#he got his priorities straight. no touchy my money

[killerpancakeburger]

Lmao so Ive been asked to pay and its so funny to me that Astarion is the only one adopting a fighting stance 😂

[writingpuddle]

“Don’t you ever get lonely?” Nicky asked, digging in his pack for a chocolate bar. To their left, the cliff dropped away precipitously, sheer granite cliffs like sentinels at the end of the world.

Neil stared at Nicky. “No,” he said.

“What, never?”

Neil looked out across the sweeping vista of mountains before them. A speck that could have been a hawk or a raven or a sparrow spun against the sky, too small and distant to judge. He’d stood in the middle of busy cities; he’d gone to school with hundreds; he’d even tried out for a track and field team once. He’d been surrounded by people, and he had been so ferociously lonely it had been like a knife in his chest.

“No,” he said, because he didn’t know how to explain—didn’t even want to, really. He’d felt more alone back in the so-called real world than he’d ever felt in the wilderness, miles from any other person. When there was no one around, there was no one to miss.

~~~The Long-Distance Hiker AU (A Bullet Point Fic)~~~

So after Neil’s mom died he kinda of ghosted around for a while and eventually ended up in a small hiking town in California

He met a bunch of thru hikers and figured, hey, my dad probably won’t find me if I’ve fucked off into the wilderness

So he starts hiking

And pretty soon he realizes it’s the best thing he could imagine

He spends all summer in the mountains and when winter rolls around he finds a temporary job in a skiing town working in a second hand gear shop

He’s an ultralighter in the most accidental sense possible

His gear is weird and cobbled together and his shoes are held together with dental floss

He sleeps under a tarp with a down blanket and a thin foam mat and he’ll eat the same shit day in day out without even registering it while he covers frankly obscene distances every single day

It basically gives Kevin an ulcer

Kevin’s an ultralighter, but in the stuck up, rich bitch way; his gear is probably worth thousands of dollars and he’ll lecture anyone who listens about ripstop nylon and is super snobby and elitist about who is a so-called “real” thru hiker (hint: anyone who doesn’t do it his way isn’t a real thru hiker)

(don’t worry he’ll get smacked around a little by people like Dan and stop being such a little bitch about it but he grew up rich so even though it might’ve been shit living with Riko he really doesn’t always take into consideration the context of how much fucking money gear costs when he’s preaching about ultralighting)

(yes I’m taking out my dislike for pretentious rich ultralighters on him, okay, but the difference is he’ll have character growth versus the people I met are probably still being preachy and self-important to this day)

Andrew’s like the exact opposite

His pack weighs like seventy pounds and he’ll pull a six-inch knife (a gross misuse of smart gear weight management) at anyone who comments

He has a completely contained single person tent that’s big enough to sit up in and a four-inch inflatable mattress

His sleeping bag is rated to like -20 even when he’s hiking in the summer

Nicky swears he once saw him pull a full-sized chocolate cake out of his backpack three days down the trail and everyone says that’s stupid and made up but secretly think its totally true

Andrew likes to hike alone but somehow he’s never more than a day away from Aaron and Nicky and when he keeps showing up near them it gets harder and harder to pretend like he doesn’t actually care about them

Nobody says anything, obviously, but Nicky gets a little teary when he starts to notice the pattern

It was Nicky’s idea; in this universe Erik got him into hiking when he was in Germany so he got the cousins into it as a bonding exercise and then it turned out it was the best family activity they had ever found

This is several years after they graduated and they’ve scrounged together enough time and money to hike the Pacific Crest Trail

Now the upperclassmen:

So Stephanie Walker is a trail angel: one of those people who lives near a long trail and provides snacks and rides and somewhere to stay and basically helps out anyone who comes by with whatever’s going on; she’s pulled a lot of people out of frankly dangerous situations and she’s not afraid of anything the trail has to offer

So Renee finds herself and her faith while living this life of meeting new hikers every day and it’s almost inevitable that she starts to hike and find solace in the wilderness

Allison is one of those Wild types: she’s done some hiking (much to her parents’ chagrin) but she’s never done a thru trail or even much overnighting before, but she’s ready to throw herself into it and doesn’t care how dirty she gets

She totally carries a tiny spa package though

The other women are very skeptical because they take pride in being free from societies expectations and make up and shaving but they come around after Allison pulls it out one time when they’re seven days into a ten day section and gives them face masks and they all have a little pedicure pampering session (so, so needed when your feet are being beaten and bruised by hard terrain all day)

She has a lot of new, expensive gear and is super touchy about people trying to help her (because a beautiful woman absolutely gets people trying to “help” all the time and it’s infuriating and condescending) but she learns to accept help from her closest friends

She was showing off near the beginning of the trail drinking with a bunch of guys and probably got too sloshed trying to act tough (alcohol hits you waaaay harder at high elevations dude, if you’re not expecting it you can get Fucked Up really fast)

It’s Seth who realizes things are getting out of control and pulls her out before the guys can do anything shitty which is how their friendship and eventually their relationship gets started

They piss everyone off with their constant breaking up and getting back together on the trail, sometimes hiking together for days and then splitting up and going to hike with other people but they find a lot of healing out there in the woods

Seth’s mom is totally dismissive and condescending of his hiking, she thinks it’s a stupid waste of time, but she thinks everything he does is a stupid waste of time so at least when he’s out there without cell service he has an excuse to not respond to her

Now Dan

Dan’s trailer trash, right

She’s got no fucking cash but she has this dream in her head to hike the PCT and she’s going to fucking well do it

Her gear is probably most similar to Neil’s except where his is a mess of weird priorities and held together by spit and twine

Hers is meticulously planned

It’s cheap, some of it’s over forty years old, but it’s hers

It’s probably the only stuff in the world that’s actually hers

She accumulated it over about four years, hitting all the second-hand gear events, saving up every penny, packing and repacking and writing everything out in great detail until David Wymack got wind of her plans at a gear event

He’s one of those guys who hiked the PCT thirty years ago back before anyone knew what it was except instead of feeling superior about that it means he knows exactly how much impact experiencing the wilderness can have for disenfranchised people

He approaches Dan and offers to sponsor her hike

She’s resistant at first; she planned this hike, she got all the stuff together, she was going to do it without anyone’s help

But he comes back and says he just wants her to write about her experiences and publish it on his website

He’ll pay her for the work, of course

And she wavers and finally caves because this will move her plans up by about two years if she can make money while she’s hiking instead of having to hoard up enough cash to take six whole months off

Her blog posts are a huge hit

She doesn’t preach about how the mountains saved her, or get too metaphorical about hiking or anything like that

She just talks about the real, raw experience of hiking

The friendships, the trials, the triumphs

The infuriating people whose mental image of the hiking community doesn’t include poor black girls who grew up in a trailer park, who say she’s an inspiration like they actually mean something else

She talks about the days that she flies up the mountains and the days that she can barely drag herself out of her tent and the day she realizes that Allison and Renee, these women she thought could not be more different from her, are the best friends she’s ever had in the world

And she’s takes fucking amazing pictures

She’s also very determined not to have a trail romance

That’s stupid and cliché

Look that guy Matt might be hot but she’s not interested

He’s clearly working through some stuff and she’s not here to be some guys savior or whatever

So Matt then

His mom helped him get sober a couple years ago and he’s been struggling with it ever since

She got him into hiking as an outlet and a healthy hobby and he took to it like a fish to water

He’s got legs for days and he doesn’t mind carrying a heavy pack, he can hike for hours without stopping

(The fact that he’s faster than her pisses Dan off a bit, but sometimes you gotta accept that you’ve got short legs and just hike your own hike, there aren’t any prizes for speed)

He relapsed again a couple months before his hike started and he and Randy weren’t even sure if he was going to be able to do it but he’s damned well going to try

So anyway

Pretty much everyone is trying to actually hike the PCT except Neil

He drives everyone bonkers

His motivation isn’t really about the trail so much as staying out in the wilderness where there are no gangsters to murder you

So he just does whatever he wants and keeps showing up at random points

He’s technically got one of the thru hiker permits but he frequently goes off on side trails not on the PCT and ends up hiding out in the woods so rangers won’t find him

He’ll just hitchhike straight through boring sections or anywhere that you pass through too many towns where he’d rather not be remembered

He keeps coming back to the PCT but it’s more like it’s a rough guideline of where to go than an actual route he’s taking

He’s got his natural colouring back because who’s dying their hair or wearing fucking contacts on the trail?

But also

Who would ever associate a runaway mafia kid with a guy with overgrown hair and a stained t-shirt who’s sitting serenely on a mountain pass in a photo on David Wymack’s website?

Nobody

That’s right kids, Nathan doesn’t have a role in this one because he doesn’t find Neil

Maybe he gets killed in a shoot out or something and some other gangster steps up and takes over, and in the shuffle Neil’s just kinda forgotten

Maybe he finds out months later and he just stares at the computer in shock because he should have known, shouldn’t he? He should have felt it when his father died

He should have realized that he was free

That happens later though

Who fucking cares what Riko’s doing honestly

Kevin has somehow attached himself to Andrew and is driving him up the wall with advice to improve his hiking/base weight/distance/etc and he sees this guy (Neil) who regularly covers like thirty or forty miles a day (obscene!) and is like YES this guy is my people!

Except when he starts talking to Neil he realizes he’s this total weirdo who doesn’t even have a cook set he just eats cold food (a common enough thing among ultralighters, but not like this. Oh god, not like this)

Neil’s just sitting there gnawing on a pack of uncooked ramen like a fucking animal

And he’s not! Even! Hiking! Properly!

You’ll never finish the trail if you hike like this!

Neil just gives him a blank look

He’s got no interest on getting on some “verified” list of people who hiked the PCT, he just likes hiking

Andrew likes him

I mean obviously he despises him what the hell is with that janky ass setup but also he’s so unconventional and unapologetic how could Andrew not be into that?

They’re the kind of people who give wilderness rescue personnel grey hair, but for completely opposite reasons

Neil keeps running into them because even though he covers so much ground every day, his meandering route means he doesn’t actually move down the trail very fast

They’ll be like wait weren’t you like a week ahead of us and he’s like oh yeah I heard about this cool waterfall and took a sixty mile side trail to visit it and nearly ran into a momma bear with two cubs, it was awesome

And they all start to grow on him, and each other, almost accidentally

Look none of them are out there romanticizing the trail as some kind of magical place where the problems of the real world disappear and the people are somehow more pure and true or whatever

People are people and they bring their issues wherever they go

But there is a paring down

When your daily concerns are just mileage and shoes and food and weather, a lot of other stuff fades into the background

And well the truth is a lot of people are on those trails to work through stuff

And they find each other

Gradually, without even really noticing

They team up in June, groups of three or four with crampons and ice axes to get over the Sierra’s.

Neil was planning to just do side hikes and wait for the snow to melt—he isn’t so reckless he wants to go over the ice alone, but Kevin insists he join them and for the first time he hikes in a group with Kevin and the cousins all together.

It’s weird

He’s not used to people talking to him when he’s hiking and he frequently doesn’t respond and it’s not because he’s being rude he’s just so focussed on what he’s doing and what’s around him that he literally doesn’t hear them

And then

Nicky slips

It’s not his fault, they did nearly everything right (Kevin may be a pretentious ass, but he does know his shit) but sometimes shit just happens for no reason

And they’re at the edge of the ice sheet so Nicky’s just untying himself from the rope that links them together, he’s not even moving, and the snow beneath him shifts and he doesn’t even have time to scream before he’s hurtling down the snow below the trail towards the cliff at the bottom of the ice sheet

Neil doesn’t even hesitate

He dives after him, ice axe in one hand like a fucking gladiator and gets his arm wrapped around Nicky’s waist

He slams the ice axe into the snow and it drags behind them, and it looks like it’s not going to catch, and the edge is getting closer and closer—

Until the axe catches something, and Nicky and Neil lurch to a halt, clinging to each other, hanging off of Neil’s one arm and the axe.

Neil looks up and sees Andrew, Aaron and Kevin in various places on the slope above them, their axes dug in and long gouge marks in the snow beneath their heels, strung together by a ropeline that’s still attached to Neil’s waist

That rope is probably the only thing that slowed them down enough that Neil could stop them without ripping his arm clean off

It’s hardly a by-the-book rescue, and in fact it was pretty stupid, but they’re okay, they’re okay, that’s all that matters

That night they light a fire down by a lake and Nicky cries on Aaron’s shoulder and Andrew keeps clenching his fists because he’s never felt so helpless in his life and it was Neil that jumped, not him

He knows that he was at the far end of the line and he would’ve made it worse if he had, but doing nothing while Neil risked his life to save Nicky

They don’t really talk about it

But you kind of can’t help being friends after that

And even after they’re out of the high mountains and back on solid trails Neil keeps tabs on them

And Nicky befriends the others and without even meaning to they start to develop a sort of loose trail family vibe

They’re not hiking together all the time like some of the groups they meet, but they check on each other all the time and wait up in resupply villages and bond over firepits and shitty hot chocolate mixes and swap tips on how to keep the butt-chafing at bay

Neil sticks to the outskirts, mostly, but he starts to open up a little, in fits and spurts, tiny non-specific things that wouldn’t even register to most people but that this particular group knows means more than that

He’s slowing down, too, sometimes hiking entire days with people and covering half his usual distance even when there’s no cliffs or glaciers threatening him

He likes hiking with Andrew the most, though

Because neither of them are big talkers when they’re hiking and Andrew’s pack might be absurdly heavy but he’s got legs the size of tree trunks and endurance to match, so he might not be fast but he can outwalk half the people on the trail by sheer relentlessness

They both like to camp up high, near treeline (so Neil can set up his tarp) and in the places that it’s legal they’ll start a small fire and Andrew will loan Neil his pot so he can actually cook his fucking ramen for once and sometimes they’ll watch the Milky Way rise and share secrets under the open sky, not looking at each other so they don’t break the illusion, and sometimes they won’t say anything at all but it’s okay, because they’re saying nothing together.

It’s nice

It’s maybe more than nice

The summer draws to a close and Neil is starting to realize that he doesn’t want it to

He never wants the hiking season to end but this time it’s different

This summer has been perfect

And he knows deep in his bones that once they leave the trail things will change

The others have lives to return to, and Neil…

The trail is all he has

And if he’s barely hiking alone at all these days, well, who’s going to call him out on it?

The others like having him around because he stops them from getting too fixated on the Trail to see the trail

He still takes side trips but now sometimes people will come along and he’ll stand at the base of a canyon staring up at the glossy white walls and Dan will snap a photo for her blog and smile, because the PCT is just a line on a map, but the hike is all of them; together

He’s hiking with Andrew in September when a storm hits, this time vicious

Neil huddles under his tarp in resignation

Storms suck, he always gets wet, no matter how much he lowers the tarp, but he’s used to it; he just waits it out

But it’s just getting worse

Hail lashing at the tarp and pummelling the ground and maybe for once he regrets camping so high up

And Andrew has to shout to be heard but finally Neil realizes he’s offering to let Neil come into his tent

You’re going fucking freeze, just get in here

Neil goes

It’s weird

It’s instantly weird

The tent is not built for two people, so they’re both sitting cross legged with their heads ducked to not press against the roof

The storms probably not going to let up soon, Andrew says

Yeah, Neil says.

Andrew sighs

Lie down, he says, and Neil does, and Andrew lies down next to him, shoulder to shoulder

It barely works, only because neither of them are very big people

Neil’s pack is outside wrapped in his tarp and all he has is his damp down blanket but he’s not cold anymore, not with Andrew bundled up in his ridiculous sleeping bag right next to him

The storm rages for nearly two days and what passes between them in that tent, nobody knows

If they’re barely ever seen apart after it, well. You only see people so often on the trail. It could easily be a coincidence

And if Neil doesn’t even set his tarp up on rainy nights anymore, well. They never camp near other people anyway, so who’s to know?

In early October the snow blows in, blocking the route to the finish.

They drift around a resupply village for almost two weeks, waiting for the trail to reopen, but finally even Kevin accepts that it isn’t going to

After all of that, none of them are going to finish the trail

It’s a disappointment—of course it is. For most of them, the end of their trip is now a nondescript exit into a village, no fanfare, no closure; they didn’t even know they were done for days

Still, it’s not so bad

They’re all together

Allison suggests Vegas, but they all laugh it down; they wouldn’t even know how right now, bearded and hairy and ravenous as they are

They go to South Carolina instead

It’s not really even discussed that they’ll stay together, they just all go; Allison hosts them at her resort and they laugh at the incongruous weirdness of seeing each other in real clothes, and it’s different, but it’s also okay

They stay for another two weeks, and they don’t hike another fucking inch

We should try the Continental Divide Trail sometime, Dan says

Her blog is so popular now that she’s got sponsorships from more than just Wymack waiting for her

She could make a career out of hiking and blogging and doing gear reviews and it’s a dream she’d never even realized she wanted until she had it

And if she accidentally fucked up and ended up with a hot trail boyfriend? Well, nobody’s perfect

And he has a great butt

(she has photos of it on her blog, from when they jumped into a glacier lake naked back in August)

Everyone is jealous

How about that trek in Iceland? Matt suggests

Or the whats-it-called in New Zealand, Allison says

Oh, I bet there’s some good ones in Europe! Nicky says. You guys can all meet Erik!

And it’s going to be different, but it’s not going away, and Neil feels calm in a way he never has at the end of a hiking season before

Eventually everyone has to start making plans to return to their lives, and jobs, and Neil sneaks out to the back of the house to sit in crisp fall air and watch leaves spiral down out of the trees

Andrew follows him

They sit together, watching the moon rise over the hills, and when Andrew asks Neil to come home, Neil says yes

[honeydots]

200. “He loves you, you know? He’s just afraid of admitting it.” ~~ This has some Vibes and I kinda like them so? I'd like 2 humbly request your take on this w/ shukita or akeshu if it's ok to ask for!! -- dorky-arsene (a sideblog)

“He loves you, you know? He’s just afraid of admitting it”

Hello no I didn’t forget about these I am just slower than a little baby turtle!!!!! Anyway

Summary: Goro’s new job leads him to discover that dealing with both a crush and an idiot while flipping burgers is, unarguably, the worst turn his life could’ve taken.

cw: sexual themes (+p5r spoilers)

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(ao3 link)

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“Hello! Would you like to try our Big Bang Special Combo Shot-Straight-Through Promotional Meal for ‘Thy Father of Corruption 2: The Daughter of Rejection’ for ¥850?”

Goro wanted to quit. 

You need this job. You need this job. He’d repeat to himself each time a customer decided they were feeling peckish. You will have no money if you quit and then you will have no home and then you will drop out of college and then you will die. 

He’d left the police department after graduating. With his past plans of an 18-year life expectancy having slipped down the drain, he hardly had a reason to stay. High school had been an uphill battle with cases of murder and robbery breathing down his neck, and he’d hesitated to even make an attempt at trying to juggle his priorities in university. Dropping the detective gig meant dropping the media attention, too, which gave him breathing room he certainly knew he needed, but never really had. 

The problem was, after three years of fading out of fame and living off his savings, he realized this wouldn’t stretch as far as he’d predicted. He hadn’t accounted nearly enough for the expenses that came with the unwelcome enforcement of trying to live as a proper human being. His bank account was growing meager. If he wanted to keep living (which was arguable) in the way that he was (which he did) he’d need an income. Almost anything would do, as long as it would bend and break to his schedule. 

And, all things considered, he technically had connections here. And ever since… that, the pay had actually increased to a respectable amount. The management had rehired, retrained, and improved. It was fast food, but it was livable. Nothing shameful about being livable. 

And god fucking dammit he had already done three interviews with no hires and he needed food other than half-cooked ramen noodles and bread slices. 

“Can I get you anything else, sir?” 

That didn’t mean he didn’t loathe every minute.

It was bad enough that he had a job at Big Bang Burger. And, bad enough that he’d been desperate to get it. It was bad enough that he had to bring in his homework like some anguished used-to-be honors student now getting barely passing marks. And christ, it was bad enough each time a customer would walk in, a hamburger-shaped icepick would slam itself into his frontal lobe, forever ingraining the memory of his premeditated brain murder of the former CEO of this very restaurant. 

All of that, and he couldn’t stress this more, was bad enough. It was entirely shitty all around. Completely awful, and damming, and humbling, though he hated to admit it. He’d like to say it couldn’t get any worse. That this was the end of the line, get off the train before it turns around, don’t get stuck in the never ending cycle of beef patties and sesame seed buns. 

But, god, of all the coworkers. 

“Ya know,” said Sakamoto, leaning down on the front counter after their customer had left,  “I dunno if clenching your teeth like you’ve got peanut butter stuck in there counts as ‘service with a smile.’” 

Sakamoto Ryuji. The boy who had the opposite of a filter, and more like a megaphone spewing recordings of every profanity in the Japanese language. He, who had walked in on Goro’s second day and loudly declared, ‘I thought I smelled something, what’s this a-hole doing here?’ Really, who else could he tolerate spending eight-hour shifts with; greasy stoves, piss poor customers, and the ruthless scent of lysol on tile included?

Ah, right. Anyone else. 

Goro pressed his lips together. “Hm. Well you know, I was almost certain that elbows on the counter was a fireable offense.” 

Sakamoto snatched himself up in a second, elbows up high. He hung there and looked around the empty restaurant. 

He pouted. “Not cool, dude. That’s only when there’s customers.”

Goro raised his eyebrows. He was really just going to stand there? He looked like an idiot, or a chicken. A hybrid that, if anyone could pull off, would be him. He was making a great show of it, too. 

Sakamoto narrowed his eyes. “Unless you’re a snitch.” 

Goro spoke in his most syrupy sweet voice. “Are you implying then, that your job is in my hands? An entertaining thought, Sakamoto.” If it were only that simple to really get him fired. Unfortunately, their manager seemed to love his enthusiasm. Every moment he spent enthusiastically mopping floors and singing into the handle was a moment Goro could’ve been writing soliloquies of his growing and newfound hatred for Carly Rae Jepsen. 

Sakamoto folded his arms in a huff. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about, man! Look at that fake-ass smile.” He shook his head. “And I get customer service blows and stuff, but you use it for everything. Lighten up dude! Take a break.”

Sakamoto said things with such confidence, such surety. It made his teeth grind. 

“I’d prefer to keep my job,” Goro said, and gave him the sweet smile Sakamoto was arguing against. “Though, if you’d like to pay my rent for me, you’re more than welcome.” 

He acted like he hadn’t even heard him.“Maybe it’s ‘cause you’re so gloomy all the time, your face just doesn’t know how to work it. Look it, check me out.” Sakamoto pointed his thumb at himself and flashed a toothy smile. “Just like that! All natural, bro. It’s easy. Come on, you really try it this time.” 

Goro very clearly did not. He stared with his most obsolete and ‘stop-trying-to-have-a-conversation-with-me’ look he could muster. He’d communicate it telepathically, if given the chance. 

“That doesn’t look like trying to me,” Sakamoto said expectantly. 

Couldn’t they just sit in silence and wait for their fabrication of getting-along time when the next inevitable customer came in? “Perhaps, and please let me know if this is too complicated, I simply have no intention of trying, because I don’t believe there’s anything to fix.” 

“Nah, that’s not it,” replied Sakamoto, as if he was being thoughtful.

Another reason why he was completely obnoxious was because the longer they knew each other, the less that Goro’s flawless stone faced looks worked. Sakamoto kept spewing hot air. He’d gained some kind of tolerance, and it was tedious to work around. 

Sakamoto leaned back down, previous elbow warnings forgotten. “I bet you’re the kinda guy who’s super ticklish, so you act all boring so no one suspects it.”

“I’m not,” Goro snapped. 

“Quick reply there, buddy.” 

Goro didn’t answer to that. He didn’t owe it to him. This was pointless; why did Sakamoto find such pleasure in talking about pointless things? 

He slouched further down. “So it’s silent treatment now. You’re checking all the boxes over here.” He waved his finger through the air. “Check, n’ check, n’, check.” 

Goro was getting a headache. “I don’t want to talk about this.” 

“Betcha you’re super ticklish. And like, one of those cry-laughers.” 

“Sakamoto, did you hear what I just said.” 

He stretched up from his position on the counter. “Like if I poke you in the side, I bet it would make ya jump.” 

“Do not.” He could just try it. Goro would bend his finger back so far it’d break. He wondered if that would be a viable option to get him to stop talking sometime. 

“Didn’t say I was gonna.” He rested his arms behind his neck. “You’re just proving my point more, though.” 

Sakamoto was annoyingly stubborn at times. Once he found a niche with Goro, he’d hack his way in and grab on like a tick. Bother him like it was his last chance he’d ever get, as if they didn’t work shifts together four times a week. He was bound to get lyme disease at this rate.  

Goro felt like a very frustrated pair of tweezers.“Can we talk about anything else, please?”

Sakamoto went quiet. He was just looking at him now. Goro tensed up. Was he really going to try and poke him? He meant it, he’d break his hand. 

“Ya know, there is something I wanna talk to you about,” he said.

Goro did not like the sound of that. “Oh really.” He tried to sound like he was just told he was about to be given a lecture on the intricacies and details of lentil soup. Which, perhaps could be more interesting than whatever topic Sakamoto was about to pull out of his ass. 

Sakamoto sniffed. “Yup. It’s about Akira.” 

Oh, he really didn’t like where this was going. “Sakamoto, I—” 

“When’re ya gonna like, confess.” 

Goro visibly winced. Dammit. He knew he’d bring this up one day. He was absolutely infuriated Sakamoto knew about that, and he hadn’t even told him. He’d been making guesses and Goro had been just tired enough during his shift to let a hint of a sigh out, and Sakamoto had taken that to new heights. Another example of conversations being had that Goro would’ve just about died to get out of. 

Sakamoto was still staring at him. Didn’t he have anything better to do? Goro knew they didn’t at this good for nothing job, but what was so hard about just acting like you’re busy. You’re pretending then, at least, and that’s something. 

“Well, dude?” asked Sakamoto. 

Any conversation is better than that one.

Mother of fuck. 

“I…” Goro started, adjusting a piece of his hair, “I suppose I am a little ticklish.”

Sakamoto’s face lit up. “Dude, for real? Called it,” he said triumphantly. Had Goro not known him as well as he did, he’d think the divergence in conversation was a trick to get him to admit he was a bit… touchy. But he did know him, and he wasn’t one for games like that.

“Most people are, it shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s skin sensitivity, nothing more.” 

Sakamoto shrugged. “Still funny you admitted to it.” 

Sure. Very hilarious. Yet another fact Sakamoto now knows about him that he’d really have rather not shared under any circumstance. 

“Satisfied, now?” Goro asked, but it wasn’t really a question. He didn’t plan on expanding, this was embarrassing enough as it was. 

“Nope,” he replied, “cause that’s great and all, but I really gotta know the game plan.” He leaned in close to Goro, and he in turn leaned farther away.

“There’s no ‘game plan,’ Sakamoto. Please don’t get so close to me.” 

“Yeah, yeah, sorry.” He moved back, obviously not finished. “Come on, though, you gotta have something.” And back down on the counter he slouched. 

‘Something,’ he’d said. Yes, and that something was to keep his mouth shut and go about his life keeping each and every one of those mortifying feelings to himself. It was humiliating enough that Sakamoto knew. Telling Akira? He didn’t even want to imagine it. He’d rather face Okumura-san herself and ask her to buy one of their Shot-Straight-Through combo meals. 

“There’s nothing. And I don’t plan there to be anything. And, it’s not really much of your business, is it?” Goro could feel himself growing irritated. 

Sakamoto melted further into the counter. “I just don’t get why you’re not gonna ask him out if you like him. You might as well, man, it’ll be fine.” 

What simple ways of thinking. Do this, get that in return. Black and white, and right and wrong. Spill your fleeting moment of vulnerability and try not to think about the extensive hole of commitment you’re burying yourself in. One turn of phrase, one word, one misplaced breath to Akira would forever rupture the sorry excuse of acquaintanceship they’d been flip flopping through for the past three years. Akira was a blank slate and simultaneously the person he knew best. He knew him, but didn’t really, and he could never tell what he was thinking. Suddenly he was gambling again, and this time it came entirely unwelcome. Risks you face before death and risks that you’ll keep living through no matter the outcome tasted different. One was tangy and sweet and thrilling, the other was bitter  shit. Not to mention that Akira was too kind to him for his own good. He couldn’t even tell what was a lie. 

But, Sakamoto didn’t need to know all that. “You say that like there’s nothing to consider. As if I’ve never even given this thought. You do not belong in my head, Sakamoto. And I do not need to give you, an obvious outsider on the entire dilemma, any sort of justification for why I’m going to continue to abstain on something as trivial as a confession.” 

Sakamoto huffed at him. “What if I said that I gua-ran-tee he’s not gonna say no to you.”

Goro was already sick of this. What, had Sakamoto expected his heart to skip? His pulse to rise? That just the very thought of mutual feelings would send him into some flustered mess? Please. He told the tingling feeling going up through his legs and down his arms and up the back of his neck to shut the fuck up. 

He couldn’t stay quiet for long. Sakamoto could and would get ideas. “Then why doesn’t he just tell me that himself? Why are you playing wingman for him?” 

“Cause he’s not gonna say anything cause he’s got to be worried that he’s gonna freak you and your crazy attachment issues out!” 

Of course, there it was. The blind bet. Sakamoto’s one-way thinking at it again, and Goro would not have it. “I’m not going to start playing some game with him about the complexities of whatever idea of consent he has in his head. I don’t need his sympathy, and I am certainly not looking for it. I don’t have time for something messy and half-assed. I don’t want that, and surely he doesn’t, either. If he feels any way about me, he’d ought to tell me, because then maybe we’d find some kind of leeway. But I will not let him sit there and wait for me to make the first move, like a key element in his plan. This is not some teenage romance, and I am not a caricature of his love life. He can wait patiently all he’d like, but I’m perfectly content as I am now.” 

Sakamoto seemed a little stunned. 

“Man, he’s just…” He trailed off. They sat in silence. 

So ways still existed to get Sakamoto to stop rambling on. He was sure he’d regret saying this later, for a multitude of reasons. He didn’t hate Sakamoto, even saying dislike felt strong, but he always talked about things that Goro had no interest nor inclination to discuss. Maybe silence was for the best between them, for now. 

“He loves you, you know? He’s just afraid of admitting it. That’s all it is, dude,” said Sakamoto. 

Goro inhaled. So he wasn’t done, then. “Love… is an entirely different conversation.” 

“Okay, fine, you want me to say he ‘like-likes’ you like some fifth grader? Cause he does.” 

Goro didn’t reply. He’d made his point. 

“He isn’t playing one of your weirdo mind games,” Sakamoto continued. “I think you’re thinking too hard about this. He’s just a guy. He just wants to make sure you’re all comfortable and shit. Cause it’s not like we don’t all know the bullshit that was goin’ on for you.”

“I am not looking for his pity.” A fine thing to say while working at a Big Bang Burger in a bright yellow shirt and starred apron. It didn’t matter. He didn’t wear this with pride, per say, but he wouldn’t ask someone to feel sorry for him.

He didn’t exactly want to be seen, either. Especially not Akira, but of course he’d make habits of visiting. That was just like him, and it was just like his pity, too. 

Sakamoto looked frustrated. “He ain’t pitying you, man! He’s tryin’ to respect you! He knows you got things to go through on your own and he’s trying to give you space and everything.” 

Goro clicked his tongue. “If you know that’s his tactic, why are you trying to pressure me into this?” 

“Cause I don’t care, dude!” Sakamoto said, and then stopped himself, and promptly looked very guilty. “Well, okay. I do care. Like, I do. But sometimes…” He looked like he was trying to pick his words out carefully. He had an idea, just no way to form it.

He settled. “Sometimes, you just gotta get laid, man.” 

At this point, Goro found himself shocked that he wasn’t banging his own head against the counter. 

“Excuse me?” 

“You’re twenty one years old! Dude, I know you haven’t gotten any,” Sakamoto argued. “Your gay ass with emotional problems? Get outta here.” 

“This is not—”  

Sakamoto put his hands up nonshalontly. “And like, yeah, no judgey stuff, take your time if you gotta. But have you considered it? Tell me. I betcha you haven’t.”

Goro opened his mouth, expecting to reply with an incredibly well thought out ‘fuck off,’ but the automatic doors slid open, and suddenly Goro was all smiles and greetings, so what came out instead was, “Hello! Welcome to Big Bang Burger! Would you—ah.” 

Sakamoto snorted loudly, and Goro wanted to kick him so bad. 

And actually, what was stopping him? Sakamoto had earned this, and it’s not like this customer would care. 

Because, who else could’ve been just about summoned by the trouble than Kurusu Akira himself; strolling in so casually through the doors, like he hadn’t just become the most unpleasant topic of conversation Goro had ever had with Sakamoto. Speak of the devil was an understatement, or perhaps he was the devil himself. 

“What the eff, man!” 

“Hey you two,” said Akira, hands in his pockets and clearly bagless. He didn’t even register Goro’s kick, like that was just some normal occurrence. Somehow, that made him angrier. 

“Yo,” said Sakamoto, recovering annoyingly quickly. Goro wondered if he should’ve considered breaking his finger. 

Sakamoto reached out to Akira for a fist bump. “You don’t have the cat with ya?” 

Akira bumped him back. “Nope. Just me today.” 

“Sweet,”  Sakamoto replied, a smile growing wide. Goro hated the look. It was the hungriest and most dastardly shit-eating grin he’d ever seen him dare to make. So, knowing Sakamoto and his terrible poker face, he had thought up some idiotic ploy. 

“What’s up with you?” Akira asked, and thank god it wasn’t directed at Goro. Sakamoto’s obviousness did not go unnoticed. 

“Oh nothin’, nothin’,” said Sakamoto, entirely conspicuously, “I gotta go, though, grind never stops. Super secret stuff in the back.” 

Goro glared at him. So now he would pretend to be busy? 

“Burger secrets,” Akira said, and Ryuji gave him a finger gun in reply. He walked off without a word, but apparently felt the inclination to jerk his head back at Goro, as if he didn’t know what he was doing. 

He sighed. No amount of alone time would ever compel Goro to confess at a Big Bang Burger, of all places. At least Akira tended to be a little more bearable in conversation. He hoped he’d be an in and out customer. “Can I get you anything?” 

Akira looked at him for a moment. “You look flustered.” 

Goro felt himself twitch. He wasn’t flustered, like some preteen who can’t hear the word genital without bursting into laughter. If anything, Sakamoto had caught him off guard with his stupidity. He obviously was not one to be so affected by such a topic. He was an adult, and a professional. He would again not think about the fact he was wearing an orange visor right now. 

“I’m positive that isn’t a menu item,” he replied, keeping his pleasant smile plastered on, keeping any stray annoyance from showing. 

Akira examined him closer. “Do you have a fever or something? You look red.”

Goro drummed his fingers against the counter impatiently. What was he supposed to say? Sorry, Akira, Sakamoto just decided to kindly push the image of you railing me as a form of twisted therapy into the forefront of my consciousness. Would you like any drinks?

“I’m fine. I’m not the type to go to work sick,” he decided on instead. 

“Really?” He didn’t seem convinced. 

Goro folded his arms. “While living in a society where health is determined by the trust of the majority, I have no plans to spread my germs to an unsuspecting businessman, in that I expect the same from him.”

Akira considered that for a moment. “So you’re embarrassed, then.” 

Goro’s expression turned sour. He was not in the mood for a debate. “Everyone seems to be presuming things today, have I missed a memo?” 

Akira didn’t miss a beat. “Ryuji said something?” 

Goro dragged his fingernails into his palm. He was hardly being that obvious, he wasn’t a bumbling idiot who couldn’t keep a straight face. Akira was just acutely good at reading people, (namely, reading him) and it drove Goro up the wall. It was unfair, for one thing, since Akira continued to maintain blank expressions in the face of clowns and hookers, keeping his inner thoughts kept behind lock and key. And, as of more recently, he was the one person Goro really desperately wanted to hide every wandering emotion from possible. Just his luck, fall for the bastard who analyzes people as a side job for his savior-complex living. 

This was making him more frustrated. “Would you just order?” 

Akira looked at the menu, but Goro knew it was bullshit. He ordered the same thing every time— a shake and a burger, no tomatoes. He certainly already knew what he wanted, but was just causing trouble in the meantime. What an annoyance. Goro punched it in, and made no moves to go and cook. If Sakamoto was going to have his “business” in the back, then he could stay there and do his job. 

“Sit over there, we’ll bring it to you when it’s done,” he said, and Akira silently obliged. He gave a small smile before he turned, leaving Goro completely alone with his thoughts as he sat at his table and scrolled through his phone. 

He couldn’t believe the timing of Sakamoto’s distasteful comment to Akira’s unseasonable entrance. Things always seemed to fall into place with Goro, just not the right places. The right place, but a little down, and to the left, the left, he said. He wished Sakamoto would mind his own business, let him quietly pine until his untimely death; which kept getting put off, might he add. 

Sakamoto emerged from the back end of the restaurant. He was holding the bag of presumably Akira’s food, and his shake. He waved them enthusiastically. 

“Go on, dude,” he smirked. 

Goro was blunt. “No.” He’d pissed him off enough today. He wasn’t going to walk over there and serve the food. Sakamoto’s little idea of love, romance and marriage in a burger joint would have to wait. Ideally, it would get itself stuck in wet concrete, and drown way down under where no one could see it and where the light of day would never reach. 

Sakamoto seemed to catch his drift. “Jeez, fine. Huffy, huffy.” 

He walked over to Akira with a spring in his step, and they started chatting idly. Goro couldn’t hear. In all honesty, he was trying to tune them out. His headache was growing worse. Pounding in his head, every light too bright and repetitive music blurring together his thoughts. And of course there was the elephant in the room, who was whispering to him Sakamoto’s crude suggestions, and the irritating notion that maybe he was right, just a little bit.

He needed to get himself together. He was acting like some horny teenager. Get fucked, you raunchy elephant. 

Sakamoto left to let him eat, and made a show of going back to the other end of the restaurant, all while wiggling his eyebrows at Goro. In turn, Goro made a show of rolling his eyes and planting himself facing away from Akira. It made Sakamoto laugh, for whatever reason, and Goro just ignored him. 

He watched the door idly and tried to relax. He’d been clenching his teeth, and his jaw ached. He tried to focus to get his headache to fade into obscurity. He couldn’t find much to concentrate on, was his issue. Other than the obvious, which he would ignore without remorse. He wanted to go home. No lights too bright there, no sloppily cleaned windows, and especially no crush (the word left a bad taste in his mouth. Boy who has left him emotionally compromised after giving him no reason to deny he had worth in the world and keeps him up at night thinking about the way he really tried to will him back into existence when he could, god, have anything else in the world, and he wanted him. Was that a better option?) sitting out of view, chewing quietly and doing absolutely nothing to draw so much attention to himself.  At home he could drown it all out in a cold bath, and let himself think of nothing but his numbing toes and pruning fingers. 

“Hey, catch,” Akira said, suddenly there and startling Goro out of his bathlike daydream. He tossed something onto the counter. Goro did not catch it. 

It was a napkin, all folded up in a careful way. It didn’t hold the shape well, but the intention was pretty clear. “Um. A crane?” 

“Yup. Present for you.” he started, rubbing his neck, and he had the nerve to look bashful. “I got bored.”

Goro hadn’t noticed him making it. Which, alright, did make sense, he was purposefully keeping his neck away from that entire half of the restaurant. “Sorry we aren’t quite the height of entertainment here.” Goro lightly touched its head. He didn’t know Akira knew how to make these. “Well, thank you, I guess.”

Akira pushed his glasses further up his nose. “You’re welcome to name him.”

“I think that I won’t.”

“That can be pretty trendy, too,” he replied. “I’ve gotta go. Class. Tell Ryuji I say bye.” 

“Bye, dude!” Sakamoto shouted from the back. There was that tiresome enthusiasm again. 

It made Akira smile.“Nevermind, then. See you.” 

Goro just barely lifted his hand by the wrist to wave. “Bye.” 

Akira turned, gave him a small trill of his fingers, and left. Sakamoto did not return to his exit, and Goro savored the moment. It was just him and the crane, now. 

It was pretty shoddy. Unfolding, and barely standing up on its own. Cheap paper napkins were not the ideal material for origami, it seemed. He watched it slowly fall apart, wings losing shape and the head relaxing into its neck. Akira had hardly stayed long, so that meant he was probably pretty good at this sort of thing. He wouldn’t have guessed. 

…He thought about how it might look on proper paper. The creases sharp and crisp, the ends pointed and still. What would Akira’s hands look like while they worked? He could hear the sounds of the folding, and the wedging, clean paper being bent and rippled. Delicate fingers, working through, meticulously checking every last inch. Sometimes a pinch, just where it’s needed. And then finished, folded tight, wrapped together in itself. Very quick work, with the touch of a hand. 

“The heck is that?” Sakamoto said, getting an actual jump out of Goro. 

“What?” he gasped, and took a second to collect his thoughts. At work. Sakamoto came back. In a Big Bang Burger. Headache present. Good fucking god. “It’s just…” He pressed his fingers into the side of his temple “It’s a paper crane. Akira made it.” 

Sakamoto let that sink in.“You tellin me you were just sitting here staring at the thing Akira made you?” 

“I wasn’t,” Goro replied, trying desperately to catch his breath as casually as possible. 

“Uh, you literally were.” Sakamoto got uncomfortably close to him again. Goro physically moved away, because now was not the time. 

It didn’t deter Sakamoto whatsoever. He put his hands on his hips and gave an annoying grin. “Bro, you gotta tell him… You’ve obviously got it preeetty bad.” 

Goro was fed up with this. This conversation needed to end, or he thought he might explode. “I don’t ‘have it bad,’ Sakamoto, stop bringing this up.” 

Sakamoto smirked at him. “You so do though, is the thing.” 

“I don’t. Leave me alone.”

He shrugged his shoulders, and kept his mouth shut. He was acting so haughty, like he’d won the argument. Which, he hadn’t, for the record. 

That stupid crane. All it’d done was make things worse. And what was it even doing? Sitting here crumbling away into uselessly folded paper. A cheap napkin made of other recycled cheap napkins. Clean and crisp paper was a long sought after dream, a fantasy and nothing more. 

You know, this was just it, really. This is what he meant. Akira would try and fold him up and he’d inevitably fall back down. He didn’t know just what fantastic method he’d try, but it wouldn’t matter— he was made of what he was made of, and nothing would hold him up. Trying was pointless, risking for naught, it would be better for everyone if he stayed just how he was and didn’t overstay his use. 

He would not fit into Akira’s plans or his pities. He couldn’t. 

“…Bruh. What does that even mean.” 

Ah? “What?“ No. He had not said that out loud. Sakamoto did not just hear all that nonsense. 

Sakamoto was giving him a funny look. “You’re not a napkin, man.” 

God, shit. Shit shit shit. “I— I know that, this is just—“ The unpleasant feeling of blood rushing to his face was just as intolerable as it was unpreventable. 

“For real? Cause you sure sounded like you were calling yourself a napkin.” 

Absolutely unbelievable. How unruly was he that he’d just spouted all that like it was nothing? He couldn’t believe he had to explain himself now, but letting him get ideas was undeniably worse. “It’s supposed to be… symbolic, Sakamoto.” 

He could practically see the gears turning in his head. That wasn’t something difficult to understand, you dunce. Every second of this humiliating scene felt like a knife turning in his back. 

“Why does your brain work in such effed up ways. You gotta work on that,” Sakamoto said, not letting up his judgemental look.

He crossed his arms, trying to make his mortification appear like annoyance. “Don’t you start with me. As if you ever have something useful to say. At least I’m— I’m thinking, here.” 

That riled him up a bit. “I’m thinkin’! I almost flunked literature so maybe I’m not so good at this analysis stuff, but you know what? Hear me out.” Goro did not want to hear him out. He continued despite that. “I get it, you got your problems. But I really don’t think you callin’ yourself some shitty crane is fair, you know? Like, you’re a whole guy.”

He did not appreciate how genuine Sakamoto was acting. It was odd, and it felt awkward coming from him. He didn’t want to feel guilty for being rude to him earlier, either. Just another topic to bother him to sleep. 

Sakamoto went on. “Gahhh, it feels weird sayin’ this but like, you’re not a napkin, okay! And Akira doesn’t think so either. You’re more… complicated. Napkins don’t pay taxes or anything.” 

Ah, alright. So it was mostly bullshit. He could ease the guilt away in one fell swoop. 

Goro’s disinterest seemed to show itself well to Sakamoto. “Just, okay. Lemme get my thoughts here. You gotta like… be your own first step. I didn’t get my own shit sorted out until I actually tried to. And I’m not sayin it’s easy to do. But Imma tell you right now your first step is gonna be to stop thinking you’re a napkin or a bucket or a plate of green beans or whatever else you come up with. And I mean it, man.”

Goro knew he had things to say to that. He had thought out replies and phrases that Sakamoto would need more headspace to begin to understand. But none of them came to him. So he decided to stay threateningly quiet. 

It was well received. “Okay okay, you’re gettin’ mad, I can tell. I’m gonna take my break,” Sakamoto relented, and turned on his heel. “I ain’t really trying to tell ya what to do but give it a thinking about, alright? ‘Least for Akira’s sake,” he said over his shoulder, and left Goro almost more alone than before. 

It wasn’t even Akira’s sake Goro was worried about. Not in the way Sakamoto seemed to think. And he didn’t need to be told he wasn’t some inanimate object, he wasn’t that out of mind. 

Any sort of sensible argument would have to come to him after the fact, apparently. To tell him this wouldn’t be a “first step,” more like a hundredth. How many paces did crawling out of the hole he’d buried himself in count for? How many miles had he gone by now, barefoot and bleeding all the way. 

Such a stupid conversation. Needless, too, since for whatever reason his filter decided to leave him to fend for himself. Just another addition to this embarrassing excuse of a shift today. 

The paper crane sat still on the counter, though it hardly resembled one anymore. He almost felt bad. He had his typical pit in his stomach, but nothing exactly to pinpoint it on. Was he wallowing in that much self-loathing? 

Perhaps. 

Goro adamantly refused to have any more dramatic revelations at his part time job, so any introspections would have to come later. 

He put the crumpled crane in his pocket. It was certainly not going to be a crane once he took it out again, but he didn’t really know what else to do with it. Throwing it away felt wrong, to him. Though he wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to do with it when he got home. 

Akira hadn’t given this to him in hopes of causing some mental anguish. Or at least, he assumed so. Sakamoto had said he didn’t play mind games, but if not those, what was he doing? It felt better to know it was a game, in that way there was something about Akira’s mystery of a consciousness he could pry through. 

Was he reading into things? For sure. Reading too deeply into anything had been a talent of his for as long as he could remember. It had saved his life before, many times and in the most difficult of times. 

This crane wasn’t life threatening, but it felt like it was. Not in the thrilling way, but in the shitty way. 

His shift was over soon. Which reminded him, Sakamoto had surely already taken his break. He was a dip, but Goro preferred his own thoughts to any conversation they’d had today. And that was saying something, since getting out of his own head was a much needed relief that he’d take almost any chance he got. 

He was overthinking, and there was nothing he could do about it. He would continue to overthink until someone stole his brain and dunked it in acid. Where was the enjoyment otherwise? It was all he knew how to do. 

And even he didn’t overthink this— if Akira had given this to him in earnest and in playfulness, and if Sakamoto hadn’t been overtly pulling his leg through their shifts today. There wasn’t even anything remarkable about it. If there was a chance that maybe things were just okay, and getting better, and he wasn’t a living metaphor for a tissue. Oh just, say he invited him out for coffee, and Akira surprised him with a new little creation, less spur of the moment and made something almost sweet. He’d never drop his pride so low as to ask for a lesson, but if he did, maybe he could learn to make something, too. And maybe he wouldn’t hate every moment of it, and maybe he’d like getting so close, and maybe he’d appreciate the mistakes as much as the praises. 

…Hm.

That was just a fantasy, of course. And surely, nothing was all that great about it. Anything could go wrong in any number of ways, his own interventions just one category. 

Maybe it was the headache, or the dragging on shift, or the terrible lights, or the distant humming of his coworker, but Goro must’ve been caught off guard today. Because otherwise, why else would he have thought, not long and not convincingly, but still a thought as present as can be, that maybe, despite everything. 

It could be nice. Just for a little bit. Maybe that didn’t sound quite so bad. 

Not so bad at all. 

[tsarisfanfiction]

Melt VI

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Angst Characters: Kayo Kyrano, Virgil Tracy, John Tracy, Brains, Grandma Tracy, Scott Tracy

Part 6 of my entry for @gumnut-logic‘s SensorySunday: Smell. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

I give up.  This fic wants to do its own thing and I am simply the helpless scribe.

A soft hand on her arm alerted Kayo to the fact she was trembling.  Not from cold or fear, but anger.  She knew Brains, trusted his genius; their Pods were all well-tested and reliable. John said something was afoot, and she fully agreed.

If Grandma hadn’t put her foot down and firmly request she stay and keep her company, she would have been on the mountain by now.  John hadn’t been able to find any sign that anyone else had been there, but there was only so much a space station could do, even if that space station was Thunderbird Five.  Some detailed scans of the area using her own hand-held scanner, and they’d find something.  What that something would be, Kayo didn’t yet know, but it would be something and they’d have a trail.

Someone had tried to kill her brothers.  Of that, Kayo had no doubt at all.  The question was who, and how?

She rested her hand over Grandma’s, and waited.  They hadn’t been able to see Scott before he’d been taken in for surgery, despite John’s guidance through the corridors, but Grandma insisted that she wait for him to come back out before ‘haring off’ on her investigations.  Despite her fury that anyone would dare attempt anything like this, the little sister in her wanted to see him for herself, and she’d agreed.

From what she’d gathered from John, Virgil was in no hurry to rendezvous with her, anyway, and Thunderbird Shadow was both faster and closer.  She had plenty of time to sit with the elderly woman who had lost so much but refused to give up yet, and wait.

Hospitals were unpleasant places, full of the sick and dying.  It tore at her every time one of her brothers ended up in one – this was not the first time, and nor would it be the last.  The sterile stench of antiseptics couldn’t quite disguise the prevailing illness of the place.  It was almost certainly her imagination, but she could even pick up the congealing scent of burnt flesh, taunting her with the knowledge of what had happened to her brother.

Kayo wasn’t naïve. With her estranged half-uncle and many years investigating the underbelly of the world, she had seen many things that a woman of her age could barely imagine.  She’d seen men and women with horrific scarring, with stories of fire to go along with them.  If it was so bad that Scott needed surgery – and he did, was in there right now – all the money in the world wouldn’t stop this incident from adding another collection of scars to his skin.

A nurse approached them, informing them that Scott was out of surgery, and despite her clear intention of keeping them away from him for a while longer, there was no arguing with Doctor Sally Tracy.  Kayo slipped into the room on the heels of the diminutive yet formidable lady.  It was a private room; the boys might dislike using their money for privileges but this was something instilled in them by her father long ago.  It was easier to maintain security that way.

Scott was still asleep, too soon out of surgery to have shaken off the anaesthetic, but that made it easier.  If he was awake he’d be arguing, refusing to let her go back to the mountain and throwing an absolute fit over Virgil also going back.  In an induced sleep, there were no nightmares plaguing him, and the ever-present frown that seemed to be settling as his permanent expression these days was gone.

She ran her fingers through his hair, gel stubbornly clinging in there but losing its battle to keep his preferred hairstyle intact after the day it’d had.  If not for the bandages on both his fingers, she might have held his hand, but that wasn’t possible and besides, she had places to be. This visit was a quick one of simple reassurance for her; he was alive.  A more sentimental, emotional, visit could wait until she’d got to the bottom of what had happened.

“I’ll be back,” she promised.  She met Grandma’s eyes, got a nod, and left.

“Virgil’s fifteen minutes out,” John told her the moment she left the hospital, appearing above her wrist uninvited.  He didn’t ask redundant questions – how is he, how did the surgery go?  Like her, John had one priority – find out what happened, and make sure it wouldn’t happen again.  He probably already knew the answers to those questions, anyway. Kayo had long since accepted that the combination of Thunderbird Five and John Tracy was enough to terrorise anyone who knew the full extent of their reach, and that was before EOS entered the equation.

She didn’t know how much John saw, but she trusted that he saw enough, and that he ensured she knew everything she needed to.

Closer and faster, she got to the mountain first.

“Don’t land or leave Thunderbird Shadow until Virgil arrives,” John told her firmly.  Even if she didn’t know the Tracy’s personal history with avalanches, Kayo would have been wary.  As it was, she appreciated that their already fierce protectiveness was ramped up to the extreme in this environment and additional situation. She could handle this herself, but out of respect to a family that had never fully healed, she didn’t.

Instead, she had Thunderbird Shadow lazily circle the peak, keeping far enough away that her engines wouldn’t trigger another avalanche, and set the scanners going.  Immediately a signal jumped out at her, Thunderbird Shadow locating her buried sister.  That was where Scott and Gordon had been found; presumably, that was also where they and the HeliPod remains had landed.

She spiralled down lower, until she could see disturbed snow with her naked eye.  Tell-tale signs of something heavy on otherwise loose snow told her where Virgil had landed to retrieve them, with the hole he had melted leading down towards Thunderbird One’s signal.

Her brothers had been buried there.  She tightened her grip on the yoke.

“Thunderbird Shadow, I’m on final approach now,” Virgil said, his hologram appearing above her console. He looked tense, and she remembered John mentioning the family bear being unhappy with the return mission. That didn’t seem to have been an overstatement – in fact, from the look on his face it was almost certainly an understatement.

“F.A.B., Thunderbird Two,” she responded, turning her ship around to see the green craft appearing on the horizon.

“What’s our plan?” he asked her.  His voice was clipped; no, Virgil was not happy.

“I’ve already done a fly-by of the mountain.  No signs of anyone except our climbers,” she reported, scowling at the peak.  There had to be something.  There was no way Brains’ well-used invention would have exploded like that otherwise.  “I’ll keep looking, unless you need a hand with Thunderbird One?”

“Keep looking; I’ve got MAX with me for extra hands,” Virgil grunted.  “Brains also wants him to retrieve or at least scan the remains of the HeliPod once we’ve got Thunderbird One secure.”  Kayo rather suspected that Brains’ priority was less the Thunderbird and more the HeliPod, but said nothing.  There was a time and a place to poke an angry bear with a stick.  This was neither.  As long as they got all the information they needed, the order in which they gathered it probably wouldn’t matter.

“F.A.B., Virgil,” she said instead.  “I’ll leave Thunderbird Shadow hovering and-”

“No,” he interrupted. “Stay in that cockpit.”  The glare she got through the hologram told her that if she even tried to leave Thunderbird Shadow, she’d find herself plucked out of the air by a grappling cable.

She’d forgotten just how touchy Virgil could be when Scott was hospitalised.  Their brother’s hospitalisation, combined with their current location, had him entirely on edge.  If it was Scott, she’d have argued.  John could be dealt with via a ‘communications blackout’, while Gordon and Alan were straight-up ignorable as long as it wasn’t their speciality environments.

When Virgil was in this mood, it was best to just obey him no matter how much her instincts screamed that she’d get better information if she went EVA.

If push came to shove, she could always come back again later.

As it turned out, push did not come to shove.

Her circling remained fruitless all the while Virgil and MAX worked together to extract a battered Thunderbird One from the snow – it was a good thing Scott wasn’t there to see the damage the avalanche had inflicted on his precious ‘bird.  The side facing the downslope was near enough intact, but from the sky it was painfully obvious that the perfectly cylindrical shape of the main fuselage was no longer perfectly cylindrical.  The right wing was crooked and clearly wouldn’t be retracting into its sheath any time soon, and the side of the hull looked like it had been punched repeatedly by a giant.

There was a painful symmetry in how both the right side of Scott’s body and the right side of his bird were injured.  Kayo immediately decided not to dwell on that and watched from a hovering position higher up the mountain as the silver Thunderbird was hauled clear of the snow by her big green sister.

“MAX is scanning now,” Virgil told her after a moment.  “Is something wrong?  You’ve been hovering in the same place for a few minutes.”

“No, nothing’s wrong,” she assured him.  “Just-” An unwelcome thought struck her.  “Virgil, where were the climbers trapped?”

“You’re hovering right there,” he told her, and the unwelcome thought spread wings.

She was hovering here because it gave her a good view of the mountainside and the crash site.

Neither she nor John had found any evidence of anyone else anywhere near the mountain.

“Virgil, where did you drop off the climbers?”

“The hospital,” he shrugged. “Didn’t have a chance to check them over myself, and we were going there any- Kayo?”

Dammit.

She gunned the full throttle.

“Kayo?”  John had joined in again, and she caught a glimpse of Alan behind him.  When had John gone home?  “What’s going on?”

“Brains, once MAX is done scanning the HeliPod, have him scan the mountain immediately below where the climbers were rescued,” she ordered.

“W-What?  W-Why?”

“Think about it!  We’re not showing up evidence of anyone else, and the climbers could see everything in the valley from where they were,” she pointed out agitatedly.  “We were so busy looking for something else-”

“We forgot about the climbers,” Virgil finished, his face a dawning horror.

“Put me through to Grandma,” she told John.

“Already done,” he said, as the older woman appeared over her console.

“Dear, what’s going on?”

“Don’t leave Scott’s side, and don’t let anyone you don’t recognise in,” she said quickly, pushing her ‘bird to go faster.  Someone had tried to kill Scott and Gordon, and if she was right that same someone was in the hospital with a now unconscious Scott, whose only protection was his grandmother.  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“You think they’ll try to finish the job?” Alan asked her, his voice small.  She’d forgotten he was with John.

“I’m not taking chances,” she replied grimly.  No point sugar-coating things at this point.  “John, my ETA’s two minutes; what’s EOS got from the security cameras?”

“Nothing yet,” he said, equally grim.  “But we’ll keep looking.”

“Let me know what you get,” she replied.  “Brains, what’s MAX found?”

“MAX is still w-working on the scans of t-the HeliPod,” he said somewhat apologetically.

“I’ve got Thunderbird Two scanning,” Virgil interjected.  If she’d thought he was angry earlier, now he was downright thunderous, not that she could blame him.  “You’re right, Kayo.  There’s something here that doesn’t look like it should be.”

He didn’t share the scan results with her, but John and Brains simultaneously let out noises that could almost be hisses.

“That’d do it, alright,” John muttered darkly.  “This whole mission was a trap.”

The hospital loomed in front of Kayo and she grit her teeth.

You should never have left Scott and Grandma alone in an unsecure hospital.  That was a rookie mistake, Tanusha Kyrano.

She just hoped it wasn’t a mistake that would cost a life.

Part 7

[shediesattheendzoots]

Hoppy Holidays

Finnick finds himself spending the holidays alone until Judy comes to him looking for a small favor with gift ideas. It's the season of giving, after all. And no one should spend the holidays alone.

Just a short little one shot with Finnick from Zootopia! Enjoy and happy holidays!

“Heeey, you've reached the phone of Nick Wilde. I'm busy catching bad guys right now. So, if you could leave a message at the beep, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

Finnick hung up before the said beep occurred, sighing as he leaned back into his chair.

Sulking in a downtown coffee shop with an edgy name like The Split Beans was normally reserved for mammals suffering from a bad breakup and looking for something to fight the hangover of the previous night. For Finn, it was a distraction while he figured out what he wanted to do for the day. Plus, he always preferred the way the shop roasted their beans, even if his drink was cold.

What to do today...What to do?

Talking to himself was another trait he had picked up recently. Though the listlessness that came with it had been for several months with not much signs of improving. That was the problem when your partner changed careers and you had left all the scheming up to him in the hustles. But Finn had more than enough time to get his priorities in order with work around the city.

Especially given it was the holidays.

Shopping season was in full swing in Zootopia and the flurries extended beyond Tundratown, with a light dusting of snow on the sidewalk as various mammals shuffled to the stores with actual heating. Most patrons were too busy with their own affairs to pay the fennec fox glowering in the window much mind.

Save for the bunny with two armfuls of Zootopia memorabilia.

Speaking of busy…

Judy Hopps was one of those mammals you were either glad to see or hated with a passion.

“Looks like you’re beating the holiday rush,” she said, approaching Finn’s stool at the window.

“And looks like you aren’t,” he nodded to the bags. “What’s with the presents, bunny cop? Or do I not want to ask?”

“I must look like a tourist, huh?” Judy set down the bags and dug around in them. “I can’t help it though! It’s my first December in Zootopia and I wanted to make sure I got everyone back at home a little something from the city for the holidays. I mean, come on. Look at this!”

She pulled out one of those singing animatronics that one could find in a five dollar store. Cheap, loud, and annoying. The toy was of a rabbit, plastic coating with white fur and an ugly knit sweater with the words “I Heart Zootopia” on it.

“You know,” said Finnick. “We had a name for people like you when we ran jobs. Easy money.”

“Well, I’m happy it turned out the way it did. I wouldn’t have met Nick otherwise. Or you, for that matter.”

Finnick slipped his phone into his pocket before turning his attention to what remained of his drink and chugging it down. Judy took it as a cue to continue, sitting down at the stool next to him.

Come to think of it, this is the most she has ever directly spoken to me.

“I’m not going to be there this year,” she said. “At the burrows, I mean. So, I need to get my shopping done here and now while I have the day off. Lots to do. Three hundred siblings to buy for. Plus my parents.”

“You’re seriously going to buy over three hundred individual items for your family?”

“We do it every year. And we have a system. I can remember what everyone likes, from Adam to Zandor, easy. And no one expects anything huge for a present in a family that big. It’s the thought that counts the most, remembering even the littlest details about each other. To rabbits, that’s a sign of love and appreciation. Even if it means spending a fair bit of money at the end of the year, the gesture of thought is meaningful.”

“You’re insane. Especially if you just started shopping.”

“I have it all worked out,” Judy continued as if not hearing him. “Today’s my only day off the whole month. So, if I hit up the south side of the Meadowlands and skim through Central Savannah, I should be done in time by lunch. Then I have all afternoon to scout Tundratown and the Rainforest. Ending it all with beating the traffic and having a nice dinner with Nick.”

“Busy bunny,” Finnick raised an eye. “Sounds like you have every detail worked out to the exact minute.”

“Uh huh. Back in the burrows, you had to be efficient if you wanted to be done on time. Every minute counts.”

“And yet you’re wasting your morning talking to an old fox in the pits of downtown.”

Judy hesitated like she hadn’t expected Finnick to call her out on that detail. Her eyes trailed to the side.

“The problem is...Well, I guess it’s not really a problem. But, it’s Nick. He’s, well, I consider him a part of my family now. And everything that goes with that.”

Finnick chuckled. “So, you’re looking for present ideas for him.”

“...Present ideas for his family, actually.”

Finn’s big ears lowered instantly. “Ah.”

For a moment, the conversation between the two mammals was overplayed by the banter around the coffee shop. People still going about their early morning day. Running the rat race so they could go home to their families.

“It’s a touchy subject,” Judy broke the silence. “I get that. It’s why I don’t want to ask him about it straight up and upset him with the idea. So...I’m coming to you. Asking for help. I don’t need to know details or anything. Just...Is there anything I can get his family? As a small token?”

Finn pretended to drink from his cup before answering. Though he had long run out of coffee.

“You know, rabbit. You only ever seem to find me when you’re looking for favors.”

“I’m sorry...I just don’t know who else I can go to about this. And I know I still owe you for helping me find him back with the Nighthowlers.”

“You’re dang right you do.”

“I just know nothing about them. I mean, he told me about his mom once. But does he have siblings? Is his dad around? He never mentions them and usually changes the subject when I try to ask. I want to respect his privacy, but it’d be nice to know where they are so I can send them a little something through the mail, at least. No one should spend the holidays alone.”

“It’s a nice sentiment, kid. But either way, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“What do you mean? You’re his best friend.”

Finnick huffed. “Sorry, bun. Even after all the years we spent together, Nick never really mentioned them. And I was never one to pry. Wasn’t exactly an uncommon situation in the city. I’m not sure he even still has a family.”

Judy winced at that statement. “Right...I’m sorry for asking.”

Finnick swirled the droplets that remained of his coffee around in his cup for a moment.

“I get you want to help people. I really do. But going behind his back over this probably isn’t the way to do it. You two are close. I’m sure he’ll tell you when he’s ready.”

She drew attention to the one detail from Finn’s sentence he didn’t care to discuss.

“You two weren’t close?”

“You would know. Nick has always had trouble letting folks in. Sure, we were friends. But we were business partners first. Have been ever since we first met. I was about your age when I stumbled upon the poor kid sitting on a street corner, selling hubcaps to passersby. He thought I was some baby todd lost from my parents. Can you imagine the nerve of him? Set him straight is what I did.”

“And that somehow led into you become business partners?”

“After that, he wouldn’t well leave me alone. You can imagine him following after me, running his little mouth like he always does. Mentioned he had a thousand and one ideas for someone like me with business plans all around the city. I could hardly believe a kid that young had even an inkling of what it’d take to be a hustler. Showed what I knew. One thing led to another and I eventually ended up getting hustled myself into going along with his schemes.”

“That sounds familiar…”

“I stuck with him after I saw the first few hustles go without a hitch. He was sharp, but he was still a kid and a bit reckless. I held him back from some of the more dangerous exploits or ideas he had. Wasn’t always successful, with the stuff like Mr. Big. But I kept my eye on him until he was smart enough to handle himself.”

Those were the days in the city where a couple of bucks could buy a meal for the day. Things seemed easier then. The city was younger.

Something about looking at the rabbit, her wide-eyed and hopeful expression, reminded Finnick of those times.

“I only asked him once about his family,” continued the small fox. “Once. During our annual drink together a few years back.”

“Annual drink?”

“A bit of a tradition. It was Nick’s idea. A celebration as business partners at the end of the year. The finest scotch on the market. Firepaw malt, the kind the bears make in Pawland.”

Judy’s nose twitched. “That stuff’s illegal!”

“You have one case of self-immolation and suddenly you get a bunch of stupid laws forbidding the stuff. Nick always knew where to find a bottle anyway, despite the regulations against it. He knows everybody, after all. We’d hole up in one of the skanky places in the downtown. Everyone’s your friend if you share the goods, after all. No one got hurt or nothing. Just a bunch of loud drunks, welcoming in the new year.”

Finnick could almost see the whiskey, golden in hue, at the bottom of his coffee cup. The laughter and good company all around him. Loud hooting and hollering with people talking about what they planned to do the next year. Their hopes and dreams typically masked by cynicism, now uninhibited from the alcohol.

“It was just a little question that slipped out,” he continued. “But Nick got all serious about it. Kind of killed the mood of the party. Put some distance between us for awhile too. Never bothered to bring it up again when it was business as usual between us.”

He gave a hard look to Judy.

“The moral of the story is to tread carefully when it comes to personal history, bunny. Your fox has more than a few things he’s uncomfortable sharing with folks.”

“I understand. And I wasn’t going to force it. I just wanted to see if you knew anything. Thank you for telling me, Finnick.”

Finn grunted. “I suppose there are worse things to do than sit around and reminisce all morning. It’s not like I have someplace to be.”

Judy’s ears drooped. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Am I interrupting you? Do you not have a...Well...You know what I mean?”

It was nice to see the bunny ball of optimism a little bit flustered with the idea of poverty. It made her more approachable and less like the poster girl of the city. More tangible.

“Relax, bun. I just got nothing going on today. No rent to pay if you live in your van, so our old hustle money has always lasted me a while. Plenty of odd jobs to do too this time of year anyway. Someone always needs a baby for some nativity play or something around the city if I was really desperate.”

Judy looked as if she wanted to say something. She hesitated and played with her paws, looking listlessly out the window for a moment.

Her ears perked as if something had clicked in her head and she faced Finn with a smile.

“You should come to dinner with us tonight.”

Finnick blinked in slow motion. “Pardon?”

“Dinner? With us? Tonight at six at The Green Horn?”

“And be the third wheel to your date?”

“It’s just dinner,” Judy shrugged. “And I’m sure Nick would appreciate seeing you again. It’d be my treat.”

Had it been Nick who offered the invitation, Finnick would have suspected something fishy at play. Though the sparkly clean bunny cop of Zootopia was also known to hustle with the best of them, as Nick would know well.

“What’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch. It was just nice to catch up with you. And no one should spend the holidays alone.”

Finnick huffed at that thought. “I think I’ll pass, rabbit.”

Easier said than done with her pleading, wide-eyed expression.

“Come on. Please?”

One look at Judy was enough for Finnick to briefly forget that the bunny had been the first one he had ever seen get the best of Nick with her hustling. There was a reason why rabbits were against being called cute. It dismissed them as being too simple and innocent to ever be anything else. But sometimes there was an advantage to being unassuming.

Finnick let out a guttural sigh, wishing he had more coffee. He really was an old fool if he was going to fall for the batting eyes of a clever bunny. Though there was something familiar in her gaze.

“...Fine. So long as you’re paying.”

Finn tried to ignore the cheer of success of the rabbit sitting across from him as Judy spun around in her stool.

What have I gotten myself into?

~

With nothing better to do all day, Finnick found himself waiting a few hours ahead of the scheduled appointment in the Green Horn.

It was a sports bar on the other side of the Tropic District, as far removed from the light snow of the downtown as possible. Big retractable walls protected some of the more sensitive areas of the city from inclimate weather, complete with giant heaters that made winter feel like a distant fantasy. That still didn’t keep the roaring fire in the corner of the room from going full blast.

Five o’clock brought in the end of the early bird hours and the coming of the mammals looking for after-work relaxation and entertainment.

Finnick found himself sitting at the bar before the titular Green Horn, a massive sculpture dangling from the ceiling and made of jade. It was bigger than any elephant and probably thrice as heavy. The rhino bartender had thought it clever to decorate the horn in festive, multi-colored lights for the season. Finn kept himself busy with an order of the cheapest drink he could find on the menu. A malt whiskey not even a year old. But it was enough to steady his nerves while he waited.

Despite what he had told Judy that morning, he had plenty of other reasons for Nick not to be glad to see him.

Nick had gone on the straight narrow, something Finnick swore he’d never see. Not that he wasn’t happy for him. Or proud. But most cops tended not to associate themselves with hustlers, even if they were former con-mammals of the streets. That was a big part of the reason why Finnick had been hesitant to get back to any sort of work. Wait until next year, he’d tell himself. It was always next year.

Not that he thought Nick would ever arrest him nor had they ever done anything illegal enough to merit such a conviction. Borrowed a rug or two once. Conveniently forgotten a few cents on payments. Misplaced a letter to the IRS, on the occasion. Minor stuff. But, they were still crimes. And such things were not something an up-and-coming cop of the police force would ever want to be burdened with.

More than once, Finnick considered leaving in the hours leading up until six. And he had been spending the time playing musical chairs with the stool as he decided if he wanted to leave or not.

But he had delayed too long and Nick was always irritatingly early to everything he did.

He had walked into the bar at around 5:50 PM, just as Finn rose to leave.

“Oh.”

There was the awkward moment of realization as the two foxes stared at each other in the doorway before shifting their gazes. Finnick suddenly realized how rough and ragged his fur must have looked over a couple of months.

Nick was the first to speak.

“I was wondering why she insisted me getting here on time…”

Finn huffed. “I suppose saying ‘surprise’ would be a bit obvious at this point.”

Nick let out a nervous laugh, like used to do whenever he stumbled during one of their old hustled. It only added to the awkwardness of the moment when he didn’t follow up on it with something clever to say.

Finnick decided to speak up instead.

“You look good, Nick. Keeping fit.”

That much was true. Despite the unbuttoned collar uniform of his police shirt and unkempt wool jacket, Nick had a leaner look to him. Like he had been hitting the gym in a rare moment of health consciousness. Or perhaps chasing criminals all day was doing the hard work for him.

“Thanks,” Nick replied. “You look...Um...More virile?”

Finnick would be the first to admit that his fur was in dire need of a trim. And a shower could probably go a long way in helping too. Still, compliments from Nick generally were thinly veiled insults. And Finn would have to be deaf not to hear the concern in Nick’s tone.

“I suppose I’ve seen better days. Hard to complain when your van doesn’t have running water. And the winter coat has always been messy. But glad to see your rabbit’s been good for you.”

“My rabbit, huh? Do I detect a jealous tone?”

“She’s not my type. Wouldn’t figure she’d be yours either.”

“Who’s to say she is?”

“Please. You’ve both got the stink of it about you. And your own fashion sense is way too poor to ever even think about including a police uniform as a part of your regular wardrobe.”

Slight jabs at each other always helped lighten the mood.

“I am happy for you, man,” Finnick said as the two sat at the bar. “Dunno if I ever got the chance to say that before you ran off to do your police training.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. That was...Six months ago? It’s been pretty nonstop since.”

“Busy then, huh?”

“Yeah, Judy has me on my toes. Everyday is some new big adventure with her. Not that I mind.”

A buzz from Nick’s pocket stopped the two before either could order a drink. They didn’t even have to glance at the caller ID to know who it was.

“Speak of the devil…”

Finnick rolled his eyes and kept to himself, though he couldn’t help but listen in to the brief conversation as he attempted to wave down the bartender who had gone missing.

“Yo, Carrots.”

“Yeah, I’m here. So’s Finn. Where are you?”

“How did you get stuck in traffic all the way on the other side of the city?”

Finnick’s ear twitched at that question.

“What are we supposed to do for an hour?”

“Alright, alright. Just don’t get stomped on. You hear? Mammals are mad this time of year.”

“See you soon.”

Nick let out a heavy sigh and sunk into his stool.

“Never a dull moment,” he muttered. “I did try to warn her about rush hour in the city. But she was insistent she could handle it herself.”

“That rabbit is more clever than you give her credit for.”

“Well, hope you don’t mind waiting on dinner,” continued Nick. “Though, I suppose it will give us more time to...Catch up.”

Finnick sensed the hesitation in Nick’s voice. It was rare form to see him worried about something, at least back in the days of hustling. He never used to let anyone see that they got to him unless there was something physically endangering at stake.

“She’s going to be fine, Nick.”

“Oh. I’m sure she will be. She’s a tough bunny and will just be fine. I was just...Hoping she’d be here when we…”

He went quiet for a moment before dropping his typical fake, jovial tone entirely.

“...I haven’t been avoiding you, you know. Just really busy dealing with these changes. It’s all new for me, these experiences with her. I didn’t mean to forget you.”

Finnick realized the heaviness of the conversation’s direction in an instant.

“I know, man,” said Finn. “We got our own lives to live. We were going to go our separate ways eventually with the business we were in.”

“Still. That’s no excuse for not inviting you to my graduation.”

Finnick had only heard Nick’s success in the academy through a second-paw source. The local newspaper made it a big deal, especially after his involvement in the Nighthowler case. It wasn’t everyday that a fox made headlines for doing something good, for a change. Finnick could recall seeing Nick’s dopey grin from his picture on the print. A stark contrast to the expression he was wearing sitting at the bar.

“After the ceremony...I just didn’t know how I could approach you without sounding too overconfident. Or egotistical.”

“And we both know you’ve never had an ego your entire life.”

“I didn’t want to upset you by mentioning it,” Nick concluded, ignoring the attempt at a joke. “And I am sorry. It has been way too long. And this year has had me...Appreciate friends a lot more. I don’t want you to think I’m leaving you behind, you know? And I’d like to start including you on this stuff again. As friends.”

Never in his life did Finnick think he would hear those words from Nick’s mouth. It was enough to make him huff a laugh.

“What’s that look for?” asked the red fox.

“Nothing. I just think we could both use a drink.”

As if on cue, the rhino bartender finally reappeared from the back. He had in his paw a fine glass bottle of something more refined than whiskey. And certainly more expensive than Finn could ever afford.

“Compliments to the two fox gentle-mammals at the bar.”

Something else I’d never thought I’d hear, especially for a pair of foxes. Finnick eyed the bottle with curiosity as Nick accepted it and two glasses from the rhino.

“From who?” he asked.

“Can’t say,” replied the tender before he shrugged them off to go back to his business.

The two of them stared at the bottle for a moment before Nick had the idea to peel the cork off with his claws. Finn’s nose picked up the scent of fermented grapes following the satisfying pop of the stopper. High-class wine. Something from the burrows to the south, if Finnick recognized the bunny logo.

“Well,” he said, raising his glass to Nick. “It’s no Firepaw malt.”

“Just something a little different,” replied Nick, pouring his friend’s glass and then his own. “To the new year?”

“To not spending the holidays alone.”