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virgo-mess · 6 months

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Silver Thread- Chapter 4

Happy Halloween! Did anyone else get a ridiculous blanket of snow today? 🤨

TW: Sexual references, a surprising amount of fluff and some heated kissing. I didn't intend on this being a slow build but it's what fits Veda's character more. Things should be heating up in the next two chapters though so bare with me 🧡

Veda’s Pov

The next morning Veda got ready for work shuffling through her apartment in a nervous fit. Wondering how today would go now that she had agreed to let her boss Terry Silver pursue her for a little while, she didn’t even want to think about how her coworkers were going to react when they found out. She hadn’t even told Zoe what happened when they finally went to lunch though Zoe pushed adamantly for all the information she could get. Veda groaned; she had gone through her closet about a million times by now finding it weird she suddenly cared what she wore now. Terry always seemed to like her outfits anyway, but she still felt this pressure to be someone that looked like they belonged with him.

“Why is this so hard?” she said aloud to herself, throwing another blazer dress on her bed. She was pulled out of her fit by a knock at her door, glancing at her clock to see it was only quarter to 7, work didn’t even start till 9:30. Veda had been much too anxious to sleep in this morning anyway, but no one usually dropped by her apartment this early. Veda scurried out of her room and made her way to her front door. “Who is it?” she called.

“It’s me” came a deep chuckle. Veda’s eyes grew wide realizing it was Terry, glancing around at her apartment. The living room and kitchen were presentable enough, but she hadn’t been expecting visitors.

“Whose me?” she quipped before opening the door to see Terry leaning on the door frame in one of his dark pinstriped Giorgio Armani suits there was another older man behind him. Terry smiled down at her.

“Am I that forgettable Veda?” he said jokingly, Veda blushed realizing she was still in her pajamas, short athletic shorts, and a tank top. “Good morning, I’m sorry if I woke you. I thought we could grab breakfast.” He said, eyeing her pajamas with a fond smile. Vada blushed a deeper shade of red when she remembered she wasn’t wearing a bra, and she could tell Terry definitely noticed. It was quite chilly in her apartment.

“I was already up, just trying to pick something to wear” she said shyly crossing her arms over her chest in an attempt to hide her hard nipples. Terry chuckled.

“You can wear that if you want. I won’t object” he said flirtatiously, Veda blushed again as she rolled her eyes motioning for him to step in. “You could always wear something out of one of these” he said motioning to the bags the man behind him was carrying. Veda instantly recognized them as the clothes Terry had tried to gift her months ago.

“Oh, Mr. Silver. I still can’t accept those” Veda said shyly fiddling with the watch on her wrist. Terry walked over to her with a reassuring smile on his face, reaching up to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear before letting it fall to her cheek. Veda stiffened for a moment as it still surprised her when he touched her, she relaxed when he drew soft circles with his thumb. Terry smiled before placing a kiss on her forehead, Veda let out a soft sigh of contentment at the gesture. Looking into his eyes when he pulled away.

“Veda, I’m afraid you have no choice but to accept them now. I told you I was going to treat you like I treat my girlfriends, and this is just one of the things I do to treat them. Besides, it’s too late to return them, they won’t fit me, and they’re not Margaret’s style.” Veda let out a soft giggle.

“Well, I guess if I don’t have a choice…” she said with mock uncertainty, knowing exactly what she wanted to wear now.

Terry Pov

Terry couldn’t help but smile while he watched Veda nearly skip towards the bags. She was practically vibrating with excitement; Terry couldn’t help but glance down and watch the way her boobs bounced with her. They were so perky, and her nipples were so visible right now. Terry bit his lip when he felt himself twitch against his thigh watching her disappear into her bedroom when she found what she wanted.

“So, what do you think Larry?” Terry said walking over to his driver. Larry stood by the doorway with an amused expression. Terry took a moment to glance around her apartment, everything was exceptionally clean, though her furniture was clearly second hand she had done quite a nice job decorating. Terry had noticed her moderate obsession with organizing recalling how she chewed out Zoe for her less than pristine desk space. Terry was sure he’d find her correcting his cleaning staff one day when he convinced her to move in and let him pamper her. He felt slightly guilty for letting her think he had any intention of actually accepting her transfer request. In that regard she was still naive, despite her better judgement she took him at his word. Although Terry felt much more confident in wooing her over now, his heart fluttered at how quickly she melted into his touch yesterday. Terry could kick himself for all the time he wasted punishing her for not returning his affections. She would’ve been his by now had he just realized she wanted the same things he did, devotion and security. That she was just as afraid as he was and needed the reassurance that he wasn’t just toying with her. In a strange way Terry saw himself in her. In her eyes the glimpse of a version of himself that he left behind a long time ago. A powerless version of himself he wanted so bad to destroy, but upon seeing it in Veda he wanted nothing more than to reclaim, nurture, cradle, and protect it in the most intimate ways.

“She’s breathtaking, sir. I can understand why you’re so smitten” Larry said, Terry felt a smile plaster across his face, grabbing one of the small bags and pulling out a tiny velvet box that contained one carat diamond flower earrings and a matching necklace.

“She’s perfect for me Larry. Deserves to wear things as beautiful as she is” Terry sighed. He felt like a kid on Christmas when Veda finally emerged from her bedroom wearing a bright pink thin strapped Oscar De La Renta mini dress with raised floral and lace detail on the hem and matching wedges. He had picked it primarily for the color, he thought she would like the innocent little doll she really is, all dressed up in the color of innocence. Terry enjoyed her regular outfits but found the neutral color scheme didn’t do her justice, her kind of beauty deserved to be noticed, it deserved to be worshipped. Terry had every intention of worshipping her forever. The teasing sweetheart neckline and snug fit brought out that innocent sex appeal he adored about her.

“Let’s see sweetheart” Terry breathed out making a motion for her to twirl for him, he wanted to sear this moment in his mind forever. Veda blushed slightly at the endearment but did what he asked, Terry could feel himself growing harder at the act of submission. He let his eyes trail down her perfect curvy figure with a dreamy sort of smile on his face, he was sure going to fantasize about taking this off her later. She had pulled her wavy hair up into a messy bun, lose waves framing her face in a way that made her look ethereal. “Gorgeous, like always. What do you think of these?” Terry asked his smile never leaving his face as he held up the velvet box. Loving the shy smile and blush that she gave him for the compliment. Veda peered at the jewelry with her big eyes.

“They’re beautiful Mr. Silver but I can’t walk around in this neighborhood wearing those or this outfit really” she said half joking, Terry knew the truth in the statement he’d seen way too many unsavory looking men eyeing the Rolls Royce when he pulled up. He felt a pang of jealousy and concern at the fact that they ogled her pure form daily while thinking about the most vile ways they could destroy her.

“You don’t have to walk anymore either Larry or I will be taking you to and from work, school, and anywhere else you wish to go. Honestly, I’d much rather you not live in a place like this at all, it’s not safe for anyone, but most especially you.” Terry said, Veda nodded.

“It was just the most financially responsible option for me at the time. You know how serious I am about my numbers Mr. Silver, if someone stole 900,000 dollars from my company, I would’ve had a heart attack. That being said I will gratefully accept a ride.” she said in a teasing tone, Terry chuckled remembering how floored she had been by his unconcerned attitude. Terry had made all that back in less than a month. He still gleefully intimidated Joe Owens with the threat of prison time and some tame violence. Joe was very quick to give every cent back.

“You know can call me Terry when we aren’t at the office. I’m sorry that I never offered you a ride before, I didn’t think you’d accept. I always made sure you got home safe though” Terry admitted, he avoided making eye contact as he pulled the necklace from the box. Feeling vulnerable was still such a new experience for him and he wasn’t sure how she would take his confession. “Would you like me to put it on?” he asked, glancing at her for a moment, she looked like she was trying to see into his soul and Terry felt his cheeks heat up with embarrassment. Some people might find such a thing creepy, but it was rather tame compared to the other things he thought of doing. She wasn’t ready for those thoughts.

“Yes” she said softly, Terry felt his hand tremble a bit as he unclasped the necklace. He made his way to her slowly, stopping in front of her a little closer than needed. He was hoping the close proximity would soothe his nerves, but his hands were still trembling when he reached around her neck. He felt a wave of frustration washing over him when the tremble made it difficult to reclasp the necklace.

Veda stood still picking up on the fact Terry had become nervous by her lack of response to him admitting he always watched out for her. His breathing picked up in the same ragged pace it had when she sat in his office yesterday. Only this time she didn’t fight the urge to comfort him. Terry didn’t notice her reach up as he was still focused on his growing frustration at putting on stupid necklace. Veda gently took a hold of his arm before dragging her hand up it in slow soothing motions. Terry’s eyes darted to her hand momentarily surprised by the gesture before looking at her. Veda smiled at him reassuringly before standing on her tip toes to place a soft kiss on his cheek. Terry closed his eyes leaning into the contact feeling his breathing slow, he felt Veda drag her hand up to his shoulder drawing comforting circles. Veda moved her head slightly replacing her lips with her cheek.

“Thank you, Terry,” she whispered, Terry felt that warm flutter in his chest at the amount of intimacy she was giving him right now; part of him didn’t want the moment to end. A pleased rumble vibrated in his chest, and he opened his eyes, finally able to clasp the necklace around her neck securely. Dragging his hands to the back of her shoulders to pull her into an embrace, Terry let out a sigh and another content rumble when he felt her snake her arms around him to return it. Her hands resumed drawing comforting patterns up and down his back. Terry felt an overwhelming wave of adoration overtake him at the gesture, bowing his head to pepper her shoulder and neck with light kisses. Veda let out a breathy sigh of contentment that came out sounding more like a moan. Terry felt a new wave of lust and pride wash over him at being able to draw such a pretty sound from her and felt compelled to do it again. Terry had to fight the lustful urge to take her right now in her living room when he felt her stiffen in his grasp. Veda felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment at the sound she let out. Terry withdrew his face from her neck and she looked up at him sheepishly. Terry smiled at her softly, still drawing soft patterns on her back and shoulders.

“Sorry” Veda said shyly, her cheek was sitting softly on his chest still as she angled her head to look up at him.

“That’s okay” he said reassuringly, bringing one of his hands to caress her cheek. “Thank you for the hug” he said just above a whisper, Veda gave him one of her shy smiles in return. The pair stood silently in the other’s arms for a long moment, Terry enjoyed the feeling of being wrapped up in her small arms. While he stared into her big brown eyes and she stared back into his, something about it just felt perfect.

They were pulled out of their trance by Larry clearing his throat, both of them seemingly forgetting he was there. Terry slowly let his arms fall to his side begrudgingly taking a step away from her. Veda gave him a shy smile; her cheeks were still a very cute shade of red as she started putting the matching earrings in.

“Sorry, sir, your reservation” Larry said, feeling guilty for disrupting such a touching display. He had turned away to awkwardly stare out the window as soon as Terry pulled her in for a hug, feeling like he was intruding on a very private moment.

“No need to apologize Larry, are you ready?” Terry asked, Veda nodded her head still smiling as they all shuffled out of her apartment.

Vada’s Pov

The ride to the restaurant was rather quiet, Larry glanced back in the rearview every once in a while, amused. Vada and Terry were each sitting looking out opposite windows a distance between them as they each sat and thought about what had just happened. Larry would see them glance at the other longingly for a moment and then look away when the other turned to look at them. If their gazes happened to meet, they would smile shyly with rosy cheeks before looking away. Larry had to keep himself from giggling, wondering why they didn’t just hold hands or kiss because it was very obvious, they both wanted to.

Veda wasn’t sure what to do with herself still slightly embarrassed from the very obvious moan she let out having felt a very sudden wave of arousal upon him kissing her neck. She had thought she could brush off the last one she felt in his office that day, as it wasn’t like she hadn’t thought he was attractive before it happened. She had thought of him in a sexual way a few times before. She vowed to never admit that he had in fact sparked her sexual awakening, any thoughts she had about guys she dated prior were innocent. She never fantasized about letting any of them taking her virginity nor had she felt the urge to touch herself after thinking or dreaming of them either. Veda had chalked up to nothing but sexual attraction, that she felt nothing for him beyond that.

It made her wonder how she had been so sure they hated each other yesterday morning when it was very clear that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Zoe knew it, Margaret knew it, Rob knew it, Professor Ryan knew it, even Larry, who had only met her a half hour ago, knew it. Why hadn’t she seen it? She began to ponder the idea that she did know how he felt at least a little bit. Maybe she never read any of the notes he sent so she had plausible deniability. Because if she convinced herself there was nothing there, that he felt nothing for her, that if it was just sex then she wouldn’t have to fall for him. She couldn’t deny it now, Terry Silver did in fact feel something for her and it wasn’t just lust. She felt it in the way he held her, she felt it in the kisses he peppered on her neck and shoulder, and she felt it in the ones he placed on her forehead. When he pulled away to look at her and his beautiful blue eyes were filled with so much adoration. She heard it in the way he thanked her for the hug. The moment was so beautiful it left her wondering if she felt that same level of adoration for him. It made her want to feel that way about him.

When they left her apartment, her mind was reeling, reanalyzing every ‘argument’ they ever had. Now she sat quietly in the car unsure where to go from here, she saw the flash of pain in his eyes when she sat by the window. Veda hadn’t really thought about it when she did it, she had only wanted to watch things pass by the window. Terry had evidently interpreted it as her wanting to put distance between them after such an intimate moment, a moment neither of them felt equipped to talk about right now. Vada pondered holding his hand, but he had one placed under his chin as he looked out the window in deep thought, and the other draped over his lap hidden from view.

She glanced at Larry for a moment to see him looking at her through the rearview mirror, a knowing look in his eyes. She could tell he was grinning by the crease marks around his eyes. Veda couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face as she rolled her eyes, knowing exactly what he was thinking. Larry made a motion with his head towards Terry and wiggled his eyebrows. Veda stuck her tongue out at him teasingly, Larry let out a soft chuckle despite himself before making the motion towards Terry again. Veda rolled her eyes again letting out a soft sigh before looking towards Terry. Who was still sitting in the same position.

“So, where are we going to eat?” Veda asked breaking the silence, Terry perked up slightly turning his head to look at her with an unreadable expression.

“It’s a rooftop place, they serve brunch and Italian fare. Unless you’d like to go somewhere else” He replied almost sheepishly.

Veda couldn’t help the smile that broke out on her face. One of the main things she was missing since she moved was her mother’s traditional Italian cooking and family dinners. Both of them being busy working and Daniel spending most of his free time with Mr. Miyagi had left the tradition neglected. Veda had mentioned it to Zoe months ago, Terry hadn’t been far away, but she didn’t think he’d care enough to listen let alone remember such a trivial conversation. Veda let out an excited squeal before launching herself at Terry and wrapping her arms around his neck. She could feel him laughing as he snaked a strong arm around her waist. Veda blushed despite herself; she had flung herself into his arms without even thinking about it.

“I take it you don’t want to go somewhere else then” Terry said teasingly into her ear, Veda pulled back slightly to look at him, her cheeks still very pink.

“Nope, you can’t promise Italian food and expect me to back track. I take food very seriously” she said coyly, Terry let out another chuckle.

“Oh, I know, you look liked you were going to rip my head off anytime I cut into your lunch hour.” He said teasingly, Veda giggled.

“I might if you keep trying to come between me and my food.” She replied jokingly, right as the car came to a stop. Larry got out and came around to open the door.

“Well, I best get out of your way then. Can’t turn up to the office with a bratty LaRusso on my arm can I” Terry said, letting go of her waist to get out of the car. He turned around and offered her his hand which Veda eagerly accepted. She rolled her eyes at him playfully as she stepped out of the car and let him guide her towards an extravagant hotel. Veda had never really been in a fancy hotel before, and she took her time looking at everything as they walked towards the elevators. Everything was decked out in gilded gold, crystal chandeliers, and giant heavenly murals like you would see in the Vatican.

“Do you like it?” Terry asked, pushing the elevator button. Veda smiled and nodded her head.

“Yes, it’s beautiful” she said as the elevator doors opened. They rode up to the top floor in a comfortable silence. The restaurant was quite different than the lobby, the walls were white and covered in greenery, iron chandeliers, circular booths, and tables covered in soft green fabric. If it weren’t for the LA skyline Veda would’ve thought, they were actually in Italy the overall feel of the restaurant was incredibly romantic. Veda couldn’t help the blush that spread on her cheeks as they stopped in front of the hostess stand. Veda let her eyes wander around, the restaurant was rather full.

“Hello Mr. Silver” the hostess said catching Veda’s attention. There was an obvious flirtatious tone to her voice, Veda looked over to see her staring at Terry with rosy cheeks and dreamy eyes. Veda leered at her suddenly feeling a slight wave of jealousy wash over her, finding herself tightening her grip on Terry’s hand. She saw a smile tug on Terry’s face as he gave her hand a gentle squeeze of reassurance in return.

“Yes, I have a reservation for two” he said plainly, the hostess was too focused on Terry to notice he hadn’t walked in alone. Veda watched as she continued to bat her lashes at him, Terry didn’t seem phased by her lusting over him at all. Veda assumed that this hostess in particular flirted with him all the time. He stared back at her with his signature stoney.

“Will they be meeting you here Mr. Silver? I can send him over to you when he arrives” she asked in the same flirty tone; Veda couldn’t help how hard she rolled her eyes.

“Oh, I’m already here. Been here the whole time actually” Veda said with a sickly-sweet tone giving the hostess a big smile as she stepped closer to Terry almost possessively. Veda could see the amused look on Terry’s face out of the corner of her eye. The hostess eyed Veda up slowly with a bitter look on her face.

“Sorry Miss didn’t see you there” the hostess replied dryly, giving her a fake smile in return. “Follow me” she said begrudgingly leading them through the restaurant. Veda felt a lot of unwanted eyes on her as they passed tables, mostly very old men. Who for some reason had the nerve to send her suggestive winks when their wives were sitting right next to them. Veda did her best to ignore them but felt herself stiffen up with discomfort, when they lingered next to a table filled with cooperate men in suits. They didn’t even try to hide the fact they were talking about her as they stared at her hungrily. Veda clung tightly to Terry’s arm trying to hide her face, when one of the men tried to beckon her over to sit on his lap. Terry looked down at her with concern.

“Aw, she’s shy. It’s okay babydoll, we just want to talk to you.” One laughed. Terry let go of her hand guiding her to walk in front of him as he snaked his arms around her waist protectively. She couldn’t see the intense glare Terry maintained with the man at the table as he placed kisses on her shoulder.

“They won’t hurt you. I’ll never let anyone hurt you.” He cooed in her ear; Veda could hear an eerie tone of finality in his voice. It was almost scary; she got the sense that the men at the table should be very afraid. She felt like maybe she should be too. Despite this feeling Veda felt her body relax in his arms and Terry took a moment to place a long kiss on her cheek.

The hostess led them to a more private circle booth facing the window. Veda was grateful to have only Terry’s eyes on her for the next hour or two as she slid into her seat at one end of the booth. Terry sat on the opposite end, something about him being at the other end felt wrong but Veda made no move to correct it. She was too distracted by the hostess practically throwing her menu at her. Veda gave her a menacing stare, the hostess shifted under her gaze uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry” she said meekly, Veda was surprised she folded that quickly under her gaze looking to Terry to see him also glaring at the hostess his eyes flashing a warning. “Please enjoy” the hostess squeaked scurrying away. Veda had to stifle a laugh.

“Did I see a little green-eyed monster on your shoulder when we were at the hostess stand Veda?” Terry asked in a teasing tone cocking his eyebrow at her. Veda blushed under his gaze.

“Nope” she said shyly avoiding eye contact as she looked down at the menu.

“Are you sure because you looked really jealous to me” Terry said in the same teasing tone. Veda sighed peering at him over the menu.

“Why would I be jealous Terry?” she asked coyly, nibbling on her lower lip slightly. She saw Terry’s eyes linger on them for a moment.

“For the same reason I was” he said huskily, Veda watched him move to the middle of the booth smoothly never breaking eye contact with her. Veda blushed when she felt that warm feeling bubbling deep in her stomach again.

“Why were you jealous Terry?” Veda asked still nibbling on her lip, Terry smirked patting the spot next to him. Veda felt her stomach clench and her cheeks tint an even darker shade of pink as she made her way to the middle of the booth. Her knee ghosting his ever so slightly, as she stared up at him with big eyes. Terry leaned down to whisper in her ear.

“Because I don’t like they way they make eyes at you” he whispered “I should be the only one ogling you” Veda felt his lips brush past her ear, her clit silently begging for the same treatment. “I should be the only one asking you to sit on their lap” Terry leaned away to look at her. Veda didn’t miss the suggestive tone of the last sentence and felt her clit throb eagerly. Veda looked at him shyly wrapping her arm around his neck. Terry smiled at her with bright eager eyes snaking his arms around her waist as he pulled her onto his lap.

“I didn’t like her flirting with you” Veda admitted sheepishly before returning her gaze to the menu. Hoping that this wave of arousal would pass quickly.

Terry’s Pov

Terry couldn’t contain his excitement when Veda let him pull her onto his lap. He placed her on his left thigh, not wanting her to feel how hard he was against his right thigh. At least not yet. Terry very much planned on seeing how far she was willing to let him go today, hoping to get her to moan for him again at the very least. Their secluded table had him pondering the idea of finally getting one of her perfect tits in his mouth or finger her under the table, though that maybe aiming too high. Oh, but Terry could dream and his mind was reeling with endless ways to make her feel so good.

“I didn’t like her flirting with you” she admitted sheepishly peering down at the menu. Terry smirked, he knew she was jealous, her head whipped around like an owl when she heard the flirtatious tone. Terry found it rather amusing especially because the hostess was nothing compared to Veda. Terry never gave her a second glance any of the other times he ate here, she was annoyingly desperate and pretty average in the looks department. But seeing how quickly Veda turned on her for even entertaining coming on to him told him everything he needed to know. She was just as possessive as he was. Though she displayed hers in a more innocent, enchanting manner with snarky comebacks, sarcasm, and adorable attempts at intimidating glares. They didn’t pack a punch coming from a wide-eyed beauty. Terry didn’t think she’d ever resort to violence, she was too pure for that, and Terry liked her more submissive nature. It fit well with his assertive nature, if she had known the things, he very much intended on doing to that table of suits she’d be horrified. They deserved much worse than he was going to give them. For the way they looked at her with hungry eyes, made vulgar jokes about taking turns and teaming up, freely expressing their desire to defile Terry’s angelic little Veda in the foulest ways possible. Had Veda not been there clinging to his arm terrified; Terry would’ve obliterated all of them all right there and then.

“I could tell, you were squeezing my hand so hard I thought it might fall off. You know I’ve only got eyes for you though baby girl” Terry said teasingly, moving one of his hands to draw circles on her leg. Terry didn’t miss the ways she clamped her legs tightly together at the contact, he could see her cheeks tinting a darker shade of pink and felt her breathing pick up. Terry felt another smirk tug on his lips, catching on to the fact his sweet little angel was getting aroused, and he hadn’t even really touched her yet.

“Just for me, huh” she meant it to come out jokingly as she gazed at him with her big doe eyes. Terry picked up on what she really meant though, she was looking for reassurance in such a subtle way. Terry let his eyes soften as he brought his hand up to stroke her cheek, Veda leaned into his hand slightly. Her eyes were still big and calculating, searching his blue ones for a tell. Terry sighed leaning his forehead against hers, tightening the arm that was still placed on her waist.

“I’m all yours Veda. You’re all I see, you’re all I think about, you’re all I want.” Terry whispered, looking deep into her eyes hoping she could see how sincere he was being. She already had him, and Terry had a feeling she always would. Even if she decided she wanted to leave, even if she tried to move across the country, even if she, God forbid, left this planet she would always have him. Terry felt her arm tighten around his neck slightly, her eyes scanning his face for a long moment.

“Okay” she whispered still blushing, Terry smiled staring into her eyes for a long moment trying to decide if this would be an okay moment to kiss her. Veda stared back at him still nibbling on her lip.

“Do you think I could, I mean would it be okay if I kissed you for real this time?” Terry asked trying to keep the hopeful tone out of his voice because part of him still didn’t want to force himself on her if she wasn’t ready for it. Veda looked at him, shyly nodding her head.

“Yeah” she said softly, Terry felt her tense up slightly as he cupped one side of her face with one hand letting his finger draw soothing circles on her cheek. His other hand kneading circles on the curve of her waist, waiting until she relaxed again before swooping in. Terry placed a soft peck on her lips lingering for a second before leaning back to gauge her reaction. Veda’s eyes fluttered open a shy smile gracing her mouth. Terry smiled wondering if she would be okay with another one.

“Would you” before Terry could finish his sentence Veda swooped in capturing his mouth in second kiss. Terry moaned into her mouth, kissing her back hungrily. Terry let his tongue sweep by her lower lip hoping she’d accept, she let out an unsure whimper against his mouth. Terry let his hands move up and down her sides gently trying to reassure her without breaking the kiss. Veda let out a content sigh opening her mouth for him hesitantly, Terry let out a pleased rumble letting his tongue dance with hers as he pressed his chest against hers. Pulling away to let her catch her breath, busying his mouth with her soft neck, stopping to nibble on a sensitive spot. Veda let out a gasp of surprise that turned into a sultry moan, she moved her hand to grip his hair in an attempt to keep him there. Terry smiled satisfied with the moan she let out and the love bite appearing where his teeth had just been. Terry pulled back to look at her, Veda’s eyes fluttered open her face was flushed, and she was breathing heavily her big brown eyes filled with lust. Terry bit his lip wanting to savor the pretty picture she made for him.

"Maybe we should order now" Veda said breathlessly turning in his lap to look at the menu again. Terry chuckled lowering his head down on one of her shoulders.

"But I already know what I want to eat Veda, and it isn't on the menu." Terry whispered seductively in her ear watching as her face flushed a sinful shade of red.

"Terry!" she exclaimed in surprise looking at him with shy innocent eyes. Terry couldn't help the giddy smile that spread across his face at her saying his name in such a way.

"Oh, my sweet little Veda" he whispered placing soothing little kisses on her shoulder.

#terry silver #thomas ian griffith #enemies to lovers #terry silver x oc #eventual smut

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alsjeblieft-zeg · 1 year

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225 of 2023

Do you lick your lips?

I rather bite on them.

Last reason you smiled?

My cats.

Who was the first person to text you this morning?

My dad.

If someone is doing something that pisses you off, do you tell them?

If I lose my patience. I’m too soft-spoken for my own good.

Does your phone have to be charged every day?

It does. That’s the thing with smartphones.

When’s the last time you were surprised?

Yesterday. I got tulips from my husband.

When was the last time you hugged someone?

Today.

How much money have you spent today?

100€ on trousers lol. Online order.

How do you feel about your hair right now?

It probably needs to be washed.

What was the first thing you did this morning?

Woke up lol.

Do you feel awkward when strangers say hi to you?

I do, but usually I say it back. It’s normal in my country.

If you died today would your life be complete?

No, definitely not.

Did you wake up in the middle of the night last night?

Yeah. Technically my husband woke me up because I fell asleep and left the TV on.

Have you had your birthday yet this year?

No, I haven’t.

Are you ticklish?

Very much so.

Are you a jealous person?

No, I’m not.

Do you like ice cream?

I do, kind of. Just had some.

How many pillows do you sleep with?

Three. No wonder why I have back aches.

Has anything happened to you in the past month that made you really upset?

Not last moth, but last December. I had a nervous breakdown for real.

Would you ever get your nipples pierced?

No, I find it pointless.

Current music playing?

None.

Who was the last person to piss you off?

Our most disliked coworker. Always walking around and doing nothing.

Is it usually easy for someone to make you smile?

Depends on who it is.

Ever cried on the phone with somebody?

No, I don’t even cry.

Does anyone think you are a bitch?

I don’t know, ask them.

Are your toe nails painted pink?

I don’t paint my nails.

If you could change your eye color would you?

Yeah, I’d love emerald green eyes.

Do you like to have long hair or short hair?

Short. Low maintenance.

Have you ever met someone who is amazing?

Yeah, plenty of people, including my husband and my sister.

Whose hoodie did you wear last?

Mine. I’m a hoodie guy in general.

How are you feeling at this exact moment in time?

Tired, but content.

What is on your agenda for tomorrow?

An unexpected appointment with VDAB, my country’s unemployment service. This is mandatory, but I dont see the point since I’ve been having a job for the last 9 years and I have a permanent contract with my company.

Will you be in bed within twenty minutes?

It’s midday.

Who were you with at 4 am this morning?

My husband, but we were both sleeping.

Are you angry with anyone?

No, I’m not. Unless that VDAB counts.

Who was the last person to call you?

My husband, he locked himself out because he forgot the key and I had to open the door for him.

Do you have any bruises?

A lot. I get bruised easily, but most of the time I don’t even remember how.

Have you had sex in the last 12 hours?

No, but I kinda had fun with myself from the morning.

Do you believe exes can really ever be “just friends”?

Yeah. I’m friends with my ex and we’re still close, it’s not the same anymore.

Are you wearing something that belongs to someone else?

No, I’m not.

Did you have a good day today?

The day is not over yet. Ask me in a few hours.

Is there a girl that knows everything about you?

Yeah, my sister.

Do you have feelings for someone?

Yeah. My husband and M.

Do you look at the keyboard when you type?

Sometimes, to avoid typos. Not like it always works XD

What’s running through your mind right now?

That song my sister once covered.

Does it bother you when people respond to you with one word answers?

No. I also elaborate only when I feel like doing it.

Where is your cell phone?

Next to me.

Will you be up before 7 am tomorrow?

Probably. I need to be up for that appointment.

Ever had a girl best friend?

Does my sister count?

Does anyone hate you?

I don’t know, ask them.

Are you in a relationship?

I’m married.

Have you ever done something sexual that you regret?

Nah. As much as I don’t feel like performing sexual activities with other, I feel I’ve been doing it with the right people.

Do you like to sit in the sun, and tan when it’s hot out?

I don’t like to tan, but I love summer and I love being out when it’s warm, and I love the beach and the sea.

Do you worry too much?

Way too much.

Ever had a teacher that you wanted to punch in the face?

Nah. I never bothered.

Have you ever been so drunk you puked?

No. I was drunk, but never threw up because of it.

What is your least favorite class period?

Pretty sure our education system doesn’t work like that.

Do you ever wonder what it’d be like to be the opposite sex?

Sometimes, but not for serious.

If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?

Not hungry, thanks.

What sport do you like better: volleyball or football?

Neither, basketball 4 lyfe.

Ever had a person who was obsessed with you so much that it scared you?

Yeah, twice. It was awful.

Ever been close to dying?

Yeah, when I had that brain bleeding. According to the doctors, it was massive.

Can you drive, and if you can, do you like it?

I’m not allowed because epilepsy. Lol yeah.

Do you know anyone named Josh or Patrick?

I know a couple of guys named Patrick. One of them is my teammate at work and also a local politician.

Have you ever said anything to the last person you kissed that you regret?

Yeah, but long ago. He already forgot and moved on.

How many people with the name Taylor do you know?

In person? Zero.

Do you like french fries?

I do, but there’s no such thing as “French fries”. Every Belgian will confirm.

Have you ever ate so much you puked?

No, never. I barely remember to eat at all.

Is your best friend the same sex as you?

Most of them are.

Do you care about what others think of your physical appearance?

No. I wear whatever I want and wherever I want, and I haven’t chosen my face anyway. If you don’t like it, then don’t look at me. It’s simple. We cannot please everyone anyway.

Do you tell people you love them just to get what you want?

No. I don’t overuse such big words. If I say I love someone, thne that’s because I mean it.

Do you wear makeup?

No, I don’t.

Would you rather run or walk?

Walk. I cannot run.

Are you close with your father?

I am, more than with my mother.

Ever been to Mexico?

No, it’s too far from me.

Do you like to ride your bike, if you have one?

I have three and I’ve always loved riding bikes, but it’s something normal in my country.

#survey #q&a survey #random survey

0 notes

antifacountryfella · 2 years

Text

5/26

idk if i posted about this yet, but my job interview the other day went great! it was evident pretty early in the interview that the job was mine. im stoked.

its funny, ive been telling my current employer that i want to switch from serving to bartending basically since they hired me. after about two months (so in March) they gave me a bar shift on a Thursday. St Patrick's Day actually lol. and then? it was at least a month before they put me behind the bar again. a coworker of mine named Kyle also wanted to switch to bartending, and it was clear they were stringing him along worse than they were me. so he quit and got bartending job.

so its April, a month after my previous bar shift and they give me a solid week of training behind the bar. since i was training, i didn't get full tips (even though i was already perfectly competent) but when yr training you do get paid min wage (as opposed to the $3/hr servers & bar staff usually make.) when the paycheck comes,, they didn't give the correct wage. our director of operations must have went into the system and switched my 'training' shifts to 'server' shifts. i confronted him about it and he told me how to fix it. shouldnt have had to do that in the first place though, i should be paid what they promised to pay me in the first place.

now that training is over, youd assume that I am now just working behind the bar right? lol. at least two weeks go by before im behind the bar again. kind of defeats the purpose of training lol but what the hell do i know? and when they finally gave me bar shifts, it was only one or two a week. i think there was one week where i got three shifts. of course they use that to screw me too; they have me open the restaurant (11:30) as a server and work till shift change (4) at which point i switch to bar and tend bar till close (11.) so opening to closing. if i just worked a double as a server or a bartender id work from 1130 till 8.. maybe 9. but since its not a double, its two different shifts i got stuck with open to close. and then open the next day. and this week i dont even have a single bar shift.

work has been so slow lately, and living at the beach this means that im leaving money on the table. all the other places are jammed,and i am making 60 a night lol. for a bit i figured, well i'll get some bar experience here and then maybe go somewhere else if things dont pick up. but i think of kyle, who was in the space position as me, and is now bartending. not "oh you can work the bar, and if we need you serve you can pick up tables too" (read: 3-4 serving shifts and 1-2 bar shifts) just straight up tending bar. and i think how i have to chase down my boss to get the money that I worked for- because he went out of his way to alter my paycheck. i think about how ive been stiffed more times in the four months at this job than in my entire 2 year serving career beforehand. i think about how i work at the beach, and everyother goddamn restaurant here is busy and getting busier. i would have put up with alllll of that, if they let me be a bartender. they couldnt even do that.

honestly, its kind of a blessing. i was convinced that i needed to work at this place for a year before i could get a bartending job anywhere else (you can get a job waiting tables with no experience fairly easily, but no one is gonna hire a bartender whose never done the job before) then i realized- i can lie.

im good at this job. i work with a guy whose been at it for 20+ years and everyone agrees that they like it better when i am behind the bar. so like, yeah i got this.

only thing im gonna miss is my mentor Ellen. she taught me a lot in the 3 weeks worth of shifts i was given. oh well.

cheers!

#journal #my journal #writing #bartender #server #restaurant workers #FOH #front of house

0 notes

idy-ll-ique · 3 years

Text

My Little Secret.

Pairing: Ransom Drysdale x Innocent!F!Reader

Genre : Fluff, little bit of Angst

Warnings: none

Requested: nope

Summary: Y/N listens to music 24/7 on Spotify. At first Ransom is irritated, but now he knows just how to use the application to his benefit. I mean, come on, it can't be considered stalking if it's his wife, right?

Author's Note: Hiya peeps! oml a ransom drysdale fanfiction 😳 if I ever meet this asshole in real life I'd sock him in the jaw but in fiction? mamma mia. enjoy!

---

Does she really love an app more than me?

Ransom scoffed to himself as he opened his laptop, clicking on the music app, Spotify. He rarely used it, but his wife was obsessed with it. She listened to music 24/7; singing along to the soft tunes in her playlists while working, reading, cleaning, cooking, anything. Ransom thought it was insane how submerged she was in the activity.

Until that activity gave him an upper-hand in their relationship.

When he had first opened the app on his laptop, he was a tad bit surprised at the "Friends Activity" feature. He saw her account. Then, as more months passed, he started noticing how when she was happy, she'd always be listening to some happy playlist, when she was sad she'd be listening to sad songs, et cetera. And he started using it to his advantage.

Now, everyday before leaving his office he'd check the app to see what playlist she was listening to. If it was a happy, dance playlist, well and fine. But a sad one? Ransom's mood would also sour because my darling is not feeling okay. While going home, he'd buy something for her; mostly flowers or chocolates, or a nice little trinket that he'd find in the displays of shops that he thought his wife would enjoy.

He never told her about it. What he was doing would be considered stalking but come on, is it stalking if she's your wife? As the app finally loaded, his eyes immediately strayed to the Friends Activity and his heart clenched when he saw her listening to her sad playlist that she had named Melancholy. Sighing, he turned off the laptop and left his office for the night.

As he drove back home, he stopped outside a flower shop and bought an adorable little bouquet of mixed flowers. "She'll love it," the florist assured him, assuming he was buying it for his significant other. He gave her a quick smile and got back into the car, driving home as fast as he could. When he reached home, his heart broke at the sniffle he heard.

"Kitten?" Y/N's head shot up at her husband's voice as she hurriedly wiped her tears, getting up from her spot on the couch. "Hi, welcome home," she whispered, giving him a quick peck on the lips, smiling widely to avoid being caught. "Hello, how was your day?" He wanted to sigh, to chide her for keeping her bad mood from him, but he only smiled at how cute she looked trying to hide her true feelings.

"It wasn't bad! So, shower first and dinner later or dinner first?"

Now was the time. "Kitten, the truth, please. How was your day?" He raised a stern eyebrow when her face fell. How does he always read me so well? Knowing she couldn't hide now, she hung her head low as her shoulders sagged. "It was bad," she muttered. Ransom pulled her close, her head resting on his chest, his chin atop her head. "What happened? I swear if it's those fucking coworkers of yours—"

Her silence gave him the answer. The thing is, when Ransom and Y/N had started going out, everyone in the city was shocked. A cute, innocent little thing like her dating an asshole like him? Why? She had lost quite a few friends when she told them, but Ransom was there for her. "You don't need them, you have me." He was right. While the world saw him as a first-class jerk, he was the softest soul with her.

Her priorities were always placed before his. He took care of her, treated her like no previous boyfriend of hers had, and within 2 years of dating, he had proposed. People were even more shocked. She managed to get him to settle down?! How?! Then the gossip began. "He has to be cheating, I mean look at him. Look at her," she had heard one time after the engagement. That had made her super upset.

"Ransom, they're talking… someone said you were cheating on me…" She had broken down on his chest that night, crying her eyes out. And Ransom had immediately switched off the television. He sat up, holding her close. "You know I'd never do that, angel. Why would I, when you're with me? Do you really think those women out there have the same effect on me that you do? Huh?"

"Well, they said… they said I was ugly."

"What?! Those fucking whores—"

"Ransom, don't call them that," she had chided, swatting his chest. He caught the hand and brought it to his lips, kissing each fingertip. "If it makes you feel better, no, I'm not cheating on you. I love you a little too much to do that. You mean the world to me, Y/N, there's no one on this planet I'd rather be with than you. And you are the most beautiful person I've ever seen, in and out," he told her sincerely.

Her crying ceased. "Thank you." And he held her close the entire night, rubbing her back as she slept on him. People talking about him? He could handle that, God knows he had been handling that for years. But them talking about her? His perfect, angelic, goddess-like fiancée? No, no, he wouldn't handle that. That whole thing was 4 years ago. People still talked.

"What did they say to you, Y/N?" he asked, coming back to the real world.

"They asked me why I was still with you." He exhaled loudly through his nose when Y/N's arms tightened around him. "I told them I loved you. You are nice, you're not what everyone says you are. But then Amy talked about… about how you used to be— what was the word she used? Oh, uh, yeah, she said you were something of a Casanova before you met me. But I told her that was over."

His arms snaked around her waist, his fingers gently dancing over her hips as she continued speaking. "She insisted that people can't just change over a small period of time. I tried ignoring her but then she started gossiping with someone else about you. And then I snapped at her. But you know me…" Ransom hummed, pressing his lips to her forehead.

His wife had a docile soul. Everything from her looks to her mannerisms was soft. She couldn't yell, she couldn't tell people off— she was too pure to do that. The world needed people like her, to be honest. That was also one of the things he liked about her. Sometimes, he thought about how beneficial it would be for her to hold her own in a fight, but his ego shoved the thought down each time.

He liked being her big protector. He loved taking care of her like that. "Yes, I know, angel. You're too good for this world, you know that?" he mumbled, slightly pulling away from her so he could cup her face, looking into her eyes. She huffed and looked away. "I'm too soft. I can't help it. I don't want to be this way." He chuckled and leaned over to kiss her. "Oh no, you should definitely be this way."

"Why?"

"Because it suits you. Don't change for people who don't even care about you. I like you like this; gentle, caring… you have the biggest heart in the world, Y/N. And I want to keep it that way. Don't let people ruin your innocence. Keep being you." He pressed her closer when she started sniffling again. "You're too good to me," she pouted and he laughed. "That's my duty as your husband, kitten. Look, I bought flowers."

He took out the bouquet from his bag, smiling when Y/N's eager hands accepted it. "Thank you! Oh, these are so beautiful! Let me replace the flowers in the vase on the dining table!" Squealing, she walked away from him, leaving him to stare after her with an infatuated smile. You have no idea what you do to me, angel.

---

"Night, Ran," Y/N yawned, keeping her phone away. He held his arm up and Y/N snuggled into his side, allowing him to wrap his arm around her side. "Night, sweetheart," he whispered, leaning down to kiss her nose. He watched TV for some time until the match got boring; then he switched it off and carefully lay down on the bed, about to doze off when Y/N's phone rang. He blinked. Who'd be calling at his hour?

He lifted the phone off the nightstand, grimacing when he saw the Caller ID. Amy. As soon as he picked the phone up, Amy started blabbering. "Hi! Sorry I'm calling so late, Y/N, but I wanted to apologize for how I spoke to you at work today. It was wrong of me, really, I hope you can forgive me!" Ransom stayed silent, his jaw clenched. He had been hearing that line for years.

"Ransom, it's okay, she apologized, she won't be doing it again. She told me so herself!"

It was never the last time.

"Are you done?" he snapped and Amy froze on the other side. "M-Mr Drysdale—" "Listen, I don't want to hear it. I'm not Y/N; she has a heart of gold, God, I wonder why I let her hang out with people whose hearts are made of pure shit. How many times have you apologized for the same thing, huh? Using my girl's pure heart to your fucking advantage like that?"

"You're being—"

"I'm being what? I'm being rude? Who started it? If you ever mention our marriage in front of Y/N again, I'll have your fucking head." Amy bristled on the other side. "Are you threatening me?" Ransom smirked. "If you don't want to be threatened, I suggest you keep your nose out of other people's business. What mine and Y/N's relationship is like is no one's concern."

Amy stayed silent. "Gossiping won't get you anywhere. I have the best lawyers in the city, and I swear, if Y/N comes crying to me one more time about how someone was rude to her, I'll sue. Trust me, I will take legal action. Is that understood?" Amy quaked at his menacing tone. "Y-Yes, sir." Ransom's lips curled into a devious smile. "Great." And he ended the call.

"Ransom, who was that?" Y/N sleepily murmured next to him. She hadn't heard a word of the conversation, but could tell he was on the phone. "No one you need to worry about, sweetheart, go to sleep. I'm here." He lay down next to her, pulling her close. "You know, I have a question." He nodded at her to go on. "How do you always know when I'm going to be in a bad mood?"

"What do you mean?" he smiled, knowing exactly what she meant. "I mean, I have been wondering for years! Everytime I happen to be in a bad mood, you bring home a gift. It's like— it's like you can read my mind! How?! It can't be a coincidence, it has happened a lot of times for it to be a coincidence," she rambled and Ransom's heart fluttered at how innocent and adorable she looked.

"I have my ways," he teased, lightly poking her nose. "You're not gonna tell me, are you?" she pouted and he couldn't help but lean forward, pressing his lips to hers. "Nope, just so I can keep surprising you." She giggled, snuggling further into his arms until her face was pressed into his bare chest. "I love you so much, Ransom," she whispered. "I love you more, my sweet little angel."

Both of them went to sleep with giddy smiles on their faces.

Oh, and the Spotify thing? That was his little secret. Shh, don't tell anyone!

---

A/N: Leave a like if you enjoyed, thanks for reading!

#ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale x you #ransom drysdale x y/n #ransom drysdale x female reader #hugh ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale fluff #knives out #chris evans x reader #chris evans x you #chris evans x y/n #chris evans x female reader #chris evans characters #disney #mcu #marvel #avengers #fanfic #writing #writeblr

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prismatic-bell · 3 years

Text

@teashoesandhair since you have dragged me headfirst into this amusing Q-007 idea of yours, I want you to know I have come up with a plot.

The movie begins in near-darkness. We see Bond outside MI6 with a masked figure in black. There are sounds of a struggle. At last there’s a gadgety little beep and a door slides open.

BOND: you expect us to surrender?

HENCHMAN: No, Bond. We expect you to die.

A gun is raised, the trigger is cocked—and a phone rings. This phone turns out to belong to Q, who answers it with the charming “someone had better be dying, or you’re about to be” in the just-woke-up croak of a man still lying in bed with his eyes closed. A voice on the other end asks where he works. He asks “what time do you think it is, doing surveys before sunup?”

Bond’s voice comes on the line. It is EXTREMELY clear he’s reading from a script. He states the sins of the Empire can never be cleared, but they can be paid for. It’s quite clear from his voice that he’s in pain, although whether physical or emotional or both is up for question. Then in the same tone of voice he says “go left” and that is why Q rolls off the bed just in time for a bullet to go through it.

We cut to Q in power-walking down a hallway in MI6. He is wearing a polo shirt and looks deeply upset about this. A woman with a bun is jogging along beside him and apologizing because, she says, it’s the only shirt she still has from before. He stops, looks irritated, and says “M is dead. Her replacement just got kidnapped, the guy I’ve been seeing for the last three months was a plant, I almost got shot less than an hour ago, I’m reasonably sure someone is trying to assassinate the Queen, you and I are the only two people who made it to MI6 this morning, I’m freezing AND I STILL HAVEN’T HAD COFFEE.”

His coworker says they have to find Bond, who might have some information on what’s going on and, at the very least, is actually a 00 agent. She actually starts laying out a plan while Q finds a Keurig, brews a cup, and drains the whole thing in one go. She finally trails off while he gets to the bottom of a mug of genuinely alarming size. He plonks it on the counter, says he’s getting on his computer, and tells her to call the palace and ensure the Queen is under secure guard.

THE LADY WHO IS ABOUT TO BE 001 BECAUSE 001 IS POTENTIALLY KIA: someone took out all of MI6 in a night, including the 00 agents, and you’re going to trust a bunch of Beefeaters? Who all look the same in uniform? As though they couldn’t be impersonated?

Q: …..fuck.

Q, who is currently the closest thing MI6 has to a head of command, calls the palace in an official capacity to speak to the Queen directly. He announces he’ll be sending a 00 agent and under no circumstances should the Queen be without her. Outfits the new 001 with the usual—earpiece, fancy gun, IT toys—and, before he sends her off, says “give me your ID.” A minor argument ensues before he says “The only way to find all of MI6 is through the database. That means the reason they didn’t find you is because they were looking for a man, whose name would match with the one on your ID, now give it to me. The one time government backlog worked in your favor.”

She hands it over and asks what he’s going to do. To which he rolls his eyes so hard they might fall out of his head, and says: “I’m going to find Bond.”

The rest of the movie alternates between 001 and an action plot on her end, keeping the Queen out of danger and trying to gather intel from within the palace to see just how badly it’s been infiltrated, and Q first tracing a rogue computer signal and then sighing, grabbing a 00 kit, and taking off with something that looks like a cell phone but is actually a very tiny computer hooked into the MI6 mainframe.

This adventure proceeds much like a typical Bond outing, except that Q has to do it via backdoors and finding the nerdy interns and invisible staff of the high-powered people Bond would normally work with. He finds Bond, hacks him out of whatever mess he’s in, and they make for the exit in a firefight while Bond covers him and he ineffectually tries to assist. It’s not that he doesn’t know how to shoot a gun—it’s that previously, outside training, he has never NEEDED to, and he jammed the magazine. So as they go, he’s trying to fix the gun and keep an eye out for the door with the RFID scanner so he can get them the hell out of there. As they reach the door Bond runs out of bullets, Q finally gets his gun fixed, and as somebody aims to take off Bond’s head (complete with a laser sight, this guy’s not gonna miss), Q gets off his first shot for the entire scene and lays the guy out.

Q: ….fuck I just killed someone.

BOND: it comes with the job.

Q: it comes with YOUR job, I don’t have a 00 designation.

BOND: I’m promoting you.

Q: oh, thanks—WAIT—

(And then he shoots someone else. He still looks vaguely panicked about this. In all fairness to Q, he has had one HELL of a day and there’s been exactly one caffeinated beverage in it, and he still doesn’t have a cardigan.)

They get back to MI6 just in time for Q to pick up an errant GPS signal: missing agents! Four of them! That’s enough to make a skeleton recon team!

…but also, they’ve just gotten a phone call from the villain, congratulating Q on being SO clever…but not clever enough. The Queen is in imminent danger. 001 has evacuated her from the palace. “Ah, but London Bridge is falling down. Good day, Mr. Q,” says the villain, and hangs up.

From this, Q deduces that the Queen has been taken to St. Magnus-the-Martyr Church at London Bridge, and that it’s likely the villain means to blow it up. They need the extra manpower promised by that clutch of agents, but the villain made it sound like any moment the Queen would be dead. Bond announces he’s going after the agents.

Q: so that’s it then? We have to uphold the agency because England is about to plunge into chaos?

BOND: no. I’m going for the agents. You’re going to the church.

Which Q does, muttering under his breath the whole way. As he has been for most of this movie, actually. This is not the job he signed up for. But he goes, he gets in a very Bondish fight with his now-ex who is indeed a henchman for the villain, and just at the end when he COULD shoot him, he doesn’t:

Q: ….no. I’m not killing you. Give me my sweater.

HENCHMAN: …..sorry?

Q: my sweater. That’s my sweater, I’ve been freezing all day. Give me my sweater.

HENCHMAN: *extremely confused, but complies*

Q: *puts it on* better. Where were we again? Oh. *definitely shoots the henchman* Your Majesty. My apologies.

….to which the actual villain pops in with some sarcastic applause and an appropriate Bond Villain Speech(tm). Q realizes he has two bullets left and this asshole is staying just enough in the shadows that Q can’t accurately clock him.

There’s some sarcastic banter, during which 001 manages to get the Queen away again. The villain is pissed, but he’s like “that’s fine. You are, yourself, just a representative of corruption” and takes aim….

….just in time for the actual, original 001 to put a gun to the back of his head.

In the end:

1) The Queen is safe*

2) Bond is designated M

3) The lady Q designated as 001 is redesignated as Q. Also, in thanks for her service to the Crown, the Queen personally pushes through Lady Q’s ID with corrected gender on it.

4) The found MI6 agents begin seeking their counterparts, most of whom are alive and imprisoned rather than killed.

5) And, at the Queen’s suggestion—she’s shocked to find out all of this was masterminded by an IT tech, not a heavily-trained agent—Bond makes Q’s promotion official, and designates him 007.

ROLL CREDITS.

YOU’RE WELCOME.

*say what you want about the British monarchy and I’ll probably agree with you, but this is An Extremely British Franchise, so she’s got to live.

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kindness-ricochets · 3 years

Note

I’ve been seeing a lot of thoughts and hc of autistic wylan lately and you seem to also be a fan of the concept. May I ask why? Exactly? I could definitely kinda see it but wanna hear you thoughts you’re always so eloquent

Hey there anon! Sorry for the delay—I’m guessing you already found an answer to this elsewhere while I was off Tumblr for a bit, but just in case, here are my thoughts. This will be heavily personal, but… well, you can’t very well ask an autistic person about autism and expect neutrality!

Autism is different for everyone and can be difficult to pin down, so while Wylan is arguably autistic, he misses several beats that for me would have made him definitively and undeniably autistic. For example, when the bells start to ring, triggering black protocol—I work in a place with a lot of bells and am frequently caught too close to one and normally press my hands over my ears until it’s over because that sound is like shrapnel raking across my insides. All of them. Not just the ear and brain parts. Wylan doesn’t have that sort of visceral reaction, but that may just mean he doesn’t have the same sensitivities that I do, or to the same level. He also never, that I recall, eats meat—as weird as that might sound, eating meat is incredibly complicated with heightened sensitivities to taste and texture. I’m not sure how old I was when I realized it was strange to get up from the table to spit out my food because it viscerally repulsed me. So it might be that Wylan is autistic and has different experiences than I do. Those are things I would include in a story as major indicators of a character being autistic. This might also mean that his father’s way of raising him taught him to hide unusual reactions and stimming behaviors. It’s not that much of a reach to assume a man who tried to abuse the dyslexia out of his son would take the same approach to autism. (More on autism and abuse later.)

So while I’m going to lay out why I read Wylan as autistic, that’s why I think it’s valid to read him as not being autistic as well. Both are valid.

A final caveat, I am well overdue for a reread of the books, so I likely left something out or could have found better examples. Take this as a few of my reasons for a personal headcanon. Anyone who feels differently, that's fine! We can each read things our own way :)

1 - Hyperfixation: The way Wylan loves music

Most of the Crows’ backgrounds color how they see the world: Kaz’s shrewdness, Matthias’s tactical thinking and superstition, Inej’s faith and Suli wisdom, etc. That’s a sign of good character writing. But very little of Wylan’s upbringing seems to have influenced how he sees the world. It comes closest when he thinks about how his father would scorn his new friends, but we never see that scorn from Wylan.

The way a hyperfixation feels, it’s like you’ve always lived in a close parallel world, never fully been a part of the other one where it seems like everyone else lives, but suddenly there’s this bright shining piece of your soul laced through the other world. It lets you connect, it lets you exist in their realm, and you can’t help but filter everything new through that lens because it’s the brightest, most wonderful thing. (I had been between hyperfixations for a while when I started a new job; six months into that work, I read Crooked Kingdom. One of my coworkers thought I had fallen in love, it was that marked a difference.)

So, combining these: Wylan never really acts like he was part of his father’s world, and indeed is in some ways separate from the other Crows, but he parses everything through music, his hyperfixation. He sets words to music to remember them, like he does with the contract. Even his own anxiety is made sense of through music, when in his first narrated chapter, he sets it to music: what am I doing here what am I doing here…. When he’s overwhelmed, his thoughts are “a jangle of misplayed chords”. The Crows have backgrounds that influence how they react to the world, but Wylan’s hyperfixation is his means of experiencing and understanding the world.

2 - Literal thinking: Wylan responds to exact words

In this post, I went into detail on the line where Wylan suggested waking up men to kill them. Wylan is generally unsupportive of killing people—Oomen, Smeet’s clerk, his father… he advocates not-murder in each of these situations. Accepting his aversion to murder, his suggestion to wake men up and kill them seems like a genuine reaction to Jesper saying he doesn’t want to kill unconscious men. Wylan takes things literally.

This happens the most with Jesper, probably because Jesper talks to Wylan the most. Nina and Matthias don’t really register him past how he might be useful, Inej is usually quite direct, and Kaz is very deliberate when he speaks with Wylan. This really interests me because Kaz tends to vary his speech more than the others do, he adapts more to being around other people. He jokes a little with Jesper, spars with Nina, speaks more openly and more sharply with Inej, and he’s precise with Wylan. Kaz may not know what autism is, but he recognizes what’s effective with Wylan.

Another example is when Wylan is sketching the Ice Court plans and Jesper says it looks like a cake. There are plenty of valid responses here: pointing out that concentric circles look like lots of things, that it’s just a sketch, telling Jesper to stop looking over his shoulder. Instead, Wylan says that the Ice Court is sort of like a cake. That… doesn’t sound like something Wylan would normally say. He’s not addressing the whole situation, he’s addressing the specific words Jesper said.

One of the most heartbreaking examples of this (to me, anyway) is with Marya. Wylan does the same thing with his mother, when she asks if he’s there for her money and says she hasn’t got any, and his response is, “I don’t either.” We understand as readers that what Marya is communicating here is that she is so accustomed to being utterly ignored unless she is being used, and if she told Wylan that no one visited but to take advantage and she assumed he was here for the same reason, he would say it wasn’t the case. But he just responds to the immediate statement.

There are a lot of examples of this.

3 — 0% perception, 100% creativity

Wylan can identify things that don’t make sense or that he doesn’t understand, but at the beginning of the series he can’t make leaps, only ask questions. On the Ferolind, he wonders about the source of water at the Ice Court; though Kaz doesn’t say as much, he was clearly wondering, too, because he eventually figured out the underground river. There’s an interesting parallel here where, in the beginning of Crooked Kingdom, Wylan asks a question about how they’ll break into Smeet’s and Kaz tells him to use his eyes instead of running his mouth—at which point Wylan is able to figure it out. I don’t think this is because he never tried before, though, but because no one ever bothered to teach him. Kaz can be harsh but he gives harsh corrections rather than harsh rejections and Wylan learns from him.

It’s hard to understand the world for people with autism. The world is designed and run by and for people whose minds are fundamentally different from ours, whose thoughts and experiences are unlike ours. Imagine trying to learn English or Spanish or Mandarin or any other spoken language if your first language was olfactory. That’s sort of what it’s like for someone with autism to just get dropped into the world and expected to figure this out.

This can be attributed to Wylan’s upbringing, but I disagree with that because none of the others were brought up in the Barrel, either, and Wylan doesn’t understand trade or politics with any special skill. Kaz wasn’t born in the Barrel, but he managed to go from “stealing is wrong” to “wrong isn’t my concern” real quick; Colm Fahey didn’t raise his son on gambling and firefights; the Ghafas never expected their daughter to be away from the family. Only Nina has relevant training—and even that’s precious little, she left school way too early. The others figured it out; Wylan needed a bit more help. He also seems surprised by the way his father conducts business. Wylan takes things on face value—like the time he’s surprised someone would do something, simply because it’s unlawful. This is something he expresses to a group of gangsters. He’s never been taught the way of any world and these things are not intuitive to him.

But Wylan isn’t stupid.

He doesn’t know how to understand the world, but he does understand how things go together. Given a pointy diamond, a handle, and a screw, he cut through Grisha glass. He carries flashbangs and magic napalm, he recreates military hardware—Wylan understands how to make things interact for a specific result. But to me the most telling thing isn’t just that he puts together chemical pieces, it’s that he figured out Jesper controlled bullets. He saw the pieces and put them together.

Wylan can understand when things don’t make sense, but he can’t make sense of them—yet when he understands things at their basic level, he understands them without preconception, for what they are. This is a very autistic way of thinking about things, it goes back to the literalism. He can’t make the leaps of logic other people can, but he also doesn’t make the assumptions they do—“I’ve never heard of a bullet Grisha, so that’s not a thing” vs “Well Jesper’s an almost impossibly good shot and he controls metal and bullets are metal, so why not?”

4 - Broken brain/body connection

Wylan’s great at chemistry and drawing and playing flute or piano—but he’s something of a disaster other times. This is in particular contrast to the other characters, all of whom are physically adept. Meanwhile it’s a challenge for Wylan to climb a rope ladder and he spends a full paragraph trying to figure out what to do with his hands. It’s easy to say, well, he’s used to a sedentary lifestyle, but at this point he’s not. He’s worked in the tannery for months. He’s just physically awkward.

I have less to say on this point only because it’s about something I don’t fully understand myself. I don’t really understand what it would be like to have a body that just… does things? Like normal stuff? Without tics and stims. No idea. Only that Wylan’s discomfort in and seeming lack of mastery of his own body feels very relatable to me.

5 - Abuse

One of the most familiar things about Wylan is how he has been so thoroughly abused and broken down that he’s afraid to do or say much of anything. Again, this is a place his background can be an obscuring factor. Of course Wylan didn’t think to blow up the walls when the first met the parem-juiced jurda and got trapped, he’s a spoiled rich kid! Except, he also startled when Jesper said his name later. Wylan didn’t hesitate because he was spoiled, he hesitated because he had no confidence.

He also thinks Kaz would laugh at him for playing music at his mother’s grave. Now, personally, I can’t see Kaz laughing at Wylan—being indifferent, thinking it’s pointless sentimentality, shaking his head, maybe commenting sharply that they need to go if they don’t have the time. But not laughing. Kaz is a snarky, sharp-edged jerk sometimes, but he doesn’t go out of his way to criticize, he just lets people know when they inconvenience him.

Wylan has been trained to identify attention as negative by an overbearing abusive father who literally saw him as less favorable than a demon. Now, that may have been hyperbole, but Jan criticized everything he could about Wylan—art, music, emotion—and made clear that he was worthless and competent to nothing. (Jan Van Eck can suck a rotten donkey dick but that’s neither here nor there.)

A lot of people with autism experience levels of bullying that have similar impacts. Or as the kids these days are calling it: we go to school. We go to school where we are weird. Where we look weird and move weird and talk about weird things and there’s a whole little bevy of asswipes to makes sure we know it. I got teased more for playing Pokemon and sitting alone reading than the kid who pissed himself onstage at assembly. (This was before Pokemon was cool. I’m old.) And that is not unusual for autistic kids. It’s also not unusual for this to be compounded by relatives or even parents who may be trying to help but don’t understand and can make things even harder.

So we can’t read social cues and we’re taught at a vicious age that everything that comes naturally to us is wrong. Imagine trying to interact in society with that background. There is no guide and most advice from neurotypical people isn’t actually what they mean. It breaks you down.

Wylan’s anxiety isn’t definitive of autism, but isn’t something that was incredibly familiar as someone whose neurodivergent experiences created a strong level of anxiety.

6 — High Compassion, Low Social Competence

Wylan isn’t very good at making friends. In fact, none of the Crows likes him much in the beginning, and only some of them soften toward him by the end. (Matthias and Nina come to respect his skills as a chemist but neither seems to particularly like him.) But you can see throughout the books that Wylan wants to connect with them and be one of them, he just… isn’t. He’s off-beat. He’s weird. He asks questions and mimics behaviors (trying to be cool and tough like Jesper, saying “mission” like Matthias does, imitating Kaz’s scheming face) but he doesn’t quite get how to adapt.

But he still cares about people. Not just them. Everyone. He cares about the people they leave in the ditch outside the prison wagon, he cares about Hanna Smeet, he cares about Alys. He cares about the people who’ll take a hit from Kaz’s sugar caper.

Wylan’s awkward social skills have undeniable big autism energy. I posit his compassion does as well. This is simply who Wylan is, and that means being someone who cares about everyone. I have nothing to back up that this is related to autism. I can say that it’s like me. (Not to brag.) I can’t turn off the part of my brain that says everyone matters. Individuals can opt out of that compassion, but they have it by default. There’s a certain agony in feeling a pull toward and love for just about everyone and yet an inability to develop meaningful connections with them, and that keen loneliness… it just burns.

Again, it’s not definitive of autism, but it’s very similar to an autistic experience.

I said in the beginning that I didn’t think Wylan certainly had autism and I stand by that, but he is a powerfully honest reflection of many people who do. So he can be understood to have autism, and that’s part of the reason some people have that headcanon.

#six of crows #wylan van eck #autism #actually autistic

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petri808 · 3 years

Text

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

Inukag AU

More and more the déjà vu moments started coming to Kagome, mostly smaller memories, but they were adding up. She’d taken the doctor’s advice and kept a small notebook in her purse in case a new one popped up. For example, she knew Inuyasha’s favorite food was ramen because she’d been told as much, but one day as she shopped in the supermarket and saw one of the brands on the shelf, her hand immediately reached out for it. Kagome placed it in her basket without a second thought until two aisles away it finally hit her— it wasn’t a flavor she liked. Sure enough, when she saw Inuyasha that afternoon he confirmed it was the brand and flavor he always bought.

Speaking of recall, Kagome had met Ms. Tanaka at a small cafe one Saturday and they sat at a table for four hours chatting. Kagome had been nervous about going. What would she say since she couldn’t remember anything about the job or company, but Ms. Tanaka was such a bubbly feisty person those anxieties had melted away within the first few minutes. She was brought up to speed on how the company was doing… along with the gossip or drama one might find in a close knit office like they had. So, and so just started dating, bought a new car, complaining about in-laws, news about children, etc. Kagome recognized the name of one child mentioned from when the coworker had taken maternity leave. It felt weird to now be told the child had started preschool, but she was just happy to have remembered the person at all. It was a good day with more to come because Ms. Tanaka invited her to a birthday party the following week at the office for one of their closest co-workers. Apparently, they were nicknamed the trio at work because they always took their lunches together. Their cubicles were next to each other so day in and day out they’d became each other’s family away from home.

“Hi, everyone.” Kagome smiled and waved even though her nerves were on edge. Ms. Tanaka wanted it to be a surprise, so she had no idea what the reaction would be… and it certainly wasn’t this!

A loud scream came from the other side of the room that left her startled. At first Kagome couldn’t see who or where it had come from over all the cubicles, but the next thing she knew she’d almost been tackled to the ground by a hug. It was the birthday girl, Ms. Fukuda.

“Oh, my Kami you came!” Fukuda pulled back her hands still gripped to Kagome’s shoulders. “Why didn’t anyone tell me you were coming??”

“Tanaka wanted it be a surprise,” Kagome squeaked back.

“Well, this is definitely the best birthday gift I could’ve received!— Even if you don’t remember me.”

Kagome flinched a little, her cheeks heating up. “I’m sorry, I don’t, but I’m hoping being here will stimulate something.”

“No need to be sorry,” the woman hugged her again. “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through, but let’s see if we can’t jog those memories!” Ms. Fukuda took Kagome’s hand and started dragging her deeper into the crowd. “Everyone! Look who’s here!”

Kagome stayed close to Tanaka and Fukuda throughout the visit, though the longer she stayed the more comfortable she became. There was tons of food to eat and desserts that left her full. People joked around, teasing Fukuda over a few gag gifts, but all in good fun. Kagome couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so hard. Everyone was so nice and accommodating, never making her feel bad that she couldn’t remember them. Quite the contrary. The office staff talked and talked, bringing up story after story from the last few years. They seemed determined to play a role in helping Kagome to redeem her lost memories. Most of the staff were there when she’d started and so they had a lot of tales to tell.

“You had such a hard time with the ten-key machine,” Ms. Fukuda laughed. “I remember thinking oh kami, this young girl is gonna give me gray hair!”

Kagome chuckled. “And you weren’t quiet about pointing it out to me. Said I’ll have to cover the cost of hair dye if it did.”

The room full of laughter suddenly went silent as everyone turned to Kagome. Only a few gasps breaking the stillness to leave her utterly concerned. “Did I say something wrong?” Kagome questioned.

Ms. Fukuda broke the silence. “Y-You really remember that?”

“Remember…” Kagome repeated in confusion. All she did was comment— “Oh! Yeah, I guess I did…”

Fukuda squealed as she hugged onto Kagome. “Oh, my Kami! You remembered!”

“I-I remembered!” Tears began to stream down Kagome’s cheeks at how naturally the memories came back to her. “It took me a couple of months, but I got it down.”

“You did,” Ms. Fukuda whose own tears made their way to the scene, and Ms. Tanaka had joined in the hug. “And now you’re faster than me,” she snorted a laugh.

“Y-Yeah,” Kagome hiccupped a laugh too.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the room as everyone watched the friends sharing in such a beautiful moment. As the trio pulled apart, wiping away their tear stained faces, with the biggest smiles planted on them. Ms. Fukuda took Kagome’s hand a final time before letting go. “This truly was the best birthday gift, and I can’t wait for you come back to work.”

“Me, too.”

The party went on for a couple more hours, and by 4pm that afternoon it was winding down. Some office workers were tidying up, packing up leftovers or cleaning up any messes, while others went back to finishing up any company business that needed to be completed that day. A few core individuals such as the trio stayed chatting quietly around the cubicles. There was more than one conversation taking place, so Kagome ever eager to learn what she could did her best to stay engaged. Listening here and chiming in there. But then a name two cubicles away caught her attention.

‘Yura?’ Kagome wondered, who was this person and why was the name stirring up such a wave of anger and pain inside of her? The conversation she overheard seemed meaningless, just something about they were glad the person wasn’t there anymore. Okay, so that meant Yura was a former employee of the company. One person commented that they’d seen her at a new job in a department store selling makeup and the other responded with a scoffing sound, that it was a good fit for such a two-faced bitch. Well, obviously she wasn’t the only person who’d had an issue with this Yura woman. But who was she to her??

In order to figure it out, Kagome tapped on Ms. Tanaka’s shoulder to gain her attention. She whispered her question. “Who is Yura? Mr. Yoshida and Mr. Miyahira are talking about her.”

“Oh…” Ms. Tanaka looked warily at Ms. Fukuda before addressing Kagome’s question. “Are you sure you want to know? It, um… won’t be a very good memory.”

So, Yura was attached to an unhappy event in her life after all and her friends reaction’s just confirmed the initial feelings she’d felt. Kagome swallowed hard, would it be worth dredging up an unhappy memory or should she leave it buried away. It wasn’t the easiest decision to make, but if the woman’s name had triggered such a strong reaction, it must’ve played a significant role.

“J-Just tell me a little bit about her, maybe about when she’d worked here.”

Ms. Tanaka went first. “Okay. Well, um, she was here for about a year, and no one really liked her because she was rude and thought she was better than everyone else… but, when it came to you, Yura just had a real fixation on making your life miserable.”

“We didn’t know the real reason behind it all until the end,” added Ms. Fukuda. “At first, it was petty, childish things like stealing your lunch from the break room or leaving mean notes on your desk. But then it started to escalate and after several complaints to management, they finally fired her— You basically told the manager if they didn’t then you’d quit.”

“They chose you, and that’s what’s important.” Tanaka finished.

“But what do you mean the real reason behind it? Behind what?” Kagome asked.

Kagome’s question must’ve gave her two friends a real dilemma because they grew silent and hesitant to answer it. “Please? We’ve come this far you might as well just tell me.”

“It turned out that Yura was acting that way towards you because, she’s close friends with Inuyasha’s ex…”

“Oh…” Kagome’s eyes widened. “That’s right…” she sat back as the emotions took control. Kikyo was still a vague concept for her with only the bits and pieces she’d been able to put together, but the mention of the woman in conjunction with Yura brought on a flashback. “The cafe. They’d confronted me at a cafe on my lunch break…” Tears had welled up in Kagome’s eyes, but a sensation of anger was making her body tremble at the memory. “That’s what made me give management an ultimatum because it was just going to far.”

As the tears broke free, Kagome’s friends pulled together into a hug. Don’t cry! It’s okay! It was the past! Oh, please don’t be sad Kagome! She’s gone now, it’s gonna be okay! Once she was able to get the tears under control and convince them she’d be okay, they dropped the subject. But despite cheering Kagome up, the bitter feelings just wouldn’t go away. They sat in her gut stirring and brooding, knowing there was more to the story that she just couldn’t remember and that alone was frustrating. According to her friend’s, this incident happened just eight months before her accident, so it wasn’t ancient history. Had it contributed to the fight? It wasn’t beyond belief to think it had or at least added to the frustrations that led up to it.

When Inuyasha picked Kagome up from her workplace, he tried to make small talk. How’d it go? Did you have fun? She answered them in order, how it started out great and everyone was so nice and supportive, telling her stories and answering questions. Then she told him about blurting out a comment because she’d remembered the event.

“That’s awesome, babe!” Inuyasha squeezed her shoulder. “Your memories are coming back faster now!”

“Yeah, about that…” Kagome quieted as she fiddled with her fingers in her lap. “There was something else that was triggered, a… not so great memory.”

“Oh?” He turned briefly to check on her before returning his eyes to the road. “Are you okay? Do you wanna talk about it?”

“Um… well there was a woman that used to work there that I didn’t get along with…”

“That’s surprising.”

“Yeah, she um— Her name was Yura. But the reason we didn’t get along was because she’s a friend of your ex-girlfriend.”

Kagome instantly saw Inuyasha’s grip tighten on the steering wheel and the whites of his knuckles glaringly apparent. Clearly just the mention of Kikyo was enough to trigger an intense reaction.

She cleared her drying throat. “The company fired Yura about 8 months before the accident after she and Kikyo harassed me at a cafe during my lunch break.”

“You never told me about that. Kagome, why—”Inuyasha stopped mid-sentence as he felt his anger rise. He took a deep breath then lowered his tone. “Why didn’t you tell me about something that bad?”

“I’m not surprised…” she mumbled under her breath. She’d had an inkling that she’d never told him. “I think it was because I didn’t think you’d listen.”

“Of course, I would have listened! They were harassing you!”

“Look, Inuyasha, I don’t remember everything, but clearly there was a reason I didn’t tell you and based on everything you’ve told me yourself you weren’t listening! So, how can you even tell me you would have, when obviously you weren’t back then! You have no right to hold it against me now!”

“Kagome this is different, it affected your job and there were witnesses—”

“Oh?! So, because you’d believe the witnesses you would have believed me?! I don’t remember, but maybe there were other times there were witnesses and you didn’t listen— I DON’T KNOW THAT!”

“That’s not what I meant! I would have listened to you if you’d told me! You should have told me!”

“You know, I really thought you’d be different but if you still can’t admit about what drove me to leave that night, then I… I don’t know anymore…”

“That’s not fair…”

“J-just get me home! I-I just wanna go home Inuyasha! I can’t talk to you right now! There’s so much I can’t remember and since you admitted you hadn’t listened before, there’s nothing more to say.”

“Please Kagome—”

“Just stop. I’m done talking.” She’d had enough.

Her mind was spinning from all the gaps she couldn’t fill and the anger at his words. How could he deny it now when that’s one of the things he’d admitted to from the beginning. The last few minutes of the drive went by in silence and as soon as they reached the Higurashi residence, Kagome got out without a second look. All their months of hard work were now left behind with the slam of a car door and she had no idea how to salvage it.

#inukag #inukag au #inukag fan fiction #inukag fan fic #inuyasha #kagome higurashi #inuyasha x kagome #angst with happy ending #ch 9 #missing memories

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so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed · 3 years

Note

4 and 22 for the fic trope mash-up!

Hi love!

Thanks for this!

4. Coffee Shop AU && 22. Space AU

It’s been four months since he last saw him. This stranger that used to come into the coffeeshop every afternoon, like clockwork. Zayn really shouldn’t worry so much, because he’s not the boss of him, the handsome stranger doesn’t owe him anything.

It’s just. He’s kind of gotten used to seeing him around, is all, and the way he’d smile at him sometimes always made him feel special.

But maybe he isn’t special and maybe he’s just creepy, instead, and the stranger has stopped coming in because Zayn’s been staring a little bit too much.

(He hasn’t come in during any of his coworker’s shifts either, though, so maybe it’s not that. Maybe something’s wrong, maybe handsome stranger is dead, and god, why isn’t Louis here to talk him down from these moods?)

Zayn is busy in the back when the doorbell rings, and it’s not until Niall appears at his side, grinning that easy grin of his that can mean nothing and everything at the same time, that he gets distracted from his thoughts, only in time for Niall to give him a cheeky grin. “There’s someone here who insisted that you were the one to serve them.”

Zayn sighs, straightening his back and rubbing at the tense muscles just above the dip of his spine. “Let me guess,” he mumbles, “another fifteen year old who’s going to slide me her number on a napkin, while her friends giggle in the back.”

He loves working here, honestly, but for some reason a lot of teenage girls come in, and their laughter sometimes gets on his nerves. “Are you sure you can’t get rid of them, Ni?”

Niall smirks. “Sorry mate, the customer comes first and all. Just go out there, and paste on a smile, will you. You’re going to scare away all the regulars if you go out there scowling like that.”

Zayn sighs again, hoping it’ll tempt Niall into a cuddle, but the other man just steps back to make room for him, and Zayn reluctantly pastes on his best customer service smile, reminding himself that it’s just another hour and a half before he gets to go home.

His smile fades when he sees who’s in front of the counter, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He’s got his hands clenched into a fist, and Zayn suddenly feels nervous butterflies in his stomach, even as the smile that slides onto his face is a lot more genuine this time.

“Liam.” It’s almost breathless. “Hi.” He wills his knees to not buckle as he slips behind the counter, his hands braced on the surface to keep him upright. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Liam’s smile is tight, but there’s a warmth in his eyes that makes him feel all kinds of gooey inside, like a chocolate lava cake fresh out of the oven. “Zayn.” He says, and his name’s never sounded sweeter. “Hi.”

Zayn hopes that his smile isn’t too bright, but he can’t keep his features in check, so he glances down at the counter, at where his hands have absently reached out to a cloth to wipe over an already clean surface. “What can I get started for you?” He asks, because if he doesn’t ask that then he’ll ask where have you been and he’s reasonably sure that’s not a question he’s allowed to ask.

“Um.” Liam peers at the board behind him, at the specials that Zayn had painstakingly written down this morning, the little drawings that his regulars loved so much. “The, uh, galaxy frappé sounds pretty cool, I guess?”

Zayn arches one eyebrow. It’s not a drink that he expected Liam to go for, but, he thinks with a pang, maybe Liam’s not picking up a drink for himself. Maybe he’s trying to impress someone. “Okay,” he says easily, punching it into the register. “Anything else?”

His voice change had been subtle, but not subtle enough apparently, because suddenly Liam’s eyes are on him again, and they’re concerned now, a little worried. Zayn finds that he wants to reach out and smooth away the lines around them. He keeps his hands firmly by his side.

“No.” It sounds almost like a question, and Liam shifts his weight again. “Or. Well. Actually, yeah.” Zayn waits for him to continue, watching Liam’s face as it goes through a few rapid changes in expression, a slight blush deepening the colour of his skin. “I uh. Don’t know if you knew this, but, I’m kind of, an astronaut?” He furrows his brows. “Not kind of, I am one. And well, I was sort of, in space, the past few months?” He pauses. “Fuck, I thought I’d be smoother about this. I thought, I could just work it into the conversation if I ordered the galaxy frappé, but, you still get me all jumbled up.” He sighs. “Anyway. So. Here's the thing.”

Zayn watches as he lifts his clenched hand, places a rock onto the counter. He blinks at it. Then at Liam, whose brow is still furrowed and who looks rather expectant. “I- thanks?”

“It’s a rock.” Liam clarifies, as though Zayn hadn’t noticed that. “From uh. Space. It’s a space rock.”

He brushes a hand through his hair, and Zayn is surprised to see it shaking. “It’s a space rock because while I was out there, I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and I thought-” Liam frowns again, those bushy eyebrows knitting together. Zayn is surprised he hasn’t melted into a puddle yet. “God, why is this so hard. What was I thinking? Hello, here is a space rock, will you go out with me? What kind of a line is that.”

Zayn bites down on his bottom lip, tries not to smile, lest Liam get the wrong impression. “It’s an original one,” he says softly. “I’ll give you that.” He wipes his hands on his apron, but they’re still sweaty and slightly shaking. “I uh. Have a break coming up in a few minutes,” he’s fairly sure that he doesn’t but he’s also fairly sure that Niall will cover for him. “If you wanted to wait. I could make you a drink you’d actually like, and you could tell me all about space?”

“I’d like that.” Liam smiles at him, tension fading from his face, and Zayn glances at the rock on the counter, the one that Liam brought him from space because he couldn’t stop thinking about him.

He’d pinch himself to make sure he isn’t dreaming, but he doesn’t think he’d come up with a scenario quite like this if he did. "Okay." He says softly, smiles as he pockets the rock. "Me too."

Well that turned into quite a little ficlet! I hope you like it!

These tropes are from this list, if anyone else wants to ask me some!

#beelou #fanfic trope mash-up #ziam ficlet #drabble

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greatfay · 3 years

Note

since ur answering asks and shit can u explain what u meant by generational differences in communication

Damn it’s like 2015 tumblr when my inbox used to be WET. So if you’re talking about the controversial opinions post, YES, like I totally understand where people are coming from when they say that generational divides aren’t real (because they aren’t, they’re arbitrary) and distract us from real problems and yes they paint past generations as collectively bigoted when Civil Rights protestors in the 60s (who are in their 70s and 80s now) are mirrors to BLM protestors today, who could be of any age, but the most vocal and famous (at least online, especially irt to the founders, like Patrisse Cullors who is 37.

But how we communicate is sooooo different. I really point to the Internet and Social Media as a major influence in how younger millennials (more Tom Hollands and less Seth Rogans—see even there, I feel like there are two different types of Millennials) and Gen Zrs/Zoomers and even Generation Alpha behave and communicate. We live in a world where we grew up either knowing right out the gate or discovering the hard way that what we say and do has permanence, the kind of permanence that prior generations have never experienced until today. The dumb things kids have been saying since forever can now follow them... forever. We have an inherent understanding of how online spaces work. Compare that to, idk, let’s say you posted on your Facebook (for the first time in 18 months) “All these big and bad grown ass Senators going after actual child Greta Gerwig lol ok, you’re so brave for attacking a CHILD over climate change” and then your aunt, who’s turning “forty-fifteen” in May replies to your post with “So happy to see my passionate niece! Much love from us, hope you’re doing well. Paul is doing great, waiting on his screening results. Tell your mom I said we miss her, we need to get together, we forgive her for last Christmas.”

Like... ok there’s a lot going on there, but your hypothetical aunt is oversharing on a publicly accessible post. And even with the most strict of privacy settings, she’s oversharing where your other Facebook friends (which may include classmates, coworkers, etc.) can see. But she’s saying things that would only be appropriate in a 1-on-1 conversation. This Aunt doesn’t have an understanding of such boundaries, she’s not as technologically literate and hasn’t grown up in a world of Virtual Space, she still gets most of her news from TV, she trusts what a reporter on Channel 4 will read off a script more than what actual video footage of an incident might reveal on Twitter, and she has no clue that she’s been sharing her location data with every post she makes.

There’s such a huge difference. I think it even affects how we experience and express stress and frustration. I think growing up partially in online spaces has made me more accustomed to conflict and consequence-free arguing than someone who never had to worry about that. I’ve been exposed so much to harassment and bullying, triangulating and echo chambers in forums and threads, and vastly opposing point of views at such an early age that it’s had an effect on how I see the world. Compare this to a customer I helped two weeks ago who was looking for a specific type of supplement for children. I found it for her, I handed her exactly what she was looking for, even though her description of the product actually matched several different products; to make sure I’d done my job thoroughly and that she leaves happy and satisfied and doesn’t bother me again, I then show her more products that match her description so that she knows she has options. And she proceeds to freak out, saying “NO, NO, I’M LOOKING FOR [X] AND IT HAS TO BE [XYZ]” and when I say freak out, she looked stressed and PANICKED. And being a retail employee wears you down bit by bit, and add COVID on top of it and little shit like this makes you snap, sometimes. So I have to cut her off like “Why are you screaming and freaking out, jfc you’re holding what you said you wanted. It’s in your hands. I gave you what you wanted, I’m just showing you more things.”

That customer is not an exception, she’s not a unique case. She’s representative of a frightening percentage of her generation, the kids who watched Grease and The Breakfast Club and Ghost in theaters when they were originally released. This is how they communicate and process information. She could not, for some reason, register that her need had been fulfilled, and defaulted to an extreme emotional response when given new and different information.

I’ve yet to deal with someone younger than 35 act the same way, the exceptions being the kids of very wealthy people at my new job who reek of privilege I gag when they walk in—but even they are like *shrugs* “ok whatever” and understanding when there’s something I can’t do for them.

Me: “sorry, we are totally out of that one in your size, but I can order it for you, it’s 2-3 day shipping at no cost to you and we ship it straight to your house”

A rich, white, attractive 22-year-old who’s had access to organic food, a rigorous dermatologist, and financial security since she was born: “mmm... sure, I’ll order it”

A 47-year-old of any socioeconomic background, of any race, in the same situation: “AHHHHHHHHHHH”

I just think it’s crazy how three generations of kids and young adults raised in a world where everything moves so much faster, where knowledge and entertainment and communication can be gathered so much faster, are often so much more polite and patient and understanding. Yesterday I told an older man (mid-50s) whose native tongue is the same as mine, as clearly and succinct as possible, that what he’s looking for is “in aisle 4.” He proceeded to repeat back, “Aisle 7?” four time before I dropped everything to show him what he needed in aisle 4, despite his insistence that he didn’t need me to walk him there. 4 and 7 sound nothing alike in English. There’s just something going on up there 🧠 that’s different.

Oh, other generational divides!!! We have different approaches to labor and working. Totally different! I’m a “young” millennial where I’m almost Gen Z, and I’ve noticed an awful trend among my demographic where people actually brag about working 90 hour work weeks. Or brag about how they skip breaks and live on-call to get the job done for “the hustle” like this “hustle, become a millionaire by 30″ culture that’s dominated these kids, idk where tf that came from. Like why are you proud of being a wage slave, getting taken advantage of by your millionaire/billionaire overlords. Compare this to my mother’s generation (she’s a borderline Genius X’er, she and her best friend were a year too young to watch Grease when it came out and had a random older woman buy tickets for her; she went to Prince concerts, took photos of him, then sold the photos on buttons at school, that’s her culture and teenage experience), where she’s insistent on her rights and entitlements as an employee, and these things she instilled me: “whatchu mean they didn’t schedule a break for you and you’re working 12 hrs today? oh no, you’re off, don’t answer your phone cuz you are NOT available!” There are Gen X’ers who entered the workforce at a time that America was drifting toward this corporate world, with more strictly defined regulations, roles, and understandings of labor rights (and also, let’s talk about how the 80s there was so much more attention on workplace harassment, misogyny and gender divides in wage gaps, etc. etc... not that much has changed, but at least it was talked about!). There are young people today who are taken advantage of because they aren’t as informed or don’t feel as secure and valuable enough to claim what belongs to them.

At the same time, those generations (Gen X and older) have a different viewpoint of hierarchies in the workplace and respect irt our direct supervisors. That’s how you get this blurring of boundaries between Work Life and one’s Personal Life that leads to common tropes in media written by their generations, where oh no! I’m having my boss over for dinner and the roast beef is still defrosting :O is such a “relatable thing” for them... meanwhile us younger generations are like I don’t even like that you know where I live, and if I see your 2017 Honda Civic pass my place one day, we’re going to have a problem. I think older generations have a different relationship with the word “Respect” than we do. Like, my grandma, who’s turning 87 (?) this year, and the other seniors in my area, they have a different concept of honor and an expectation of professional boundaries that I, and my mom and her generation, just don’t see (so then there’s something in common with Gen X’ers and the rest of us.) My dad grew up in a world where talking and acting like George Bailey and knocking on someone’s door with a big smile could get you a job, a job that could pay for college and rent no problem. My mom grew up in a world that demanded more prestige, where cover letters and references could get you into some cushy jobs if you’re persistent and ballsy enough. And I grew up in a world where potential employers literally don’t see your face when you apply unless they lurk on any social media profiles you have publicly available and they hold all the cards, and you need all those CVs and reference letters just to make minimum wage... so I feel like I am powerless in the face of such employers.

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no6secretsanta · 3 years

Text

No.6 - Children of the Sea

Happy Holidays and an awesome New Year, @aoicanvas! I really hope you enjoy this fic! It’s me, @glorifiedscapegoat, and I’m really excited to share this with you. The concept I had kept giving me ideas, so I found myself just writing and writing for a while, and before I knew it the word count was as high as it was. I hope that’s all right!

⁂

“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” — Jacques Cousteau

“Here’s your turbo,” Safu declared, sitting down opposite Shion at the booth. They were at their favorite café on the other side of Kronos, perched at one of the large window-seats overlooking the bay.

It was one of Shion’s favorite places, simply for its amazing view of the ocean. The sapphire blue waves lapped against the edge of the pier, the shush-shush sound of the ocean sending comforting prickles down his spine. During the early morning hours, the sunlight glistened across the smooth surface, the pale blue sky streaked with pale pinks and vibrant oranges.

“Oh,” Shion said in surprise as Safu slid the green foam cup across the table toward him. “Thank you. I ordered a decaf, though.”

“I canceled it. You looked like you could use the caffeine.”

Shion exhaled through his nose, knowing it wouldn’t do him any good to argue. He thanked Safu, popped back the heat-saver from the plastic cover, then took a hesitant sip of the coffee. Safu had doused it with enough creamer and granulated sugar to keep the bitter bite of the espresso from stinging his tongue, but Shion could still feel the caffeine buzzing through him.

“Speaking of caffeine,” Safu said, taking a sip of her own coffee. Having been friends for as long as they had, Shion knew that Safu took her coffee as black as the night sky in the middle of the city, devoid of stars due to the constant streaks of artificial lighting. Shion’s nose wrinkled just thinking about it. He’d never been able to get past the bitterness of the coffee beans. “You might want to bring one to go once you finish that one. Don’t you have the new wave of summer interns starting today?”

Shion exhaled, all traces of his previous good mood fluttering out the door. “Don’t remind me.”

Summers were a difficult time for the West Block Aquarium and, more importantly, its staff. Kronos was a buzzing tourist town, and the summer months brought about college students, wealthy benefactors, and worst of all, summer interns.

“Poor thing,” Safu remarked, taking another sip of her coffee. “Well, maybe it won’t be so bad. Who knows? The interns this year could be… delightful.”

They both shuddered in unison. Shion and Safu had been friends since they were little—Grade 1, to be exact, after Safu got in trouble for punching two boys in the face who called Shion “girly” for his pretty white hair—and both had gone on to pursue careers where interns came and went through a constant revolving door.

Though Shion had obtained full-time employment as a pseudo marine biologist at the West Block Aquarium, Safu had went on to pursue a medical degree working alongside children. Her talent rested with biology (of the mammalian variety, not the aquatic), but despite the clear differences in their professions, Shion and Safu shared one similar headache: summer interns.

“So, how’s your mom doing?” Safu asked.

“She’s all right,” Shion replied. “Just getting ready for the summer rush. Tourists and all that.”

“She’s a saint.” Safu lifted her coffee cup with a solemn expression. “I don’t know how I would have gotten through my undergraduate without the croissants she sent in her care packages.”

Shion huffed out a laugh and took another sip of his coffee. He could already feel the caffeine working its way through his veins.

He allowed a bit of silence to fall around him, the only reprieve he’d get today. As soon as he left for work in an hour, his day would be consumed with learning the group dynamic in this summer’s early wave of interns, squeezing work in between answering questions for the flood of customers arriving for the first day of the summer season, and banging his head against the glass walls of the tanks he was in charge of maintaining.

Shion felt something soft rest on top of his head. He glanced up to see Safu tapping her fingers against his temple, softly going, “pomf” to herself.

He leaned back out of reach, fighting back a smile. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out where I can purchase a brush strong enough to tame that mop of yours.” Safu took her hand back, flashing a smile. “It’s such a pretty color, and it’s a shame it just sticks up all over the place.”

“Well, it’s not my fault. I spend most of the time in the water. It’s hard to find a shampoo that can handle all that water damage.”

“Damage?” Safu reached out again and patted Shion on the top of the head. “This isn’t damage. You are the only person alive who can spend seventy-five percent of their life in water and come out with hair this soft.”

“Stop it,” Shion said, but it was light-hearted. His hair had always been a point of conflict in his life. Since the moment he was born—sporting snowy hair and bright ruby eyes—Shion had always fought off rude stares and invasive questions. His mother had helped him construct several convincing lies to help discourage people from continuing to pester him. These lies had ranged from childhood illness in Grades 1 through 4, and then expensive dye jobs during his time as a teenager. Shion had never liked the thought of dyeing his hair, but lying to folks that his bizarre hair and eye color were the results of a bottle of Manic Panic and colored contacts kept them from prying and discovering the truth.

Though, even if Shion did break down and tell people the truth—that his father was a merperson who’d seduced his human mother years ago before splitting without a trace, leaving her with a hybrid son whose hair and eyes and ability to breathe underwater were his only connection to his heritage—he doubted anyone would ever believe him.

Except for Safu.

When Shion finally broke down and told Safu the truth, she’d taken the information with a smile. Coming to terms that there were other creatures dwelling in her world came simply. Safu remarked that new species were being discovered all the time. Of course it made sense that there could be merpeople. The ocean hadn’t been completely explored, after all.

Sometimes Shion wondered why a relationship with Safu had never occurred to him. She was a beautiful girl, and always had been; petite with straight brown hair that fell to her shoulders (she’d let it grow out in recent years), dark eyes that saw everything, and a friendly smile that invited people to let their guard down. More than that, Safu was amazingly kind… to the people she liked. She never judged anyone unless they gave her a reason to assume they were judging her, and she was fiercely protective of her friends.

When they were teenagers, Safu had expressed feelings for Shion that he hadn’t been able to reciprocate. Maybe it was because Safu was accustomed to rejection, or maybe it was because she was just a wonderful, loving person, but Shion’s gentle apology in his inability to return her feelings hadn’t stopped her from remaining his best friend.

And when Shion came staggering home one night and called her, squealing with excitement that he’d found someone like him—someone from the sea—Safu had squealed and gushed with him.

Shion shook the thought away before he could dwell on it. Remembering the summers he spent between the ages of sixteen and nineteen were painful for him. He’d formed a romance with a boy from the sea, a boy Shion could picture himself spending the rest of his life with, and then, without explanation or reason, he’d simply vanished into thin air. Zip. Poof. Gone. As if he’d never been there in the first place.

"Hey, Shion. Earth to Shion.”

He looked up. “Huh?”

Safu took one look at his face, and instantly, she knew. “Thinking about Nezumi again?”

Hearing his name sent a knife through Shion’s heart. “No,” he said, but the lie was pointless. He’d never been any good at telling lies to Safu.

Safu clicked her tongue. When Nezumi stopped showing up at the beach, Safu had been furious. She ranted and raved for months about him, furious that he could break Shion’s heart like that. When the next summer came and he still didn’t show up, Safu’s anger cooled into concern. When another year passed, she and Shion mutually agreed that something awful must have happened to Nezumi and tried to mourn.

“Do you want to talk about it,” she said gently, “or change the subject?”

“Change the subject, please.”

“Of course.” Safu took a deep breath, composing her thoughts, and then she said, somewhat loudly, “Well, it won’t be so bad, right? How long do summer internships last at the aquarium, again?”

“Three months,” Shion said, grateful for the change in topic. He took all the pent-up feelings he still had toward Nezumi, even now, and shoved them to the side. If they festered there and turned into a cancerous tumor, he’d deal with it when that time came.

“Ugh, lucky. Our internships last six months.”

“Aren’t all of your interns medical students, though?” Shion stole a brief glance out the window. He wondered if he would catch a familiar flash of black and silver, and then promptly scolded himself for daring to hope.

“Yes, and most of them are lovely. But then you have those ones.” Safu rolled her eyes, and Shion instantly knew which ones she meant.

The children of wealthy parents whose only major contribution to the field was that they spent a lot of money and therefore expected that their children could sail through the program without any effort. Shion had dealt with plenty of those types, too, working at the aquarium. Wealthy donors often assumed a nice dosage of cash would land their children a high-paying, low-effort job once they finished their degree program. Shion lost count of the number of arguments he and other coworkers had had with interns whose ultimate defense was the phrase: “Do you have any idea who my parents are?”

"Maybe this year will be different,” Shion said, not at all confident. He’d been working full-time at the West Block Aquarium for two years, since he turned twenty-two, and not once had a summer internship term been “different”.

“It could be,” Safu replied solemnly. She and Shion shared a mutual nod, and then smiled.

⁂

With traffic, it was a forty-minute drive across downtown Kronos, and another three minutes to find a halfway decent parking space in front of the West Block Aquarium that didn’t result in Shion needing to sprint across the parking lot like a lunatic in order to clock in on time.

Shion smoothed his hands through his hair, pressing the tangled locks down against his skull. They bounced back up as he dropped his hands to his sides, and he gave up trying to look presentable.

His white hair, no matter how smooth or messy it was, always attracted attention from the college interns the aquarium employed. Most of them thankfully assumed it was just a dye job—an expensive, extremely thorough dye job, but a dye job nonetheless—but it elicited more than a few stares every year.

Shion scanned his ID badge at the employee entrance and ducked inside. He let the heavy metal door bang shut behind him, sighing as he stepped into the foyer of the employee lounge, cooled by the strong air conditioning unit Rikiga had installed. He tossed his empty coffee cup into the trash can, briefly considering using the Keurig to make himself another cup.

"Hey, Shion.”

Shion turned and spotted his coworker, Yamase, sitting at one of the little brown tables. He clutched a travel mug of tea—Yamase never liked drinking coffee, remarking that no matter how much creamer and sugar he doused it with, he could still taste the “disgusting bean water”—and he looked utterly exhausted.

Shion’s stomach plummeted. “Interns?”

“Interns,” Yamase agreed bitterly.

Shion huffed out a breath and went to the Keurig. “Please tell me there’s at least a few halfway decent ones.”

He prided himself on being an optimist—it was one of his best qualities, according to his mom, Safu, and everyone else he’d ever talked to, and Shion was pretty certain it was the primary reason Rikiga had given him the job in the first place—but something about summer interns made even someone with Shion’s extensive threshold for patience eager for the workday to end.

“Rikiga’s already deep into his cup,” Yamase explained, rolling his eyes. “Big surprise. Anyway, I’ve only met the first few, and supposedly, we’ve got two others starting tomorrow.”

“So, what exactly are we dealing with?” Shion popped a K-cup into the machine and hit brew. He shoved a paper cup beneath the dispenser and listened to the whir of the machine as the water heated up.

Yamase took a deep sip of his tea. “Well, there’s a girl who’s just started her second year at the community college who thinks she wants to go into marine biology. Kudos and all that, but she’s already expecting that we’ll hire her once she graduates since she’s interning with us.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Yeah,” Yamase groaned. “You know how that’s gonna go. I wonder if we’ll have the parents down here again. You remember that?”

Shion shuddered. “How could I forget?” He could still hear the shrill sound of the woman’s voice as she shrieked at Rikiga in the lobby about why he’d rejected her daughter’s application for full-time employment after she’d “slaved away all summer at this dirty, stinking place, and for what?” Never mind that Shion had found her in the employee lounge multiple times during her shift, sneaking alcohol and trying to steal merchandise from the gift shop when she thought no one was looking.

“Maybe she’ll be a good fit,” Shion said, a little too hopefully.

“She bounces when she talks,” Yamase said drily.

"Excuse me?”

“Like full on hops on her heels.” Yamase gave a small demonstration, bouncing twice in his chair before widening his eyes and giving Shion a blank, dead stare. “She also talks like this.” He raised his voice up at the end, almost as if he were asking a question. “With an upward inflection at the end of it. As if she has no idea what she’s doing here.”

“That is so creepy,” Shion shuddered. “Please stop.”

“You think that’s creepy. Try listening to her do it.” Yamase sighed and took a deep gulp from his travel mug. “The lights are definitely on, but no one’s been home for years.”

Shion pinched the bridge of his nose. Wonderful. Just what the aquarium needed. He plucked his cup from the Keurig and dumped a healthy heaping of sugar and creamer packets into the cup.

“The new hire for the gift shop’s hot, though,” Yamase said.

Shion raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Don’t worry—he’s our age,” Yamase assured. “I checked. Not in college, as far as I can tell. Just looking for some extra cash at a part-time job or something. And you know I’m not really into guys, but dang, something about this guy just… I don’t know. Just wait until you see him.” Yamase exhaled. “It’s his eyes, man.”

Shion huffed out a laugh and took a sip of his coffee. After the turbo Safu had ordered for him, it felt watered down and weak, but Shion savored the buzz of caffeine.

“He must be something, then,” Shion said, “if you’ve noticed him.”

“You have no idea. You’re single, right? Maybe you have a shot.”

Shion clicked his tongue. “You sound like Safu.”

"Well, maybe you should start listening to us!” Yamase tipped his head back and finished off the last of his tea. “Maybe we should strong-arm your mother into it. I’m sure that’d make you start looking.”

Shion couldn’t help but smile. He’d tried dating during his undergraduate, and it hadn’t worked. All the men he went out with made snide comments about his hair— “Do the carpets match the drapes? Ha ha, just kidding. Unless…?”—or thought his fascination with sea life bordered on obsessive. Shion wouldn’t have felt comfortable letting them know the truth: that his “obsession” with sea life stemmed from the fact that he came from the same place.

And besides, none of them had made him feel the way Nezumi had.

Not only did Nezumi come from the ocean—Shion could picture the black and blue scales on his long, elegant tail perfectly, like obsidian and sapphires, and his beautiful silver eyes, like the edge of a blade in the sunlight—he never thought Shion’s ramblings were bizarre. He laughed at him, sure, but it was good-natured and beautiful, like the chiming of bells. He could swim faster and deeper than Shion, and he brought him pretty shells and oysters containing pearls from the bottom of the sea where Shion couldn’t swim without raising more than a few eyebrows.

During their summer interactions as teenagers, Shion had never been able to convince Nezumi to come onto the shore. He knew it was possible—his own father had done it years ago—but whenever he asked, Nezumi quickly changed the subject.

Shion’s heart ached, his eyes stinging. The last time he saw Nezumi, they had been eighteen years old. He could still feel the brush of Nezumi’s lips against his own, tasting of saltwater. Shion could have kissed him forever.

Shion quickly shook the thoughts away. He couldn’t afford to get caught up on thoughts of Nezumi anymore. He needed to focus on the new interns and aquarium employees.

Yamase rose and rinsed his travel mug in the sink. The dark blue of his janitor’s uniform stood out against the stark gray walls of the employee lounge. “Well, count yourself lucky you don’t have to deal with most of the interns. You spend most of your time in Number Six. I’m the one who’s gotta spend the whole day trapped in the gift shop.”

Shion cracked a smile. Number Six was the main tank in the direct center of the aquarium, the first major exhibit available as soon as customers walked through the door. Shion’s primary job was to jump into the tank every couple of hours, toss smelt and other dead things at the bigger fish, ensure that the pH levels were safe, and make sure the sand tigers didn’t bully the nurse sharks. Shion never would have pegged sharks to have some weird social hierarchy, but it was there. He’d lost count of the times he’d had to chase away the sand tiger with the blunt snout (who he’d affectionally nicknamed Snubby) from the large nurse shark (Nurse Anne) with the chunk bitten out of her dorsal fin.

Number Six was also known to Yamase and the other janitors as the BFT: the Big Fucking Tank. Shion didn’t like calling it that, but he supposed when the janitors spent most of their shift spraying Windex on the glass and wiping away fingerprints and saliva—seriously, did little kids lick everything?—it made sense they would come to hate it.

The majority of the interns and summer hires started out as cashiers in the gift shop. During his dips in Number Six, Shion could spot the little alcove through the glass, watching as the interns in their bright green tee-shirts displaying the West Block Aquarium logo fumbled through each transaction.

“I wonder if the wannabee marine biologist will try to jump in the tank with you,” Yamase said, eyeing Shion in his periphery. “She doesn’t seem thrilled about the idea of starting as a cashier.”

“They all start out as cashiers,” Shion replied, taking another sip of his coffee. It had already begun to go cold. “She shouldn’t expect special treatment. Retail work can be humbling.”

"Is it twisted that I love watching the rich kids get screamed at by entitled jerks?” Yamase’s dark eyes flashed as he turned to face Shion. “Like, I know retail’s rough and all, but some of these kids are so fucking bratty, and seeing the looks on their faces when they realize that no one cares about how much money they have just warms my heart.”

Shion shook his head. “You’re awful,” he said, but he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face.

“Yup, and you’re equally as awful. I know you enjoy it, too.” Yamase put his travel mug back into the cupboard where the rest of the employees kept their spare mugs. “Well, I need to get out there and make sure the place is ready for opening. Finish up your coffee. You’re gonna need it. You know they’re probably gonna ask about the hair.”

“And the eyes,” Shion sighed. “They always do.”

“You could dye it.”

“Safu would literally kill me.”

Yamase rolled his eyes. “She might, but wouldn’t it be better than dealing with another wave of ‘wait, they let marine biologists dye their hair? Can you wear contacts underwater? Duuuuude.’”

Shion fought back a shudder. Too many times he’d had to deflect questions surrounding his odd hair color and the piercing shade of his irises. Albinism was a rare trait in humans, and Shion’s skin wasn’t nearly pale enough to pass for it. The odd red marking on his skin—scaled, if people looked close enough, which Shion never let anyone do—definitely shattered the illusion. Shion had hoped people would have a bit of common decency and not ask such invasive questions, but he was often disappointed. Almost every summer, someone cornered him in the break room and demanded to know why his hair was so white, what made his eyes red, how many bleaches did it take to achieve that color, did people think he was less professional because he looked like he was cosplaying all the time?

Sometimes Shion wondered if he should joke that he was a merman. Well, half a merman, anyway.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he could hear Nezumi’s voice snap, “Child of the Sea! Not merman. That’s a human word.” His mood instantly darkened, and Shion shook his head.

“Child of the Sea” was the preferred term in the underwater community, or so Shion had been told. Only human beings used words like “mermaid” and “merman”. Despite the wave of sorrow that Shion felt whenever the thought of Nezumi came rushing back, he couldn’t help the small flicker of warmth that kindled itself in his heart.

“Well,” Yamase sighed. “I’m heading back. Rip the Band-Aid off.”

“All right.”

“See you in a few,” Yamase replied with a wave, ducking out into the hallway. “Good luck!”

Shion exhaled and took another sip of his cool coffee. Summer interns. At least he had a reprieve from them when he dove into the tank. He took a few moments to sip his coffee, reveling in the silence he knew would soon be broken. Ah, well. It was only eight-thirty in the morning. Seven o’clock would come soon enough.

⁂

Shion finished his coffee, pulled on his white lab coat, and trotted out to the main foyer. The West Block Aquarium opened at ten o’clock on the dot—despite his active drinking and usual forgetfulness, Rikiga was oddly punctual—and the first hour would be spent preparing for the shift and greeting the interns and summer help.

Shion plastered a big smile on his face and tried to be positive. Summer interns were frustrating, but he had to remember that he was once in their shoes, too. Several years ago, he’d been a bright-eyed intern working at this same aquarium. Ignoring his obvious one-up over the other interns—primarily the fact that he could breathe underwater (secretly, of course) and understood ocean life in a way that astounded his professors and quickly moved him through his undergraduate degree with flying colors—he’d enjoyed working alongside other interns.

As he hurried toward the main foyer, stationed direction in front of Number Six, he couldn’t help but marvel at the decorations welcoming the new wave of summer customers. Bright plastic statues of sea lions and talking starfish lined the floors, gesturing toward the hallways and announcing exhibits. Neat signs with fun facts and information about the exhibit inhabitants sat in front of glass cages, and the sound of rushing water sounded like music to Shion’s ears.

Shion trotted almost everywhere. His colleagues joked that he was always in a hurry. Shion didn’t know if it was because he moved faster in the water than on land, even without the function of a tail, but he couldn’t help it. He jogged everywhere he went: meetings, feedings, the break room. Sometimes he worried he looked ridiculous—a young man in a white lab coat with obviously dyed hair (ha) jogging like a toddler through the aquarium—but if he did, no one commented one way or the other about it.

The four-story tank, illuminated with bright LED lights at the base and on each conjoining floor, wrapping upward in a slanted ramp like a makeshift spiral staircase, rose into view as Shion stepped out into the main exhibit. The brightly-colored tropical fish swam lazily through the teal water, their dark eyes staring blankly out at Shion as he approached the two individuals standing near the door, awaiting his arrival.

Shion swallowed the wave of frustration that surged inside him, caging it behind his clenched teeth as he kept the smile plastered on his face His colleagues had left him to deal with the new interns on his own.

Ha ha, funny.

As he approached the two interns—a young woman with vibrant pink hair (clearly a dye job, and a rather inexpensive one, at that, if the blond roots at the top were any indication) and a young man with dark hair yanked back into a ponytail, both dressed in the bright green West Block Aquarium staff shirt—the girl broke away from the tank and came sprinting up toward Shion.

“Oh, hi!” she shrieked, her voice piercing through the vacant walls of the aquarium. It carried, so sharp and sudden that Shion felt as if a knife had been drilled into his ear.

He flinched—the other intern did, too—and jerked to a halt.

“You must be Shion, right? Mr. Rikiga mentioned you’d be stopping by!” The girl clapped her hands, as if the idea of meeting Shion was too exciting to be contained inside her little body. “I’m so excited to be working with you! My name’s Miyamoto Emi, but my friends call me Emi-chan. Oh, darn, can I call you Shion, or is that too informal? Gosh, this is so exciting!”

Shion gawked down at the girl, unsure of what to say. She looked about twenty years old, short in a way that was noticeable even to someone like Shion. He wasn’t very tall, himself—he rose to a respectable five-feet-seven-inches—and this girl rose to the middle of his chest. She tipped her head back to look into his face, her dark brown eyes wide with excitement, and yep, there was the bouncing Yamase had mentioned. With each syllable that left her mouth, she rose an inch off the ground and then came down hard on her heels. She wore a pair of black flip-flops (definitely not regulation, according to the employee handbook, which Rikiga definitely didn’t enforce), and the rubber soles thumped rhythmically on the solid tile floor.

“Mr. Rikiga said you were a marine biologist,” Emi went on. “That must be so exciting. I’ve wanted to be a marine biologist since I was a little girl. I’ve always loved turtles, and I just wanna be able to work with them. Oh, wow!�� Her eyes widened further—how was that possible?—and she stared at Shion’s white hair.

His stomach plummeted.

“Your hair—” she said, a shriek building in her throat. Shion could see it. Her shoulders quaked beneath the force of it, her whole body unable to contain the sheer joy that came from seeing Shion’s pristine white hair coupled with his lab coat. “Where do you get your hair done? Do you do it yourself? My friend Mariko did my hair”—she grabbed a lock of her own pink hair and shoved it toward Shion—“but it doesn’t look nearly as good as yours does!”

“Um, thank you.” Shion gave her a wobbly smile. This was a new development. Sometimes the interns were cold and stand-offish, and sometimes they were uninterested in the position.

This, however? This was new.

Shion felt his head spinning as he tried to focus on the girl bouncing in front of him. He glanced over her shoulder, seeking out the second intern. The young man was staring at Emi as if she’d just exploded and scattered across the foyer in an array of glitter. His hair framed his face, long and pulled into a high ponytail. He had a narrow, pale face, and Shion wondered briefly if this was the young man Yamase had mentioned back in the break room. He squinted over Emi’s head—where did she get the energy to keep bouncing like this?—examining the young man’s face to see what about him Yamase had been so taken by.

The young man was tall and thin, his hair a dark shade of black that Shion suspected would look blue in certain lighting. Even with the fluorescent bulbs in the aquarium itself, he could pick out the few pale gray strands and blue bits that made the young man’s hair beautiful rather than plain. His skin was far too pale for the lime-green of the staff shirt, and it made him look sickly and washed out.

He lifted his head to give Shion a look that clearly read ‘Poor you’, and Shion managed to get a good look at his eyes.

It’s his eyes, man.

Two bright silver coins stared back at Shion, narrowed in a way that Shion recognized as someone trying to figure out where they recognized someone from. His stomach twisted. Flecks of blue and white danced behind a pale of solid silver glass, shifting depending on his mood. When he was happy, they were vibrant and luminous. When he was aggravated, they darkened like the sky over a stormy sea. Shion had seen them in almost every variant, and he stood there, dumbstruck, as the young man stared into his face, too—taking in his bright red irises, the red marking wrapped around his throat, and his vibrant white hair—and finally, finally recognized him.

His jaw dropped. It was an almost comical look, but he managed to make it look beautiful. He unfolded his arms from across his chest, letting them fall limply at his sides.

“Shion?” he said.

His voice. His voice. Shion could still hear it in his memories. The peals of laughter, the shouts whenever they argued, the gentle songs he sang. All of it came flooding back in a crushing wave that made Shion feel as if he were drowning. His lungs were designed to pull oxygen both on land and beneath the surface. Shion would never know how it felt to drown in earnest—but standing across from Nezumi, the boy he’d fallen in love with in his youth, the boy who’d claimed his first kiss, the boy who’d left one day and never come back, Shion wondered if this was how it felt to have all the air knocked out of him once and for all.

Emi’s bright smile never left her face, but her eyes widened. “Oh, my gosh. Do you know two each other?” She looked over her shoulder at the young man—at Nezumi—and clapped her hands. “That’s so exciting!”

“Um,” Shion said, taking a trembling step backward. The room around him crushed inward, the air tight and thick. He swallowed once, finding it difficult to breathe. “Yes, um…”

Nezumi’s shocked expression shifted into concern, and Shion felt himself edging toward a full-on breakdown. Shards of glass punched through his stomach, heat and pain radiating through each pulse point in his body until it was all he could feel. He couldn’t sense the solid tiles beneath his feet or the air conditioner churning above his head. His vision tunneled, blocking out everything except the young man standing in front of him—standing! On legs!—in his ridiculous staff tee shirt and his khaki pants, looking every bit like the beautiful, otherworldly creature he was once he stepped into the ocean.

“Ah, w-well,” Shion managed, the words heavy as stones on his tongue. “W-welcome to the West Block Aquarium. So nice to be working with you both. Um, I have to, ah, feed the fish in the BFT now. Ah, I mean, in Number Six. The big tank behind you. Yup, that’s Number Six. I’m sure Mr. Rikiga will tell you all about it as part of the tour.”

“Shion,” Nezumi said, and his voice was equally as wobbly. He took a step forward, and panic surged through Shion’s body like an injection of ice water.

”Goodbye!” Shion spun on his heel and fled back toward the break room. There was an elevator in the far back, reserved for employee usage and available for disabled customers, and if Shion input the code into the panel, it would go to the floor linking to the observatory room for Number Six. It wasn’t available to the public, reserved for marine biologists like Shion to record the pH balances of the tank and the weights of each animal.

His shoes smacked against the tile as he hurried toward the hallway leading to the elevator. The twisting halls that stretched past the rooms dedicated to shells and the horseshoe crab touch tank—popular with the children and high school customers—and Shion rounded them quickly, searching desperately for the signs leading to the elevator.

“Shion, wait!”

Shion whirled and saw Nezumi hurrying up the ramp toward him. He stumbled a bit as he ran, as if he’d been sitting down for a long time and his legs hadn’t quite adjusted to movement. The fluorescent lights caught against the strands of his hair, and the lime green of the staff shirt clashed horribly with his khaki pants and pale skin.

He looked ridiculous. He looked amazing. He looked—

Alive.

“You’re alive,” Shion said, his voice sounding stupid in his ears.

Nezumi stumbled to a stop a few steps in front of him. He was wearing heavy black combat boots (completely against regulation, since the soles weren’t non-marking), and one pant leg of his cargo pants was tucked in while the other hung frustratingly loose around his ankle. “Yeah,” he said, sounding equally as stupid and just as wonderful as Shion remembered. “Yeah, I’m alive.”

“But—” Shion fumbled for something, anything, and came up short. “You—you vanished! You stopped coming to the beach.”

Nezumi winced. “I know.”

The prickles of cold were replaced with agitation that dug like thorns in his body. “I waited for you,” he said, low and harsh. “Every day for months. Years. And you—you never came back.”

Nezumi flinched back as if Shion had ripped one of the decorative plywood sea turtles off the wall and chucked it at him. “I know,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Shion barked out a laugh. “Five years of no contact—nothing—and now you show up here, at my work, to tell me you’re sorry?”

“I didn’t know you worked here,” Nezumi said.

“Then why are you here? You sure as hell can’t be a university student!”

Nezumi’s silver eyes flashed in the vibrant LED lights. “I’ve never heard you swear before,” he murmured wondrously, as if it was the most amazing thing in the world.

“Don’t change the subject!” Shion growled. “Where the hell do you get off just—”

“I wanted to come back,” Nezumi interjected. He didn’t raise his voice (which only aggravated Shion further), and he kept his hands at his side. Shion couldn’t help staring at each of his long, elegant fingers, remembering how they felt running over his cheek or brushing through his hair while they swam.

“Then why didn’t you?” Shion’s heart pounded in his chest, blood rushing through his ears. “You kissed me, said goodnight, and then you just vanished. For five years, Nezumi.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Nezumi said, raising his voice just a little. Shion could hear it in his voice that he was struggling not to yell, that he didn’t really have the right to yell. “Something happened, and as much as you meant to me, I couldn’t just—”

Those words stabbed through Shion’s chest like arrows. It’d taken Nezumi three years—three long, painful years—to finally say the words I love you. Shion hadn’t held it against him. Nezumi didn’t express his feelings through words. He translated them in his actions. Shion felt his love in the way he found ways to maintain physical contact when they were together. He felt Nezumi’s love each time Nezumi brought him pretty shells from the deeper parts of the ocean floor.

Shion knew how much he meant to Nezumi. And as angry as he was at Nezumi’s unexpected disappearance, the fact that he was here now must have meant something.

Shion opened his mouth to speak—to say what, he didn’t know—and Emi came trotting down the hallway, huffing and puffing as if it’d taken all her energy to catch up with them.

“There—,” she gasped dramatically, doubling over and pressing her hand against her chest. “There you two are! Why did you run away?”

Nezumi glanced over at her, and Shion took the opportunity to escape. “It’s nothing. Nezumi’s an old friend” —he didn’t miss the way Nezumi flinched— “and things were… well, it’s complicated. But this isn’t the place for it.”

Emi’s dark brown eyes widened. “Ooh?” She looked at Shion, then at Nezumi, and then back. She clapped her hands together. “What’s this? A secret romance?”

“The hell?” Nezumi muttered, despite everything.

“Emi,” Shion said firmly, “now is neither the time nor the place. Now,” he added, looking at the clock suspended from the wall. “I believe you two are due for orientation. Mr. Rikiga will be expecting you.”

“Ooh, you’re right! We don’t wanna be late!” Emi spun on her heel and reached out for Nezumi’s wrist. “Come on, uh, Nezumi, was it? Weird. We’re gonna be late!”

Nezumi withdrew his wrist from Emi’s reach and turned to look at Shion. “I’m out at noon,” he said carefully. Shion’s shoulders shot to his ears, the words slicing through him like a bullet. “Can we talk then?”

“I’m not free until after the aquarium closes,” Shion replied. He didn’t know why he said it, but it wouldn’t do him any good to lie. Nezumi would probably figure out his schedule soon enough anyway.

“That’s fine. How about I meet you here after work?” Nezumi lowered his voice so that Emi, already skipping back toward the main foyer, wouldn’t overhear. “I get it if you tell me to fuck off, but… I’d like to explain myself.”

“All right,” Shion mumbled. “I’ll meet you outside the employee entrance at seven-thirty.”

“I’ll be here,” Nezumi said. There was so much strength and conviction in his voice that Shion couldn’t help but meet his eye. The fluorescent lights caught in his irises as he repeated, slower, “I will be here, Shion.”

“Sure,” Shion whispered, and he watched as Nezumi turned and headed back toward the foyer. He seemed to stumble a bit, but even that seemed inhumanly graceful. Shion’s heart ached as he watched him leave.

Eventually, his duties as a dedicated marine biologist convinced him to seek out the elevator, punch in the code to the Number Six observatory floor, and strip out of his lab coat, button-down, and slacks in favor of his West Block Aquarium scuba suit. Dark blue with lime green accents, it was Shion’s least favorite piece of work equipment, simply for its pointlessness. He was a Child of the Sea—at least fifty percent of him was—and scuba gear was wasted on someone who could breathe underwater.

But he couldn’t exactly drop into the forty-foot tank without his gear in front of tourists.

Shion struggled into his scuba suit, his heart hammering a thousand miles a minute. His hands shook as he zipped up his wetsuit, fumbling with the useless air tank (he could breathe underwater, damn it, but the tourists and the interns and his boss couldn’t know that) and all the tubes in their proper place to pump oxygen uselessly into his lungs.

Shion sat on the edge of the top level of Number Six, his vision blurring red and gray. His bright yellow swim fins felt ridiculous and artificial—even though Shion had never been able to grow a tail of his own, his legs more than strong enough to propel him through the water—and his whole body buzzed with anxiety. He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself in a way that proved to be completely ineffective, and then he tumbled backward into Number Six.

Sinking down into the depths, Shion let the cold water collapse around him and smother the heat of embarrassment and anger and relief that churned inside him. He sank downward through a small school of colorful fish and past Trudgealong (a withered sea turtle with a no-nonsense attitude), squeezing his eyes closed behind the useless face mask and trying to breathe.

Goddammit.

Nezumi’s shocked face flashed behind his closed eyelids. His voice echoed in Shion’s skull like a pissed off bee, and no matter how hard Shion fought it, he couldn’t help but remember how it had felt to sink beneath the waves with Nezumi guiding him by the wrist, propelling them both along the coral reefs much more quickly than Shion could move on his own.

Shion shook away the thoughts and focused on eying the occupants of Number Six and taking mental notes on their overall health.

For the most part, the fish and assorted sharks looked decent. Shion could sense the increased buzz of excitement radiating from them; he couldn’t “speak to fish”, and Nezumi had confirmed that no Child of the Sea could. He could, however, sense when they were comfortable or agitated.

The fish in Number Six enjoyed the summer rush far more than the staff at the West Block Aquarium did. Snubby, for example, seemed to enjoy preening in front of children who remarked on his crooked teeth and blunt nose with loud shouts to their parents and pointing fingers. These were Snubby’s point of pride, and he swam quickly around the tank to ensure everyone got a good look. If Snubby were a human or a Child of the Sea, Shion felt the two of them wouldn’t get along very well. Fortunately, for both of them, Snubby couldn’t talk.

Beneath the cool saltwater, the red marking wrapped around Shion’s body chilled. These were the only “scales” Shion had on his body, and something about being in the water gave them a more aquatic appearance. The otherwise smooth red marking bristled and slotted with patterns, and if Shion ran his bare finger over it, it would feel bumpy and slick. The vibrant color made him wonder if this would be the color his tale would be if he could grow one in water. Sometimes he disliked not being able to grow one the way Nezumi and other Children of the Sea could, but Nezumi had never made him feel bad for it. In fact, Nezumi claimed, based on the stories he’d been told, Shion was lucky. The tradeoff for most Children of the Sea was that while they could grow tails in water, their legs were weak on land. Some of the most graceful Children of the Sea turned into complete klutzes on the surface.

As a teenager, Shion had laughed himself sick at the prospect of beautiful, elegant Nezumi being reduced to a tripping mess on the land. He often wondered if that was why Nezumi would never come up on land. Nezumi was a proud creature, and Shion often wondered if his pride could survive face-planting on the sand.

But now Nezumi was on land.

Shion shook his head. Don’t think about it right now.

Shion bit down on the breathing apparatus stuffed in his mouth. Something deep inside him made him glance down to the foyer through the clear, teal water. Through the glass several floors down, Shion could see Emi and Nezumi standing in front of Rikiga. Shion watched his boss lazily drift his hand through the air, giving them both the same spiel he gave each intern at the beginning of their first shift. Emi continued to bounce on the balls of her feet, looking ready to explode into a thousand pieces. And Nezumi…

Nezumi looked up into the tank. His eyes met Shion’s, even several stories down, and he lifted his hand to wave at him.

Shion didn’t know what compelled him, but he lifted his gloved hand and waved back.

⁂

At fifteen past seven, when the aquarium had officially closed and the majority of the staff had clocked out and gone home, Shion stood outside the employee entrance, arms wrapped around himself in a desperate attempt to keep from falling apart.

Seven-thirty. Nezumi had promised to come back to the aquarium at seven-thirty and meet Shion at the employee entrance.

Shion eyed the cars zipping down the street on the opposite end of the empty parking lot. The West Block Aquarium emptied out pretty quick after the doors closed. None of the staff were eager to pull extra hours, and Rikiga didn’t offer overtime. Shion was an exception—the only one on Rikiga’s staff who was salary—and if Rikiga happened to spot his car still in the lot, it wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows.

He leaned back against the brick wall, the warm stones heating the fabric of his lab coat. He didn’t know why he bothered wearing it. Shion spent most of his time submerged in the tanks, but the lab coat made him feel normal. Human. He didn’t mind being a hybrid, not at all, but it was lonely not having someone like him to confide in.

Shion flexed his fingers. He still remembered the day he and Nezumi met. Shion had been walking down the beach—because what else was a gainfully unemployed sixteen-year-old to do on a sunny summer day in a bustling tourist town—and growing anxious amidst the screaming toddlers and indifferent mothers in their floppy sunhats, Shion had sought out a place where he could dive underwater and go missing for a bit.

Diving under the waves and vanishing, however, wouldn’t work with an audience. People stared at him because of his weird hair (even in a tourist town where teenagers dyeing their hair ridiculous colors was well within the norm), and if he went underwater and didn’t resurface, he’d have the Coast Guard called on him in no time.

Climbing the rocks clustered on the left side of the beach and walking another mile from the main beach, Shion sought out a strip of soft white beach where he could sprint in and vanish. The broken pier attached to the boardwalk (abandoned for months after a nasty embezzling scandal leaked to the press) rose into view, and Shion’s mood brightened.

He ducked beneath the pier, preparing to slip beneath the waves—and lo and behold, tangled in a net and cursing up a storm had been Nezumi.

A fisherman’s net had tangled around him as he skimmed the bottom of the water, and Nezumi had managed to break the net from the boat (rightfully confusing the fishermen in the process, who must have assumed they’d wrangled a shark), but the tight coils had knotted around his fins. Unwilling to be a sitting duck for a bigger predator (believe it or not, Children of the Sea were not the top of the food chain), Nezumi had desperately sought a strip of beach where he could safely work on pulling the net off his tail.

Immediately springing into action, Shion had deftly untangled the knots, whispering to Nezumi that he’d have him free in no time. His mind buzzed with excitement—someone like him was sitting right there—but it didn’t feel like an appropriate time to gush.

Nezumi, who’d growled at Shion when he first approached, went painfully still. His silver eyes, so beautiful and unlike anything Shion had ever seen before, watched each movement of his hands as he worked the net carefully off his fins. Shion fought his own urges to brush his fingers against the dark black and blue scales, jealous and enamored of something he should have had but didn’t, and after a few minutes of careful working, he tossed the vicious net aside and said, brightly, “There! You’re free.”

“Much obliged,” Nezumi muttered, and then, before Shion could blink, Nezumi’s hand wrapped around his wrist and yanked him into the water.

The shock of the cool ocean made Shion gasp; that had probably been Nezumi’s intention. With a few powerful flicks of his tail, Nezumi propelled them away from the shore, banking downward into the deeper ends of the shallows.

“You saved me, human,” Nezumi’s voice purred in his ear, sending goosebumps skittering down his bare arms. “So, I suppose it’s only fair to reward you.”

Drowning is a reward? Shion had thought. He’d opened his mouth to tell Nezumi that drowning wouldn’t work on him, that he wasn’t human—and Nezumi’s mouth closed over his own.

Shion’s eyes widened. Nezumi’s mouth was cool, but his soft lips sent waves of warmth through each nerve ending in Shion’s body. His eyes slid shut, the gentle shifts of the ocean waves rustling above his head. Tendrils of Nezumi’s long, dark hair brushed against his cheeks. Shion fought the urge to reach his hands out and brush his fingers through it, wondering at how soft it would feel.

An eternity later, Nezumi drew back, his arms still wrapped around Shion’s shoulders. Shion swallowed a mouthful of seawater and opened his eyes.

Nezumi’s silver eyes hovered a few inches in front of his own. He looked down at Shion—still alive, still staring at him in wonder—and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “You…” he said slowly. “You’re not drowning.”

“I am not.”

“You’re… like me?”

"Yeah. Well, half, anyway.”

“Oh,” Nezumi said, and that had been the beginning of it all.

From the moment Shion laid eyes on Nezumi, he’d known there was something different about him. Not just because he had a tail and looked like a god, but because he wasn’t like anyone else Shion had ever met in his life.

Nezumi had a vicious sense of humor. Nezumi was sarcastic and cold. He mocked Shion and poked fun at his wetsuit—black with bright red accents, because it made him feel at least somewhat attractive and it was comfortable—and he never understood how Shion could enjoy walking around on land when there was a whole ocean to explore.

But there was so much more to Nezumi than his sarcasm. He loved listening to stories. His laugh sounded like bells. He sang songs when he and Shion were alone, and he knocked Safu off her surfboard as a joke until she kicked him in the shoulder and tried to wrestle him underwater, both of them shrieking with laughter.

“Shion!”

He lifted his head, startled from his memories, and spotted Nezumi hurrying across the parking lot.

It was strange, seeing him with a pair of legs rather than a long black tail, but at least he’d changed out of the vibrant green tee-shirt Rikiga insisted his staff members wear to be more visible. Shion had never been more grateful than the day he’d been given permission to wear whatever he wanted as long as he wore a lab coat over it during work hours. As the son of Rikiga’s good friend (Crush, Safu insisted, and Shion gallantly ignored her), Shion received something akin to “special treatment” from Rikiga, though he never asked for it.

He was still wearing the cargo pants and black boots he’d been wearing earlier, but in place of the tee shirt was a black leather jacket that Shion had to admit looked stunning on him. It mixed well with his long, dark hair and piercing eyes; it was a wonder that he’d made it to the aquarium at all. How did he get through each day without a horde of people swarming around him?

Shion looked down at his cell phone. The screen flashed its white numbers, announcing seven-twenty-five. Shion’s heart skipped a bit, and he tried to compose himself as Nezumi trotted up beside him.

“You’re early,” he said softly.

“Didn’t want to risk being late,” Nezumi replied. “You don’t deserve that.”

Shion huffed through his nose. “Let’s go inside. We can talk there.”

“OK,” Nezumi mumbled.

Shion let them in the employee entrance. He shut the door behind them, then made a bee line for the elevator leading up to the observatory room near Number Six.

“Where are you going?” Nezumi called after him.

“Let’s go to Number Six,” Shion called back. “It’ll be easier to talk if we don’t worry about people walking in on us.”

“The aquarium’s closed, though.” Nezumi caught up to him rather quickly. He strode beside Shion, his long legs easily keeping pace with Shion’s brisk stride. “Who’d walk in?”

"Well, hopefully, no one. But you never know what employees have left things behind. So it’d be better not to be talking about… things where people could overhear.”

“Good point,” Nezumi murmured.

The elevator ride up to the observatory room was silent and awkward. Shion shifted from one foot to the other, and Nezumi lingered on the far end of the little room to give him space. Shion could feel those piercing silver eyes sliding toward him, then quickly darting away when Shion tried to look back. It sent prickles through his body, and he clenched his fists to focus on something else.

When the elevator dinged and signaled their arrival at the observatory, Nezumi stepped out of the room and half-jogged across the tile floor and toward the top of the tank. The lights had been dimmed, only a few bulbs bright and illuminating the dome. Nezumi quickly unzipped the black leather jacket and tossed it casually to the floor, revealing a long-sleeved yellow shirt beneath it.

“Nezumi?” Shion asked.

Nezumi didn’t answer. He shucked off his shirt, and beneath it he wore a black sleeveless shirt that Shion suspected was meant to keep him from being bare-chested in the water.

“Um,” Shion said, feeling his face heating up. “What exactly are you doing?”

"Proof,” Nezumi called over his shoulder. He swooped down to undo his black boots, kicking them off into the corner beside Number Six’s main pool.

“Proof of what?” Shion asked, but Nezumi didn’t answer. He unbuttoned his pants, and Shion quickly looked away. His face burned, and only when he heard the sound of water splashing did he turn back.

Nezumi popped back up, grabbing the side of the tank and folding his arms on top of it. He rested his chin on his wrists and looked up at Shion. His silver eyes (exactly as Shion remembered, even years later) glittered in the fluorescent lights. His hair was still in a ponytail, several strands falling down over where his ears would be.

“Just wanted to make sure you knew it was really me,” Nezumi said, and with a flick of his tail, he sent a few droplets of water raining down over Shion’s head.

His tail.

Shion’s heart stopped. When Shion met Nezumi, the first thing he’d noticed (after the eyes) had been his tail. Unlike the bright blues and greens of Disney and childhood picture books, Nezumi’s tale was dark black and flecked with deep blue. The fins were wider and longer at the base, almost lace-like and elegant. Beneath the surface of the water, Shion couldn’t seen what they looked like at the hips (he was still wearing the lime green West Block Aquarium staff tee shirt, which didn’t suit him at all), but from his memory, he knew that the scales melded into flesh around his navel.

Shion crouched beside the tank, his stomach tightening. “Why now?”

Nezumi’s tail sank back below the surface of the water. Shion could see it swaying idly back and forth, the way a human might churn their feet lazily to keep themselves afloat in calm seas.

Shion knew Nezumi’s tail would be cold if he touched it. So would his skin. Nezumi was always cold. Not his personality, but—all right, sometimes his personality, too, but mostly his skin and tail were cool whenever Shion touched them. Even years later, he could remember the way it felt to smooth his hand over Nezumi’s hip, counting the blue scales peppered throughout. Nezumi’s tail reminded him of obsidian, black at first glance, with flecks of gray and purple and blue when it moved and the light shifted across it.

Nezumi’s eyes lowered to the floor between them. A harsh silence fell around them, punctuated only by the buzzing of the lights overhead and the glug-glug of the industrial-sized water filter.

“I didn’t mean to disappear for so long,” Nezumi explained, and his voice held so much conviction that Shion didn’t doubt him.

“You said that.”

“When I went back, something… happened.”

Shion raised an eyebrow.

Nezumi’s fingers wove into his damp bangs, which were so long they fell over his left eye, and gave them a yank. Shion’s heart clenched; he recognized it as an old habit Nezumi had when they were teenagers, something he did when he was nervous or uncomfortable. His nails were still pale and long, neat despite the distinct lack of access to quality salon service beneath the ocean’s waves.

“A human found the town where I lived,” he said quietly. “Under the ocean. When I wasn’t visiting you at the beach.”

Shion felt something clamp around his heart.

He knew what it meant if humans discovered the existence of the Children of the Sea. Humans, as much as Shion might have liked to believe otherwise, couldn’t stand knowing that there were resources they hadn’t been able to exploit. And the existence of merpeople would be a scientific miracle—enough that some greedy bastard would utilize it to try and earn millions.

“What happened?” Shion whispered. He hadn’t recalled seeing any breaking news headlines about merpeople; he definitely would have seen something like that, unless the government came swooping in to silence it.

Nezumi’s tail twitched under the water, clearly agitated. “Instead of running to the news,” he said through his teeth, “this idiot decided to try and capture one of us and bring them to the shore as evidence. Needless to say, the rest of us didn’t take kindly to that.”

“I’d imagine not.”

“But what we didn’t count on,” Nezumi said, his voice lowering, “was the oil.” He rested his hand flat on the water’s surface, letting it bounce gently beneath the water and then lifting it back up. “He emptied a container of oil into the water—not sure where he got it—and lit a match. I didn’t know it was that flammable.”

Shion listened as Nezumi explained how the flames had burned the Children of the Sea, who were unaccustomed to the sensation due to their inexperience with burning things. The oil doused them and made them sink below, unable to swim and avoid the flames. The water didn’t seem to stop it, the sticky substance creating an odd shield that didn’t mix well with the water, keeping the two materials separate from each other.

His heart ached at the thought of all the Children of the Sea who had suffered—according to Nezumi’s whispered story, the whole town had gone down in flames. A decent chunk of them had managed to escape, Nezumi included, but the majority of them…

The majority of them had burned to death.

“I’m sorry,” Shion whispered as Nezumi lapsed into uncomfortable silence. “Oh, Nezumi, I’m so sorry.”

“I was so angry,” Nezumi replied. “When I woke up and realized what had happened, I was so angry I couldn’t think of anything else. I was hurt. I was scared. And I couldn’t think of anything except how much I hated humans.”

Shion frowned. Nezumi’s dislike for humans wasn’t new to him. And fortunately, Nezumi had never spat Shion’s half-human heritage in his face. If anything, he seemed as fascinated by Shion’s legs as Shion was about his tail. The only difference was that Nezumi could have had a pair of his own—he stubbornly chose not to—and Shion had never been able to pop a tail no matter how many (embarrassing) times he’d attempted.

“When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was,” Nezumi went on. “All I knew was that my back hurt and everyone else I knew was dead. For a while things were just… bad. I couldn’t move, and when I tried, it just made me realize that there was a chance I was going to die, too, and I hated it. After a while, I could move, and I just left.”

“Left?” Shion echoed.

“I couldn’t stand being there,” Nezumi said under his breath. “Everywhere I looked I could see all the people I knew, and then I remembered that because of one greedy fucking human, they were gone. We took him down with us—Sasori, I think, yanked him off the boat and drowned him—but it didn’t feel like enough. It didn’t matter that he was dead, too. It didn’t matter that, miraculously, I’d survived whatever the hell he did to us. It just didn’t matter.”

Shion swallowed the lump in his throat. His eyes stung.

“I wanted to come back,” Nezumi went on, his voice painfully soft. Shion had to strain to hear him. “I wanted to at least tell you why I was going. But every time I thought about going back to that place, something just made me leave. It’s not an excuse, and I know it’s not a good enough reason to make you think that I just abandoned you, but I couldn’t—couldn’t get past the anger. I hated everyone. I hated myself. I was so angry, and there was no coming back from it. And I didn’t…” He waved his hands, agitated, the words slipping away from him. He huffed and said, “I didn’t want to take it out on you. It’s so fucking stupid, but I didn’t want to shout at you and blame you, and I was so angry with humans that I knew I would. If I saw you then, I’d only see the human part of you and blame you for things you had nothing to do with. That’s not fair. I know it’s not. And I’m not asking you to forgive me. I wouldn’t forgive me, either.”

“Then why come back?” Shion whispered. He’d moved forward, almost like an instinct, and sat at the edge of the tank, a few inches from Nezumi’s face. “Why come back at all?”

“Because I missed you,” Nezumi whispered back, as strong and as sure as if he’d simply stated the color of the morning sky. “I missed you. When the anger cooled, you were all I could think about. I had no way of knowing if you were even still here, or if you’d even want to see me after I just left, but if there was a chance, I wanted to take it.”

Shion’s throat tightened. He swallowed around the lump that had lodged there and ordered himself not to cry. He was angry. He was supposed to be angry. And yet, beneath the anger was wave after wave of relief that Nezumi was alive.

“So… the aquarium?”

Nezumi shrugged. “It seemed like a good job for a Child of the Sea. I filled out the application and they called me back. I didn’t know you were working here. But once I got a job and… established myself here, I wanted to find you.”

“Established yourself?”

“I wanted a way to prove to you that I wanted to stay. If you told me to fuck off and never wanted to see me again, I would understand. But I wanted a way to prove to you that I intend to stay this time.”

Shion’s hands tightened around the lip of the tank. Emotions whirled inside him like a tsunami, and he felt as if he was caught in the middle of it, unable to surface. Stinging tears prickled at the backs of his eyes, and he forced back the urge to cry. Once he started, he knew he’d never stop. He scraped the back of his hand beneath his eyes, widening them just a bit to keep from crying.

He was still angry. Of course he was. But he couldn’t imagine how badly it hurt. He couldn’t imagine what he would have done if his mother’s bakery burnt down, with her and Safu and everyone else he knew trapped inside.

He took a deep breath, feeling it catching inside his chest around the ball of anger and sorrow and raw fucking hope that’d nestled within.

"Where are you staying?” Shion murmured.

Nezumi perked up, but kept his voice steady as he answered, “A motel down on Seventh Street. By the boardwalk. You remember.”

“I do.” Shion pressed his lips together. “It’s not too far from my house. What’s your schedule?”

"I’m off tomorrow, but I think I’m working open to close on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The old man says hours will pick up some time, but he wasn’t specific.”

“Do you have a car?”

“Can’t drive,” Nezumi answered, much too quickly, and Shion couldn’t help the laugh that cracked out of his throat. “I can barely walk—don’t laugh at me. This is serious.”

“I’m not laughing at you,” Shion said, but his lips were tugging upward at the corners. He had to admit, despite everything that’d happened, it was pretty fucking funny. Nezumi—elegant, perfect, beautiful, wonderful Nezumi, whose every movement was the physical definition of grace—was clumsy on the land.

“Yes, you are,” Nezumi groused, but when Shion stole a glance up into his face, he was smiling, too.

God, his smile.

Even after all these years, he was still as beautiful as the day Shion met him.

“Well,” Shion said, and dammit, if his voice wobbled, Nezumi better not comment on it. “The boardwalk’s on my way to the aquarium, and if you’re working about the same schedule as me, I wouldn’t mind picking you up and bringing you home.”

Nezumi’s eyes widened.

“I’m not ready to forgive you just yet,” Shion explained. “You really hurt me. I understand why you left, but I wish you had just… I don’t know, said something to me so I didn’t think you were dead. I know that might be petty of me, given what happened, and I’m sorry for that.”

“It’s not petty,” Nezumi assured. “I was an asshole.”

“Yeah, but you almost died.” Shion exhaled through his nose. “And I missed you, too.”

Nezumi laughed; it crackled a bit at the edges, and Shion couldn’t help it. He leaned forward, his arms reaching out—and miraculously, Nezumi reached back. Shion slid his arms around Nezumi’s shoulders and rested his forehead against the crook of Nezumi’s neck. He smelled like sea salt and an odd floral scent Shion had never been able to identify but could always remember. Despite being half fish, Nezumi never smelled like anything Shion would have expected.

Nezumi’s arms tightened around his shoulders and squeezed back. “I really did miss you,” he murmured against the top of Shion’s head.

“I missed you, too,” Shion said, and it was true. As angry and hurt as he was with Nezumi’s sudden disappearance, nothing about that had changed. “I’m not ready to go back to the way things were, and I can’t promise that I will be…”

“That’s fine,” Nezumi assured, burying his face in Shion’s hair. “I’m just glad to be here, in whatever way you’ll have me.”

This was more emotion and honesty than Shion had ever gotten out of Nezumi about his feelings, and it felt as if a sudden, burning heat had cracked through the darkness in his heart. His memories of his summers spent as a teenager came flooding back to him, and all at once, he was back on the beach, stretched out on a scratchy beach blanket with Nezumi’s arms wrapped around him. His tail rested over Shion’s legs, comfortingly cool in the midsummer heat, and heavy in a way that reminded Shion of a weighted blanket.

Nothing about it was perfect. Shion knew this. The frustration and pain wouldn’t disappear overnight, and just because Nezumi apologized didn’t mean he was free and clear of blame. But for a few moments, wrapped in his arms, Shion understood that at least he was back and they could work through it together.

He sighed, pressed himself against Nezumi’s cool, solid body, and reveled in the realization that yes, he was back. He was back, and he wanted to be here. The shush-shush of the water in Number Six fell around them, creating a comfortable mimicry of the waves that’d collapsed over Shion’s head the day Nezumi hauled him into the ocean and tried to drown him. Shion closed his eyes, tightened his grip on Nezumi’s shoulders, and for the first time in years, could finally breathe.

#no6 #no 6 #no.6 #no. 6 #no6secretsanta #aoicanvas #glorifiedscapegoat #fanfiction #submission

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ficklewish · 4 years

Text

Pre Calc Sucks

a Tendou x Reader Soulmate AU

Word count: 1.6k

Genre: Fluff

Pairing: Tendou x reader

ˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ

If you were told that you'd meet your soulmate through a texting app way before you did, you'd probably laugh at their face and tell them that it's not possible for that to happen, as it only does in movies or books. Or that's what you believed. Never in a million years did you think that it would happen to anyone you knew, let alone you yourself. It was a shock, but it was welcomed with open arms, as you had finally met the love of your life, the one fated to be with you. Meeting Tendou was, by far, the best day of your life. How you first met him however…now that would be a funny bedtime story.

ˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ

You were struggling with your art and school when you had downloaded discord. A school friend had suggested it to you, as certain servers had places for school or art help, and you had given in due to the huge lack of inspiration you had. Making an account and picking your username, it had finally been done, but once again, you were stuck. How exactly did discord work? Would it just…randomly suggest servers everyday or did you have to find them? You had left it for a while, just empty, waiting for it to be filled. Your friend had asked if you had made any online friends, and responding with no, they became confused. "Haven't you joined any servers?" You awkwardly laughed, turning away from them. "No…I don't know how discord works." You look back up at them and see the most judging look in their eyes. "You're hopeless. Here, let me help you." Taking your phone and opening your search engine, they go to a random site and start scrolling while you look over their shoulder. Seeing them go through multiple windows, they give back your phone. “There, I added you to one, you can figure out the rest from there.” Giving a small thanks, you turn to your phone, reading the instructions. “Hmmm, this is gonna take a while…” After doing a few tweaks and introducing yourself, you finally started to talk to the people on the server, learning their names and pronouns, acknowledging their age for appropriate conversations, and even adding a few friends. You had completely forgotten you were still at school, even though it was currently your lunch period. “Who knows, maybe your soulmate is in there.” Startled, you turn towards your friend then roll your eyes. The whole soulmate concept was something you used to like, but now, it was just a reminder that you hadn’t found yours yet. The whole “first place they touch you” thing was just a taunt, at least to you. Your mark was what seemed like someone's arms wrapped around you, including your upper arms. So many of your peers had already found theirs while you felt almost forgotten. It brought thoughts to your head, such as what if...your soulmate was across the world? Would you ever meet them? Did you even have one? Shoving the last thought deep into your mind. “I doubt it, shit like that only happens in movies.” Your friend looked at you, then smirked. “I don’t know about that.”

ˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ

After classes ended, you went home, a bit excited to start talking online, as childish as it sounded. You had to keep reminding yourself that you joined for school and art help, but making a few friends never hurt. Taking off your shoes and dropping your things, you sat on the couch and noticed you were home alone for the time being, your parents most likely at the market. Taking your phone out and opening the app, you begin to interact in the correct chat for school.

"Hey! I was wondering if someone could help me with my pre calculus homework? I'm a bit stuck"

You noticed that someone was already going to respond, which comforted you greatly.

"I could help with this! Just give me a moment!"

Checking their profile to not accidentally misgender them, you notice that they are actually a he, and he has similar interests as you. Going back to your bag and getting your notebook and textbook, you turn back to your phone and prepare to fry your brain with math. (fucking hate math, it's so COMPLICATED)

"Alright, what did you need help with?"

Telling your "tutor" about which problems you were confused about, they immediately begin to guide you through it and point out any mistakes you made, all while not exactly telling you the answer. He had helped you understand the concept much more easier than your teacher ever did, and you were extremely grateful for that. He had even given you some extra tips on how to remember certain formulas for when exams and tests are assigned. You thanked him multiple times for helping you with your homework

"Of course! Just DM me anytime you need help, I'd gladly do so!"

And that's what you did, texting him every now and then for homework help, mainly pre calc as it was your worst subject, and you didn't want to burden him with your other classes in case he had his own to pass. Sometimes, you'd even text him because you were actually interested in him, as he had been an interesting person to talk to. Learning a bit about him and sharing a bit about yourself, you quickly formed a friendship with, who you found out a few days ago, Tendou. He'd talk about how he was a part of a volleyball club, being a 3rd year, being part of a powerhouse team, and even some personal facts about his life. Of course, he never told you exactly where he was located, which was perfectly fine, as you didn't want to disclose that information either. However, you soon started to notice that whenever Tendou would text you, you'd become giddy no matter what the conversation was about, and when someone other than Tendou would text you, you'd deflate a bit, hoping it was him. Whenever you'd be doing anything else, you were hoping that he would send you something, you were just hoping to talk to him. These feelings scared you, as you might've had a soulmate, yet you fell for Tendou, and you prayed that maybe, it would somehow work out.

ˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ

4 months later, and Tendou being your "tutor" was still going strong, and your friendship even stronger. You had brought up meeting with him a few times, and the both of you had even planned it sometimes, but never actually went ahead with those plans. Your schedules never met up, as he had practice and you had a part time job. You grew wary, wondering if you would ever meet your online crush. It was then that you realized you had absolutely no idea of what Tendou even looked like, which meant you could've passed him on the street multiple times without noticing. You would constantly hope that one day he would stroll into the little cafe you worked at and notice you, but that was a far stretch, as he had no idea of what you looked like either. Today was no different. Each time a customer would waltz in, you had hoped that it was Tendou, but it never was. It was currently near closing time, and you had begun sweeping the place while a coworker cleaned the kitchen in the back. It wasn't until you were about to begin putting chairs up that you felt a vibration come from your phone. Taking it out, you look at your notifications and see you had gotten a text from Tendou, and you felt your heart skip a beat. Scanning the text, the happiness you had felt quickly melted into excitement and nervousness.

"I found the place you work at, and I think I see you. Are you the one who's holding a broom?"

Rereading the text a few times to check if you weren't seeing things, you began to grow panicked. Today was an extremely stressful day, and you knew that you looked horrible. Your hair was a mess and you had even cried once due to an overly loud and rude man whose order was messed up, and you knew that the tear stains were still slightly visible. Quickly answering his text with a "come inside then :)" you continued to put chairs up in hopes to distract yourself from the nervousness and panic growing inside you with every passing second. Hearing the door open and the small bell above it chime, you freeze. "Um…are you possibly Y/N?" Turning around slowly, you're met with a tall boy with red hair and tired eyes. He reminded you of a lizard, and you thought he was really cute. Remembering that he had asked you a question, you answered. "Yes I am. Are you Tendou?" His eyes widen, and a smile grows on his face. "Aahhh, I finally get to meet you!" Realizing that he is indeed Tendou, a smile of your own grows on your face, and you couldn't stop yourself from engulfing him in a hug. The hug is cut short however, since you feel a searing pain from where Tendou had wrapped his arms around you. Pulling away, you look into his eyes, and does the same. Realization floods his eyes, and he looks as though he's about to cry. "Well shit, who knew you'd be my soulmate too." You immediately run back into his arms, shedding a few tears into his hoodie as he hugs you as if his life depended on it.

"I guess stuff like this really does happen in real life."

ˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ

a/n: HOOOO this took me a while to write, had to start over 3 times 😔 neways, I hope you liked it!

#haikyuu!!#hq tendou #tendou satori #tendou x reader #tendou x y/n

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cakesunflower · 4 years

Text

Reach For You [Dad!Calum AU] Ch. 19

Chapter 19

ONCE THE EXCITEMENT of Christmas and New Years passed, it was back to their regular schedules. Luna was back at school, Aspen was working at the clinic, and Calum was in the city making sure his club was up to par and regularly meeting with the staff and vendors and the like. Aspen felt like she hadn’t been to work in so long, easily smiling at the regular patients she often saw, her maternal empathy kicking in every time a kid was trying hard to fight a fever, flu, or the like.

Right when her break was finished, crumbling up the bag she’d brought her sandwich in and throwing it out, her phone began ringing. At the sight of Calum’s name and picture, she instantly picked it up. “What’s up?”

“Sweetheart, hey,” Calum’s breathless voice responded, sounding as though he was either running or panicked. “Listen, shit, is there any way you can pick up Luna? There’s an issue with one of the vendors and I need to sort it out—I don’t think I can make it back to Jersey in time for pick up.”

“Uh—” Aspen’s eyes widened, darting to the clock on the wall. Luna’s school ended in a little less than half an hour, and with her break almost over, she definitely didn’t have the time. Not to mention not a lot of the staff was scheduled for today, and the clinic needed all the help it could get. “No, crap, I can’t,” she stammered, pressing her hand to her hairline in worry.

“Fuck,” Calum cursed, sounding justifiably panicked. Aspen didn’t blame him; things like this happened, neither of them could control life.

She licked her lips. “Hold on, I don’t think Jodie works today. Let me ask if she can pick Luna up.” There was a reason why her best friend was one of her daughter’s emergency contacts.

Calum let out a breath, not entirely relieved until he knew there was something to be relieved about. “Alright, let me know, yeah? I’m sorry, love.”

A soft chuckle escaped Aspen. “It’s okay, Cal. Let me text Jodie.”

He offered a quick goodbye and Aspen immediately went to texting her best friend, chewing on her lower lip and hoping for a miracle. She tapped her foot against the floor impatiently, knowing she had to get back out there in a little bit, watching the three little bubbles appear as Jodie wrote her text.

Yeah, no problem! I gotchu, sis.

A sigh of relief escaped Aspen, hissing out a quiet and victorious, “yes!” before thanking her friend and letting Calum know all was taken care of. He responded asking what Jodie’s favorite wine was as a thank you.

Aspen laughed, pocketing her phone before heading back to the nurse’s station, grabbing the file for the next patient ready to be seen. The next few hours of her shift seemed to fly by, and soon enough she was bidding goodbye to coworkers that still had some hours left and was on her way home. The short drive ended with her pulling into the parking lot of her building, letting out an amused laugh when she glanced to her left and caught sight of Calum’s Range Rover pulling up next to her. He noticed her right away, grinning and throwing up a peace sign from where he sat.

“Hi, baby,” Aspen greeted as they both got out of their cars, her tone a melodic tune as she smiled when he jogged over, arm dropping around her shoulders. “Everything work out with the vendor?”

Calum quickly pecked her lips as they approached the building. “Yeah, ’s all good,” he reassured.

When he opened the door for Aspen, allowing her to walk into the complex, it was then when she saw the bag he was holding and let out a laugh. “You actually got Jodie’s wine?”

Calum scoffed as the elevator opened up immediately, shooting her a bemused look. “Can’t believe you thought I was kidding.”

Reaching the door, Aspen used her keys to unlock it and they stepped inside the apartment as Aspen called out, “We’re home!”

Jodie emerged from the kitchen, smiling at the two as she sipped from a glass of water. “Hey guys; how was work?” Before either of them could answer, her gaze happened to drop, raising her eyebrows as she instinctively asked, “Is that a bottle of red?”

Calum, whose lips were parted to respond to her first question, looked down at the bag before letting out a laugh. “Yeah, it is. For you,” he said, holding it out for a confused Jodie to take. “As a thank you for the last minute baby sitting.”

“Oh, please, anything for my godchild,” Jodie scoffed before holding the bag close to her chest, grinning. “I’ll still take it. Thanks, Calum.” Aspen chuckled as her boyfriend merely grinned, yet Jodie’s smile quickly faltered as she looked at the two parents worriedly. “But, you guys, something’s up with Luna. She’s been kind of down ever since I picked her up.”

Instantly, both Aspen and Calum went into concerned mode. “Did she say why?” Aspen asked as she put her bag down on the couch, eyebrows drawing together as she looked at her best friend.

Jodie gave a shake of her head and pursed her lips. “No; I tried to get it out of her but she wouldn’t budge. She ate some mac and cheese when we got back and did her homework and now she’s coloring in the dining room but, like, not a word.” Running her fingers through her hair, she added with a regretful sigh, “I would’ve texted you guys but I didn’t want you to worry while at work, and I didn’t expect her to keep it in this long.”

Aspen’s eyes dart to where the dining room was, the wall obstructing her view, as Calum sighed. “It’s okay, Jodie, thanks. We’ll see what’s up—you wanna stay for dinner?”

“Thanks, but I gotta get going,” Jodie denied with a smile, moving to grab her bag. “Lemme know how it goes.”

Aspen hugged her best friend. “Thanks, Jodie,” she said gratefully and once Jodie was gone, Aspen was on her way to the dining room, Calum right behind her.

They walked around to see Luna sitting on a chair, the overhead light bright as she colored away in one of her many books. Color pencils were strewn about on the table, and Aspen felt a worried thud in her chest when Luna didn’t even look up as Calum greeted gently, “Hey, bug.”

Instead, the five year old kept her head down, lazily—sadly—coloring as she responded in the smallest voice, “Hi.”

Aspen looked up at Calum, a silent worry present between them, before the two made their way over to their daughter. She settled to Luna’s right when Calum took the seat on her left, Aspen glancing down to see Duke sitting under the table, before looking at Luna again. Her dark curls sat thickly around her shoulders, not quite allowing Aspen to see the little girl’s face, and so she reached up and gently tucked some of Luna’s curls behind her ears. “Baby.” Her voice was soft, gentle, ducking her head to try and get a look at Luna. “Why are you sad?”

Luna gave a small shake of her head, eyes still on the coloring page. Aspen felt her chest tighten at Luna’s refusal to even look at them, her own eyebrows drawing together in distress. “I’m not sad,” Luna mumbled. Her tone contradicted her words.

Calum rested his left elbow on the table, facing the little girl as he tried gently, “It’s okay if you are. Maybe we can help.”

She was silent for a few moments, continuing her coloring, the worry in both Calum and Aspen increasing by the second. They looked at each other over Luna’s head, both of their gazes nothing but concerned, snapping back to Luna when they heard a sniffle emit from her. They shifted, ducking their heads, and when Aspen pushed some of Luna’s hair out of her face, she felt her heart drop to the pit of her stomach when she noticed the pink on Luna’s cheeks and nose, and the wetness from the tears falling from her green eyes.

Aspen’s breath caught in her throat, a panic bubbling in her veins as she softly gasped, “Oh, baby,” before wrapping her arms around Luna. The five year old let go of the coloring pencil, allowing her mother to pull her in with her back pressed against Aspen’s front. She held Luna comfortingly, Calum’s own expression worry and panic stricken as he shuffled forward to sit in Luna’s now vacant chair, facing her as Aspen lowered her head to still take a look at her. “Tell us what’s wrong, bub. Please?”

Luna’s head still hung low and the ache in Aspen’s chest intensified the longer the silence dragged on, especially when it was broken by Luna’s sniffles, and Aspen looked at Calum. He looked just as alarmed, unsettled by the sight of an obviously distressed Luna, and Aspen gently bounced her knee in hopes of calming the little girl.

Luna sucked in a breath before she began speaking, her voice a quiet mumble, too upset to speak up. “B-Brooke gave all the kids cards to her birthday a-and I didn’t get o-one.”

Aspen inhaled sharply at her words, feeling an aggravated fire ignite in her bones, just barely replacing the worry over her daughter. Of fucking course Bailey Clarkson’s daughter would have something to do with Luna’s distressed mood, and despite the anger brimming her veins, Aspen’s heart went out to her daughter. Her jaw clenched, eyes meeting Calum’s, who looked just as indignant as she felt. Though the circumstances were vastly different, Aspen knew what it was like to feel unwanted, and she absolutely despised that her daughter was feeling this way, and that someone had gone out of their way to make her feel so. And while she couldn’t entirely set her anger towards another five year old, she sure as hell could call out her mother.

When it was Luna’s birthday a few months ago, Aspen had made sure to write out invitations to every classmate of Luna’s—including Brooke Clarkson. When Luna had asked her why, Aspen had told her daughter it would be mean to give every kid an invitation and not Brooke, and Luna had understood. She didn’t want the mean girl to feel bad, so she didn’t argue against Aspen. That only left Aspen wondering how she’d gotten such a good little kid. Of course, Brooke didn’t show up to Luna’s party, which was barely noticed given that Luna was surrounded by family and other friends. But at least an invitation had gotten to Brooke; at least she didn’t feel left out when Luna handed hers out to her classmates.

And for it to come around like this pissed Aspen off. She had a good feeling that Luna was probably the only one in their class that Brooke didn’t give an invitation to, and while the little girl probably didn’t know any better, her mother sure as hell did. To go out of their way to make Luna feel like this. . . The rage in Aspen’s veins was unstable.

But she was pulled out of it as Luna cried, and Aspen pushed her anger aside to hug her daughter, pulling Luna’s back into her chest and burying her face in the small crook of Luna’s neck. “Oh, bub, I’m so sorry,” she murmured, one hand coming up to push Luna’s hair out of the way.

Calum leaned forward, his hands grasping Luna’s smaller ones, but before he could offer his own reassurances, Luna hiccuped, “I invi-invited her to my birthday. I was the only one who didn’t get a card for hers.”

Aspen’s jaw clenched. She was about a second away from calling Bailey and cursing that woman out.

“That just means you care more about other people’s feelings, bug,” Calum told her, his voice soft and smooth. It wasn’t his objective, but his tone was calming Aspen down from her rage. She hoped it was helping Luna, too. His dark eyes were warm as he peered at his daughter, and Aspen could see him try to hide his own struggle of pushing aside how upset he was to see Luna so distraught. Bringing Luna’s hands up, he pressed a kiss on her knuckles and said, “Not everyone’s as nice as you are.”

He was good at sugar coating it. Aspen really just wanted to drop the B-word on both Bailey and her snot-nosed brat.

Luna wasn’t shaking as much, her cries dying down as she sniffled through a now stuffy nose, and the tightness in Aspen’s chest had yet to loosen up. The ball in her throat also made it difficult to breathe, her disbelief and indignance over this entire situation wildly unsettling. But appearing calm and comforting for her daughter was her priority.

So Aspen took another breath, head still next to Luna’s as she tried to get her mind off of this. “Come on, baby, do you want dinner? We can order pizza or McDonalds—whatever you want.”

Luna reached up to rub at her eyes to rid of the tears, and Calum reached up to cup her small face in his large hands to wipe away the wetness on her cheeks with his thumbs, offering a gentle smile. A moment later, Luna answered, “McDonalds.”

“Alright; you finish coloring and we’ll order the food, bug,” Calum said, taking Luna from Aspen’s lap as he stood up, placing the five year old back in her chair and kissing the top of her head.

Aspen got up as well, sucking in a sharp breath and walking into the kitchen as Duke hopped up on her chair. Calum was right behind her, and as soon as she knew they were out of Luna’s range of hearing, Aspen hissed out, “I’m gonna fucking break Bailey Clarkson’s fake nose.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Calum’s calm voice spoke up from behind her, hands on Aspen’s rigid shoulders as he came to appear in front of her. He looked down at his girlfriend, took in her tight features and fiery eyes, and added, “Let’s order dinner before Googling how to get rid of a body.”

Aspen grunted incoherently, pulling out her phone and going on the UberEats app as she muttered, “I went to nursing school; I can figure out how to get rid of a body.” She was halfway through putting in their order when she started waving around her phone, her thoughts raging. “I just—I can’t believe this bullshit,” Aspen ranted, a glare forming on her face as she stared at Calum indignantly. “Her daughter bullied Luna and now she’s just feeding into it!”

“Sweetheart,” Calum spoke up, trying to be the more tranquil one in this situation. Aspen knew he was just as disgruntled, offended, outraged as her, but he was trying to be the voice of reason for their benefit. They couldn’t have two murderous parents in this moment. “Even if Luna got invited, would you have let her gone?”

Aspen scoffed with a roll of her eyes. “That’s not the point, Calum. We still invited that little troll to Luna’s party because, as a mother, I wouldn’t want a kid to feel bad. Apparently Bailey doesn’t have the same consideration for Luna.”

“I—wait,” Calum paused, holding up a finger as he blinked under furrowed eyebrows before a scoff that was all too amused escaped him. “Did you just call a five year old a-a troll?”

Not her finest moment, but Aspen stood by it. “She made Luna cry. She’s a troll,” she deadpanned before grunting in annoyance and completing the order. It’d arrive in half an hour. Putting her phone away, Aspen looked up at Calum once more, her shoulders sinking under his touch as she let out a breath. Her expression fell as well as she rolled her lips into her mouth. “A little girl should never feel so. . . Unwanted.” Aspen’s gaze dropped to her feet, and suddenly there was a burning in her eyes she wasn’t aware she had been holding back. More to herself than Calum, Aspen whispered, “I never wanted Luna to feel that way.”

It’s part of why she ran. She had felt unwanted, her own fear and insecurities playing into it, and she didn’t want her baby to feel that way. Ever. And yet, Aspen hadn’t been able to uphold that responsibility.

Calum was not lost as to what Aspen was alluding to, and now his heart ached not just for his daughter, but for his girlfriend, too. And while he wasn’t a mind reader, he knew Aspen all too well, could read her by her facial expressions, and knew exactly what was running through that brain of hers. “We can’t protect her from everything, doll,” Calum murmured, his hands sliding from her shoulders to cup her cheeks, prompting her to lift her head up. “She’ll get past this, yeah?” He smiled softly, thumbs rubbing at Aspen’s cheeks. “She’s tough, just like her mama.”

Aspen let out a breath, lips quirking at Calum’s words as her green eyes remained on his brown. She gave a subtle nod, telling him she acknowledged and was appreciative of what he said. Then, with all seriousness, she added, “Her mama’s gonna fight a bitch, too.”

Calum smirked. “That’s hot.”

*****

“You didn’t have to come too, ya know.”

“I dunno what you’re talking about; I just wanna see my daughter.”

Aspen rolled her eyes until they landed on Calum, standing next to her, waiting for the final bell of the day to ring to let out all the elementary schoolers. “You can see her at home,” she pointed out matter-of-factly.

Calum made it a point not to look at her, comically so, as he kept his gaze, hidden behind sunglasses, on the building ahead and hushed her. It only served to make Aspen scoff with a shake of her head. She knew he was here to make sure she didn’t completely lose it in the courtyard of the school at Bailey Clarkson. Calum’s concern was justified, Aspen knew, but still. She knew better than to—

“Oh! Aspen! There you are!”

She took a deep breath, long and bracing, feeling Calum tense up next to her as she turned her head, sunglasses protecting her from the rays above. The devil herself, Mrs. Bailey Clarkson, was approaching them in heels Aspen kind of hoped she would slip on against the ice. As if he could feel the blood in Aspen’s veins beginning to boil, Calum took a step closer towards her while murmuring quietly, “Please don’t throw any punches.”

Aspen puckered her lips briefly, indignantly. “No promises.” Calum merely sighed. She didn’t even bother plastering on a fake friendly smile as Bailey approached.

“Gosh, I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever!” she reckoned as she came to a stop in front of them, her laugh couldn’t possibly be sounding more fake if she tried. Her own eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses, one arm crossed over her as the strap of her purse hung by the crook of her elbow. Bailey’s eyebrows raised as she continued, “I heard you were in a terrible accident—good to see you back on your feet.”

Next to her, Aspen felt Calum tense at the mention of one of the scariest moments in both of their lives. Aspen, on the other hand, fought to roll her eyes. Many of the other parents had at least called or texted Aspen, giving her their well wishes, some even so far as bringing over food for their little family. Still, Aspen kept a straight face towards Bailey as she responded, “Better than ever.” Taking a small breath, Aspen began, “Actually, Bailey, I wanted to talk to you about—”

Bailey cut her off with her gaze flickering to the sky as she sounded, “Oh,” with a wave of her hand. “I was going to talk to you about that.” Aspen watched as a sympathetic expression washed over her face, one that she knew to be utterly fake and dismissive. Lacing her fingers together, Bailey continued, “I hope you don’t mind about Brooke not inviting Luna to her birthday. With the girls having trouble with each other in class, I figured you’d appreciate me taking the measures of keeping them out of more of it.”

Oh, of course she thought she was doing everyone a favor by alienating Luna.

“It’s not a matter of attending the party, Mrs. Clarkson—it’s a matter of receiving an invitation at all,” Calum said, his own tone hard and void of much emotion. He lifted his chin, looking down at the woman. “Brooke had gotten an invitation to Luna’s birthday.” With his eyebrows drawing together, he asked, “You don’t think it was unfair that Luna was the only kid in their class to not get an invite?”

“Well, I—” Bailey scoffed out a laugh, gaze darting between Calum and Aspen behind her sunglasses. With a shake of her head and a shrug of one shoulder, she surmised, “I didn’t think it’d be such a big deal.”

Aspen’s jaw tightened, skin warming from the anger she could feel brimming. The rage was barely contained in her voice as she shot back, “You didn’t think it’d be a big deal to purposefully make Luna feel bad by leaving her out?”

Bailey’s lips parted, having the gall to appear incredulous as she eyed Aspen up and down before remarking, “No wonder Luna’s such a sensitive kid.”

Aspen felt Calum’s hand on her lower back, grounding her from the anger quickly rising, but she remained calm. She didn’t want to give Bailey Clarkson the satisfaction of getting under her skin. So she offered a smile, completely fake in its sweetness as she returned, “And it looks the rotten apple didn’t fall far from the tree in your family.” With a tilt of her head and a condescending smile, Aspen added, “God knows what kind of woman your daughter will become with you as a mother.”

That had Bailey’s expression falling from behind the shield of her sunglasses, a tightness in her features as she indignantly stammered out, “I-I beg your pardon?”

The woman was rendered speechless, completely bewildered and outraged by Aspen’s comment, which only granted her tremendous satisfaction just as the final bell rang at 11:45, signalling the end of the school day that was actually cut in half for teachers’ workshop. Next to Aspen, Calum piped up dismissively, “School’s out. Excuse us, Mrs. Clarkson.”

With one last smile at Bailey, Aspen followed Calum to take a few steps closer towards the building, feeling Bailey’s heated glare burning at the backs, as the doors opened and kids began filing out. His arm found Aspen’s shoulders, pulling her into him as he said in a low rasp, “That was way hotter than any ass kicking.”

Aspen let out a short laugh, her right arm going around his waist as they waited for Luna to come out. “I think that was one of the most satisfying moments of my life,” she hummed thoughtfully just as they caught sight of Luna leaving the building, her ponytail bouncing behind her as she approached her parents.

“Hi, bug,” Calum grinned, letting go of Aspen to crouch down and pick up Luna, settling her on his hip. He kissed her cheek, eliciting a smile from the little girl, as he asked, “How was school?”

Luna nodded as Aspen took off her backpack. “Good. We have show and tell next week. Can I bring Duke?”

“Uh,” Calum paused, looking at Aspen for a moment as she raised her eyebrows, and Calum let out a nervous chuckle as he said, “We’ll see, bug. Duke can be a little unfriendly sometimes.”

Lune tilted her head, eyebrows furrowing together in childish confusion. “He’s not unfriendly with me?”

Aspen chuckled as they continued to where the car was parked, looking at Calum as he took this one. He merely grinned, poking Luna’s stomach as he told her truthfully, “That’s ’cause he loves you,” as Luna giggled happily.

They reached the car and Calum opened the backdoor, getting Luna inside and buckling her in before shutting the door. He looked at Aspen over the roof of the Range Rover, raising his eyebrows as he smiled at her. “Ready for today?”

She returned the grin, her excitement bright in her green eyes. “Hell yeah.”

*****

The bumper car collided with Aspen’s, a laughing oof escaping her as the sound of Luna’s giggles reached her ears. “We got you, Mama!” she cheered from where she sat in the yellow bumper car with Calum.

Next to Aspen, Mariam giggled as her aunt huffed, “Traitor!”

They enjoyed themselves, hitting bumper car after bumper car, and Aspen hadn’t really expected herself to have fun in this setting because of what happened. But bumper cars were vastly different than an actual car accident, and Luna’s giggles along with her nieces’, as well as Jodie and the boys’ laughter made for a much lighter experience. Colorful lights surrounded the bumper car arena, as well as the entirety of Bryant Park where Aspen and Calum had decided to bring Luna.

Seeing her so upset the other night had their hearts breaking, so the two of them decided to do something special for her, and since today she had a half day at school and it was the middle of the week, it worked out perfectly. So they called Jodie and the boys, as well as Rich to see if he’d bring the twins, and they all ended up at Bryant Park, which had been transformed into a winter village. Except Rich couldn’t make it, staying back with a pregnant Laila, so Aspen and Calum picked up Nadia and Mariam before taking them to the city.

They’d all stopped at one of the holiday shops and bought hot chocolate with marshmallows to top them with before the girls—and Michael—spotted the bumper cars. Aspen shouldn’t have been surprised when Calum pulled her aside and asked if she was okay to go in them; he’d always been one of the most considerate people she’d ever met, so the fact that his concern for Aspen and whatever trauma she may still have from the car accident tied into her getting into a bumper car had both taken her aback and also melted her heart.

Then she’d proceeded to say she was gonna kick his ass at bumper cars, and the challenge had been set.

“Mama, we beat you!” Luna cheered as they all got out of their cars, grinning up at her mother as she bounced on her feet.

“You beat me?” Aspen repeated in a shocked, disbelieving tone for her benefit. She scoffed, picking up Luna and resting her on her hip as they began walking. “No, no, I think I beat you.” Leaning towards her, Aspen’s eyes flickered to Calum, who was giving Mariam a few quarters so she could play with one of the claw machines to win herself a toy. Loud enough for her boyfriend to hear, Aspen added, “Your dad’s a terrible driver.”

Calum’s gaze met hers, jaw dropping in offense as Jodie and Luke snickered at his expense. Michael, Ashton and Nadia were too busy cheering Mariam on. “I’m a terrible driver?” Calum repeated, walking towards them with a challenging raise of his eyebrows. With a smirk, he added, “Sounds like you’re projecting, love.”

Aspen scoffed as Calum dropped his arm around her shoulders, chuckling when she playfully shoved him away. “Shut up.”

Luna’s lips formed an O, wide green eyes on her mother as she cutely chastised, “Shut up is a bad word, Mama.”

Aspen pressed her lips together, her own eyes widening in childish surprise as Calum met her exaggerated gaze with one of his own, and he gave a shake of his head and clicked his tongue. “Mama’s got a potty mouth,” Calum taunted.

Luna then shifted, and Aspen felt her heart swell when her daughter gave her a kiss to her lips, pulling back with a toothy grin as she declared, “All clean!”

She warmed her parents instantly as Calum’s expression softened at the adorable action, and Luna was oblivious to the effect she had on her mom and dad as she asked, “I wanna see Mariam play.”

Aspen let her down as Luna ran over to where everyone else was cheering on Mariam, and she gave a shake of her head as she looked at Calum, who had yet to look away from their daughter. Aspen let out a sigh as she leaned her head against Calum’s shoulder. “Sometimes it fucking hurts how much I love her.”

She felt Calum let out a gentle, short agreeing chuckle, arm still hooked around her shoulders. Then, with a playful lilt, he stated, “You said a bad word again.” Aspen scoffed, lips quirking, as Calum’s free hand reached up and he gently grasped her chin with his fingers, pulling her face towards him. He closed the distance with his lips capturing hers in a slow, sweet kiss that Aspen instinctively melted into, humming approvingly against the softness of Calum’s lips and the warmth of his touch. He pulled away too soon with one last peck and he murmured through a smile, “All clean.”

Aspen laughed, heart fluttering as they pulled away, and with a teasing grin she said, “That’s kind of gross, when you think about it.”

Calum scoffed, rolling his dark eyes as he chastised jokingly, “Don’t ruin an adorable bit our daughter created.”

She giggled once again. “Sorry, sorry.” Her gaze swept over to the claw machine where everyone was gathered around, cheering as Mariam won herself a little purple hippo. Luke put in some quarters and then proceeded to help Nadia try to win a stuffed animal for herself, and Aspen knew it was only a matter of minutes until it was Luna’s turn. She took in the grin of her daughter as Ashton held her in his arms so she could watch the claw, and Aspen relaxed against Calum. Quietly, she said, “She looks happy.”

“Yeah; all thanks to you, love,” Calum said, rubbing her arm soothingly. When he looked down at her, Aspen could see the delight swimming in his dark eyes, the warmth in his smile as he added proudly, “You’re quite the mama bear.” Then, with his lips just barely brushing the shell of her ear, he added in a low rasp, “She’s lucky to have you.”

Aspen’s grin widened, a warmth in her cheeks, the heat of Calum’s body far more comforting than the layers she had on. He kissed her temple, arm around her giving her a squeeze as he finished earnestly, “We both are.”

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