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iffeelscouldkill · 3 years

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say what we wanna do, make it all come true (chapter 1)

A/N: It is! My fic for the Fiction Podcast Big Bang @podcastbigbang! I am a bit terrified to be posting this after working on it for so long! Also this is in the running for the Longest TSCOSI Fic I’ve Written So Far (not sure if it’s the longest because I don’t remember where my wordcount is up to for Adjusting, but like... it’s long, guys). This is Chapter 1 of 3, and the remaining chapters will be posted weekly!

You can read this on AO3 where the formatting is honestly much better, but here it is on Tumblr anyway. Also, please check out the FANTASTIC artwork made for this fic by the wonderful @bluereadingdolphin and @demonic-kitkats, who are my artists for this fic and their artwork is so good, you guys, I’m in love and they did such a phenomenal job with the honestly pretty vague info they got from me 😂

bluereadingdolphin’s piece

demonic-kitkat’s piece (from Chapter 2!)

Please give them all the love!

Content warnings: There is a relatively brief physical altercation described in this chapter, but it isn’t graphic or bloody.

Also, I play a little fast and loose with POV in this; the first section is told from Sana’s perspective, the rest from Arkady’s.

---

“Hello and welcome back to Radio Indie, Folk and Techno, also known as RIFT, where we play all the bands that matter outside of the mainstream! I’m Piper Tanaka, and I’m your co-host for this programme! I’m joined as usual by the lovely Kestrel Colvin, with Reina Sakamachi in the booth! Now – where were we?”

“You were introducing our guests for this next section,” Kestrel replied in a slightly despairing tone.

“Right! Indie fans, I am joined today by two members of the fabulous up-and-coming indie band Rumor! With me in the studio are frontwoman and lead guitarist Sana Tripathi—”

“Hey! It’s a pleasure to be here.”

“—and bad girl bassist Arkady Patel.”

“Bad girl?” Arkady repeated, sounding halfway between taken aback and annoyed. Kestrel just shook her head.

“Ignore her. She’s got a thing for a certain… aesthetic.”

Next to Arkady, Sana was doing an incredibly poor job of hiding her laughter. “It’s the combat boots,” she whispered to Arkady.

“These are practical,” Arkady told her in a tone that suggested they’d had this conversation a few times. Sana said nothing, but straightened back up with a smirk.

“Sana — or should I call you ‘Captain’?” Piper began playfully. Sana grimaced.

“In hindsight, it was a poor choice to share that nickname in an interview.”

“You know, I think it suits you,” said Piper. “There’s something commanding about your aura. Sana, you and the band — which I understand you and Arkady originally started as a duo a few years ago—”

“That’s right,” Sana confirmed.

“You’ve always had a dedicated and loyal following, even from your early days — and we’re proud to have been playing your music here on this station for almost as long — but I think it’s fair to say the past few months have seen that rocket to a whole new level,” Piper said. “You got signed to a record label belonging to the mysterious but notoriously discerning Red Gregor, are working on your second album, and played a major gig at the CUI stadium just a few weeks ago. And we are definitely going to talk later about what went down at that gig, which is already the stuff of online legend — but first I want to backtrack a little, because I think the moment that everything started happening for you was when you added a new member to your band. In the middle of a gig, if the rumours are true. Can you tell us how that happened?”

Sana and Arkady exchanged a sidelong glance, and Arkady gave Sana a tiny nod. Sana took a deep breath, and began to tell the story.

---

“Jeeter, for the last time, put the keytar away,” Arkady said irritably as she and Sana entered the draughty, abandoned warehouse that the band was using as their current rehearsal space. The acoustics were pretty weird, probably due to all the broken windows, but it was otherwise hard to beat a free place to rehearse — especially a free place with no asshole neighbours who would yell at them to turn it down and threaten to call the cops.

Admittedly, it was in kind of a rough area, but Arkady had only needed to knock someone unconscious with her bass once.

In retaliation, Brian played another bright riff on his beloved instrument, accompanied by some jazzy keyboard chords from Krejjh. The two had been jamming together before Arkady and Sana arrived. “Dude, c’mon, can’t you hear how good this sounds?” Brian wheedled. “How many other indie bands do you know that have a keytar?”

“None. For good reason,” Arkady said, unzipping her case and slinging her bass around her neck. Sana, unpacking the sound equipment, smiled in fond amusement at their well-worn argument.

“It would give us such a great edge! Totally unique. And Krejjh and I have so many ideas that would sound great with both instruments—”

“Okay, Jeeter,” Arkady interrupted him, twiddling one of her tuning pegs. “You can play the keytar. Just as soon as you find us someone else who can play the drums.” She stooped to plug her bass into the portable amplifier that Sana had just unpacked. “Or are you planning to grow an extra pair of hands so you can play both at once?”

“Oooh! No, I should have an extra pair of hands!” Krejjh immediately (and predictably) enthused. “Then I’d sound four times as awesome! Four hands, all rockin’ out!”

“I think you mean ‘twice as awesome’,” Sana told them, as Brian reluctantly put away his keytar and picked up his neglected drumsticks.

“With me, twice the hands equals four times the awesome,” Krejjh replied with irrefutable logic. Brian laughed and held up a hand.

“Dude, high five.”

Sana waited for the two of them to finish their congratulatory high-five before she called the band to order. “Okay, guys — remember that we’re only a few days out from our gig at the IGR Corp function, so we need to have our crowd-pleasers up to standard.”

Arkady immediately wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, corporates. Why are we taking money from them again?”

“Because we need to pay for rent and food,” Sana said, bluntly. “And they’re giving us a lot for it. I know none of us love playing corporate gigs—”

“Understatement.”

“—but we are living a hand to mouth existence at this point, and if I can guarantee our survival as a band by relieving some corporates of their excess funds, then I’m going to do just that,” Sana continued. She waited a beat, and then added, “Also, we’re gonna let them get really drunk and then start playing our best anti-capitalist anthems, and see how long it takes for them to notice.”

Arkady broke into a shit-eating grin. “That’s more like it.” Krejjh cheered, and Brian did a little run-down on his drumkit, hitting each of the drums in turn.

“All right, let’s start with ‘Fear for the Storm’? One, two, three, four…” Sana started strumming the intro on her guitar, joined after a few beats by Krejjh’s melody on the keyboard.

“So long, can’t dodge the dawn, red light shines on and on and on and on and on…”

---

Arkady had been on edge ever since the band set foot in the agonisingly hipster office complex — excuse me, ‘headquarters’ — belonging to IGR Corp.

It wasn’t just the fact that these guys were extremely corporate corporates, or that the whole place radiated an almost aggressively minimalist aesthetic, or that the walls were covered in bullshit, chipper slogans that were all fancy ways of saying, ‘Work should be your existence – if isn’t, you’re dead to us’ — although those things sure as hell didn’t help, reminding her of the absolute worst parts of every soul-sucking corporate job she’d worked before Sana mercifully re-entered her life and suggested they form a band.

No, there was just this weird vibe, like everyone was super on edge and trying to hide it — the higher-ups were stone-faced, muttering into earpieces or barking orders at underlings, who scurried, terrified, to carry out their wishes. And everyone else, from the tech types in plain white T-shirts and jeans to the smartly-dressed sales reps in suits, looked like they were there on pain of death. Wasn’t this supposed to be a party?

The atmosphere didn’t go unnoticed by the other band members. “Kind of a weird feel to this place,” Jeeter remarked as he unpacked his drumkit on the raised platform at the front of the ‘rec center’ where they would be performing. Normally, setting up was a noisy, clumsy affair, with the band elbowing each other, tripping over wires, and getting in each other’s way in the tiny space they were afforded in bars and nightclubs. Here, the platform that would be their makeshift stage was huge and extremely visible — but everyone was completely ignoring them. There was also very little background noise for a room packed with people, and the band found themselves speaking in hushed murmurs, almost tiptoeing around. “You’d think there would be a bit more… chatter?”

“Maybe the alcohol just isn’t flowing yet,” Sana speculated, but she sounded uneasy as she looked out over the tense crowd. Even Krejjh, with their signature hot pink, heart-shaped sunglasses perched on top of their dyed-lavender hair, dressed in a clashing, flamboyant jumble of clothes and accessories, seemed subdued.

Arkady plugged in her bass with a burst of static, and deliberately played a loud riff. Brian startled and dropped his drumstick, but not a single member of the sea of blandly-dressed IGR Corp employees flinched.

Weird.

The sound equipment was all set up, sound check performed and instruments tuned by half past, but the set wasn’t due to start until o’clock. Normally, Arkady would be making a beeline for the bar, but she didn’t really feel like rubbing shoulders with any of these weird drones. She found herself reflexively checking the exits, mentally charting their fastest route out of there in case something really fucked up started going down. Sana half-jokingly called it paranoia; Arkady called it long, hard experience.

It was on one of her scans of the room that she noticed the woman with the septum piercing. Arkady chalked it up to professional interest — as a kid, she’d picked up some extra money working as an assistant in a tattoo and piercing shop, The Landing. She’d first met Sana there when the other woman came in on several occasions to have work done on an amazingly intricate floral sleeve tattoo — her own design. Later, Sana had led a campaign to save The Landing from being shut down over a bunch of bullshit health code violations so that the billionaire Cresswin family — who owned the property — could sell it off to a shitty corporation.

The campaign hadn’t worked, and there was now a high rise office block where Arkady’s home from home had once stood. But Arkady had never forgotten Sana.

Anyway, it was definitely the woman’s piercing and not anything else about her appearance that caught Arkady’s attention first. But then she noticed that there was something off about her body language and the way she was moving — something that Arkady recognised. She wasn’t scurrying about in a panic or affecting bored disinterest; her eyes were flickering around the room, carefully monitoring the comings and goings of the other employees while seeming not to do so. There were little devices studded around the room that Arkady had clocked as security cameras the moment they entered (it was the kind of thing she made a habit of noticing), and she saw the woman glancing up at them.

She was dressed like an employee – white blouse, dark rinse blue jeans – so why was she acting like she was casing the joint? Of course, Arkady reasoned, the outfit could easily have been chosen to blend in. It didn’t necessarily mean she worked there.

“Seen something interesting, ‘Kady?” Sana asked playfully. Arkady didn’t startle, but it was a near thing; she’d been so focused on watching this woman.

Unfortunately, Sana saw where she’d been looking. “You know, we’ve still got close to half an hour before we start our first set,” she said. “You can go and mingle.”

“I’m not here to socialise,” Arkady said witheringly. “Least of all with corporate drones.” She tore her eyes away from the woman to meet Sana’s amused look.

“I’m just saying, you seemed pretty absorbed there…” Sana said, and Arkady rolled her eyes, determined not to respond to her best friend’s teasing. She glanced back at the spot where the woman had been standing and found it empty.

A second later, Arkady had found her again, weaving through the crowd with her head ducked down. She was taking an odd route across the room that Arkady realised must have been calculated to avoid the security cameras. Occasionally she disappeared, behind people or objects (like a huge, obviously fake ficus plant), but it wasn’t hard for Arkady to spot her again. Clearly there was some kind of purpose to what she was doing, but the woman wasn’t a professional.

There was an elevator against the far wall, and as Arkady watched, the doors opened and a small group of people in suits – latecomers to the party – walked out of it. The woman mingled with them briefly, and then disappeared inside the elevator. The doors closed.

Well, that had been a way to kill five minutes, but now Arkady was stuck with nothing to do again. Krejjh and Jeeter had pulled out a pack of cards, and were playing one of their weird games on top of Krejjh’s keyboard. Arkady turned to Sana, about to make another comment about how much this place creeped her out, when she caught sight of the other person moving across the room.

Judging by the expensive suit, they were a higher-up, and were taking none of the precautions the woman had when making their way across the room, which suggested that they were confident about being allowed to do whatever it was they were doing. And to Arkady, it looked an awful lot like they were following the woman she’d seen. Based on the way the suit jacket fell, she’d also bet even money that they were armed.

Sure enough, the suit called the elevator, and disappeared into it a second later. Arkady swore under her breath.

It was none of her goddamn business whether a person she didn’t even know might be in danger, Arkady told herself. She was here to play music, not to get in the middle of whatever might be going down at this godawful corporation. Which again, was none of her business anyway.

Her resolve lasted all of ten seconds.

“I’m going to get a drink,” she told Sana, and placed her bass onto its stand.

“Oooh! Bring me a cocktail – no, a mocktail!” Krejjh said. Sana just looked at her quizzically.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Arkady nodded briefly. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and jumped down off the platform.

She wasn’t under any illusions that Sana wouldn’t notice where she was going, and just hoped that her best friend would trust her to be back in time for the set. She slipped through the crowd, following the same path that the woman had taken to avoid the watchful eyes of the security cameras.

This worked right up until she entered the elevator, where sure enough, a security camera was embedded into the top corner. How had this woman planned to avoid getting caught?

Arkady pulled out her smartphone, and began to quickly and expertly worm her way into the closed network that IGR Corp was using for its security systems. After just a few moments, she’d managed to identify the IP address that the lift camera was using, and wow, whoever had set up this system was either incredibly lazy or was trying to lay out a welcome mat for hackers. They hadn’t bothered to change the default access password.

Arkady wound back the last few minutes of recorded video, and watched as the woman with the septum piercing pressed the button for the top floor. Arkady did the same, and as the elevator moved upwards, she introduced a glitch that would cause the security camera to loop footage of an empty elevator instead of showing who was actually inside. Then she worked to edit out the archive footage of the woman riding up in the elevator, and of herself getting in.

If it turned out that there was nothing weird going on here after all, well, she’d had some fun exploiting the corporates’ shitty security system.

But Arkady was pretty sure there was something weird going on.

The elevator came to a silent stop, and Arkady silently thanked the deities she didn’t really believe in for the fact that this place was too hipster to have an elevator that made a noise when it arrived at the right floor. The doors slid open, and Arkady immediately spotted another security camera on exiting the elevator. God, these corporates were paranoid. But apparently not paranoid enough to pay their security person to do their job properly.

Annoyingly, the security cameras for this floor seemed to be on a separate network, and Arkady started another hack as she crept down the corridor, straining her ears for the sounds of a confrontation. Further down, she saw an office door swinging open, as if someone had gone through it in a hurry. Arkady approached it, being careful to stay out of sight of the doorway. Closer to, she could hear a voice coming from inside – the suit’s, if she had to guess.

“…sure CEO Golding-Frederick will be very interested to hear just what you’re doing in her office, Ms. Liu.”

“Seiders, I can explain,” the woman – Liu – replied, her voice high with tension. “Project ADVANCE – it’s not what we’ve been told. The company is using it to-”

“What the company may or may not be doing with Project ADVANCE is not your concern,” Seiders said smoothly, over her, “and is a long way above your pay grade. But I’d be very interested to learn where you got your information from.”

“Do you know what’s going on at this company?” Liu demanded, outraged. “And that’s – you have no problems with what they’re doing?”

The closed network for the top floor of the building was much less of a pushover than the elevator, and Arkady kept half of her attention on the conversation inside the room as she worked to find a flaw in the system. Finally, she made it in, and began trying different password combinations for the camera in the hallway.

“It’s not my job to ask questions, Ms. Liu,” Seiders had been saying. “Neither is it yours. And if you value your job – not to mention the safety and security of your loved ones – you’ll step away from that computer, and go back downstairs to the party.”

“Are you threatening me? Are you threatening my family?” Liu demanded. “No, I’m not going to stay silent about this. Someone has to take a stand against what this company is doing. And if anything happens to me, that’ll only raise more questions.”

“We’re very good at making those questions go away,” said Seiders, and Arkady heard Liu suck in a breath. She moved so that she could see inside the room and shit, that was a gun. Arkady rapidly began calculating her angle of attack. “Didn’t you ever wonder what happened to Connors from Engineering?”

“That’s not – you can’t just make a person disappear,” Liu said, desperately. “I – I have insurance! Documents that I’ve sent to a friend of mine. If I don’t check in with them in two hours, they’re going to send them to a journalist contact, and it’ll be all over the press in the morning.”

Arkady could hear the lie in her voice so clearly, and she knew Seiders could, too. “If you had enough evidence to be worth a damn, you wouldn’t have broken into this office,” they replied. “I’m going to ask you one last time. Step away from the-”

Arkady slammed into the room, deliberately making as much noise as she could to draw Seiders’ attention. She took two, three steps towards them and grabbed their gun hand, forcing it down and towards the floor. She managed to hook one arm around their throat, pulling back and applying pressure. Seiders choked, struggling and jerking against Arkady’s grip. With the hand that was holding their gun hand, Arkady twisted and pulled their fingers open, causing the weapon to drop to the floor.

“Liu, grab the gun!” Arkady ordered. She saw the other woman yank something out of the computer that looked like a flash drive, stowing it inside her blouse. She dove for the gun at the same time that Seiders managed to thrust an elbow back, driving it into Arkady’s midsection.

All the air left Arkady’s lungs and as she struggled to draw a breath in, Seiders took advantage of her loosened grip to twist free. They grappled with Liu for the gun, but Liu succeeded in kicking it away, where it spun underneath a nearby cabinet. Then Arkady was on Seiders again, jumping onto their back and choking them.

She heard the sound of running footsteps, and someone else burst into the room. Arkady didn’t get a chance to see who it was before Seiders slammed their head back, knocking into Arkady’s and making bright white lights explode across her vision. She dropped to the floor and staggered, trying to clear her head.

She heard an oof and a thud, and blinked rapidly, sure that she would open her eyes to see Seiders bearing down on Liu – or worse, standing over her unconscious body.

Instead, she was greeted with the sight of Seiders crumpling like a sack of potatoes as Sana flexed her fist, having delivered a powerful uppercut that knocked them out cold.

Silence reigned for a few seconds, broken only by Liu’s sharp, panicked breaths. Rubbing her head, Arkady said, “Hey, Sana.”

“The next time you decide to go off on a rescue mission,” Sana said, wryly, “you could at least tell me where you’re going.” She frowned as she took in Arkady’s dishevelled state. “Is your head all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” said Arkady. She was more concerned with Liu, who looked like she might be on the verge of a panic attack. “Hey, uh, it’s okay. We took care of them.”

“Who-” Liu managed, taking deep breaths in and out, clearly trying to steady her breathing. “Who are you?”

Sana smiled at her, warm and reassuring. “My name is Sana Tripathi, and this is Arkady Patel. We’re-”

There was a noise that sounded not unlike a herd of elephants storming down the corridor, and Arkady closed her eyes. She had a bad feeling she knew what was about to happen. Sure enough, in the next second Krejjh and Jeeter clattered through the door in all their clashing multicoloured glory: Jeeter in his signature loud paid shirt and those stupid khakis, and Krejjh with their… everything. Most of the clattering was coming from Krejjh’s many bangles.

“Cap’n Tripathi!” Krejjh said. “We’re here to assist you with – oh my god, are they dead?” They stared at the unconscious form of Seiders on the floor.

“They’re not dead, they’re just unconscious,” Arkady said, irritated. “Did you two really take off without anyone to watch the equipment?”

Sana turned back to Liu like nothing had happened. “We’re the band,” she finished succinctly. “I’m the guitarist and lead singer, Arkady here plays the bass, and Krejjh and Brian are our keyboardist and drummer.” She indicated each of them in turn. Jeeter waved, and Krejjh saluted for some reason. “And who are you?”

Liu blinked at her. “You… you just saved my life, and you don’t even know who I am?” she said. “Why would you do that?”

“For one thing, because you’d probably be dead if we hadn’t,” Arkady said. “You’re welcome for that, by the way.” She pulled out the phone to finish the hack on the security cameras that she’d started before she entered the room.

“I – no, I know that. I’m not ungrateful,” Liu said, sounding a little stung. “I’m just a little… in shock. My name is Violet Liu,” she added to Sana. “I, uh, work in IGR Corp’s neuroresearch division.”

“Good to meet you, Violet Liu,” Sana said, sounding like they were old friends catching up at the bar instead of total strangers talking to each other over an unconscious body. “’Kady, are you erasing the security footage?”

Arkady nodded.

“Good; Brian and I will carry our friend here,” Sana indicated Seiders with her foot, “into the hallway. I think I noticed a closet there we can hide them in.”

“Uh… are you guys really the band?” Liu asked, as Sana and Jeeter – who was much stronger than he looked – bent down to pick up Seiders. “You seem very…” She struggled to find the right words. “…good at this.”

“We have some unorthodox skillsets,” Sana said, beaming and dimpling at her. “We don’t normally make a habit of rescuing people in the middle of a gig, but Arkady has a soft spot for damsels in distress.”

Arkady fumbled her phone, and nearly dropped it. “Sana,” she hissed, mortified. Sana, who was already partway out of the door, winked and disappeared into the hallway.

After a moment, Arkady realised that she and Liu were the only ones in the room, Krejjh evidently having decided to go along and supervise, or something. She refocused her attention on the hack she was carrying out; she’d managed to hack the hallway security camera, and was erasing the footage from that, but she still needed to do the one in the office.

“Uh…” Liu awkwardly broke the silence. “Is there anything that you need me to…”

“Is anyone likely to be monitoring the security cameras in real-time?” Arkady asked her. The question came out sounding a little harsher than she’d intended, but it was hard to be diplomatic when she was focused on trying to break into a security system. Also, it was a little annoying that Liu apparently hadn’t thought about security cameras beyond the ones on the ground floor.

“N-no, the system is all automated,” Liu replied. Well, that was something, at least. “I, uh, I do have a virus that I was planning to use on the security system that would corrupt the footage. I just needed to find an access point.”

Fine, so there had been a plan of sorts. “This is quicker,” Arkady told her. “And the way I’m doing it, it won’t be so obvious that someone has tampered with the footage.”

“Thank you for that,” Liu said, quietly. “And thank you for – I mean, you don’t even know me, but you came up here to help me. Why?”

Arkady shrugged, keeping her shoulders hunched and avoiding Liu’s gaze. “You looked like you were in trouble,” she said shortly. And that was the office camera done. Arkady resisted the urge to change the password to something rude, and withdrew from the network. “And I don’t like corporations. What were you trying to do, blow the whistle on them or something?”

“Um, I-”

Before she could explain, Sana poked her head back into the room. “Arkady, are you done? Because I don’t think we should be hanging around up here.”

“I’m done,” Arkady said with a nod, pocketing her phone. The two of them joined Sana, Krejjh and Jeeter in the hallway.

“We need a plan to get Violet back downstairs and out of the building without her being seen,” Sana said quickly. “’Kady, do you think you two can make it out in fifteen minutes?”

Arkady huffed. “I can hack the security cams, but I can’t actually make us invisible,” she pointed out. “People are gonna notice us. If we waited until you guys started the set, then we might have a better chance, while everyone’s attention is on the band.”

“Listen – it’s not that I don’t really appreciate the help,” Liu cut in. Her face was set, like she was preparing to go to the gallows. “But none of this needs to be your problem. It’s my mess, and I can get myself out of it. You guys should go and start your set.”

“Oh, pshaw!” said Krejjh. “We’re not just gonna leave you to the bears!”

Jeeter smiled. “To the wolves,” he corrected Krejjh.

“Are y’sure? Because bears can be pretty terrifying.”

“We’re not about to abandon you now,” Sana said to Liu, gently. “Between the five of us, I’m sure we can figure out a pretty good plan.”

“Can’t we just pretend to be loading something into the truck?” Jeeter suggested. “And Violet can help us? We could give her a band jacket – make her look like she’s with us-”

“It’s too bad you don’t play!” Krejjh said to Violet. “We could add you into the set. The ultimate entourage!”

“Uh…” Violet said (at the same time as Arkady said, “Camouflage.”) “I mean, I do play something? But you guys already have a drummer.”

“Wait, you’re a drummer?” Jeeter said delightedly, as Krejjh straightened up so fast that Arkady thought they’d pull a muscle. Even Sana looked interested. “Are you good?”

“Have you ever played with a band before?” added Sana.

Liu smiled and shrugged awkwardly. “Well, drums aren’t really a solo instrument, so yeah. I used to jam with some friends in high school, and played some underground rock concerts in college. I was never really with a band – we just sort of used to form collectives based on who was around and wanted to play. It was fun, though.”

She’d avoided answering the question about how good she was, Arkady noticed, which probably meant she was good and was being modest about it. Goddamn it.

“So if, hypothetically speaking,” Sana said, “you joined a set without having rehearsed any of the music beforehand, would you be able to figure out a drum part?”

“Okay, hold on,” said Arkady, before Violet could respond. “Don’t you think IGR Corp is going to notice that one of their employees has just… joined the band?”

“We’ll swear up and down that it isn’t her,” Jeeter said. “And even if someone figures it out, what are they gonna do about it in front of everyone?”

“But wait, what about you?” Liu asked Jeeter. “Wouldn’t I be putting you out of a role in the band?”

“Nah,” Jeeter said happily. “I brought my keytar!”

“Oh my god,” Arkady groaned. She could tell when she was fighting a losing battle, but it didn’t stop her from making one last, token protest. “This is going to sound really goddamn weird.”

Sana grinned at her. “Well, you wanted to annoy some corporates,” she pointed out. “What better way to do it?”

---

The problem was, the new line-up didn’t sound weird at all.

It sounded good.

Liu, hastily disguised with an old band jacket and a spare pare of Krejjh’s sunglasses, fitted in with their set like she’d been rehearsing with them for weeks – months even. They did a quick sound check, Jeeter looking far too delighted as he amped up his keytar. Sana gave her usual cheerful introduction into the microphone, introducing the band as Renegade, the name they adopted for corporate gigs (Arkady was even more glad of it now, since it would make them harder to track down later). After a lukewarm reception from the assembled employees (none of whom seemed to notice, or care, that the band had grown an extra member), they launched into their first number, a reimagined cover of ‘What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor’.

It started off with Sana singing alone, before Krejjh joined in, their voices singing in close harmony, and then Arkady and finally Jeeter, the harmonies becoming increasingly layered as they went. The addition of the keytar made the song sound futuristic, almost the kind of thing you could imagine crews of space explorers singing together as they made their way into the unknown.

Liu picked up the beat easily, and as the song unfolded Arkady suddenly realised she could hear a fifth strand to the harmony, weaving in and out of the other voices, soft but distinctive: Liu was singing.

They moved on from the conventional crowd-pleasing openers to a more eclectic mix of songs, including some punk and anarchist numbers. Each time, Arkady was sure that the choice was going to throw Liu off, but she adapted smoothly to each one, altering her style to fit the vibe of the song. In one of the louder, heavier songs she even threw in an impromptu drum solo that had Krejjh whooping at the keyboard and Sana laughing as she riffed on her guitar.

Sana threw Arkady a look as the song ended, and there was a light in her eyes that Arkady knew far, far too well. It was the same light that Arkady had seen when Sana tracked her down at her latest deadbeat job and persuaded her to quit and start playing music with her; the same light that she’d had when they met Brian and Krejjh a year later and Sana had decided to turn their duo into a band.

Sana wanted Liu to join Rumor. And Arkady couldn’t even think of a good argument against it, apart from the fact that they barely knew anything about the woman other than that she could play the drums. And that she was a corporate, which Arkady thought was important not to lose sight of, even if Liu wasn’t on the greatest terms with her employer any more.

Speaking of which. Arkady was on high alert throughout the whole set, constantly scanning the crowd for signs of trouble, anyone who might be looking too closely at Liu or showed signs of moving towards the elevator. As they’d been setting up, Liu had told them that Seiders was middle management: someone who outranked her, but not someone who held a position of particular influence within the company or had the ear of the CEO. Someone who had ambitions above their station. It didn’t mean no-one would notice them missing, of course; but it meant that they might be someone who, for instance, would go after a rogue employee without notifying their superior, hoping to reap all of the credit.

The band moved into their final number, ‘Landers Never Stand Down’ – one of Sana and Arkady’s early compositions, whose lyrics Sana had written as a tribute to The Landing, and her and Arkady’s shared history. Normally, Arkady would object to wasting it on a corporate audience, but tonight, it felt like the right kind of ‘fuck you’.

“Landers never stand down,

Landers never bow,

Landers never stand down,

We don’t know how…”

They wound up the song in their usual fashion, repeating the chorus and getting fiercer and more defiant with each repetition, before ending in a final blaze of guitar chords.

“Thank you, everyone, you’ve been a wonder to perform for!” Sana said into the microphone as the chords faded away. She said the same thing at the end of every gig, but it had never felt more like a colossal understatement. “We’ve been Renegade, and we hope you have a great night!”

There was a small scattering of applause. Sana beamed out into the audience again, and then turned away from the microphone, sliding the power to ‘off’. “Well, that was-”

“Attention, all IGR Corp employees,” came a voice over the loudspeaker system. Sana froze, and Liu, who’d been leaning over to say something to Krejjh, paled visibly. “Please stay where you are. We will be carrying out a routine attendance check. Please do not exit the building.”

“Attendance check?” Arkady repeated.

“It’s a standard employee procedure,” Liu explained. “To make sure everyone’s… accounted for at corporate functions. Supposedly they’re optional, but it looks really bad if you’re not there and you don’t have a reason.”

“Do we think there’s a chance this is linked to…” Sana gestured towards the elevator. Liu shrugged helplessly.

“It could be, but even if it’s not, they’re gonna discover that Seiders is missing pretty quickly. And that I’m… unaccounted for.”

“Don’t worry,” said Jeeter, reassuringly. “We’ll figure out a way to get you out before that happens.”

“Dashing escapes are our speciality!” Krejjh contributed. This was true; the band hadn’t always played at the most above-the-board venues, and there’d been more than a few times they’d needed to get the hell out of Dodge before things got ugly. Well, uglier.

Sana nodded. “For now, just keep packing down, like nothing’s wrong,” she said.

As Krejjh packed down their keyboard and Jeeter helped Liu to disassemble the drumkit, Arkady said to Sana, “I’ll go with Liu, and we can sneak out a back entrance-”

Sana shook her head. “It’ll be more suspicious if we’re not seen leaving as a group.”

“We’ll just say we’re going to the bathroom,” Arkady said. “We’re allowed to do that, aren’t we?”

Sana started to reply, but then stopped, squinting at something on the other side of the room. Arkady tried to follow her gaze, but couldn’t see what she was looking at. “What is it?”

“I thought I saw…” Sana shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s try the front way first, and if they won’t let us leave, we’ll get creative.”

Unsurprisingly, when they carried the first load of equipment over to the rec room entrance, two stoic-looking IGR employees blocked their path, bouncer-style. Arkady eyed one of them, pretty sure she could take her in a one-to-one fight.

“Sorry, we can’t let you leave while an attendance check is ongoing,” said the employee, with a bland detachment. “Company policy.”

“It should only take about an hour,” the other added. “You can enjoy the free refreshments while you wait.”

An hour? Even if they hadn’t had a very pressing reason to get the hell out of there, Arkady would have been looking for the nearest fire escape to break out of. They were just supposed to cool their heels at IGR headquarters for an hour?

“Can we not at least load our equipment into the van in the meantime?” Sana asked reasonably. “This is a very heavy amplifier…” She made a show of struggling with the amp she’d been lifting with ease a few seconds ago, and Arkady suppressed a snort.

One of the corporates had opened their mouth, looking like they were about to object, when a friendly voice spoke from behind them. “Is there a problem here?”

They all turned to look at the person who’d spoken, and Arkady carefully masked her surprise: the tall, dark-skinned man dressed in an expensive-looking suit jacket, T-shirt and jeans combination was none other than Red Gregor, a close friend of Campbell’s. They’d met him once or twice, but what was he doing here?

“Who are you?” asked Corporate One, audibly unimpressed.

“Theodore Gregor; I’m the band’s executive producer,” Gregor introduced himself smoothly, handing Corporate Two a business card. Their eyes widened at whatever was written on it. “My clients have another engagement to get to tonight, so you can understand why it’s very important they be allowed to leave promptly. Additionally, their contract stipulates that they’re only obliged to perform for your company until-” he made a show of checking a gold watch, “-nine-thirty P.M., after which time we’ll need to bill you for every additional half-hour. Will your supervisors be signing off on the additional expenses?”

Corporates One and Two were visibly thrown by the torrent of information. Krejjh made a noise that was hastily stifled, while Arkady did her best to look bored and important.

“I… no, let me just contact my superior to get you the all-clear,” said Corporate One, reluctantly. “Johnson will help you to load your equipment into your…” She eyed the band’s battered van, visibly out of place in the parking lot full of sleek cars. “…vehicle.”

“Great!” Sana said brightly, handing the amplifier to Corporate Two, who took it and staggered slightly. As Corporate One spoke into a walkie-talkie, Sana and Red Gregor strode quickly ahead, the rest of the band trailing behind. Arkady lengthened her steps to catch up with them so that she could hear their quiet exchange.

“…doing here? Did Campbell send you?” Sana was asking Red Gregor.

“In a manner of speaking,” Red Gregor said. “He talks about you so much, I wanted to come and hear what all the fuss was about. Love the new line-up – you guys sound completely different to when I last heard you play.”

“It’s kind of a new thing,” Sana admitted. “New as of… today. I can fill you in, it’s just a long story.”

“I can’t wait to hear it,” Red Gregor said, and Arkady remembered that she’d liked him, the couple of times that they’d met. She could see why he and Campbell were good friends. “But let’s focus on getting you out of here. I’m guessing you need an exit?”

“And fast,” Sana agreed.

“Well, fast’s your speciality,” Red Gregor said with a grin. Sana smiled back at him, and Arkady wondered if Red was basing this off stories from Campbell, or if he and Sana knew each other better than Arkady had realised. It was a strange thought to have in the middle of everything.

Sana unlocked the van and slid open the back door. While Krejjh, Jeeter and Liu loaded their items into the trunk, overseen by Corporate Two, Red Gregor pretended to help Arkady and Sana with their instruments.

“So what now?” Arkady asked Sana. “I think I can probably take Johnson.”

“Arkady, you’ve already been in one fight today,” Sana said, disapproving.

“What’s your point?”

“I have a more bloodless suggestion,” Red Gregor said. “You’ve got a few pieces of equipment left in the venue, right? I’ll go back inside with Johnson to ‘collect’ them, say we’re going to check their supervisor has given you the go-ahead, and you guys make a break for it. I’ll bring the equipment in my car and meet you at the dive bar, half a mile down the road.”

“Are you sure you’ll be able to get away? What happens when they realise we’re gone?” Sana asked.

“I’ll come up with something,” Red Gregor assured her. “Just focus on getting yourselves out of here.”

He walked over to Johnson, who was slightly bemusedly watching Jeeter and Liu (who were clearly stalling for time) rearrange pieces of the drumkit in the trunk, and took him by the arm, steering him back towards the building and talking rapidly all the while.

“As soon as they’re out of sight, everyone needs to get in the van quickly,” Sana instructed. “And hang onto something. Okay? Now!”

Krejjh slammed the trunk of the van shut and everyone piled into the back without a word of protest. Arkady jumped into the front as Sana slid into the driver’s seat, reversing out of the parking space like a shot and executing an alarming hairpin turn to get them onto the road. Liu cried out in alarm, not used to Sana’s driving, and Arkady hung grimly onto the handle on the inside of her door.

“Everyone okay back there?” Sana asked, peering into the rearview mirror.

Arkady looked back to see Jeeter and Krejjh scrambling to put on their seatbelts, each of them having thrown an arm over Liu to keep her in place. “Oops, sorry, I forgot we don’t have a seatbelt for the middle!” Sana said cheerfully as they thudded over a speedbump. Liu closed her eyes. “There’s normally only four of us.”

“It’s not far to where we’re going, right, Captain?” asked Jeeter.

“Just a half mile down the road,” said Sana. “Red Gregor’s going to meet us there with the rest of the equipment, as soon as he can get away.”

“What was he doing at the gig? Did Campbell tell him where we were?”

“I think so. He said that he wanted to come and hear us play,” Arkady said, watching buildings blur past on either side of them. “I guess it was lucky he did.”

“We would’ve figured something out,” Krejjh said confidently.

“Uh, who’s Campbell?” Liu asked, cautiously opening her eyes again.

“He’s our… manager? Kinda?” Krejjh replied. “He doesn’t tell us what to do or anything, but he has a lot of contacts, so he gets us most of our gigs.”

“Contacts in the music industry? Or contacts in like… events venues, bars and clubs?”

“Yes,” Krejjh said helpfully.

“He just has a lot of contacts,” Jeeter said with a smile. Arkady smirked at Liu’s look of consternation.

“Tonight’s gig did not come through Campbell,” said Sana, spotting the dive bar Red Gregor had specified and indicating to turn off the road. “We got it through an agency, Fowleys. I guess that’ll teach us not to go outside Campbell’s network.”

“Hey, it worked out!” Krejjh said. “We got a new drummer out of the deal.”

“Well, for tonight, at least,” Sana said, now reversing into a parking space. “I gotta say, Violet, the way you fitted in with our sound? That was amazing. Our set sounded better than I could’ve imagined.”

Liu blushed. “They were great songs,” she demurred, as the van came to a stop.

“Too bad it was wasted on IGR Corp,” Arkady remarked, undoing her seat belt as they all climbed out of the van.

They got a table in the corner of the dive bar, which was pretty full and made it easy to blend in. As Sana went to get them all drinks, Krejjh and Jeeter started up some kind of nonsensical word game. Arkady and Liu glanced at each other occasionally, but otherwise sat in awkward silence.

Finally, Arkady asked something that had been on her mind since she intervened in the confrontation between Liu and Seiders, though it had taken a back seat to more pressing concerns. “What was it you were trying to get from that computer, anyway?”

“Sorry?” Liu asked, looking away from Krejjh and Jeeter, where she’d been listening in on the game with a slightly baffled expression.

“In the CEO’s office,” Arkady clarified. “I saw you take a flash drive out of the computer. What were you trying to get?”

“Oh,” Liu said, drawing out the little drive from inside her blouse. “Yeah, I was… trying to copy some files onto it. I’m not sure how much I got, though – I had to pull it out before the transfer was complete, and I think they’re encrypted.”

“What kind of files are they?” Arkady asked, thinking that she could probably break the encryption in an afternoon. Maybe less.

Liu hesitated, and Arkady narrowed her eyes. “You’re not still trying to protect your company, are you? In case you don’t remember-”

“No, no,” Liu said quickly. “I just – I’m not sure if it would be safe to tell you. Safe for you,” she added. “Right now, you have plausible deniability if anyone questions you. You genuinely don’t know what’s on this flash drive. So maybe it would be better to keep it that way.”

Arkady was a little bit pacified by that, but still – “Considering I’ve already aided and abetted you, I think that ship has sailed,” she pointed out. “No-one is going to believe I did it without having any idea what you were up to. Which I’m fine with,” she added, as a guilt-stricken look crossed Liu’s face. “I made a choice to help you, and so did the others. But I may as well know what the stakes are.”

“Yeah, that’s… fair,” admitted Liu. Next to her, Krejjh was doing a fairly poor job of pretending not to listen in. “They’re blueprints. My company – the company – has been developing… do you know what IGR Corp does? What kind of a company it is?”

“Some kind of a tech company?” Arkady said. She vaguely remembered Sana saying something about that when they got the gig. She hadn’t really been paying attention to the details.

Liu nodded. “Smart technology – specifically, smart home technology. We produce – I mean, they produce things like smart security systems, smart doorbells, systems that can detect when someone has a medical emergency. Systems that are designed to help keep people safe.”

Arkady had to work to keep from grimacing. She wasn’t sure that being monitored by a computer 24/7 fitted everyone’s definition of ‘safety’, but maybe Liu had never had cause to doubt that the people with power had her best interests at heart. Lucky her.

“But then,” Liu went on, her voice bitter, “I found out that the latest product we were developing – the one that was supposed to make everyone’s lives so much easier, so much better – is being created as a surveillance device. To eavesdrop on people and send their data back to the company. And I know that a lot of smart devices have audio capabilities, but – this was hardwired in. Impossible to disable. And this weird, secretive new division of the company has been set up to process the data.”

“What are they gonna do with it?” Arkady asked.

“Who knows,” Liu said. “They could be collecting it for the government, but – I think it’s more likely they’re just planning to sell it on to the highest bidder.”

Arkady’s eyes narrowed, and she wished that Sana had brought the drinks already so that she’d have something to down.

“You know,” Liu said, her voice suddenly much softer. “I, uh. I still haven’t thanked you properly for, uh, well-”

“O-kay!” came Sana’s voice, loudly, as she finally arrived at their table carrying a small tray laden with glasses. “Sorry for the delay, guys, there was a heck of a crowd up at the bar. Also, the bartender was really interested in talking to me while he pulled these drinks.” She made a wry expression, her dimple deepening in one cheek. “Cheer up, ‘Kady, I’ve got your favourite-” She slid a pint glass of raspberry ale in front of Arkady.

“Thanks,” Arkady mumbled, not looking at Liu.

Red Gregor arrived not long after, having apparently evaded IGR Corp by pretending that he was going outside to look for the band, and then driving off with the equipment before anyone realised what was happening. Sana passed him a drink from the tray; no-one asked how she already knew his preferred drink order.

“So look,” said Arkady, after they’d done some small talk and toasted to a successful getaway (Sana’s idea, of course). “Not that we didn’t appreciate the save earlier – you had pretty good timing – but why’d you go to all the trouble of coming to an IGR Corp function just to hear us play? How did you even get in?”

“I know a lot of people,” Red Gregor said mysteriously, with a fluid shrug. “As for why I came – you probably don’t know this, but I’ve been getting into the music biz lately.”

Arkady tried to remember what ‘biz’ Red Gregor had been in before, and couldn’t. He was one of those people who seemed to do a bit of everything.

“That’s awesome!” said Krejjh, looking delighted. “Are you going to start a band? Or manage one?”

Red Gregor smiled. “Actually, neither. I’m starting a record label,” he said. “And I want to sign you guys to it.”

Liu choked on her drink; Jeeter said, “Wow, really?” and even Sana looked taken aback. Clearly this hadn’t been the answer she was expecting.

“Us?” she said, as if Gregor could have meant anyone else. “As in…” She gestured around the table, including Liu.

Red Gregor nodded. “Look, your new sound is like nothing I’ve ever heard from a band before,” he said. “Campbell has always spoken highly of you guys, and I really liked your originals the last time I heard you perform. But with this new line-up? I think you could become really big. If that’s something that you want, of course.”

Sana sat back in her chair, looking thoughtful, while Krejjh looked practically ready to vibrate out of theirs with excitement. “That would be a pretty big step for us,” she said. “Not that we wouldn’t love – more exposure, better opportunities-”

“Gigs in legal venues?” put in Jeeter.

“More above-the-board performances,” agreed Sana. “But we’ve only played once with this new line-up. We don’t know for sure if we can replicate that – and I mean, we’d be asking Violet to just drop everything and join us full-time-”

Red Gregor held up his hands. “Like I said, it’s completely up to you,” he said. “I’m not here to pressure you into something you’re not ready for. But don’t underestimate yourselves. I wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t have faith in you guys.”

Sana looked around the table, taking in the mixture of expressions, ranging from Krejjh’s eagerness to Liu’s uncertainty to Arkady’s… Arkady didn’t know what her face was doing. “We’ll have to put it to a vote,” she said, predictably. “And if any of you need more time to think this over-”

“I’m in!” Krejjh said instantly. “We rocked tonight! I want to keep on rocking that hard. And we should totally record an album.”

Jeeter smiled fondly. “I’m on board with anything that will let me keep playing the keytar,” he admitted. “And I thought we sounded pretty awesome, as well.”

Sana looked at Liu. “Violet, you’re the one who this would be the biggest change for,” she said. “The rest of us are already playing in a band full-time. Well, with the odd side gig,” she added, because yeah, they did not yet make enough money from performing to cover the bills. “You barely know us, and you’re not under any obligation to stick around – or to switch careers.”

Liu gave a slightly broken laugh. “Well, I don’t really think I can go back to my old one,” she said. “That option evaporated as soon as one of my colleagues pulled a gun on me. Not… sure I’ve really had time to process that yet.”

Sana nodded. “If it’s too soon-”

“But no amount of processing is going to make my situation any different,” Liu went on. “I could try to get another job in my field, but… IGR Corp is a pretty well-known company. Word’s going to get around that I’m untrustworthy, especially if they put it about that I tried to steal corporate secrets.”

“They can’t do that,” Sana said immediately. “I used to do some union work; whistleblowing is a protected activity, and it’s against the law for them to blacklist you – to make it more difficult for you to obtain future employment.”

Liu smiled slightly. “I don’t think IGR Corp are too concerned with breaking the law,” she pointed out. “I appreciate it, but… this isn’t my first experience with a hostile work environment.”

Okay, so maybe Arkady should take back her earlier thought about Liu never having had cause to distrust the people in power.

“Besides, I haven’t even blown the whistle on them yet – I’m not sure if the information I have is worth anything,” Liu said, a little grimly. “And anyway… I think it’s time for a clean slate. So, if you’ll have me… I’m in.”

Which just left Arkady. She could see how pleased Sana was that Liu was willing to join the band full-time, even though she was trying to hide it. Krejjh and Jeeter, too, were excited – and not just at the prospect of getting better gigs and earning more money (though that was a very appealing prospect).

The fact was, Red Gregor was right – they’d sounded like a completely new band during their performance. Arkady had always liked their stuff (of course she did; she’d even co-written some of it) but the new sound gave it a flair she hadn’t even realised it had been missing. As much as she couldn’t help thinking of the dozens of ways this could go wrong, she wanted them to keep sounding like that. She wanted to see what else they could do.

“‘Kady?” asked Sana.

Arkady took a deep breath. “Sure. Let’s do this.”

#TSCOSI #Podcast Big Bang 2021 #The Strange Case of Starship Iris #Vikady #Arkady Patel #Violet Liu #Brian Jeeter #Krejjh #Red Gregor #who turned into a surprisingly key character for this fic which is fun #I'm kind of inventing his personality from wholecloth but I like him #the background Sana/Campbell/Red Gregor sort of came out of nowhere and I just went with it #love me some OT3 vibes!

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defeatedbyamerechild · 4 years

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Cyrus woke up. His pupils were dilated, his eyes open wide, his heart was beating much faster than normal and his muscles were tense. The whole room was dark and silent. Without even thinking, he clenched his fists, holding tight to the sheets. He felt the bitter feeling of anxiety taking over his body as he started to breathe more and more quickly, feeling the beads of sweat rolling down his face and chills running down his spine.

He tried to look around, but felt paralyzed. It was getting hard to breathe. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the step-by-step his therapist had taught him, but focusing on that seemed very difficult at the moment. The only thing he could remember clearly was that he had to slow down his breathing...

He closed his eyes and started breathing in slowly, counting the seconds in order to control the movement of his diaphragm. He remembered now. He was supposed to focus on reality... describe his surroundings. But it was too dark to see properly... Very dark and very silent... How could he describe the world if he couldn't see it? Was it all even real?

That one recurring question, that always came to his mind in moments of difficulty, was the most terrifying part of it all. Was it real? Was the room real? Was his bed real? Was he actually there? His housemates, were they actual people? Had all that time really passed and had all the things he lived really happened or had it all been just a lie, a delusion, a hallucination? Had he ever really left the Distortion World...? And was it there, staring at him with its bright red eyes...?

No, he shouldn't focus on those thoughts. Focusing on objective aspects of the real world was vital at that moment. No speculation would be beneficial under those circumstances, what he had to do was simple, practical and clear observation of the material world. The real world. It was there, it was real, he could see it and sense it...

Not that he hadn't felt and seen things before that he later realized were not real... Back in there, in the Distortion World... Under the effect of Giratina's mind tricks... The boundaries between reality and delirium were unclear.

Still, he had left that place. He had to believe he had really left that place... because if not... No. No “ifs”. It was not time for “ifs”. Keep it simple. Practical. Cold. Objective. He had always been like that, practical and objective, so why was it so hard? It wouldn't be that hard if he could just calm down... He had to calm down.

He opened his eyes, now breathing much slower than before, and glanced around. The first thing he was able to make out in the darkness was his digital clock, or rather, the glowing green numbers on its screen. It was a quarter past three. He waited for a few seconds, still working on his breathing, until the number five turned into a six. Yes, time was passing. He felt his muscles relaxing slowly. His fingers finally let go of the sheets.

He glanced around. He could see his books, his computer and his mirror, reflecting the dim moonlight coming from his window. Mentally, he described them. Their colors, their positions, their shapes... the fear started to fade away as he slowly started to believe once again that the world around him was real. He had no proof, no indications whatsoever that his current reality was fake. Everything was in place... Everything was normal. Everything was fine.

Less than ten minutes later, he had already completely calmed down. He stretched his muscles and sat up on his bed, then sighed. It had been a while since the last time he had had a nightmare... He had almost forgotten how bad they were... Compared to his post-Distortion-World night terrors, his old childhood nightmares about his parents and bad school grades seemed like a joke. His nightmares back then were just bad dreams... the ones he had now were more like flashbacks. Terrifying, painful flashbacks...

But how could he have had a nightmare after all? Where was Ayumu? He cleared his throat and stood up. Clearly, Ayumu wasn't in the room with him... But that was strange, to say the least. Ayumu had been trained specifically not to do that, and up to that point he had never failed to fulfill his duty.

Cyrus left his room and walked through the hallway straight to the stairs. If Ayumu had left his room, then it had most likely gone downstairs, since all the other doors were closed on the second floor. There was light coming from the living room and Cyrus started to suspect that someone else was awake other than him.

His suspicions were soon proven to be right. Walking downstairs, he saw Archie, sitting on an armchair near the window, with Ayumu levitating next to him.

“Archie?” said Cyrus, in a mix of confusion and annoyance.

The other man turned his head at him. “Oh, hey there, Cyrus...” he said.

“What are you doing with Ayumu?” asked the Galactic Boss, approaching his housemate, but looking at his Pokémon.

“Oh... sorry, Cy” replied the Aqua Boss, “I borrowed Ayumu for a bit, hope you don't mind.”

“In fact, I very much do mind it.” Explained Cyrus, his intonation a bit more emphatic than his usual. “As far as I know, 'borrowing' implies on my knowledge and consent regarding your temporary possession of my belongings.”

Archie winced a little “Sheesh, Cyrus... Don't call the poor little fellow a 'belonging'... he's a Pokémon after all! A little living being like you or me...”

“I am aware of that, but he is currently under my care and therefore in my possession either way,” said the blue-haired man, “besides, Ayumu isn't only any useless Pokémon. He has a task to fulfill and you should not interrupt him on it.”

The other man hesitated a little before replying.

“Hey, wait a minute... No Pokémon is useless! Every little Pokémon has something to offer! Just like people! Everyone has something to give!”

Cyrus sighed heavily before continuing to speak.

“You are deviating from the topic. My point is: do not take Ayumu away in the middle of the night again. And please ask before taking anything from me.”

“Ay, captain!” Nodded Archie, not offended by the other man's complaints. “Sorry about that... Just didn't wanna wake you up, you see? You were sleeping so tight...That's why I didn't ask you before taking him.”

“Well, I would most likely have preferred to wake up with you than the way I did just now...” he said, looking away. “What are you doing awake at a time like this anyway?” he added, afraid that Archie might ask any questions.

Archie's face suddenly fell. “Oh well...” he said, “I'm worried about Maxie. He hasn't arrived yet...”

“From?”

“He went to a concert,” explained the Aqua Boss, “some tribute to an old guitarist who died or something like that... I was gonna go with him, but I was feeling sorta sick on my tummy... he ended up going with Tabitha...” For a few seconds, he remained in silence. “But he should have arrived by now.... and he doesn't answer his phone... I'm just so worried...”

“Hm” groaned Cyrus, unsure of what to say. The other man continued.

“That's why I took Ayumu, by the way! I thought since he's a psychic type, maybe he could help me calm down... I mean, I know several psychic types are capable of soothing people's nerves with their hypnotic abilities and so on...”

Cyrus squinted his eyes.

“Ayumu is a Munna, and Munnas are dream eaters... They are not interested in your mind unless you are sleeping,” he explained.

Archie chuckled, “oh well, Munnas do like a good sleepy noodle, that's true! But that doesn't mean they can't do other stuff! I've seen videos of Munnas that learned to eat away troubling thoughts from people's brains while they were awake!”

“Well,” replied the Galactic Boss, while gently placing his hand on Ayumu's head, “other Munnas may be able to calm people down while they are awake, but not Ayumu. He has been trained to eat my nightmares specifically, and nothing else.”

The other man seemed surprised. “Oh!” he exclaimed, “so you taught him which dreams he should eat? That's really neat!”

“No I didn't...” said Cyrus, “he was already trained when I received him... My psychologist has given him to me...” he made a brief pause, “I need him to be able to sleep properly...”

“Oooh” answered Archie, “so he's a service Pokémon! I didn't know that! Why didn't you tell anyone?”

Cyrus shrugged. “No one ever asked.”

“Heh!” chuckled Archie again, crossing his legs, “well, you know, boyo, people sometimes tell their friends things that they didn't ask about!”

“Yes, I've observed this phenomenon. It is very annoying” replied Cyrus.

“It's not annoying...” protested the other man, “that's how conversations go!”

“Precisely.” Cyrus frowned a little, “conversations are annoying. I very much prefer writing.”

The brown-haired man thought for a few seconds before replying.

“Well I've seen you giving huge speeches before... You can talk quite a lot for someone who doesn't like convos,” he said, then became silent once again. “You know, I think you're more fond of monologues... you can talk and talk without being interrupted and tell everyone what you think without other people disagreeing! That's why you like writing! 'Cause there's no one there to reply to you!” he concluded.

Cyrus widened his eyes.

“I...!” he said, but then huffed and looked away.

“What?”

“Nothing...” replied the blue-haired man, “I was about to protest, but I suppose you're right.”

Archie giggled.

“Well, I like conversations, you know? It's nice listening to people.”

“I could not disagree more,” answered Cyrus.

“Well, we're talking right now, is it that bad?”

Cyrus hesitated before replying. As much as he wanted to say “yes”, the fact is that it wasn't really that bad after all.

“It's not particularly annoying, but it is a waste of my time and yours,” he said, “which reminds me of the fact that It's past three and a half and I should be in bed right now.” he made a brief pause. “I'm going back to sleep. You should too.”

“Nah... I can't sleep...” answered Archie, once again becoming sad, “not without Maxie. You need your Munna to sleep and I need my husband.”

Cyrus raised an eyebrow.

“Didn't know Maxie was a dream eater...” he said, and Archie immediately looked up at him.

“Ha! I knew you had a good sense of humor deep inside, Cyrus!”

“That was not humor,” replied the other man, glancing away for a second.

“No?” asked Archie, frowning confused, “what was it then?”

Cyrus looked down, silent. He thought for almost a whole minute.

“Sophism,” he finally said and, upon realizing his housemate didn't seem to be familiar with the word, he developed, “a conclusion that seems to be correct according to the information given, but that is resultant from a false correlation between its elements and, therefore, is incorrect.”

Archie didn't seem to understand the whole explanation, but nodded anyway.

“OK... So, why did you use this sophism thingy right now?”

Once again, Cyrus was caught off guard. He stared at Archie for a short moment.

“I... don't know...” he confessed, “I just see people employing sophism in conversations all the time, so I guess I just... copied the behavior?” he started walking in small circles while he explained, “in fact, you had just used sophism yourself, when you compared my situation with Ayumu to your situation regarding Maxie... You created a false correlation, all I did was add the resultant incorrect conclusion. I mean, if I understood correctly, the reason why you cannot sleep without Maxie is because you're worried... this is a variable that is acting upon you right now, not a constant state. That, however, doesn't apply to me. I cannot sleep without Ayumu at any moment, regardless of what I am experiencing on that moment. Therefore, while your dependency on Maxie is situational, my dependency of Ayumu is invariable. It's not the same relation... Meaning your correlation was incorrect, despite the fact it seemed rational,” he concluded, then opened his arms, looking at Archie, and said “Sophism.”

Archie scratched his chin.

“Hm... you do know I was just joking, right, boyo?” he asked, and Cyrus blushed a little.

“So you mean to tell me that average people consider arriving at incorrect conclusions funny?” he asked, confused.

“Well, yeah,” replied the other man, “for example: peas are green... and melons are also green! Peas are round... and melons too! Peas come from plants and so do melons... that means melons are just very large peas!” he explained, then laughed a little and stared at Cyrus with a big smile on his face, but his housemate didn't show any reaction.

“Come on, it was funny,” added Archie.

“I'm not good with jokes...” explained the Galactic Boss, looking down.

“Meh... That's fine...” answered the Aqua Boss, “It was a pretty lame joke actually...”

There was a moment of silence. Archie kept staring at the window, fidgeting with his hands, while Cyrus remained still, not sure if it would be socially acceptable to just leave at that point.

The Aqua Boss sighed.

“Well...” said Cyrus. “Since Ayumu is unable to help you soothe your anxiety right now, I'm going to take him back with me...”

“Oh, yeah, sure!” said Archie, as if coming back to reality from a deep trance, “sorry again about taking him, I didn't know he was a therapy friend...” he thought for a few seconds, “you... you said he eats your bad dreams right? I hope you didn't have any sort of nightmare or anything because I took him...”

Cyrus looked away, slightly uncomfortable with that topic.

“Uhm. Yeah, to tell you the truth I did.”

“Oof... Sorry...” said Archie, “I really didn't want to cause that much trouble. Hope it wasn't a really bad nightmare.”

“It is always bad. That's part of the definition of a nightmare.” said the Galactic Boss, running out of patience.

“You wanna talk about it?” asked Archie.

Cyrus glanced at him.

“The only person who ever asked me that before was my therapist.”

“Well, I'm not a therapist, but I don't know... Talking can help sometimes!” answered the other man.

“There isn't much to talk about.” said Cyrus, “It was just a collection of vivid flashbacks from my most traumatic experiences, like always...”

“That... sounds like a lot to talk about actually, boyo.”

“Well, if I were to describe it and explain the whole thing, it would certainly take a while. But there is no point in talking about it. And I honestly would prefer not to...” he said, then made a short pause before continuing, “I've had a good share of discomfort by revisiting them in dreams already, I don't wanna repeat that by revisiting it via descriptions now.”

“I understand... You don't have to tell me if it makes you feel bad, Cy.” said Archie, in a way that reminded Cyrus of his therapist again. “I just wanted you to know that you can always talk to me if you feel like you need to open up to someone, alright?”

“Uhm... OK.” answered the other man, nodding and looking down. He didn't have lots of experience with that kind of talk. It sounded like something he should have heard from his parents when he was a child, but never did. No one had ever told him this kind of thing before. He didn't really know why, but that was comforting, and he started to feel like talking more. “Since you said this...” he added, timidly, “I suppose I'm going to share something else. I had a brief anxiety attack after waking up just now.”

“Oof...” said Archie, “I've never had one of those, but I know they are pretty awful.”

“Yes. But I was able to contain it,” added Cyrus, almost proudly, “my therapist has taught me some techniques to calm down.”

“That's great!” said Archie, “Proud of you, boyo! It's probably difficult to stop that from happening. Guess that's progress, eh?”

“I... guess...” said Cyrus. “Thanks.”

Archie looked down.

“I'm feeling sorta bad, though... You had that anxiety thingy because of me, right? Because I took Ayumu?”

“Yes, I guess that's not incorrect,” said Cyrus, “It was a consequence of my nightmare, which only occurred due to Ayumu's absence, so yes, it was an indirect consequence of your actions.”

“Darn...” replied Archie. “I'm sorry, Cy. I'm never gonna take Ayumu again! Promise!”

“That's good” said the blue-haired man.

“I wanted to soothe my anxiety and ended up making yours worse... Bad, Archie! Bad!” He said, then sighed again and looked at the window. He was still thinking about Maxie.

“If you have anxiety, then you should go see a psychologist too, you know?” said Cyrus.

“Oh, no, no, sorry!” explained the Aqua Boss, “I don't have anxiety, like... the disorder. I was talking about this feeling of uneasiness, you know? It's just something I'm feeling right now.”

“Oh” answered Cyrus, then scratched his head, “and... do you want to talk about it?” he asked, trying to be polite.

“Yeah, if you don't mind it...” said the other one, “I mean, I told you before, I'm worried about Maxie... You see, he is the most important person in my life! So, well... I know he must be OK, but I can't help thinking that something bad might have happened, you know? What if they had an accident? Or maybe they were mugged! Or maybe...” he put his hand over his mouth and shook his head, “Anything could have happened... And when I think about that... I think about how bad it would be If I ever lost him... I just...” he swallowed hard, “I don't know what I would do without him... I can't even think about it...”

“Hm...” said Cyrus, “Why do you think something bad happened to him, though?”

“Because it's almost four and he hasn't shown up! Or messaged me!” said Archie.

“What time should he have arrived?”

“He said 'something between two and three in the morning'...” he replied, then crossed his arms, “I mean, it hasn't been that long, he is not that late... but it's Maxie, he would have either messaged me or called if he knew he would be late...” Saying that, Archie puffed and fidgeted, clearly very nervous. He continued, “I'm just so worried... I mean, I love Maxie, but he's not an excellent driver... What if he crashed? Darn! I just hope he didn't crash the car... I hope he didn't... I hope he is not hurt!”

“uh...” began to say Cyrus, but soon noticed Archie wasn't done speaking yet.

“I should have gone with him!” continued the other man, “I shouldn't have stayed home just because of a sore tummy... I'm not even sick anymore! I could have gone with him... I should have! If I had gone with him, I could have avoided this...”

“This what?” asked Cyrus.

“This... This situation!” answered Archie.

“But you don't know what the situation is, therefore you don't know if you could have avoided it...” replied the Galactic Boss.

“Uh... Yeah...” said Arche, “I guess, but... What I meant is, if I were with him, if anything went wrong, I could at least try to protect him...”

“I don't believe being with him would have changed the outcome of the situation. Consider he had a car accident. You don't drive, so he would have been the one driving either way. Chances are, he would have had the accident anyway. Or if he got mugged... If a person was willing to mug him and Tabitha, the same person might as well have mugged him if he were with you. And resisting it would be worse, so it would have been the same.” explained Cyrus.

“Well... Yeah...” replied the Aqua Boss, “But I don't know, I would at least be with him... At least I would know what's going on...”

“Yes, that makes sense,” the blue-haired man crossed his arms, thoughtful, “your uneasiness right now results from the fact that you don't know what is going on with your husband... However, if you do not know what happened, that means trying to solve the problem now will be pointless.”

“Well, I'm not trying to solve it... I'm just... I'm just worried...”

“What for, though? I mean, very well, it will be very bad if something negative has happened to Maxie. However, you have no evidence of that whatsoever” said Cyrus, “while Maxie could have had a car accident or gotten hurt in any other way, he also could have gotten lost in a place with no phone signal, or the concert could have lasted much longer than it should have and it's still going on... or he could have stopped to eat something in a cheap restaurant and Tabitha got stuck in the toilet stall and they are trying to open the door, and that is occupying him so much that he forgot to call you. There is a nearly uncountable number of possibilities of things that could have happened, and you do not know which one has actually happened... Therefore, keeping your mind busy with trying to figure out something that, for all practical purposes, is impossible to find out right now... That is pointless.”

“Whoa...” said Archie, “Hold your Mudsdales, boyo... I think I got lost somewhere in your explanation.”

“I'm going to try to explain again, then,” said the other man, “my therapist told me to examine my thoughts regarding anxiety, panic and fear. One of the things I was taught is to analyze whether or not there is empirical evidence that can confirm the thoughts I am having. That is, is there anything I can actually observe that indicates something is wrong right now, or is everything coming from my own mind?”

“Well... Maxie is late... that is real, it's a fact” said Archie.

“It is. However, the only objective conclusion we can take from this I that, most probably, something unexpected happened to Maxie tonight. Still, we don't have how to verify whether or not this unexpected event has harmed Maxie in any way or not...”

“Hm.. Yeah, I mean... I don't know if he's hurt or not...”

“Exactly. You don't even know if he had a real problem or not,” said Cyrus, “and yet you already deduced you should have gone with him to avoid a hypothetical problem that may not even be real, and if real could not even be avoidable to begin with.”

Archie sighed, then smiled a little.

“Yeah... Maybe he's just fine... but what if he isn't?”

“Is there anything you can do if he isn't?” asked Cyrus, “Is there any way you might know if he isn't?”

“No...” said Archie, “and that... is scary...”

Cyrus opened his mouth a little, but said nothing. He looked down.

“I get that” he said, after a few seconds, “fear is... pretty much irrational. And sometimes the things our mind comes up with are really terrifying...”

Archie nodded.

“But we need to try to fight back rationally,” continued the other man, “because, well... if you just listen to all the horrible things your mind can make up, you will end up paralyzed with fear. The fact is that the possibilities are endless when you start to think about what could have been, or what could be... Sometimes I look around and I ask myself 'what if none of this is real and one day I just wake up in the Distortion World'... And that's very... well,” he looked away once again, ashamed, “scary...” he said. “But I can't live every day of my life in fear that at any moment I'll wake up in another reality. I have to be down to earth and rational and base my thoughts on what I can actually observe... On what is materially, objectively and undoubtedly real...”

“I didn't know you felt that way, boyo...” said Archie, “Don't worry, though. I'm here and I can guarantee to you that this house is real, no Distortion World here!”

“Hm... Thanks for this addition,” said Cyrus, “still, let's get back to your problem. The reason I said all this is because you have to be rational now and try to contain your anxiety. If there is no evidence that Maxie is hurt right now, and there is nothing you can do to verify that or to change that, so avoid thinking about that. It is better to hope for the best instead...”

“Heh...” chuckled Archie, “You're right, boyo... Not that it isn't difficult not to wonder what could have happened...”

“The fact is that so far, his absence can be explained by many different things. If he had been absent for, let's say... two days, or something... That would have narrowed the possible explanations. The longer he has been away, the less explanations you can think of, so you have more reasons to believe something bad has actually happened. But so far, it's still not that much time, as you said earlier...”

“True”, said the Aqua Boss, “maybe I should at least wait a bit longer...”

“I think that sounds reasonable.”

“Yeah...”

Once again, there was a brief moment of silence.

“Thanks for talking to me about this, Cy!” said Archie, smiling, “it really helped me. I'm still worried... But I feel a bit calmer.”

“You're welcome,” said Cyrus, “I didn't expect to be able to help, honestly.”

“Well, I told you everyone has something to give!” Archie smiled.

“Usually what I have to give is knowledge in physics, though”, answered the Galactic boss, and suddenly the other man started laughing.

“I like your jokes, Cyrus...” he said, still giggling.

“It was not a joke” replied the other man.

“It was still funny.”

“Well, I'm going back to my room and try to sleep the rest of the night,” said Cyrus.

“Okie! Have a good rest, Cy... I'll be here waiting for Max...”

Cyrus turned around and headed to the staircase, Ayumu following him right after. As soon as he started going up the stairs, he heard the front door opening.

“Maxie!” he heard Archie say, and looked back at the living room. The Magma Boss had just entered the house and the two men were hugging.

“Oh, Archie... I'm so sorry! My phone ran out of battery and Tabitha forgot his phone charging again!” said Maxie, “I couldn't warn you I'd get home late...”

Cyrus started going upstairs again, but still could hear the couple's conversation.

“I was so worried, baby...” said Archie... “what happened?”

“Well, The show was great, but they gave so many encores that when we left, the subways had already stopped running... So I had to take Tabitha to his house, and it's on the other side of the city so...”

The Galactic Boss entered his room, followed by his Munna. It was exactly 4 a.m.

“Well. I've got three hours of sleep left, Ayumu,” he said, “Could have saved nearly an hour if I hadn't stayed so long with Archie... But that's OK.”

Ayumu gently floated down and laid on Cyrus' bed. The blue-haired man sat down by the Pokémon's side, patted it on the back and then laid down on his bed next to it. He closed his eyes and soon fell asleep again. Ayumu snuggled up against his trainer and, within less than a minute, a thick magenta stream of mist started exhaling from the pink circle between his eyes.

—— (Scene by GabiWaffle)

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abundanceofsoph · 3 years

Text

SkyFire 3: Chapter 9

BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Nick Grimshaw : October 2017

Word count: 3.8k

SkyFire 3 MASTERLIST

Please for the love of god, if you like the story just hit the reblog button. I’m starting to run out of motivation to post since no one ever shares these chapters.

>Instagram posts

After the Phoenix show, the band took a weeklong break before meeting back up in Paris to kick off the European leg of the tour. During their break, Adam returned home to his young family and Sarah and Mitch took a short vacation together, while Aurora and Harry joined Niall in celebrating the release of his debut album, Flicker. They, along with Liam, Louis and some of Niall’s friends and family all arrived at his London house for dinner and drinks to celebrate the launch after Niall had spent the day doing press. It was a really casual evening, with everyone scattered throughout the living room, kitchen, and heated patio. Later in the evening Aurora found herself sandwiched on the sofa between Liam and Louis while Harry was off being the social butterfly he was, flitting from one conversation to the next. Rori loved that about the two of them, as much as they loved each other they never felt the need to be glued to each other’s sides when out with friends. She had just finished filling the boys in on the excitement of the first leg of the tour when Liam posed a question.

“I noticed you guys have a 2 week break between Milan and Singapore,” he said. “Got anything planned?”

“We’re planning to be home for 8 or 9 days and then fly to Singapore a few days early to hopefully explore a little,” Rori explained. “Why?”

“Well I was wondering if you wanted to get in the studio with me,” Liam replied. “Lou and I wrote a song a few months back and the demo I put together got selected for the next Fifty Shades soundtrack, but they want it to be a duet. We thought you’d be the perfect fit.”

“Oooh, that sounds like fun,” Rori smiled. “Do you have the demo on your phone?” Liam nodded and Rori fished her AirPods out of her purse and quickly linked them with Liam’s phone to listen through the track. “I love it!” she declared once it reached the end. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun.”

They were interrupted from continuing by a slightly tipsy Niall calling everyone’s attention to where he was standing on the coffee table.

“EVERYONE!” Niall yelled. “I just wanna thank ya all for being here to celebrate all of this. It’s mental that after so many months my baby is finally out in the world and every single one of you played a part in helping make this happen.”

“TO NIALL!” Rori yelled, raising her glass in the air. Everyone echoed her words, cheersing the jolly Irishman.

xXx

A week and a half after Niall’s album launch, after shows in both Paris and Cologne, the Styles’ were back in London for two back to back shows in Hammersmith. The day after the shows, before they headed up to Manchester Harry was due to appear on Nick Grimshaw’s breakfast show on BBC Radio One as Kiwi was releasing as a single that day. Unfortunately, when Harry came of the stage after the second show his voice was in shambles. The tour doctor headed straight for Harry’s dressing room and after a quick consult he was placed on vocal rest for the next 36 hours in preparation for the next show. Aurora immediately called Grimmy to explain the situation while Jeff attempted not to panic before joining her on the call. After much discussion between the 3 of them and many eye rolls from Harry, it was decided that Aurora would attend the interview the following morning so that Nick wasn’t left hanging without a guest and Harry would stay home to rest before travelling up to Manchester in the afternoon.

xXx

“Good morning you’re listening to BBC Radio One, I’m Nick Grimshaw and this morning I was supposed to be joined by Mr Harry Styles but unfortunately Hazza’s come down with a bit of a cold so he’s sent along his wonderful wife to fill in for him. Aurora thank you for joining me.”

“Thank you for having me Grimmy,” Rori replied. “Wish it was a bit later in the day, but you did buy me a coffee so I’ll let you off without too many complaints.”

“How generous of you love,” Nick smirked.

“Only for you,” she giggled, throwing a wink across the table towards her friend.

“So, I had all these fantastic, insightful question for Harry about the album and the tour and the release of Kiwi as a single today, but alas I’ve had to throw all that out the window. Figured since I’m bluffing the questions, we might have a bit of fun today and given that it’s Hazzas fault you’re up this early, what do you say we have that fun at his expense?”

“Are you gonna get me in trouble when I get home Nick?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it love. Besides we both know he’d never get mad at you, that boy is smitten with you.”

“We’ll see about that. What sort of fun did you have in mind?”

“How about we throw to a song and when we come back, I’ll start with a few softball questions.”

“You’re going to play nicely, aren’t you?” Rori asked as the mics were muted and a song started playing for the listeners.

“Of course,” Nick smiled. “I know where your boundaries are, and I text Harry last night to see what he was comfortable with us discussing in regards to song meanings and he gave us the all clear.”

“Alright then,” Rori sighed. “I guess it’s too late now to back out.”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Nick laughed. “We’re gonna have a fun morning. You ready? Song’s almost done.”

Aurora nodded and readjusted her headphones.

“Welcome back, if you’re just tuning in, I’m joined this morning by the one and only Aurora Styles. Now Rori, your husband Harry, he’s a good mate of mine and the fans listening at home will be very aware that our boy H doesn’t like to talk about his private life much but between us gals I’ve got a few questions.”

“Oh god.”

“Now, now. We’ll have none of that. I’m wondering what married life is like?”

“It’s wonderful,” Rori answered. “We’ve been married for a little over 7 months now and it couldn’t be better.”

“And you’ve been together for what, 4 years now?”

“Something like that,” Rori agreed.

“What was it that first made you fall for him?”

“Oh um... I’m not sure what the first thing was, it just kind of happened. The dimples certainly didn’t hurt,” she joked. “But in all seriousness, I think it was just how genuine he was.”

“Boring,” Nick replied, rolling his eyes dramatically.

“No, I’m serious,” Rori laughed. “We met at the AMAs right before my first ever solo performance and I was in the middle of a panic attack and he just sat down next to me in the hallway and talked to me until I calmed down. We’d never met before and he just saw me freaking out and thought ‘I’m gonna help her’. You don’t find a lot of genuinely kind people in this industry and he’s always astounded me with how selfless he is.”

“That’s too cute. It’s disgusting. How do you manage being in a relationship with someone who is idolized by such an intensely loyal fan base?”

“Honestly, I love Harry’s fans. How could I not? They love the same things in him that I do. They recognize his talent and his kindness and they’re so supportive of everything he does. I’m honestly just so proud of him so of course I love his fans because he deserves to be adored.”

“You’re very sappy this morning sweetheart,” Nick replied. “Don’t get me wrong I’m loving it, you’re normally much sassier with me when you’re more awake. So how has it been being on tour with Harry and being a part of the band?”

“Oh my god, it’s so much fun. We have the best time when we’re all playing together, and we all get along so easily that it never feels like work. The tour has been incredible so far, getting to play this fantastic album to so many fans. I’m very lucky. There aren’t a lot of careers where you get to spend every day with your husband doing what you both love.”

“Speaking of the incredible album let’s play the new single Kiwi and when we come back, we might have a bit of a chat about the other tracks.”

After Kiwi finished, Nick grinned cheekily across the desk at Aurora as he welcomed the listeners back. “And we are back everyone, now before the song break, we were discussing Harry Styles, the self-titled debut of Harry Styles and Aurora I’d love to pick your brain about it since you were involved in the entire creation process, weren’t you?”

“From writing to recording,” Rori agreed.

“So which track is your favourite?”

“That’s tough. There are a lot of very personal songs on the album and in one way or another they’re all my favourites for very narcissistic reasons, but I think if I had to pick one, I think I have to pick Sweet Creature. It’s just a beautiful song.”

“You would pick a song written for you as your favourite.”

“I mean in my defence every song on the album is either about me or I wrote it so there was no humble way to answer that question, and also Nick,” she paused, smirking in anticipation for the rest of her sentence, “who said it’s about me?”

“Wait. Are you saying you’re not Harry’s Sweet Creature? Well who is it about? Did he step out on you?” Nick joked.

Aurora chuckled. “No, he didn’t step out on me, and I’m not telling you. She knows who she is and all I’ll say is that not all love is romantic love. Besides everyone who assumed it was about me didn’t even really listen to the song. I mean how could we have started out as ‘two hearts in one home’?”

“Well I’m sure all the fans listening are having a bit of a breakdown right now over that,” Nick laughed. “I want to come back to talking about the album later, but since you’ve never been shy about addressing fan theories, I thought it might be a bit of fun to look at what fans are talking about online. I’ve taken to Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr overnight to find out what's on their minds, what do you say Rori?”

“Let’s do it,” Rori replied.

“Excellent. Let’s play a song first and when we come back, we’ll be addressing fan questions, and speculations. This is Taylor Swift with Look What You Made Me Do.”

While the song played Rori and Nick talked and joked around about what he had found online and he promised, once again, that he wouldn’t put her in any uncomfortable situations.

“Welcome back,” Nick said. “This morning we’re answering the internets burning questions with Aurora Styles. First ones gonna be a soft ball Rors. It’s from twitter user @IwouldSellMyLeftKidneyForAuroraStark, who tweeted: My life is in desperate need for an Aurora Styles solo album/tour. Who do I have to kill to make this happen? So, when are we getting your solo work, love?”

“Oh wow, that’s very sweet,” Aurora replied with a blush, “But please don’t sell your kidney for me, you’re gonna need that. As for the solo work, while I appreciate the support, I don’t think I will ever go solo. I enjoy the collaborative process too much and a solo tour just wouldn’t be as much fun as touring with Harry. I will continue posting covers and demos to my YouTube channel and we have been tossing around the idea of a demo tape album so maybe you will get an album from me at some point.”

“Well I for one would be first in line for a vinyl of your Demo Tapes series,” Nick replied. “I found a tweet with a theory about some of your songs from twitter user @HarrysSuits. How cute is it that Aurora Styles has like 5 Songs that she’s written either about or with Harry that have the same or very similar titles to 1D songs? I mean there’s The Little Things, Just You and I, Still I Fly, Where I Belong, and All Night.”

“I mean when you lay it out like that there’s definitely a trend,” Rori admitted with a chuckle.

“You didn’t do it intentionally?” Nick asked.

“Not at all. Yikes. Makes me sound like a bit of a fan girl doesn’t it? Naming all my songs after theirs?”

“A little bit,” Nick chuckled, holding up his hand with his thumb and forefinger pinched together.

“How embarrassing,” Rori said sarcastically.

“Very embarrassing,” Nick replied with a matching tone. “I hope they don’t notice because how awkward would it be if they know you’re a fan?”

“I’d die.”

“Thank god this is a private chat that no one else is listening too,” Nick laughed. “Ok so earlier in the show you hinted at the story behind Sweet Creature and I was hoping, since Hazza isn’t here to stop us, we can dive into the rest of the album. The fans and I couldn’t help but notice that there seems to be a bit of a common theme throughout the album with it being tied into the Columbia shooting and I've got a fan observation here from the account @18monthsTheySaid, it’s quite an in-depth thread but I’d love to get your take on it so here we go:

Whatever you do, don’t think about the fact that at least 4 tracks off HS1 are about Aurora and the Columbia shooting. These are obviously just my interpretations of the songs and I might be wrong but I’m gonna say it anyway.

Meet me in the Hallway: I think this is about the immediate aftermath. He’s roaming the hospital hallways, needing pain relief and he’s ‘gotta get better’ because he feels the need to pull himself together and be there for Aurora. He’s begging her ‘Just let me know…’ because he’d do anything to fix it or make it easier for her.

Sign of the Times is probably one of the most overt ones on the album, I mean ‘why are we always stuck’n running from the bullets’? and I’m pretty sure ‘we don’t talk enough… will we ever learn?’ is about how we can never seem to have an actual conversation about gun reform in this country and until we do we’ll never change.

Two Ghosts: ‘we’re not who we used to be’ is obviously about the fact that they both changed so much in the wake of the shooting and I think the idea of them being ghosts is Harry examining the alternative reality where she didn’t survive and maybe he wouldn’t have survived it either.

Ever Since New York: I mean the title says it all really. ‘Tell me something I don’t already know’ is maybe asking the doctors for better news because she went through so many surgeries and the results were always the same. And ‘Brooklyn saw me empty at the news’ I think is reference to Rori’s dad, Steve Rogers who’s from Brooklyn and some of the Avengers call him that occasionally in interviews.”

Aurora remained silent for a moment once Nick finished reading out the twitter thread. She was so often blown away by how observant the fans were and how much they picked up on. “When we sat down to write the album in 2016 we were so heavily stuck in the aftermath of Columbia that I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that a lot of the album is in reference to what happened to me and the fallout from that,” she explained. “This album was about us piecing ourselves back together in many ways and I think if you listen to the whole thing you can hear that entire process of us healing together. The incredible thing about Harry as a songwriter and as a performer is that he’s always been so good at making you feel exactly what he’s feeling when he sings, and clearly people are picking up on that tone and over-arching theme.”

“Was it difficult to write about what happened?” Nick asked.

“Some days,” Rori admitted. “There were a lot of tears but the thing I love the most about music, and the entire song writing process, is that it’s the best form of therapy. When I’m writing I can admit to feelings I wouldn’t otherwise be able to talk about. You can be really vulnerable in way that feels safe and comforting and then when you’re able to share that with the world and you let them in, it’s an incredible experience.”

“And I think I speak for everyone when I say how much we appreciate you and Harry letting us in. Now before either of us get too mushy, let’s throw it over to your favourite track off the album. This is Sweet Creature.”

While the song played, Nick looked across the desk to where Aurora was taking a deep breathe to steady her nerves after talking about something so personal. She loved talking about song writing and the meanings behind her lyrics, but she always got a little nervous when it was Harry’s songs she was talking about, knowing that he felt the opposite about sharing the stories behind the songs. He had told her countless times that while he wasn’t comfortable having those conversations he would never stop her from talking about it, but his silence on the topic always made his fans desperate for information which put a lot of pressure on her when she spoke about his work.

“Alright,” Nick said, “you ready for the last one?”

“Is it what I think it is?

“It is. Not too late to back out if you don’t want me to ask. We can just talk about the BBC recording or about the tour some more.”

“No, it’s ok,” she replied. “It’s about time I say something. Just nervous about the response.”

Nick nodded in understanding and turned back to the microphone as the song reached its end. Aurora felt her heartrate rising and her hand started to shake as anxiety clawed at her throat.

“Now we’ve been addressing fan theories and answering the internet’s burning questions here this morning and we can’t really have a segment like this without touching on the biggest theory surrounding Harry that dates back to the very early days of his career and I know neither of you have ever addressed this publicly but when we were chatting last night about you filling in for him I asked if it was ok to bring this up and you both agreed I could ask…”

Aurora shifted in her seat hesitantly, her palm growing sweaty as she anticipated the next question. She’d avoided commenting on it publicly ever since she and Harry announced their relationship, which was not to say she didn’t have strong opinions about the topic. She just knew that it would cause a stir amongst the fans.

“For years now, fans have speculated that Harry and his bandmate, Louis Tomlinson, are in a secret relationship and that they’re management forced them to hide it so as not to alienate their fan base. In the past both yourself and Louis’ girlfriends have been accused of acting as beards for the lads, but you’ve never addressed the overwhelming online presence of what the fans call Larry Stylinson.”

“I really don’t like talking about it, Grimmers,” Aurora began. “But I guess by staying silent a lot of fans have taken that as an answer, so what I will say is that I’m not angry at those fans. I am sad though. I’m sad that they think it’s ok to harass myself or Eleanor or Danielle or anyone else in Harry and Louis’ lives. I’m sad that they saw two boys who saw each other as family and loved each other and that those fans couldn’t accept that two men could show affection for each other without it being romantic love. What worries me are all the boys out there who see the way these girls have acted over the years and how much that has reinforced the toxic masculinity in their lives. The fear of being seen as gay stops so many boys and men from telling their friends that they love them. My best friend Ella and I act the exact same way as Lou and H did in the early days of the band but because we’re women no one has ever accused us of being lesbians. The harassment has affected all of us and I know that the fans are acting out of a place of love. They love the boys and they want them to be happy, but it’s honestly just gone too far, and it needs to stop. The Directioners are such wonderful people who are so inclusive and loving and I think they need to remember that and remember that we see the things that they say online. I guess if there was one thing I would say to those fans if they’re listening it would be that I know you love Harry and Lou, but by attacking myself and the other women in their lives you are hurting them and I’m certain that that is not what you want, so instead I ask you to channel that love into supporting them and lifting them up.”

“Thank you love. I know you don’t like talking about, but I must say I completely agree with you. Now we’re going to go to one more song and then when we come back, we’ll wrap this up and let you get on with your day. How about you introduce this next track, Rori?”

“Thanks, Grimmy,” Rori said. “From his incredible new album which dropped less than 2 weeks ago, here’s Niall Horan and myself with Seeing Blind.”

“You handled that well,” Nick told her once the mics were muted. “Kept your cool and explained yourself clearly.”

“Thanks,” Rori replied with a small smile. “Think I might stay offline for the next few days to avoid the worst of it.”

“Probably a good idea love,” Nick agreed. “Ready to finish this off?”

“Let’s do it.”

When the song ended the pair chatted for a few minutes about the rest of the tour before they reached the end of their timeslot. “Well thank you for joining me this morning for a bit of a cheeky gossip session Rors,” Nick finally said. “For those of you listening at home that are missing Harry this morning, tune in to BBC on Thursday night for Harry Styles at the BBC, an hour long show with live performances and interviews with yours truly.”

NEXT CHAPTER

OR CONTINUE READING ON AO3

#skyfire fic #Husband Harry Styles #harry styles fanfiction #dad!tony #ptsd #domestic fluff #iron dad #step dad steve rogers #aurora stark #harry styles #tony stark

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relijackson · 4 years

Text

So get this...

Percy was lounging on Rachel's bed wearing a tux feeling a little glum bc his breakup with Annabeth was still a bit fresh (3 moths have passed)

But Rachel asked him out to be her date to her first ever big spotlight art exhibition

So here he is watching an underwear clad redhead putting on her pants and her matching black woman tux with flower embroidery (ootd suggested by Drew)

He doesnt feel so alone that much

Bc how could he? An underwear clad woman is in front of you

Can you like dress up without me here?

Why? Does it bother you?

[[MORE]]

Its also a really big deal for Rachel since the event is a big scale media-socialite-art enthusiasts type of big thing

She only goes to small scale intimate exhibitions to avoid the limelight but she was invited by a friend and she couldnt say no

They never knew that they'll trend that night

Bc you have Rachel in her tux with beautiful flower embroideries screaming FEMALE POWER

And then there's Percy looking like his usual. A Greek/Roman god.

Linked arms they go to the red carpet with flashing lights and camera shutters

They stop at the photo op place.

Wow beautiful perfection

They became the topic of the crowd

A woman who came in tux with a partner aslo wearing tux. People are amazed.

Some people think that Percy's a sub to Rachel's dom aura that night.

An eyecandy, trophy date

Rachel's pieces are at the top floor so they roamed around the lower areas first

But the event has a serious atmosphere after the glam lights at the entrance

So the two had a bet to say the dumbest shit and whoever cracks first loses.

They proceeded to be fools while keeping a straight face.

It was a hard

Thankfully they were interrupted by Rachel's friend, one of the organizers

Your work is absolutely amazing. Out of all exhibitions, yours is my favorite

So they went to the top floor to see Rachel's work

The room was dark with only the paintings having lights.

Her work consists of demigods war life

But her proudest piece stands in the middle. The biggest one. As big as the wall of the whole room

It was percy's face, the ocean reflecting on his skin and his striking ocean like eyes stares at the person looking at the painting like the its alive

It was majestic

Percy was touched

He felt really appreciated and seeing your face up there was lil bit overwhelming

He didnt model for that so he kbows she painted it just from memory

The memory of his face

He looked at the painting in awe then turning to Rachel at his side. He felt a surge of emotions he couldn't quite put a name on

But it feels similar to love

So he did what his instincts told him to. Say a cheesy line to break her serious face and laugh.

Thank you.

You like it?

I love it. I love you.

He held her hand and kissed her knuckles

Rachel knows he's sincere. She could feel it. Also she knows that playful glint in his eyes saying 'you're going down' and she would not be going down like he wants her to

But it was so cheesy its making her cringe and laugh at the same time

ALMOST SHE ALMOST LAUGHED

I know you do. You're my muse.

They dont know though, they've gathered quite an audience and their picturesque in the middle of the painting him kissing her knuckled and her tearing up a little (bc shes holding her laugh but they dont know that) while staring at each other was taken as a picture by one of the media people

Ooooooh boy their picture exploded in the internet in .05 seconds after being posted

They still dont know it though, oblivious to everything around them

I have a lot of gas in my stomach now i think I'm gonna fart

PERCY'S DAM BROKE

He snorted at Rachel's statement

Man, he lost. A bruise to his ego. Damn

So at the garden of the place was where all the food lies.

Rachel left Percy at their rable to get more sweets from the dessert table.

But she was interrupted by an old man

You should go with men who can handle you better, wanna join me at my private room?

No thank you.

I bet that man of yours is just about looks. You will enjoy your time with me more.

Then he touched Rachel's bum

There goes her hand flying, smacking the face of the creepy old man

I said no can't you understand that?

Percy saw what happened and hurriedly came over

Why you!!! Do you know who I am?!

Yes, you are an entitled old man who thinks money can cover up all your sins so you just harass women all the time at parties that you just invited yourself into.

You bitch!

The old man's hand swinging towards Rachel was stopped by a strong hand.

Percy's face expression was like when he was fighting monsters in Tartarus. Ready for the kill

He held the man's wrist tightly it might break

Don't you dare a lay your dirty hand on her

Oooh hes so scary also hot af

Media loves this

Also Rachel was confidently standing there expecting the slap but also relieved to see Percy there

The man was scared shitless so Rachel held Percy's bicep and told him to let go

Then she walked towards the man, fixing his tux with a determined power of a woman wronged by a creeply old man

She said in low tone

I know who you are and all the things you do. If you dont want them on the news headline tonight I suggest you stop right here

Of course she doesnt know him, she doesnt even know whatever he does

But she was trained by Drew to be a manipulative biatch at times of need

The internet loves Rachel and Percy

Also they realized that Percy wasnt a sub to Rachel's dom

So they speculated they're verse

The next morning Rachel's back into her normal sweatpants tshirt combo eating cereal next to her full dressed parents eating lavish breakfast

My dear, you've become quite famous last night

Rachel's mother showed her the articles and pictures and just coos at her

Only if the speculations of you and him together is true

Said his Dad

Maybe... Rachel said.

#perachel #perachel fic #perachel au #perachel headcanon #percy jackson #rachel dare

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makeste · 5 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 156: Deku Potter and the Cursed Child

Previously on BnHA: Chronostasis was revealed to be holding Aizawa prisoner on some lower level of the Neverending Basement. He has sexy clock hair which he’s used to basically paralyze Aizawa for the next hour. Deku fought Overhaul for a little bit at 20% OFA and it basically did nothing. Meanwhile Mirio tried to drag Eri away to safety, but ended up collapsing due to blood loss. He told Eri to go and hide, but she wasn’t able to take the guilt of thinking she’s responsible for all this death and carnage, and she went back and told Overhaul she’d go with him if he stopped hurting everyone and fixed them all back up. Overhaul said some more bullshit things which got Deku all fired up again, and our little green hero stumbled to his feet and shouted that he’d save Eri no matter what. And then THANK FUCK, Ryuukyuu and my badass ladies Tsuyu, Ochako, and Hadou came busting in out of nowhere. I really need this girl power squad to turn the tide here because tbh, I’ve had just about enough of this.

Today on BnHA: We flash back to see how the badass lady squad battled Katsukame, the giant vitality-stealing bad guy who kept sucking energy from everyone and converting it into his own power. Just as they were finally wrapping things up, “Deku” appeared and told them that their assistance was needed in the Neverending Basement. “Deku” of course turned out to be Toga, but that doesn’t really matter since in the end she helped the heroes out. Back in the present, Deku asks Ochako to help Nighteye while he goes after Overhaul and Eri. Overhaul tries to escape through the new hole in the ceiling, and Deku leaps after him. Meanwhile we learn through more flashbacks that Eri is actually the granddaughter of the Comatose Boss, and that she was abandoned by her mother (the boss’s daughter) after her quirk manifested and she somehow vanished her father. Overhaul was assigned to look after her and eventually learned that her quirk is able to rewind time. Back in the present (again), Eri’s quirk begins to awaken, and she leaps toward Deku’s arms.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 185 now, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

everyone, I have an announcement. today, 1/13/19, is an auspicious day. today I am finally going to finish this arc after four long years. or maybe it’s only been a couple months. I lost track of time somewhere in the darkness. but anyways. I’m gonna do it. the binge starts... now

oooh!

come to think, we never did learn her actual quirk. obviously it’s something to do with destroying other people’s quirks, because that’s what they were weaponizing her DNA for. but what exactly is it that she does?

so we’re backtracking to “a short time ago”, and Ryuukyuu and her squad have successfully taken down the villain from all the way back in chapter 138

you see how they did that with no casualties? that’s cuz they’re competent. and also because they didn’t split up like fools, although for the most part that was out of the others’ control. (but them leaving Tamaki was still stupid af)

so they’re hurrying to go help the others

but something is happening??

oh shit the guy wasn’t fully knocked out

he’s using his quirk to sap their energy

aaaaand he’s getting bigger and breaking free of his bonds

he’s all amped up on quirkroids just like Irinaka was. fuck

so they were stuck dealing with him for another 20 minutes! during which time two whole months passed in the labyrinth of uninteresting chapters. ugh

it looks to me like the ladies ended up having to babysit the cops

Ryuukyuu’s shouting at Hadou and OH MY GOD WE’RE FINALLY GETTING THE DETAILS OF HER QUIRKKKKK

she should have kicked ass at the sports festival. I still don’t know why she never placed. maybe she just got disqualified for asking her opponent too many inappropriate personal questions

-- hey now what is this

I’m preeeeeeetty sure it’s not!

which means it’s Toga oh my god

so what is she up to?

it looks for all the world like she��s actually pointing them in the right direction so they can come bail the others out before they lose to Overhaul. total betrayal of the Precepts. yes please. I fucking love it omg

also, just to remind everyone, Horikoshi is terrible at math because if this really is Toga she should have only had enough blood to turn into Deku for like three seconds. I wonder if she’ll be in a rush to get back out of there before her cover is blown

(ETA: shoutout to @temperatezone who Did The Math and calculated that Toga probably has around 35 seconds’ worth of Deku blood, so this scene is indeed plausible, if just barely! and we’ll just have to wait and see if she actually used up all the blood she has with this stunt, or if we’ll be seeing not!Deku make any future appearances.)

fuck yes the girls are wrapping this up now! with coordinated team action!

good LORD he got big

and they’re smashing through the ground and winding up in Overhaul’s spiky rock room as we saw earlier!

could you guys also smash just one more level down and save Aizawa too, please and thanks

also Deku is there -- the real Deku -- and Ochako is like

THEN WHO WAS DEKU

hee

-- oh my god fucking gross, Toga

“plus chaos”?? is that their new thing?

do you guys secretly want to go to U.A. too. “we’re forming our own team. it’s called the... uh... revengers”

also is this the first time we’ve seen Compress with his missing arm? I forget if he was in the flashback chapter from before. and I’m not gonna go back and check right now because I have more important things to do, namely BINGGGGE

(ETA: kinda glad I didn’t check, because the Robot Arm came as such a pleasant surprise in chapter 160)

look at this elaborate plan they concocted

was Compress being held hostage?? how much of this arc did I drift through in a boredom-induced haze omg

(ETA: okay so this was never actually clarified, but based on the information we have, it would seem that Tomura was planning on having his minions kidnap Eri when the opportunity arose, and that’s why Twice made a copy of Mr. Compress to save for a rainy day. Compress then used his quirk on himself?, and then simply sat around in one of their pockets waiting for the plan to go into effect.

but this all means that Toga and Twice were both somehow able to lie even under the influence of Nemoto’s quirk in chapter 149, though. so that’s weird. unless they somehow came up with this plan all on their own, in which case it technically wouldn’t have been Tomura’s plan, and so Nemoto’s wording of that particular question would have allowed them to say no. but that seems like a reach. then again, this all does, pretty much. so...)

and also, so we’re back to Twice making more than two copies of things, I presume? or did they do all this with only two sets of them

(ETA: @r5h helped me with this one back in 149; even though Twice can only make two copies of things, each of his clones has the same quirk, and so each of them can make two more copies, etc. etc. although this would mean Twice broke his self-imposed rule of not copying himself. but hey it was for a good cause)

anyway. so Twice is telling Compress that Eri is the core of the Precepts’ operation and that she’s just a little kid

omg. they want Compress to snatch her. like he did with Katsuki omg

listen guys. I’m somehow mostly on your side here. even when you abducted Kacchan, it led to my two favorite parts of the series, so yeah. but if you abduct any more children, particularly this one who has been through enough trauma for a lifetime, you’re going to lose some points again

although why do I feel like even Tomura would end up being way kinder to Eri than Overhaul ever was. I feel like they wouldn’t really hurt her, but they’d probably end up brainwashing and manipulating her much in the same way that AFO did to Tomura. that’s the more classy villain thing to do

(ETA: they’d give her lots of ginger ale)

wtf. apparently Compress is a copy? I’m so fucking confused. can anyone help me puzzle this out seeing as the anime won’t air this for another year. I’m tempted to go find the reddit discussion thread of this chapter and see if they got it sorted

(ETA: bah, the reddit discussion was just a bunch of speculation on what Eri’s quirk actually was and whether she was going to become Orihime 2.0. reddit needs to calm the fuck down sometimes lol)

anyway, so Compress is dropping in on everyone now and bitching about how mean Toga and Twice are to him

Deku’s shouting at Ochako to take care of Nighteye

float him out to safety, I guess? the dude’s already a goner Deku

and he’s running toward Eri

but

Overhaul you BITCH, DID YOU HURT MY SWEET GIRL

DEKU HOW CAN WE MAKE IT SO THIS FUCKER NEVER AGAIN SEES THE LIGHT OF DAY

son of a bitch

I said how can we make it so he does not see the light of day, Deku!!

are you just standing there while he escapes on this jutting rock elevator like Scar singing “Be Prepared” in The Lion King

YES. DUH

oh for fuck’s sake he’s leaping after him and screaming “I won’t let you!”

right now you don’t have a very good track record for living up to those words, Deku

Overhaul’s all “give it up already”

once again, they’re not the ones dragging it out, you ass

and now, weirdly, he’s being interrupted by a giant rock wearing Mirio’s cape?

I dub thee “Lemillirock”

I’m sorry, are we really supposed to believe that a giant fucking rock wearing a billowing cape just somehow got “blown up” twenty feet in the air toward you all on its own?

and what, are they just stopping to admire it now?

Eri’s reaching out to grab the cape

the narration says she wasn’t even conscious of the fact that she was doing it

and she’s remembering Mirio’s whole “a hero’s cape is for safely bundling up scared little girls all snug and secure like warm lil burritos” speech

is her quirk happening?!

what’s going on omg

Overhaul seems shocked by something

FLASHBACK

ahhhhh so she’s the old boss’s granddaughter. that makes much more sense

the boss’s daughter apparently cut her ties with the family after a marriage dispute, and had a kid

and then...

well that’s nice

um WHAT

UM. WHAT

jesus christ. apparently Eri mutated a quirk that had nothing to do with the quirks on either side of her family lineage

don’t mind me just making a note of this for future theorizing. please, continue

so apparently her quirk just straight up makes things disappear. just disappears ‘em

so the boss told Overhaul to look after her, and to also investigate just what her quirk was

so he did some experiments with rats and stuff

WHAT

WAIT WHAT

omg

wait so is this like that thing in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator that de-aged people, and if you took too much you’d actually be de-aged into negative years??

does this mean that with more training she could master control of it and turn it into a time travel quirk??

(ETA: future number one hero here. for sure. unstoppable. Deku this is your successor. actually you’d better watch out because you and Katsuki will have like 10 years at the top at most before she graduates and arrives fresh on the hero scene to boot y’all from that podium.

fucking imagine. she can heal anyone. stop bad guys by removing their quirks and/or turning them into cute babies. alter the landscape during fights. turn a few chickens into fucking dinosaurs. and that’s just scratching the surface.

is she overpowered? fucking yes lmao. do I care? yeah that’s gonna be a no from me dawg. besides, like her equally overpowered Lemillibrother before her, she probably won’t gain full control of her abilities until she’s all grown up, so it’s all good.)

and apparently he started doing fucked up shit to her right away because she immediately tried to escape starting on that day

Eriiii ;_;

I need Eri to be adopted by a loving family and pampered and showered with love and affection every day for the rest of her life and they take her to Disney World and she meets the princesses and they all tell her how brave she is for never giving up, and now she finally has her happily ever after

do you remember how these fuckers were actually trying to bribe her with toys. as if that would make everything okay. sorry you’re being held captive and never shown the slightest affection and you’re being constantly tortured and you’re so scared and tired all the time because no matter what you know you’ll never be safe and you’ve even been conditioned to think all of it is your own fault. but here’s some toys. [leaves and comes back to find them unopened] WHY DIDN’T YOU PLAY WITH THEM. WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT DIDN’T MAGICALLY MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER

the narration is talking about how Mirio’s actions “shook her heart to the core”, and that she couldn’t bear to see people getting hurt trying to save her

and we’re back in real time and she’s saying “stop please, I don’t want you to die”

OH MY GOD

like, so wait. WHERE DID OVERHAUL GO

HER POWERS ARE AWAKENING. so they hadn’t before?? WHAT IS HER POWER OMG

but you know what. I can just CLICK TO THE NEXT CHAPTER AND FIND OUT. because like, that was the plan anyway :D

the last two omakes are just (1) Horikoshi announcing that the guy who draws Vigilantes drew him something to congratulate him on the new volume, and (2) the picture that said guy drew. which is Toga and Twice, but it’s not really anything special, aside from the fact that there’s a little caption saying “you know, I could ship this!” which, yeah buddy. I feel ya

#bnha #boku no hero academia #hadou nejire #uraraka ochako #toga himiko #midoriya izuku #overhaul (bnha)#eri (bnha)#bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #here's a question for you #could eri's quirk be used to heal afo's potato face and restore him to full strength #it's probably a really good thing he's currently in tartarus with no news access #I really don't want to think about the kind of damage he could have done if he'd gotten his hands on her quirk #but part of me wonders if horikoshi isn't perhaps saving this plot twist for a rainy day #I guess we'll see eventually

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