass from her.

“No, no alcohol. I need you coherent and completely focused when we get there.” Ashton plucked the glass from Ivy’s hands.

“Come on Ashton, it’s one glass.” Ivy takes the glass back and brings it to her lips, tipping the glass back completely.

She held it there a moment, and nothing came out of the glass. Ivy opened her eyes to see that the bubbly liquid that once occupied the champagne flute was completely empty of it’s contents. Ivy stared at it for a moment, and Ashton watched as her eyebrows scrunched together in confusion before she put the pieces together and understood that he had in fact, made the champagne disappear from the glass.

“No alcohol.” Ashton brings his face closer to her, Ivy’s face still scrunched up in confusion. “Your need to defy me is getting old, darling. So please just do as I say from here on out.” He says the words quietly, only loud enough for Ivy to hear.

Ivy rolls her eyes, shoving the champagne glass at Ashton before falling back into her seat with an annoyed grunt. She hated how much power this demon had over her. He literally owned her life and she had no choice but to abide by everything he asked. But as hard as Ashton tried to be a scary and intimidating demon, there was something soft about him. Something in the color of his green eyes that made him seem a bit more human and annoyingly attractive.  If Ashton was going to damn her soul to hell, maybe she shouldn’t go down easily.

___________________________________

Ivy felt a weight lift off of her chest as their car drove through the cobblestone streets of Rome. It was beautiful here no matter what time of year it was. There were ropes of lights hung across the old stone buildings and a constantly busy marketplace. There was music playing in every direction and the mouth-watering smells of the endless bakeries was almost more than she could handle. The small smile on her face must have given her away.

“Enjoying yourself, Ivy Jane?” Ashton said from the driver’s seat.

“Don’t get used to it. I’ll be back to my wallowing in my own self-pity soon enough.” She turned her head slightly to watch his face. He was kind of beautiful with all the lights bouncing off his prominent jawline as they drove through the streets.

“Always looking forward to that.” He teased as they pulled up outside of what appeared to be a rather upscale hotel. “We are going to crash here for the night. Tomorrow we have a lot of work to do.” Ashton tosses the car key to a valet, like he’s done it a million times before.

Ivy waits patiently as Ashton checks them into the hotel. She kept her eyes on the gold trim and intricate designs of the architecture inside the old hotel. She wished more than anything she had a sketch pad that she could start drawing in. She never wanted to forget the way anything here looked. But while she was waiting, someone caught her eye as they walked by. He was tall, dressed completely in black, with blonde curls styled back away from his face. As soon as she saw him Ivy felt a chill consume her whole body. He was dangerously handsome, and his eyes were on her as well, smiling and biting into his bottom lip. There were two girls under his arms, laughing and not taking notice as he practically drank Ivy in. She felt uneasy under his gaze and quickly turned away to look for Ashton. It didn’t take long, because as soon as she turned her head he was right in front of her.

“You need to come with me, now.” Ashton’s jaw was tense as he grabbed onto Ivy’s wrist and pulled her towards the elevators. Once the gold colored doors shut, he had her pressed against the mirrored wall with his body, hands pressed to the mirror on either side of her head.

“Ashton…” She started to say.

“Listen closely, sweetheart. I only want to explain this once.” His mouth was dangerously close to hers, and Ivy felt herself wanting to close that little gap between them, and it made her stomach twist to think of it. “This city is heaped full of vampires. That guy down in the lobby? He was definitely one of them and he’s definitely going to tell the rest of his coven that I’m here. So now we have even less time to prepare you than I had originally planned. Understand?” Ashton’s eyes never left hers, and she could see flakes of red start to melt through his green irises. Ivy nodded yes in agreement.

Just as she finishes nodding the gold doors ding and slide open to the floor Ashton had selected. He stays looking at her a moment longer before using his inhuman speed and practically vanishing all together. Once Ivy collected herself and evened out her breathing, she found him leaning against the door of their room at the other end of the hallway.

“Are you planning on filling me on any of this? Because I feel like I know absolutely nothing about what is going on here.” Ivy walks past him and into the room. She throws her bag down on the bed only to be startled by Ashton’s sudden presence behind her.

“This favor I need…” He starts, pushing his hair back away from his forehead. “I need you to get something for me. And it requires sending you into a den of vampires with no protection.” Ashton sits on the corner of the bed and watches her face go pale.

“Do I look like the type of person who deals with vampires?! I mean we are talking about the real thing right? The blood drinking kind?!” Ivy paces the floor in front of the bed.

“If you do as I say, then you’ll likely come out of this unscathed. And if you succeed, I’ll add another 10 years to our contract.” Ashton’s elbows are rested on his knees as he looks down at his fingers that are playing with the silver rings on each of his fingers.

“What exactly do I have to do?” She stops in front of him, just a foot away as he slowly looks up at her.

“These vampires…they stole something from me. Something that I need to get back. And they’ve taken it somewhere that I can’t go.” Ashton stands up, walking over to the mini bar area and pouring some water into a cup.

“Where can’t you go?” Ivy asks, following him without even thinking.

“Holy ground. The vamps do enjoy their nightly raves in the catacombs though, which is where you come in.” Ashton hands her the cup of water and she takes it, backing up until she’s sitting back on the bed, head spinning with all these thoughts.

“So you want me to walk into a vampire rave and retrieve this thing you need? Aren’t they going to know I’m human?” Ivy asks.

“Of course. They always have humans at their parties, they need someone to feed on don’t they?” Ashton smiles, knowing that he wasn’t helping the sick feeling in Ivy’s stomach.

“And you expect me to somehow slip right in and not become some vampires blood bag? Do you hear how insane that sounds, Ashton?” Ivy’s voice cracks a little as she speaks and Ashton can’t help smile a bit more at the sound.

“You’re perfect.” He says without thinking. “For this job, I mean.” Ashton quickly corrects himself, clearing his throat and sitting down on the other side of the bed.

“What am I looking for while I’m in there?” Ivy asks, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as a rose color appears on her cheeks.

“It’s an amulet. It’s a pentagon shaped, black jewel on a gold chain. And I’ve got to have it before the end of the night tomorrow when the moon is full.” Ashton feels like he may have said too much to the girl with so many questions.

“And what will this amulet do?” She asked, Ashton should have known.

“I need it to bring back a friend of mine. A friend that was banished a long time ago.” He doesn’t look up, but Ivy can see that the subject pains him a little when his jaw sets tightly and his fists ball up.

“Will you tell me your plan at least?” She asks with a long sigh.

“In the morning. Right now, the human requires sleep.” Ashton stands from the bed and walks around to pull the blankets down from where they’re tucked.

“And you don’t?” Ivy raises a questioning eyebrow.

“Demons don’t need sleep. I only sleep if I want to. This isn’t one of those times.” He motions with his head for her to get into the bed and she doesn’t argue, exhaustion had started setting in not long ago.

“What are you going to do?” Ivy asks, pulling the lush blankets around her and settling into the bed.

“Preparations for tomorrow. Go to sleep, Ivy Jane.” Ashton flicks off the light switch and goes to the couch in the other room. He does his best not to look back at the bed, knowing the longer he looks at her the harder it will be to look away.

He sat on the couch with his plans spread out across the coffee table for a few hours. Going over them again and again. He needed to believe that somehow he would make this work this time. He went through this every full moon, trying to get back the amulet that would set his friend free from his imprisonment. All the other humans had failed him, losing their lives to a vampire, or if they did make it out it was always empty handed, and Ashton was forced to send them straight to hell, merely because he couldn’t stand to look at them a moment longer.

But there was something about this girl. Something that drove him absolutely mad. He hated that human softness he still carried with him after hundreds of years. He cared about her wellbeing, and that had never happened before. And he had waited until there was no other choice to put her in danger. She was his last hope to succeed.

Ashton could hear the soft snores escaping Ivy Jane’s mouth from the other side of the room. He wished that he hated the sound, but it was more soothing than anything else. And before he knew what he was doing, he was on his feet and walking towards the bed. He found himself lying down on the mattress on his back with his arms resting behind his head. He made sure not to shift the bed too much and wake her, but as soon as he was settled, like a magnet, Ivy was rolling over and tucking herself into Ashton’s side. He was frozen, not sure what he should do. Her body against him sent an unfamiliar warm feeling through his human form. There was a look of almost disgust on his face when he realized that he…felt something. He wanted to shake it away, but then her soft hand slid up his chest and gripped onto the collar of his shirt in comfort. And Ashton couldn’t fight the urge anymore, so he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer without another thought.

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

“Wake up.” A voice whispered next to Ivy’s ear. It was so soft, she wasn’t sure she had actually heard it at all. “Wake up, beautiful.” The voice said again. Ivy could have sworn the voice was in her head. She carefully started to open her eyes. “Get dressed and meet me downstairs, quickly now sweetheart.”

Ivy jolted up in the bed then. Ashton’s voice was quite literally in her head, and he was nowhere to be seen. His demon abilities were a constant surprise. She sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed at her face a few times trying to make sure things were real. Ivy wasn’t sure if she had dreamt that she was being held by Ashton all night, or if it had actually happened and the fact that it didn’t bother her in the slightest if it had, was a little strange for her.

She got dressed quickly, throwing her hair up messily. On her way out of the door, Ivy noticed a bagel and to-go coffee sitting on the counter top with a note. Her heart started to beat just a little faster.

Eat this, human. You’re going to need it. Is what the note read in beautiful cursive handwriting. Ivy smiled and rolled her eyes playfully. She held the bagel in her mouth as she gathered her things and hurried out the door.

When she arrived downstairs in the lobby, she could see Ashton waiting for her by the front doors. He was standing there with a small smile on face and his arms resting behind his back. But what stood out he most, was that he wasn’t wearing his normal black dress clothes. Instead, he had on a fitted black tshirt and black gym shorts. It was a very different look for him, but it made him look almost relaxed, and that was something Ivy could get used to seeing. She tried to bite her lip as she approached him and hide the smile that was trying to spread across her face, but it wasn’t much use.

“Good morning.” Ashton said just as she stopped in front of him.

“Is it?” Ivy asked, taking another dramatic bite of her bagel, making Ashton laugh quietly.

“We shall see. Come on then. We don’t have much time.” Ashton turns and then offers Ivy his arm to hold onto while they walked. She raised an adorable eyebrow at him for only a short moment before taking his arm and letting him lead her outside of the hotel to where the car was waiting.

__________________________________________

They drove outside of the busy city for quite some time. Ivy tried to soak up as much of the countryside as she could, hoping maybe one day she would have some time to paint it. But she wasn’t going to get her hopes up, when her only hope was to retrieve an amulet from a den of vampires.

Ashton drove suddenly pulled off onto a side road made of gravel and rocks until they reached a large open field with some wooded off to one side. The sun was hovering off in the distance, really make that red color of Ashton’s hair pop. He stopped the car on the side of the road, taking off his sunglasses to look over at Ivy.

“Just beyond that wooded area, is a church. The church has miles of catacombs beneath it, and I can’t get close to it without burning from the inside out.” He pauses for a moment to watch her face. He didn’t want to do this to her. She was the one human he wanted to keep safe. “The vampires have parties there, almost nightly, and they keep the amulet here so I can’t get to it.”

“And I’m going to find an amulet, somewhere in the miles of catacombs below an old terrifying church?” Ivy asks, eyes meeting his. Ashton nods. “Perfect.” Ivy sighs.

“What do you know about vampires?” Ashton asks.

“They drink blood. Don’t like the sunlight. The obvious things.” Ivy responds.

“Vampires are deceiving. It’s part of their power of sorts. They can lure you in without you even knowing what’s happened. They use humans for blood and sex and these parties they have are practically just for those two things.” Ashton explains, not sure how Ivy would react to something like this.

“Okay. And how am I going to get past them?” Ivy tries to put on her brave face now.

“You just need to fit in. But you also need to know how to protect yourself. Come with me.” Ashton opens his car door and walks around towards the trunk, where he waits for Ivy to join him. She takes a few deep breaths before exiting the car and joining Ashton at the back of the car.

“Can you fight?” He asks suddenly.

“Fight? Fight vampires? You’re kidding right?” Ivy half laughs.

“If things go badly, I want you to at least be able to protect yourself.” This was something Ashton didn’t do with the others.

“I’ve never fought anyone, Ashton.” She tells him.

“We have work to do then.” Ashton reaches into the trunk of the car and pulls out a long wooden box. There are symbols carved into the top and sides that Ivy does not recognize. Ashton opens the box to show her what’s inside. “This is a vampire stake, and you’re going to use it if you need to, alright?”

“You want me to stab a vampire with that? Ashton, this is getting more and more unreal.” Ivy pushes her hair away from her face in exasperation.

“It’s only if things go badly, okay? I’m going to teach you how to fight the best that I can in the next few hours. It’s better than sending you in there with nothing.” He closes the box and looks away from her eyes.

Ivy felt nervous. But it wasn’t because she was about to walk into a den of vampires, no she was nervous about disappointing the demon who owned her soul. She didn’t know why her feelings had suddenly changed, but she wasn’t scared of him anymore.

“Alright, demon. Teach me to fight.” Ivy shrugs her shoulders and motions for him to lead the way. Ashton smiles and walks past her into the middle of the field.

“Show me what you’ve got, sweetheart.” Ashton puts his arms out at his sides, giving her a free shot.

“I can’t hit you…” Ivy almost mumbles the words.

“I promise that you won’t hurt me.” He tries to encourage her.

Ivy looks down at her hands for a moment, contemplating how to go about this, when she suddenly hears his voice in her head again.

You’re thinking too much. Just hit me.

“What’s with this whole mind talking thing? It’s a little weird.” She laughs.

“It’s how I’m going to be with you when you’re inside the catacombs. I can hear you, and you can hear me.” He steps closer to her.

“Can you always hear what I’m thinking?” Ivy swallows hard.

“No. Only if your thoughts are sent to me directly. But I could guess…” Ashton disappears a moment, then reappears behind Ivy, his mouth against the shell of her ear. “Are you thinking of that shiver you feel when I’m near you?” His lips brush against her ear making her eyes fall shut. “Or maybe that knot in your stomach that appears when I call you sweetheart?” The tips of his fingers are brushing up her arm.

Ivy lets out a shaky breath, keeping her eyes closed tightly.

“That’s right, Ivy Jane. You’re mine.” Ashton’s words have a direct line between her legs. Her eyes snap open and she spins around quickly only to see that he isn’t there anymore. Ivy whips around again, looking all around the open field, not seeing Ashton anywhere.

“Ashton?” She asks.

Over here. His voice says in her head. She spins around again, feeling his presence but still not seeing him.

Here. He says again. Ivy’s eyes can’t find him as she frantically looks around. And then suddenly he’s behind her again, pulling one of her arms behind her back and pinning it there. Ivy struggles against him for a moment until he speaks again.

“You’ve got be aware of everything. Don’t let them get behind you, easy access to your throat.” Ivy stills in her struggling when Ashton runs the tip of his nose softly and slowly up the side of her neck. Her whole body shutters.

“Anything else?” Ivy asks.

“You’ve got to be quick.” He says, releasing her arm and turning Ivy’s body to face him. “If they’re coming at you, you’ve got to find the quickest way out.”

Ashton worked with her all day long, showing Ivy as many moves as he could. He showed her some old blueprints of the catacombs in hopes that she might be able to remember something that would help her get out as fast as possible if need be. But now he needed to give her the final touch, one that he wasn’t extremely pleased about some vampire seeing but it had to be done.

“It isn’t another stake, is it?” Ivy teased as they walked back to the car.

“No, no more stakes.” Ashton opened the trunk of the car again, pulling out a white shopping bag and dangling it in front of her.

“What’s this?” Ivy took the bag from his hands and started pulling the item clothing out.

“So you’ll fit in.” He watches her face carefully. Ivy pulled the dress out of the bag, holding it up so she could see it.

“Let me get this straight. On top of everything else, you want me to do all of this in a goddamn dress?” Ivy’s eyes are wide as she looks over at Ashton, who has a big grin on his face.

“Just put the dress on, Ivy Jane.” Ashton shook his head a few times, shoving his hands into the pockets of his gym shorts.

The dress was all black and floor length. Ivy couldn’t imagine fighting a vampire in a dress like this, but then she noticed the slit going all the way up one side of the dress. She was more nervous than ever.

“Turn around.” She makes a circular motion with her finger, asking Ashton to run around while she changed. He rolls his green eyes, turning to face away from where she was changing behind the trunk. After a few minutes of scrambling into the dress, Ivy huffs out a long breath and taps Ashton on the shoulder. “What do you think?” She asks.

Ashton could barely keep himself from completely ravishing her right here right now. Ivy looked perfect. It complimented every part of her. And that slit that went all the way up to her hip, would likely be his undoing. But he cleared his throat, and took a few steps towards her.

“You’re fucking beautiful.” He says with a quiet laugh following. “One more thing.” Ashton reaches into the trunk, pulling out the stake and a leather thigh holster.

“I’ve got to carry that thing on my thigh?” She asks with wide eyes.

“No better place.” Ashton smiles wickedly. “Come here and sit back.” He motions for her to sit down on the hood of the car. Ivy walks around to the front of the car, sitting down and scooting back just a bit, the material of the dress slipping around her leg as she lift up towards him. Her heart was beating so fast she was sure that he could hear it.

“Go on then.” Ivy says, leaning back on her hands as Ashton steps forward with his eyes on hers, letting Ivy press her foot to his chest so she can continue to hold up her leg while he buckles the holster to her thigh.

“Won’t they be able to see it?” Ivy breathes out when Ashton’s hands ghost from the top of her thigh down to her ankle.

“I’ve put a glamour on the stake, they wont be able to see it.” He says the words against the skin of her ankle that he’s moved up to his mouth. Ivy can feel her entire body quake.

“How much time do I have?” She manages to spill out, eyes falling closed at the sensation of his lips on her skin.

“You need to have the amulet to me before the sun rises.” He’s pressing kisses up her leg. Ashton wants her, but he’s got a mission to complete first. He gently puts her leg down and watches as her pretty lips begin to pout.

“I guess I need to go?” Ivy sighs.

“The party will have started now.” Ashton helps Ivy stand up straight on her feet, keeping her close to him.

“Show me where this church is?” Ivy asks, looking down at her feet. Ashton reaches up, pulling the hair tie out of her hair and letting it fall over her shoulders. Ashton’s pointer finger hooks under her chin and pulls her eyes up to his.

“You’ve got so much life left to live, Ivy Jane, so please come back to me.” He leans down and presses his forehead to hers.

“That’s the plan.” She whispers, hands itching to reach out and touch him.

“Come on. I’ll show you.” Ashton’s fingers lace between Ivy’s as he walks her across the field towards the wooded area.

Once they’ve walked a ways into the woods, and the church comes into sight, Ashton comes to a sudden stop. When he looks down at his hands he can see fire trying to seep through his pores. He’s gotten too close.

“This is where I stop.” He presses a kiss to the back of her hand before letting it go.

“See you soon?” Ivy feels silly after she says it.

“Soon.” Ashton repeats. She smiles at him, though it’s a weak one, and then turns to walk towards the church before she changes her mind completely. “Ivy Jane?” She hears from behind her.

“Don’t let any filthy vamps touch you in that dress, yeah?” Ashton smiles, putting his hands back in his pockets.

“I make no promises.” Ivy teases, turning back towards the church and feeling her stomach tighten.

The church is a decaying relic to say the least, there isn’t much left of it at all. The old yellow bricks are lying in random piles throughout the area. But what finally catches her attention is the sound of electronic music coming from one of the piles of bricks. And as she approaches it, she can see that it’s actually an entrance to what she assumes is the catacombs. Ivy crawls over the bricks carefully and begins to descend the stairs leading down into a black hallway.

Ivy’s breathing is uneven and ragged. She can’t see a thing, but she can hear the music. The catacombs smell musty and damp. There was nothing appealing about any of this, and she couldn’t imagine why it would be a vampires chosen place for parties. Her fingertips stayed on the wall as she followed it through the dark. It had seemed like forever, but she finally found the series of rooms holding the vampires and their party.

There were hundreds of people, it could have been an actual night club down here. There were colored lights flashing and people dancing everywhere. Ivy walked into the party area, bumping into sweaty bodies and glass cups full of alcoholic liquid. She had no idea where to begin looking for this amulet.

Find the vampires. They’ll be sitting back watching the humans. Ashton’s voice suddenly said in her head, almost making her jump.

“Fancy seeing you here.” A voice that Ivy didn’t recognize says from behind her. She whirls around to see the curly haired blonde vampire from the hotel standing in front of her.

Get away from him. Quickly.

Ivy rolls her eyes at the sound of Ashton’s voice.

“Um hey there. I heard about this great party.” Ivy tries to sound sincere.

“I know why you’re here.” Is all he says in return.

“For a great time?” Ivy knows she isn’t coming off as convincing at all. The vampire laughs.

“You want the amulet don’t you? The one that demons been after?” He says.

“I um…no. What demon?” Ivy stumbles all over her words.

You’re a terrible actress, you know that? Ask him what he knows. Ashton’s voice says in her head. Ivy rolls her eyes.

“We saw each other at the hotel. I know exactly what that demons been up to.” He says, stepping up closer to Ivy so only she can hear him. “And I want to help.” Ivy’s eyes almost pop out of her skull when she hears the words.

“You want to help me?” She whispers.

“Yes, I do. I’m Luke.” He puts his hand out to shake hers, she stares at it for a moment.

See what he’s willing to do. Ashton says.

“Ivy.” She shakes his hand quickly, before Luke is pulling her off to the side.

“We can do this quickly and effortlessly, understand? One of the older vamps has been wearing that amulet around down here for a couple hundred years. I had one of the girls he’s been drinking on tonight take some things to make him sleep. But it won’t last long, so you’ve got to get in there now.” Luke pulls Ivy along by the elbow, showing her to another room full of vampires.

“I’m just going to walk in there and take it?” Her eyes furrow. “That’s too easy.”

“It can be. Now lets go, follow my lead.” Luke says.

“Why are you doing this?” Ivy asks.

“That’s a story for another time, Ivy.” He smiles, and his fangs withdraw just the slightest bit.

Kick his ass. I’m serious. Ashton comes into her head.

“Stop it.” Ivy says, meant for Ashton.

“Stop what?” Luke says.

“Nothing. Lets go.” Ivy changes the subject quickly.

Luke wraps his arm around Ivy’s shoulders lazily, leading her into the vampire room. She could see the camp he was referring to almost immediately. He was sitting on a velvet chair, a leather vest covering some of his top half and leather pants on his legs. But he appeared to be asleep, the gold chalice in his hands was tipped over with blood dripping from its rim.

“I’ll keep the rest of them busy, you grab that thing off his neck.” Luke whispers into her ear.

I’ll kill the damn vampire myself. Ashton’s jealous voice says. Ivy smiles momentarily.

Luke takes his arm away and walks over to the group of vamps sitting around on the furniture. They all look over to him when he starts talking and Ivy doesn’t hesitate to move towards the older vampire. He’s snoring quite loudly, which is a relief to say the least. One of the female vampires looks over to Ivy, and she freezes, pretending to lean against the chair like she had been there the whole time. The female vamp looks at her suspiciously but then looks back to Luke.

Ivy knows she cant get to the clasp for the chain behind his neck, so she simply wraps her hand around the amulet and pulls until it pops off of him. She looks down at her hand in amazement. She did it. She actually fucking did it. The older vampire stirs slightly, making Ivy jump away from him, and the attention in the room to suddenly turn towards her. She shoves the amulet into the front of her dress, in hopes that no one saw it. They say nothing, but they don’t take their eyes from where she stands.

“Luke…” Ivy says.

“Run!” Luke shouts, grabbing Ivy’s arm and pulling her out into the hallway. Luke uses his speed to get her back to the entrance in no time at all. Ivy can barely breathe. “Get out of here, alright? Go.” Luke tells her.

“What about you? I cant leave you with them!” Ivy tries to pull his arm.

“Ivy!” She hears Ashton shout from the distance.

“I’ll hold them off so you can get out of here. I’m good.” Luke gently pushes her out of the entrance so that she’s back outside next to the pile of bricks.

“Thank you.” She tells Luke sincerely. He gives her a tight smile, before disappearing back down the entrance. Ivy can hear the crunching of concrete and the hissing from the vampires coming from inside, so she starts running towards Ashton.

She’s almost reached him, when someone grabs her from behind and throws her down on her back. Ivy winces in pain, but doesn’t have time to think before the vampire is on top of her. It’s the female vampire from inside the catacombs.

“Ivy!” Ashton yells. He can’t get to her, the closer he gets the more his veins turn to fire. He watches in horror as the vampire continues to overpower Ivy. And he decides in that moment that he doesn’t care, and he uses his inhuman speed to reach the two of them scrambling on the ground.

Ashton can feel the fire start to burn inside him. But he forces on, and grabs the vampire by the back of shirt and effortlessly rips her off of Ivy. When Ashton goes to reach for Ivy, the vampire jumps on his back, clawing at him and kicking the backs of his legs. Ashton whips around, trying to get her off of him while the fire burns and starts to crack through his skin. He can hold back the scream that leaves his mouth.

Ivy scrambles off the ground, ripping the stake from it’s holster on her thigh. Ashton can’t stay still while he’s writhing in pain, but somehow, Ivy manages get up behind the vampire and shove the stake through her back and into her heart. Ivy watches as the vampire freezes up and slowly rolls off of Ashton’s back and onto the ground.

The fire is starting to consume Ashton from the inside out, he has to get off this holy ground as fast as possible. Ivy grabs his hand and pulls him to his feet, hearing him groan over and over from the pain.

“Get me out of here, please.” He begs.

“I’ve got you.” Ivy helps Ashton move and walk back towards the car. Once they’ve gotten to the tree line, Ivy lets Ashton sit down.

“Give me a moment.” He says. His fingers dig into the earth around him and his whole body starts to glow. Ivy watches with wide eyes until he’s back to himself, standing up as if nothing happened. “Quickly now, sweetheart. There isn’t much time left.” Ashton grabs her around the waist and teleports them right next to the car.

“What now?” Ivy asks as Ashton fumbles around in the trunk, gather things in his arms.

“Now, we free my friend.” Ashton says. He picks up a rock from the ground and smashes it over top of the amulet, busting it into tiny black starts of glass and gold metal.

Ivy watches as Ashton hovers his hands above the pieces and began to say some sort of incantation that she wasn’t able to understand. He said the words over and over as the full moon got higher and higher in the sky. It happened so quickly, Ivy wasn’t sure she actually saw it, but black clouds suddenly covered the moon momentarily like smoke and then whisked away as Ashton stood up. The ground shook beneath them and cracked open as tiny black shards of the amulet fell into the earth.

“What’s happening?” Ivy shouted, and Ashton laced his fingers through hers again, pulling her close so that she could hide her face in his chest as the ground continued to crumble.

Ivy looked up long enough to see spouts of fire shoot up from the cracks in the earth, and for someone…or something to begin crawling out of the ground. He stood up, brushing ashes and soot off his all black clothes before he looked up to see Ashton and Ivy standing there.

“Finally found me did ya?” The man from the fiery ground says.

“Only took a few hundred years and a very determined woman.” Ashton answers, walking towards the stranger and wrapping him up into a long hug.

“Wh…Who are you?” Ivy says from Ashton, her curiosity getting the better of her. The man hugging Ashton brings his eyes up to her, stepping out of the hug with Ashton but still standing next to him. The man pushed his hand through his black curls and licked his lips before he spoke again.

“I’m the Boogieman, dollface.” He said with a wicked smile on his perfect face. Ashton elbowed him playfully and laughed a little.

“This is Calum, Ivy. He’s been a friend…since forever.” Ashton walked over to Ivy, holding her face in his hands.

“Did I just help you release another demon onto earth?” Ivy asked. Ashton laughs again.

“Sort of. But Calum and I won’t cause too much trouble.” He presses his forehead against hers.

“And why is that?” Ivy asks, her hands finally finding chest and shoulders, memorizing the way he feels.

“I’d much rather get into trouble with you.”

A/N: there is going to be a very smutty epilogue to follow this in a few days!! but please let me know what you think!!

tag list:  @maoricth @slimthicccal @bbycal @kinglyhood @sugarcoated-pain @shower-me-with-roses @c-dizzle-swizzlex @calumculture @sugarcoatedcalum@calthesensation @cheyenne-in-wonderland @softboycal @moonlightcalum@unconditionalcalum @irwinkitten @singt0mecalum @angelbabylu @5sosnsfw@aspiringwildfire @myloverboyash @cal-puddies @lashtoncurls

[cptnsantiago]

take me home 

1/?

~ compulsive

read on ao3

Jake Peralta is a compulsive shopper.

From massage chairs to more massage chairs, if Jake sees something he wants, he gets it. This debt inducing habit lessens when he started dating Amy, but not even her rational thinking effect could stop him at times. Only two months into their relationship Jake had bought an actual lightsaber . Not the fake plastic ones for children, but the ones that look so real that even Amy geeked out a little when she saw it.

Marriage had brought this habit to almost a complete halt. With Amy’s master budgeting, Jake still had a little money to spend on whatever he wanted, but even he had just been putting it into savings for their future .

Their future involving a family, a new house for their family to grow one day. Amy couldn’t be more proud of how he had matured, still managing to keep the goofy personality that she fell in love with. She falls more in love with him every day, and she doesn’t want the feeling to ever go away.

So she thinks her heart might explode the day they figure out she’s pregnant. They had been trying for just under six months, and he had been so involved in her binders and her anxieties. He was there every step of the way, to listen to her fears and discussing the best positions for conceiving before making a very appropriate title of your sextape joke. When she realised they were out of pregnancy tests, he sprinted to the bodega and back in under ten minutes so they could know .

When the timer is up, he’s finally caught his breath but immediately loses it again when Amy is nodding her head frantically, a smile stretched on her face and fat tears falling down her cheeks. He spends some time with her crying on the bathroom floor before he’s rushing to get the pregnancy binder they had been working on together. So they spend the day reading the crap out of the binder, making doctors appointments, more research.

This is when Jake’s dangerous habit makes a comeback.

A bout of sickness had come over her in the late afternoon, leaving her exhausted beyond what she could possibly understand. Except she understood, because of the reading.

Amy last remembers resting her head on Jake’s lap, one of his hands stroking her hair while the other held his phone, still researching while a movie played in the background.

It’s dark outside when she awakes. Jake now has his laptop balanced on one leg while her head still rests on the other. Amy groans, burying her face in his stomach as she stretches her limbs out. “I don’t know if I like pregnancy.”

“It’s only been a day, Ames, give it a chance.” Jake teases, his spare hand moving back to stroke loose strands of hair out of her face. “Good morning, babe.”

“You feel this tired and nauseous for a day and see how you feel.” Amy sighs, a smile still unable to stay off her face at the feeling of his hands in her hair. “What time is it?”

“8:30?” Jake guesses, before looking at his screen and confirming it with a nod. “Yikes, I’ve been on Amazon for three hours.”

“I’ve been out for three hours ?” Amy gasps, “I haven’t napped this hard since I got the flu in college and had to ask for… an extension .”

Jake takes a moment to laugh at how upset she still was about extending a paper all those years ago. “Okay, nerd. You’ve actually been asleep for about four and a half hours.”

“Four and a half hours?” Jake flinches at her screech but quickly recovers. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“It’s been a big day. You needed it.” Jake shrugs with a smile, “Plus I tried. You were passed out . Almost took you to the hospital but your breathing was fine.”

“I love you, weirdo.” Amy kisses him quickly before looking at the laptop screen. “Jake-”

“Now before you say anything-”

“Jake, you have 27 things in your cart!”

“It’s all important, I promise!”

Amy snatches the laptop out of his grip, scrolling quickly through the contents of the list. All baby things. Mostly onesies, but also a few books, a rattle. Amy then looks at the onesies. Novelty ones, of course.

Dad’s a muggle, mam’s a witch.

I still live with my parents.

World’s most expensive alarm clock.

I pooped today!

Yippee ki-yay mother father

Those were her favourites. Amy can’t decide if she’s furious or overwhelmed by love for the worst compulsive shopper she’s met in her life.

“I was gonna get rid of most of them, but they’re all so cute, Ames!” Jake pleads, chewing slightly on the inside of his cheek. “I mean Yippee ki-yay mother father !? That might be the best thing ever.”

“I like the Harry Potter ones.” Amy mumbles, “Although you wouldn’t be a muggle, you’d be a wonderful wizard.”

“ Please , I could kick Harry’s ass any day.” Jake scoffs.

“Okay, sure , you could kick the chosen one’s ass.” Amy rolls her eyes affectionately, messing up his hair up slightly. “Anyway, we can’t get any of this.”

“ Amy. ”

“ Jacob. ”

“Pleeeeease!”

“Jake, you’re spiralling.” Amy says sternly, “We need to have our doctors appointment first. It could be a false positive, an ectopic pregnancy-”

“Amy, you know that won’t happen.” Jake closes the laptop and puts it on the coffee table so he can take her hands.

“It could.” Amy shrugs, “Look, I’m just being cautious. And even so, we’d make a registry so other people can buy us things.”

“Ohh, you’re so smart.” Jake laughs, happy to change subjects. “Let me just get the Die Hard and Harry Potter ones?”

“I don’t want to enable this compulsive shopping habit.” Amy tells him, “We’ll end up with seven different breast pumps.”

“We’re going to end up with seven different breast pumps because of Charles, you know that.” Amy snorts lightly at this, “Ames, I promise you aren’t enabling a habit. Just those two things.”

“Okay.” Amy picks up the laptop again happily, “Just these two things.”

~

Amy was foolish. She was a fool in love with a compulsive shopper.

To be fair, it could be much worse . The big important things, he leaves for the registry. But when it comes to clothes and books, he was out of control. Especially after they find out they’re having a girl.

Amy’s growing love for her husband overpowers her annoyance at the Amazon deliveries every other week. Jake almost always has a shopping tab open on his laptop and his work computer. She knows that Charles also enables it, makes it worse even.

But Jake agrees to run every purchase by her so he doesn’t get anything completely unnecessary. So arriving home early one afternoon she’s surprised (but completely not shocked at all) to see a package she doesn’t recognise in their mailbox. It’s not Amazon.

Strange.

So she makes her way upstairs, collapsing on the couch with her hand resting on her small bump and resting for a moment before picking up the package again. Ripping the package open, a quiet gasp leaves her mouth and she feels herself immediately tear up at the soft book in her hands.

Animal Crosswords.

On the back, the small description tells her the book contained mini crosswords to help toddlers learn their animals while having fun . At the bottom they advertise other books such as Colourful Crosswords and Shape Crosswords .

It was perfect. Amy didn’t bother to stop the tears as she flipped through the book.

One across, an animal that goes ‘oink’ . Four down, an animal that goes ‘baa’ .

Amy loves Jake, so much . Jake loves their kid, so much . She can barely comprehend every emotion she’s feeling, and it’s not long before she’s sobbing.

This was easily Jake’s best purchase. Everything he bought was less compulsive and more thoughtful. The massage chairs back when they weren’t together were still compulsive, but it had transformed. It transformed into thoughtful, wonderful, adorable purchases. Amy was so lucky, and so was their baby.

Amy calms down to soft hiccups by the time Jake walks through their front door a half hour later. His panic has him immediately on his knees next to her, wiping the dried tears off her cheeks and frantically asking if she was okay. This starts a fresh wave of tears, but she’s almost smiling and giggling which changes his concern to confusion.

Being the detective he is, he soon spots the book in her hands and groans, “Damn it, I was gonna surprise you with that. I know I didn’t approve it w-”

Amy interrupts him with a kiss, his cheeks and mouth soon soaked with the tears that just don’t stop coming . “I hate hormones.”

“They’re definitely weird.” Jake chuckles nervously, “Do you like it?”

“I love it.” Amy laughs, wiping her cheeks again. “Where did you find this?”

“Etsy .” Jake tells her, “Homemade crafts and shit, Rosa told me about it. I suspect she sells jewellery on there.”

“Oh definitely .” Amy agrees, “I’ve been looking for it for a year.”

“Anyway, I just got one for now because I wanted to know what you thought about it.” Jake’s hand moves to her stomach as he speaks. “I know it’s not very useful for her for a little while but she’s half you so she’s destined to be a bit nerdy like her mom.”

“I love it, Jake. It’s so thoughtful, that’s why I’m so emotional.” Amy runs her fingers through his hair, smiling again when he presses a kiss to the top of her stomach.

“Also hormones.” Jake teases, another kiss to the side of her belly where they could both feel her kicking. “I’m glad though, because I contacted the account about making a spanish version for her.”

Amy whimpers as she tries to stop more tears from falling. “Really?”  “Of course, it’s a great way to teach her I thought. And Rachel, the creator, agreed.”

“How l did I get such a perfect husband?” Amy drags him to eye level so she can kiss him softly. “And the perfect dad already, she’s not even born.”

Jake shrugs, poking her nose and her bump. “Being the perfect husband is easy. Because you deserve the world. Both of you. My girls.”

[ferryboatpeak]

tom/harry/ben/meri ch. 4

massive thanks to @lunarrua for sticking with this beta and catching all my continuity errors, and to @1000-directions for providing the necessary marvel background.

previous installments of this WIP are collected here.

***

The angle of the light is all wrong when Tom wakes up. He's used to it coming at him straight on, glowing through the blinds on the windows across from the foot of his bed. The carriage house is a confusing product of modernity, either a new addition to the property or a complete reconstruction of some ancient structure. Whatever the mechanism, the modern era has brought Tom’s room a broad swath of eastern-facing windows. But in Harry’s room, the morning light filters in from one side, through a narrow set of paned windows that were probably framed in the stone wall centuries ago. The windows are so dimmed by the ivy clustering around the edges that it takes Tom a few minutes to realize it’s properly daylight, not the muted dawn he wakes to in the master suite when Ben’s the first out of bed. With a pang, he realizes he must have missed Ben leaving for the day.

He tilts his head cautiously to the side. Harry’s still on his stomach, face half-buried in the pillow he’s clutching beneath him. The flashes of red on his skeleton tattoo are the brightest thing in the room. Tom watches the gentle rise and fall of his unmarked back until he’s satisfied that Harry’s sleeping. Then he parses the tattoos visible on the back of his arm, puzzling over the Hebrew lettering and trying to decipher the fuzzy script. On Harry’s shoulder, just above the hem of the duvet, there’s something that looks like a pear, or a peanut. None of it makes any sense, individually or collectively.

Looking away from the untranslatable scrawl of Harry’s skin, Tom stretches his legs out as imperceptibly as possible. The sheets are cooler at the foot of the bed, further from Harry’s radiating warmth. It feels like he’s slept for a long time. Like he’s a plant that’s stretched tentative overnight roots down into whatever very expensive fibers this mattress is made of.

There’s no clock in view. No way to tell how long he’s got until he’s supposed to be at work. He holds his breath, straining to catch any sounds that might be coming from the rest of the house. Meredith and Ruby are probably awake. What if it’s late enough that Ruby’s already back down for her morning nap? Meredith could be waiting to hand the baby monitor off to him. He’s got to get up.

He wonders if it’s possible to slip out of bed without disturbing Harry. He could grab his clothes, dress in the hallway. That might work, if only Harry hadn’t closed the door last night. Surely he’s going to wake up at the sound of his bedroom door opening. What’s Tom supposed to say if he does? Staring at the ceiling, he tries to think of something that’s casual or witty or cool enough. He can’t get out of bed unprepared.

Next to him, Harry stirs.

Tom’s eyes snap shut reflexively. It’s hard to keep his breathing sleep-steady when his heart’s pounding. But pretending to wake up seems harder than pretending to be asleep. The sheets tug against him as Harry turns, or stretches. Then, a long silence. Maybe Harry’s fallen back asleep. Or else he’s awake, silently watching Tom. Tom resists the impulse to squirm down under the covers and hide.

A minute ticks by. Maybe two, maybe more, each second interminable. Tom breathes in and out, slow and even, modeling it after what he just observed of Harry sleeping. What if Harry tries to wake him? Maybe Harry knows he’s faking and he’s waiting to catch him. Harry’s in no hurry. He doesn’t have to go to work. He can stake Tom out until he cracks. He listens for Harry’s breathing, trying to determine whether it’s unconscious.

Finally, the mattress shifts and Tom understands that he’s alone in bed, sensing Harry’s absence even before the floorboards creak under the rug as Harry’s feet hit the ground. Tom holds himself carefully still, listening to a muted popping of joints that makes him think of bony knees, knobbly vertebrae, Harry linking his hands above his head and stretching his body into a long naked line. It would be a nice view to wake up to.

He rolls onto his side and blinks with what he hopes is convincing bleariness. But Harry’s muffled footsteps recede across the rug, outpacing Tom’s convincingly slow awakening. He focuses just in time to see Harry’s arse disappearing into the en suite.

Tom exhales with relief and slumps momentarily back into his pillow. Then he scrambles out of bed, dressing quickly and quietly and slipping out the door before the recognizable echo of a morning piss fades from the bathroom.

As he shuts the bedroom door gently behind him, he can hear Ruby’s chatter in the main room below. He looks back at the window at the opposite end of the hall. The ivy might be sturdy enough to climb down. He could reemerge at ten o’clock, strolling back into the house to start his workday, like he used to. Skulking through the kitchen and up to his room at dawn while Meredith slept and Ben worked out was so much better than this. Waking up late, with Harry, and having to exchange morning chit chat with Meredith is painfully visible. Messier.

But probably not as messy as detaching a clump of ivy and landing on the lawn with a broken leg. Tom squares his shoulders and heads downstairs. It’s not a walk of shame if he didn’t have sex. Except he did. Just not with Harry. Or not only with Harry. Maybe it’s not a walk of shame if the only witness is somebody else you sort of had sex with.

Meredith’s kneeling at the coffee table in the main room. The freckles on her shoulders are visible through the criss-crossed straps of her yoga top. An assortment of doll-sized furniture is arranged on the tabletop between her and Ruby. Ruby, concentrating on tipping a small teacup toward a doll’s immobile mouth, doesn’t look up when Tom reaches the bottom of the stairs. For a moment, he thinks he might be able to pass through the room before Meredith turns around.

But Colin scrambles up from his dog bed and bounds past the coffee table toward Tom. As he darts around Meredith and Ruby, his plumy tail knocks over a doll’s chair and sweeps several pieces of the tea set onto the floor. Ruby howls in despair.

“Goddaaaa....” Meredith extinguishes the curse halfway and shoves Colin’s hindquarters away from the table. “Dog!” She kisses Ruby on the temple and perches the toppled doll back on its chair. “It’s all right, sweetie, we can put it all back, see? Colin didn’t hurt her.”

“Hey, doggo.” Tom bends down to encourage Colin in his direction. “Want me to take him out for a bit?”

“Please, yes.” Meredith looks up from the scattered toys and crying toddler. “If you don’t mind,” she adds, an afterthought.

“Happy to.” Colin props his paws on Tom’s thighs, and Tom scratches his ears. “Who’s a good boy?” He generally restrains himself from offering to walk the dog because it’s such a transparent act of self-interest. Dogs make him happy -- their uncomplicated adoration, their ready enthusiasm, their pure delight with nothing but food and affection and a cushion to claim -- and it’s been a treat to have a dog in his life this summer. It’s obvious that Colin’s one true love is Ben, but in Ben’s absence he’s been more than willing to curl up on the sofa with Tom instead. As Colin pants happily up at him, tags jingling with the vigor of Tom’s ear-scratching, Tom’s heart rate calms.

Meredith balances a upside-down teacup on Ruby’s head, and Ruby’s tears end with a hiccup. “Ben walked him this morning, but he’s been going crazy.” She catches the teacup as it slides off. “Thanks for taking him out.”

“My pleasure,” Tom says, with sincerity, clipping the lead from the table by the door onto Colin’s collar. Upon the joyful realization that a bonus walk is in the offing, the dog jumps around Tom in circles of delight.

Outside, Tom passes the lead from hand to hand, keeping it untangled as Colin does his best to trip them both. “Quick stop upstairs, all right lad?” He unclips the lead once they’re inside the door, and Colin bounds up the stairs, needing no further invitation. The stairway runs along the back of the carriage house, under the eastern windows, straight into Tom’s room. When Tom rounds the end of the stairwell wall at the top of the stairs, Colin’s already established himself on Tom’s unmade bed. He looks at Tom with an expression of entitlement, which Tom does nothing to disabuse him of. There’s a proprietary pleasure in seeing the dog make himself at home in his room.

Colin’s the only visitor he’s had this summer. Ben and Meredith don’t come to his room, and he’s never brought Ruby up here. The cleaners - never seen, their presence every Tuesday marked only by the faint scent of lemon and bleach, the neatly made bed, and the even pile of the hoovered carpet - hardly count.

He kicks off his sandals. “Make yourself at home, then.” Colin rolls onto his side, tongue lolling. Tom scratches the dog’s belly. “Can you hang out while I have a shower?” Colin shows no inclination to move. Tom strips off last night’s clothes and leaves the bathroom door open so he can see Colin on the bed if he wipes a portal through the steam on the shower door. But as soon as he steps under the hot water, Colin jumps down from the bed and trots into the bathroom, sitting at attention on the bathmat, watching Tom. “What a good boy,” Tom tells him through the shower door, closing his eyes and sudsing his hair. “The best guard dog.” His voice echos off the glass. It’s strangely comforting that Colin wants to keep an eye on him.

He hurries through rinsing himself off, not wanting to keep the dog waiting. The shower doesn’t feel like the fresh start it usually does, as if he’s carrying something today that won’t rinse down the drain. It drives him across the field behind the house and up the gradual rise of vineyards on the other side, calves burning. Trying to walk it out, whatever it is. The morning sun dries his hair and then dampens it with sweat. Following a cowpath up a rocky hill, he pushes his pace faster. Colin gamely trots along beside him.

At the wind-scrubbed top of the hill, he sinks down to sit on the lone patch of weedy grass. The valley spreads out below him. The house is tiny in the distance, the pool a blue shard glinting between the poplars. He puts an arm around Colin and lets the dog lick his face. The strange settled ache of waking up next to Harry feels as distant as the house, and he’s glad to have walked it out, sweated it clean from his pores, baked it off in the sun. It wasn’t something meant to take root. He tries not to think about the kind of space it could take up, the other things it could choke out.

The pool is calm and unoccupied when Tom and Colin return through the gate at the bottom of the garden. The too-smooth surface of the water seems as if it’s holding its breath, waiting for something. Tom veers away from the edge as he leads Colin to the kitchen door, shying from the possibility that one of them might disturb the surface with a stray pebble.

He unclips Colin’s lead and nudges him into the empty kitchen before retreating to his room. The second shower is lonelier without Colin happily hanging out on the bathmat, but it’s longer and colder and reorients him more effectively than the first one did. By ten o’clock, he’s ready to go to work. Another day at his summer job, that’s all. Easy. Downstairs, across the terrace, and into the house to find Meredith in the office and take custody of the baby monitor. Just like every other day.

In the kitchen, he flicks on the kettle and measures beans into the coffee grinder. He leans his elbows on the countertop, looking out the window at the undisturbed surface of the pool. As he crossed the terrace, he could see Harry’s car still sitting in the drive like a preening cat. The knowledge that Harry’s likely in the house makes Tom conscious of every move. He tucks a stray plate from breakfast into the dishwasher, wipes toast crumbs off the countertop into the sink, his hands skimming over surfaces looking for something to do. Despite his heightened awareness, a yelp of laughter coming from the direction of the office makes him jump as he’s pouring the kettle, splashing water out of the filter and onto the granite.

He wipes down the counter again and bins his coffee grounds. It’s almost ten, time to find Meredith. He walks toward the office with both hands wrapped around his mug, as if it’s a talisman protecting him against the unexpected. Meredith’s at her computer with Colin sprawled next to her desk as usual. Harry’s set up at the table behind her, facing the opposite wall, his phone pressed to his ear. A pink MacBook is open in front of him. He’s leaning back in the office chair at an angle Tom didn’t know office chairs could extend to, one ankle propped on his other knee.

“It’s only a couple of weeks,” Harry says as Tom hovers in the doorway, uncertain whether checking in with Meredith would interrupt Harry’s phone call. “Change my ticket and I can meet you in Italy. Wait...” Harry cranes his neck around, rotating his chair halfway to look at Meredith, and angles the base of his phone away from his mouth. “Is Ben going straight to the Google thing from here?” He tilts the phone back to his mouth. “I could go with Ben,” he says into the phone.

“That’s the plan…” Meredith starts, turning around in her chair. She catches sight of Tom in the doorway and waves a silent greeting.

Harry’s attention is back on his phone. “Ah, forgot about that fucker,” he says, and then, to Meredith, “Never mind, won’t work...”

Tom points at the monitor sitting on Meredith’s desk and raises his eyebrows. Can I take it? Meredith holds up a finger: just a sec. Tom crouches down next to Colin to wait for the handoff, scratching gently between the dog’s ears. Colin gets to his feet, shakes himself, and rests his chin on Tom’s knee. “Good boy,” Tom mouths at him, as if Colin can read his lips. He sinks to the floor and lets Colin climb halfway into his lap.

Above his head, Harry’s conversation is still going on. “Right here, want to say hello?” Without waiting for a response, Harry taps at the phone and holds it out toward Meredith. “You’re on speaker.” He focuses on Tom for the first time, waving a cheery good morning at him.

“Hello, Jeff,” Meredith calls over her shoulder, a smile in her voice. “We’d love for Harry to stay if he can.” She grins conspiratorially at Harry. Harry flashes her a thumbs up.

“Hi, Mer.” The voice on the other end of the line has the unmistakable tone of one who has suffered long. “Don’t encourage him.”

Jeff. Tom files the name away. He smooths his hand along Colin’s side.

“But it’s so nice here.” Meredith stands up to take the phone from Harry, turning off the speaker and putting it to her ear, and leans back against her desk to talk. Tom focuses on her feet, bare and tanned. “You should come for a couple of days before Harry leaves.” Her toenail polish is chipless and glossy. It matches the red poppies in the pattern of the rug. “Is Glenne going to Italy?” She listens, and makes a disappointed noise. “Have to see you when we’re back in LA, then.” She  points and flexes one foot, stretching her calf. “Tell Glenne I said hi.”

Meredith hands the phone back to Harry and returns to her seat. She passes the baby monitor down to Tom, the ritual changing of the guard. “Thanks,” she mouths. She pauses open-mouthed while Harry says something into his phone, waiting for an opportunity to say something else to Tom, but closes it as Harry works his way through a sentence that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere fast.

The monitor hisses evenly. Ruby’s still napping. Tom ought to head out to the kitchen, start fixing a snack for when she wakes up. He can come back later to find out whatever it is that Meredith needs to tell him. There’s no good reason for him to wait here, listening to Harry’s conversation.

“It’s just two weeks,” Harry repeats into the phone, turning back toward his laptop. The cursor skates aimlessly around the screen as Harry runs a fingertip over the touchpad. Going by the colored blocks unevenly checkerboarding the image, it looks like his calendar.

Tom squints at the far-away text on the screen. He places the monitor on the floor next to his coffee mug and takes hold of one of Colin’s hind paws, stroking his thumb along the narrow bones. Colin lets him, just like Neesha always does at home. There’s something comforting about a dog trusting him.

“I can skype in for that,’ Harry says. Tom can’t hear the words on the other end of the line, but the tone doesn’t sound like Jeff’s agreeing. Harry highlights one appointment on his calendar, then another. It’s not the calendar of someone who’s on vacation.

Tom’s been wondering about this since the day Harry arrived and cracked open his summer like a geological event, shifting the plates of the earth underneath his feet. But there’s been no good way to ask. He can’t trust the tone of his voice. A matter-of-fact “How long’s Harry here for?” might come out petulant; a casual “How long are you in town?” might reveal that he cares about the answer.

“That doesn’t have to happen this month,” Harry says, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. “Reschedule it.” He leans further back in his chair, tipping his head over the top of the seat. The voice on the other end of the line is insistent. Harry lets his chair spring back to an upright position. “Have them send the samples here.”

Tom waits silently on the floor. Why’s Harry’s going to Italy, and what does Ben has to do with it? Maybe it’s about their television show. Italy doesn’t sound like the kind of place you go to make a television show, but what does Tom know. Harry stands up and paces toward the office door. As he passes Tom and Colin, he pokes Tom with his foot and grins at him. Tom nods, not knowing what else to do that won’t interrupt Harry’s conversation.

“I know.” Harry stops by his chair and scrapes a hand through his hair, sighing. After a pause, he adds, “I want to write a little.”

The tone on the other end of the line shifts. It sounds like Harry’s played some kind of trump card. Harry’s posture relaxes. “Thank you,” he says. “I appreciate it.” He leans back against the table and thumbs the phone to speaker again. “Mer, do you know the address here?”

Meredith pulls a sticky note off the wall behind her computer and turns to read aloud from it. The voice on the other end of Harry’s phone repeats it back to her, spelling out the name of the village. Tom immediately feels dumb for never having considered that the country house must have an address, a physical location in the real world. He arrived in the backseat of the Range Rover, passing a rotating series of toys toward Ruby’s car seat next to him. There was never any need to know the address. But of course there is one. It’s not just some summer kingdom that exists only in his head, a fairy tale he’ll emerge from in September to learn that centuries have gone by.

Harry settles back in his office chair as the conversation turns to logistics. Tom gleans what he can from Harry’s end of the conversation. The car is getting taken care of. Someone named Luis is packing up something in London. A guitar is being messengered. Plane tickets are being changed. He catches the flight date, and realizes it’s two days before he and Meredith and Ruby travel back to London. Barely two weeks until the end of the summer, until the drawbridge is lowered and Tom trudges back to a reality where there’s no freshly ground coffee, no wine he can’t pronounce, no pool out back, no Ben and Meredith. No dog. No Harry Styles.

He’s got to leave the room before the call ends. But as he’s shifting Colin off his lap, Harry hangs up. “Done,” he announces, standing up. He links his fingers together and stretches his arms above his head, as if he’s cooling down from a run. The hem of his t-shirt exposes the leafy tattoos slashing across his tanned stomach above the waistband of his track bottoms. Tom looks down at the dog and shifts his legs experimentally, trying to determine how firmly Colin’s entrenched. He can’t get up and leave now, or it’ll be obvious he was only lingering to eavesdrop of Harry’s phone call.

“All sorted?” Meredith asks. She holds a hand up toward Harry for a high five. Harry links his fingers through hers instead and waves their clasped hands back and forth in something like a victory celebration.

Meredith smiles up at him. “I thought I was going to have a boring summer, just me and Ruby knocking around this place.”

“I’m pretty boring.” Harry drops Meredith’s hand and returns to his chair, leaning back at an exaggerated angle and using his feet to rotate himself back to his laptop. He pauses just before Meredith’s out of his view, his head lolling back on the chair so he’s looking at her sideways.  “I can bore you later if you’d like.”

Tom grabs his coffee mug and stands up too fast, displacing Colin and almost sloshing coffee onto his hand. This feels too much like nighttime seeping into the sunshiny morning of his workday. He can’t tell if Harry’s voice is lower and slower than usual, or if Harry’s voice just naturally makes everything sound like sex.

“I’m sure you will,” Meredith says, laughing. She turns back to her own desk.

“Anything I need to know?” Tom curls his fingers tightly around the baby monitor.

Meredith looks up. “Oh…” Her brow furrows. “There was something…” She brushes it off, shrugging. “I’ll let you know if I remember. She went down at the usual time. No diaper yet today, watch out.”

“Got it.” Tom retreats to the kitchen, trying not to draw any comparisons between Harry’s job and his own.

***

Harry delivers that night, or so Tom would assume, if he was paying any attention. Meredith’s at the far edges of his consciousness, nothing but soft noises pressed into Harry’s neck and the shadow of the leg she’s canted upward for Harry’s fingers. They’re wrapped up in each other, and he’s got Ben underneath him, Ben all to himself, his legs spread apart over Ben’s hips and his body carefully stretching around Ben’s cock. He breathes in Ben’s attention like it’s a drug twining smoky tendrils through his nervous system, turning his skin raw and receptive. The purest form of a substance he hasn’t tasted undiluted since Harry arrived.

“Good boy,” Ben murmurs as Tom settles against him, sinking downward until the backs of his thighs press against the ridges of Ben’s hipbones.

He exhales slowly and thoroughly, pressing all the air out of his body. As he inhales, he reorients himself around Ben inside him, better than oxygen. Ben’s eyes gleam in the candlelight as he flexes his hips up once, slowly, against Tom’s weight pinning him down. Tom’s body opens, tightens, molding itself to Ben. Tom shifts his weight to his knees so Ben can move inside him. His body hums with the satisfaction of Ben’s gaze.

He straightens so he can brace his hands on Ben’s chest, spreading his fingers and digging the heels of his palms into his ribcage. “More,” Tom breathes. For a moment he thinks Ben hasn’t heard, but then Ben thrusts up hard and tightens his hands on Tom’s hips, and this time his breath comes out as a moan. “Yeah, more.” He leans closer and follows Ben’s rhythm, bearing down to meet each thrust as Ben fucks him harder.

The scant friction of his cock against Ben’s stomach isn’t going to get him off, but that’s a distant concern. Right now it’s enough to have all of Ben, all of his attention pouring warm and liquid over his charged skin. Tom wants to bathe in it, drown in it, be good enough and pretty enough and wanton enough to keep it.

He doesn’t register the mattress shifting underneath them, or realize that the redistribution of weight is what’s knocked them out of sync. Tom whines, squirming on his knees to find the place where Ben was meeting him just right. Ben overcorrects, almost slipping out. Tom tenses and leans back to drive his hips down against Ben’s, greedy and frantic.

He doesn’t clock Harry behind him until the shock of Harry’s mouth at the curve of his neck. Tom arches into the sensation instinctively, shuddering at the light trace of Harry’s tongue and then the sting of his teeth.

His reaction -- lips parted in a gasp, head lolling to the side to open his neck to Harry -- must tell Ben something. “Good, H,” Ben says, his voice rough, and Tom’s eyes fly open. For a moment, an elemental rage flickers at the edges of his pleasure. He should have known nothing is safe, nothing is sacred. There’s no power stronger than Harry’s need to be the center of attention.

Ben tightens his hands on Tom’s hips and holds him in place, shifting under him to make space as Harry knees his way into the array of their legs. Ben realigns himself with Tom before Harry’s finished making himself comfortable, and Tom’s lost to anything except the blistering buzz of Ben deep inside him, over and over.

It takes a moment for him to realize that Harry’s fitted himself against his back, moving so seamlessly with him and Ben that Tom might not have noticed if not for the unmistakable drag of Harry’s cock across the base of his spine. Harry spreads a hand flat over Tom’s breastbone to press their bodies together, and Tom’s skin lights up with the intensity of it, a conflagration that dwarfs the small flame of anger he’d felt at Harry imposing himself. A campfire rendered irrelevant by a wildfire taking down the forest.

Ben’s hands slide up from his hips, supporting him, keeping Harry’s weight from pushing him forward. Tom’s caught between them, Harry leaning heavy on his back and Ben’s hands on his chest, Ben inside him and finally a hand  -- Harry’s hand? -- on his cock in the close space between Tom and Ben. Everything is skin against his and hands on his body. Every bit of him is made to be touched.

Tom thinks of surfing, of aligning his body with a force he can’t control. The tension between the full-body engagement required to keep pace with the wave, and the complete submission required to let the wave take him where it’s going. It never seems possible, until the moment when suddenly, euphorically, it does. The swell propels him impossibly forward and forward until it overcomes him, throws him into the water breathless and exhilarated.

Tom slumps forward, panting. His hands are still braced against Ben’s chest, but they’re useless to support him. He lets Ben and Harry hold him up, melting in between them, until Ben comes with a noise that’s almost a growl. Harry stills behind him as Ben thrusts upward for the last time, deep inside Tom as he finishes. The line of Harry’s cock presses thickly along his spine. Tom wonders what Harry’s going to do about that, and then wonders if Harry’s going to push him forward onto his hands and knees, fuck him right there on top of Ben. The idea is potent and a little bit frightening. He’s still hovering his hand over the thought, like an electric wire he can’t quite bring himself to touch, when Harry scrambles away. His knee digs into the back of Tom’s calf, and the sweat starts to cool on Tom’s back without Harry weight pressed against him.

Ben draws his hands down Tom’s body. He moves Tom upward with a light touch at his hips, and slips out of him. With nothing else to keep him upright, Tom wilts into the space Ben leaves behind when he goes to bin the condom.

Meredith turns onto her side and cranes her neck to kiss the edge of Tom’s mouth. She lingers nose to nose with him, their faces sliding toward each other in the valley between the pillows. “God, that was hot,” she murmurs.

It feels like praise just for him. “Mmmm,” Tom manages, affirmatively. God, but it was.

Meredith settles onto her back. “Harry?” Her tone makes it more of a directive than a question.

Harry’s pawing through the duvet mounded at the end of the bed, looking for something. Tom watches the angles of his legs as he kneels, the hurried motions of his hands. He doesn’t get tired of watching Harry, now that he can. Now that he’s supposed to, even. He’s stopped mourning the balance he felt with Ben and Meri, as if he was a missing piece sliding into place in their bed, in their life. Harry doesn’t balance. He’s a source of gravity all his own, pulling everyone and everything into orbit. Harry’s need to be the center of attention has become more a source of fascination, less a source of resentment. There’s no point in resenting a law of nature.

Harry pulls a misplaced foil packet from a fold of the duvet and brandishes it triumphantly. Tom’s sated, his body gone pleasantly syrupy from overstimulation, but his tongue still flexes in his mouth as he watches Harry rolls on the condom. He imagines Harry kneeling on top of him, feeding his cock into Tom’s mouth instead of tracing two fingers over Meredith’s cunt to line himself up before he slides inside her in one smooth sudden motion.

“Oh,” Meredith breathes out, and Harry pauses, the curve of his arse tight, holding himself at the apex. Meredith’s toes dig under Tom’s shin as she spreads her legs and rolls her hips upward to let Harry in deeper. She wraps one leg around his waist. “Come on.”

Harry glances over his shoulder to confirm Ben’s whereabouts. Tom can’t see Ben’s side of their wordless exchange, but he returns to bed as Harry starts to fuck Meredith in earnest. The mattress dips as Ben stretches out behind Tom, propping himself on one elbow and draping his other arm over Tom. Tom presses his shoulderblades into the comforting backstop of Ben’s chest. He can feel Ben’s spent cock against him, where the tops of his legs are still smeared slick.

The motion next to them jostles him closer to Harry and Meredith, close enough to breathe in the tang of sweat and sex between their bodies. Close enough to feel more like a participant than a spectator. Ben inches forward with him, not letting any space open up. He reaches over Tom to take Meredith’s hand. Tom’s tucked between them like a handkerchief in a drawer, feeling just the right size.

He rests his cheek against the edge of Meredith’s shoulder and looks up at Harry. His eyes are closed and his head is tilted away from Tom, neck craning toward the place where Meredith’s other hand is twisted in his hair. The line of his jaw sharpens in the candlelight. He holds himself above Meredith on both arms, muscles working as he thrusts into her, hard enough to hear the smack of their skin.

As if he intuits Tom’s attention, Harry opens his eyes and locks them on Tom. A queasy thrill heats Tom’s stomach. He fights the instinct to duck his head against the intensity. Harry doesn’t look away, even as his pace increases with clumsy urgency, even as Meredith’s pitch keens upward. Tom holds Harry’s gaze as his body tenses and releases with each of Harry’s thrusts, responding without Harry even touching him, responding as if he’s the one Harry’s fucking.

***

At first, Tom doesn’t recognize the two-toned chime that sounds as he’s coming downstairs. His first instinct is to find the source and make sure it doesn’t wake Ruby from her nap. A second later, he realizes: doorbell. Nobody’s come to the door all summer. Tom hadn’t even realized the house had a doorbell. He leaves the hissing baby monitor on the entryway table and goes to answer.

There’s a DHL van in the driveway, bright and blocky behind Harry’s black-windowed car. The uniformed driver waits on the doorstep with a rectangular box tucked under his arm. Tom opens the door with a smile, hoping he won’t have to say bonjour and reveal his unpracticed accent. His strategy backfires when the driver says something in French and holds out a tablet toward Tom.

“Oui,” Tom says, exhausting at least a quarter of his French vocabulary. Fortunately, it doesn’t require any fluency to take the stylus and sign in the empty box on the screen. The driver says something else in French and hands over the package.

“Merci,” Tom mumbles, and waves awkwardly as the driver jogs back toward his truck.

Tom glances at the shipping label, expecting to see Ben or Meredith’s name. When nothing pops out, he searches the French-labeled form, wondering what term identifies the addressee. The only printing he can see that looks anything like a name says “Hershel Azoff.”

He swears under his breath and looks up, just as the delivery van disappears around the end of the hedge. He’s got somebody else’s package, and he has no idea what to do with it. He searches the label again, as if the French fine print is going to help. The address of the country house is correct, though. He could just leave the box in the office and hope that Ben or Meredith will find it and take care of the problem. But if they don’t, somebody’s going to miss their package. He walks through the house and out to the pool.

Meredith and Harry are in the shade under the trellis. She’s reading on a lounge chair, legs stretched out and ankles crossed. Harry’s next to her on another lounge, shirtless, with sunglasses tucked up in his hair. His laptop’s open on his lap.

He looks up as Tom crosses the terrace toward them. “Is that mine?” Harry asks, spotting the box in Tom’s hand.

Tom stops at the end of Harry’s lounge and looks at the label again. “Only if you’re Hershel Azoff.”

Harry and Meredith laugh, to Tom’s bemusement. Harry gestures for Tom to hand the box over. “That’s me.”

“Really?” Tom hesitates, an odd instinct to protect the mystery recipient’s package.

“Yup.” Harry claps his laptop closed and slides it onto the side table next to him. “Give it here.”

Tom hands over the package. “Why Hershel Azoff?”

“My manager’s family.” Harry rips the tab off the end of the box. “Easier not to ship stuff under my name.”

Tom suddenly remembers the conversation in July when Meredith had told him a friend of theirs was coming to stay. “It’s Harry Styles,” she’d said, and paused, waiting for Tom’s response. The name hadn’t meant anything to him, but he hadn’t let on, just asked if she needed him to do anything differently while their guest was in town. Just don’t post anything on social media, she’d said, nothing that might indicate he’s here. Tom agreed without thinking anything of it. It didn’t seem much different from her instructions when he’d started babysitting for them last spring: no photos of Ruby on the internet, ever. But this time, Meredith had emphasized: “Not even in the background, or a hand or a shoe or anything like that.”

The instructions turned out to be unnecessary. Tom hasn’t posted anything this summer anyway. He supposes he could have posted pictures of the house or the pool or the sunset light over the rolling hills in the distance, but what would be the point? This summer is something so separate, so special, not to be cheapened by reducing it to a couple of rows of incongruous sun-soaked photos on his Instagram

Harry upends the yellow box and slides out a stack of bound documents.

“Scripts?” Meredith asks, watching him.

Harry nods. “A little light vacation reading,” he says, wryly.

“You’ll find a good one,” Meredith says. “Is that Elvis one in there?”

Harry grimaces. “Nah, I read that one already.”

Her eyebrows rise above her sunglasses. “Not interested?”

“Absolutely not.” He stands the bundle of scripts in his lap and flips them down onto his stomach one by one, looking at the cover pages.

“You’re not an Elvis fan?” Tom asks, his curiosity piqued.

“Love him.” Harry looks up. “It’s just not the right time.”

“Why not?”

Harry taps his fingers on the back of the stack of scripts. “He’s just so…” He stares into the middle distance over Tom’s shoulder, searching for the right word. “He’s Elvis.” He refocuses on Tom. “It just feels kind of like, if I’m going to play Elvis, in a biopic, he deserves something good, and I don’t think I can do it right, at least not right now, and if I do it wrong…” Harry winces.

“So what if you do? At least you’re in a film.” It must pay a lot, starring in a film. Being Elvis Presley. It’s hard to see how anyone could turn that down.

“I can’t afford to mess up a film.” Harry holds up the scripts. “There’s plenty of other options, anyway.”

“Like what?” Tom can’t help but ask. What could be better than being Elvis?

“Come and see.” Harry swings his legs over the side of the lounge chair, making room for Tom to sit at the end. He fans out the scripts like a hand of cards and grins at Meredith. “Jeff says one’s a psychosexual thriller.” Harry says it with relish, rolling the word “psychosexual” around in his mouth.

Tom laughs. “Basic Instinct style? Are you going to be Sharon Stone?”

“Think I could?” Harry sets the scripts to the side and shifts to face Tom. He flips his hand over his shoulder, tossing back an imaginary mane of hair. He leans slightly toward Tom and fixes him with an unnerving stare. Tom wants desperately to break Harry’s intense eye contact, but he can’t look away. Slowly and ostentatiously, Harry crosses and uncrosses his legs, spreading them open.

“Shut up.” Tom kicks at Harry’s ankles. His face feels hot. Harry might actually be a good actor.

Harry cackles and suddenly he’s just some lazy guy by the pool again. “I haven’t read it yet. I’m probably not Sharon Stone.”

“What else, then?”

Harry hands him the stack. “Pick me a winner.” He tucks his feet up and settles back against the lounge, watching Tom page through the scripts.

One with a red cover catches his eye at the back of the stack. A square of notepaper with a black circle logo is paper-clipped to it. In spiky handwriting, the note says, “H- This is the Marvel one. Read for Wiccan.” Tom looks down at the typewritten cover. UNTITLED PROJECT. “Hey, you could be a superhero?”

“Is that the Marvel one? Does it say which character?”

Tom tips the cover with the note toward him. “Wiccan.”

“Oh, yeah.” Harry looks smug. “Jeff said something about that. He can manipulate reality. And he has a shapeshifting alien boyfriend.”

“Alien boyfriend?” Meredith looks up from her book. “That sounds more like the role for you, love.”

‘Heyyyyy.” Harry leans his head against the lounge, looking dolefully at Meredith. “Don’t I deserve an alien boyfriend?”

“Pity the poor alien,” Meredith says. “How’s he going to adjust to Earth if you’re his role model?”

“I’d be a great boyfriend,” Harry says. “He could wear my spaceboy sweater. Maybe he’d come on tour, in his spaceship.”

Tom pages idly through the script, ignoring the dialogue on the page as he listens to Harry riff on the possibilities presented by an alien boyfriend. Maybe Harry doesn’t only date French girls. Which is interesting, in a useless trivia kind of way. Like knowing duckbilled platypuses exist. Not very relevant to Tom, but all the same, it’s nice to know the world contains such things.

[oceanna1919]

Contents Under Pressure{1X07, part1}

‘’For the love of pizza, I'm begging you for the tenth time!" I complained through gritted teeth, "Stop pacing!" For the last hour, Clarke couldn’t stop pacing as I was watching the camp being destroyed by the stormy weather. My best friend threw a glance my way, stopped for a moment to stare at stormy weather outside, and then started pacing again. I groaned and covered my face with my hands.

"I'd like to see how you'd react if Bellamy was in Finn’s place’’ She murmured but I heard her.

‘’What’s that supposed to mean?’’ I asked her tiredly.

‘’Nothing’’ she said quickly, as she came to sit beside me. Finally!!

‘’Look, Clarke. You can’t do anything for Finn right now. Not until this girl fix her radio. Who is she by the way? Finn’s cousin or something?’’ I asked quietly, pointing at the brunette. Clarke let out a sad sigh and her jaw clenched.

‘’She’s his girlfriend’’ She said harshly and my eyes widened. But he slept with Clarke and he has never mentioned the brunette from the ark.

‘’But you slept with him. Does she know?’’ She looked quickly at me confuse.

‘’How do you know?’’ She asked and I rolled my eyes.

‘’The night of Charlotte’s death I couldn’t sleep, so I came to your tent and I heard you having sex with him. I didn’t want to interrupt you.’’ She blushed and looked to the ground

‘’It was an accident.’’ She said still looking on the ground.

‘’ How did you accidentally slip and fall on ‘it’? How does that accidentally happen?’’ I asked sarcastically with a smirk and I saw Clarke’s mouth fall opened.

‘’JASMINE!’’ she exclaimed and she hit my arm, making me burst out laughing.

‘’To answer your question. Raven knows.’’ So her name’s Raven. I felt sad for Clarke. She definitely doesn’t deserve this. I side hugged her and she put her head on my shoulder.

‘’He doesn’t deserve you Clarke. You will find someone better than Finn.’’ I said, trying to comfort her.

‘’Jasmine, I love him. I gave him everything and I mean everything.‘’ she said, she was close to crying.

‘’ Baby, I know. I can see that by the way you’re looking at him. But, let him be girl. Save him and let him be. That’s my advice.’’ I said, squeezing her shoulder comfortingly. I felt her nod, as she got up, giving me a smile as a ‘thank you’ and I smiled back. I saw her go to Raven and she tried to encourage her, before going to Finn, unwrapping the cloth that had been around the knife stuck in Finn’s side. I glanced over at Finn and he was looking very pale. I frowned as I walked over to Finn and trailing my eyes down to his wound.

‘’ His wound ain’t normal.’’ I said and Clarke nodded.

“Calling Ark Station. Ark station. Please come in.” I hear Raven repeat herself again and again. “I’m on the ground with the hundred.” She muttered.

“This is a restricted station. Who is this? Please identify yourself.” Both mine and Clarke’s heads snapped up when we heard a male voice being transmitted through the radio. We shared a look of hope and rushed over to Raven.

“This is Raven Reyes. I- I'm from Mecha Station. I'm transmitting from the ground. The hundred are alive. Please, you need to get Doctor Abby Griffin. Doctor Abby Griffin. Now.”

“Hang on Raven, we're trying to boost your signal.” Everyone had gathered around us now and was murmuring among themselves.

“Raven? Are you there?” I let out a cry of happiness, as I heard Clarke’s mom, Abby.

Clarke leaned on the desk Raven was sat at. “Mom? Mom it's me.”

“Clarke?” Abby gasped.

“Mom, I need your help.” Clarke said looking at Finn. “One of our people was stabbed by a Grounder.”

“Clarke, this is the Chancellor. Are you saying there are survivors on the ground?” My eyes widened. Wasn’t he dead? I thought Bellamy killed him. Was he a ghost?

“Yes, the Earth is survivable. We're not alone.” Clarke informed him. “Mom, he's dying. The knife is still in his chest.” Clarke said.

“Clarke, is my son with you?” Jaha asked, making Clarke freeze in her tracks. Her lips trembled at the thought of Wells. So I decided to answer this question.

“Hey Chancellor Jaha, or his ghost, or whatever. Jasmine is speaking. I’m so sorry, but… Wells is dead.” The line was silent for a minute as Jaha took in the news.

‘’Jasmine is that you?’’ I heard my dad murmured and it was my turn to freeze. I didn’t expect him to be there.

‘’ No it’s not me. It’s my twin sister.’’ I answered sarcastically and Clarke pushed me gently to the side.

‘’We don’t have time for this.’’ She told me and I nodded. She was right. ‘’Mom I don’t know what to do. I need your help.’’ Clarke said, looking at the radio.

“Okay. I’ll help you. I’m going to talk you through it, step by step.”

Clarke walked over to the bed where Finn was resting.  Suddenly, we were thrown slightly off balanced by the wind as the dropship rocked.

“Just find-” The end of Abby’s sentence was completely muffled, making it impossible to understand.

“What?” I shouted, before turning to look at Finn’s real girlfriend beside me.

“What's going on?” She gazed at the radio and to me after.

“It's not the radio, it's the storm.”

Minutes later, Octavia walked into the dropship, soaked to the bone, with two canisters.

“Great.” I said with a slight smile. I took one of the canisters and went to drink, but its scent stopped me.

“Ugh.” I grunted. “What the hell is that? I thought it was water!’’ I exclaimed

‘’Its Monty's moonshine” Octavia answered

“Pretty sure no germ could survive it.” Octavia joked.

‘’I confirm.’’ I said, raising a hand up.

“Storm's getting worse. Monroe, close the door.” Clarke ordered

“But we still have people out there.” Monroe argued. Who was out there?

“Monty and Jasper still aren't back yet. Neither is Bellamy.” Octavia mentioned with a worried look on her face. Bellamy? I don’t know why I was worried about him. I hate him, or not. No I like him. I just don’t like his attitude.

“It's okay, they'll find somewhere to ride it out.” Clarke said, trying to reassure the younger Blake.

Raven made a noise to get Clarke's attention then she held out a needle.

“One stitching needle.” Raven announced, placing the needle in Clarke’s hand.

“Great, we still need something to close the wound.” Clarke informed her.

“There's some wire on the second level. I used it for the tents.” Octavia informed quickly.

“That’ll do’’ I nodded.

“Yeah.” Octavia walked over to the ladder as Raven called out to her.

“Stay away from the blue wires that run through the ceiling. I rigged it to the solar cells in the roof.”

“That means they're hot! You got that?” Raven continued, raising her voice.

‘’ She’s not stupid.’’ I said, glaring at Raven and she looked at me. Octavia was about to climb up the ladder when Monroe yelled.

“Hey! They're back!”

“Bellamy!” His sister shouted. I saw Bellamy walking in first, also soaking wet from the rain, with two guys beside him, carrying Lincoln’s body.

‘’ The hell are you doing?’’ Octavia yelled, walking up to her brother.

“It's time to get some answers.” He said casually.

‘’He means revenge ’’I pointed out, standing beside Clarke and Bellamy turned his gaze on me, which became darker. I’m pretty sure he was mad at me. It wasn’t my fault, he was being an ass.

“I mean 'intel’.” Bell corrected me with a frown on his face.

“Get him upstairs.” He ordered the two guys who immediately started dragging Lincoln up the ladder.

“This is one of your stupidest ideas of all time and trust me, you have a lot.” I said, ready to snap at him, with crossed arms.

“Bellamy, she's right.” Clarke added, standing beside me. He gave me an angry glare, completely ignoring Clarke.

“Clarke, okay we're ready. Can you hear me?” We heard Abby’s crackled voice through the radio. Bellamy turned quickly to look at the radio and he look surprised and scared, really scared. I forgot about his situation. But I wasn’t going to tell him that he missed his shot and that Jaha was alive.

“Look, this is not who we are.” Clarke said quietly.

“Clarke?” Abby called.

‘’Wait Abby. We’re dealing with a toddler at this very moment’’ I said, still glaring at Bellamy. I heard a quiet ‘what’ coming from Abby.

“It is now.” Bellamy stated, walking away, giving me one last angry look. Clarke turned to Finn and she was giving the information that Abby asked. At one point, delinquents in the room became very loud and I ordered them to go to the second floor. As I didn’t like Finn, because he played with Clarke, I didn’t like seeing him in this condition, so I decided to do my favorite thing in the world. Annoy Bellamy King Blake. I was climbing to the third floor when I heard Bellamy’s annoying voice.

‘’ Hey tie him! Tie him! Last thing we need is this bastard escaping because you screw-’’

As he was finishing his sentence, I almost tripped on the last step, so I let out a small cry and everyone turned to look at me and I looked at everyone embarrassed. I hate being so clumsy. I stood up quickly as nothing happened.

‘’Hello, beautiful people.’’ I said faking cheerfully. ‘’Except you. You’re ugly, inside and outside.’’ I said pointing at Bellamy. He rolled his eyes dramatically and I said.

‘’Don’t roll your eyes like that. They are going to fall out.’’ He let out a growl and I said.

‘’ Don’t growl, you will turn into a werewolf’’ He came at my face and began shouting and I just stayed there, letting him finish.

‘’I don’t have time for this! GET OUT!’’ The grounder began moving, glaring at Bellamy. I let out a fake yawn.

‘’ Did you finish your tantrum?’’ I asked him with bored eyes. He closed his eyes trying to control is anger.

‘’Do NOT cross my limits Jasmine. Go!’’ he ordered me.

‘’I do NOT take orders from you ,jackass!’’ I glared at him and he glared back. I saw Octavia, from the corner of my eyes coming up and when she saw The Grounder tied up and beaten, she looked horrified. Bellamy when he saw his sister, he rolled his eyes again and went to Octavia.

‘’ Octavia, get out of here!’’ He tried to order her too. He really likes ordering people.

‘’ I told you, he healed my leg. He protected Jasmine. You didn't have to do this.’’ She said trying to convince her brother.

‘’This isn't about you or her, I'm doing this for all of us.’’ He said and I let out a sarcastic laugh. Yeah right. For all of us.

‘’ You did that for all of us?’’ Octavia asked with sarcasm, looking at Lincoln. GO Octavia Go!

‘’ I did that for Finn and Jasper and John and Diggs and Roma.’’ I shook my head. This is crazy.

‘’ It wasn't him!’’ Octavia said tiredly.

‘’ You don't know that!’’ He shouted in her face and I went and stood between them, glaring at him.

‘’Don’t yell at her you selfish piece of trash!’’ I yelled and pushed Bellamy to create a distance between us.

‘’We need to know what we're up again. How many there are and why they're killing us. And he's gonna tell us right now.’’ Bellamy said strongly, sending me daggers with his eyes. Bellamy stepped forward, going in front of Lincoln and Octavia grabbed his lower arm to stop him and he roughly took it out of her grip.

‘’ Drew, Miller take her downstairs.’’ The King said, pointing at Octavia and the two puppies nodded before grabbing Octavia but she wrestled free.

‘’ Get-get off of me! I don't even think he speaks English, he won't understand you.’’ Octavia said, with a disapproving frown on her face, before leaving. I was probably the only one that knew he was speaking English. Although I wasn’t going to tell anything.

‘’ Oh I think he will.’’ Bellamy growled, starring at Lincoln and I rolled my eyes. He really is a dick. I don’t know why I kissed him. I don’t know why I like him.

‘’ Jasmine go, before I make you.’’ The older Blake said looking at me with dark eyes and I sat down in the corner.

‘’I like to see you try Bellamy’’ I challenged him.

Bellamy started to ask Lincoln questions and Lincoln, of course, didn’t answer. Unexpectedly, the storm caused everyone to be thrown from where they are, except me because I was already sitting on the ground. Bellamy got up confused.

‘’ What the hell was that? Are we under attack?’’ Bellamy asked no one in particular.

‘’ Please, do me a favor and at least for once, try and use your left side of your brain, which is responsible for logic, and think.  It’s the storm that caused that.’’ I said boringly, while playing with my fingers. I’m sure he glared at me for the 1000000th time today, but I couldn’t care less.

‘’ We're gonna try this one last time. What's your name? Where's your camp? How many of you are there?’’ Bellamy asked Lincoln and he didn’t get any answer.

‘’ Hey, check it out.’’ I guess his name was Miller said and Bellamy approached him and he crotched down, looking at something. Curiosity got the best of me and I crawl to them and I saw a bunch of vials.

‘’ What is all this stuff?’’ The other guy asked and I just realised that I didn’t know him name.

‘’ Who the hell knows with these people?’’ Bellamy said and he started untying what I assumed is Lincoln’s journal. Suddenly the grounder struggled to break free, taking me by surprise and I tried to stop Bellamy.

‘’Come on Bellamy. This is his personal stuff.’’ He completely ignored me, what a surprise, and he opened Lincoln’s journal, flipping through the notebook. Lincoln had a talent at drawing. He had drawings of our camp. Bellamy stopped when he saw a drawn of Octavia. Mhh, I will ask him to draw me too! Bellamy frowned his eyebrows and he stopped again turning the pages. I looked down and I saw a drawing of me. Ah, request done .That took me by surprise. Why he drew me and Octavia? I looked back at Lincoln and he was already looking at me. Okay? That was awkward. I saw Bellamy clenching his jaw a couple of times, before continuing flipping through the pages.

‘’ It's our camp. Guessing that all those marks add up to 102. 10 are crossed out. That's how many people we've lost.’’ Bellamy announced and he got up, still holding Lincoln’s journal.

‘’ You've been watching us ever since we got here!’’ Bellamy said looking at Lincoln, who looked away. I let out a long breath. This was going to be a longggggg night.

[5-falsehoods-phonated]

Tumblr ate the ask again so I hope the anon that requested this finds their prompt. Sorry!

The prompt request was along these lines: Roman is still upset with Janus and "accidently" breaks something important to him, making him regress. Maybe Virgil or Patton find and take care of him?

A Little Upset

Summary: Still not over the events of the last video, Roman "accidentally" breaks something very important to Janus. Upset and stressed with seemingly no one to turn to, Janus' age regresses to that of a four year old, locking himself away in his room to wait it out. The last side he expected to care finds him and helps make it better.

Warnings: Roman being petty, blood and injury mention; if I missed any just tell me!

Ships: none

Patton smiled encouragingly as Janus took a seat at the table, turning back around quickly to poke at the pancakes intent on not burning them this time. He took his hat off slowly, wanting to be respectful, and fidgeted with the thermos he had brought from the other kitchen. It was a translucent pale yellow with little snakes with bowties patterned all over the surface of the plastic. Virgil and Remus had worked on it together some years ago as a gift for Christmas and dispite their now rocky relationship he was hoping that seeing the old gift would make Virgil...tolerate him? Maybe start a conversation? Sighing he got up to look for a drink from the fridge just as Roman walked into the kitchen.

He and Janus froze as they caught sight of each other and the air immediately turned tense. He saw Pattons shoulders rise slightly and guiltily looked away, offering Roman a hesitant nod while he unscrewed the thermos and set it on the table as he continued towards the fridge. He didn't expect Roman to not be upset with him; he understood completely that he had taken it too far but then again so had Roman. He knew the creative side had laughed at Virgil's name as well and that had honestly made it even harder for him to even consider making himself that vulnerable, but it had been the only thing he had known to do to establish some level of trust between him and the others. Plus, he glanced back over to Patton, it was worth it for pancakes.

He turned around holding a jug of milk that was thankfully not expired just as Roman brushed past him, purposefully bumping his hip against the table as he did. The thermos wobbled and Janus was not nearly quick enough this early in the morning to prevent it from falling. Time felt like it slowed as it smashed onto the ground and a piece from the bottom broke off from the spidering cracks. Distantly he heard Patton gasp and plates clanking together as Roman hummed a simple tune but for all the distractions he couldn't bring himself to look up yet. He slowly leaned down to pick up the peices, tearing up as he realized he wouldn't be able to fix it like how it was before. His powers didn't fix things, they disguised things. Virgil and Remus had worked hard on making this together and now...

"How childish can you be?" He growled out, effectively cutting off the semi-cheerful humming.

Roman scoffed, not sparing him a glance as he set the table - with only four plates he noticed - and crossed the floor again to get glasses. "It's only a cup, just conjure a new one."

Janus stood up angrily and clutched the ruined peices to his chest. "I can't conjure things like that and you know it! I don't even have the capabilities to fix this and you think nothing of ruining the one thing I brought up with me? Your immaturity is-"

"Is what?" Roman whirled around. "As bad as Remus'? Worse? You think just because you're out here with us that means everything is somehow fine?!"

"Roman." Patton was looking at the creative side with a mix of concern and...anger? The pan was thankfully empty as it seemed to be forgotten for the time being.

Hearing the warning in his voice, Roman deflated a bit before turning away. "Whatever."

Patton shot Roman a hard look before looking over at the man still clutching the broken thermos to his chest. "Janus-"

He quickly turned away from Patton's gentle tone, sinking down into his room without a second glance.

Tears threatened to spill over as he tried in vain to blink them back, cursing as he collapsed in his bed and pulled the covers over himself completely. Roman was right, this was completely childish. Crying over something as small as a broken cup. He curled around it protectively even as the jagged edge cut into his palm. But Virgil and Remus had worked so hard on this. Virgil keeping Remus' more suggestive designs off of the gift and Remus reigning in his creativity enough to make something they knew Janus would actually like. Even if they had put the snakes on it as a joke he still loved it, they even managed to get it his favorite shade of yellow.

But now it was broken. The one thing he had from before their unit became tense, when they had been like a little family of their own. Now he couldn't use it and so he had no reason to bring it out again, which meant Virgil would never see it and that meant there would be no conversation starter other than 'what are you doing here?'; no neutral ice breaker to start them thinking about how things used to be and to start them talking about how things could be again. It would just be him and his unwanted presence and stupid dishwashing yellow gloves and cape he wore because he couldn't have his blanket weight around his shoulders and hat to hide his curly hair that none of the others had so he didn't understand why he did and...and...

In his frazzled thoughts he barely noticed the bed becoming larger around him, the hill of blankets becoming a small mountain while he curled further into himself. He only noticed his drastically reduced size when he cracked his eyes open and realized just how difficult it was to hold the thermos when his hands were so much smaller than they had been.

A sob escaped his throat as he realized what had happened, the stress of the situation bearing down on a mind that was ill equipped to deal with it. Not only did everyone hate him for trying to help in the only way he knew how to get their attention but now he was small and his hand hurt where the broken plastic still dug into his palm and he couldn't stop crying. He wanted comfort but there was no one outside his room that would be willing to give it to him, especially since no one knew this happened when he got upset enough. No one except...

He cried harder, clutching the cup closer to him and burying his face onto the suffocating blankets further to try and drown out the sound, resigned to being trapped in his room for the foreseeable future.

------

Virgil stepped into the warm kitchen carefully, having heard yelling just an hour earlier and wanting to be sure the air was relatively clear before following the smell of pancakes. Patton was still at the table picking at his stack with an uncharacteristic frown on his face, Logan sat across from him with his usual coffee and phone while Roman stabbed angrily at his plate as if it had personally attacked him. Debating whether or not to stay the rumbling in his stomach made the decision for him, making him sigh with hunched shoulders before fully revealing himself to grab the stack set aside for him.

"Morning kiddo." Patton mumbled, the usual cheerfulness gone from his voice.

Raising an eyebrow and looking at each of them in turn he grabbed the syrup to drown the unsuspecting pancakes in front of him. "Morning, Patton. What's uh....is everything good?"

His eyebrow raised higher as Roman huffed loudly. "I broke a cup by accident and hurt Deciet's feelings and now he won't come out of his room even though I already tried apologizing through the door."

"Janus. And Roman, you really upset him-"

"It was just a cup, Patton!"

"To you!" Patton raised his voice slightly, Dad Mode fully activated as he tried to drive his point home. "You don't know what kind of significance that might have held for him and if him crying was any indication it must have been important! He has every right not to forgive you right away-"

"He was crying?" Virgil cut in, worry curling in his gut despite the tension that had been present between them since Janus revealed his name.

Roman's cheeks burned with what Virgil hoped was shame as he quickly left the room, Patton turning back to his plate with a sigh. "Yes, he was. He was very upset and still is if his door being locked is anything to go by."

Virgil nodded, standing up with his pancakes to leave. "Thanks for the breakfast, I think I'll eat in my room."

He didn't hear Pattons response as he sunk out.

-----

Trying to pick a lock while balancing pancakes on your lap was not as easy as it sounded, but Vitgil was determined to get in the room. Anxiety burned through his veins as the lock finally clicked, hoping his worry was unwarranted.

Opening the door and looking immediately towards the tiny lump on the bed confirmed his worries. He closed and locked the door behind him before making his way quickly to the bed, setting the plate on the nightstand and crouching down carefully.

"Janus?" He said softly, wincing as the quiet sobbed cut off abruptly as the shaking stilled underneath the blankets. Virgil hadn't seen the other side like this in a long time, not since he left to join the "light sides" years ago. He still remembered to be gentle however as he tugged on the covers, pulling them down slowly when he didn't hear any protest.

"Dee?"

A red faced four year old curled up further into himself, tears still running down his face and snot smearing grossly across his cheek. His hat was gone allowing for tangled curls to splay across the pillow. Virgil gave him a hesitant smile as he held out a hand.

"I heard a little about what happened, do you wanna talk about it?"

The toddler hiccupped loudly and buried his face into the pillow, mumbling something that he couldn't catch.

"I can't hear you if you hide your face." Deciding to risk it he laid a careful hand on the others shaking shoulder, rubbing it softly when he wasn't pushed away. As he lowered his gaze to try and see what the other was holding he caught sight of something red staining the bedsheets underneath his hands.

His heart leapt in his throat. "Did you hurt yourself?"

Swallowing when all he recieved as an answer was another mumble he carefully slipped his other arm underneath the child, guiding him upright to try and find what was wrong. Janus, well Dee he supposed since at the moment he was little, was clutching what looked like a thermos to his heaving chest, sobs still suppressed as he gazed at Virgil fearfully. His heart broke at the expression, feeling horrible for making the child feel as if he had stopped caring. Looking closer he recognized the thermos; it was one he and Remus had made for him for Christmas years ago and suddenly everything clicked into place. Dee had most likely brought this to breakfast as a sort of peace offering and Roman had ruined what Dee had probably considered his only way of starting a conversation with Virgil. And he had been in here for an hour, upset and crying and afraid to seek help because he didn't think he could.

Virgil felt tears welling in his own eyes as he brushed them from Dee's, holding out his other hand in offering.

"I'm sorry if you felt like you couldn't come to me. Will you let me help you?"

Dee sniffed and looked down, slowly unclenching his fingers and leaning closer which Virgil took as consent. He slowly stood up and leaned down, scooping him up quickly and heading for the door. Unlocking and opening it with practiced ease he glanced out to make sure no one was around before heading quickly to the bathroom, making sure to lock the door behind him.

Plunking Dee down on the sink he gently took the thermos from his hands, glancing up quickly as he winced. The poor kid must have been gripping it for the entire hour he had been curled up, cramping his hands in the process. He smiled with sympathy and took the tiny hands in his own, flipping them while massaging slowly as he inspected the cut he assumed had come from the broken plastic. It had cut through the glove and pierced his palm though thankfully it didn't look very deep. Retrieving the first aid kit from under the sink he slipped off both gloves and set them aside, grabbing out antiseptic wipes and bandaids.

"This will sting a little." He warned before gently wiping up all the blood away from the wound, grimacing as the cleaning revealed several small cuts and punctures rather than one singular cut he had assumed to be there. Once it was clean he grabbed a roll of gauze instead, wrapping the hand securely and taping up the loose end. Smiling at his work he put everything away and stood back up.

"Better?" He asked.

The toddler pouted slightly. "Still hurts."

Taking the hand again Virgil threw away all of his scraped up dignity and brought the palm to his lips, blowing an extremely gentle raspberry and grinning as Dee snatched his hand away giggling. Humming soothingly Virgil wet a washcloth and brought it to his face, wiping up the accumulated snot and tears thoroughly before throwing it aside.

Dee looked back down and hesitated for a second before tears gathered in his eyes again and he thrusted out his arms, making frantic grabby hands at the older side.

"Hey, hey it's okay." Virgil quickly scooped him back up and bounced slightly, continuing to croon as he made his way back to the bedroom while his shoulder became more and more wet. "I got you, Dee, I promise."

He sat on the bed and continued to rock the small side while rubbing his heaving back to try and calm him down. "Would talking about it help?"

He began to panic as Dee only sobbed harder, cursing himself for becoming so bad at this.

"I was mean t-to Ro-Roman so he- *hic* he broke my fav- my favorite cup and I- I can't fix *hic* I can't fix it and it's the o-only th-thing I have left from when- from when you liked me and now its gone!"

Virgil's arms tightened around Dee as he wailed, regret stabbing through his stomach painfully. "Dee, I still like you-"

"No you don't! You n-never want me ar-around since you *hic* since you left!"

"Dee, sweetheart, I promise I still like you. Things are just...complicated right now because everything's still trying to smooth out." Virgil pulled him away slightly si he could look at him properly, reaching forward to wipe at his cheeks. "This is something we need to discuss more when you're big again, but for right now, I'm not lying Dee. I still love and care about you very much. What Roman did was wrong no matter the circumstances and you are completely within your right to be upset."

Dee calmed slightly, still looking unsure but thankfully he had stopped crying. Virgil smiled and gently booped his nose earning a small giggle in response.

"If you want, I can ask Remus about fixing your cup for you and maybe making it so it won't break?" Dee nodded frantically, twisting his fingers in his shirt as his tears stopped completely.

"Then that's what we'll do, but later okay? For right now Inbrought you some pancakes." He gestured over to the bedside table before stopping and making a face, almost mirroring the disgusted way Dee's nose scrunched up at the prospect of eating the now cold and mushy pile of breakfast.

"Gross." Virgil laughed at Dee's declaration, agreeing completely.

"Should of thought that through I guess. I can make you another stack if you want? We can even make shapes!"

Dee glanced over at him, dubious expression completely out of place on his young face. "Not hungry. And you only do blobs."

"Maybe I've gotten better!" He countered indignantly, grinning at the raised eyebrow his statement earned him. "Alright well we'll try that later then. Let's get you changed into something more comfortable for right now, yeah?"

He lifted the child up and over to sit on the bed rather than his lap and walked over to the dresser where he knew Dee still had his favorite pajamas. He looked exhausted and Virgil had no doubt that as soon as he was comfortable he'd be nodding off.

Digging through various articles of clothing he hummed in triumph as he found what he was looking for. He laughed at the look on Dee's face as he presented the article of clothing, quickly helping him change.

A few minutes later he was tucking the yellow snake onesie clad four year old snugly into his blankets, biting his lip to keep from squealing as Dee's tongue blepped out happily. He made a mental note that if Patton was ever trusted enough to care for Janus when he was like this to make sure all of them were wearing ear plugs.

He was just turning to grab the thermos, intending to get Remus to help him fix it when Dee called out to him quietly.

"Vee?"

Virgil turned and smiled gently. "What is it, Dee?"

"Will you stay?"

His heart melted at the small vulnerable face, his vocal chords unable to form "no" even if he had wanted them to.

"Of course I will."

Much later, when Janus woke up from his impromptu nap definitely feeling better than he had in a while, he startled at the feeling of another's arm wrapped around him, twisting to see Virgil still fast asleep behind him. And if all he did was smile and lay back down, closing his eyes contentedly to soak in the feeling of being warm and safe, no one had to know.

He knew they would be talking later, but knowing Virgil of all sides still cared about him enough to care for him at his most vulnerable made him a lot less nervous about his future.

This work and others are also available on AO3 if that platform works better for you! Prompt suggestions are still welcome. Please do not tag unsympathetic Roman.

[elizabethrobertajones]

14x02 watching notes

I appear to be fully booked for the whole weekend through to Tuesday so this may be the only thing I post about the episode until then, hope you all are having as much fun as Cas will at the party he’s apparently gonna throw to prove he’s cooler than all the other angels.

-

*readjusts my beanbag chair from Professional Sloucher to Serious Typing Mode* It's 5:13am and I've been awake 45 minutes watching this thing download and paused the new Adventure Zone episode for this... Mittens assures me it's well-recieved, so I'll go ahead and assume we burned enough sage to ward off the worst of whatever happens to their episodes...

Or, of course, Speight is directing.

So, expectations are pretty nebulous, because at this point in the story I really don't have demands, hopes or fears, except maybe that Buckleming don't handle or if they do, don't maul having Dean back. I DO miss Dean. It's very possible if he showed up in this episode everyone loves it because Dean-o is back.

I've never voluntarily called him Dean-o before. I think Gabriel's influence over the season is contagious.

Speaking of which... *hits play*

-

Are we getting a recap of Christian Keyes getting smushed because he, also, is alive? (er, the vessel, I mean) It would balance out Nick a great deal but it's also almost too much to ask I feel

-

14x01 recap: good, no sign of wirework. 14x02 recap: bad, everyone is levitating.

-

Also hilarious - no recap whatsoever of the past episode, because we have entered the Buckleming AU. Which is either Speight's shade or Buckleming's hubris that they don't need no canon to tell them what to do.

-

Nice. Creepy. Good start, sir. 10/10 would immediately go over and try and play that cursed piano despite my fear I would die instantly.

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asdhdjsfkdsf the detail that Mikey took  his hat off and a dramatic shot of it sitting there with the same reverent detail as the other spooky things from the rest of the intro shots

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Interestingly the vampire that Mikey is bleeding is presented in much the same way as Lucifer was in 13x21, left to just stand there and dribble essence from the neck which making small choking noises. This is either stuck pig imagery, or the suggestion from unknown powers that be directing this to suggest that the entire Lucifer concept is being bled dry by wringing Nick out of it too.

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This isn't going to end well.

While he's doing that, I would like to ask if that's a smidge of his own grace, or if he went and found Metatron's or something.

It also is very reminiscent of Lucifer creating demons - experimenting and playing to create the worst of the worst. Alastair and Lilith had white eyes and Lilith could do some sort of evil smite. The first demon, and the only one we've ever seen do that. Fandom long headcanoned that Lucifer used his own grace to make her, and it makes sense in a weird way that as he gets more corrupt, so do his creations - from pure white-eyed demons to murky yellow eyes to red and pitch black. Also: get more stupid. Azazel is the best and smartest, and each YED we met, if we assume they're in age order... Asmodeus is so dumb as a pile of rocks that you have to assume Lucifer realised that whatever he did to perfect the recipe in Azazel was tapering off and the good good stuff was over, so no more YEDs before you find out what Asmodeus's little sibling would have been like. His next known canonical attempt to make a demon isn't using his own grace, but using the Mark of Cain to corrupt, er, Cain.

Mikey is falling into this exact same nonsense from the opposite direction of his brother, AU or otherwise - humans are bad, corrupt evil things are better because they're less complicated and as an angel, humans give me a headache. Michael seems at least to have believed that there were good people - if he could just flipping find them - and that if he smote all the sinners maybe some good people would be left. It's coming at the same conclusion from opposite problems - he has earnestly sought out the best in humanity and then ended up scouring even the worst like Kip and those killers he mentioned, and finally settled on monsters, Eve's corruptions of humanity into bloodthirsty creatures motivated only by hunger. And now he's playing with them and using his own power to corrupt them further.

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PS: Eve is going to be SO PISSED

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That IS a very effective way to smite a vampire.

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He's very clean and efficient and while he's "getting his hands dirty" in the metaphorical sense, there's a very careful remove in the actions we see on screen, of him standing watching very impartially.

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He also sounds a shade more Dean-ish in that quip, and let's just go ahead and assume that the quip unlocked Dean a lil, or else that being in this vessel so long is beginning to wear on Michael - the influence goes both ways, and it's like seeing Captain Holt from B99 crack and quip, except this is the lawful evil version.

Plus, the flippy flippy and all... He's getting comfortable. I bet Michael might have been able to do SOME cool flip with a knife but trust me, you're possessing the second most blade flippy guy on this planet, second only to his husband, so that's a full perk of being in the Michael Sword and nothing else.

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No one has asked Cas how he feels about AU Bobby, which is weird because he and Bobby were BFFs back in the day.

Trust me, it happened off screen. Sometimes Cas flapped up smelling like whiskey and cigarette smoke and Dean would be like dammit did you just come from poker night with Bobby and I wasn't invited?

(True behind the scenes details from season 5)

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AUBobby wants a beach vacation as much as Dean does, though. Well, he wants to hunt by the sea.

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Okay I never knew "veracity" could be used as a synonym for "voracity" but google assures me that people are literally just really lazy about it because I THOUGHT AUBobby meant voracity, but he SAID veracity, and I was like, why is he saying angels aren't known for telling the truth??? and then my other part of my brain that is more sensible but works slower caught up with the context... This language is stupid. I apologise to second language speakers for that line. It was said "veracity" but it means "voracity" because we are a garbage culture, as english speakers as a whole.

So yeah, angels aren't known for their partying, no offence, party!Cas.

This is now 2x between here and 13x20 that Cas has been directly accused of not partying, plus how he went to a party in 13x22 even if he stood stock still the entire time, so I have to assume that the rise of party!Cas is gaining narrative and symbolic momentum and we WILL see him kicking back by the end of the season.

"None taken, I tend to agree with you." TEND, as in, other angels are stuffy assholes who never party, but I, party!Cas, have stood with my arms by my side and a stoic expression, all through your welcome to paradise!earth party, so *I* am in fact, cool.

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He misses those poker nights. Ellen and Jo taught him well.

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AUBobby has a perhaps Jim Beaver-honed response to "it's Dean" when worrying about what's up with it. Or, of course, as much as he may have come to like the guy since the AU rescue, this was still a lil test of why they had to be concerned, leaving it to him as the one guy in the room who is still getting to know him, to say what is unspoken by everyone else.

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Sam then prompts Cas to give us some clunky exposition on why he can't come, because Michael will sense him.

Buckleming, you literally are the ones who say Cas down in a chair and had him tattooed to ward him against angels. That was your thing. You did that. You.

It may be a sign of improvement that Cas is being left behind with specific explanations for why, but it's still hard to read Misha's expression as between Cas Is Sad He Can't Go Near Dean, which is crazy he's not putting up a fight and going anyway, and I Have To Say This Line To Explain It And They Don't Teach You How To Say Bad Exposition In Drama School.

"Yeah sorry"

This deserved at least 2 more lines of contention and scowling, or, of course, Sam proposing this to Cas on the spot, or Cas himself regretfully announcing that he had to do it to give them the best chance in a self-sacrificing way, then rationalising it with having to stay behind to babysit.

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Cas just said Jack wasn't an infant. He's a year old. He's barely even a toddler yet. You really read that many parenting books and don't know that?

Okay yeah. Anyway lumping Nick and Jack together as charges to watch - a suggestion somehow that they're a joint burden? It demeans Jack to Nick's place, in the context. Cas hasn't actually had a great deal of on-screen parenting to Jack except like 2 nice moments basically bookending the entire time they've both been alive on the show in 13x06 and 14x01, and I'm going to have to chalk this up to a lil anxiety about bonding with the sulky teen Jack that it's something Cas now feels apprehension about. He's the father who's rarely home and clocked in the least time nurturing Jack directly, while Mary has a wild lead and Sam and Dean both also a good chunk of it, with Sam pulling weeks ahead of Dean, of course.

A sense of Dad Who Is Always At Work Forced To Bond With Child While Mom(s) Are Gone, to use some heteronormative tropes, feels like it's at play. The dad who is always away on business trips is forced to spend time at home over Christmas with the kid while the other parents are on a wild vacation to Florida... What fun scrappy bonding experiences do they get up to?! :D

Of all the tropes flying around, to stick to heteronormativity, Cas has always been "the father" to Jack while others around him waver between maternal roles or not. But even in the very start, he "completed" the parental "set" with Kelly.

Is that enough airquotes to be clear I support non-traditional family structures? :P

But it puts Cas also in a place of having some of these toxic masculinty types of fatherhood, of being away for work all the time and not putting in the work for the kid or being too eager to fight and sacrifice himself than to be there. Hard as he works to protect them all, his connection IS that of the guardian angel who watches over, the one sworn to protect, who most often talks about his bond to Jack under that obligation and that promise to Kelly, the sense of a duty to protect Jack, but very little in the way Sam especially fell hard on the side of "nurture" in the nature vs nurture debate and put in all the emotional labour associated with the mother in traditional parenting structures.

(This was good for Sam to do considering Dean had done it for him, and because Dean did it for him - being both mother and father - he's largely exempt and can dip in and out of how he parents Jack with impunity, given he had his moment about this in 12x22, days before Jack was born, and was therefore freed from character arcs grappling with it in the same way)

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Cas is like "Nick is a MESS" same, buddy.

"He was housing, he deserves a shot at rebuilding his life" Sam is talking about himself here, which is weird because Nick was the topic of discussion a moment ago

I feel weird that Sam is admonishing Cas here, because Cas has not lain on the floor and thrown a tantrum about not going to save Dean, as ungrateful as he is being about babysitting Nick... it's making a weird conflict between Cas and Sam which is now veering into a philosophical argument about Nick, which makes me feel that if this is not just weird Buckleming dialogue issues where they find it hard not to write things as a conflict, Sam and Cas haven't had the rosy bro bonding time together while Dean is gone that it seemed, or that, like with Sam snapping at Mary about her optimism, Sam's in a Mode about this where he's on his last rag with everyone secretly because of lack of sleep. And Chief!Sam may also be struggling with being an authority figure among his own family, as every single one of them "outranks" him in age, parenthood, experience or scowliness, and Sam once described himself as "the least of all of you" meaning Bobby and Cas specifically of the people who in this room he'll find himself naturally deferring to. Sam's leadership is natural among the AU peeps but perhaps a struggle that with his family, he's still the leader, but there's no Dean to have the final word, and that in itself is an awful reminder, when he finds himself being the last word on a subject without Dean's input.

I have to assume this is like 5am and AUBobby showed up early to work to see Mary and the rest of the AU peeps aren't around yet

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Cas then throws in the line about how all he can see is the supreme agent of evil, which is fuckin hilarious that it was Sam's trauma yesterday and we know angels are much more likely to relate to the glowy blob possessing a face, and anyway most of Cas's worst Lucifer trauma came from being POSSESSED by him, seeing him wearing Sam's face, or being beat up by Vince fucking Vincente. You only really ever saw Lucifer as Nick in 12x23 and the last few episodes of season 13, bar like one encounter back in 5x10. That is a very very recent association.

Unless, of course, he's still MIGHTILY PISSED that Lucifer killed off 2/3rds of his poker game and that's where his "supreme evil" trauma comes from.

Let's go with that.

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Do you think Eugenie forgot that Lucifer was an hallucination in season 7, and also that Cas was dead during that?

(don't @ me about him seeing hallucifer in 7x17, he said in 7x21 that he stopped seeing hallucifer pretty quickly and I'm going with Edlund canon when in doubt :P)

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"You talking about my dad again"

Jack. Hon. You have absolutely no relation whatsoever to Nick, except via whatever family line ties him extremely vaguely to Sam as a similar vessel of Lucifer. I don't even know how to describe where that puts him on your fucked up family tree, but trust me, you don't need to worry. Biologically, you are the son of an ex-president of the united states.

But yeah, snarky!teen Jack is here in full force. I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with the baby's angsty melodrama years :'D

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Do you think

and I ask this hypothetically while full of dread that I am right

do you think Eugenie has forgotten that Jack is not Nick's biological son

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Jack getting the good good framing of standing with his back to the war room, trapped in the library, as he's grounded. This central framing demands the eye to seek out wings, but in this case they're kinda furled behind him, if you see them as the dark shadows of the room beyond.

Of course the war room/library symbolism is always a thing, that action is the former, home the the latter, so this is clever to show Jack's desire, but also that he is stuck, and we see the bar patterned lights on the floor in the war room which are used as prison imagery. Jack's effectively locked out of the war room with a baby gate.

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"Let's move," Sam says, with a virile pump of his gun, leaving Cas and Jack to feel impotent at home.

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Sam does not get the dick imagery often enough

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Blargh Nick again. Hello fuckface. Listen, I just wanna say before we get into this scene, that I've almost universally seen Mark P eyerolled at but said "at least he's a really good actor so the scenes were really good even if he sucks as a person and we hate Lucifer". I do not agree. I think he's a ham who over-acts and it was annoying as Lucifer but by this point expected and had at least transitioned slowly, but seeing Nick do the whole routine of standing up from bed, and then blowing on his stab wound and wincing and fanning it? That whole thing was just... too much for me. Nick should have been still and quiet and sad, but as soon as he started doing that it harked back to Lucifer in 13x13 when he was cold and hungry and over-acting rubbing his poor empty tum tum and rubbing his freezing arms. What made Mark P so good in season 5 was that Lucifer had a slow, cold and STILL menace to him, that while he might have gestured widely and been violent, especially in his dramatic scenes he was still and menacing. That's all gone by now and he acted Lucifer as a clown, and fair enough as an acting choice I guess when this isn't my favourite character or actor, but now it's salt in the wound that Nick was supposed to come across sad and vulnerable, and instead of bestowing some gravitas on him and taking us back to the start and actually TRYING, Mark P fell into clowning as if he thinks doing these funny things is what his fans who are apparently out there want to see, and my stretched to breaking point lie I repeated to myself about "oh he's a good actor at least" shattered because he was just playing the fool again, over-acting as if to gain cheap sympathy points, when his stillness and sadness and NOT overacting was literally the only way to have pulled Nick off without it being annoying.

This is a cake and eat it, well Lucifer is dead but I'm still here, and now I will act almost exactly the same, kind of dealio and I'm pissed and not standing by that self-comforting lie any more because every single step of the Lucifer journey so far since 11 we've placated ourselves with various phrases and concepts to make it okay to do all this but keeping Nick around is where the story breaks and so too does my patience for forgiving it.

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*Cas employs his Anti Nick Shoulders* I deeply approve of these shoulders

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Could they not give Nick, like, a sudoku book or something? He is just sitting here wallowing in having been Lucifer.

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Omg Cas is getting to use this to actually talk about himself. I'm actually liking this. Cas self-reflection is a wonderful thing. Everyone can relate to Nick, even if they hate it. Every single person will file in here and talk about themselves to Nick at some point or another.

Nick's like "why am I heeere" and Mr Giant Teddy Bear is like "I know right?"

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Wait is Nick's son called Teddy? That was unfortunate mind-melding with BL I just did. *shiver*

Also hilarious: a chosen flashback to Nick holding a teddybear beside the crib and I swear to all that is holy that Speight is deliberately implying after reading the line "Teddy" that Nick said yes to Lucifer on behalf of his wife Sarah and this bear.

I can SEE his face making a note here about what flashback to cut to.

His sparkling eyes are reflecting off this screen so much I'm getting glare from it.

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*Mark P cries a lot* There are a few little leaps in this conversation to get to the point too quickly but overall this wasn't a bad scene... Perhaps because Cas carried it enough with his sinscerity that Nick wailing was at least balanced and the directing matched the intensity of it all. Speight really is good at making things work and this was pretty brutal which means that the overacting is compensated for, and Cas inserted enough genuine emotion from an empathetic character.

It's all hovering unspoken about family where Nick does it for his wife, even if he regrets it now and feels like he has become a monster and is wracked with a guilt Cas can heavily relate to as it drove his season 12 early actions intensely, and his child. Cas also did it for family, and they give this definition of family where it could be anyone beloved in the family, so that platonic overlap is there between Cas and Nick's motivations. But implicit is that Nick's wife was the one that made him say yes, and Cas stands over Nick in much the way that Lucifer stood over him in 5x01 when appearing as Sarah. Cas is/was the wife in the scenario in a weird way to Dean, for whom he chose to be possessed to save from Amara, aka the monster that had come into the house and would kill his beloved ones in their beds.

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Promo scene! Aw AUBobby and his rusty FBI skills.

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The coroner talking about a spree killer harks to Dean's issues balancing being a serial killer with a saviour, as I talked about pre-episode with the themes connected to Dean being possessed by Michael, and channelling all the worst of him. In this case, the torture AND the wantonly killing vampires

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God damn Mary's red suit is awesome though.

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"neck wounds" I thought Mikey healed those? I guess I can see residual scarring on this body so maybe healing vampires isn't as neat as healing people, because corruption...

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"Why is an archangel hunting vampires in the first place" HAVE YOU MET DEAN? This is how he blows off steam when he gets a HANGNAIL. You think being possessed by Mikey will stop him?

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"Huh" Sam says. "huh," I say, because they actually did some Smart Detective Work to come to that conclusion and perhaps this is just because BL needed the next lead but we've never actually seen them ask this specific question about people coming to identify mystery bodies to find the next lead ever. And perhaps because even if it happens off screen it's a dead end in all their other cases, but this was still something BL wrote that put a clever concept in Sam's head, and I am at the bottom of the barrel with them when I'm complimenting them for not making the characters act like complete idiots.

The other thing is, this cuts out an entire scene of them in a motel opening a laptop and googling surveillance footage, and I don't know if they have been banned from writing the everyone sits around and googles the monster scenes, at least since they made Crowley pop in and google a photo of the president in 12x08, and then Dabb openly mocked them for it in 12x23, but it's a pacing GODSEND to have the characters act intelligent and ask questions that solve problems instead of relying on the magical answer box to tell them where to go next.

See again: low low low expectations. Whether it's Speight clean up work or they've been told off, this is great stuff, and files off a lot of the edges that make their episodes wearing on a cosmic, soul level, that between the weird content, they're also just clunky and poorly paced.

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Cas n Jack sceeeene.

It's Jack's desk! I'm so happy!!

I asked hypothetically the other day on a promo pic and I'm so happy to see Jack has his own lil desk in the library. He looks like a kid doing his homework

my heart is swelling

with all the table meta - it's another thing where they've changed stuff around to give Jack a space, a place he calls his own in this large weird Bunker. That table had to be dragged from one of the side offices or store rooms and set up for him because it's never b een there before, but now Jack has an alcove of the library he calls his own and he can sit there and do his research... And the alcoves give a sense of an enclosed room space, something comforting and like... library womb like.

The Bunker has adopted him :')

It's so weird seeing a character in this show who habitually doesn't wear a ton of layers around the Bunker - he's been in a t-shirt with nothing over it in both episodes, grey. He's young, open, honest, but hasn't found his way yet, hasn't got a tribal colour scheme. No plaid, and has only worn beige and blue in neutral Cas colours, his main father figure in a sort of aspirational sense, even if Cas is the dad who's always out on work and not there to raise his son.

Jack's identified as human in 13x23 but in a way he is a homunculous - the concept of what was originally believed to be how babies formed in a sort of medieval/rennaisance time (perhaps still is by BL) that the sperm was a tiny weeny complete person and they just got put in the womb with no other input from mommy and grew there. There's definitely a weird shade of homunculous implications in how Jack's parenthood is talked of, and of course he was then born as a fully formed man, which is a sort of transliteration of this nonsense belief, but the concept that he practically was a small adult Jack and then a big adult Jack and at no point an actual baby. Even in the womb in 12x17 we saw him turn and stare at the camera, betraying a sort of primal intelligence, the idea of a bored god waiting in the womb to be born, learning and acting from within.

And only now is he sort of set up to stop being a baby and start being a man when it comes to handling adult intellectual stuff and he's not learning from scratch but is treated like he has a more solid baseline for the world around him these days. He's learned enough to join society, but not enough to have carved his place yet. It's a very strange cusp of growth, and perhaps a good metaphor for being a teenager, in a way: that you realise you have been very stupid up to this point but now you are very smart and ready to be an adult (except, unfortunately, adult peoples will look back at this unformed humonculous version of themselves with the greasy hair and poorly understood radical political opinions and whatever, and be like, WOW, I was an idiot.)

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Oh my god are BL really going to keep writing Good Cas Lines this episode? This stuff where Cas schools Jack gently and lovingly with knowledge Jack has been up all night reading then Cas is like yeah this is stuff angels know from angel sunday school but I'll be kind about it and validate what you just read... Like, the lesson is the act of the research, more than the knowledge. It's up to Jack not to feel stupid that he did all that work and Cas was like, yeah. I knew that. I'm an angel.

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OH MY GOD Cas is actually having the chat I wanted with Jack about how he felt when he lost his grace

*shoves a fistful of popcorn in my mouth*

Jack all hurr blurr you don't understand I want to go run to my room and slam the door because I'm a teen and I have just discovered human tragedy and angst, NO ONE IN THE HISTORY OF EVER HAS SUFFERED AS I HAVE

and Cas is like, *ruffles his hair* it's okay little buddy, I too was a homunculous in season 9, which Lizzy has a weird deja vu feeling she wrote about but would not for the life of her know where to find that because it was probably buried in watching notes

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"what did you have left?" "well I had Sam and Dean... but I had something else"

me: *clutches chest, gasps, hangs on tenterhooks*

Cas: "I had myself"

me: FLAILS WILDLY

Sorry, this isn't very meta, I've just written so much on the nature of grace and of Cas, and whether he has a soul or not still, but he is very much talking about the time when as a human he had a soul and was "himself" without his grace, and though he felt the loss of his POWER he didn't feel a loss of his CORE SELF, of who he is (which is an ongoing question they're all answering about themselves, with Jack Homunculous Winchester as the main example to channel the others through). It's really important to me that Cas has this core self, this certainty of who he is beyond his duty, his grace, everything that is forced on him by Heaven, but that this part of him who he may or may not know is his soul is there and filled with, well... Cas's nougat centre. Because Cas has been playing THAT game far longer than Jack has :P

"The basic me. As Dean would say, without all the bells and whistles"

Dean is reaching through Cas to mock him for us when we don't have him in the room to directly accuse Cas of having a harp, and I love that Cas loves Dean so much that he lets Dean drag him for having bells and whistles (which Cas will take literally) even though he's not here.

That's true love.

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They share what is possibly the grossest smile ever and I am going to weep to see all this fondness for each other and for Dean being expressed. Like, ugh, families loving each other and being all wholesome and sweet. What is this garbage.

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"You know, Sam and Dean... they weren't born with their expertise" yeah because they're not fuckin homunculi

Cas is basically equating Jack to going back to the start that they had, a do-over on his life, that he lived his first year as a magical all-powerful baby, but in a weird way, losing his grace makes him more settled, gives him a chance to understand himself without his power and learn that he still has a core self, a soul with all the good stuff in it, and to begin again and learn things the slow way, but a way in which he will grow more naturally and take the lessons that are needed to form the real edges to a character that turn into maturity.

"They've been at it since they were children"

and so have you. filed under: ow.

Literally no one on TFW had a normal safe happy childhood free of monsters metaphorical or otherwise.

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Anyway Cas then reminds Jack that he has to do things slow to be as good as Sam n Dean, and moves on to it's important not who you were in your past - because this fuckin one and a bit year old already has a gritty past - but who you are and what you will do with the FUTURE. And Cas still wholeheartedly believes in Jack because of Jack once showing him a vision of the future that they might have - the happy ending, world without monsters, all that jazz that Dabb era is eyeing up  hopefully.

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Oooh Mikey's going to a partyyy.

That fuckin ring on his little finger. It's coded especially in media that he's either in a cult or gay. It's such a weird lil detail for Mikey to have added to the ensemble that I almost wonder if he smited a guy to borrow it wholecloth and took every detail. Though he's a fucking fashionista so maybe he can't resist adding a detail like this.

After all he wore dirty war-torn clothes for years in the AU, but even then had a sense of grandeur about it, an over-dramatic flair with the long coat that said that he dressed well, even for the scenario, and different, standing out from the rest of his minions.

Now he's here on paradise!earth, with all the tailors you could ask for, so he's going to dress like the lord of this planet it's begging for, in all the finery you can drape his fine sword in.

Sword does not approve of bowtie.

DEAAAN! HEY! I'VE MISSED YOU ILY

"GET OUT"

"I don't think so"

WOW, RUDE. There's rules about this, buddy!

"You can't!"

"oh but I can, because, see, I own you." It IS Michael who punches the mirror... I was certain it would be Dean, but it's Michael lashing out at his angry reflection, shattering the image of Dean. What a metaphor. In the Mark of Cain arc sometimes Dean looked at himself in shattered mirrors but it was a passive shattering. This is a statement from Michael that he can see Dean and he's shattering his entire self, refusing his right of consent - in a BL episode it's ironically hilarious so long as nothing else dub con happens, that this is the actually seriously applied good use of consent stuff. And Michael talking about owning Dean - it's that presumptiveness about others' consent that was Dean's biggest downfall in putting Gadreel in Sam, the cosmic karma lashing back out at Dean that he can't punt Michael out like Sam heroically punted Gadreel out, because Michael OWNS him. Dean is historically, cosmically, always for eons before his birth, been "the Michael Sword" - a true vessel with this guy's name inscribed on the hilt, and Michael has calmly taken full possession of his ultimate weapon, because well, why not.

UGH and then Michael takes control again by way of talking into the mirror and his reflection behaving normally because he's wrangled it back into control. A+ DIRECTION, SIR.

(Also because it's not Dean - maybe it's not so much a meta detail but the expectation might be that Dean would lash out at Michael BECAUSE he's angry and lashes out and smashes mirrors so many times, but he has no control to even move an arm to lash out... He's utterly trapped, just like Cas was tied to that chair.)

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I love seeing Cas storming confidently around the Bunker running stuff while the others are out, being the one who is looking over Jack, taking the calls about their findings, and now dealing with Nick wandering in to angst some more. This is Cas at home and although it's still weird the AU peeps are ALL taking a day off coming into work after seeing how embedded they were in the hub, it's wonderful to see Cas here and without the AU peeps it is more cozy in the sense of being more like the home they privately kept.

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Nick comes in like I WANT TO SOLVE MY COLD CASE THIS IS MY RANDOM DISTRACTION FROM THE PLOT

but then Cas puts his hand on his shoulder and he flicks back to Lucifer in an instant, trying to dissolve Cas in a panic from being touched. Cas is understandably completely and utterly freaked out.

And for all our talk of Rowena and Sam and their trauma from Lucifer, of course Cas has had a lot too even though I'm kinda eye-rolly about him talking about Nick as the face of all evil, of course this episode has been about his Lucifer trauma so far. It's really interesting to see Cas rattled by something because he is so solid most of the time - last episode he exuded "fuck you" from every pore for every moment except briefly when Jack was dragged into the room. But Nick has him on edge and now there's some Buckleming fuckery afoot with ongoing vessel issues, we're seeing the very strange visual of a Cas who is legit freaked out.

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Anyway I really like how smooth this was, even with camera changes. Speight is really wringing excellence out of them, and the script, weirdly, and maybe because it's Nick so Eugenie is focused, is actually contemplative and full of interesting emotional conversations, which they often seem to blow off whatever the brief. Even with the dialogue hindrances, the real meaning and depth is being plumbed by the scenes as a whole.

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So yeah, here is where I have to grudgingly say MarkP can play evil kinda well but also considering, again, FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN CAPITALIST PARTY? This is his calling, and he is a caracture of the man who plays the devil.

And this is something rather scary and sinister about what's going on with him which genuinely is played with some of that season 5 gravitas, which is super weird to see because I have got so used to him being a clown, even in his previous episode.

I have to say, due to that, I give Speight a lot of credit because he's really, really good at his job.

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"What went through your head just now?" I ask that a lot, and thanks for the reaction gif, Eugenie.

I need very little prompting to assume you are writing Nick and Brad is writing the rest.

Nick is a fine line of guilty and confused, and hiding his intent, either because he doesn't know, or he DOES. It's good. Credit where credit's due.

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"Some of his influence still within you" it's CRUEL to give that line to misha.

Kinda meta that there's a cockles joke from an old JIB or something about "influence" as jizz and 13x21 and all the jokes about Gabriel's grace.

But we're getting to a 9x11 parallel in the structure of the episode, but Cas is left behind with Nick rather than Sam, and Sam gets to be out there looking for his brother... And of course Dean within Michael experiences a shattering greater than the Mark of Cain did to him...

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"Lucifer may have inflicted more damage on your psyche" yeah no shit we were warning you he would have the Hallucifers

Cas does the most terrified slow shoulder touch ever - there's a real right shoulder wrong shoulder thing going on. Last episode he clasped Jack on the correct (left) shoulder, and this time he tries to touch Nick on the right and nearly gets smote, and then this touch is on the same, as he discerns what's wrong with Nick, and I get a mirror of 11x11 where Lucifer did the wrong shoulder touch to Dean, and have him the only inkling something was up with Cas, that Dean shrugged off because, ow.

-

Anyway white man has angst. Nick has the Hallucifers and he has to find out who killed his family. He's got like his entire own TV show premise of nonsense going on here and it's going to be crammed in between everything else.

Bet you anything real monsters did it

-

"And then what

Dude's got nothing to live for

we're so over these murdered wife revenge arcs

-

The old flipperoo of it being terrifying for a monster when 3 scary hunters bust in weapons drawn. The vampire has a terrible apartment and she didn't even get a new car - it's like she went from one crappy life to the next and the only thing that changed was she was now a miserable vampire. I'm sympathetic to her for now :')

-

Oh look how surprising, this side of the story is being 2x03 still - aside from AUBobby snarking that vampires "never do" anything wrong, in the position of one who never learned a grey area because lower Winchester exposure, the vamps are feeding on animal blood, and mourning the loss of their nest. This is another Lenore. Of course we started the episode with them in the morgue finding vampire teeth on seemingly human victims, as in 2x03, and the killer is the deadliest hunter in the universe - the heavily Gordon themed side of Dean which has been symbolised by vampires the whole time from Lenore to Benny...

-

OH this is the girl from the cold open. So I assume she's going to explain how she got away. We have to assume the cold open was several days ago - long enough for her to lie low, Michael to ditch all the vamps, AND for them to be discovered again and moved to the morgue and then for this branch of TFW to come out here. Which explains that Michael must have already moved on and be ready for his party in the present day, which is a stretch of time enough to form his next plan.

-

"I-if you let me go!" yeah AUBobby lunges at her when he assumes the conversation is over, because he never dealt with this before, but looks over to Sam now, and then Mary does.

We cut away before we find out if Sam decided her fate, so that current silence on the subject may be left ominous or may explain a lot about Sam when we find out whether he had her killed and has turned ruthless, or is still soft Sammy who dealt with Lenore and knows how it goes.

-

Mikey, what are you up to?

-

He's tapping Dean's charm but with a hint more of Jensen's whiskey smoothness in his voice than Dean's coarseness, so this is legally defined as assault.

This is horrifying. GIVE IT BACK.

I'm calling the police. Michael has made off with Dean's entire seduction routine to trap this monster, and I am horrified.

Weirder still hearing him just casually called Michael. Brrrr.

Ooh she's a werewolf. Somehow I hadn't managed to work that out in the glimpse in the promo and thought she was a new monster type.

I guess Mikey is shopping around.

-

Wow she really has prominent teeth. I wonder if that's a sexy trait in werewolves.

-

He takes a drink as he menaces towards her - he's still got that calm drifting through kinda attitude that Michael had even in the AU when he was Christian Keyes, and he's starting to have fun, which is really really bad.

I don't think Michael has ever had fun in his life.

He's like the perfect little kid who does well in all his studies then sneaks off and drowns the family cat in the back of the garden as an outlet.

-

"Now. Summon your master."

Is this the elusive Werewolf Alpha who survived even season 6 because the show just Could Not Figure Out What To Do With Werewolves until season 9

-

Nick  has an ENDLESS series of white shirts to indicate he's a sweet innocent dude now

because,  you know we have a hard time dealing with that

-

Nick is ranting like a privileged white man

I mean his family is dead, I just struggle with Nick for obvious reasons

and as soon as his mannerisms cross a line, he loses me again

-

He's kinda weird with Cas as well because he knows Cas, kinda, and he has to be 100% on board with all the nonsense, so he's just A Bloke dropped in this life now but casually chatting to an angel. it's weird. "You know what a cold case is, Castiel?" liike, he knows Cas doesn't always know stuff but he is also just going off on one.

I think poor Cas has decided since the Nickifer moment that he needs to spend more time actively watching over Nick, and once more is trapped with a ranting annoying man

this is his curse.

-

"But you're not dead. You have a second chance."

"you don't understand"

Ah, teenagers, such a problem :P

but seriously, this is hilariously the third converastion this episode Cas has been in where he directly relates to the very specific weird metaphysical problem that Nick or Jack is going through because there's literally NOTHING that Cas hasn't already been through. He might yet make an excellent therapist just because of how many weird torments he's endured.

-

Cas speaking with fondness of Jimmy :') Such a feeling of Jimmy being a good man who went to Heaven, and for Cas, raised as an angel like this, being in Heaven with your soulmate is the ultimate happy ending for good devout people - in 4x20 when he's still in Claire he tells Jimmy he served well and will go to Heaven like it's a reward, and despite everything he still seems to default to that, especially for the comfort of knowing this about Jimmy of all people, because of how directly responsible Cas is for destroying their lives, and knowing that at least they got this is a WONDERFUL coping mechanism for angels to tell themselves it's all okay, when they get the correct vessel with the proper permissions and they're a good and pious person who prayed for it etc etc.

Cas and Lucifer remain the only angels we've ever seen actually court their vessel properly, although it's implied Anael did similar. Most others have hopped right in without securing full and informed consent. Er, not that Lucifer does, but at least he has full and informed bullshit trickery, which, um. Is a thing?

-

Nick how DARE you call Cas a "stone cold bodysnatcher" who's no better than Lucifer. Jimmy is gone and Cas has had this vessel remade for him like six times since then. It's the Jimmy Model Vessel mk.VI, as sculpted by God or the Empty.

-

*sobs about Cas saying what happened to Jimmy was his greatest regret*

SUCH GOOD CAS STUFF this episode

-

The alpha werewolf is a white guy in a suit, surprisingly.

Michael, also a white guy in a suit, sits opposite him, and they're pretentious about their cognac.

-

"She thinks you're a god" that's the second time that's happened. He kinda liked it when it was applied directly to him but not an accusation of BEING Chuck, just that that's how he comes across.

-

Oh good he's just the leader of the pack, not the Alpha.

Still wanna know who that is

-

His sales pitch is about their purity in wanting to kill to eat to live once again. I find it hard to believe a werewolf with snooty opinions about alcohol who wears a suit like that doesn't have some human sins, but it seems that Michael is judging them by their monstrousness first, and waving aside their other habits in favour of the big picture of how they live their lives.

-

"Fully tested" you fucking liar

He's talking around the truth... It's fascinating watching him threading the line of judging people for sinners without falling into that himself.

-

I do wonder how he knows about wine unless his previous vessel did... or he's taking from Dean's pop culture and deadpan bullshitting it. Sorry, I'm still stuck on that detail. Character stuff always entertains me so much more than plot :P

-

"Believe me, it's an absurd dream" He's passively observed at least like 3 attempts to enslave the human race for food just in the last few years. He knows.

Mikey, you can't go around promising that, they know it doesn't work. Dick Roman couldn't pull it off, and you don't have his business acumen.

-

"Why be the huntED when you can be the huntER"

ANTI DEAN ANTI DEAN ANTI DEAN AAAAAH turning over EVERYTHING he works for

UUUUGH

-

Okay, Jack's wandered off and found his grandparents without a single warning and I am WOUNDED.

-

They seriously need to put more warning in for these things because ow ow ow ow ow

-

Oh my gooood he's named after Kelly's daaad

-

Look at these nice grandparents

-

"So you were like her intern" oh ne the intern jokes of last summer have come around and stabbed me

I repent

-

Oh NO nerdy little Kelly

this is awful

where is this episode coming from? I can't believe someone's managed to wrangle Buckleming into doing good stuff with everything so this is actually emotionally well-told

this is probably their best episode yet and i'm half an hour in

-

"We have a grandson!"

This is emotionally mauling me like an angry bear

-

"Jack kind of looks like her!"

*Jack attempts to speak from a lump the size of a planet in his throat*

*Lizzy types from within the bear's mouth, as it tries to stuff my down ITS throat*

-

NOUGAT GOT HIS HUG

-

Sam spared the vampire girl!!! YAY

-

She's called Lydia. You assholes literally used that name before for the Amazon Dean hooked up with

-

I can't believe Michael took the time to change his suit. He has a suit for business and a suit for meetings.

-

"the hunters" Oh that's cold. Dean, can you hear how he dismisses your FAMILY?

-

Oh nooo he metatroned her. This was a traaaaaaap and she was bait

-

Aww Lydia :(

-

He smites like Lucifer killed demons with his mind

it's so scary

-

How can Cas be mad at Jack I just nearly cried at a Buckleming episode

anyway he and Jack are having the equivalent I am your dad and I  set curfew, vs I am a grown up I can go out when I want argument for his teen son he's unfortunately not engaged with much.

-

"the only real family I have left"

Cas gets SO PISSED

I AM YOUR DAD, SON

-

But he pushes it down and asks if it helped because Cas is good and nice and loves Jack

-

Once Jack reveals that he looked like the weirdly photoshopped Kelly on a horse (oof) Cas gets mauled by the same Feels Bear and relents completely because he's legally not allowed to cry but he wants to

-

"I suppose there are worse ways to be human than to be kind," he says as speight exploits the fuck out of the bunker set, having them sit either side of the door between war and home, tables in the centre, them on the pillars flanking it. It's a wonderful image. I'd go into it more but I suddenly think I have no time at all

-

"So they're going to kill him," lil Hamlet of Nougat says all firmly, re: Michael

Cas switches gears from "this precious child" to "uuuh" immediately

-

"And if he doesn't leave?"

I can see Cas being that meme where everything is an action blur around his face to express deep horror as Jack keeps prodding worst case murdering Dean scenarios

-

Listen, when this little ball of damp feathers you call your son is joining in with the entire universe challenging you if you have the guts to see Dean killed for the greater good, you have a problem that EVERYONE can see

-

"Dean doesn't matter!"

*shock lines intensify*

"You're all so focused on trying to save Dean"

Yeah, he does the same for all of you.

This is the pier conversation from 11x14, but 1000x more intense.

-

Cas is like "?????????????? HOW DARE?"

-

Cas can not comprehend a world where Dean dies, but our lil Shakespearean hero is determined that it has to  happen because he WILL kill Michael, it's been put on his shoulders and he WILL DO IT DAMMIT.

(later)

-

Cas did not have this in the parenting books

-

"Do you think he'd want it any other way?"

"no but i love him"

-

I can not BELIEVE Jack got a flounce off stage left and Cas is the one left shook

damn, kids are hard

-

Nick has also wandered off to meet some relatives.

Cas is the worst at keeping his chickens in the coop

what was he doing

lying on Dean's bed sniffing the pillow

-

Oh dear, but it's the neighbour who as this conversation goes on I'm starting to assume was the one who killed his family.

Is he gonna go all Lucifer on this guy?

-

Uhoh, bulletproof werewolves

man I am gonna miss my bus if anything else happens

-

Mary saves AUBobby <3

-

Hi Deanchael, come to torment this poor family

You know you coulda brought Cas because he knew you were here the whole time anyway

-

DEAN! HI!

That was a really cool move Dean.

"Sammy"

<3

-

"It's me"

Unless it's NOT

-

"He just left"

"why"

"i don't know. I don't know!"

me too bud

-

Hey look Nick killed the guy with a hammer

What a surprise

-

Welp now I have to take my 3rd choice for bus to yoga but I finished and now I will be gone all weekend byeee love you yell about this later <3

[rememberthattime]

Chapter 47. Fiji

I was born on May 13, 1989. I don’t remember much about the day, but from pictures, it looked like a great time. My parents were celebrating, there were balloons, someone brought a children’s Chicago Cubs baseball set.

Today is my 30th birthday, so I’m reflecting … looking back all the way to the very start.

It’s interesting to imagine my mom & dad’s thoughts in that delivery room 30 years ago. They must have been terrified by the responsibility of raising a toddler (I would be), but also excited for their new son’s future. What will he grow up to be? Where will he live? What will he do? Their dreams for me had to be bigger than their 1980’s hair.

In the least dramatic way I can say this: they couldn’t have predicted where I’d end up 30 years later.

Birthdays are important to celebrate, but especially milestone birthdays. This is mainly Chelsay’s influence speaking, but I agree with her: milestone birthdays are ones you’ll always remember. 15 years from now, we’ll think back and ask: “What did we do for your 30th birthday?” ... I won’t let that be an ordinary memory. Life is busy though, so it’s tough to carve out a day for festivities, let alone plan them. Even a month ago, Chelsay and I didn’t know how we’d be celebrating. Chels had plans in motion, but my work complicated things by scheduling meetings in Atlanta the week before. My trip back to Sydney would require 24 hours of flights, so would we still be up for a big celebration? The answer is Yes. I’m not 70, and I just said milestone birthdays were important, so we’re making this happen. Work would pay for me to get from ATL back to SYD via any route, so Chels and I started looking for convenient connecting destinations. Hong Kong, Tokyo, Patagonia, and Hawaii were all considered, but in the end, we found the perfect blend of celebration, relaxation, adventure, and convenient flights in Fiji. Fiji is a county made up of 330 islands, and each island chain has its own unique characteristics. Viti Levu is the main island and home to Nadi Airport, but most tourists don’t stay here. Near Viti Levu are the Mamanucas, small sandy dots amongst the expansive blue. The Mamanucas are stunning, but they’re typically more resort-y and popular with nearby Aussies & Kiwis. Then there are the Yasawas, where Chelsay and I chose to stay. The Yasawas are further from the mainland, and their remoteness means their less touristy.

This is a double-edged sword though, because less tourists means there’s less tourist infrastructre, so finding a comfortable option would take some research. We eventually decided on Paradise Cove, which perfectly balanced vacation comforts (comfy bed, outdoor shower, and excellent food, which can’t be understated on a remote island) with a sense of wild adventure (fewer guests, great snorkelling, and hiking paths around the large island).

I nailed my meetings in Atlanta, so my birthday weekend was off to a good start even before boarding the plane. For the next 24 hours of flights, I had nothing to worry about - just enjoying a few movies and catching up on sleep. Chelsay and I met up in the Nadi Airport after extremely disproportionate flight times (hers was only 4 hours), and caught a ferry to Paradise Cove. Seaplanes were an option, but they were 5x the price and this wasn’t our honeymoon. The other advantage of the ferry is that it allowed us to see the different Fijian islands up close. Viti Levu and the Mamanucas were very nice, but Chelsay and I knew we’d made the right choice as we arrived in the less crowded Yasawas.

We were in heaven as we stepped onto the sandy beaches of Paradise Cove. A jungle of palm trees lined the beach, at first hiding the resort before eventually revealing a dream island getaway: shaded cabanas, pool-side lounge chairs, and a bar concocting frozen, fruity treats.

The pineapple on top of this pina colada was that Chelsay told the resort it was both of our birthdays, so they upgraded our villa and outfitted it with balloons and welcome drinks. As birthday surprises go, drinks on a beach in Fiji was pretty good.

After drinks on the beach, scuba diving wasn’t really an option, so we decided to snorkel in Paradise Cove’s house reef. I was really surprised by its color. It was just last week that I wrote about the scale of the Great Barrier Reef... but out in the middle of the Pacific, Fiji’s immense soft coral, highlighter vibrancy, and sea life abundance were incredible.

Now, it was inevitable that jet lag would catch up to me. Atlanta is 16 hours behind Fiji, and I was mentally nearing midnight. Chelsay was also dealing with severe time zone change (2 hours), so she was equally down for a nap. We gave ourselves 90 minutes but would wake up well before our 6:30 dinner. Apparently we woke up to the alarm at 5:30... I don’t remember. I guess I turned it off and only woke up once Chelsay checked her phone. 6:20. Woof. I say all this only to give you an idea of the mental state I was in over dinner. It was similar to that infamous Innsbruck dinner, where Chelsay and I giggled through our whole meal in a tired haze. After our mains, I asked Chelsay if it was time to call it a night... Despite having sour straws in the room, she insisted we stay at the restaurant for dessert. “Alright, well if we’re going to be here awhile, I need some extra bug spray.” I stumbled back to the room and, as I was re-applying, I heard singing in the distance. “Must be the ‘Kava Social’ by the fire pit,” I thought. ...These resorts always put on a show. Still in a sleepy haze, I leisurely made my way back to Chelsay. As I got closer though, I realized the singing wasn’t coming from the fire pit… it was coming from the restaurant. I turned the corner and could see they were surrounding Chelsay and I’s table... and Chelsay had her hands clasped over her mouth... and they weren’t making eye contact with her... and they had a cake. OH NO! They’d been singing this whole time for me!!!! Ahhhhh-I rushed back to the table, face bright red, and started clapping along as they sang a Fijian happy birthday song. I don’t know what they sang actually... it could’ve been the alphabet. I just tried to focus on Chelsay and not on the fact that the song had been going for at least three minutes. I thought to myself, “Chelsay must be so embarrassed!” And then I thought, “Oh no everyone thinks I was taking a shit!” The song finally wrapped up, and the waiters were laughing with Chelsay and I. They accusingly pointed out that it was the longest they’ve ever had to sing happy birthday… “Guys, I swear, I was putting on more bug spray!” Luckily a nearby couple caught the awkwardness of camera.

The next morning, Chelsay and I had scheduled back-to-back dives. We’ve been diving quite a bit recently, but it was still fun to float around the bottom of the ocean. Much like the local humans, Fijian fish seemed incredible friendly: the sea life was very comfortable with divers, staring back at Chelsay and I from only a few inches away.

After our dives, Chels and I took a 1.5 hour hike around the island, stopping at a secluded beach for private snorkelling. Along the hike, the resort had set up a few small exercise stations. One station was a tire flip... like what NFL prospects train with. This is probably why all the Polynesian players are so big. Anyway, Chelsay challenged me to flip it and I did so without difficulty. It must not have looked hard, because Chelsay confidently stepped up to try it herself. She bent down, grabbed the tire, lifted from her legs for less than one millisecond, and walked away with nothing but a “Nope.”

At dinner that night, first of all, there were no birthday song surprises. Second, we had phenomenal steak with a spread of beetroot, pea, and garlic purée. It was exceptional, as was every meal we ate at Paradise Cove. This can’t be overstated. I mentioned earlier that food in many Yasawan islands is poor, often limited to rice and fries. These resorts just aren’t prepared to meet all vacation comforts... Paradise Cove was ready though. Over our three days, we enjoyed tasty local kokoda, beef lettuce wraps, coconut crusted chicken, and their many fresh catches of the day.

The next morning, Chelsay and I joined a snorkel excursion through a nearby island channel. In Fiji, these channels serve as a funnel for pods of manta rays, which are probably my favorite non-dog animal. See, ever since our failed hunt for mantas in the Maldives, I’ve had an appreciation for how hard they are to find. Even though we’ve since seen entire pods of mantas, I’ll always jump at the slightest chance to see another. Our boat between the two islands, and the guide jumped in the water. He wore a weight belt so that he could sink down where the mantas swim, which I only mention because I want to remember how easily he descended 10 meters (30 feet), sitting in the dark blue for 2 minutes before resurfacing. This guy is a fish. On the other hand, Chelsay had a less graceful descent. When we scuba dived the day before, we exited the boat by sitting on the ledge, tanks over the water, and just falling backwards. The weight of the tank would naturally fall into the water and 360-degree flip you back to the surface. When snorkelling though, you don’t have the weight of the tank. Chelsay threw herself back and entered the water, but was too buoyant to complete a flip. She’d contoured herself into an arch, with her belly sticking out of the water and fins frantically trying to rotate over. She probably scared the mantas away. It took about 30 minutes of tense anticipation, but while staring down at the blue abyss, we heard the guide yell, “Manta!” Chelsay and I swam over quickly to take in the majestic giant. At around 3 meters wide, this female manta was bigger than me, yet swam with such gentle grace. Its grace is deceptive though, because it’s actually still moving quickly - between our hunt and subsequent chase, I probably swam 3 km that morning.

Chels and I were tired when we got back to Paradise Cove, but it was our last day so we decided to snorkel the house reef one more time. It was cool to see the soft coral again, but we were pooped. I actually had to tow Chelsay back: you know, when I swim in front and my wife just holds onto my foot.

As I was towing her, we passed over a shallow part of the reef but I kept powering along. Suddenly, Chelsay let go of my foot and started slapping the water. I stopped in my tracks, unsure what she was freaking out about. She swam off, so I followed, and it wasn’t until we’d gotten to shore that she told me what it was: apparently a venomous white-banded sea snake popped out and launched within 1.5 ft of me. That was enough sea life for this trip, so we spent the rest of the day on the resort’s inflated jungle gym. We laughed, played around, and attempted backflips (key word: attempted). Just a reminder that I’d turned 30 a few days before.

That note actually transitions well into my conclusion…

A lot of people get anxious about their 30th birthday. It isn’t a vitality thing - too early for that - but the anxiety comes more from gauging where you are vs where you thought you’d be. Life isn’t a checklist, but it’s natural to have expectations for when you turn 30, 40, etc. Well, I’m writing this from my villa patio in Fiji, so I’m nailing the “Where you are” part. To answer that question less literally though, I’ll instead consider “Where I am” against Chelsay and I’s life motto, something we wrote in our wedding vows: “We’ll never let age get in the way of our youth.” This is perfect motto for age-related milestones because youth isn’t a concept tied to age. It isn’t chapter in your life that just fades away. It’s a mindset, and it’s one you can measure whether you’re 5, 20, 30, 40, or 80. To be youthful is to be energetic, playful, and optimistic. Now I’m technically 30, but this milestone age doesn’t bother me. “Where I am” is energetic enough to swim with Mantas, playful enough to laugh at awkward cake situations and splash around on an inflatable jungle gym, and optimistic enough to make a celebratory Fiji weekend happen despite all of life’s complexities. I’m not worried about turning 30, because after the past weekend, I know I’m as youthful as I’ve ever been.

[lisatelramor]

LitA Extra: The AU where Kaito Stays with the Kudos

Ordinarily I read stuff over and edit and typo check but I just. Want to get this out there. So I stop poking at it. So Here. Have almost 40,000 words of AU of AU. This diverges directly after Kaito sleeps with Ran and Shinichi where he has the choice of staying for breakfast or (fleeing for his life) leaving. In this, he stays and staying changes everything...

“I should go,” Kaito said out loud. Some of the sleepy relaxation left them, Kudo’s hand pausing at Kaito’s hip.

“You could stay for breakfast,” Ran offered.

Kaito pictured it, sitting down at the Kudos’ table as they went about their daily routine. Either things would start to feel awkward the longer he sat there, out of place in their lives, or he’d be folded into their life seamlessly like he had always been there. He wasn’t sure which would be worse—awkward moments could be worked past. Fitting into their life though... that was too much. Too tempting. Something he didn’t deserve.

“I...” Kaito started to refuse and made the mistake of catching Ran’s eyes. The words died in his throat.

Ran touched his cheek, so careful of the prosthetic there that his makeup must be pretty much useless in hiding it right now. “Please. We’d like you there.” Kudo’s hand joined hers, wrist warm against the back of Kaito’s neck. How could he refuse when Ran was looking at him like he mattered? When they still held him too gently?

His throat felt tight. “Okay.”

Ran smiled and gave him a quick, chaste kiss.

“I can’t stay long,” Kaito forced out around the clog in his throat. There was always too much he had to do, even on the weekend.

“Then we’d better get up.” She slid away, leaving his front cold. Kaito shivered and Kudo’s thumb rubbed against the back of his neck.

Kaito sat up. Ran put on a robe. He was a bit disappointed to see her covered again; he’d felt the muscle on her, but seeing it clearly was different. She could kill someone with her legs. Kaito blinked as Kudo’s warmth left his side, turning in time to get an eyeful of him too. At least he could say he had a taste for attractive people.

The patter of footsteps outside the door heralded their daughter’s arrival. “Kaa-chan, Tou-chan, wake up! Wake up!”

Kudo scrambled for boxers as the door rattled, the handle too high for her to quite reach, though who knew what a determined toddler could manage. Kaito looked around for his clothes, latching onto where they hung half on a chair by the window. His underwear didn’t seem to be in sight. Kaito grabbed them and stuffed his legs in without them. Either he could find them later or he could give them up as a loss. It wasn’t like the DNA evidence was worth worrying about when there was a used condom leaking on the bed. It had to have fallen off when he pulled away from Ran earlier.

He wrinkled his nose and tossed it.

There was a loud bang on the door and Kudo swore under his breath. “Just a minute, Hanae! Kaa-chan and Tou-chan are getting up!”

Despite himself, Kaito smiled. “They don’t give you any time for yourself at that age, do they?”

Kudo shot him a bemused look, tossing a robe of his own over his shoulders. It turned into concern as he looked closer.

Kaito looked away like it would hide the tear tracks on his face or how hard it was to pull his masks back on. He knotted his fingers together, balanced on the precipice of leaving after all.

Ran brushed his shoulder. “There’s a bathroom right off our room. If you need a moment...”

Kaito could have kissed her, almost did kiss her, but he wasn’t sure what the boundaries were now that they were out of bed. Instead he shot her a strained smile and ducked into the bathroom. As he shut the door, he heard Ran finally open the bedroom door and Hanae’s happy squeal as she barreled into the room.

Kaito tuned the bedroom out and checked his face in the mirror. He was a mess, makeup streaked and prosthetics holding on by some minor miracle. He looked like he’d cried his eyes out. It wasn’t inaccurate. How the hell did he have tears now when he couldn’t summon any for Jii? Contrarily, his eyes prickled again. He took a deep breath and shoved that feeling down. Shoved everything down until all that was left was small enough that he could pull his masks back up. Kaito tried a smile. It looked real enough, could be real enough if Kudo or Ran smiled at him.

It took a handful of minutes to fix his makeup and reattach the prosthetics and put himself into some sort of order. Kaito smiled at himself in the mirror again. Tried to feel it. It didn’t work when the post-coital warmth had faded into anxiety and guilt. What was he doing here? If he went down and joined them at breakfast, he was going to cross a line. Another line. If he joined in domesticity, he’d want to keep it and Kaito had never been good about ignoring things he wanted.

He let himself out of the bathroom. Ran and her daughter were gone, but Kudo was still in the bedroom, taking the time to make the bed.

“I think these are yours,” he said, tossing Kaito his underwear.

Kaito couldn’t help flushing, tucking them away into one of his hidden pockets. “Thanks.”

“Ran wanted to know if there was anything you like to eat for breakfast.”

“I eat pretty much anything. Except fish,” he added, shuddering internally.

Kudo’s brows went up at that. “How do you avoid eating fish in Japan?”

“Very carefully.” It was a personal detail freely given. He knew dozens about Kudo and Ran. They barely knew him at all in comparison. Kaito had no idea what he was doing. The space between him and Kudo felt like a canyon instead of a few meters. He didn’t let any of his uncertainty show on his face, giving Kudo a faint smile. “Breakfast?”

“Yeah.” Kudo’s gaze lingered on him for a moment before he led the way. “...Ran usually makes something traditional on weekends. I’ll let her know about the fish.”

“Thanks...” The urge to reach out and touch, to seek some sort of...of tactile affirmation reared its head. Kaito stomped it down. That would just be needy and pathetic and he’d already let himself be too vulnerable.

Ran had already started the rice, Hanae balanced on her hip as she started in on making miso soup. Kudo crossed to her and took their daughter from her arms with a whispered word. Ran nodded and sent a smile Kaito’s way before going back to breakfast prep.

“Anything I can help with?” Kaito asked.

“No, just take a seat,” Ran said.

“We’d only be in the way,” Kudo said. In his arms, Hanae turned to stare at Kaito.

“Tou-chan... Who?” she mumbled, half-chewing on one of her fingers.

“This is a friend,” Kudo said, rearranging his hold so she could get a better look at Kaito without falling over. “He’s having breakfast with us this morning.”

Hanae gave Kaito the unwavering stare that only very young children could seem to pull off and that, at least, was something he was familiar with. Children he could handle.

“Hey, Hanae-chan! You can call me Kid, ok?” He let a pack of cards fall into his hand, serving dual purpose of child entertainment and keeping his hands busy as he shuffled it. “Want to see something cool?”

She smiled around the finger in her mouth and Kaito smiled back. A real smile because how could he not smile at a cute child when they were smiling at him? Kaito made the cards arc between his hands dramatically in increasingly complex motions until at the end of one big arc, he vanished them entirely. Hanae gasped.

“Hmm, now where did they go?” He made a show of looking up his sleeves as his audience giggled. He pulled out a handkerchief and shook it. A bouncy ball and a feather seemingly fell out of it. He caught the ball, juggling it one handed. “Not there.” Another handkerchief and two more balls. “Or there.” He looked at Hanae and Kudo smiling at him, caught up in his impromptu performance. “Where do you think they went?” Three balls juggled in his left hand as he paid them no attention.

“...Your shirt,” Hanae said.

“My shirt. In my sleeves?” He swapped juggling back and forth to show his empty sleeves.

“The front!” Hanae said, pointing.

“Front pocket...” Kaito stuck a hand in the chest pocket. “Nope, only ten yen.” The coin joined the balls. “Hmm... I think...” He crossed over to them, Hanae grinning behind her hands. “I think you might have it.”

“No!”

“Really? Then what’s this?” He made it look like he pulled a deck of cards from behind her ear. Hanae gasped. “Looks like you had it after all!” Kaito tucked the cards in his front pocket and caught the balls one by one before twisting his wrist and replacing the balls with a tiny paper flower. “I think this is for you. A lovely flower for the flower girl.”

Hanae clapped enthusiastically. Children were always the best audiences. For once, Kudo didn’t look like he was trying to pick apart Kaito’s performance either. He just looked glad to see his daughter happy. The warm smile on his face tripped Kaito up a bit, especially when it turned on him. Kaito always wanted what he couldn’t have. Kaito let Hanae take the flower in a crushing grip that would ruin it sooner rather than later, but her happy smile was all that really mattered. When Hanae reached arms in his direction to be held, Kaito looked to Kudo for permission before taking her from his arms.

The toddler immediately started patting for Kaito’s various hidden pockets. Like father, like daughter; they had to know what was behind the mystery.

“You’re good at that,” Kudo said.

“Naturally. What kind of a showman would I be if I couldn’t pull off a bit of sleight of hand?”

“Showman, huh? Well you do like getting everyone’s attention.” The fondness hadn’t left Kudo’s face.

Kaito didn’t know what to do without the usual danger underneath their words. He swallowed and kept a cheerful face on. “What can I say? I like being in the spotlight.” Hanae had finished her investigation and pulled the cards back out of his chest pocket, dropping them on the floor one by one. He’d pick them up in a minute. “Children aren’t usually critics either.”

“Breakfast!” Ran said as the rice cooker clicked, finishing its cycle.

Somehow during his show she’d managed to not only finish the soup, but fry several eggs. She slid the eggs over a bowl of rice for each of them and ladled the soup into bowls as Kudo set his daughter in a highchair. There were even two little bowls for Hanae, a tiny smiley-face on the egg in ketchup. It was so domestic. Kaito sat on the edge of his chair, too on edge to relax as Ran gave him his serving.

“You’re good with children,” Ran said, coming to sit at Kaito’s side, her and Kudo bracketing their daughter between them in anticipation of having messes to deal with.

“Children are easy to get along with,” Kaito said, going for honesty again. “They’re straightforward in what they feel and need.” Hanae picked up a squat children’s spoon, jabbing it into her eggs and rice with enthusiasm. Takumi at that age had gone from shoving things in his face with his hands to a weird aversion to anything getting him sticky and as a result would try to use his utensils with a very serious expression that had looked strange on a child’s face.

Kudo had poured coffee, offering Kaito a cup.

Kaito took it even though he preferred his coffee with cream and sugar. Their hands brushed passing it off and he felt it all the way up his arm. “Itadakimasu,” Kaito said softly, using the meal to escape conversation. Beside him, Kudo and Ran exchanged a few words about plans for the day in between helping Hanae with her breakfast. It could have felt like he was being shut out except that they kept their bodies angled toward him, open and accepting. The small glances sent Kaito’s way. Ran’s body comfortably in his personal space when she leaned to get the soy sauce from the middle of the table. He couldn’t share about his day. He didn’t even know where to start to keep the lines between personal and impersonal blurred. There were reasons that he’d kept Kid on a business only relationship with the people around him, but he’d crossed that line last night, no, crossed it a while back when he started watching them in their home.

The Kudos moved around him with Kaito in their space like he belonged, like all those times of watching he could have slipped in easy as you please. The coffee scalded his tongue, bitter and sour without sweetener. He couldn’t say if the meal was good or not. Hanae spilled miso broth around her bowl. Kaito had a napkin in hand before either of her parents could finish reaching for one.

“Yeah, soup’s hard,” he said to her unhappy expression at her food not getting to her mouth. He leaned past Ran to clean off her chubby baby fingers and help reposition them on the spoon. “Take it real slow, kiddo. You’ve got to keep practicing to get it right all the time. You’re doing pretty good though. Look at how you made it through half the bowl already.”

“‘s good,” Hanae said, meaning the soup so far as Kaito could tell, smile back already. Smiley kid. A happy kid.

Kudo was watching again and Ran hadn’t said anything at all about him barging into her personal space to touch her baby, and Kaito hadn’t even thought that he shouldn’t; it was ingrained like correcting Takumi’s grip on his pencil was ingrained or readjusting tiny fingers for learning a basic magic trick. It gave too much away and not enough at the same time and Kaito could leave them wondering or he could keep pushing them away at arm’s length.

They’d kept his flowers, two red roses on their bedroom windowsill, pulled him into their bed and hadn’t asked anything of him so far.

“I have a kid,” Kaito offered as he settled back in his own seat. Calculation on Kudo’s face, that need to dig, and polite curiosity on Ran’s—they wanted to push but he knew they wouldn’t. They were worried they’d scare him away, Kaito realized. And that meant they must actually want him here beyond being polite or just extending the intimacy of the night before. ...What was he supposed to do with that? He ate a few bites of food, realized that just saying he had a child could lead to all sorts of speculation about his marital status and whether or not he was cheating. “And am divorced.” There, cleared that up and pulling back another layer of Kid to show a real man beneath, one who had a life that was documented in official papers and had personal relationships that could and did fail.

“No wonder you’re good with Hanae,” Ran said, diffusing any growing awkwardness. “We didn’t have any experience at all with babies when we had her. Every day is a learning process.”

“I’m sure you were much better prepared than I was.” Not teenagers, not trying to go to school, married for a few years already, everything done the way society said it was supposed to go. “I am honestly not sure how we lived through having a newborn.”

“Coffee,” Kudo said raising his cup. “Coffee goes a long way.”

Kaito nodded with overblown solemnity. “It truly does. Thank goodness for caffeine for all the sleep deprived new parents out there.” He took a sip of said coffee, no longer burning his mouth. “And all of the exhausted ones with small children. I’m sorry to say it’s not much more restful when they reach the point of full sentences. Then they can easily open doors.” And climb on counters and knock over chairs and get their hands on things that they really shouldn’t have been able to find let alone try to play with.

“I think she’s halfway there already,” Kudo muttered.

Ran laughed and Kudo smiled and...Kaito smiled too. A real smile. He was in too deep too fast. He’d missed having people to sit with in the morning and to talk to. He wanted to keep talking, spill out stories about Takumi and other potentially incriminating things that were too private for Kid to share but just private enough for Kaito to feel like he was letting them in and that was too big of a risk right now. He looked away and finished his meal quickly.

“Thank you for the meal,” he said, setting his chopsticks across his bowl. “Ran-san, breakfast was delicious. I...really should be going.”

Their smiles dipped. “Of course,” Kudo said. He stood after a quick, unreadable look with Ran. He crossed round the table. “I’ll walk you out.”

Kaito almost laughed at the thought of using their front door. “I think I could find my own way out.”

Kudo rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to sneak around when you’re invited.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Have a good day, Kid-san,” Ran said. She caught his hand, squeezed it before letting go.

“You too, Ran-san.”

Kudo warm at his back as they left the kitchen, standing in the hallway because Kaito wasn’t going to leave out the front door even if he was invited, no matter how Kudo seemed to be trying to herd him toward it with how close he was. Kaito stilled at Kudo’s hand on his elbow, the press of a forehead against the back of his neck.

“This wasn’t just a one-time offer,” Kudo said to Kaito’s back. “We’re not the sort of people to do something like this casually.”

“Kudo...” Kaito exhaled, shaky. He covered Kudo’s hand with his own. They were going to break him wide open and then there’d be nothing holding him up, just a mess of hollow spaces bared for the world to see, honeycombed and jagged.

“You don’t have to say anything now. Just think about it.”

Kaito nodded once, stiff. He’d think. Oh, he’d be thinking about this a lot in the next few days. He wasn’t going to make any promises though. He was going to leave and if he didn’t manage to compartmentalize by the next heist things would be hell... Would Kudo give him more time if he asked? “Kudo...” How to ask it? Could he even? Was that too much to push when they were barely in a truce outside of heists? “If I asked for time to get my head around this...”

Kudo froze for one unnerving moment before he let go. The gap felt so much larger than a few hand spans between them. “Are you asking me to stay away?”

“Not forever,” Kaito said. “Just this next heist. I...don’t think I’d be able to meet you at my best right now.” It...hurt to admit out loud that he wasn’t alright at the moment. Kudo had seen him fall apart barely an hour ago so he knew it was true. Still, it was one thing to have seen it, it was another to talk about it and Kaito just couldn’t be that open right now. Not with Kudo or anyone. “After that, I’ll meet you halfway I just...”

He wouldn’t cry again. He wouldn’t show his weaknesses twice in one day.

“Okay...”

Kaito looked back, too surprised at the agreement to hide the emotion. Kudo looked conflicted. It had to be killing him to agree to stay away from a heist. “Seriously?”

“I’d be a distraction and it wouldn’t be a fair challenge.” Kudo pulled on a smirk that had been better suited for his face when he was still Conan. “If I catch you, I’d want you to be at your best.”

“As if you could catch me at my best,” Kaito scoffed automatically. “Critics can heckle all they want; my performances are art.”

“We’ll just have to see some point in the future. You and me, battle of wits.”

And that had always been the best part of heists, the challenge and pitting his intellect against some of the most brilliant minds on the police force. Kaito loved and hated being Kid, but it was moments like outsmarting Kudo that made it fun, not just a curse he’d drug around for too many years past its expected expiration date. “I’ll match that.”

“Good.” Kudo pulled Kaito into a quick, rough kiss, letting him go again just as quickly. “I’ll see you in two heists then.”

If not sooner, Kaito’s traitorous brain whispered, wanting to kiss Kudo again since apparently that was on the table even outside the bedroom. “See you, Kudo. Thanks.”

Kaito dropped a smoke bomb because he couldn’t just leave like a normal person, they were expecting some sort of dramatics from him. While Kudo waved away smoke, Kaito slid into a random room and bolted out the window.

He was smiling and it was a fragile thing. It felt a little like hope and a lot like longing and Kaito knew he’d be back before long. It was too tempting to stay away for long.

***

If Kaito found it hard to keep away from Kudo’s place before, it was doubly difficult now even with the jumble of mixed emotions surrounding their last encounter. He wanted to crawl back through their window and into their arms again. To have them curl around him and get nothing more from it than innocent sleep. He wanted to never talk to Kudo again because he’d shown too much and been too honest and that was terrifying. If things continued, Kaito’s masks could be peeled away until he was laid bare and who even knew what was at the bottom of everything anymore? He wanted to read picture books to Kudo’s daughter and help clean the dishes after a meal. He wanted to go apologize and reiterate that he couldn’t do this because it was a stupid, impulsive decision and he was in no position to have any sort of close relationship with anyone. Especially not as Kid.

The warring thoughts lingered as he was at work or at home or even through helping Takumi with homework. It wasn’t like him to be so indecisive about something. Kaito made choices and committed. Even the stupid ones. And if they were too stupid, he made new choices to get back out. That was how it worked. He’d made a stupid choice to take the route to seduce Kudo and his wife...somehow...and he could either accept that they were interested in having some kind of relationship with Kid or he could turn them down and go on like nothing ever happened.

They’d never tell anyone about his breakdown, never tell about any of it so they really could go on like it never happened if Kaito wanted it.

The problem was that he didn’t want to pretend. He didn’t really want the night in their bed to have been a fling done because of a desperate state of mind. He wanted casual intimacy and gentle touches and waking up next to people who knew he spent his spare time as a thief but still wanted him there. The problem was that he shouldn’t want that and couldn’t possibly make it work. Not with his job and Takumi and Aoko and Kid filling his time. And certainly not with Kudo chasing Kid. It was a fast track to heartbreak all over again and he knew it.

Kaito always did have a problem about falling for things that would hurt him.

This wasn’t an exception.

A week after waking to Kudo and Ran’s hands on his body, he sat in a park watching Takumi and Shiemi run around playground equipment. It was a good moment, the kind of moment that he cherished, and the whole day had been good from Takumi and Shiemi’s joy at being together to how they seemed to have built up a complex mashup of Takumi’s favorite sentai show and Shiemi’s current favorite magical girl series, beating some imaginary villain that had a lair at the top of the playset. It was a happy moment that already felt bittersweet as it was happening because he knew it would be contrasted with the rest of reality as soon as the moment ended.

Kudo and Ran would perhaps be a bright moment, but could it really last? Did he have any right to even try when all they knew was Kid’s mask?

Then again, even if it was only a brief moment, wasn’t this moment with Takumi at the park worth having?

At the heart of it all, Kaito realized there was a good deal of fear centered around letting someone in, especially in regards to Kid. Jii had died and Kaito’s mother and Aoko were barely in his life as the only three people who’d ever been close to him and known Kid. Well, technically there had been Koizumi and Hakuba way back in school but they barely counted since they’d been more enemies than friends. Either way, they weren’t in his life either and that was the end of an already extremely tiny list. If he got closer to Kudo and his wife as Kid, he would inevitably be getting close to them as Kaito too. He wouldn’t be able to hold a persona nor would he want to if things went further.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to try to build up something that would just break as everything else inevitably had.

And yet... And yet he wanted to try anyway. It would hurt all the more when it ended, but he’d have had something nice while it lasted.

On the playground, Shiemi tackled Takumi to the ground. Was he playing a villain now? Takumi shoved her off and they started bickering, so Kaito stood up, heading the issue off now before one of them got a bit too angry at the other.

“Takumi, Shiemi-chan, want to get ice cream before we head home?”

Two faces whipped in Kaito’s direction before they ran over with all the eagerness and clumsiness of puppies.

“Can I get two scoops? And chocolate?” Takumi asked, barreling into Kaito’s legs.

“We’ll see when we get there,” Kaito said. He let the kids drag him toward the park exit.

***

Despite how he’d suggested Kudo stay away from the heist, and despite the intent to keep away until his mind had been made up, Kaito found himself outside the Kudo manor the night before his next heist, too tense to go in Kudo’s bedroom window but too tempted to go home and sleep like he should be doing.

Kudo and Ran were inside, curled up just like he’d seen them last time, though the roses on the windowsill were gone now, blossoms spent.

If he crossed the threshold, Kaito had no doubt that he’d be welcomed back into their bed just like last time. He could curl up with warm, welcoming bodies for nothing more than a good night’s sleep. He could even leave before they woke if he wanted to and they probably wouldn’t hold it against him. And if he really wanted to he was sure they’d be up for more than sleeping sometime as well. But if Kaito crossed that threshold he wouldn’t be able to take it back.

Kaito always dove headfirst into the biggest decisions of his life. All or nothing.

He pressed a gloved hand to a windowpane. In bed, Kudo shifted restlessly, likely sensing the eyes on him even in his sleep. Another press, and Kaito felt the window shift; it was unlocked. In or out, Kuroba, he thought to himself. Are you in or out? The window slid up smoothly, quiet as a whisper. For a long moment Kaito crouched on the sill, half in, half out of the room.

Kudo shifted again, eyes fluttering open and landing on Kaito. He didn’t move or reach out or say anything, but Kaito could feel the question between them. Kudo wasn’t going to ask or pressure. Kaito wasn’t going to apologize or explain. Kaito set a foot in the room. Kudo slid closer to Ran, making space for Kaito in the bed closest to an easy exit.

When Kaito slid beneath the covers, Kudo pressed a kiss to the back of Kaito’s neck. Kudo’s warm feet brushed against Kaito’s cold ones. Kaito closed his eyes and let the tension drain out of him.

He’d made his choice.

***

Kaito woke, panic and adrenaline flooding his system as hazy remnants of a nightmare flitted behind his eyes. He’d woken silent and still, like he was hiding in a shadow from prying eyes and it took a long moment to recognize his surroundings as the Kudos’ bedroom. The room was gray with twilight, the sun on the edge of rising. Kudo and Ran were fast asleep beside him, curled up tight and warm under the covers. At some point in the night, Kudo had slid one leg between Kaito’s legs and Ran had a lone arm thrown across both their hips. Slowly, their steady breathing calmed his body down.

Just a dream, an awful, horrible, entirely false dream. He couldn’t even say for sure what had happened in it only that it had triggered all of the danger signs he usually got from snipers on buildings or being cornered by armed detectives. He ran a hand down his face. Those were the worst. He understood reliving trauma or mashing horrible moment or fears together, but the unsettling dreams where there wasn’t any clear danger just made him feel paranoid and upset.

The clock on the bedside table put the time at six minutes to five o’clock. It was time to make his escape.

Kaito eased his way out of bed, careful not to wake its sleeping occupants. Kudo frowned in his sleep, but he just curled up a little tighter to stay warm. It was cute if Kaito let himself dwell on it. He kind of wanted to stay and just watch them sleep, but he had work eventually and he really should go...

Or he could pay them back for breakfast last time and go start the coffee so that it was ready when they woke up in a half hour. Waking up to caffeine was always a brighter way to start a day. (And it made him feel a little less guilty about sneaking in and out of their bed.)

He slipped out the bedroom door, which had been left open a convenient crack. He only got halfway down the hallway when he hears a familiar high-pitched whining sound, followed by the stuttering start of sobs—a child waking up unhappy. Kaito’s feet took him toward Hanae’s room before he could make the conscious decision to do so, instinct to soothe rearing its head.

Hanae sat upright in her bed, face screwed up with the start of unhappy wails. Kaito moved toward her immediately, soothing sounds coming from his throat on automatic, pitching his voice more toward Kudo’s timbre since it was more likely to be comforting to her.

“Hey, hey, shhh, did you have a bad dream?”

Hanae sobbed and lifted her arms to be held, not caring who he was at the moment in a blind desire for comfort.

Kaito scooped her up and rocked back and forth on his feet. “Shhh. Yeah, dreams are scary. They feel real and bad, but it’s okay now. It’s over. It can’t hurt you.”

Hanae wailed. Tiny hiccup-y sobs shook her shoulder and Kaito held her through it, whispering whatever came to mind. Her parents would be awake soon if they weren’t already.

“Kaa-chan!” Hanae said through her tears.

“Yeah, we’ll get you to your Kaa-chan. Shh, I’ve got you. It’s going to be okay.” Kaito stepped back into the hall, looking up to meet Kudo’s eyes at the doorway to his bedroom. There was a moment of tension as Kudo’s brain realized who Kaito was, and then the edge of a threat that built in the split second melted away as he moved to take Hanae from Kaito’s arms. Ran followed behind him, slower, taking a beat longer to recognize Kaito with his particular prosthetic choices this time. Hanae reached for her the moment she realized her mother was there, half squirming out of Kudo’s arms before Ran could catch her up in a hug, soothing away the lingering fears.

Kaito hung back, watching. He should go. They clearly had it handled. But he hated to leave while Hanae was still crying. “I think it was a nightmare,” he said to Kudo, just loud enough to be heard over continued sobs.

Kudo nodded. He looked exhausted, tension around his eyes as he watched his wife and daughter. “There was an incident with Ran and Hanae and a mugger the other day.”

Kaito flinched. A once over of Ran showed no sign of bruises or bandages, nothing on Hanae, so... “She saw everything?”

“Yeah. It’s not the first time something like this had happened, and it’s probably not going to be the last.” Kudo’s hands clenched at his sides, unclenched, like he wished he could tear the world into a better order. “This time she was old enough to realize Ran was in danger, not just be scared and confused. She’s had nightmares the last few days.”

That explained the door being open.

“Were you coming or going?” Kudo asked, tearing his eyes away from his daughter.

Kaito smiled, wry. “Going. I...hope you don’t mind me sharing your bed for a few hours last night.”

“It was an open invitation,” Kudo said. “Though it’d be nice if you let us know you were here.”

“And wake you up?” Kaito raised an eyebrow. “I know what parenting a toddler is like. You need the sleep.” He put on a grin. “I was going to leave you coffee and note, but...” He shrugged.

“You could stay...?” Kudo offered.

“Can’t,” Kaito said, just a bit regretful. He wasn’t sure if he was up for the stress of navigating another breakfast so soon. At any rate he had work to get ready for and clothes that needed changing. “Have another day to face,” he said with a practiced smile.

Kudo side eyed Kaito’s grin. “Full of only legal things, I’m sure.”

“Meitantei,” Kaito said, hand over his heart. “I’m hurt, wounded that you would think that of me! I have a perfectly ordinary nine-to-five waiting for me. Have to pay bills somehow.” He could see Kudo turning that over, wondering what the hell sort of job Kaitou Kid might have in his time not spent thieving. “I even pay my taxes.”

“Somehow that ruins the mysterious image.”

“Exactly. I work hard to keep that image. Of course thievery doesn’t pay well when you never keep what you steal.” From the tilt of Kudo’s head, he never thought about the cost that went into Kaito’s tricks and endless supply of smoke bombs and knock out gas. If anything, being a thief cost Kaito a hefty chunk of his paycheck and his family’s inherited money as well. Kaito patted Kudo on the shoulder. “You have fun being a straight-laced detective.”

Kaito dodged away from any possibility of Kudo reaching out and hurried over to Ran. In her arms, Hanae’s tears had slowed to sniffles. “Your Kaa-chan is just fine,” Kaito said to Hanae, giving her a warm smile. She sniffed and stared at him, and okay, she probably didn’t recognize him with the prosthetics if he’s even left a large enough impression for her to remember him in the first place. That was fair. “I’ll be leaving through the bedroom window,” he said to Ran, “if that’s not a problem.”

“That’s fine.” Ran stroked Hanae’s back, shifting back and forth from foot to foot in a gentle rocking motion. “Next time wake one of us up!”

“I would hate to interrupt your beauty sleep,” Kaito said, masks on strong this morning.

Ran rolled her eyes. “Come closer.”

With all the wariness of a man who knew how dangerous a woman could be when she was annoyed, Kaito shifted a step or two nearer. Ran caught his shoulder and pulled him down a few centimeters to kiss his cheek.

“There, now you can go,” she said.

Kaito touched where she’d kissed. Huh.

“Our window’s open whenever,” Ran said. “It would be polite to knock first though.”

“That would ruin the surprise,” he said automatically.

“I think we can live without a surprise in this case.”

Kaito gave her a dramatic bow. “If the lady insists. Now I really do have to leave. Bye-bye, Hanae-chan! Bye-bye adults!”

He heard Ran laugh behind him as he hurried off into the Kudos’ bedroom and out their window. All things considered, it hadn’t been a complete disaster for only the second time waking up with them.

***

There was no Kudo waiting for him at the heist the next day, no surprise detectives, just Nakamori-keibu and his task force. And Kaito was best at handling them among all his opponents over the years. Outside the air was charged for a storm, too windy for a glider and thus not where Nakamori would anticipate him escaping too.

Kaito had dummy balloons there and while a glider wasn’t possible in the wind, a balloon could carry him a decent distance. Kaito’s breath burned in his lungs as he burst onto the roof—in a good way, the burn of pushing his body instead of with the edge of icy terror. The balloons were where he’d left them, a dark lump hidden under a tarp. They were gray to blend in with the night, and he quick-changed into matching clothing in a flash. Time to go, he thought. He grabbed the harness as he untied the ropes keeping his balloons there, wiggling into it as the last tie came undone... and up, harness catching across his torso until he managed to shift a little more to account for hips.

Wind dragged him immediately up and away. There was no way to control it, no way of knowing where he’d end up really, but the harness location was situated to prevent problems if it brushed against buildings or other debris and he had a valve to reduce the gas trapped inside and lower him back down. Away in a dizzying spiral of eddies, like the best and worst thrill ride, as the world was a blur of light and dark beneath him. There was the museum fading behind him, there were residential buildings, trees, cars on a major street—the balloons trembled suddenly and he went from drifting wildly to descending fast. A popping sound registered belatedly. He hadn’t accounted for falling out of the sky.

It was fast, too fast to do much more than direct the balloons as best he could with the balance shot and the wind still blowing every which way. He had enough control not to fly into a building though and when it finally crashed, it was in someone’s tiny back yard, probably wrecking the top of the fence where he’d barreled into it. The balloons did their job to cushion enough that it wasn’t a fatal crash, but Kaito’s shoulder ached from where he’d rammed the fence, balloons there mostly deflated even before they hit. Ow.

He pulled free of the mess, squinting down at it. The balloons were all deflating now, too torn up. There was wood tangled in fabric and on one panel a round hole—gunshot. And dark spots of...blood? Kaito looked at his arm. There was a gash through the suit fabric on his shoulder, pain radiating from it. There was dampness on Kaito’s fingertips too. Ah. More ow than he first thought. Of course, that was when the sky gave an ominous rumble and it began to pour. Kaito grabbed his balloon remnants and staggered out of the yard and down the street as fast as he could manage. At least the rain meant no one was outside or if anyone was, their heads were down trying to stay dry and reach their destination as fast as possible.

Kaito ditched the balloon remains as soon as he could find a suitable place to do so before dodging back toward areas he knew and the stores of clothes he had squirrelled away. Two changes later, he made his way toward home only to pause. They shot at him again. They had shot Jii, so there was a very good chance that they had his home under watch just because Kaito was known to interact with Jii—Toichi’s past aside. He shouldn’t go back there. That left Kaito’s mostly empty new apartment or heading to Kudo’s and, well, while he was ninety-nine percent sure he had lost any possible tail he had, it was better to be safe and not lead someone to people he cared about or further paint a target on them. Kaito headed to the apartment, aching, cold to the bone, and dripping wet.

He had cheap, rough towels bought cheap because he hadn’t wanted anything from his childhood home here; it was like a fresh start. There was a bare minimum of things. Some blankets, a chair, box to use as a table, some bandages and ointment, shelf-stable food, a change of clothes. Kaito dripped water all over the genkan and into the bathroom before he stripped off the soaked clothing and what remained of his Kid gear that hadn’t been stuffed in his random hidey-holes on the way back.

His shoulder had stopped bleeding, the skin around the edges of the wound an angry pink, the blood tacky and diluted with rain failing to quite clot properly. There was a bruise already starting to color around it and along his arm and side. This would be another scar to add to the dozens he already had. Kaito grimaced at the mess and cleaned it up. It didn’t need stitches. Butterfly bandages and gauze would do their work well enough.

After, he cleaned the rest of himself and sat in the bath, staring at the ceiling for a long time until the ache and chill went away. Another day, another brush with death. If they’d shot a bit lower or hit a few more balloons... If they’d shot him while he was untying the balloons. Nakamori bursting onto the rooftop. If Kudo had been there... Kaito shut his eyes. None of those what-if scenarios had happened. There was only what was, and what was real was that Kaito crashed and lived and walked away from it.

The night’s prize was a glimmer on wet tiles. He wasn’t going to return it to Kudo. He’d put too much attention on Kudo lately and tonight was a reminder not to do that. He couldn’t show favorites in the field or they’d use that against him. They’d try to use it to break him. Like why they’d killed Jii. Kudo had to still attend sometimes because not attending at all would be as equally strange behavior as Kaito singling Kudo out. Maybe he could convince Kudo about the need for caution...? Explain about the snipers?

Would that help things or make them worse? Protect Kudo or endanger him further?

Kaito wasn’t going to be able to hide a shoulder wound like this from Kudo or Ran if things continued in the light that they had been. He sighed. It would be easy to fall asleep in the bath. But easy to drown too, and that would defeat the whole point of fighting to stay alive now wouldn’t it?

He got out of the bath. More water everywhere, though at least this was warm. The cheap towels were scratchy against his skin, but they did their job. Kaito left the mess of clothing, bandages, and wet towels to be cleaned at a future time and collapsed into a blanket nest.

One day at a time, Kuroba, one day at a time. Tonight he’d lived, tomorrow he could figure out the next day of his life.

***

There were definitely eyes watching him again. Kaito had felt them at times over the years, always when the shadows he baited turned their suspicions his way again. They’d been there since Jii’s death probably, but he hadn’t been in the right mindset to notice them at the time. Now as he recovered from his latest heist, he noticed that they were watching closer than he could remember them ever doing. They were following Aoko and Kaito had noticed them paying attention to the Kudo household as well, but much less so than Aoko. They were at the museum, following Kaito and his coworkers and someone lingering near Jii’s bar. So far Kaito’s new apartment wasn’t under watch but his family home was.

He wasn’t sure what to do about it. It wasn’t like he could just take out his watchers; that would only confirm their suspicions.

It said a lot about his life at this point when he opened his apartment door one morning and found Koizumi Akako on his doorstep. He hadn’t seen Koizumi Akako since he graduated over half a decade ago.

“Kuroba,” Koizumi said, the same inscrutable smile as always on her face. He wasn’t sure what he would have thought Koizumi at twenty-five would look like, but however the years had treated her, she looked good. Her dark red hair was still long, but it was cut more stylishly. She was dressed in something that looked like a designer exclusive dress and had on jewelry that had to cost almost half a year of Kaito’s rent apiece. Added to her flawless makeup and dark red lipstick, Akako looked every bit the sensuous, elite woman she’d emulated in high school. Kaito was surprised he hadn’t seen her face on a billboard or something. She’d certainly cultivated the image for it.

“Koizumi,” Kaito returned. She looked him up and down the way he had done to her, each taking their measure of the other.

“Rumor has it that you could use a bit of help,” Koizumi said. Her perfect bow lips quirked up at the corners, smug as ever. “As I could use something from you, I thought we might reach an understanding.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re in a sticky situation, Kuroba,” Koizumi said, brushing past him to enter the apartment. “Do keep up.”

Kaito rolled his eyes. Rude much? “Nice to see you too, Akako-hime. I see life is treating you well.”

“And I see life has gone to hell for you,” Koizumi said looking around the sparse furnishings of his tiny apartment. Her eyes lingered on a drawing Takumi did a few days ago; Kaito with scrawled doves seeming to burst from his shirt on all sides like an explosion in the form of birds. It had been too cute to resist taping it up on a wall. Now it felt like it should be saved from Koizumi’s eyes, like they’d taint the happy memory behind it.  “Tell me, is Nakamori-chan still swinging mops at your head these days or has the divorce upgraded that to something a bit more lethal?”

“Ouch,” Kaito said. He didn’t bother asking how she knew about the divorce. “If you’re here to talk about my poor life choices, you can just turn around and leave right now.”

“Nonsense.” Koizumi titled her head in a way that made her hair fall across her face in what was no doubt an enchanting effect to most people. “I was merely pointing out that you’ve reached the point where you not only need me, you might actively consider taking me up on my offer.”

“And what exactly are you offering?” Kaito asked, watching as she made herself comfortable on his couch. So much for going to get groceries.

“An exchange,” Koizumi said. “You know I have...ways of getting information that others can’t.”

“Yeah.” He’d seen it time and again in high school, Koizumi knowing far more than she should have. He’d also see her demon butler and had spells placed on him and people around him. He wasn’t a skeptic when it came to her ‘ways.’ “What about them?”

“I can use them to watch your back,” Koizumi said, to the point, “since you don’t have anyone doing that for you anymore.”

That stung, Jii’s death still a raw wound. What little of his emotions he allowed on his face went blank, locked up tight. “Of course you can,” Kaito said. He crossed his arms, leaning back against the stretch of blank wall near the entryway. Distant, because distance was better with Koizumi. Too close and she could pull you in or use spells to manipulate you. They never worked quite right on him, but there was no such thing as being too safe. “And what would you get out of it?”

“That depends on what you’re willing to give.”

She sat there, comfortable as could be on the worn couch he’d bought second-hand as if it were her own. Entirely confident that Kaito had something to bargain with. Entirely certain that he would bargain at all. The same dislike and wariness he’d felt throughout most of high school rose in him. Where did she have the right to swan into his home and start making demands?

“Look at it this way,” she said, legs crossing at the knee and leaning her head against one hand. “You had a close call last heist. That sniper would have killed you if he shot a few seconds sooner.” Her eyes trapped him in place like a cobra’s stare. “You were followed twice this week and a month and a half ago you lost your assistant. Your leads have all fallen through lately in catching these men. The last person you managed to turn over to the police was dead within an hour. Your infamous luck is slowly running out. But I could spot your watchers, see when each worse threat arises, and even give your luck a boost to keep it going a bit longer.”

Kaito hesitated. There had to be a catch, there was always a catch, like making a deal with a devil. But Koizumi knew things that she shouldn’t. Things she could only know through magic. There was one thing she hadn’t offered in that little sales pitch, one thing that he would give her pretty much anything for. Especially lately when his blood ran cold thinking about those unfeeling eyes on Takumi.

“You know magic,” Kaito said. A statement of fact, acknowledged out loud for the first time. He wet his lips. “What would it take to erase the connection between Kaitou Kid and all things Kuroba?”

Koizumi’s eyes narrowed. She tapped a manicured nail against one burgundy lip. “All things Kuroba? I can’t go that far. My magic has never worked quite right on you personally. As for your family... That could be doable. I could obscure you and erase their connection entirely. Nakamori-chan’s connection with Kid would remain, but her connection to Kuroba Kaito would be obscured from anyone looking for you with ill intent. Same with your mother and your son.”

“And other people?” People like Nakamori-keibu and the Kudos...

“To a lesser degree, yes. The way I’m thinking would work best on blood relations.”

“And what would something like that cost me.”

Koizumi smiled, cold. “A child.”

Kaito’s emotions locked down, face even blanker. “What.”

The witch on his sofa had the gall to look annoyed. “No, you idiot. I don’t mean sacrificing your or some other random child. I mean that my price for you is a child of your bloodline. With me.” Koizumi looked him over once; Kaito had rarely felt so much like something about to be eaten. “My family has always gained power through seeking out others just as strong. What better way to strengthen my bloodline than with yours since you’re resistant to my magic?”

A child. Koizumi wanted to have his child. What the fuck. All those years in high school of her trying to force him to bend to her magic and will and fall over himself at her feet and here she was asking for a baby. He tried not to react outwardly. “Why now?”

“You’re at the point where you’re considering it,” Koizumi said, like it explained everything, and maybe it did. If Kaito hadn’t lost Jii, if he was still married, if the world wasn’t closing in on all sides, if he didn’t desperately want the refuge offered by the Kudos... Well, he would never have listened this long. “Besides, I’m at the point in my life where my window of prime child bearing years are passing quickly. It’s the right time for a child.” She didn’t say it, but Kaito could see an edge of vulnerability for a moment, an unspoken and I want a child that Akako was too proud to ever say.

Kaito wet his lips again. He felt a little sick. He was actively considering this. Him. Who had always wanted nothing to do with Koizumi or her intentions toward him. Would it be worth it though? At least, he thought, she wasn’t unattractive, just not attractive to him in her personality.

Koizumi rolled her eyes. “Kuroba, I need your sperm, not your dick.”

He flinched. “Wow, you’ve gotten blunt,” he muttered.

Koizumi lifted a perfectly tweezed eyebrow. “I’m at the height of my power with half the world ready to throw itself at my feet; I don’t have to be proper or polite anymore.” She smirked suddenly. “Of course if you’d rather seal the deal the old fashioned way...”

“No!” Kaito said. “No thank you!”

Koizumi laughed and finally that haughty, elite persona melted away a bit. “You’re lucky I find your horror funny instead of insulting.”

“Ugh.” No, he really did not want to sleep with Koizumi Akako, deal or no deal.

“How about this,” she said. “You let me have your child and I will erase your family from your shadows’ notice, obscure your identity as much as I’m able, and give your luck a boost. I’ll throw in future warnings as I get them and any tidbits I can get on your threats’ identities for free.”

Kaito didn’t point out that some of those ‘free’ additions had been implied by her sales pitch. Instead he gave a counter demand. “I get to know about the child. What they’re like and their life.” The idea of having a child and not ever knowing about their life or their name or face... Not having anything to do with them even in an impersonal way... He couldn’t do that. Having Takumi had shown him just how much having a child meant to him.

Koizumi didn’t even look surprised by this demand. “Fine. I promise to give regular updates. I’ll even let you meet them at some point.”

Kaito took a breath. He could feel the shifting of the world, tipping to a new balance at that moment. “Okay. Okay, I’ll accept.”

Koizumi smiled. “Wonderful.” She got to her feet and took Kaito’s hand in hers to shake it, Western-style sealing of the deal. “I’ll be in touch about the details.”

“Okay.” Kaito had the sinking feeling that he’d jumped into something he couldn’t handle. He’d have to handle it anyway.

Koizumi smiled, meeting his eyes for a long moment. And then she was leaving just as confidently as she’d come. Kaito hadn’t really had a choice in this deal, had he?

***

Every time Kaito decided he was going to put a bit of distance—or at least wait a bit for safety’s sake—between him and the Kudos, he found his resolve crumbling. The bed at the apartment felt too empty. He needed to hear Ran singing a lullaby. He needed to see Kudo alive and breathing after a nightmare of him getting shot at a heist. Visiting the Kudo house meant triple disguises and doubling around and doing everything he could think of to keep the watchers from realizing he was there, just like he did every time he went back to his new apartment, and it was tiring and ate up time he could be using to sleep or plan, but he found himself doing it anyway, crawling in the bedroom window or watching Kudo in his study for a while until he worked up the nerve to join him.

So far Kaito hadn’t been turned away. They’d scoot over and give him room in the bed or Kudo would set his paperwork aside to give Kaito attention or Ran would ask questions about his day in careful generalities that let him get away without giving specifics. He’d joined them for dinner once, and had breakfast half a dozen times even though it made it hard to make it to work on time.

There hadn’t been a repeat of that first night yet, nothing inherently sexual at all, but there had been plenty of intimacy and it filled some void in him he’d long stopped noticing was there. It was nice to sleep tangled up with someone. It was nice to exchange a kiss before bed or in the morning or just because they felt like it. It was nice to be asked how his day went and hear how someone else was doing and even nice to coax a picky toddler into eating again.

***

There was a note left in the apartment mailbox. Kaito took one glance at the handwriting and knew it was Koizumi. There was no stamp, which made him deeply uncomfortable. Either Akako or her inhuman servant had left this and neither thought was a pleasant one. It asked for a sample of Takumi’s hair and...the other necessary sample for their bargain to be left in his mailbox at a certain date for Koizumi to uphold the bargain in full.

Kaito half expected the note to catch fire or do something unnerving or magical, like try to influence him, but it remained nothing more than paper. He...still wasn’t very comfortable about this. Even less comfortable in giving Koizumi something of his son’s but. But. So far she’d helped him. And Koizumi wasn’t the type to break a deal once she made it. And Kaito wouldn’t be the one to break it on his end.

Someday he’d have to look his son in the face and explain that he had a sister somewhere. How the heck was he going to explain that? And if Aoko ever found out... He shuddered. He’d be in trouble. It didn’t matter that they were divorced for almost three years now, Aoko would still give him hell for having a kid with Koizumi. Especially with Koizumi.  So she could never know.

Kaito vanished the note up his sleeve and made plans. Koizumi would get her samples and that would be that.

More than Kaito’s comfort, Takumi’s safety came first.

***

It wasn’t an abrupt change. There were people watching him and Aoko and everyone in his life and then... there were less. They dropped off, like something else had distracted them until Kaito was sure it was the same level of observation as it used to be; someone keeping an eye on the task force, and an ear to the ground for any hint of a gem that might be Pandora. No one hanging around Kaito’s home. No one around Jii’s place either, and that was what truly cemented Koizumi’s influence because they knew Jii was connected to Kid. And yet the surveillance was gone. A scan for wire taps came up empty and there wasn’t even a hint of Kaito’s sixth sense nagging him when he visited the bar to check up on it.

It left a tumult of emotions in him, regret and relief and worry and small joys for freedom he still had all a tangled snarl that Kaito tried to keep firmly in the back of his mind or else it might drive him crazy.

The first day he realized that the watchers weren’t on him at all anymore, he went to Kudo’s home, needing something but not quite sure what. Reassurance? A friendly face?

Kudo found him in the study, staring blankly at book titles from Kudo’s personal collection.

“Kid,” Kudo said, coming to stand next to him. He looked at the books with Kaito for a moment, seeing them more clearly than Kaito was. “Were you looking for a specific title? You can borrow them if you want.”

The books were all detective novels and true crime stories, nothing that Kaito was interested in. Kaito pulled back from his daze, focusing on Kudo instead.

Kudo frowned and reached out, hesitating before touching Kaito like he thought Kaito would flinch away. Like Kaito still had ahold of a flight instinct with him. “Okay, you don’t have a fever,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

Kaito almost asked him if the impossible ever happened to him, but that would have been a really stupid question to ask someone who had their age reversed at one point in their life. Instead, Kaito reached out to touch Kudo’s face. How had Kudo handled it back then, finding himself in Conan’s form? Living a lie more complete than Kaito’s lie had been. They’d both lived a lie to the one they loved most, but Kudo had told Ran the truth and she’d accepted it and Aoko had not.

“Kid?” Kudo asked, one hand reaching up to cover Kaito’s hand with his own. Holding it there.

“Sometimes,” Kaito said after what could have been moments or minutes, “I wonder if I’ve made the right choices. Or if there is a right choice. Or if every choice has a flipside and you just weigh the positives against the negatives and hope that the outcome is in the green.”

Something a lot like alarm flashed across Kudo’s face and then Kaito found Kudo’s hands bracketing his face and Kudo staring into his eyes from less than a hand-span away. “Did something happen? Or. Are you regretting... this... between us?”

Kaito blinked, realizing without context his words could be taken a number of directions. And that he probably wasn’t being fair to Kudo if Kudo honestly thought Kaito might still back away from the tangle of a relationship they were building between the three of them. “No. No, I don’t regret this.” He let his forehead bump against Kudo’s, feeling the other man’s muscles relax and the soft gust of breath against his cheek that went with it. “I meant something different. I just.” Kaito gave an aborted, helpless laugh. “A lot has happened lately. And I made more choices that I’m not sure about emotionally. But I’m not regretting choosing you or Ran-san.”

“Okay,” Kudo said. “Okay. Do you... is it something you can talk about?”

Could he explain Akako and her magic to scientifically-minded Kudo?

“It’s not something illegal is it?” Kudo asked belatedly, a frown edging across his face.

“It’s not illegal.” He was fairly certain there weren’t any laws on the books about making deals with witches.

“Okay. Good. I’m not sure I could be a listening ear if it was something illegal.”

“What’s one more thing to my miles of misdemeanors and felonies?” Kaito joked.

Kudo didn’t look amused. “I made peace with you being a thief but that doesn’t mean I could look the other way about other crimes.”

“Relax Kudo. I guarantee you will never have to worry about me murdering anyone.”

“You’d better not,” Kudo said. “...Do you need to talk?”

“I appreciate the offer, but there is so much to unpack I honestly wouldn’t know where to start.”

Kudo brushed a thumb along Kaito’s cheek. “With what tipped the scale of your panic?”

“I ran into a woman from high school,” Kaito blurted before he could stop himself. “And so much has changed since then. She was someone who scared the hell out of me then and still does now. Actually that’s misleading, she showed up uninvited and forced a deal and now I’m just. A bit shocked that it’s not biting me in the ass.”

And the concern was back. “You’re...sure that it’s not illegal?”

“I... I’m pretty sure there’s not laws for the sort of bargain we made, but it’s kind of morally questionable to me on a personal level?”

Kudo looked like he really wanted to ask what the bargain had been, but he visibly restrained his curiosity. He took a breath and let it out slowly. “Okay.” Kaito couldn’t look away from him, the world having shrunk down to the two of them and the air between them. “Was it likely to blow up on you? This deal?”

“I wasn’t sure if she could hold up her end. But she did.”

“Do you trust her?”

“Hell no, but I can trust her to probably not want me dead, or at least to uphold a bargain because she’s serious about that sort of thing. I followed through on my end so she had to follow through on her end. And her end heavily implied efforts to keep me alive.”

Kudo closed his eyes. “I have so many questions. And I’m not going to ask them. But I do have to ask if this is something that’s going to negatively affect my family.”

“No.” Kaito laughed a bit helplessly. If anything it was the opposite.

“Okay,” Kudo repeated. “Then tell me when you feel like you can share the details or... not at all if you can’t I guess.”

“Right.” Kaito leaned into Kudo’s embrace. Damn but he didn’t want to move. “How is any of this real?” he mumbled. How did he go from the worst point of his life to having someone holding him like this and trying to make him feel calm and safe?

“It must be your luck,” Kudo said lightly.

If letting Koizumi boost his luck was part of what brought this to him, well... Maybe the price he paid was worth it. Kaito let his eyes slide shut and stayed in Kudo’s arms for much much longer than he probably should have. He wasn’t supposed to be giving up this much of his heart so quickly.

***

It reached the point where Kaito realized that he was spending more time sleeping over at the Kudo home or his new apartment than at his mother’s home. Kaito wasn’t sure what to feel about that. He wasn’t sure how to feel about how he’d started thinking of his childhood home as his mother’s home again either. Life took unusual turns, and now he found himself at something of a crossroads. Because with how often he was spending time with the Kudos—including their daughter—this wasn’t just something casual. It never had been honestly, but there was just sleeping with people and then there was helping care for their daughter while Ran had to work late and Kudo was dealing with a bad migraine.

The way Kaito saw it, he could back off and try to slowly phase back to the sometimes-friend-sometimes-rival complicated mess that he and Kudo had before. Or he could commit. Fully. With all that entailed. It wasn’t reasonable to expect them to accept only the bits and pieces of masks he gave them and look no further, not if this was going to last. And Kaito did want it to last.

It was nice to wake up next to someone. It was nice to be held again and to let bits of vulnerability show to the world. It was nice to sit down to breakfast and even nice to calm down a frustrated child because it was all little normal day to day things that he missed. And Kaito could have all of that again, Ran and Kudo giving every indication that he was welcome into the mundanity of their lives along with all the other things life brought.

Kaito supposed it wasn’t really much of a choice once he started thinking about it. His life was all secrets and at the end of the day he’d like to have one less among the number laying heavy over him.

Akako was just the final turning point in the decision that had been building in him ever since he agreed to stay for breakfast that first morning. In the long run, ‘Kid’ wasn’t safe to be close to. With ‘Kid’ and ‘Kaito’ separate in the eyes of the universe though... There was nothing wrong with ‘Kaito’ becoming part of Kudo’s family.

He came to the bedroom window like usual, ghosting up the side of the home using handholds that had become as familiar as his own home’s front door. Kudo was in the study, but Ran was in the room, reading by the light of a bedside lamp. He knocked lightly on the window so he didn’t startle her before letting himself in.

Ran set aside her book, a smile already on her face in greeting.

“Good evening, Ran-hime,” Kaito said with an exaggerated and flirtatious bow. “Your husband decided not to sleep tonight?”

“He has paperwork to finish filling out for tomorrow,” Ran said. “He’ll be up in a minute.”

“Provided he’s not distracted.”

Ran laughed. Kaito had seen Kudo forget to take breaks and skip sleep entirely when he was caught up in a case. Ran probably had a list of the times he’d gotten distracted a mile long. “If he’s not up in fifteen minutes, I told him I’d drag him up here, so he better not get distracted. Sometimes I wonder how he got through being a teenager on his own.”

“Luck and a lovely kind soul checking on to make sure he wasn’t starving?” Kaito suggested, thinking of his own teenage experiences.

“Something like that.” Ran held out a hand and Kaito let her pull him down to sit on the edge of the bed. She leaned up for a kiss and he gave it willingly, one more thing that pulled him to commit to this. “Are you staying the night?” Ran asked. Sometimes she asked and sometimes she offered and she’d never made him feel like he had to answer one way or another.

“I’d like to,” Kaito said. He gripped her hand lightly, a little, no, a lot nervous though his poker face covered it well enough. “When Kudo gets here, there’s something I’d like to talk about though.”

“You know you can call him by his first name, right?” Ran said, slotting their fingers together. “You use my first name.”

“I can’t call you both Kudo, that would be confusing,” Kaito said. And somehow he’d always thought of her more by her first name—she vaguely resembled Aoko and Kaito had thought of Aoko by her first name so long that his subconscious had latched onto Ran’s first name. But Kudo was something of a rival, and using his first name felt too intimate. Although...maybe Kaito should start making an effort. Another tangle of nerves roiled in his gut.

“You should call him Shinichi,” Ran said with a grin. “I’m betting it’ll get a blush from him.”

“Well if it will have that effect,” Kaito said, fluttering his eyelashes at her.

Ran giggled and was still giggling when the door swung open and Kudo wandered in, his reading glasses still perched on top of his head like he’d pushed them back and forgotten about them. “Oh, Kid. Hi, you’re staying the night?”

“Yup.” Kaito held out his free hand and Kudo took it. He was unguarded and relaxed and it occurred to Kaito that Kudo really did trust him. It should have been obvious considering how he let Kaito sleep in the same bed and hold his child, but it was the act of taking Kaito’s hand automatically that cemented it. “And it’s Kaito, actually.”

“What?” Kudo blinked away some of the exhaustion, focusing on Kaito fully. Ran’s hand tightened around Kaito’s.

Kaito smiled and...let go. They trusted him and he could trust them back. “My name. Please, call me Kaito.”

“You’re giving us your name,” Kudo said slowly. “Why?”

“Because,” Kaito said slowly, “I want you to know that I’m serious. And I don’t want another relationship built off secrets.” He smiled wryly, a bitter twist in his stomach. “I’ve tried that. Doesn’t work well as you can imagine.”

“But.”

“Kudo. Shinichi.” Kaito enjoyed the full body twitch and blush using Kudo’s first name brought, but it was to add weight to his words at the moment. “I need to know if you’re willing to hear who I am.”

Ran and Kudo gave him identical wide-eyed looks. They hadn’t, Kaito realized, expected him to ever bring the topic up. They expected to just have him in moments and snippets, time carved out of Kid’s persona and doled out on Kaito’s terms. Maybe they never would have brought it up. It made Kaito’s heart hurt in a complicated way he didn’t have words for at the moment.

“I suppose,” Kaito said when they didn’t have a response, “that besides not building something off secrets, I don’t want to be a secret either. Call me selfish, but I don’t think I could be satisfied with stolen moments forever. I intend to commit. To both of you.” He looked from Kudo to Ran.

“You don’t have to—” Ran started.

“I really do,” Kaito cut her off firmly. “Now I know you’re both ignoring some legalities already. Is knowing who I am too much?”

“No,” Kudo said finally. He touched Kaito’s cheek with something between wonder and determination in his eyes. “I think it’s pretty clear that we’re also committed. We aren’t going to turn you in.”

“Heists aside?” Kaito asked, letting his voice slide to lightheartedness again.

“I don’t think I would be able to even there,” Kudo admitted. “I’m not sure I really wanted to catch you in the first place.”

“Well I guess you caught me in a different way,” Kaito said. He pressed his face into the touch and heard Kudo’s breath hitch when he realized there wasn’t a prosthesis this time. Kudo’s fingers traced the rest of his face and didn’t find anything. “It’s just makeup,” Kaito said. “No prosthetics.” Just enough contouring to make his face shape look a bit different and all easily washed off.

Kaito squeezed his lovers’ hands and let go to reach into his pocket for a makeup wipe. In a matter of seconds, it was washed away and a quick finger comb of his hair had it free of its combed style. He sat there before them as Kuroba Kaito, masks down, face bare. When he smiled, he let his nerves show through.

“So. Call me Kaito.”

“I. You...” Kudo looked at Ran like she had an explanation for why Kaito would choose now to give them his name. “Can he do that?”

“Since I just did,” Kaito said, worry tangling with amusement, “yes, yes I can.”

“You look a lot like Shinichi,” Ran said, taking this much better than her husband. “Although that isn’t too surprising since you used to pull off his face without a mask.”

“Our face shapes are a bit different these days,” Kaito said, “but it was always our hair that was the biggest difference.”

“Your hair looks like you didn’t comb it,” Kudo said.

“My hair shares my free spirit.” This was getting off topic. “Hi. I’m Kuroba Kaito, currently Kaitou Kid the second. I daylight as a museum conservator. I have a son in first grade and my ex-wife is on the Kid task force. Nice to formally meet you.”

Kudo’s eyes went sharp, his terrifying brain drawing connections and probably filling in everything that Kaito ever gave away over the years to fit with this new information. “Kuroba Toichi was the first Kid, correct?”

“Yes. My father.”

“He taught my mother disguise skills.”

“I know. I have a vague memory of meeting her. She still talks to my mom sometimes.” Kaito gave them a wry smile. “Small world, no?”

Kudo muttered something to himself, lost in piecing things together. Ran patted Kaito’s hand, holding it again. It went a long ways toward reassuring him that he hadn’t messed everything up. “You have a son?” Ran asked.

“Yeah.” Kaito smiled. “Takumi. He’s six, almost seven. He’s into Pokémon and coral reefs at the moment and I’m probably going to get a phone call in the next week about the latest stunt his friend roped him into.” Shiemi was the chaos maker between the two of them. “His mother has custody.” It was an explanation in and of itself.

“Do you see him often?” Ran asked, serious, and Kaito remembered that her parents were separated. Never divorced for some reason, but she’d been raised mostly by her father if he remembered correctly. If anyone could understand the sort of stress having parents at odds could put on a child, it would be her.

“I have him on weekends,” Kaito said. “He’s a good kid.” There were a thousand things he could add to that, like how Takumi was learning magic tricks or how he loved to run or how Kaito felt like he was missing so much of his life and that seven years had passed so much faster than he’d expected. It all caught in his throat, and rather than let Kid’s mask back on he let himself struggle with Kaito’s emotions. “He’s great,” he choked out.

The way Ran looked at him with something on the edge of empathy, it made him want to hide, too exposed, raw and cracked open. He’d chosen this though. He chose it so he steadied his breathing and stayed.

“That explains how you interact with Hanae,” Kudo cut in, back in the present. “You’re good with children.”

“I like children,” Kaito said. In another life, he’d have wanted a second child. So Takumi wouldn’t be alone and because there was something amazing about seeing a tiny human being grow and reveal who they were to the world.

“Kaito,” Kudo said, testing the name. Kaito couldn’t look away. Kudo reached out again for his face, tracing its shape and Kaito let his eyes flutter shut, trusting. “Kaito,” Kudo said again. He pressed a kiss to Kaito’s forehead and then there was Ran warm against Kaito’s side as she hugged him. Kaito felt like he might cry because they both touched him like he was fragile and valuable and that would probably always get to him when they did that. “Thank you,” Kudo said, the bed dipping as he sat on Kaito’s other side and joined the hug. “For trusting us.”

Kaito relaxed into their hold. He’d trusted them with his vulnerability and in the end going that little bit further wasn’t as big of a leap as he’d expected. “I want you to meet my son,” Kaito said, muffled into Kudo’s shoulder. “I want...I want this to be more than just seeing you at night.”

“Good since we’d like the same,” Ran said. “We didn’t want to push though.”

“You run when you get uncomfortable,” Kudo added.

Kaito snorted. He did run; it was instinctual at this point because if you felt threatened you got the hell out of the situation. “I think I’m going to keep ‘Kid’ at a distance. You’re going to have to see what you think of ‘Kaito.’”

“Kaito can’t be that much different,” Kudo said. “Or were you not Kaito all those times you broke your persona around me?”

That got a laugh. “No, that was me. Especially when I was younger. It’s...a lot more blurred these days.” Wear a mask too long and you became it. Sometimes he didn’t know where Kid ended and Kaito began and the last few months with the Kudos had blurred that even more. He was Kaito right now though and Kaito was exhausted and relieved and happier than he’d felt in a while. “I’m not really at my best lately.”

“You’ll get better,” Kudo said with conviction.

“I’ve been thinking about taking a few months off from being Kid.” It was long overdue and he’d meant to before Jii died. Kaito was a mess and throwing himself into being Kid hadn’t actually helped anything. He needed to get his life together again. And maybe taking the time to connect to the Kudos as himself and spending more time with Takumi would be the key to doing that.

“You’re welcome here as Kid or Kaito,” Ran said. “Anytime.”

They held him until they started falling asleep sitting there and then they broke apart only long enough to get ready for bed before returning to huddle together under the covers. It was going to work out, Kaito thought. He’d put the effort in to make it work and to get back to where he was before Jii died and try to chase happiness with some of the strength he’d put into chasing Pandora all these years.

***

Kaito took a deep breath. There was almost a meter between him and Aoko where they stood off to the side of the playground. Takumi scrambled up the playground rock wall as easy as breathing as he chased after one of the other children. The gap between Kaito and Aoko could have been a kilometer for how closed off Aoko was. Today was a compromise. Today was moving forward.

“Aoko,” he said, forcing his voice from his throat like it didn’t feel like he had his heart in his throat.

She tilted her head in his direction, eyes intent on their son.

Kaito wet his lips, attention split between the two. “I need to tell you something. I’m seeing someone.”

Aoko looked away from the playground. “You’re what?”

“Seeing someone.” He swallowed. “Multiple someones actually. A married couple,” he said before she could finish frowning or make an accusation. “Openly. It’s. They invited me to be with them. It’s all open.”

“Is it.” Something between anger and hurt flashed across Aoko’s face, buried under the cold distance she’d kept up the whole day. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because it’s serious,” Kaito said. “And I want to introduce Takumi to them.”

Takumi went down the slide, a bit too fast, stumbling at the bottom. Now he was the one being chased, but it was smiles all around out there, a game everyone was enjoying. Aoko looked away from Kaito, controlled, not letting anything slip.

“You’d need my permission,” she said.

“Which is why I’m telling you. They’re nice. They have a daughter and are good parents and. They’d like Takumi. Takumi would probably like them too. I want to share my life, not keep it in boxes.”

“Do they know?” Aoko asked. “Everything, do they know?”

Her hand balled into a fist at her side. Kaito looked into the middle distance, watching her from the corner of his eye, trying to stay as outwardly removed as possible because one wrong word or action could shatter the whole moment. “Yes, they know.”

“And it’s not a problem?” Sharp, too sharp, her composure cracking.

“I was Kid to them first,” Kaito said, almost too quiet to be heard.

She turned to him again, staring like she could see into his soul. He could see too much in her, all the hurt and anger and loss and betrayal churning just under the surface, held together only by Aoko’s sheer stubborn will. “Who is it, Kaito?” He couldn’t meet her eyes. “Tell me.”

“...The Kudos.”

Was it silly for her to look heartbroken all over again, more than three years after their divorce? Was it silly for Kaito to feel like he’d been kicked in the chest or to have guilt swirl through him? Probably, but Kaito had always been an idiot for Aoko and she was the same toward him even if they weren’t together anymore.

“So they can forgive that?” Aoko said, bitterness filling her voice. “I guess it’s different when they knew your mask first.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh shut up, Kaito. You’re not sorry for the things you should be, and the things you are sorry for aren’t really my damn business anymore are they?” She huffed. “I guess we really should be moving on. It’s been years.”

There wasn’t anything to say to make it right. No magic words or pretty gesture to melt the ice between them. She was right. Kaito felt guilt about the wrong things, about hurting her by seeing someone when they weren’t even together anymore but not about the thing that hurt her most.

“You can trust them?” she asked when he was silent too long. “With everything.”

“I think so. It’s...it’s not like with you. They have a better idea what they’re getting into... It’s ‘Kaito’ that they’re learning to know.”

“Okay. I’m not happy about it, but okay. Tell Kudo he’s not allowed at heists until I say so though. I can’t trust he’s going to mess us up on purpose.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“Sorry but I don’t trust you on that.”

Fair enough.

The kids had given up their game of tag in favor of playing some sort of game in the upper part of the playground equipment. Probably something dramatic and medieval with the castle-like shape of the structure.

“I think I can be happy,” Kaito burst out. “With them. In general.”

“Good for you.”

“If you can, you should try to be happy too.”

Aoko glared at him, finally looking more like herself and part of him relaxed even though he probably should be preparing to duck. “I’ll do whatever the hell I want. I don’t need or want you meddling. And I don’t need your goddamn blessing to pursue something if and when I ever want to.”

“I wasn’t saying that you—”

“And you don’t need mine, Bakaito. So shut up.” The space between them was a bit less than a meter now. It felt like it might be the actual distance between them in that moment instead of being emotionally worlds apart. “You can take Takumi to meet them sometime, but only if you clear it with me first and you let him decide if he ever wants to go back.”

“I can do that.”

“Good.”

A few minutes later, Takumi ran up to them, full of smiles and babbling about the new friend he made and how there had been dragons storming the castle but the knights beat them back. That, Kaito thought, had gone about a hundred times better than he had ever expected it to.

 ***

“I have someone I want you to meet,” Kaito had said when he picked up Takumi from Aoko’s home for the weekend. Now, standing in Beika with the Kudo manor’s gates in front of him, there were a thousand worries in his head. What if Takumi hated them? What if the Kudos didn’t like Takumi—not that Kaito thought anyone could hate his son, just. Possibilities. What if Hanae didn’t get along with Takumi or vice versa? What if Takumi got close to the Kudos and everything fell through and then Kaito broke his son’s heart all over again with another break up.

They were going out today. On a picnic. Something fun and not at a home because it would be neutral ground and that felt important for a first impression.

Takumi looked up at Kaito and tugged on his hand. “Are you gonna go in or look at the gate all day?”

Kaito put on a smile. “Sorry, I was just thinking about some things. You know how I said these people were important to me?”

“Yeah?”

“They’re important like your Kaa-san used to be important to me. I like them very much.”

Takumi frowned. “They’re not going to be more parents are they?”

Kaito had no idea how any of this was going to go. Or how long it would last. So no, he wasn’t going to optimistically picture Kudo and Ran helping parent Takumi next to their daughter years down the road. He squeezed Takumi’s hand gently. “Think of them like an aunt and uncle.”

“Like Keiko-basan?”

“Yeah, like Keiko.”

Takumi didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t protest as Kaito opened the gate and led them up to the front door.

Shinichi was the one who answered Kaito’s knock, Hanae in his arms and a slightly harried expression on his face as she kept trying to squirm free.

“Kaito,” he said, smiling. “You’re almost ten minutes later than you said you’d be.”

“In day to day life, I’m not always on time,” Kaito said.

“We almost missed the train,” Takumi revealed. “And he kept stopping to check his bag.”

Kaito blushed, but thankfully Takumi didn’t mention standing in front of the gates for over a minute before coming up. “Kudo, this is Takumi. Takumi, this is Kudo Shinichi and his daughter, Hanae.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Takumi said, because somehow Kaito and Aoko had managed to raise him with actual manners. It was a mystery how.

“It’s good to meet you too, Takumi-kun.” Kudo almost dropped his daughter as she gave an extra excited wiggle. “Hanae, can you please hold still?”

“Down!” she said. Kudo set her down and she stared at Takumi. Takumi took a step back. She smiled. “Play?” she asked, holding out one tiny hand.

Takumi gave Kaito and Kudo a wide-eyed, nervous look. “Uhhh.”

“You can play for a few minutes,” Kaito said. “But then we’ll have to go.”

“Um,” Takumi said, but he was already being tugged down the hall after an excited toddler, kicking off his shoes in an attempt to be proper. He could have gotten away from Hanae pretty easily so Kaito wasn’t too worried. If he got overwhelmed he could just come find them.

“Everything okay?” Kudo asked, leaning in to give Kaito a kiss on the cheek now that he didn’t have a squirming toddler in his arms.

“Good,” Kaito said, then more honestly, “a little nervous how Takumi is going to react; he’s not used to sharing me with people.”

“Well, it looks like Hanae will give him a distraction as far as that goes. Come in, Ran’s finishing packing the bentou boxes.”

“Right.” Kaito lifted the bag he was carrying. “I took the liberty of bringing some dessert. I hope that doesn’t clash with Ran-san’s meal. They’re pumpkin sweet breads.”

“You didn’t need to go to the trouble,” Kudo said, polite and it was just the edge of awkward because they were still figuring this out, how to be with each other.

Kaito gave himself a mental smack over the head. “It’s still the tail end of summer, but I am ready for autumn, Kudo, bring on cooler temperatures and the end of summer rain.”

“And all the autumn sweets?” Kudo joked.

Kaito grinned. “Exactly. Not that summer isn’t great—fruit sweets abound, but there’s something comforting about the earthier taste of pumpkin and sweet potato and chestnuts.”

“I’ll take your word for it. I’m not much of a sweets person.”

“The horror. I don’t think we can be friends now.”

Kudo elbowed Kaito in the side, trying not to laugh too hard at him. “But Kaito, that just means you and Ran get most of my share of sweets.”

“Ah, then we can be friends after all.”

“Just friends?” Kudo asked, well within Kaito’s personal space. Hmm. He hadn’t even noticed that happening; he was getting unnervingly comfortable around Kudo.

Kaito gave Kudo a false-bashful look. “Well...”

“Are you two flirting in the front doorway?” Ran said behind them.

Kaito twitched, but Kudo didn’t seem surprised at all. He sent Ran a grin, setting a hand on Kaito’s hip like it belonged there. “Maybe,” he said.

Ran laughed, one hand coming up like she was trying to muffle it. “Come inside already. Where are the children?”

“Hanae-chan kidnapped Takumi,” Kaito said, easing away from Kudo to take his shoes off.

“She’s probably showing him the toy Agasa brought her yesterday,” Kudo said. “Some new invention.”

“...Isn’t he the one who made your death shoes and that stun watch?” Kaito asked.

“Yeah, he’s a family friend and neighbor.”

Kaito had been aware of both these things but. “Is the toy... safe?”

“Would I let my three year old play with it if it wasn’t?” Kudo said. “Occasional explosions next door aside, he is capable of making something child safe. He makes stuff that’s on market at stores.”

“I feel like I should say something about the explosions, but considering my own track record with experiments blowing up in my face, I think it’s better to just let it go.”

“We can go check on them,” Ran said, soothing the part of him that insisted that children out of sight meant dangerous stunts happening. Takumi wasn’t actually that much of a problem most of the time compared to how Kaito had been at his age. It was only when he was put with Shiemi that things went to hell and ‘quiet’ meant ‘trouble’.

“Thank you.” Kaito gave her a theatrical kiss on the cheek which made her laugh again before holding up his bag. “Pumpkin sweet bread with pumpkin and bean paste filling. A taste of fall before it’s quite upon us.”

“Oh, that’s perfect. I didn’t have a dessert planned.” Ran kissed him back, on the lips and Kaito’s stomach flipped pleasantly.

It was like being a teenager again only with less mops and death threats and yelling... Okay it was nothing like how it had been with Aoko and there was nothing wrong with that. “Great. I’ll go check on the kids.”

Kaito found them in the library. They were sitting on the floor with picture books strewn around them and Hanae had her current favorite book—one with a dog going to see its friends written in both English and Japanese—and was happily holding up pictures and pointing out the animals. Kaito could see Takumi mouthing the words on the page, the simple kana easily within his reading ability.

“Having fun, kiddos?” Kaito said, crouching beside them.

Hanae gave him a brilliant smile. “Dog book!” she said, holding it up. “Read it?”

“I don’t think there’s time to read it right now, but we can read a book later if you’d like. How does that sound?”

She frowned and Takumi looked up at Kaito. “Both of us?” he asked.

“If you want a story too, yeah.”

“Then I want to read this.” He held up a Kaiketsu Zorori book, the cartoon fox thief grinning mischievously on the cover.

Aoko, for obvious reasons, didn’t like the series. Kaito, for equally obvious reasons, found them a lot of fun. Plus they had puns, who didn’t like puns?

“Only if you don’t mention it to your mother,” Kaito said, because he’d get an earful if Aoko knew.

Takumi, almost seven and entirely fed up with the drama of adults, rolled his eyes. “I know. And I read them with Shiemi all the time so.”

“Well aren’t you the rebel,” Kaito teased. He set both picture books aside. “Well there will be here when we get back from lunch and we can read them then, okay?” He got two nods and that was great because if Hanae chose to be upset, Kaito still didn’t have enough of a rapport with her to guarantee it wouldn’t become a meltdown. “Alright, now who’s ready to go to the park? We’re going to have a picnic and play on the playground, doesn’t that sound fun?”

“I wanna swing!” Hanae said, jumping to her feet with a little wobble. Takumi steadied her before Kaito could. It was adorable.

“There’s going to be swings, yep. Who do you want to push you? Kaa-san?”

“No,” Hanae said, grinning.

“Hmmm, Tou-san?”

“No!”

“Me?”

“No! Everyone!”

“Ah, I see. Everyone to push you on the swings. I hope not everyone in the world or that would be a lot of people. You might never leave that swing.”

Both Takumi and Hanae giggled.

“C’mon, kids, it’s picnic time.” Kaito stood and immediately Hanae held up her arms to be picked up. Kaito did, holding her in one arm. “Oof, look at you, you’re growing fast. I think you might have grown a little since I last saw you,” he said to her. Takumi caught his free hand. His son was biting his lip and looking a little unsure again, so Kaito of course bent back down and picked him up too. “Ah, and you have definitely grown since I last held you like this,” Kaito said to him. “I think you might grow up to be a giant!”

“Tou-san!” Takumi complained, but he was laughing as he clung to Kaito’s shoulders. Kaito grinned so hard his cheeks hurt. His arms were going to hate him later, but this was totally worth it.

“And away we go!” Kaito said, making horse clopping sounds like they were riding him into battle.

***

It wasn’t that Kaito meant to notice, it was just that it was one of those things that he was low key aware of, had been aware of, especially with Aoko. So when he didn’t notice Ran ever being on her period even when he was practically there every other night anymore, Kaito had to wonder. It wasn’t like there weren’t other explanations—Kudo and Ran never mentioned if birth control was something they used as well as condoms, but considering how Aoko had gotten pregnant and the signs that had followed that, Kaito was a bit more in tune to this sort of thing than he otherwise would have been. Which was why when he found Ran sitting in her bedroom after work one day, Hanae two rooms over playing, and a box in her lap, he wasn’t surprised.

“Ran-hime?” Kaito said softly, tapping on the doorway to catch her attention.

She looked up, startled, but relaxed seeing him. “Kaito. Hi.”

“Are you okay?”

Ran smiled, but her heart wasn’t really in it. “I’m fine, just...”

“Nervous about using that,” Kaito said, nodding at the box.

The smile slid from her face. “A bit. I already know what it’s going to tell me if I’m honest, but. It’s not that the idea upsets me, it’s just unexpected and with Hanae we planned everything out and I’m thinking about how hard it was toward the end of my pregnancy and the first few months with a new baby...”

Kaito came in the room and knelt by her side, taking her hand in his. “Hey, it’s going to be okay. Do you want another child?”

“Yes!” Ran said immediately. “Yes, Shinichi and I have talked about it a few times and how maybe one day... We’ve talked a lot recently. I just wasn’t expecting it,” she repeated. “I love children. The idea of having more than one never was a problem. And I sometimes wished I had a sibling when I was little, but there’s abstract thought and...”

“And there’s having the reality of it in your face,” Kaito finished. “I understand completely. Did you know that I was eighteen when Takumi was born? Completely unplanned, of course because we were both hormonal idiots who didn’t think, but I don’t think either of us ever regretted him even if we regret other things. The first months were hell. I barely slept and Aoko started the police academy before Takumi was a year old so I was on my own a lot...” He smiled at the bittersweet memory. “Thankfully you’re not going to be alone.”

Ran caught his face in her hands. “I know, Kaito. I’ll tell you now, I am expecting your help if I really am pregnant.”

“Of course,” Kaito said. “I’ll be there every step of the way right with Shinichi.”

She smiled and kissed him on the forehead. Kaito’s heart felt calm. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he would be a third parent to any child Ran had.

“Are you going to use that or...?” Kaito nodded to the pregnancy test still in its box.

Ran squeezed his hand. “Yes. I just needed a moment to brace myself for proof. Because there’s knowing and there’s knowing.”

Kaito leaned up and gave her a kiss on the nose just to see her smile. “Want me to wait out here or?”

“Yes please.” She took the box to the adjoining bathroom.

Kaito sat on the bed. Down the hall, he could hear Hanae singing something to herself tunelessly. Either she’d inherited Shinichi’s tone-deafness or she was making up some song of her own. Kaito smiled as occasionally a word would be clear, something about cats and smiles. It felt like a long wait, but it was only a bit over five minutes before Ran came back out, holding the test stick out in front of her like an offering.

It was positive.

“No surprises there,” she said with another lopsided smile. “Missing my first period wasn’t all that surprising; I’m not terribly regular, but more than one...”

“Congratulations, Ran-hime, Hanae-chan is going to be a big sister.” Kaito offered her a flower, a white carnation since he was only carrying a few of those at the moment (he only had red roses lately when he planned to flirt with Kudo or Ran).

“Thank you, Kaito.” She took it, smiling, and that was all Kaito wanted, to see her smile. “We can tell Shinichi tonight.”

“Of course. Do you need some time on your own?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Play with Hanae while I start dinner?”

“If you need anything else, I’ll do my best to provide,” Kaito said with a shadow of his usual flirtatious wink. Ran laughed and shooed him out the door.

***

Kaito clicked through photos his mother sent from somewhere in the US, comfortably ensconced on Kudo’s living room couch with half a dozen pillows around him and a sleeping toddler on his chest. Kudo, who had spent the last fifteen minutes trying to organize his ever-growing collection of children’s books and movies glanced over his shoulder when Kaito stifled a laugh at one of the photos. The photo’s occupants were making unimpressed faces over a sign proclaiming the restaurant had the best Japanese food east of the Mississippi river. Kaito’s mother had her hand out in a thumbs down.

Kaito glanced over his shoulder to explain how looking for authentic Japanese food was something of a running joke for his mother, when Kudo made a choking sound. “Are you okay?” he asked instead.

Kudo was splotchy-pale, eyes fixed on the photo. “Who is that?”

“My mother?”

“No, the person with her.”

Kaito looked at the photo and back at Kudo. “Aunt Chris?”

“Aunt. She’s your aunt?”

“Not by blood, but she’s been friends with my mom for ages so she kind of feels like an aunt at this point. I’m pretty sure my dad trained her or her mom or something, Kaa-san’s kind of weird about it when I ask. Why?”

Kudo visibly forced himself calm and pinched the bridge of his nose, looking like he’d aged a year in a few minutes. “Kaito, that’s Vermouth. One of the Black Organization’s inner members. She’s supposed to be behind bars.”

Kaito blinked. “You’re sure?”

“I’ve been held at gunpoint by her at close range more than once. So yes, I’m sure.”

“Well shit.” Kaito’s had tea with her dozens of times, had his face pinched and been teased about his resemblance to Toichi almost as often. She’s met his son. “I... honestly don’t know what to say.”

“Did they say anything about where they were or what they were doing?” Kudo asked.

“I think they’re in the American Midwest? Somewhere? Kaa-san travels. A lot. About as much as your parents do honestly.”

“Doing what?”

“Haven’t a clue. Sometimes it’s visiting magicians Tou-san knew, sometimes it’s just seeing sights for the hell of it.” Kaito clicked back a few photos to his mother perched on a balcony railing with a glass of wine in hand and the same wild smile Kaito had inherited on her face. It must have been Chris that took the photo. “I always just thought she was running from Tou-san’s memory. She stayed until I was in junior high and then she was gone all the time and I was spending half my time at the Nakamori household like some awkward plus one to their family.” He clicked back to the first photo, just a selfie with a field of flowers in the back. “Guess whatever she’s been doing all these years might not be legal. Though Aunt Chris wasn’t in many photos until recently if that helps any.” Someone save him from more family secrets though. He could live with fewer surprises.

Kudo just kept rubbing his face like he had a headache. “Your mother is Phantom Lady, right?”

“Yep.” It wasn’t worth the effort to hide what was so thinly hidden.

“Is she still an active thief?”

“I’ve never asked. But given that she has been traveling for years and can still afford the house in Japan, it’s pretty likely.” He never asked how the family finances worked, mostly because he didn’t want to think too hard about it. So long as there had been money in the bank, he hadn’t let it bother him. “I know it bothers you, but she has a different set of morals than I do.” Not all thieves returned what they stole.

“I need to process this.”

Kaito sat up a bit, supporting Hanae and his laptop as he did. Hanae made a tiny unhappy sound before squishing her face more comfortably into his chest. “Is this a deal breaker?” Kaito asked, dropping all masks to show his seriousness.

“What?” Kudo stopped rubbing his temples. “No. Of course not. I accepted that you steal things, I can accept the fact that your family steals, I just can’t let myself dwell on it too long. No, I just have to get my head around the fact that Vermouth is still out there running around free and that there’s a chance she might show up here someday. I... really don’t get along with her.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Kaito said drily, relaxing. For a second there... He pushed the brief moment of panic away to decompress later. “Someone takes a potshot at your life a time or two and all.”

Kudo snorted. “Does your mother send photos often?”

“When she remembers to. We talk once a month or so unless there’s something else going on.” Kaito debated with himself a moment then added, “She’s helped a few times with heists over the years.” He still hadn’t forgiven her for not being there when Jii died.

“Ah. Good to know.”

“Don’t try to profile her when you meet her.” Kaito tilted his head back, frowning as something occurred to him. “Actually you probably have already met before. I have a vague memory of meeting your mother before so it wouldn’t be too weird if she met you when you were a kid.”

Kudo grimaced. “I don’t know how to feel about that. How likely is it that I meet your mother?”

“If our relationship lasts, it’s a definite thing, but as to when... dunno when she’ll be in Japan next. Could be a matter of weeks or half a year. There’s no rhyme or reason to when she comes and goes that I’ve noticed.”

“I’ll brace myself for the eventuality then.”

“Maa, you make it sound like it’s a burden.”

“Have you seen my relationship with my in-laws? I seem to bring out the parental protective streak against me. I can’t imagine this going differently.”

“Fair enough. You are a detective to my thief.”

“...Let me know if Vermouth shows up in any more photos?”

“Sure thing, Kudo.”

“I’ve told you to call me Shinichi,” Kudo complained.

“I’ll break my habit eventually, you’ve just been Kudo for years.”

“You’re as bad as Heiji,” Kudo grumbled.

“Me? Never,” Kaito said, going back to his mother’s email. He smiled as Kudo huffed and went back to work on organizing. “Love you too, Shinichi~!” He grinned to himself as Kudo made another choking noise behind him. ‘Love’ was still a new enough word between them to leave Shinichi’s face a wonderful red every time.

***

Normally Kaito would pick up or drop off Takumi at Aoko’s place, but for once she was picking Takumi up from him, and of course it was one of the days he was at the Kudo home rather than his apartment or childhood home. They’d skirted around the whole thing for the last few months, but the happier Kaito grew with how things were going in his life, he could see how uncomfortable Aoko continued to be.

They were in another awkward phase, but at least it wasn’t the cold, brittle sort of awkward at the moment—provided a Kid heist hadn’t just occurred.

It was Ran who got the door. She’d been warned that Aoko was coming. It would have been Kaito answering the door, but Takumi was refusing to pack up his toys in his travel bag and generally dragging his feet about going home to Aoko because Hanae was going to get to go see a live sentai show with her grandparents tomorrow and it wasn’t fair that he didn’t get to go too. Kaito was sympathetic, really, but after the third snit-fit in the last two hours, his patience was running a bit thin.

“Tell you what,” Kaito said, putting Takumi’s action figures back in his bag as fast as Takumi was taking them back out again. “If you’re really really good for the next month, I can look into seeing if you can go to a Christmas show. But only if you’re good.”

“But it’s not the same!” Takumi said. “It won’t be Red-Blue morph against the Gold Beetle!”

“No, but it could be the whole Mountain Team on ice. Wouldn’t that be cooler? Fighting monsters on ice skates?”

Takumi gave him a disgusted look, like ice skating battles couldn’t possibly be as cool as what the stage production promised.

“I’m sorry kiddo, but that’s how it goes. You have school to go to anyway.”

“But I don’t even want to go to school. I hate it.”

“You don’t hate it,” Kaito said with patience he didn’t feel. “You wouldn’t get to see Shiemi and Yuu-kun as often if you didn’t have school.”

“Shiemi’s in another year,” Takumi grumbled.

He was normally such a well behaved kid, too. Kaito put his hands on his hips. “You like gym class and arts and crafts and reading new books. You’d be sad and bored if you didn’t go to school and you know it. Now up. Your Kaa-san is probably here already.”

“She is,” Aoko said from the doorway, less than amused.

Ran stood a few feet behind her. She shot Kaito an apologetic look and a shrug. Kaito’s shoulders slumped for a half second before he pasted a smile on his face.

“See, she’s here already!” Kaito said.

Takumi scowled, caught between greeting his mother and continuing his tantrum. Kaito almost thought it would tip in favor of Aoko but Takumi’s lip wobbled and his face screwed up and Kaito looked at the ceiling as he started crying.

Kaito pushed Takumi’s travel bag into Aoko’s hands. “Okay. This is going nowhere, so I think we’re going to have a bit of a time out and try again, hmm?” Takumi cried harder and Kaito hadn’t had to deal with this since Takumi was three and theoretically it should have been easier to rationalize with a seven year old than a three year old. “We’re going to give you some space so you can calm down, okay?”

Walking away from a crying child was not something that came naturally but Kaito was frankly running out of ideas. He shut the door behind him, Takumi’s muffled voice on the other side and sighed. “Hell,” Kaito said.

“It looks like you’ve had a fun weekend,” Aoko said, and her tone could either be joking or mocking. Given how they usually were toward each other, he was betting toward mocking.

“Sorry,” he said, “it’s not always sunshine and roses.”

“My fault,” Ran cut in, ever the peacemaker. “I should have waited to tell Hanae about the show until he left.”

“It’s not your fault,” Kaito said. “He probably would be upset if he heard about it after the fact too.”

Aoko didn’t say anything to that, but Kaito could see her scoff under her breath. Kaito frowned at her and the tense way she held herself a bit back from Ran, and ah, that was jealousy there, and dislike which wasn’t fair to Ran but not very surprising. He’d probably feel something similar if Aoko showed up with a man at her side tomorrow despite how illogical it would be. It didn’t make this any less uncomfortable though.

“I’ll give him five or ten minutes,” Kaito said to Ran, “then send him home. He’ll probably be calmer once he lets it all out.”

“Do you want tea in the meantime?” Ran offered, looking at Aoko.

And Aoko just looked at Kaito and said, “No thank you,” in a clipped voice that shut down any more offers and any possible attempts at conversation too.

Kaito gave Ran a strained smile. “Thanks, Ran, I think we’ll be fine.” It was a dismissal, but he softened it with a reassuring touch to her arm even though it made Aoko tense up further. “I’ll be up to read Hanae-chan a bedtime story later okay?”

Ran’s politeness warred with her instinct to be supportive. Giving Kaito his privacy won out. “If you need anything...”

“I’ll let you know, thanks.” His smiled dropped once she was out of sight. “Must you?” he said to Aoko.

Aoko flushed. “Shut up! I am trying! I am really trying, Kaito!”

Kaito crossed his arms. In the library, Takumi’s cries were becoming quieter, so he lowered his voice as well. “That was as awkward as that time in third year where you almost hit Koizumi because she flirted with me despite the fact that she was flirting with me from day one.”

“We’d just started dating then!” Aoko hissed, getting in his face. She faltered immediately. Once, arguments were practically foreplay, but now there was just one more layer of awkward and distance and hurt there to keep it from ever being that again. “It’s just seeing you like that, all domestic with them is like looking at what we were and my brain keeps throwing what-ifs at me like we haven’t been down that road a billion times! I thought I went through all of this bullshit when we divorced, but I guess not!”

Kaito didn’t budge. “I get that. But could you keep your anger on me? Ran hasn’t done anything to you.”

“I know that!” And there Aoko’s voice rose. Behind the door, Takumi went abruptly quiet. “I know that,” Aoko repeated. She closed her eyes a moment. “I’m trying, Kaito. It’s going to take a bit longer.”

“Okay.” He’d accept that this was her best right now. “I’m sorry about Takumi. I really did plan to have him ready to go.”

“What is he upset about anyway?”

“Hanae gets to see a stage performance with his favorite sentai series and he’s mad he doesn’t get to go. Which, okay, I get, but if it was one of his friends he wouldn’t be so upset.”

“Of course not,” Aoko said, “but Hanae-chan isn’t like a friend, is she? She’s like a sister.”

Kaito blinked, looked at the situation from the new angle. “Oh.” Huh. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

“And you’re sending him home with me and reading her a bedtime story tonight and she’s getting to go to see the show.” Aoko crossed her arms. “Obviously he’s upset. How much time have you been spending with him one on one lately?”

“Some. We still go places together and I’ve been showing him how to do simple magic tricks...” But he’d been at the Kudo house with Takumi a lot more this last month. And the Kudo house inevitably meant Hanae. And while Takumi and Hanae mostly got along, there had been some tension over who got Kaito’s attention when they spent a lot of time together. “So it’s because he’s jealous?”

“Probably. Honestly Kaito, it’s not that hard to figure out.”

“You weren’t the one dealing with the last hour of having to track down all his toys when he kept hiding them,” Kaito muttered. Or alternately being yelled at or given the cold shoulder. “I’ll have to do more one on one things...”

Aoko nodded. She didn’t look upset anymore, probably because she felt in control again in one-upping Kaito in understanding their son. “He will have to learn how to share though. If you stay with the Kudos.”

“I plan to,” Kaito said, just a bit too sharp.

Aoko didn’t rise to meet it this time. “He’ll have to learn,” she repeated. “So there might be more melt downs like this one.”

“Joy.”

She snorted. “I’m sure I’ll have my share to deal with too, Bakaito.”

Kaito would get the worst of it though. If there were struggles now, how would it be when Ran had a second child? How would Hanae handle being a sibling actually? That was stress waiting to happen. But a thought for another day. “I think he’s calmed down now,” Kaito said.

They opened the door and found Takumi curled in a ball with his chin resting on his knees, looking at the door like it had personally destroyed his dreams. He had devastating puppy-dog eyes when he thought to use them, but he wasn’t the manipulative type most of the time. As it was, having that look on him the second he opened the door had Kaito feeling guilty for leaving Takumi in the room in the first place even if it had been five minutes at most.

He knelt down next to him. “Feeling better?”

Takumi sniffed. “No.” He looked between Kaito and Aoko. “Are you fighting again?”

“Not this time,” Aoko said. “Are you ready to go home?”

“No,” Takumi said again.

“Are you sure? You don’t want to have your special banana bread toast for breakfast or read the new book Ojii-san gave you?”

Takumi pouted. “Ran-obasan makes bunny pancakes and there’s lots of books here.”

“Well I could make you bunny pancakes at home and you have your favorite pajamas there too.”

Kaito knew that Aoko had won when Takumi didn’t say anything.

Kaito held out an arm. “Can I get a hug before you go?”

He was scowling but Takumi did hug him. He held on tight like he wouldn’t let Kaito go. “It’s not fair,” he mumbled into Kaito’s shoulder.

“I know, but there will be other shows.”

“She’s too little to even remember it,” Takumi said. More softly he added, “And she gets to have everything.”

“Oh?”

“She gets to do cool things and has fun grandparents and has Shinichi-ojisan and Ran-obasan and you all the time.”

Ah. And Aoko was right. He held Takumi closer. “Can I tell you a secret?” Kaito whispered. He felt Takumi nod against his neck. “Hanae has all those things, but you know what? You have me and Shiemi and your Kaa-san and Ojii-san and Obaa-san who do fun things with you too. And do you know what else you have? You have Shinichi-ojisan and Ran-obasan too. If Hanae has me, you have them too, okay? You’re lucky and get all the cool parents too. Plus Aoko. Hanae doesn’t have Aoko.”

Takumi sniffed, probably getting snot all over Kaito’s shoulder, but that was fine. This was important. “You think?”

“I know,” Kaito said. “And remember what I said, if you’re good we can go to see a sentai show together.”

“Just us?”

“If you want. Or you can invite Shiemi along or something too.”

Takumi clung tight for a second then let go. “Okay.”

Kaito smiled and ruffled his son’s hair so it was even messier than it was naturally. “Be good for your mom, okay?”

Takumi nodded and moved to Aoko to hug her too.

Kaito felt the weight of the situation drain from him. Thank goodness that was over.

“Time to go,” Aoko said. “But can you apologize to your father for yelling at him first? You’re old enough to know better than that.”

Takumi looked down at the floor. “Sorry, Tou-san...”

“You’re forgiven.” He needed to read up on some things. Maybe figure out how to handle this whole situation better. And maybe look into more ways that Takumi could identify and express his emotions. It would probably be healthy for both of them because goodness knew how bad Kaito was with that sort of thing himself. “See you later, Takumi.”

Takumi waved and Aoko waved and Kaito walked with them to the front door where they repeated the process after putting shoes on. Once they were gone he sat down in the genkan for a moment just to let himself decompress a moment. It had been a long afternoon.

Ran found him there minutes, or maybe closer to half an hour later.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“I think so,” Kaito said. “I think this is Takumi working out more or less not being an only child anymore. Probably.”

“He’s doing fine. He’s already a good brother,” Ran said, accepting that Takumi already was a sibling when Kaito was still wrapping his mind around the idea. Kaito was helping raise two children now, wasn’t he? And soon there’d be a third. “And you’re doing fine as a parent. Trust me.”

Kaito trusted her. She knew what a divorced family could look like, and if anyone could see how hard they were all trying to make this work, Ran could. “Thanks, Ran.”

“Are you staying the night?”

Leave when all he wanted to do was find Shinichi in the study and drag him and Ran into one comfortable cuddle pile? Never. “Sorry, you’re stuck with me. I’ve lost my return label. You have to keep me forever.”

**

The baby was tiny, red and wrinkly and unhappy to be in the world if her expression was anything to go by. All the anxiety and tension of the day left Kaito as he saw Ran holding her. Shinichi was by her side first but Kaito was right behind him. Ran’s parents were still out in the waiting area, but Kaito was, by Shinichi’s insistence, here to experience this. This, more than anything over the last few months cemented that he was part of their lives. Part of...of them as a unit.

Ran looked exhausted and careworn, but happy. Very happy as she ran a finger gently across the baby’s cheek. “She’s healthy and whole,” Ran said.

“And finally facing the world,” Shinichi said, sounding relieved. She’d been late and then it had been a long labor, longer than Kaito remembered with Takumi. “She’s got your nose.” Shinichi leaned against Ran and for a moment Kaito just watched them, warm, complicated emotions tangling up inside of him before Shinichi held out the arm not wrapped around Ran and Kaito went to him to be pulled into this huddle of parental warmth.

“I know we threw around a few names,” Ran said looking down at the bundle in her arms. “But what do you think about Midori?”

“As in the color or as in greenery?” Shinichi said.

“Greenery,” Ran said. “Is it weird to want to keep plant names for girls as a start of a family thing?”

“Sounds like a good one. Better than Shinichi or me,” Kaito said, “since our first names boil down to puns.”

Ran laughed softly. “Midori then.”

Shinichi pulled Kaito and Ran in closer, leaning his head on Ran’s shoulder. Midori made a tiny sound, face scrunching up even more and Ran soothed the irritation away. Kaito couldn’t look away. A baby, a child, a tiny new human being. It remained some kind of miracle how a bunch of cells could become this, could become a child like Hanae or Takumi with personalities and dreams and preferences. It was moments like this that felt more magical than any actual magic, stage or supernatural, that Kaito had come across.

“We should probably get the grandparents,” Shinichi said. He didn’t move though. They all watched Midori sleep a little longer.

**

Kaito had Takumi’s photo album out—it didn’t get updated often, but he tried to keep a record of his life, and lately with the Kudos Kaito felt like he’d found more reasons to take photos than he had in recent years. The new photos had been tucked into their plastic sheets. Shinichi was taking a rare quiet moment to join him in sorting through some of his own photos, starting an album for Midori and updating the one they had for Hanae.

Kaito, full of nostalgia, flipped backward through Takumi’s album. Shiemi was in almost half the pictures with him, and the further back Kaito flipped, the more memories tugged at him, so many tiny moments that had meant so much. Takumi at four, three, two, just walking... He flipped bit further to when Takumi was a newborn. Apparently Takumi looked a lot like Kaito had as a baby but Kaito never took out his baby photos to compare. The same eye shape and facial structure and the same long fingers...

Kaito paused, something tugging at the back of his mind. Scattered on the coffee table were photos of Hanae and Midori. There was one that just... Kaito picked up a photo of Midori and held it next to Takumi’s baby photo. They were both in almost the same position making nearly identical wrinkle-nosed expressions. If you took away Midori’s nose shape which she got from Ran...

“Huh.”

Well, Kaito and Shinichi did look alike, but that was a little... surprising how well Midori’s photo lined up with Takumi.

“What?” Shinichi said, looking up from sorting through Hanae-in-dresses photos.

Kaito handed the two photos over.

“Huh,” Shinichi echoed. “You think...?”

“I don’t know. Do you have any photos of you as a baby to compare?”

“Not on had though my parents probably have some in the attic or library.” Shinichi tipped his head to the side. “The timing would fit.”

“Would it?” Kaito tried to count back.

“Your first time with us,” Shinichi clarified. “Part of me wondered but. It wasn’t important.”

“That seems pretty important to know.” Kaito would have wanted to know.

“It’s not like it changes anything. Midori’s our daughter,” he said, and yes it was that simple, but at the same time... “You look a lot like me so no one would notice the difference anyway.”

“What if I hadn’t ended up staying?”

Shinichi shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t say how I’d be in a hypothetical situation. But we don’t even know if she’s yours or mine anyway.”

“Do you want to know?” Kaito asked, feeling... not uncomfortable, but having a moment where he realized he probably would not have been so relaxed about this if it had happened the other way around. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

Shinichi pursed his lips. “We should probably check for medical reasons. I don’t know anything about your family medical history. But it doesn’t change things. It shouldn’t anyway. She’s my daughter as much as she is yours no matter who her genetic father is.”

A month ago Koizumi sent Kaito a photo of two newborn girls announcing that she’d had twins and Kaito had gone through a similar range of emotions in a short span of time. Discomfort mixed with worry and longing and a peculiar sort of joy that he could only guess stemmed from knowing that he had another blood relative in the world. Midori was his daughter in the ways Shinichi meant; Kaito changed her diapers and took turns with Ran and Shinichi in feeding and calming and playing and all the little tasks that babies required. He was pretty much another parent to Hanae too by now. It was a little silly to have some deeper emotion about a blood tie. Part of him hoped that Midori was his even though he wouldn’t do anything differently if she was or wasn’t.

Kaito scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Yeah. It’s just weird. I didn’t even consider that was a possibility.”

Shinichi snorted. “I’m not sure why you wouldn’t.”

“Well, I was with you one time and then it was about a month and a half before we got sexual again, more than two before we—” Kaito blushed. “Anyway, it didn’t seem likely.”

“We’ll get a test done,” Shinichi said, handing Takumi’s photo back. “Just to know.”

“Just to know,” Kaito echoed, tucking the photo back in the album.  He wasn’t sure if he would be relieved if it turned out she was his or not. He resolved that he wouldn’t let it affect how he interacted with any of them in any way though. He would just. Know. And that would be enough.

Unspecified future:

Kaito made a soft, pleased sound on his throat, sandwiched as he was between Shinichi at his front and Ran at his back. All the perks of feeling every inch of them—Ran’s soft curves against his back and strong thighs bracketing his hips, Shinichi’s firm chest to Kaito’s chest and Shinichi’s perfect butt at just the right height for optimal grabbing. Kaito arched as Shinichi captured his lips, using that same ass as leverage to get closer. Ran stroked Kaito’s sides, Shinichi’s back, her lips warm on Kaito’s neck, and yes, this was his favorite place to be, caught up between them all warm and safe. Shinichi drew back a breath and moved lips across Kaito’s jaw, down toward his neck. Kaito tipped his head back against Ran’s shoulder to give him better access.

Shinichi kissed the hollow of Kaito’s throat before suddenly jerking back. “Wait.”

“What?” Kaito froze and Ran paused, one hand on Kaito’s abs, the other on Shinichi’s collarbone—it had been on his shoulder before he moved.

“Wait, sorry, just—” Shinichi scrambled up, diving for where he’d thrown his underwear. “I gotta—case!” he explained badly.

“Kudo Shinichi are you thinking about murders while you’re in bed with us?!” Kaito demanded.

“Sorry!” Shinichi said, legging it out the bedroom door in only his underwear, pants and shirt in his free hand.

“What the fuck?”

At his back, Ran started laughing, the full-body, almost silent sort of laughter where it wheezed out of you.

Kaito tipped his head to the side. “Are we that boring?”

“Oh my god,” Ran gasped, sides shaking hard enough that Kaito slid off her shoulder and gracelessly into her lap. “That’s just so—!”

“So Shinichi,” Kaito agreed with a sigh. He met Ran’s grin and started laughing too until they were both giggly messes. “I am going to hold this over him forever!” Kaito said, gasping for breath.

Ran swatted him ineffectually, still laughing too hard to even aim right. “I’d be annoyed—but—your face!”

“Our clothes came off like ten minutes ago! He shouldn’t have been able to think about cases!”

“It’s Shinichi.” Ran grinned down at him. Kaito was suddenly very aware that he was still tucked between her thighs.

He trailed a hand over one, from hip to knee, enjoying how her expression went from amused to interested in record time. “So. There’s no reason why we can’t just continue. Shinichi’s loss.”

Ran snorted, one hand coming up to cover her face. Once upon a time Kaito used to think there was nothing more exhilarating than being chased by Aoko when she was angry, but honestly? Ran laughing did things to him that even seeing Aoko flushed with flustered irritation didn’t do when he was seventeen and hormonal as hell.

“Well, he was the one rude enough to run out on us,” Ran said, eyes sparkling. “And we have a nice comfy bed that we’re already naked in...”

“Shame to waste that.”

Ran kissed him.  Kaito grinned, heart singing like he’d pulled off the best heist performance of his life. Really, Shinichi’s loss.

***

The heist was a close call. A gunshot while he was taking the gem, a few centimeters too wide but close enough that shattered glass had caught the exposed skin at his wrists and a few places on his face. Thankfully nothing deep, but it was more of his blood on scene that he’d had to take time to clean even as he fled. The gem, of course, had not been Pandora. But there hadn’t been collateral this time so Kaito counted that as a win.

He’d retreated to the Kudo manor because it was closer to the Beika museum than his apartment or his childhood home. Of course that meant he woke Shinichi and Ran up coming in through the bedroom window.

In retrospect, he probably should have used the front door; it would have been more inconspicuous. Habit, however, had him half through the window before he even thought about the fact that they were sleeping.

“Kaito?” Shinichi mumbled, still half asleep as he turned on the bedside lamp.

“Go back to sleep, I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Kid,” Shinichi corrected, seeing Kaito still in his gear. “The heist, how did—you’re hurt.”

“What?” Ran sat up and paled when she saw him.

“It’s not that bad,” Kaito said with a sigh. He slid the window shut.

“Kaito, you have blood all down the side of your face,” Ran said. She crossed around the bed and Shinichi followed a moment later.

Kaito ignored them and headed for the bathroom. “It was just a bit of glass. It looks worse than it is.”

“Snipers?” Shinichi asked, awake and needing to know everything.

“Yes, but clearly not a very good sniper.”

That joke fell flat. Kaito hauled out the fully stocked first aid kit and pulled out bandages, antiseptic ointment, alcohol and tweezers on the off chance there was any glass slivers still in the wound. By the time he had everything out and lined up on the countertop, Ran had a wet washcloth waiting.

“I can clean my own wounds,” Kaito said. He wasn’t used to having anyone help with this sort of thing. His mother was almost never around, and by the time he met up with Jii after heists in the past, he’d have already cleaned up and bandaged anything that needed bandaging.

“You can, but you don’t have to,” Ran said. She stared Kaito down until he relented, offering his face first. Shinichi took off this hat and monocle, setting them to the side as Ran cleaned blood off his cheek. The cloth felt rough against dozens of tiny cuts, stinging as they were tugged open again.

“They’re the same people from last time, correct?” Shinichi said, watching like the detective he was, like a predator waiting for the twitch of a mouse’s tail to pounce on.

“So far as I’m aware, it’s always the same people. Snipers that is.” He flinched as Ran disinfected the cuts. She turned his face this way and that, looking for any sign of lingering glass. “Usually it’s a kill shot attempt from a distance, but every now and then they send someone to threaten face to face—ow!”

“Hm, hold still, there’s a splinter stuck. You’re lucky that missed your eye.” Ran readied the tweezers.

“I’m always lucky,” Kaito argued. “Anyway, yes, same people.” He shivered. “They’re getting bolder.”

“They shot your partner.”

Kaito sent a glare Shinichi’s way because they might not have ever talked about it, but Shinichi knew what drove Kaito closer to them. He was a detective, he wouldn’t have missed the connection between the body found near a Kid heist and Kaito’s depressive spiral shortly after. That didn’t mean Kaito was any more ready to put that into words. He didn’t talk about most of his emotions. Most of his emotions were a mess and it would take too long to find a beginning or end to untangle them in the first place so Shinichi could leave that particular snarl of hell alone.

Shinichi nodded, like Kaito’d said everything out loud anyway. “What is your end goal here? I know you’re after a gem and I’ve pieced together it has some sort of myth attached. So why are they trying to kill you, Kaito?”

“Guess.”

Ran put a bandage on Kaito’s face none too gently. “Stop being angry at us, we’re helping,” Ran said. She grabbed Kaito’s hand next, honing in on the next sign of blood.

“...I’m trying to find a mythical gem that grants immortality before the people looking for it can get it. I don’t know why they want it, and frankly I don’t give a fuck why they want it. All I know is they killed my dad for it and would kill me, and that’s enough to make me want to keep it away from them.” Kaito let out a hiss of pain as Ran worked on his wrist, the worst of the damage. “Originally I wanted to get them all arrested, but the whole thing just gets deeper the more I look into it and all I have is a bunch of files on people and not enough concrete proof to do anything about it. And that’s only scratching the surface.”

“You have files?” Shinichi said.

“Of course I have files. I have to know who might be crooked on the police force. Granted that end of things is kind of patchy since I usually can only look into where evidence goes missing. But I haven’t spent almost a decade at this without learning to keep track of where things happen or who happened to be involved with things outside the police.” Some of Kaito’s irritation ebbed as he noticed Shinichi’s thoughtful expression. “Why?”

“Because, that’s evidence. And if there’s evidence you can build a case from it. Is it usually the same person trying to kill you? How big of a group are we talking about?”

“I’m... not sure. There used to be a man called Snake, and then there was Jackal and Rose, but they’re not active anymore, at least one of them is dead...” Indirectly due to Kaito for one of them, but he wasn’t going to think too hard about that. “There are at least two people I’ve noticed lately but there could be more. And that’s just the assassins. I don’t know much about the higher ups. Jackal liked to talk, but I only got him face to face a few times. The thing with snipers is that it’s hard to get close to them since they’re usually trying to kill you from a distance.”

“I understand that. But Kaito, when it comes to taking down crime organizations, do you know anyone with more experience than I do?”

Kaito went cold. He turned sharply, ignoring Ran’s protest as he jerked in her grip. “No. You aren’t getting involved. My life is in enough danger, I don’t want them trying to kill you too.”

Shinichi crossed his arms. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I’m already involved. I’m involved with you, and if they’re targeting you, then it’s already my problem. Even if you can guarantee that this group of yours doesn’t have the slightest idea of your civilian identity, the fact that I attend heists could put me in danger. People are currently in danger at every heist you have. Tell me, why isn’t it in the best interest of everyone involved that I look into this?”

“Kudo. Shinichi. This isn’t just in Japan. They’re active around the world. I just haven’t had much opportunity to interact with them out of Japan. Last time you ran into a group like that you spent two years as a seven-year-old and almost died half a dozen times that I know of. I asked you to avoid heists because I didn’t want to put you more at risk.”

“Again, the points I just made. Besides, Kaito, there are always people who are going to want to take a shot at me or my loved ones. Always. I deal with murderers remember?”

How could Kaito forget? Just two days ago Kaito watched him solve a murder case over what was supposed to be a quick lunch out together while they were on work break. “Ran?” Kaito said, hoping she could knock some sense into him.

Ran wouldn’t meet his eyes. “You know as well as I do that you’re not going to be able to convince him not to seek justice when people are being murdered, Kaito,” she said, dabbing ointment on Kaito’s wrists.

“But—”

“Kaito,” she said gently. “I don’t like the idea of him getting caught up with something that big again, but it’s better if he’s ahead of them than them coming for him without warning.” She smiled sadly. “And that would happen. They already have an idea who you are, don’t they? Since they found your partner?”

“...They shouldn’t. Not right now.”

“Right now?” Shinichi said sharply. “What did you do?”

Kaito winced. “I didn’t kill anyone. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Kaito.”

“Shinichi.” Kaito said back.

Shinichi huffed. Then he caught Kaito’s chin in one hand so Kaito had to meet his eyes, a challenge and a promise burning in them. “Kaito, let me help. I can’t promise that I’d be able to get rid of them entirely, but getting them out of Japan? I already have the connections that would make that possible. I just need information and leads to follow.”

Kaito wanted to believe him. Desperately. He also had too clear a memory of Jii’s corpse. And fainter but equally traumatic, his father’s death.

“Trust me. I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t think I would be able to do it and keep myself and my family safe.”

It wasn’t even a year yet since Jii.

Kaito closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see Shinichi’s sincerity.

“Fine,” Shinichi sighed. “I’m dropping this for now, but this isn’t over.”

Ran finished with his wrists and Kaito let her. Let her bandage them and let Shinichi stand close and trace the fine, tiny scars that were already on Kaito’s face from times glass shattered on him in the past. He knew Shinichi with a goal in mind was as relentless and targeted as a hunting dog with a scent. He wasn’t going to let this go. And as good as Kaito was at playing the fox, he wasn’t going to be able to avoid the topic forever. Not when he was half living with Shinichi and Ran. Eventually Shinichi would wear him down. And Kaito would give him what he wanted to know. The future was clear in Kaito’s head, how this would go, but beyond surrendering what he knew, he couldn’t predict where things would go from there. Because he knew Shinichi and Shinichi had always gotten the culprit in the end.

So Kaito had a tiny flame of hope.

But he didn’t nurture it because he couldn’t afford to. He’d still keep Shinichi away from his mess as long as he could. He fell for people because of their passion and drive, not in spite of it, even when he knew it had a likelihood of coming back to hurt him.

Kaito hoped that this wouldn’t hurt him.

He wanted to learn to get used to coming home to people who would sit him down and look at his wounds and worry over him.

***

Kaito raise a glass in toast. Aoko, on the other side of her kitchen table, mirrored him. “To Nakamori-keibu. May he have a peaceful, well-earned retirement.” He drank.

“Toast for him fighting on literal decades despite dealing with your bullshit,” Aoko said.

“Both Oyaji and my bullshit,” Kaito corrected. “Nakamori-keibu, the underrated terrier who never gave up nipping at our heels.”

“Don’t call my dad a dog,” Aoko said, but she drank too. They’d both drank tonight. A lot. Miraculously nothing was broken yet.

“It’s the end of an era,” Kaito said. “What is he going to do with all that time on his hands? Take up knitting? Do Tai Chi? Finally work on his anger management issues?”

Aoko swatted him. That was deserved. “He’s taking a vacation and planning to do volunteer work. If his back lets him. You know how bad it’s been.”

Nakamori hadn’t done much chasing for the last year. The retirement wasn’t exactly a surprise. “I’ll have to adjust to someone new running heists. How many habits will I have to break?”

“Shush you whiner. You’re not allowed to complain.” Aoko glared. Kaito relented. Two years ago they wouldn’t be sharing drinks let alone talking about her father’s retirement and Kid over Aoko’s kitchen table, so... Yeah, no room to complain. “I wonder if Tou-san will start talking to you again now that I talk to you?”

“Nah, I broke your heart. He hates me.”

“Doesn’t.”

“Does,” Kaito said, sticking his tongue out childishly as he stole Aoko’s bottle of whiskey to top up his glass. She had the sort of liquor taste Jii had approved of, Kaito mused, swirling the liquid so the light played off it. “He’s spent the last...” Kaito couldn’t count the years at the moment. “Long time... Ignoring me whenever we were in the same room. Or glaring. A lot of glaring.”

“He doesn’t. He’d have caught you if he did.”

“He doesn’t know who I am, Aoko.”

“He does. And he doesn’t?” She wobbled a hand in the air. “He knows but doesn’t want to know? Like me before? Everything’s there he just doesn’t want to see it like I didn’t. So sorta knowing.”

Kaito rolled his eyes. “Doesn’t count.”

Aoko stole the whiskey back. “Uh yeah it does because he could have authorized lethal force for how long you’ve been active but he never did.”

“He isn’t the type to use lethal violence on a non-lethal thief.”

“Hm,” Aoko hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “I’m going to throw my name in for Tou-san’s position.”

Kaito choked on his drink, whiskey burning through his nasal passages as he coughed and sputtered. “What? Why?”

“Why not?” Aoko said.

“You know why not!”

“You and Kudo kicked your killers out of Japan. Locked them up. It’s safer than working homicides these days.” Aoko propped her head on one hand, clearly amused as hell at catching him off guard. “Plus think of the pay raise.”

“Out of Japan, not out of existence!” Kaito said, fighting his drunk brain for clear thought. “I don’t want you being more of a target!”

“You’re such a hypocrite Kaito,” Aoko said calmly. “Besides. I’m not going to get it first off. Not enough experience and I’m a woman. I’ll have to prove I can do better than whatever dumbass they hire before I’d get the job.”

“You don’t seem to think they’ll hire anyone good...” Kaito set his glass down. It might be time to drink some water.

“You see the kind of people I work with? Half of them are idiots, another quarter are thrill seekers, and the ones with brains tend to get in trouble because they thought out of the box and it led to doing something against a direct order. I have to figure out how to work in the constraints but think creative and do twice as good as the next guy to get the job.” She smirked, total confidence in her posture that normally never showed. It was probably because she was drunk, but Kaito’s drunk brain informed him that she looked really hot at the moment. Kaito’s drunk brain could shut up because they were both taken at the moment. Besides how completely idiotic it would be to restart anything with their history. “But I can do it.”

“I know you can, but why would you want to?”

“Someone’s gotta watch your idiot back,” Aoko said with a shrug. “And I’m good at making it look like I want to catch you even when I don’t.”

Years with a mop, Kaito thought. Much dodging. Mutual dodging? Who even knew at this point. “If they know that you know who I am then you’d be in so much trouble. You’d be fired. Maybe arrested.”

“Like I’m not already going to be?” Aoko said. She snorted. “Give up Kaito, I can do what I want.”

Kaito conceded. She always did what she wanted anyway regardless of how he felt. “You know, maybe we shouldn’t have broke out the whiskey and drank like half a dozen shots.”

“You’re not sad drunk today so it’s not a mistake.” Aoko, somehow doing better than Kaito despite drinking just as much and being a good bit lighter, finished off what was in her glass. “If you cry on me I’m kicking you out.”

“Ugh, I’m not gonna cry.” He might end up calling Shinichi or Ran to pick him up though because it wasn’t going to be a good idea to let him loose when drunk. He did stupid stupid things when drunk. Granted he’d probably just climb his lovers’ window and try to proposition them again. Kaito eyed the whiskey in his glass. At what point of drunkness did he lose all sense of embarrassment and impulse control?

“To getting shitfaced over the end of a crime-fighting era!” Aoko said, pouring herself a little bit more alcohol. The bottle was alarmingly low considering it was just the two of them drinking and it had been full before they started.

“Aw, hell,” Kaito said. “We only live once.” Get shitfaced with Aoko because they had reached the point where they could do this. Sure. Worth the hangover tomorrow. Thank god Takumi was with Shiemi and Keiko this weekend. “Don’t let me climb anything.”

“You’re not gonna climb things, you’re gonna do a magic show for me because it’s been freaking years and I like the thing with the...the...” She waved a hand and it could be anything from a card bridge to making something vanish and reappear.

“I’m not at my best drunk,” Kaito warned.

“The room is tilting and I’m easily impressed.”

Kaito snorfled into his drink. What the hell. “Cheers to magic,” he said, stealing Aoko’s glass and downing it. He’d regret it in the morning but tonight he was going to have fun with his one-time best friend.

 ***

“Hey Takumi?” Shiemi said. Tucked up under the blanket fort in the Kudo living room, she was cast in shadows. Takumi could barely make out her face, but something in her voice said that this was something important. The sort of thing that could only be brought up when she was sure they were alone. Couldn’t get more alone than a blanket fort sleepover at two in the morning. Hanae and Midori had been carried up to their rooms asleep hours ago.

“Yeah?” Takumi clicked on a flashlight. It was too bright, so he clicked it off immediately. In the split second of expression he’d seen on Shiemi’s face, she looked more nervous than Takumi had seen her be since that time she talked about who her dad was and why he wasn’t in her life. That was two years ago. He was twelve now and had no idea what she might bring up because they talked about pretty much everything. What could be so serious that she was nervous?

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately. Well. For a while now.”

“Yeah?” Takumi repeated when she paused. He reached out and took her hand. Shiemi squeezed back.

“You know how your dad likes both Ran-obasan and Shinichi-ojisan?”

Oh, now he could see where this was going. “He’s bi, yeah?”

“I think I like girls.” A deep breath. “I know I like girls. And not boys.”

“Okay.” It seemed like such a small thing, but clearly it wasn’t since Shiemi was so nervous. What, did she think he would be weirded out by it? “That’s cool. Anyone you like now?”

“That’s it?” Shiemi said, elbowing him.

“Ow. Why would it be a problem?”

“I don’t know. People at school are just... yeah, sometimes they say things...”

“And you listened to them? What happened to the girl who laughed in the face of the guy that tried to bully her?”

“I don’t care about them! They’re idiots! I just...”

Takumi turned so he could squirm closer, shoving pillows aside. “Shiemi, Tou-san has been with Shinichi-jisan how long now? It’s not a problem. I know boys can like boys and girls can like girls.”

“Ugh, I know it’s just different to say it out loud!” Shiemi huffed. She pulled him into a hug. “I never said it out loud to anyone before,” she mumbled into his shoulder. “I didn’t think it would be so scary to say it out loud.”

“To me?”

“No, just out loud really. Saying things out loud makes them more real. And you know what people are like about homosexuality.”

Takumi did know. It wasn’t broadcast that his dad was with the Kudos, but it wasn’t exactly a secret either and there had been times over the years... “Like you said, they’re idiots.”

“Idiots with power,” Shiemi said with a disgusted scoff. “I wish that would change.”

“You’re just going to have to do it yourself,” Takumi teased, thinking of how often she complained about something and did just that.

“Obviously.” Shiemi giggled. “Okay, can you picture me in politics?”

Takumi hummed. “Actually, yeah.”

“What really?”

“You’re bossy enough.”

“Takumi!” Shiemi shoved him away, laughing. He laughed with her. She was laughing a bit harder than the situation called for, but he figured it was relief. Silly, he wasn’t going to change how he was with her. When their giggled petered off, she sighed. “You know, maybe I should really go into politics. Maybe I could make a difference.”

“If you do, I’ll back you up.”

“As what, a fellow politician?”

“I dunno. I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. Maybe I could join pro sports and be a spokesperson or something.” He’d started lacrosse this year and he was loving it. For a second he pictured standing in front of cameras after a win, telling some person about sexualities. It would probably be a scandal if he did, but it would be so worth it.

“You’re not that good at sports.”

“I dunno, I could be. I just have to try harder.”

Shiemi snorted. “You do that.” She caught Takumi’s hand again, lacing their fingers together like they did when they were younger. “I have a crush on Arisa in your class. She’s cute and she always says hi when I visit you at lunch and she can run really fast. She’s so cool.”

Takumi barely knew Arisa, but he could agree that she was pretty cool. “Are you going to tell her?”

“No. I’m not ready to tell the world yet. And if I asked her out there’d probably be rumors...” She looked at Takumi, dim light reflecting off her glasses. “You like anyone?”

“No,” Takumi said. “I keep thinking about it, but I don’t really get it. Maya-chan likes Jun, and everyone thinks Jun is attractive, but I just look at him and go, yeah, that’s a guy, and Kenta keeps being girl crazy but I can’t relate at all. They’re pretty I guess but...” Takumi shrugged. “It’s like everyone’s put on some pair of glasses that make you see people as attractive and I never got a pair. They’re people and they’re mostly nice people, but they’re just the same as they’ve always been, you know?”

“Kind of?” Shiemi said.

“I’ve looked into it some and maybe I just am one of those people who don’t like people that way. I don’t know. Maybe I never will or maybe I’ll wake up and find people pretty someday.”

“Does it bother you?”

“A little? But not much. I mean why get upset about who likes who, there’s so much to do, why waste time getting caught up in all of that.”

Shiemi snickered. “You would say that.” She nudged Takumi with her elbow and Takumi could see the hint of a smile in the dark. “Thanks. For listening and sharing.”

“Duh. You’re my best friend.”

“Don’t be a brat.”

Takumi stuck his tongue out at her. Shiemi shoved him. He tickled her, but that was always a battle he would lose. She had him wheezing laughter and crying in a matter of minutes, begging for mercy.

“I don’t know why you even start tickle fights when you know I’ll win,” Shiemi said.

“Worth it,” Takumi gasped. She was happy again and nothing had changed between them with sharing those secrets.

“So... If I ever do want to date someone, will you help be my wingman?”

“Pff, sure, Shiemi.”

**

Takumi was doing homework with Shiemi in the kitchen when the front door opened and shut. He didn’t think anything of it until there wasn’t his mother’s usual greeting. Instead, there was a patter of socked feet too small for an adult and Hanae rushing into the kitchen.

“Takumi-nii?” she said. She looked like she’d seen someone kick a puppy, torn between being upset and angry and it had Takumi wanting to track whatever caused it down because Hanae didn’t get upset easily.

She also wasn’t supposed to be here. “Hanae, what are you doing here?” Takumi asked, holding his arms out. Hanae rushed into the hug. “Are you by yourself?” he added, realizing that would mean she’d come all the way from Ekoda Elementary on her own and anything could have happened. And her parents might not even know. “How did you even get in?”

“You gave me a key remember?” she said into his shoulder.

“Yeah, but you gave it back.” She must have made a copy; she was all about spies and ciphers and sneaky tricks lately which Takumi’s father was gleefully ‘helping’. Hanae squirmed free of the hug. “Takumi-nii, I need help with something.”

Takumi shot Shiemi a look. Shiemi shrugged, setting her homework aside to watch this unfold. “What kind of help are we talking about?”

“So my friend Ryou-kun came into school with his nails painted today cuz his sister had a sleepover and he got to join in. And I told him they looked pretty, because they did. They were all dark sparkly blue—that’s really pretty and it looked good on him, but then one of the other boys in class noticed and started being mean and kept calling him pretty and girly and made him cry and he took the polish off even though he was so happy earlier.” Hanae scowled. She looked a lot like Ran-basan glaring at a criminal when she was angry. She could probably do a decent amount of damage too since Hanae had been doing karate since she was four. “I offered to hit them but he told me not to and said not to call him pretty anymore because boys couldn’t be pretty. Which is stupid.”

Takumi nodded, sharing another glance with Shiemi who was a lot more interested now. “It is stupid. Of course boys can be pretty. I can be pretty sometimes, right Shiemi?”

“Uh. Objectively speaking you’re not...not pretty?” Shiemi said, not expecting to be addressed.

Takumi rolled his eyes.

“Takumi, I told you like, two weeks ago! I am not the best person to ask about whether a man is pretty or not!”

“Anyway,” Takumi said, setting a hand on Hanae’s shoulder, “pretty or not, there’s nothing wrong with a guy liking pretty things. Or girly things. Girly isn’t bad.”

“I know!” Hanae said, standing straighter. “That’s what Kaa-san’s said, but the boys in class are stupid and mean.”

“Okay,” Takumi said slowly. “What did you need my help with anyway? Why didn’t you just tell a teacher they were being mean?”

Hanae huffed. “I can’t go to the teacher! They’ll just pretend to listen and be sneakier about being mean! I want you to talk to the boys because they won’t listen to me. You’re a middle schooler, so you’re almost cool now and they’re more likely to listen to another boy.”

Almost cool. Takumi struggled not to smile at that. “I kind of doubt they’ll listen to me.” But who the heck were these kids that just ruined a boy’s self-image just because he happened to wear sparkly nail polish? One, there were plenty of boys who wore nail polish—even some baseball catchers wore it for better signing. Two, like heck was being a pretty boy an insult! “...we’ll just have to prove them wrong,” Takumi said.

“Oh?” Shiemi said.

“Yes,” Takumi said, deciding he’d do this. Somehow. An idea sparked. He grinned slowly.

“Takumi, no, I’m the one with the crazy ideas, not you,” Shiemi said, seeing his expression.

“You don’t know the idea yet.”

“I know you.”

“Will it help Ryou feel better?” Hanae asked.

“Maybe,” Takumi said. “I can talk to him too if you want. In the meantime...” He dashed up to his room and back down in record time, a couple small, round objects in his hands. “Here.” He set them in Hanae’s hands.

“Are those...?” Shiemi started, craning her neck.

“Glitter bombs,” Takumi said, grin vicious. “Rainbow glitter bombs. Set them up in their shoe lockers or desk and it will cover them. And their clothes. And their things. And it will take weeks to get rid of and they’ll still be finding glitter in odd places for months.”

“I knew you were the right one to talk to,” Hanae said with satisfaction.

“Tou-san probably would have given you glitter bombs too,” Takumi said.

“Yeah, but he’d feel guilty and probably tell Kaa-san and Tou-san he gave me them or something.” Hanae clutched the glitter bombs close. “This way no one has to know it was me.”

“They’re going to know it was you,” Takumi said, “because who else would do it?”

“Yeah,” Hanae said, “but this way they don’t have proof it was me. I just gotta time it right.”

There was probably, Takumi reflected, some negative effects of growing up around a lot of crime scenes.

“So what else?” Hanae asked.

Takumi grinned, Shiemi shrugged and gave into the inevitable and joined in the planning, and Hanae wholeheartedly threw herself into getting revenge for her friend.

**

“So,” Shinichi said the second Kaito stepped into the kitchen after work, “there was a few phone calls for you today from the school.”

“Takumi’s school?”

“And Hanae’s.” Shinichi was reading the paper. He looked amused in a way that set off Kaito’s flight instincts. “You also had one from Aoko-san. She said that this is your problem and she’s not taking any part of it. By the way, you chose a bad day to forget your cell phone at home.” Shinichi held up Kaito’s missing phone.

“You don’t say?” Kaito took it. Two voicemails from the respective schools. One missed call from Aoko and a text. Six missed calls in total. “I’m assuming you listened to the voice mails.”

“Mm,” Shinichi hummed. “They also called me and Ran.”

“Give me a digest version?”

“Something about crossdressing in public, infiltrating an elementary school, skipping class, and terrifying several children during their lunch break?”

What did Takumi do? “And to think I thought my son didn’t inherit my streak of flaunting authority.”

Shinichi laughed at him.

“Shush, your children are going to be trouble magnets too.”

“Actually, considering how the boys who were involved with this incident are the same ones who were mysteriously pranked a few days ago with a glitter bomb, I think Hanae already is one, and we can deduce who prompted Takumi to act out.”

“...So you already have the whole thing figured out don’t you?”

“Pretty much. They’re a bunch of kids, there’s limits to their resources and planning.”

Shinichi wasn’t going to tell Kaito what he’d figured out either. Kaito huffed and sat at the table. “I hate you sometimes.”

“Love you too, Kaito.” Shinichi grinned and picked his paper back up. “Have fun being a parent with this one.”

Kaito gave him a middle finger which Shinichi conveniently didn’t see. He listened to the messages.

**

“Takumi, officially you’re grounded for the duration of your suspension,” Kaito said the moment Takumi stepped foot in the kitchen after school. He kept helping Ran with cooking, enjoying the panicked expression on his son’s face from the corner of his eye.

“Uh.” Takumi froze.

“Unofficially, how could you let yourself get caught?”

Ran whapped Kaito lightly on the head. “What he means is he’s disappointed. Don’t do that again.”

“Did you at least accomplish what you were trying to do?”

“Yes?” Takumi said, clearly expecting a lot worse after probably getting yelled at by the staff of two schools for hours and a talking to from Aoko on top of that. She was the one who had been called in to deal with it, being the primary contact.

“Well okay then. I hope someone got pictures to memorialize this though.”

“You’re not mad?”

Kaito smirked. “Not really. I mean I did worse things in school. Granted I was a bit older before I broke into places cross dressed but—”

“You what?!”

“Not important,” Kaito said waving that away. He didn’t know when a good time to explain Kid would come up and he and Aoko still went back and forth about if it was something that they’d ever tell Takumi about in the first place. “But Hanae already explained why you did it.”

Takumi looked at Hanae who was doing her homework at the kitchen table while Midori scribbled on scrap paper with crayons. “I wasn’t going to make you the fall guy,” she said.

“Oh. Okay.” Takumi sat down, a little dazed. “And Shiemi got photos. She says for blackmail but you can’t blackmail me if I’m not ashamed.”

“Always a good mindset,” Kaito agreed. Ran rolled her eyes at them.

Takumi shook his head. Hanae cleared her throat at Takumi and he blinked. “Oh yeah, so, Tou-san am I pretty?”

Kaito glanced at him with a grin from where he was chopping vegetables. “You’re gorgeous.”

“See?” Takumi said to Hanae.

Hanae scoffed. “Dads don’t count. They have to say you’re pretty.”

“Your classmates thought I was pretty.”

“Well yeah, but they’re stupid so...”

“I’ll find an unbiased opinion somewhere.”

“Eh, Ryou thinks you’re pretty, and his opinion is all that matter so.”

“...You just wanted me to ask Tou-san if I was pretty didn’t you?”

Hanae giggled.

“I got suspended for you!”

“Hanae is grounded for the weekend,” Ran said, “since she got you involved.”

“But we’re really glad you stuck up for your friend,” Kaito said.

“Stop undermining the effects of discipline, Kaito,” Ran said.

“But I thought that was my reason for existing?” Kaito said with a straight face.

“I hate you all,” Takumi said. “But I proved that boys can be pretty and that the elementary school need better security.”

“Someone’s taking care of that.”

“Good.”

Far off future:

“Kaa-san, Tou-san, Kai-Tou-san! We’re home! Takumi-nii is visiting!” Hanae’s voice echoed from the front door.

Kaito set down the onion he was cutting, counting the seconds before he’d end up tackled. A few steps away, Ran did the same, setting aside her stirring spoon. Sure enough, Midori barreled into the room two seconds later, hair a mess and her school bag flung around haphazardly as she ran. She tackled Kaito’s legs first before latching onto Ran.

“School was fun but I’m glad it’s done, where’s Tou-san?” she said all in one breath.

“He’s finishing up some paperwork in the study,” Ran said, and Midori was off again to go give Shinichi a hug. She had too much energy, even for Kaito some days. Ran quirked a smile at Kaito. Kaito gave an exaggerated shrug back. Yeah, it was probably his genetics at work there. Somehow they’d skipped Takumi despite all probability.

“We’re home,” Hanae said again, entering the kitchen with Takumi at a much calmer pace than her sister had. “Kaa-san, do I have to be in fourth grade or can I just skip? It’s only the first day and I’m bored out of my mind.”

“You can’t skip,” Ran said, with the same patient tone she’d used last year when Hanae had asked the same thing. Hanae was ahead in a few subjects, but not all of them. “Besides, you’d have to have a whole new group of classmates.”

“We get a new home room every year anyway,” Hanae sighed.

“You have to find ways to make it interesting,” Kaito said with a wink. “Make up a game to pass the boring classes.”

“Like how you used to prank your whole class?” Takumi asked. He stole a slice of carrot from Kaito’s cutting board.

“Hands off, this is for dinner,” Kaito said, batting Takumi’s grabby fingers away. “And sort of. I don’t think anything that showy is a good idea, but you’ve got a brain, there has to be something interesting to puzzle out in your classes.”

“Can you show me how to make glue bombs?” Hanae asked hopefully.

Ran cleared her throat pointedly.

“No, I don’t have a death wish.” Kaito skated close to the line already with teaching the kids simple sleight of hand. Ran had been pissed when she found out he taught Hanae and Midori lock picking—almost as angry as Aoko had been when he taught Takumi, but as Shinichi had pointed out, it was a useful skill to have considering how danger tended to crop up in their lives. That said, Kaito wasn’t going to push his luck. Providing ways to cause chaos at school would be a step or five over the line of what was and wasn’t acceptable.

“Stingy,” Hanae said. “Takumi-nii, teach me to make glue bombs?”

“What makes you think I know how to make glue bombs?” Takumi said. He took over setting the table as Ran and Kaito worked on finishing dinner.

Hanae, making more of a nuisance of herself than not as she was still slumped at the table, shrugged. “Because you know how to make smoke pellets. And you get a kick out of glitter bombs. Why not glue bombs?”

“I can’t say whether I can or can’t make one,” Takumi said.

“Good diplomatic answer,” Kaito said.

“That means yes, yes you can make one,” Hanae said. She had Shinichi’s deadpan sarcasm down pat.

“We can brainstorm ways to keep you entertained after dinner,” Takumi offered.

“Fi—ne,” Hanae groaned.

“How was your first day of high school, Takumi?” Ran asked as she took the cutting board full of vegetables from Kaito to start stir frying them.

“It was fine.” Takumi shrugged. “It was nice to be in the same building as Shiemi again, though she’s definitely going to try and booby-trap my shoe locker. I see a prank war coming. Turns out my homeroom teacher is new to the staff—Yumi-sensei, er Hatsumoto-sensei, left for maternity leave so they hired a foreigner to teach. Sort of foreigner?” Takumi tipped his head to the side. “He’s half-Japanese, no accent, and rumor has it he’s from Britain. Rumor also has it he’s an alumni from Ekoda High, but I don’t know if that’s true or not. He seems pretty uptight and serious though. Shiemi was sad because he’s probably going to be in charge of the Literature club with Hatsumoto-sensei gone.”

“A half-British alumni,” Kaito murmured. Could it be...? “What’s the teacher’s name?”

“Hakuba I think, spelled the same as Hakuba laboratories.” Takumi finished setting chopsticks around the table and turned to Kaito. “Why?”

“Huh.” Hakuba as a teacher. A high school teacher no less. What the hell had brought him back here so many years later? “I went to school with him.”

“Really?” Takumi asked, curious.

Kaito didn’t talk about his school days much, didn’t talk about anything before the divorce much, but he’d made enough comments when Ran and Shinichi talked about their own high school days over the years that Takumi had a picture of what it must have been like. Kaito scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “Yeah. We didn’t get on much. I pranked the hell out of him and he would get all uptight and smug at me whenever he could hold something over me.” Which admittedly didn’t happen too often. “By the time he moved back to London we tolerated each other, but I can’t say we were ever friends exactly. He was a detective back then though, and he wanted to catch Kid.”

“And you were Kid’s biggest fanboy,” Takumi filled in, like that was explanation enough for why they hadn’t gotten along. “It’s weird that my homeroom teacher is someone you knew though. Think that will make him biased against me?”

“Mm, probably not. Hakuba wasn’t the type to make assumptions about people without evidence. If he’s still like who he was back then, he’d be wary, but wouldn’t treat you differently unless you tried to prank him. Keep from doing anything I’d have done and I’m sure he’ll treat you like everyone else in class.”

Hakuba had always been reasonably fair. A bit prone to showing off, but Kaito had been the same way back then so he couldn’t really point fingers. Fifteen years was a long time, more than long enough for Hakuba to have grown up.

“So long as I’m not being singled out to do all the reading or always called to do work on the board, I think I’ll be happy,” Takumi said. “The world is a surprisingly small place sometimes though.”

“Yes. Yes it is...” Kaito supposed he’d have to look into whatever was going on with Hakuba. Just in case. As someone that once chased Kid, he was someone to keep an eye on.

“If this guy was a detective, why is he teaching high school?” Hanae asked.

“That’s a good question, kiddo.” One that he’d have to find out.

Ran shot him a resigned look, guessing that he would be joining them late in bed tonight if at all. Kaito put on his best apologetic face and got an eye roll in return. “Hanae,” she said, “can you go get Midori and your father?”

“Can’t Takumi-nii get them?” Hanae asked even as she pushed herself out of her chair.

“I’m setting the table,” Takumi said, setting down water glasses pointedly.

“You’re always conveniently busy whenever there’s an errand,” she said walking away.

“It’s called being helpful!” Takumi called after her. “She’s only ten, how is she like this already?”

“Says the teenager,” Kaito teased.

“Well I’m never that grumpy.”

“Of course not.” Takumi just spent a lot more time in his room and listening to edgy music Shiemi was into when he was a preteen.

“Dinner,” Ran said, setting food onto the table before they could devolve into verbally poking at each other.

Midori and Hanae returned, dragging Shinichi along with them, his reading glasses still perched on his head. Kaito rescued them before Shinichi lost another pair to enthusiastic children. All thoughts about Hakuba were lost in the familiar back and forth of a family meal. As always, Kaito felt extremely lucky that this was his daily life.

***

Because Kaito was Kaito, he couldn’t hear that Hakuba was back in Japan and not look into it. What sort of phantom thief would he be if he didn’t look into the return of a one-time rival? So after Takumi left for Aoko’s curfew and the girls were tucked into bed, Kaito grabbed his dark gray scouting gear and planned to have a sleepless night.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Shinichi asked as Kaito fit a knit hat over his ears to hide his hair and keep off the March chill.

“Of course I do. I’m heading to the school first for employee records and finding Hakuba from there,” Kaito said.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Shinichi muttered, looking exasperated. Ran looked torn between disapproving and amused. The former was winning, mostly because she had the loudest conscience between them.

“You asked,” Kaito pointed out. “I’m not going to break into wherever it is he’s living.” Not tonight at least. “I just need to get an idea of what I might be dealing with. I don’t know if he’s going to be chasing Kid again.”

“He might not be if he’s a teacher,” Ran said.

“Jodie-sensei turned out to be with the FBI, Ran. Being a teacher doesn’t guarantee anything.” Shinichi rubbed his arms, a thoughtful frown on his face. “That doesn’t mean he isn’t a teacher either, but we don’t have all the facts.”

That was something Kaito was going to remedy. While he really didn’t think Hakuba would cause any problems with Takumi’s school life, it was always better to check. Hakuba was someone that knew Kid’s identity even if he’d never been able to prove it, and that could complicate a lot of things if he chose to use that knowledge.

“Don’t wait up,” Kaito said, kissing Ran and Shinichi goodbye. “I might not be back until morning.”

“You’re going to hate yourself tomorrow,” Shinichi said.

“That’s what coffee is for,” Kaito said.

“Take a nap on your lunch break tomorrow,” Ran said. Of the two of them, she tended to prod Kaito about his poor sleep habits most. She did the same to Shinichi though so it was just one of the ways she showed she cared. Kaito could appreciate that.

“I promise to take at least one power nap in the next twenty-four hours,” Kaito said. Then he climbed out the window. He enjoyed Ran’s overwrought sigh when she had to cross the room to close it. Coming and going through the window was still his favorite way to get in their bedroom.

It took maybe fifteen minutes at Ekoda High to find Hakuba’s file in the administrative office. The school hadn’t changed that much since Kaito went to school there, though there was more left to digital files than in the past. Thankfully that had never been much of a wall for him.

Twenty minutes after that found Kaito standing in the shadows of a very familiar apartment building. The same apartment building he’d lived in after he moved out of his mother’s house before Shinichi and Ran convinced him to move in with them. The building didn’t look any nicer than Kaito remembered it being, still needing a fresh coat of paint and new roofing in spots with cracked concrete steps up to the second floor apartments. Hakuba’s was on the second floor, right next to the one Kaito used to rent; the same apartment the little old half-deaf lady, Hinako, had lived. Either she’d moved or died, but that was a sad thought for another time.

It was as easy as he remembered to climb to the second floor windows. His old apartment had a light on, clearly having a new occupant. Occupants plural from the look of it; a young couple with a very young child. He could see them back-lit in the window as they tried to settle their baby for the night. Hakuba’s window was right next to that, the room inside dark except for a light on in the entryway.

Hakuba didn’t look much like the Hakuba Kaito remembered. Oh, he had the same tea-colored hair and solid, tall build, but he didn’t stand with his shoulders squared and his back straight. He leaned against his tiny kitchen countertop, back to the window, looking exhausted and defeated. There was a cane leaning against a desk and chair, the only pieces of furniture in the room other than the futon made up on the floor. It was a one room apartment, tiny and completely bare except for a calendar tacked to the wall. The water in the sink was running, but Hakuba wasn’t interacting with it, just standing frozen in a hunched position. Kaito thought Hakuba was going to stand there all night but after almost a minute, his hand shot out and turned the faucet off.

Kaito stayed perched outside the window, listening to the baby whimper next door and Hakuba’s other neighbor’s J-pop playlist filter through the shitty apartment walls. From Hakuba’s apartment, there wasn’t any sound, any movement at all until Hakuba finally straightened and checked a cell phone that had been by him the whole time. Its glow sent unflattering shadows across his profile that made him look twice as old and exhausted. Hakuba made a frustrated face at his phone and locked it again. He looked around his apartment like he was trying to decide if there was anything there worth doing, or maybe just taking in how shabby it was—there were badly covered scorch marks on the wall for goodness sake. Whatever he was looking for, apparently he didn’t find it. Kaito had to duck as Hakuba flicked off the entryway light and moved for the futon under the window.

Straining his ears, Kaito could hear Hakuba settle on the futon, then nothing. A quick glance confirmed that he was in bed and staring blankly at the ceiling.

Kaito wasn’t sure what to make of this. Any of this. Something had happened to Hakuba, and it had left him broken in some way. In fact it was unsettlingly similar to Kaito’s own memories of his early days in the shitty apartment next door. Kaito’d ended up there trying to get away from the weight of home and all the little things that reminded him of Jii, of his father who died too young and his mother who was never there.

Just what was Hakuba running from?

Kaito climbed back to solid ground, leaving Hakuba to his privacy. There was more research to do. It seemed important to know just how Hakuba had spent the last fifteen years of his life that could possibly lead him to where he was now.

***

It was almost Golden Week and Kaito had two things on his mind: Shinichi’s birthday and the parent-teacher meeting with Hakuba. Shinichi’s birthday was simple enough; Shinichi never remembered his own birthday so it was always pretty easy to surprise him. Kaito, Ran, and the kids had a party planned with some of Shinichi’s close friends invited and a gift of tickets to a mystery convention next month. Hakuba... Well, Kaito wasn’t sure what to do about Hakuba.

He’d done some digging after seeing Hakuba in that apartment and nothing he’d pulled up showed anything good in Hakuba’s life in the last year. Shot right out of high school in the leg, ended up a teacher instead of on the force, and then last year he’d lost a husband of twelve years. Violently. It was no wonder he had looked depressed alone in that apartment.

According to Takumi, Hakuba was a good teacher but kind of intimidating in the classroom. No one acted out much after someone ended up getting slammed with extra homework and the threat of detention after disrupting one too many times. Apparently getting on the wrong side of Hakuba’s glare froze up students the same way it used to terrify criminals. According to Shiemi, Hakuba was pretty calm and hadn’t been thrown by her testing him when he was assigned to be the literature club supervisor. He hadn’t bothered Takumi at all, other than a light reprimand the only time Takumi pulled a prank on a classmate. Hakuba had to know who Takumi was. Takumi looked just like Kaito so he had to know that he was going to talk to Kaito at some point and Kaito honestly had no idea how this was going to go. Life had taken them in very very different directions than they’d been heading toward back in high school. They weren’t the same people anymore so Hakuba could react in any number of ways at seeing Kaito again.

“You’re overthinking,” Ran said as she found Kaito in the kitchen, scowling at a cup of tea. Cold tea. He’d gotten caught up in his thoughts.

“Hakuba’s coming within the hour,” Kaito said.

“Did you want Shinichi or me to be there?” Ran knew a bit about Kaito’s high school days, and enough about Kid to recognize Hakuba beyond the brief meetings she had through her father’s connections in the past. She didn’t have an opinion toward Hakuba one way or another so far as Kaito could tell.

Kaito shrugged. “I think I’ll be fine. Technically you could be there since you help parent Takumi too but...” But people reacted badly when they realized Kaito was a seemingly unnecessary addition to Ran and Shinichi’s marriage; a parasite was the least of what he’d been called over the years. They kept it private when they could and Kaito wasn’t about to shove it in Hakuba’s face if he could help it. Hakuba would draw enough conclusions from the address and Kudo’s name on the gate.

“I’ll be in the library with the girls,” Ran said gathering up a tray of senbei and juice boxes.

“Thanks, Ran.”

“Shinichi should be home soon. I’ll send him a text to leave you to your meeting, ok? But if you need us...”

“I’ll ask.” He smiled at her and she squeezed his shoulder in support on her way past. The smile slid off Kaito’s face once she was gone. Honestly, how was he supposed to approach this? He drummed his fingers over the side of his teacup. He could, Kaito supposed, approach this like he would approach any teacher; with hospitality and neutral charm. Let Hakuba direct how personal it got and go from there.

He refilled the kettle and searched for a good tea blend while it heated. No black teas this late, not everyone could sleep immediately after drinking caffeine like Shinichi. A light green or herbal tea... perhaps the ginger, mint and chamomile blend that Kaito brewed when the girls couldn’t sleep or he needed something relaxing. Caffeine probably wouldn’t be doing Hakuba any favors if the tired look of him in the moment Kaito glimpsed was anything to go by.

A doorbell interrupted his thought process. Kaito shoved the green blend back in the cupboard and half-teleported toward the front door. This was earlier than he’d expected Hakuba, but Hakuba was the only visitor they were expecting. Kaito schooled his expression into something polite and blandly welcoming.

“Hakuba,” Kaito said as he opened the door, catching a glimpse of Hakuba’s hair through the door window before he even started to open it. “You’re earlier than I thought you’d...be...” His neutral mask slipped. “You look like hell,” he said, mouth firing off before his brain finished thinking like he was back in high school again.

“How kind of you to point it out,” Hakuba said with all the prickly sarcasm Kaito remembered him having. Hell was kind of an understatement though. There were dark smudges under Hakuba’s eyes and a pinched look to his face that Kaito’d seen from Shinichi on the occasional times he got migraines. He had a white knuckled grip on his cane too, so his leg must be giving him hell. “Are we going to do this in the doorway or will you invite me in?”

Kaito recovered, masks in place again. Hakuba looked like he expected an attack. If anyone should expect one, it should be Kaito. Kaito stepped aside. “Please, come in.” He shut the door behind Hakuba, glad that he’d thought to set out guest slippers earlier. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

“Yes, well, the meeting with Aoko-san went faster than anticipated,” Hakuba said, taking his shoes off with the reluctance of someone who had taken their shoes on and off too often in one day. “You live here?” Hakuba said.

“I’ve lived here about...mm...going on six years now.” Kaito waited for a comment about Ran or Shinichi, or Kaito himself, but Hakuba hummed acknowledgement and didn’t say anything else. Huh. Well, Hakuba had married a man, so maybe he was more open to non-normative relationships than Kaito would have guessed. Kaito led them to the kitchen, acutely aware of how Hakuba looked at everything they passed with the focus of examining a crime scene.

The kettle was whistling when they reached the kitchen and Kaito flicked off the heat. “Sit wherever,” he said. “Tea? Or should I offer something stronger?” he half-joked.

“I don’t drink,” Hakuba said, with a hollowness that made the joke fall flat and get buried six feet under. He didn’t offer anything more than that.

Kaito glanced at the herbal tea he’d left on the counter. Soothing was probably the best way to go. He prepared tea with the absent-minded flare he always used, letting the familiar motions of juggling a teapot and cups soothe his nerves. “Never?” he said, showily setting down Hakuba’s cup. “Must be pretty hard to unwind.” Kaito was going to want a drink by the end of the night.

“There are healthier ways of doing that.”

Kaito, pouring them tea, tilted his head in consideration. Just about every adult he knew got horrendously drunk at some point or another either via social pressures or escapism, and he could hardly say he was innocent of escaping into drink a time or two. It could be a slippery slope, but it was a socially accepted one. Self-medicating in a way that didn’t hold a stigma the way actual medicine did. But Kaito could say that having been down that path, he’d prefer now where he only drank in moderation and socially to when he’d tried to escape his problems. “Fair enough.” It figured Hakuba would avoid the temptation altogether.

Hakuba cupped the teacup in his hands and there was a long, heavy silence.

Clearly Hakuba wasn’t going to take the lead. Kaito breathed in mint-scented steam. “So. It’s been a while.”

Hakuba snorted. “That’s an understatement. A lot has changed since high school, hasn’t it?” The heavy emphasis on ‘lot’ and the way his eyes flicked around the room made it come out a bit like a backhanded accusation, but Kaito wasn’t ruffled by it. Compared to teenage Hakuba, it was downright subtle.

“Eh, just a bit. Unplanned babies, rush weddings, messy divorces... All part of life.” Kaito gave Hakuba a bright and very fake smile. “You’re hardly an exception.”

Hakuba gave him an unimpressed frown back. “True enough. Things have changed. And yet it seems not everything has.”

And there, a reference to Kid. Took him long enough. “All part of life,” Kaito repeated. “Some things change and others stay the same because they can’t.”

Their eyes met and it was Hakuba who looked away first, bringing his tea to his face to breathe in its scent. “I was surprised to see Takumi-kun in my class,” Hakuba said. “I wasn’t expecting...”

“Me to have a son?”

“That you’d have a child his age,” Hakuba said. “That he’d look so much like you.”

Takumi was almost identical to how Kaito looked at that age. Kaito was willing to bet he’d have more of Aoko’s soft features into adulthood though. “You’re not going to see me when you look at him, are you?” He didn’t want the...animosity wasn’t quite the correct word...the tension between him and Hakuba to spread to his son.

“Of course not,” Hakuba said, looking offended. “He’s his own person and I’ll form opinions from my own observations, not any lingering memories of you. He’s nothing like you or Aoko were in class anyway. He actually takes notes and pays attention for one.”

“Aoko took notes.”

“She also chased you with a mop in the middle of class on the regular.” Hakuba’s tone was dry as a desert. He pinched the bridge of his nose, another sign of a headache, a tiny frustrated sound escaping his lips. “Look. Kuroba...san.” The honorific felt wrong coming from Hakuba’s lips and Kaito couldn’t help staring. “I’m here as Takumi-kun’s teacher, not your old classmate. Anything from our past isn’t going to make me treat Takumi-kun different from my other students. In fact, so far he’s been a pleasure to have in class. He knows the answers when called upon and has passable English pronunciation...even if it is with an American accent.”

“Shinichi’s parents live in America,” Kaito said. “He’s picked up English during visits.”

Hakuba’s face twitched, probably at the mention of Shinichi. “Right, well he’s doing well in my class and so far he’s doing well in his other classes too. He’ll need to start thinking about what he want to study past high school or if he wants to try getting into the more accelerated learning courses for a better chance of getting into a good university, but there is time for figuring that out. Socially, he seems well respected among his peers and gets along with most people. He’s remarkably well adjusted.”

“And what is that supposed to mean,” Kaito said, narrowing his eyes.

Hakuba frowned back. “It’s not an attack, merely an observation. Balancing a split household effects children differently; he must have a good support network because he comes across as confident and comfortable. It’s a good thing.”

“Well,” Kaito said after a moment of them both bristling defensively, “he has four parents to talk to so I guess it helps.” There, the tension around Hakuba’s eyes again. “That bothers you.”

“Not,” Hakuba snapped, “for the reason you likely assume.”

“Oh, there’s always some reason people are uncomfortable.” Kaito gave Hakuba another empty smile. “Is it because of Ran or Shinichi? Because I am with both of them, thank you very much and it’s all very mutual—”

“They know, correct?” Hakuba cut in. “About you?”

Kaito hissed breath between his teeth. He’d really forgotten how Hakuba could rub him the wrong way so easily, and here he was bringing up Kid again, and probably meant to hold it against him or something. Maybe Hakuba hadn’t changed that much. Maybe he was still prodding for Kaito’s weak points and waiting to air his secrets to the world. “No, of course not, because that wouldn’t lead to problems now would it?” Kaito said sharply, the sarcasm lashing out instinctively. “I’m with Kudo Shinichi, of course they know. I wouldn’t have lasted a week if he wanted to know who I was. I live here, Hakuba. And, still not admitting to anything so you can put any daydreams of a confession out of your damn head, but has it occurred to you that some people are capable of looking past first impressions and gray morality and caring regardless?”

“I’m not—” Hakuba stopped, face scrunched. “I’m not trying to accuse you. And I am in no place to judge you on your life choices, in terms of partners or otherwise. I’m not a detective anymore, Kuroba-san. And I have no intention of picking up where I left off in Japan in regards to chasing thieves.”

“Then what is the problem?” Kaito shot back, not quite believing that Hakuba just said he wasn’t interested in chasing Kid. Kaito would believe that when he got proof.

“Just. Kudo? Really?” The twist to Hakuba’s face was identifiable as distaste.

“He’s brilliant and attractive and good.”

“He shot a gun at Kid the first heist he attended.”

“Oh, he’s shot a lot of things at Kid over the years,” Kaito agreed. “Kid got over the gun. Shinichi got over an incident with a Taser. Among plenty of other things.” As Hakuba kept staring, Kaito took a pointed sip of tea and Hakuba reluctantly mirrored him. “If Kid can get over it, you can. And, to be blunt, I don’t need life advice from someone who looks like his life is falling apart.”

“I’m fine!” Hakuba said, instantly defensive. Kaito just took another sip of tea and let silence speak for him. Hakuba’s shoulders hunched toward his ears. “Why does everyone have to keep commenting on my health? You, Mum, my coworkers, Aoko—just back off. I’m doing as well as I can manage! I’m not going to fall apart so just stop looking at me like that!”

“I didn’t say anything about any of that.”

“You’re thinking it!” Hakuba looked like high school Hakuba now, only high school Hakuba after a forty-eight hour work bender.

He looked like he was going to start in on a rant if Kaito said the wrong thing. Kaito didn’t think his professionalism would have been so easily cracked, but Hakuba was clearly not in a good place at the moment. Kaito set down his tea. “Wait here a moment and drink some tea.”

Hakuba scowled but Kaito was out of the room before he could say anything biting. Kaito had some experience with insomniacs and stress, his own and otherwise. He made a trip to the back yard and came back to find Hakuba sipping at his tea like it went against his pride to drink it. He looked even more tired than when he walked in the door. Kaito snorted as Hakuba’s scowl came back the second he stepped into the room.

“Here,” Kaito said, setting a dove on Hakuba’s free hand. In his experience it was a hell of a lot harder to be upset with a soft, cooing animal in your hands.

Hakuba blinked and shifted his hand for it to better sit on with the experience of someone used to birds. “What?”

“His name is Yukito.” The dove wasn’t one of Kaito’s white ones, a pretty bluish-gray instead. “And this,” another dove appeared in Kaito’s hands and got set on Hakuba’s shoulder, “is Kero.” He was a warm brownish gold. “And Sakura.” A pinkish-gray dove appeared in his hands and he set her on his own shoulder. The soft burble of doves filled the air as they made themselves comfortable on their new perches.

Hakuba blinked again and pet Yukito reflexively. “...Cardcaptor Sakura?”

“The kids are fans. I let Hanae name Yukito and Midori and Takumi continued the theme.” Kaito gently scratched Sakura’s neck and she bundled herself up against his neck. “They’re pets, not performers. Don’t tell Ran I brought them in the kitchen.”

Hakuba stared at Kaito, thrown by the change in topic and the birds and maybe confused by Kaito in general. Younger Kaito would have just kept snipping back instead of choosing a peaceful alternative. “Why?”

“Ran doesn’t like having pets around food for sanitary reasons.” But that wasn’t what Saguru was really asking about. “I spend time with the doves when I have a bad day. You look like you’ve had a bad day. No more, no less. Just pet the bird and drink your tea, Hakuba.”

“They’re very calm.”

“I raised them by hand so I’d hope they were calm. I might not have them perform, but they’re still trained.”

Hakuba probably didn’t even realize how much he’d relaxed in the minute of just petting Yukito. Half the tension in him just bled away. Yukito was one of the more cuddly doves Kaito had. He’d just sit in your hand and get petted for hours in you let him.

“So. Takumi’s doing well in class.”

“Yes...” Hakuba pulled back a semblance of his earlier professionalism, still a bit dazed from being blindsided by birds.

“Has he talked about his goals for the future any or...?”

“Students haven’t gotten their career goal sheets yet.” Hakuba’s hand kept stroking Yukito. On his shoulder, Kero settled down against his neck, making himself comfortable like Sakura had on Kaito. “He’s average or above in all subjects though so he should be able to pursue any career he sets his eyes on... He seems to enjoy lacrosse a lot. And also genuinely enjoys the literature club? I initially thought he joined it because he was friends with Momoi-san, but he reads the books and has insightful comments to make on them.”

“I don’t think you can spend time under this roof and not like books,” Kaito said. Between a sort of adopted grandfather who was a novelist and Shinichi being a bookworm whenever he got the chance, Takumi had been exposed to a lot of book-positivity over the years.

“Next semester I intend to have career discussions with all the students in my homeroom, but I honestly haven’t had a chance to do more than glance over what their stated goals were on their high school applications, and a lot can change in a few months when they’re at this age.”

“A lot can change even in senior year,” Kaito said, thinking of his own rushed university entrance exams and the frantic reconfiguring of his goals when he tried to settle on a career that would let him support himself, Aoko, an incoming child, and his night life as Kid. Aoko had ended up the more practical of the two of them in the end.

“And after,” Hakuba agreed, clearly thinking of his own change in life goals that led to him here today as a teacher.

“Well, we figured it out eventually. They will too. It’s not a rush. I was just curious. I can still remember when he wanted to study whales. And then it was working with the space program. And then it was being a chef for a few months before he lost interest in that and somewhere along the way he stopped telling any of us what he wanted to be. Or maybe he just doesn’t know what it is anymore either.” That was fine too. Takumi was young and didn’t have a family he’d have to support happening practically overnight and would hopefully have his whole life to figure out something he enjoyed doing. “I never thought I’d be a museum conservator, but here we are.”

“You work at a museum?” Hakuba asked, blindsided again. His hands stilled on Yukito. “What happened to being a magician?”

“Life happened,” Kaito said. There was a tiny kernel of regret and there always would be. But he’d made the right choice. Kuroba Kaito had a low profile job and a normal family life—well, mostly normal. He was far from what people thought of when they thought of Kaitou Kid. “Being a magician wasn’t practical and I’m not too fond of actual stage-and-spotlight scenarios anymore.”

“But...” Hakuba frowned, confusion clear on his face. “With your role as Ki—”

“Don’t say it out loud,” Kaito said in a cheerful voice, “the walls can have ears.” And if one of the girls had managed to get away to eavesdrop it was better not to have anything stated outright.  

As if in response, there was the sound of creaky floor boards as someone walked down the hallway, and Shinichi poked his head around the corner, his nose buried in case notes, only to freeze when he saw Kaito and Hakuba. “Oh. Hello, I thought you’d be...somewhere else.” He took in the doves and then Hakuba, picking out details even Kaito had probably missed. The tension was probably as clear as if it was lit up with neon. “I can leave or...?”

“Actually, Kudo-san,” Hakuba said, reaching for his cane, “I believe we are more or less done here.”

Kaito indulged in a tiny, almost silent, sigh of frustration. He’d almost calmed Hakuba down and managed to just wind him up again and now Shinichi was enough to run him off entirely. “Not interested in talking more?”

“We were done talking about Takumi-kun,” Hakuba said. “I didn’t come to socialize anyway.” He seemed at a loss for what to do with the doves.

Kaito whistled softly and Yukito and Kero flew to him.

“Ran is going to make you clean the whole kitchen for bringing them in here,” Shinichi commented.

“Ran can have my promise that I’ll disinfect everything later.” Hakuba hadn’t even finished off a full cup of tea... “I can see you out,” Kaito said, rising to his feet.

“There’s no need,” Hakuba said, but it was the sort of polite refusal Kaito could choose to ignore, not an actual desire to be left alone. Kaito could tell the difference.

“Humor me,” Kaito said.

“It’s good to see you again, Hakuba-san,” Shinichi said as they passed. “Are you planning to come to any Kid heists in the future?”

Hakuba shot him a humorless smile. “Not at all. I’m retired. Besides, I’m net exactly up for chasing anyone these days.” He tapped the cane pointedly on the floor. “Have a good evening, Kudo-san. Kuroba-san.”

He was all manners and control again as he left like the outburst in the kitchen never happened. Maybe it was because Shinichi reminded him to be professional, Kaito thought, or maybe Hakuba had gone around the full circle of emotions and come out the other end in his exhausted state. Either way, they parted with cookie-cutter polite words that left Kaito feeling off-balance.

Shinichi was still in the kitchen after Kaito locked the front door, pouring himself a cup of tea. “Hakuba-san really is your son’s homeroom teacher.”

“Yup,” Kaito said. He flopped into his chair. Sakura fluttered and landed on his head.

“He knows about Kid.”

“Yup.”

“He looks like hell.”

“Yu~up,” Kaito drawled, leaning heavily on the table. “I’m pretty sure he’s in the middle of an emotional breakdown. In general, or maybe tonight especially. He’s usually so put together in my memories.”

“That was the exact opposite of put together tonight. Why was he holding the birds?”

“Birds are calming? Anyway, I figured he had to like them or he wouldn’t have had a hawk at one point.”

Shinichi looked at Kaito over the rim of his mug. Kaito looked back, pouting as one of Shinichi’s eyebrows rose slowly.

“I don’t care that much. It’s just. Weird. Hakuba shouldn’t look like that. Also... I maybe invaded some of his privacy and know why he’s having a mental breakdown and I would feel like a jerk if I actively baited him like I used to. ...Okay, maybe I care a little but I’d feel bad even if it wasn’t Hakuba, so.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“You did the eyebrow thing,” Kaito said, waving a hand. “You’re judging.”

“You knew him back in school, right?”

“We were classmates for a while, yeah. And he figured out I was Kid. We weren’t friends or anything.”

“Uh huh.”

“We weren’t.” Kaito sighed. “You remember what it was like in high school. Friends... They weren’t something people like us had a lot of. Everyone was an acquaintance, everyone knew who you were, but actual friends?” He ran a finger down Kero’s soft feathers. “Besides, we were constantly trying to catch each other off guard and drag each other down. That’s closer to a rival or enemy than a friendship.”

“Is it going to be a problem?”

“With Kid or Takumi?” Kaito asked rhetorically. “No. Probably not provided he doesn’t go off the deep end or anything...”

Shinichi sipped at tea, watching Kaito’s expression shift through emotions with narrowed eyes. “You’re planning something.”

“Nothing bad.”

“Kaito.”

“Shinichi.” Kaito stuck his tongue out at his all-but-husband. “Look, Hakuba could use a friend to carefully nudge him away from the edge. Conveniently, he’s back and near several old classmates he can connect to.”

“Yourself included,” Shinichi said, unimpressed.

“Obviously. Now I have the excuse in keeping track of Takumi to reach out. And it lets me keep an eye on if Hakuba’s planning to change his mind on Kid or go off the deep end and, I don’t know, take it out on his students or something.”

“You have to have your nose in everything,” Shinichi said with a sigh. He crossed the room to give Kaito a one-armed hug. “Please don’t do anything too illegal.”

“Who, me?” Kaito said, fluttering his eyelashes. “Never.”

“Right.”

“He already knows about Kid, it’s not a big deal.” Kaito grinned. Actually that left a lot of opportunities. He wasn’t going to prank Hakuba. But blindsiding him with random acts of kindness would be fun and entirely explainable because Hakuba was in the know. “Bagels or that cheesy toast from the bakery in Edoka we like?”

“At least give him a few days to recover before ambushing him with breakfast.”

“After Golden Week, then.”

Shinichi shook his head, but he looked amused, so Kaito considered it a win. “Let’s go join Ran and the girls.” He smiled wider. “And you might want to put the birds away before Ran notices you have them out in rooms she doesn’t approve of.”

“Birds away, then family game night.” Kaito gave Shinichi a peck on the cheek before hurrying away. Hakuba, while an issue to be addressed in the future, was secondary to family time. Family always came first.

***

The apartment was just as sparse as the first time Kaito saw it, though over the last few weeks Hakuba had added a plant to his desk. It was a small plant, and looked like it was recently transplanted, but it added a little color and life to an otherwise bleak space. Barely. The sun was starting to rise, backlighting Kaito as he crouched awkwardly in Hakuba’s window frame. Caught in his teeth was a paper bag full of savory cheese pesto rolls fresh from the bakery down the street.

Naturally, Kaito let himself in and made himself at home.

Hakuba woke abruptly as Kaito was going through the motions of making tea. “Good morning,” Kaito said, adding quality loose-leaf tea to Hakuba’s teapot.

Hakuba stared at him like he was a hallucination. Then he looked at the clock. “It’s not even six in the morning yet.” Then, “I should be calling the police.”

“You’re free to do that, but if you do, I’m taking breakfast with me.” Kaito shook the paper bag. The bread was still a little warm and wonderful smelling and Kaito was kind of hungry even though he’d eaten a raisin Danish before coming here on the off chance that Hakuba took the offered meal and kicked him out immediately.

“How did you get in?”

“Window.”

“Of course.” Hakuba blinked at him, clearly not awake enough to function. His hair stuck up at an odd angle from his pillow and it was kind of hilarious considering how he was someone who always tried to appear put together. Or used to be anyway, but Kaito doubted that would have changed too much over the years. “Why are you here?” Hakuba finally said as Kaito set out two of Hakuba’s teacups and a couple of plates for food.

“For breakfast of course,” Kaito said, sitting on the floor next to Hakuba. Hakuba didn’t even have a table to eat at.

“Kuroba,” Hakuba said in a warning rumble.

“I can’t want to have a friendly breakfast with an old acquaintance?” Kaito said.

“If you wanted that, you could have called. And made plans.”

“Do I have your number?” Kaito mused. He did—snooping provided so much—but he wasn’t going to admit to it.

“I’m too old for this,” Hakuba announced. “And too tired.”

“You’re never too old to have breakfast in bed,” Kaito said. “And you’re not even forty yet, Hakuba. Tea? Cheese bun?” He held out a cup and a plate. The cheese had melted out of the bun a bit, all gooey and mixed with pesto.

Hakuba scowled, but he took it. “Really, Kuroba, why are you here?”

“Really, Hakuba,” Kaito parroted back, “I just wanted to have breakfast with you.” He helped himself to tea and cheesy-bread goodness. Mm.

Hakuba drank down half his tea in two long gulps like he was trying to absorb as much caffeine as possible in the shortest amount of time. “I already told you I’m not attending heists,” he muttered into his drink. “And I’m not going to target your son because of our past.”

“Bit of a changeup from your place in high school,” Kaito said, ignoring Hakuba’s attempts to get him to confess his intentions. “Kind of small. And empty. You might want to get a table. Or maybe a chair or two. Your guests have nowhere to sit.”

“I don’t have guests.”

“Maybe next time I could help you shop for something. And maybe something for the walls?”

“Next time?”

“That’s a nice plant though. And a good choice on calendar. Floral. Splash of color in this sea of beige and white. Doesn’t really make up for the fact that this apartment complex is pretty crappy, but hey, you get what you pay for, right?” Kaito smiled.

Hakuba glowered. “Kuroba.”

“Hakuba.” Kaito sipped at his tea and took a pointed bite of his roll. Hakuba, after an uncomfortably long stare down, also took a bite. Kaito caught the split second of pleasant surprise on Hakuba’s face before the glare was back and felt a sliver of smugness for choosing to his tastes. “It’s funny, five or so years earlier and we would have been neighbors.”

Hakuba choked on his tea. “What?”

“I used to live next door. The apartment the couple with the baby live in. Not much nicer than this one, but almost twice as big.”

“Why on earth would you have lived here?”

“It was cheap, not the house I grew up in, and close to both my work and Takumi’s school,” Kaito said with a shrug. “Why are you living here?”

“...It’s cheap, it’s close to work, and it’s not living with my parents,” Hakuba said slowly.

He was waiting for the other shoe to drop. For Kaito to prank him, or threaten, or do something else antagonistic that would reassert the old order of things. It wasn’t going to happen though. “Moving back in with your parents after living apart is the weirdest feeling,” Kaito said. “I don’t blame you for wanting your own space. Kaa-san was never home but it still was weird as hell living there again after being on my own for four years.”

“In between living with Aoko and the Kudos?” Hakuba clarified. He finished the cheese bun and actually took another when Kaito held out the bag.

“Yup. Life takes you strange places.”

“Like back to Japan,” Hakuba muttered. “I don’t understand what you want from me,” he said bluntly.

“This isn’t enough?” Kaito waved a hand around, just them and tea and food in the early morning light.

“But why?”

“We’re not sixteen anymore,” Kaito said. “And you can never have too many friends.”

“Friends,” Hakuba repeated like it was an alien concept.

“Yup.”

“You and me?”

“It’s worth a shot.”

“I say I’m retired and you offer friendship. What the hell, Kuroba?”

“Call it a peace gesture. Starting from scratch. Well,” he corrected, “mostly from scratch.”

“I’m still the person who tried to arrest you multiple times.”

“And I’m in a long term relationship with a man who tried to shoot me at least once and a woman who almost took my head off with a karate kick; clearly dodgy past doesn’t erase the possibility of getting along.” Kaito licked pesto grease from his fingers.

Hakuba stared and then stared some more. “You’re impossible as ever,” he said finally. He ran a hand through his hair, making it even more of a mess. “Do what you want I guess. I can’t stop you.”

“Wonderful. I’ll take that as an open invitation.”

“Please don’t,” Hakuba said with a grimace.

“Too late.”

Kaito left after they finished breakfast and tea. He wasn’t going to push yet, just get Hakuba used to the idea. And maybe, just maybe, if Kaito kept showing up with peace offerings of food, the reserved detective would open up a little and stop looking like a step away from dire need for an intervention. (Technically Kaito could say this was an intervention, but he wasn’t going to call it that, not even in his mind. This was putting aside their pasts and trying to make friends with an old acquaintance down on his luck.) He didn’t get a smile from Hakuba this time. Next time Kaito would do better.

***

Kaito stood outside Ekoda High texting Takumi to meet him at the front gate when Hakuba rounded the corner almost walking right into Kaito in the process. He tripped and Kaito had to catch him. There was an awkward moment when Hakuba stiffened in Kaito’s hold and then he stepped away, cane in hand and a disturbed expression on his face.

“Are you actually stalking me?” he asked. “Because letting yourself in my window is bad enough, Kuroba, but—”

“I’m here for Takumi,” Kaito said, raising a hand to cut Hakuba off before he could get started. “Shouldn’t you be home already?”

“I had club activities.”

“Oh.” Actually, Kaito should have realized that. “You’re advisor to the Literature club right?”

“Yes,” Hakuba said, eying him suspiciously.

“Shiemi and Takumi mentioned it,” Kaito said casually.

“You’re close to Momoi-san?”

“She’s like another daughter; she’s been Takumi’s best friend since before they could talk.”

“Ah.” Hakuba floundered for a moment, clearly not sure what to make of this. “She’s... an interesting person.”

“She’s a force of nature,” Kaito said grinning. “She’s great.”

“She seems to be head of the literature club. Takumi was there as well and they seemed familiar with each other, but I hadn’t realized how close.”

“Yep.” Kaito glanced at his phone. He’d sent the message a bit incomplete, but Takumi had sent back that he was on his way. “So you’re done for the day?”

“Yes. And back again in the morning to do it all over again,” Hakuba said with a wry twist of his lips.

It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was close. Kaito opened his mouth to joke about how adulthood was a string of life repeating itself when Takumi ran over.

“Tou-san! I thought I was going to meet you at the Kudos?” Takumi nodded to Hakuba, glancing between the two of them.

Hakuba closed off immediately behind a professional expression, putting a bit more distance between him and Kaito, distance Kaito hadn’t noticed the absence of until Hakuba moved away.

Kaito pretended he hadn’t noticed, giving Takumi a smile. “I figured I’d pick you up. Since Hanae has a match today, we were going to get dinner first.” He glanced at Hakuba. “Any interest in seeing ten-year-olds try to play soccer?”

Hakuba, if anything, looked even more distant at that. “I am afraid I have a lot of grading to do.”

Kaito snorted. “You can just say no thanks, Hakuba. I’m not going to be offended.” Kaito threw an arm around his son’s shoulders, an arm which Takumi immediately tried to remove with an embarrassed squawk. “See ya later, Hakuba. Don’t work too hard.”

“Kuroba,” Hakuba said with a nod. He nodded to Takumi too, before walking away at a brisk pace.

“What the heck was that?” Takumi said once he was out of sight. “You’re inviting my teacher to see Hanae’s soccer game?”

“He strikes me as someone who needs to get out of his routine and do something social and distracting,” Kaito said, letting Takumi go.

“He’s still my teacher, Tou-san. It’s weird.”

“Is it?” Kaito hummed. “He’s also the same guy I knew from high school that showed up to Japan dressed as Sherlock Holmes so... If anything, seeing him be a teacher is the weird bit for me.” He sighed. “C’mon, we have dinner to get to.”

“You’re trying to be friends?” Takumi asked, trailing after him.

“Trying being key. Hakuba’s a stubborn guy. And about as trusting as I am.”

“You’re a trusting person,” Takumi said, confused.

Kaito smiled. “I’m a friendly person. There’s a difference.”

“Well Hakuba-sensei isn’t really either,” Takumi muttered. “Please don’t make this weird ok?”

“What was that? Tell him embarrassing stories of your childhood? Sure.”

“Tou-san!” Takumi groaned.

Kaito grinned and ruffled his hair. “Relax. I’m not going to make things weird.”

Takumi smooth his hair back into place, pouting. “You say that now but you always go overboard.”

Kaito just smiled and kept walking. He wasn’t going to admit that Takumi was right after all.

***

“Kuroba, if you regularly stalk all of your friends, I pity their sanity,” Hakuba said. He was sitting in the dark again with only the light from his laptop illuminating the room. There were three unwashed mugs in the sink and his cell phone on the edge of the desk lit up with an incoming message to reveal multiple missed calls.

Kaito had the feeling that he’d walked in on Hakuba in a depressive downswing. It was Saturday night; Hakuba could have been doing anything but he was sitting in front of a laptop with a blank document open and the cursor blinking away. “I came in the front door this time.”

“You picked the lock.”

“And I knocked.”

“After you’d already let yourself in.” Hakuba heaved a sigh. “Why are you here?”

Kaito had intended to check in and offer mochi, but apparently things were worse than he’d expected. That called for bigger actions. “To invite you on a walk.”

“I decline.”

“Ah ah,” Kaito said, pulling Hakuba to his feet. Hakuba wobbled, one leg clearly not working right. Kaito put his cane in his hand. “You look like someone who’s been sitting too long.”

“I need to be making lesson plans.”

“For when, two months in the future?” Hakuba was never anything less than prepared.

“Three weeks—I need to make changes based on progress and—”

“That’s great,” Kaito said, cutting him off and hustling Hakuba toward the door. Hakuba dragged his feet with a sputtering protest, but Kaito had his shoes on in a matter of seconds. “But you’re clearly not getting anywhere with that so change of pace! We’re going on a walk and getting fresh air and you’re going to eat some mocha I so generously have with me.”

“Who are you, my mother?” Hakuba complained.

“I don’t know, would she agree with me?” Kaito quipped. It was telling that Hakuba let himself get dragged out the door. “So,” Kaito said as he set them off toward a place that had a nice garden out front that was full of flowers and fresh plant smells and everything nice that the city so often swallowed up. “Today was a family bonding day! Once a month we all go do a random activity together—I do once a month just me and Takumi too, but this is everyone—and basically try things we’d never do otherwise. We ended up going to see a kabuki play and Hanae made us all go through the little museum exhibit attached to the theater where we all got a history lesson. I don’t think it was to any of our tastes but it was an interesting experience and the kids liked the history—there was a bit about ninjas and how stagehands would play them which they found cool.”

“That’s nice,” Hakuba said, clearly not listening closely. He looked out at the people they passed, students laughing together near a convenience store, people on their way home, lovers on a date...

“The company we saw was interested in experimenting with non-traditional plays and adaptations of foreign work. I think Shinichi was actually intrigued at the adaptation of one of Edogawa Ranpo’s works.” The idea, Kaito thought, was to get Hakuba out of the apartment. Engaging him in social behavior was secondary. “I dunno. I thought it was pretty amazing we made it through the day without any cases popping up. Kabuki would have been too perfect a setting for a murder with Shinichi’s luck.”

At the mention of murder, Hakuba looked at him. “Do people get murdered around him often then? I’d heard rumors but...” There was a glimmer of honest curiosity there. Kaito would take that.

“All the damn time,” Kaito said, both amused and rueful. “There was a joke about how Shinichi was a death magnet years ago, but it’s statistically proven that he’s 90% more likely to run into a murder than anyone else on the force. And about half the ones he does run into are after hours. All of us have been scarred for life, I swear.” Only half a joke there. All of them—Kaito, Shinichi, Ran, the girls, even Takumi—had nightmares from time to time about things they’d stumbled across. “Funny but we’re less likely to run into that sort of thing when we’re out as a group.” Kaito’s theory was that it was his luck counteracting Shinichi’s with a side of Koizumi’s protective magic coming in strong with Takumi there.

“That doesn’t trouble you?”

“Of course it does. I’m used to it though.” Kaito smiled. And it was worth the occasional horrible moment of running into yet another corpse to have the rest of the time with everyone. “The good balances everything out.”

“Hmm.” Hakuba didn’t sound very convinced, but at least he was engaged in something other than self-destructing. “You seem truly happy so it must balance out.”

“Have I ever seemed unhappy to you?” Kaito said, scoffing.

Hakuba glanced at him from the corner of his eye before speeding up just enough that he didn’t have to see Kaito in his peripherals before he answered. “I don’t think your smiles back in high school were fake, but they weren’t heartfelt either. You smile like someone who is comfortable with their life now.”

Perceptive as ever, Hakuba, Kaito thought. “Well I can’t say I’m unhappy much these days,” he conceded after a bit. They reached a shop with large planters full of flowers and leafy greens. It had a bench near it too. The shop was closed for the moment but all around it had just the right kind of peaceful atmosphere Kaito was going for. “This looks like a good spot. Sit.”

“Kuroba,” Hakuba complained, sitting.

“It’s nice here,” Kaito said. He pulled out his mochi and offered some to Hakuba. Hakuba gave it a distrustful look. “There’s plain green tea mochi or ichigo daifuku if you prefer that. I’m not going to poison you. What would I get from that?”

“What do you get from any of this?” Hakuba asked, but he took a piece of mochi, relaxing in increments as the flowers and calm night air did their work.

“You know you could tell me about your day,” Kaito said. “Since I shared mine.”

“I didn’t ask to hear about yours.” Hakuba closed his eyes, leaning back on the bench, his head almost in one of the bushier lavender plants hanging over the edge of a planter. “I did laundry and stared at a word document today. I disappointed Mum by not going out for something other than groceries and ignoring her phone calls. Nothing interesting at all, Kuroba.”

“You’re doing something other than shopping now, so I guess you can cross that off your weekend list.”

Hakuba’s lips tipped up in a ghost of a smile. “I suppose I can. Perhaps I’ll survive calling Mum back tomorrow after all.”

“Happy to be of service,” Kaito said with a mock bow.

Hakuba opened his eyes, pinned Kaito with a stare straight out of their high school days, assessing and dissecting him with a look. “I don’t understand you at all, Kuroba,” he said. “And it annoys the hell out of me.”

Kaito kept himself open and relaxed. Gave a lazy shrug. “What’s there to understand? I’m here because I want to be.”

“And that’s what makes so little sense.” The intense look faded, turned inward again. “It can’t be interesting trying to get a response from me this time around.”

“Well I’m not trying to harass you this time around.” He smirked. “All jokes of me stalking you aside.”

Hakuba shook his head. “I had all these theories on you once. I doubt any of them fit with who you are now.”

“Yeah, well, life changes you. Takes you places you don’t expect.”

“It does.” And oops, now Hakuba looked depressed again.

Kaito put another piece of mochi in Hakuba’s hand. “But hey, we never could be friends in high school, but this is a second chance! Do over if you will.”

“Perhaps this is all some odd dream and I’ve slipped into an alternate reality where you’re actively nice,” Hakuba said, deadpan.

“I’ve always been nice!” Kaito protested.

“Before or after brutally pranking them?”

“Okay, we can all agree that teenagers live by different rules than adults.”

“Do they? That’s funny because I’ve noticed so many adults who clearly have never moved on from their teenaged mindsets.”

Kaito rolled his eyes. “Clearly we’re not one of those people or we wouldn’t be sitting here now.”

“I suppose not.” Hakuba ate his mochi.

Kaito steered the conversation away from personal and onto the weird things kids did—Takumi, Shiemi and Hanae as primary examples. Hakuba, it turned out, had plenty of stories about the weird shit his students had pulled over the years. He even laughed a few times, so win!

The streets were pretty deserted by the time their conversation wound down and they ran out of mochi. Hakuba looked a bit surprised when Kaito glanced at his watch and declared that it was after midnight. “Guess I have to take you home,” Kaito said with a grin. “You’re not Cinderella, but you could probably use some sleep.”

Hakuba scoffed. He was more alive now than when Kaito had dragged him from his apartment. “I’m not fragile, Kuroba. I am perfectly capable of getting home myself.”

“Yeah, but I dragged you here, so it’s only polite.”

They walked back mostly in silence, but it was a companionable sort of silence, not a melancholy one. Kaito walked Hakuba all the way to his door.

“Well,” Kaito said, “night, Hakuba. Get some sleep and I bet that lesson plan will be easy tomorrow.”

“Kuroba,” Hakuba said before Kaito could close the door. “...Thank you.”

Kaito grinned. “Any time!” Operation get Hakuba less depressed seemed to be working a bit.

***

“So,” Shinichi said, leaning on Kaito’s desk as he scribbled plans for a heist. “How is making friends going?”

“Surprisingly well,” Kaito said, flipping over his notes. They might live together and Shinichi didn’t attend many heists, but that didn’t mean Kaito was just going to make it easy for him if he did randomly decide to show up for this next one. “I think I got a few actual smiles last time. I might be able to convince him to leave the apartment and socialize with other human beings.”

Shinichi snorted. “Yeah that sounds like progress. You seem to be having fun with it.”

“You know, I am.” Kaito hadn’t expected to. He’d half been bracing for Hakuba’s nastier side from high school to rise up, but Hakuba was actually decent company. And he wasn’t plotting to turn Kaito into the police. In fact, he’d made several points to say he was retired and not interested in chasing Kid the few times it came up. Besides having a few actually fun conversations, there was part of Kaito that just enjoyed giving people pleasant surprises. Hakuba was consistently pleasantly surprised. Even if he always complained about Kaito showing up, he’d never tried to kick him out or ignore him. All in all, it was kind of nice having another person to talk to who was in the know. “He’s still making a depressed hermit of himself, but I think he’s starting to open up again more. Would you mind if I invite him along sometime? You know as well as I do that being around people is sometimes what you need to pull you out of your head.” It worked with Kaito, and Kaito knew now that it had been what pulled Shinichi through his time as Conan.

“Go ahead. I’m curious if he’s still keeping up with legal changes in the news. I want his opinion on some of the new laws passed.”

“Ran and I and your coworkers don’t have enough insight?”

“Hakuba might be retired, but he still was a detective. It’s a different perspective.”

Kaito smiled. “If all else fails, bring up Sherlock Holmes. That will keep you going for hours.”

Shinichi’s face lit up at the thought. There weren’t many people who would willingly talk Holmsian theory with him for hours. Kaito snickered. Shinichi and Hakuba could go be nerdy Holmes fanboys together.

“You can never have enough friends,” Kaito said.

“Invite him. I definitely need to talk to someone that isn’t you or Heiji about the new Miss Sherlock adaptation.”

“Shinichi, is there an adaptation you haven’t seen?” Kaito teased.

“There are a lot I haven’t read, but—”

Kaito laughed at him.

“Oh, shut up. You collect phantom thief and trickster figures in your media taste. I collect Sherlock Holmes adaptations.”

“And pretty much any halfway decent mystery novel.”

“Only good ones. I have standards.”

Considering the number of times Kaito had seen Shinichi reading cheap English paperback novels with pun-filled titles, Kaito had to wonder at Shinichi’s supposed standards, but what did he know? Kaito had other genres calling his name.

“Invite him,” Shinichi repeated. “I want to know him since he’s someone you’ve decided to keep.”

It was a funny way of putting it, but not wrong. Shinichi knew how Kaito’s mind worked, how he looked at people as ‘his’ if they stayed in his orbit long enough, could handle him at his worst as well as his best. Kaito’d more or less decided he was up and adopting Hakuba into his friend group, so yeah, he was keeping him. Even if Hakuba was reluctant. “Thanks,” Kaito said.

Shinichi waved his thanks away. “It’s nothing. Oh, and Kaito?”

“Yeah?”

“Might want to pick a better pun for that heist note. You’re getting predictable.”

Kaito threw a balled up piece of paper at Shinichi. Shinichi, the jerk, just caught it and walked away. 

AAAAnd basically it’d pan out kind of like NLTSA, only without the romantic sublot, Kaito not nearly dying, yadda yadda. Hakuba’s now a family friend. And dates Hiroto for a bit. Before they stumble into Hiroto’s job’s actual business at which point things get dicey for a bit. But I’m not writing it. I have written enough. Goddamn have I written enough for this AU of an AU. So my brain can STOP GIVING ME SCENARIOS ok? Okay. >_> Enjoy this monster of a mess of random scenes.....At least half of why this even happened is because my brain went "Haha, 'Kai-Tou-san'! Puns! Haaaa" and it wanted something more happy. But also pun >_> I'm sorry this is rougher. But I hope it made someone smile. Happy holiday season, or happy end of the year for people who don't holiday.