#i stole parad: seito therapy bugster from fides because it makes me super happy

[dangerouscommiesubversive]

Emu centric Emu/Parad/Hiiro/Kiriya (and anyone else you could possibly imagine) 20? Just give the boy some love?

Anon, what the hell, this is adorable, shit. 20 is my choice, but given that you’ve asked for a series of kisses I don’t know that I’ll list them all. Also, you’re correct, Emu needs kisses. Boy’s got the trauma.

None of them are birthday people, and holidays are too easy to forget after the long nights and longer days they've all spent working towards a cure. They've got so few reasons to celebrate, and so many to keep working, that when something finally does come up, Poppy goes a little overboard. So there are balloons in the CR meeting room, and confetti, and a cake that says, "Vaccine trials succeed!" with a little hypo drawn on it in icing. In concession to the fact that they're all adults, though, there's also beer, and the toasting starts relatively early.

Kiriya starts it. Of course he does. He sounds serious, but it's somewhat undercut by the frosting on his nose. "I propose a toast. To Kagami Hiiro, our best surgeon--the best surgeon, 'scuse me--for doing way more of the operations than the rest of us so we could keep the research going."

They toast. Hiiro doesn't blush, quite, but he looks like he's thinking about blushing, which is as close as he normally gets anyway. Not to be outdone, once the drinks have been set down he raises his own and says, "And to the co--to Kujou Kiriya, for working far longer hours in the pathology lab than anyone else was capable of."

Glasses clink.

"To be fair, I don't need to sleep."

"Well, we do." Taiga stares into his beer, looking exhausted. "We appreciate it. To...to Nico and Poppy, for having better bedside manner than Kagami ever has."

Hiiro makes an offended noise, but Emu grins. "And Parad, official Seito therapy Bugster!"

Parad looks up in surprise from where he's perched on the back of the couch with a slice of cake. "We're saying nice things about me?"

Nico sticks her tongue out at him, although fondly. "We're saying nice things about your Rubix cube stuff. We should also toast Taiga for putting up with all those blood draws."

The toasting continues for several minutes, until it's Poppy who finally says, cheerfully, "You know who I think deserves congratulations?"

Everyone turns to look at her, Nico's forehead wrinkling as she says, "Who?"

"To Emu. For putting up with the software engineers so that none of you had to." She leans over and plants a rather motherly kiss square in the center of Emu's forehead.

Kiriya blinks. "Oh, we're kissing now? That's what's happening?"

"Well, I don't have a drink, I can't really toast him."

"No, I can work with that, not like I don't kiss him all the time anyway." Kiriya grins, grabs the collar of Emu's coat, and kisses him solidly on the mouth. "To you, babe, for saving us all from programmers."

Nico gets up on her chair and leans across the table before Kiriya's even let go. "This is a one-time thing, ok?" She kisses Emu on the nose. "We will never speak of this again."

Emu blinks up at her, looking slightly dazed. "Ok...? I'm feeling. I'm feeling loved."

"I feel like I should object to this obvious character assassination on behalf of programmers everywhere."

Everyone jumps--mostly backwards, except for Kiriya, who hops to his feet instead and swats at Dan Kuroto with a magazine as if he's a housefly. "Get off the goddamn table, what the hell."

"Would you rather I came out of a pipe again?" Kuroto rolls his eyes. "What I was saying was, I should obviously be objecting to your malicious mischaracterization of programmers everywhere, but I've managed too many dev teams to say that you're wrong." He kisses Emu on the top of the head, like a benediction, and then disappears back behind his curtain.

"Ok, what, what the hell was, that stung!" Emu turns towards the curtain, eyes wide with surprise, and directly into Parad's grinning face. Parad kisses him nearly as solidly as Kiriya and then fizzes back over to the couch. "All right, everyone's kissing me now, I guess that's just my life." He doesn't look unhappy about it.

"I'm certainly not kissing you."

Nico elbows Taiga in the ribs. "No, if I did it you have to." And then, at Taiga's dry peck on Emu's cheek, "Oh, come on, that was a grandma kiss."

Taiga makes a face at her. "I'm not doing it again."

“I’m not asking you to, I’m just saying you could’ve made an effort.”

Emu takes a sip of his beer, pink-faced. “I mean nobody has to kiss me. Not that I’m saying don’t but it’s not. Like. Required.”

“Little late for that, babe, I think the only person here who hasn’t kissed you is Hiiro. Which, come on, doc, you gonna or do I have to do it again? Because I’ll kiss him again, obviously, but you haven’t gotten a turn.”

“Kiriya, don’t bug him about it--”

Hiiro kisses him, lengthily and with focus. Nico and Kiriya both whistle, and then bump fists across the tabletop. Parad lets out a delighted whoop, and Poppy an, “Oh!” Taiga just stares at them, and then at his beer, as if he’s worried that it might have been drugged.

After a moment, Hiiro sits back, brushes himself off primly, and says, “Pass me another slice of cake, please.”

Emu just sits there, stunned. Kiriya says, “Damn, that was a lot.”

“If I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it well.”