#tell me other people relate to this or just me

[gay-dorito-dust]

( ´∀`) I am possibly missing where it says your requests are open or not. I apologize if it is.

If it interests you (your batfam posts bring me joy) how would the boys Jay, Dick, Damian (whoever else) would react to only being able to tell the truth for a day? Like they confess all the things they like about their crush, compliment their family, admit to disliking a dish Alfred made (GASP <(｀^´)> ).

Thank youuuuu~

Jason wore his heart on his sleeve, he lets anyone knows what’s on his mind with zero filter, so him being forced to be truthful was no different to how Jason actually was on a day to day basis.

So at first he doesn’t think anything was out of the ordinary until you asked him a question one day regarding your love life;

‘I don’t think I’ll be able to find anyone here Jay, I mean what do I have to do to find somebody.’

‘You don’t have to do anything because everyone else is the problem, not you.’ Jason found himself answering before his mind could find an appropriate response without crossing the boundary of your friendship. ‘They obviously don’t see perfection when they see it because they weren’t looking at you and I find that insulting because who wouldn’t look into your eyes and see forever within them?.’ He finishes and was quick to cover his mouth with his hand, worried that he might’ve said too much for you.

‘And do you see forever in my eyes jay birdie?’ You asked softly, leaning towards him.

Jason drops his hand from his mouth. ‘Hell yeah I do, amongst many other things because you’re worth every heartbreak I’ve ever had in the past because being with you would be my life’s greatest dream come true.’

The next time Jason spoke truthfully was when Dick came to visit and it was after a long, long night of patrol and sleep was at the forefront of his mind, causing it to fog as he let it slip on what he truly thought of Dick.

‘You’re my brother, we may not be related by blood but no one has stood in my corner and was so prepared to be in the wrong then you Richard, and for that I thank you. You really are the best of us.’

Needless to say when he found out that Dick had the whole thing recorded, he wanted to strangle the fucker and make his death look like an accident. Sibling things.

Now, Jason -much like any other- loved Alfred’s food and would never raise an issue over it as he’d pretty much eat anything with his bottomless stomach. So even if he didn’t like one of Alfred’s recipes more self then others, he would say it in the most politest way possible. He loved that kindhearted man too much to ever say anything in regards of the food he’s made him since he was a young lad.

Dick would find peoples expressions to him being honest and truthful funny, but at the same time would be somewhat relieved with this turn out, as he wouldn’t have to force himself to be truthful just to get people to stop asking whether he was alright or not.

He knew he wasn’t always open and honest with his innermost thoughts and feelings at the best and worst of times, knowing all too well of how that would cause lead to the occasional argument of two down the line for himself, but he was never really given the space to figure it out himself on his own time.

So when he found himself speaking the truth to just about anyone, it was as though his heart was exposed for all to see it beating and all. It was as though all of his innermost thoughts regarding everyone in his life was being broadcasted to anyone and everyone with ears and the ability to hear it.

‘You’re so good with Hayley you know.’ Dick blurted once when you were playing with Hayley, stoping as soon as you heard him say this, allowing for Hayley to snatch the toy from your limp hand and lie down elsewhere to amuse herself with the squeaks that the toy would make every time she bite down on it.

‘What?’ You asked.

‘I mean it, you’re really good with Hayley and you’ve been nothing but an amazing person with a pretty smile and addicting laugh.’ Dick adds as he held his head in his hands as he looked at you with a soft look upon his face. Dick wasn’t still that bothered that you knew how he felt, it was bound to come out sooner or later and would take it in stride, even if he didn’t have control over what had just came out of his mouth just now.

The next time Dick finds himself being truthful was when he visited Jason after a long night of patrol and in the midst of a silent period Dick then said;

‘You’re amazing Jason. Bruce doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he never did when it came to us Robins, using one of us as a frame of reference for everyone else isn’t fair but you are my friend, my brother and I am so proud of you. You are not a failure, you’re anything but one.’ Jason sat silent the entire time and after Dick had finished he made a noise from the back of his throat, a small smile gracing his face as he looked out over the streets of Gotham, reaching out to pat Dick on the shoulder and said. ‘Thanks man.’

Dick always cared deeply for Jason, seeing him as his little brother and would gladly stand in his corner no matter what, even if he was wrong because that was what older siblings did. Dick never shied away from how deeply he felt agonising pain when he though he had lost his little brother and confronted Bruce about the entire thing, enraged and grieving simultaneously. Now whenever he caught wind of what Jason was doing as red hood, he can’t help but smile knowing his brother was doing just fine, but would always make it known that he was just a phone call away.

Dick knew Alfred wasn’t going to bite his head off for saying that he didn’t like something but would instead ask how he could better it for his taste. So even if Dick did say anything about one of Alfred’s recipe, he knows Alfred would be more than understanding. However it was an unspoken rule amongst him and his siblings that they’d eat anything and everything Alfred made them without a single complaint unless it was necessary.

They all love that man too much to ever say anything negative about his cooking.

Damian would hate being forced to speak nothing but the truth.

He’d really hate it as being blunt and opinionated was how he always was and so being open and honest wasn’t his forte and it felt wrong in a sense due to it feeling as though he was put in a position of vulnerability.

He hates it even more when he finds himself confessing to all the things that he liked and or found remotely interesting about you whenever you were near, it felt as though someone was pupating him to say these things when deep down he knew they were how he genuinely felt but was too deep in denial to admit this to himself.

‘How do I look?’ You innocently asked.

‘Breathtaking like you always do so seamlessly.’ Damian replied without hesitation before looking up from his sketchbook once realisation hit him, only to see that you were already looking at him with wide eyes.

‘You mean that?’ You said, wanting to know whether or not you heard him properly.

‘Of course.’ Damian said and when he felt his mouth open, he tried to close it but it seemed as though his body had a mind of his own as he found himself continuing to speak. ‘On many occasions have I spent thinking you were naturally breathtaking and have thought so for many more on top of that to the point you are my one sole muse.’ He finished and it wasn’t long before you were planning your first date together.

Damian knew this wouldn’t be the first time he was going to be forced to speak the truth and the second time came in him actually complimenting Tim on his smarts and combat prowess, something that he’d rather drink pure poison before ever admitting out of pride.

‘Tt. Don’t sell yourself short Drake, you’re a competent Robin and an exceptional detective.’ He’d say when it was just him and Tim in the Batcave and immediately regrets it and makes him swear to secrecy, obviously this doesn’t last long after the period of speaking truthfully wears off and Damian goes back to being his blunt, straightforward, unapologetic self.

Damian loves Alfred’s cooking, but all of his cooking weren’t Damian’s favourite and while he wouldn’t hesitate to tell others how he felt, he didn’t feel the same when it came to Alfred’s cooking despite the man being nothing but kind and open minded.

So if he ever were to speak about his least favourite food Alfred had ever made and even when Alfred was more then accepting of his opinion, Damian would try to help Alfred however he could in return for his comments about his cooking. Alfred was probably one person he’d never want to hurt with his words.

#dc imagine #dc x reader #dc x you #dc fanfic #dc fic #dc comics x reader #dc x y/n #dc fanfiction #jason todd imagines #jason todd imagine #jason todd fluff #jason todd x reader #dick grayson x y/n #dick grayson x you #dick grayson imagine #dick grayson imagines #dick grayson x reader #dick grayson fluff #damian wayne x y/n #damian wayne x you #damian wayne imagine #damian wayne x reader #damian wayne imagines #damian wayne fluff #nightwing imagines #nightwing imagine #red hood imagine #red hood x reader #red hood imagines #nightwing x reader

[nyctohyloph0bia]

Honestly y'all need to chill with the "nonhumaness needs to be involuntary!"

The only reason you're saying that is due to wanting to present 'valid' enough for outsiders. It's not a choice so they won't bully you, like they do furries or other people.

And I hear you cry "but KFF!". KFF aren't nonhuman, they just relate. If someone comes over to me and says "I choose to be nonhuman today, I am nonhuman no matter what other ppl tell me. I genuinely identify as nonhuman." That isn't KFF, that's a nonhuman.

Truly, I'll just go "woah...that's so based". Because truly, what are our differences? We both genuinely identify as nonhuman....and yeah that's about it.

You might say, "they don't experience shifts!" There's nonhumans that don't experience shifts. And there's humans that experience shifts, we call it the "shifter's disease". Basically when a full human researches or is around nonhumans and begins feeling phantoms or feeling nonhuman, despite not being nonhuman. So it isn't exclusive to us.

"They don't have noemata!" There's nonhumans that don't have noemata.

"They don't suffer species dysphoria." Theres nonhumans that don't experience species dysphoria. Also cool transmed rethoric.

"They weren't born with it!" There's nonhumans that become nonhuman later on in life.

"They didn't wish their whole life to be a different species!" And? I can imagine there's some nonhumans that didn't even realize they wanted to be/were a different species.

"It's disrespectful to nonhumans that suffer due to their identity!" Another cool transmed rethoric. It's only disrespectful to you because you're up your own ass and believe that anyone who didn't suffer like you did, that didn't have it as hard as you isn't as valid as yourself. But what you don't realize is by having that belief you are excluding such a large portion of your community.

There's involuntary nonhumans who don't suffer from their identity at all and they're still part of our community.

The line between voluntary and involuntary can get blurry very quickly and hard to describe. But truly, you are no one to say who can use a label that rightfully describes their experiences.

Get real and truly think about why you're so upset at someone having a good faith identity.

#so upset about this shit lol #alterhuman #therian #otherkin #therianthropy #kitty cat rambles #info #nonhuman

[blushstarot]

PICK A CARD: a message from your future self

Pick whichever picture you feel more attracted to and skip to that pile.

Pile 1

nine of cups, four of wands (reversed), the magician (reversed).

Okay, but this pile is giving me really sweet vibes, your future self feels like a genuinely carrying person, and looks back at you as a mother figure would. They just want you to be happy and feel welcomed and the energy is overall very heartwarming. Quick thing I want to add before y'all actually read the letter, i don't know if some of you are fans of musicals, specifically of Hamilton, but while I was writing the letter, the melody of dear theodosia was playing in my head so yeah, it might be important for you to know.

"Right now you may feel like you don't fit in, that you lack support, and that you aren't enough. I know you feel insecure but believe when I tell you that you don't have to be scared about that, you are enough and you all the skills and abilities you need to be successful. The universe is working to bring blessings your way, but you have to put some work on it too. Use your intellect, concentration and willpower to make this wonderful things happen, you have the power to manifest the outcome you want. Leave the past behind and put your mind in anything you want to accomplish, I know all our wishes and dreams will become a reality soon enough, for now it's the time of time of happiness, joyfulness and fulfillment."

**As in all the PACs, just take what resonates and leave what doesn't, this is for entertainment only, so have fun with it!

Pile 2

page of cups (reversed), strength (reversed), page of pentacles.

I actually had to redo this pile because I got busy with something important mid reading, and when I had time to continue I couldn't really connect to it again, so I pulled other three cards to do the reading again. The vibes then and the vibes in this new one, suggest that your future self know you are having hard times, and are probably dealing with some childhood related issues, but they want to tell you that things will get better. Also something tells me that they REALLY wanted you to get their message, since they sent both the bearer of messages and the bearer of good news.

"You're going through difficult times, and right now I want you to try to connect with your inner child by embracing the fun side of life. I've always loved how we are young at heart, even sometimes a little bit naïve, but lately you've been ignoring your inner emotions and listening too much to people that are bringing you and your self-esteem down. I bring you good news from the future, a future where all our goals are achieved, but that is only possible if you make the right decisions now and put the groundwork necessary. The future I'm from might seem too far away from were you are today, but time passes quickly and is unforgiving, so I want you to take my advise and keep it close to your heart. I know you can become a person who is both mature and young at heart, I've seen it and have been cheering for you through all that journey, because after all I'm you, and I've already done it."

**As in all the PACs, just take what resonates and leave what doesn't, this is for entertainment only, so have fun with it!

Pile 3

the fool, strength (reversed), five of swords.

I feel like your future self is encouraging you to start something new, maybe something you always wanted to try but never really made time to give it a chance. They want you to focus on the positive and to stay away from people that don't support your dreams. Overall, I feel this is more of a warning of what's to come, in hopes it helps you to be more prepare to face it.

"You're going to enter a new chapter in your life, it may look like something difficult at first, but you need to tap into your inner strength and don't let your fears and anxiety paralyze you. This new chapter is full of exciting and thrilling adventures, you just have to trust your heart and make a leap of fate. If you are not careful, you might end up self-sabotaging and getting involved in a serious conflict, causing unnecessary stress. When the time is right, I need you to stand up for what you truly want and what you believe."

**As in all the PACs, just take what resonates and leave what doesn't, this is for entertainment only, so have fun with it!

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think of your message.

You can find more of my PACs on my master list, and if you have any suggestions on future PACs you want to see me do, you can send me and ask.

Bye byeee ✨

#pick a card #tarot #pick a pile #pick a picture #tarot reading #tarot community #free tarot #tarot cards #tarotblr #a message #blush'starot

[youunravelme]

nothing happened in the way i wanted part 1

author's note: okay so let it be known that my FAV emily henry book is happy place (if you want a deep dive into my personality, if you want to know the inner workings of my mind, read the book) SO with that being said, this fic was inspired by that masterpiece. plus i've fallen down a matt rabbit hole as of late. just a warning, this is a LONG ass fic (74 pages and 30.3k words, not a brag, i kinda regret that it's this long bc my brain hurts) so pace yourselves okay? thank you for being the kindest people ever!! this is finished, but tumblr said what i wrote is too long. so i'm posting it in parts lolol.

summary: a year has passed and you are no closer to understanding why matt ended things and you have every plan of avoiding that thought until he comes back in town for the offseason, then suddenly he's everywhere.

pairing: matthew tkachuk x reader

warnings: ANGST, friends to lovers to exes to lovers, mention of sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, drinking, depression, panic attacks, let me know if i missed something!

after

despite being back in st. louis for six months, summer still felt like it came too fast. your thighs started sticking to the seats from sweat about three weeks ago. summer used to be your favorite season because it meant you had unlimited access to the love of your life, you weren’t sharing him with his teammates or his crazy schedule.

but he wasn’t yours anymore. matthew hadn’t been yours in six months and some change.

the second you entered your parents’ home, you tossed your keys into the bowl and slid your shoes off. it’d been six months since you moved home, and it still didn’t feel like a space where you belonged. you walked into the living room without so much as a hello from either of your parents, both of whom were posted up on the couch. they weren’t talking to each other, just letting the noise from the news fill the room instead of conversation.

“hey,” you greeted, plopping down in the recliner.

“how was work?” your mom asked.

you shrugged, not quite having the words to convey how mundane it had been. you were working on restoring a piece for this rich couple who lived in the same neighborhood as the tkachuks. it wasn’t in too bad of shape, given the fact that you were the one entrusted to work on it. if it was actually something incredibly complicated, your boss would’ve found someone else more experienced to do it.

when you entered art restoration and conservation, you thought it would be mindless. art had always been an escape for you, a chance to remove yourself from your racing thoughts. you thought that by entering the art conservation field, you could add onto something, enhance the beauty that was lost over the years of damage, instead of creating something from your own experiences.

but no one told you how hard it would be after your breakup, that you would have to learn how to pour bottles of chemical solvent into a glass when your eyes were blurring with tears. no one said anything about how you would spend hours hunched over, fixing the problems in paintings that only served to remind you that while you could mend a masterpiece, you were unable to stop and patch up the problems in your relationship. no one spoke about how you would inevitably relate to the paintings that came to you in shambles, the only difference being that clients would pay thousands of dollars for their paintings to be restored to their former glory, your ex let you fall apart alone in a city where you had no friends outside of the ones you’d made through him.

but how could you communicate that to your mother? to your father? both of whom stayed in an unhappy marriage for the sake of optics? how could you tell them that it’s been months and you were still no more over your ex than the day it ended? how could they understand you? they stayed together out of convenience, out of a fear of ending their marriage only to never find someone else.

it had been six months since your relationship ended, and you were no closer to understanding why.

“just a mundane day,” was all you said instead. “nothing to write home about.”

both of your parents hummed.

“did you have dinner already?” you asked.

“was gonna order pizza,” your dad said.

your mother scoffed and rolled her eyes. “no alan, we had plans to see chantal and keith tonight for dinner.”

you wanted to throw up.

you weren’t sure what you were expecting, maybe some loyalty from your parents? though, they weren’t fully privy to all the information about the demise of your relationship with matt, so maybe you couldn’t expect them to stop hanging out with his parents, especially when said parents were such great people.

“oh,” was all you could say.

“you’re more than welcome to order takeout and watch a movie,” your mom commented, like you needed permission to make yourself at home when you were actively living there. “i’m sure ronald would appreciate your company.”

you glanced at the tabby cat who was perched on his cat tree. personally, you had no issue with ronald, but he liked your mom and your mom only. though on occasion, he would allow your dad to pet him. 

“i’ll figure something out,” you said.

your mom hummed before she stood up to go get ready while your father stayed on the couch. it was only another ten minutes before he got up to change quickly, and another five before they left the house without so much as a goodbye.

before

you were incredibly aware that you didn’t quite fit in. your mom drove you to school in a beat up 1997 toyota camry which looked incredibly out of place among the bmws and audis. your mom offered to walk you in, but she was wearing her scrubs from her night shift and her face looked tired, so you declined the offer and got out of the car yourself.

it shouldn’t have been as daunting as it was, but your old school wasn’t as prestigious as this one. your previous schools in cedar rapids had been public schools. no one was wearing a uniform, and most of the backpacks worn came from the same walmart in your old neighborhood. 

but your parents had decided they wanted a better education for you, even if neither of them had the money to fork out thousands of dollars for a private school. your mom’s parents, however, were loaded. they were more than willing to fork out a small fortune for your schooling under the conditions of your family uprooting your lives to missouri. you were too young to realize what a sacrifice that was, you didn’t notice the snide comments your grandparents made about your father’s choice of career or your mother’s choice in husband.

you didn’t see your grandparents any more than you usually did since you’d moved to missouri two weeks ago. they’d been out of town on a trip to rome up until three days ago and hadn’t reached out to have dinner or hang out at all.

not that you cared at the age of nine, you were more focused on unpacking your room. but now that you were standing in front of the giant school alone, you felt like you should’ve been more concerned with how nice your school supplies were.

a kind woman greeted you at the entrance of the school. she smiled and introduced herself, though you couldn’t hear her over the roaring in your ears. she stood next to a blond haired blue eyed boy who was your height.

“are your parents here?” you weren’t sure how you heard her over the noise in your head.

you shook your head. “my mom had to go home and my dad is at work.”

the woman blinked. “is today your first day?”

“mom, it’s everyone’s first day of school,” the boy groaned.

“i wasn’t talking to you, matthew,” she said, though her eyes never left your own.

“i just moved here,” was all you said, albeit a bit quietly. 

“well, you can walk in with us.” She placed a warm hand on your back and ushered you inside next to her son.

you took notice of her nicer clothing compared to your mom’s scrubs or your dad’s tattered khakis, though the woman’s clothing wasn’t as ostentatious as other parents’.

“do you know your teacher’s name?” the woman asked.

you nodded and showed her the crumpled paper in your hand. the night before, you were wracked with nerves and wrote your teacher’s on a blank sheet of paper and doodled around it. even at nine years old, you were concerned that you’d somehow forget. you couldn’t be more grateful for it now.

the woman’s face lit up. “oh how lucky! matthew look! you’re in the same class.”

matthew for his part, tried to look happy about it, but his eyes kept wandering to the hallways, like he was looking for people he knew. you felt bad for even being in this situation. you missed your friends from iowa and the light up shoes you used to wear before you were given a uniform.

matthew’s mom pointed out the classroom that was supposed to be yours and walked both you and matthew into the room. unlike her son, who immediately found his friends to do elaborate handshakes with, you stayed by her side. she was a stranger, sure, but she was more comforting that the classroom of fifteen other nine and ten year olds.

the woman sighed and bent down a little to look you in the eyes. “it’s gonna be a good day, sweetheart,” she said. “mr. terry is a great teacher, he’s really kind.” you weren’t sure how she would know that, but you weren’t going to call her a liar. “and if you need anything, ask matthew. he’s been going here since kindergarten, okay?”

you nodded.

mr. terry walked over and introduced himself. he had dark skin and a bright smile, showing you to your seat. your name was on a card with fun stickers on it. next to your seat, you saw matthew’s name. now it wasn’t necessarily an unpopular name, there were three matthews in your third grade class, so you weren’t holding out hope that it was going to be the matthew you walked into class with. but two minutes later, he was plopping down into the seat to your left.

matthew looked almost startled to see you sitting next to him, but when the shock wore off he gave you a crooked smile and stuck his hand out. “i’m matt,” he said, like you two didn’t walk into class together.

you shook his hand anyway and gave him a shy smile and told him your name, just in case he didn’t see it written on your desk.

if it was even possible, his smile widened. “pretty name,” he said.

after

you’d watched a movie and half of another one by the time your parents walked through the front door. ronald jumped off the couch to greet your mother while he ignored your father.

“oh,” your dad said. “you’re still up.”

“i’m about to go to bed,” you replied, though you didn’t move from the couch.

“dinner was great,” your mom commented. “chantal and keith said to tell you hello.”

your gut twisted at the mention of their names. you loved his family, you really did, but the mention of the family that was almost yours stung when you looked at how your parents acted like roommates on the best of days.

you remembered summer days spent in the tkachuks’ backyard, watching as matt and brady chased each other while taryn tried her best to keep up. you remembered your dad picking you up from their house, and how you begged the entire ride home for a little brother or sister. he looked at your through the rearview mirror and said “we already achieved perfection, why mess that up?”

but you were grown now. you saw how their marriage barely survived raising you, and they were probably being smart by not risking your upbringing just to have another child.

you bid your parents goodnight and headed up the stairs to your childhood bedroom. it looked less like the office it was converted into when you moved out originally. you didn’t fault your parents for taking advantage of your absence, you, like many people your age, had zero intentions of ever moving back in until an unfortunate set of circumstances happened to you.

and that’s what life had felt like lately:

unfortunate.

unfortunate shit just happening to you.

it wasn't late by any means, but you were surprised when your phone vibrated with a text message. maybe it was the fact that you hadn’t really befriended anyone since moving back that had you flinching at the shock of someone other than your parents (or grandparents) texting you.

you unlocked your phone and opened the message, sighing when you read its contents.

emma:

hey girl! just checking in to see if you’re still good for this weekend? no worries if you can’t make it!

you dropped the phone on your stomach and groaned into your hands as soon as they made contact with your face.

years of dating matthew meant you’d grown closer to brady and taryn and by proxy, brady’s fiancée, emma. you’d already committed to being a bridesmaid and bought the dress before your relationship with matt ended. when emma found out, she called immediately and gave you an out, said she wouldn’t take it personal, that she understood if it would be too hard.

but you remembered the countless conversations had about planning your weddings while the both of you watched the loves of your lives try not to kill each other from your spots on the back porch. and you could hear it in her voice, how much it meant to her that you would be there even if she didn’t want to push it on you. it didn’t matter that only one of you was getting the wedding you planned. the bets made on who’d get married first were obsolete now.

you wanted to text her back and say you were busy, but you hadn’t seen her much since her and brady came back in town. when the senators’ season ended in april, he and emma spent some time with her family and attended the playoff games for the panthers. now that the panthers’ season ended two weeks ago, all of the tkachuks were back in town which used to excite you.

now it just filled you with dread.

no, it’s not like you lived in the same tax bracket as matt’s family. you didn’t go to the same grocery stores unless you were tagging along. no, there was a comfortable distance between your neighborhoods and st. louis was filled with two million other people that the odds of running into him were slim.

but your anxiety preferred zero odds rather than a slight chance, and it made the logic that was once screaming at you sound like a small whisper.

you sucked it up anyway, though. seeing emma and the other bridesmaids was better than staying in your room and staring at the ceiling.

you:

i’ll be there! can’t wait!!!

and maybe you used too many exclamation points. maybe you were trying too hard to prove something no one would believe if they took longer than a split second glance at your face. you were a horrible liar, that hadn’t changed. you were just hoping by the time the weekend came around, you’d be too busy to focus on any of the pain.

before

the summer after keith retired, the tkachuks took you and your family on vacation with them to turks and caicos. your parents were stressed initially about the trip, but you were filled with nothing but excitement at leaving the landlocked state you called home.

missouri had slowly wormed its way into your heart. when your family moved, there was never a thought in your mind that you would ever come to love it like you did with cedar rapids. there was no way you’d ever consider this place your home. but then you met the tkachuks.

it’d been nearly three years since you’d first sat in that seat next to your best friend in mr. terry’s fourth grade class. now, you were splashing around in the waves with matt and brady while your parents looked from the shore.

school had been different the past two years, with matthew going to an all boys school after fifth grade while you stayed. it took some adjusting to being without him the entire school day. you didn’t want to think of yourself as codependent, or clingy, but mat was your best friend. it was an adjustment, having to make new friends in the same school.

now that wasn’t to say that you never saw matt. after your initial introductions, chantal offered to take you to and from school if your mom or dad dropped you off at their house in the morning. both of your parents jumped at the idea. your mother, who worked as a night shift ICU nurse, reveled in being able to go home and go straight to sleep. your father, whose job as an electrician required him to be on job sites early in the morning, didn’t mind it either, he had to be up early anyway.

and sure, you had to wake up earlier than you used to, but you got to eat breakfast and pretend like you were a tkachuk most days of the week (with the exception of the days your mom was off). keith would ruffle your hair as he passed you in the kitchen. taryn would race matthew for the seat next to yours.

the tkachuks felt more like your family than your own some days.

especially now when your parents went on a date that keith and chantal paid for while they stayed back at the beach house with you and their children. 

all six of you were seated around the coffee table with the game of life laid out in front of you. the evening started out with a game of uno, but that game got out of hand quickly. it took brady reversing the order and hitting matt with a draw four before your best friend lunged over the table to tackle his brother. while keith broke up the boys, chantal cleaned up uno and instructed you and taryn to pick out the least competitive game you could find.

which is how you ended up playing the game of life.

even though life had to be the least competitive game you knew, matt and brady still managed to argue over it, even going as far to rant about how unfair it was that they had to pay for home insurance. keith and chantal had just chuckled and told them to enjoy childhood while it lasted.

you found yourself smiling and laughing along.

you weren’t quite sure who won, or how anyone ever really wins the game of life, but the moment mattered more. taryn went upstairs with keith to get ready for bed while brady helped his mom in the kitchen pop a bag of popcorn. you and matthew were responsible for cleaning up the game.

“are you having fun?” he asked.

your smile was so wide, it hurt your cheeks. “i’m having the best time. this is by far the best vacation i’ve been on.”

“really?” he smiled.

you nodded emphatically. “most of my family vacations have been spent with my grandparents.”

matt grimaced, already aware of the testy relationship your mom had with her own parents. “when’s the last time you saw them?”

you had to think for a moment, while your grandparents technically lived in st. louis, they were often out of town or ignoring your family’s existence altogether. with the exception of the last saturday of every month, when you and your parents were practically obligated to eat dinner with them. you didn’t notice their judgmental comments when you were younger and mesmerized by the giant dollhouse they bought for you.

but you were older now. you knew that there were terms and conditions attached to the cellphone they bought for you on your twelfth birthday. you heard the disdain in their voices when they talked down to your father and mother for their life choices. you weren’t an idiot, you understood that every compliment they gave you was a way for them to make your parents feel inferior in comparison.

you weren’t a child to them, you were a pawn in a game you never asked to play.

“we saw them about a month ago?” you shrugged. “they’re on vacation until halfway through august.”

matt hummed. “i think we’re gonna visit mom’s parents before school starts back again.”

to your credit, you did your best to look happy for him, even if it meant that you wouldn’t see him for a week and a half. you had other friends in town! in fact, you befriended a girl named simone when you started middle school. maybe you could call her when you get back to st. louis?

evidently, your little act wasn’t convincing enough. matt nudged your shoulder with his. “you’ll be fine,” he said. “you’re probably annoyed from how much time we’ve spent together this summer. you need a break.”

you couldn’t help but smile. “i could never get tired of you, matty.”

he blinked, almost at a loss for words, it felt like. but you should’ve known better, because he was holding up his pinky a beat later. “you promise?”

you locked your fingers together. “promise.”

after

it’s just emma and her friends and taryn, you thought. you already know all of these people. there’s no reason to be stressed out.

which, to be fair, your inner monologue was right. you had absolutely no reason to be standing in front of your closet debating what to wear for as long as you had. 

before you could stop yourself, you were hitting emma’s contact and putting your phone on speaker. the dial tone rang out through the room while you waited for her to pick up. you were seconds away from ending the call when her phone sounded through the receiver.

“hey! what’s up?”

you exhaled. “i don’t know what to wear tonight.”

emma said your name through a laugh. “we’re not going anywhere fancy, i swear. it’s just dinner and then we’re going to a bar.”

you frowned. “so taryn’s not joining us after dinner?”

“no, she has other plans after dinner anyway. she said she was meeting up with some friends from high school.” as if she could see the hesitance on your face, emma spoke up again. “but you know all the other girls, it’s not like you’ll be hanging out with strangers.”

and she was right, you were in a groupchat with the other bridesmaids and found all of them to be quite pleasant.

“look, if you’re still stressed about what to wear, just wear jeans.”

“okay, but how nice is this restaurant?” you were rummaging through your closet. “because i’ve worn jeans to restaurants that weren’t supposed to be fancy and i found myself criminally underdressed.”

“yeah well, i’m better at communicating than matt is.” a gasp sounded through the receiver, like emma had just realized what she said. “oh my god, i’m so sorry—”

“it’s fine, you’re not wrong,” you said, forcing out a laugh even as your heart painfully squeezed in your chest.

“i really didn’t mean to,” she sighed. “i’m sorry, that was rude of me to bring up.”

you shook your head even though she couldn’t see you. “it’s fine, emma, i swear,” you said even though there were tears pricking in your eyes. “i’ll have to face the music eventually.”

“still, it was insensitive of me to say that.”

you cleared your throat. “don’t worry about it, i’m a big girl.” you pulled the phone away from your face so you could sniffle for a second without drawing any unnecessary attention. “so jean shorts tonight?” you asked.

there was a brief silence before you heard emma’s soft sigh over the phone. “that sounds perfect.”

before

matthew kissed you for the first time when you were hanging out with mutual friends after school in eighth grade. you’d been dreaming about that moment for years ever since sixth grade when you realized matt was handsome and the flutters in your stomach weren’t just from nerves anymore.

both of you were at your friend morgan’s house sitting in her basement. she happened to live in the same neighborhood as matt. so after school, you rode home with the tkachuks like you always did and then walked to her house.

morgan was the first of your friends to get a boyfriend and she wasn’t shy about telling everyone. it was easy to be jealous of her. while you hadn’t known her as long, your other friends had made it clear she’d garnered male attention since preschool. so there was no surprise that she’d announced at school earlier that week that she was dating someone from matt’s school.

hence the party in the basement.

morgan was the one who suggested truth or dare. she had all ten of you circle up on the carpet and sit criss crossed. you were keenly aware of how matt’s knee was touching your own, you could feel the heat even through your jeans. he was leaning back on his hands, with his right hand directly behind your back,in your delusions, you let yourself pretend he was doing it to be closer to you.

“alright!” morgan cheered. “who wants to start?”

no one said a word.

you made the mistake of looking around when you caught morgan’s eye. at the sight of a growing smirk on her lips, you quickly diverted your gaze.

“c'mon, no one wants to go first?” she hummed. “fine, i’ll go. babe,” she started calling thomas babe a week ago. “ask me, truth or dare?”

the only word you could use to describe the look on thomas’ face was besotted. without hesitating, he asked her the question, smiling when she grinned back at him. morgan chose dare, because she wasn’t “boring and lame.”

thomas dared her to kiss him. there was a collective groan when she leaned over and kissed her boyfriend. the second she pulled back, morgan’s eyes flitted over the rest of the group, looking like a tiger about to pounce. the two of you made eye contact and the corner of her lips raised in a smirk that was gone as quick as it came.

you prepared yourself for the worst, recalling how you let it slip that you have a crush on matt. and morgan, while she wasn’t intentionally cruel, had all but shrieked when you told her. so you didn’t think she’d out you to be mean, you wouldn’t put it past her to attempt matchmaking.

but her eyes skipped right over you and focused on simone. “truth or dare?”

“truth,” simone replied.

morgan rolled her eyes. “nerd,” but she cracked a smile anyway.

the game went on pretty effortlessly, you even got brave enough to do a dare (thankfully morgan never got the opportunity to ask you). it ended with morgan asking matthew. the smirk she had earlier, appeared as she made eye contact with you before setting her sights on your best friend.

“truth or dare?” she asked.

you immediately knew which option he was picking, matt never backed down from a challenge and had been choosing dare all night.

“matthew, i dare you to kiss the hottest person in the room.”

your stomach dropped as did your gaze. you couldn’t look anyone in the eye, you didn’t want to see matt kiss another girl, you couldn’t. you wouldn’t do it.

a moment passed when you realized matt hadn’t moved an inch. he was still leaning on his hands, with one stretched behind you. all it took was a quick glance at matt to see him already staring back at you.

“no,” he said, eyes still locked on your face.

morgan blinked. “what?”

it was only then that his eyes left your face to look morgan dead in the eye. “nope. i won’t do it.”

she guffawed. “but you have to!”

matt shrugged. “i don’t want to.”

“but you lose if you don’t!”

he shrugged yet again. “oh well.”

your head snapped up to look at him in confusion. “matt,” you nudged him.

“we gotta go anyway,” he said, before he stood up and reached out to you. you took his hand, albeit hesitantly before he dragged you up the stairs and out of the house onto the street.

a cool breeze was blowing which inadvertently caused you to shiver. matt, who still hadn’t let go of your hand, tugged you further into his side. your heart sank when he dropped your hand, only for it to skyrocket when he threw his arm around you.

“why didn’t you do the dare?” you asked. the curiosity was killing you, even if you believed the real answer would be even worse than not knowing.

matt shrugged like he had been all night. “i didn’t feel like it.”

you blinked at him, staring at his profile while he guided the two of you back to his house. “you’re literally the most competitive person i know. you’ve never intentionally lost a game. last week brady dared you to drink that gallon of milk and run a mile, which, if i must remind you, you threw up not even halfway through.”

matt laughed. “that was funny. but what’s your point?”

“my point is that kissing someone is way less work than running a mile and throwing up. so what’s up?”

he wouldn’t look at you, his gaze fell to the ground where he kicked a rock. “didn’t want it to happen like that.”

you blinked at him, refusing to move your gaze from his profile. “didn’t want what to happen like that? it’s just a kiss.”

he shook his head and stopped walking, grabbing your wrist when you kept moving. matt tugged your arm so you’d turn around and look at him. “it wouldn’t be just a kiss,” he said.

“would it mean more?” you asked, but he didn’t say anything. “matt?” your heart was beating against your chest. your hands shook at the idea of him wanting to kiss someone. you went through the list of people in that room. it wasn’t morgan, he’d told you weeks ago that he didn’t like her like that when you asked. could it be simone? she looked like a goddess on a bad day. her dark skin was flawless and free of blemishes and her faux locs were always perfectly styled. she didn’t even wear makeup on a regular basis.

oh god. did he like simone?

your gut twisted at the idea, of him falling in love with the closest friend you had at school. you could learn to be happy for them, simone was great and matt would adore her if she agreed to go out with him.

you snapped back into it when you felt matt’s thumb rub across your pulse. “matt, would it mean more?”

he shrugged again, still not looking at you, just the part where your hands were joined. “would it be a problem if it did?”

now it was your turn to be confused. “why would my opinion matter? i’m not the one you’d be kissing.”

matt blinked at you once, then twice. “you can’t be serious,” he said.

“what do you mean?”

“you can’t be that blind. there’s no way.”

“matt, what are you talking about?”

he dropped your hand to run both of his over his face and groaned. “there's no way you don’t know.”

“know what?”

matt fixed you with an intense look, one that had you squirming in your shoes a little. in all your years of friendship, you weren’t sure he'd ever stared at you that way before. a hockey game? sure, but you?

“matt what—”

“i like you,” he said as plain as day, like he didn’t just flip your world on its axis.

you blinked, you were pretty sure you stopped breathing. “what?” you whispered.

matt stepped closer to you, close enough that your shoes were touching. “i like you.”

“so why didn’t you kiss me when morgan dared you to?”

“i didn’t want it to happen like that,” he admitted. “didn’t wanna kiss you in front of everybody.”

you could feel the heat travel up your neck and to your cheeks. “and what about now? would you kiss me now?”

“would you let me?”

words failed you, you could only nod. matt hesitated for a moment before pressing his lips to yours. it was clumsy and awkward, and in the middle of the sidewalk two blocks away from his house.

but it was perfect.

after

you ubered to the restaurant before emma could suggest meeting at the tkachuk house. every single one of the bridesmaids knew you and matt were no longer together, all of them banding around you and offering support from thousands of miles away. so you didn’t think any of them would even hint at meeting at the tkachuk residence if they were as considerate as you believed them to be, but you wanted to avoid the sympathetic looks that would be thrown your way.

most of the bridesmaids were there by the time you arrived, the only exception being taryn. the entire table greeted you with bright white smiles, emma stood to give you a hug that you enthusiastically returned.

it felt great to be back in the company of people your age. despite being back in st. louis for quite some time, you still had yet to make any more friends outside of emma and taryn, both of whom you didn’t see that often because of who they were relationally attached to.

unfortunately, you’d lost contact with many of your friends from high school because of the distance. if you could go back, you’d slap yourself in the face for thinking matt was going to stick around longer than simone or morgan.

but how were you to know he would leave and wouldn’t want you to follow him?

you swallowed that question down and took a seat at the table. you sat next to a brunette named stacey, the other seat on your right was left for taryn, you assumed. there were already two bottles of wine sitting in a bucket of ice on the table. part of you considered pouring yourself a glass immediately, but you remembered the plans were dinner first, bar later. so you settled for water.

it was only a matter of maybe ten minutes before taryn was led to your table. you stood up with the rest of the girls and waited your turn to hug her. taryn saved you for last, smiling bright and wide when the two of you finally made eye contact. you squeezed each other tightly as you hugged, unspoken words being communicated.

“now, before anyone looks at the menu, i just wanted to let you know, it’s on brady tonight.” emma held up her hand as mouths began to protest across the table. “he insisted, and we won’t be taking no for an answer.”

and maybe you should’ve protested a little harder to look more sincere, but your job wasn’t paying you well enough to afford a 70 dollar steak and drinks.

the table breaks up into mini conversations while everyone was looking over the menu. you were doing the same when an elbow nudged you from the right. you glanced over at taryn who wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that she wanted your attention, it was something you’d always admired about her.

“long time, no see,” she said. but before you could respond, she spoke up again. “how have you been?”

you shrugged and moved your eyes back to the menu to look busy. “nothing has been going on really, just working.” you cleared your throat and hesitantly made eye contact again. “and you? what have you been up to?”

taryn shifted in her seat, a tell you knew was coming. you weren’t a stranger to where she’d been the past few weeks, you still followed her on instagram, you followed all of the tkachuks on instagram, even matt. so you knew she’d just gotten back after the panthers lost in game five of the finals.

you nudged her with your shoulder and gave her a small smile. “it’s okay, i’m not gonna burst into tears if you mention him.”

taryn smiled. “i’m exhausted, we were traveling everywhere for matt it felt like. it was cutting into my workouts.”

your jaw clenched at the mention of his name, mainly to distract you from feeling the ache in your chest, but you kept a pleasant look on your face anyway. “you still have the rest of the summer for your workouts, though. summer’s barely started.”

taryn nodded but she didn’t say anything for a moment. you started to shift in your seat when she reached a hand out and squeezed your own. “i miss you,” she said sincerely. “it hasn’t been the same without you around.”

“taryn...”

“you know, you’re still in, like, most of our family photos hanging on the wall. mom and dad haven’t taken them down.”

you weren’t sure if that made you happy or brought you pain.

“i begged them not to, you’re in too many memories for us to just forget you.” she cleared her throat and looked back at her menu, giving you a break from the sincere staredown the two of you were having. “they ask about you all the time, but they didn’t want to impose, mom especially. said she’d understand if you never wanted to see them again.”

you tried reading the menu through blurry eyes and pinched your lips together so no one would see them tremble. “i’ve been meaning to get coffee with your mom,” you said, though you both knew it was a lie. you’d made yourself scarce for a reason.

“she’d be happy to see you again, she just didn’t want to overstep.”

you nodded, still not looking at the girl you fully believed would be your sister one day. “i’ll text her.”

the waiter came by moments later to take your orders. thankfully, the tears had cleared up out of your eyes. as soon as you’d cleared your throat, you were telling the server your order without your voice shaking.

you bore the grief well, you thought. you laughed when everyone else did, smiled when appropriate, and asked follow up questions. socializing wasn’t hard, years of galas and charity events as matt’s plus one had trained you well for moments like these, so long as you avoided the eyes of taryn and emma, both of whom knew you better than anyone else at the table.

emma paid with brady’s card like she’d promised earlier. unfortunately for you, that’s when the anxiety started to come back. taryn was leaving after dinner, too young to go to the bars with the rest of you, and according to what emma had told you, she had plans with friends.

the group left together, with taryn waving goodbye as the rest of you headed to a bar three blocks away. your hands were shaking, so you shoved them in your pockets to hide the trembling.

it’d get better once you got a few drinks in you, you told yourself. you’d loosen up soon enough.

emma opened a tab with brady’s card and you immediately started going in. the group started with a round of shots, but you were quickly ordering more than just tequila. it was only a matter of time before your vision started lagging and your brain began buffering to keep up with what was happening.

you were on the dance floor, grinding against a stranger, who thankfully, was keeping their hands to themselves, when emma tugged your arm, giggling. “everyone else has left. and i think it’s time for us to go,” she slurred, a giant smile on her face.

you allowed yourself to be tugged away from the stranger. “how do you know?” you asked, fumbling over your words like trying to catch a bar of soap with wet hands.

emma smiled and pointed at the bar where brady was, you assumed, closing out the tab. seeing him in the flesh had your heart stuttering. the anxiety was kicking back in, hitting harder than it did when you were sober. you hadn’t seen brady since november, or was it december? the months had blurred together just like that one scene from new moon.

but now you were seeing him in the flesh, and he was getting closer as emma tugged you over to where he was. brady was just slipping his card back in his wallet when the two of you got to him. he looked up and smiled at his fianceé before he even realized you were standing there. the lovesick smile dropped but it was quickly replaced with shock before it was transformed into a smile you could’ve painted from memory.

“hey!” he said just loud enough to be heard over the noise. “i didn’t think you were coming tonight.”

if you were sober, you’d see that statement as a warning, preparation for what was to come. you would’ve noticed the way his eyes kept darting to the entrance of the bar, but you didn’t. you were just happy to see him for the first time in a while, feeling the semblance of home you’d been missing for months.

if you were sober, you would’ve remembered that brady and his brother were a package deal. you would’ve known that the nights brady wasn’t spending with emma, he was spending with your ex, and when emma had inevitably texted (or brady offered) her fiancé to pick her up, that he was more than likely already out with his brother celebrating his upcoming nuptials.

if you were sober, you would’ve noticed him walk through the door because your eyes were always drawn to him. you would’ve known it was him by the smell of his cologne, instead of waiting for him to slap his brother on the shoulder in greeting.

if you were sober, you would’ve made a break for it the second he started approaching you, emma, and brady.

but you were drunk off your ass, and all you could do was stand there like a dumbfounded idiot while matthew brendan tkachuk glanced around the room.

brady shifted on his feet a little, bracing for the moment you both knew was coming. the moment where matt saw you for the first time since november 29, when he played calgary. you’d imagine to brady, it felt like watching a car accident happen in real time. to you though, you were the accident. you were the one getting hit by a bus going full speed. you were rooted to the spot, taking in every feature of matt’s face that you’d missed over the last six months, waiting for him to see you.

if you were sober, you would’ve run away by now, knowing that being that close to him would do nothing for you.

but it was too late now.

matt finally glanced at emma, then brady, until his eyes landed on you. the smile on his lips from the song that was bumping through the speakers dropped almost immediately. he recoiled, took a small step back, almost as if he was shocked to see you there at all.

you felt like an idiot.

you weren’t sure how long the two of you stared at each other before you took a deep breath and stared at your shoes.

your hands were shaking again.

you shoved them in your pockets again.

matt’s eyes darted to your shorts at the movement, his eyes scrunched together in what looked like concern, but you brushed that thought off before you could convince yourself he still cared. but you could feel his stare on you, even as you looked around and avoided eye contact. you felt like an ant, with matt’s gaze being the magnifying glass that was burning you with a beam of sunlight.

“do you have a ride home?” brady asked. your head whipped back around to look at him and emma.

you shrugged, already feeling more sober than you were two minutes ago. “was gonna uber.”

matt scoffed. “not happening.”

out of nowhere anger bubbled out of your chest and out of your mouth. “excuse me?”

matt fixed you with a hard stare, one you didn’t shy away from. “you’re not ubering home on a friday night drunk as hell. it’s not happening.”

“i think you lost the right to make my decisions six months ago.” you refused to say his name, refused to know what it felt like to have it back on your tongue even though your heart was crying out to utter those two syllables again.

brady interjected before the disagreement could escalate. “i just wanna make sure you get home safe,” he said. “can i drive you home?”

you glanced at the man you used to know like a little brother. you saw the sincerity in his eyes, the concern.

and maybe it was the love for brady and emma that had you accepting. or maybe it was the alcohol. you nodded your head and let emma lock arms with you as you were led out by the tkachuk brothers.

you found yourself in the backseat where you used to hold hands with matt when you went on double dates with brady and emma. the two of you used to tease the younger couple when they did literally anything romantic. if brady so much as grabbed emma’s hand, the two of you were gagging in the backseat “choking on their pda” all while knowing brady and emma have caught you in more compromising positions before.

but it wasn’t like that this time around.

you slid into your usual seat in the back before emma could offer up shotgun to you. maybe if you were more selfish, you’d accept, but you weren’t going to let your friend sit away from her fiancé when you could just suck it up.

the space between you and matt felt too suffocatingly small and yet it still felt like you were on two opposite sides of the globe. you thought about taking a risk and throwing yourself out of the moving vehicle, but there was still a wedding you were both in. you needed to figure out how to tolerate being around him if you didn’t want to cause a scene later in the summer.

you just had to make it to the end of july, then you could go back and pretend like december 16th never happened, like the past nine years of your life never happened. like you never fell in love with your best friend, like you never met him and his mother in fourth grade, like your parents never moved you to st. louis. like there weren’t traces of your failed relationship in every scrapbook in your parents’ house, like he wasn’t tied to every significant moment of your childhood.

you felt like the bundle of christmas lights that you’d sworn you put back in an orderly fashion the previous year, only to pull them out and realize you had an entire project on your hands to detangle them all.

except in the end, none of the lights worked anyway.

you could hardly remember a time where your life wasn’t deeply intertwined with matthew’s. you thought it’d lead to something, to marriage, to raising kids together, to celebrating his retirement, buying a home close to his family, and growing fat and old together.

you hated the idea that you went down that road only for it to be a dead end.

brady pulled up outside your house. you were unbuckling your seat belt and throwing the door open before he’d even put the car in park. you were doing your best to get to the front porch before anything else happened, but as hard as you tried, you were still a little too drunk. you were stumbling up the driveway and to the front door, all the while trying to figure out which key was the key to your house.

a car door slammed in the distance before footsteps followed.

you knew the sound like you knew the sound of your mother’s sadness. you would’ve recognized his footfalls anywhere.

in your haste and anxiety, you dropped your keys. you squatted down and nearly tipped over at the rush to your head. matt’s hand shot out before you could grab the keys while his other hand grabbed your elbow and pulled you into a standing position. he led you to the front door and with ease, found your house key. he unlocked the door but didn’t move to open it. you could feel his stare on the side of your face, but you refused to look back.

his touch on your skin felt like it was burning, and part of you wanted to rip your arm out of his grasp, but you couldn’t.

you just—

couldn't.

matt said your name quietly, but you just shook your head, willing the tears to go away. he didn’t get to see you cry, didn’t get to know that his actions had absolutely wrecked you. he tried again, but you inhaled and jerked your arm out of his reach before you opened your front door, grabbed your keys, and shut it in his face.

you barely made it into your bathroom before you threw up.

before

you were bouncing on your toes at the airport. matt’s plane landed fifteen minutes ago, and you were anxiously waiting for him to round the corner.

matt’s first year with the ntdp made your relationship a little difficult, though, you thought it would be harder than it was. modern technology definitely made it easier on you. matt would call you just about every other night, and if he couldn’t, matt was texting you whenever he had the freetime.

the last time you saw each other was when you and the tkachuks spent your spring break in ann arbor to visit, and that had been over a month ago. thankfully, you’d managed to convince your mom to let you check out of school early to wait for him.

“someone’s excited,” taryn teased, bumping her shoulder into your side. 

“honey leave her alone,” chantal chided. “we’re all excited.”

“i’m not,” brady grumbled. not even a beat later, keith was slapping the back of his head.

moments later, matt walked around the corner with his bags in hand. you fought every urge to run to him, deciding he probably wanted to greet his family first. and he did, you watched as he hugged his mom and dad first, moving the taryn, before punching brady in the shoulder.

you were nervously playing with the hem of your school issued plaid skirt as you looked on, suddenly feeling out of place. but it didn’t linger because in a blink of an eye, matt’s arms were wrapping around your waist and tugging you into his chest.

a sigh escaped your lips, one you didn’t even know was held hostage in your chest. maybe you were being dramatic (you were almost 16, after all), but it felt like the part of you that was missing was just returned.

“missed you,” he mumbled into your neck.

you couldn’t help the smile that graced your lips.

matt didn’t let go of you, even when everyone started walking towards the car where keith parked. your hand was tightly grasped in his own, forcing brady to carry the other bag matt couldn’t. to make up for it, you offered to sit in the back of keith’s escalade so brady could have more leg room. matt ended up grumbling about it, but it was clear he wasn’t going to let you sit in the back next to taryn when he hadn’t seen you in weeks.

“i ruined my perfect attendance streak for you,” you said as you traced the veins of his hands.

matt smirked. “i messed up little miss perfect’s squeaky clean record? how will you ever get into college now?”

you ripped your hand from his and shoved his shoulder, barely restraining yourself from cussing him out. “shut up,” was what you settled for because while taryn and brady had most definitely heard their fair share of curse words, you didn’t want to be the one on the receiving end of chantal’s disapproving look, even if it meant keith would be fighting for his life to hold back laughter.

all four of you, keith and chantal excluded, all but scrambled out of the car when it pulled into the garage. you and matt grabbed both of his bags before bum rushing into the house and up the stairs to his room.

“leave the door open!” chantal called from the first floor.

you didn’t need to see his face to know matt was rolling his eyes.

“i’m tempted to ignore her and just slam and lock the door,” he grumbled.

you dropped the bag you were holding and guffawed. “you wouldn’t. you love your mom.”

matt dropped his bag and immediately took the opportunity to grab you by the waist. “and i love you.”

you almost giggled, but you didn’t want to make a fool of yourself so you beamed instead. the first time he said those words was a few months ago over facetime and it still made you giddy as it did then.

matt pressed his forehead against yours. “you’re not gonna say it back?” he asked.

you blinked, still smiling. “what?”

“you're not gonna say you love me back?”

you shrugged, knowing it would get under his skin. you knew the consequences. “hm,” you hummed. “do i need to?”

matt rolled his eyes so hard you thought they might’ve gotten stuck in the back of his head. “quit being smart.”

and maybe you should’ve given up, maybe you should’ve let it go and say those three little words you’d said countless times before. but teasing him was way too much fun to pass up when you hadn’t seen him in months. so you pursed your lips and hummed again. “i seem to recall you saying you liked how smart i am. something about being the beauty and the brains?”

and out of nowhere, taryn popped her head in. “well matt for sure wasn’t going to be the beauty, and he’s never been the brains,” she smirked.

matt let go of you and marched over to the door, all but slamming it in her face.

“matthew brendan tkachuk! that door better be open!” chantal’s voice carried up the stairs had you lunging across the room and whipping open the door in a hurry.

“sorry mrs. tkachuk!” you called out before turning around and glaring at your boyfriend. “you’re a menace.”

matthew smirked and pulled you close enough that you were chest to chest. “but you love me.”

“i love you so much.”

after

the hangover you had the next morning was probably the worst you ever remember having. well, until you remembered the night matt broke up with you, that was the worst one.

you turned over in bed, picked up your phone, and saw multiple texts from emma and brady alike, both ranging from “it was great to see you” to “i’m so sorry about last night.” you groaned and dropped your phone back on the nightstand.

last night, when you thought about it, hurt more than it should’ve. you saw him for the first time in the flesh and it looked like he was fine, like he didn’t completely upend your life six months ago when he ended things. part of you wondered if he could see through you, through the illusion of your happiness and to the core where you were just as fractured as you were december 17th. 

the rest of the weekend continued with you doing little to nothing but eating and binging trashy reality tv shows. when your alarm went off on monday morning, you contemplated calling off, but got dressed instead.

“you look like hell,” was the first thing frankie, your mentor and boss, said to you. because of the nature of your relationship, you felt comfortable flipping him off, even as he passed you a cup of coffee. “rough night?” he asked after watching you take a hefty sip of the hot beverage.

“rough weekend,” you grumbled.

frankie gave you a small smile and patted you on the back as the two of you walked to the workspace. “wanna talk about it?”

you recognized performative kindness when you saw it. while you firmly believed frankie cared about you and your wellbeing, you also knew he didn’t want to hear the sob story of how you ran into your ex drunk at a bar, at least, not at 8am. so you shook your head.

“i looked at some of your work on the bradshaw family’s piece so far, and i was impressed. i do have some notes, but for the most part, you’ve been doing a great job.”

you did your best to smile gratefully, but you weren’t sure it translated. “i really appreciate your guidance on this, and the trust you have to let me work on some of these projects.”

“you’re very talented,” he said. “you ever thought about creating something for yourself or someone else?”

there wasn’t a word to describe the noise that came out of your mouth. was it a nervous laugh? a squeak maybe? you didn’t know, and neither did frankie.

“what?” he asked. “why is that so scary?”

you shrugged as the two of you made it to the workspace. normally, you would start by pulling out the supplies you needed to begin working on the bradshaw piece, but if frankie met you at the door, it was because he wanted to have an impromptu meeting first.

“i feel like i’m good at fixing things,” you said. “maybe not creating something from thin air.”

“you have so much talent,” frankie replied. “i hate to see it wasted on fixing and preserving someone else’s work when you could be doing both. it could be your art that people hang in their houses and pay thousands of dollars to preserve.”

you nodded, but kept your eyes on the table, studying the wood grain and tracing the pattern with your finger.

“i don’t think i’m capable of that anymore.”

frankie reached over and squeezed your shoulder. “just think on it, okay? couldn’t hurt to just think on it.” he walked out a moment later, giving you space and time to queue up music and get started on the day.

you opened spotify and pressed the play button on your liked songs without even thinking about it. not even two seconds later, you regretted your decision. the soft tones and beats of frank ocean’s thinkin bout you echoed through the room and slammed against your chest. you immediately switched the song and found a classical playlist to listen to instead.

but the tune wouldn’t get out of your head.

not two minutes later.

not thirty minutes later.

not after your full eight hour shift spent hunched over your workstation.

not even on the drive home.

frank ocean’s voice permeated every fiber of your being.

it was simone who first showed you the song in high school. you remembered liking the melody enough, but you didn’t get the lyrics. and why would you? you were in love with your best friend who loved you back. even though you were fourteen and too young to even think about marriage, you knew matthew was going to be the person you ended up with. it was him or no one.

and now it was no one.

now, you listened to the song play over and over in your head, the lyrics resonating with you deeper than ever before.

you pulled into your driveway, completely unaware of what cars were parked in the street. they’d never mattered to you before. why would they now?

you sat in your car for a few minutes, taking a deep breath while you worked up the courage to go inside. when you finally got a grip on your emotions, you opened your door and grabbed your bag. you were too busy fumbling with your keys to notice anything amiss until you were on your porch and a pair of shoes came into sight.

“hey.”

it took everything in you not to scream. you dropped your keys and nearly dropped your bag. matthew stood on your front porch with his hands in the pockets in his shorts like he was innocent of any pain or suffering he’d caused you. he was in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and you hated yourself a little bit for thinking he’s attractive like that.

“what’re you doing here?” you hated how hoarse your voice sounded, like a low quality audio recording where things sounded muffled and broken.

“your dad wouldn’t let me in.”

“good.”

matt sighed and ran a hand down his face. “can we not do this?”

“not do what?” you asked. “not act like you ended things for no damn reason?”

“if you—”

“we dated for nearly ten years and you decided to end it over a five minute phone call. and you still think you’re entitled to my time?” and maybe you should’ve been kinder, maybe you should’ve been more civil. but you hadn’t seen or heard from him in months (until a few nights ago) and he just turned up out of the blue? expecting you to do what? forgive him? move on?

matthew said your name delicately, but not in the way he used to, like saying your name was a luxury he was honored to have. no, he said it like you were going to break, like you were fragile, like he wasn’t the sole cause of your pain. “please—”

the anger was draining out of you quicker. you were exhausted between work, and frank ocean’s stupid song, and the other night. 

“what do you want?” your voice cracked on the last word. “wanna ruin my life a little bit more? put the final nail in the coffin?”

“no,” he shook his head fervently. matthew took a step towards you and looked something close to devastated when you stepped back. but it didn’t make sense, he ended it, he had no right to look or feel that way. “i just wanna talk.”

“six months,” you said, doing your best to keep your voice clear. “you had six months to say something. what could you possibly have to say now that you couldn’t then?”

“i know we didn’t end on the best of terms—” he started, but it was cut off by your scoff. you turned your head away and used your palm to wipe at your eyes before you crossed your arms over your chest. “—but i don’t think we should let this ruin brady and emma’s summer. we’re gonna see a lot of each other and i don’t want things to be tense around them.”

you took a minute to really look at him. blonde frizzy curls, blue eyes that wouldn’t leave your face. he hadn’t changed one bit.

one summer, you’d attempted to count the number of freckles on his shoulders. you got up to 87 before you gave up.

and yet you felt like you were standing in front of a stranger.

there were so many things you wanted to say, so many things you’d dreamt of screaming at him, but now that he was here, in front of you, asking something of you, you felt drained, tired. you used to crave his presence, now it felt like a leech.

you loved him, but he was sucking the life out of you.

so you nodded. you nodded and said “okay,” before you walked inside your front door and left your heart on the porch.

you pressed your back against the door and slid to the ground, pulling your knees to your chest. there was no telling when you started crying, or when your dad joined you on the floor, hugging you as close to his chest as he could.

“why wasn’t i enough?” you sobbed into your knees.

your dad petted your hair before he pressed a kiss there. “you’re more than enough, honey. but you can’t make anyone love you if they’re not willing to.”

“he used to!” you wailed. “he used to love me!” then, in a smaller voice, “what changed?”

a beat of silence, then your father’s somber, quiet voice. “maybe he did.”

before

“so what are your plans for after high school?” ms. meyer, your high school guidance counselor sat across from you at her desk. her stare was kind, but unwavering.

you’d already applied to notre dame, knowing that’s where matt committed. so when you answered, it was confident. it had been your plan since matt said yes to the school. “i’m going to notre dame and majoring in art history.”

“do you have any back up schools?”

you nodded. “ucla and the art institute of chicago.”

ms. meyer pursed her lips. “you know all of those places are highly competitive, right?”

“my transcripts and resume are impressive and I did really well on the SAT and ACT. i think i’ll be able to get in.” and you were, you were pretty confident as they come when it came to academics. any school would’ve been lucky to have you, that much you believed.

ms. meyer nodded. “i understand ucla and the art institute, both of those schools have incredible arts programs, but why notre dame? it doesn’t seem to fit with your aspirations.”

“oh,” you laughed under your breath. “that’s where my boyfriend is going.”

your guidance counselor blinked. “you’re incredibly smart and gifted, i’d hate to see that talent wasted when you could be developing it elsewhere. what do you want?”

“i want to be with matthew.”

ms. meyer sighed and gave you a sympathetic smile, you weren’t sure why though. you’d never been more sure of anything. “honey, can i be honest with you?” she didn’t wait for your response. “you have so much talent, so much to offer, i’ve seen many girls come in here, putting off aspirations for their significant others only for that relationship not to last.”

“i know we’re young,” you started, already feeling the heat rise up in your chest. she didn’t know anything about you personally, she didn’t know about you and matt. “but we’re gonna make it, i swear.”

ms. meyer nodded. “of course you are.” she cleared her throat and adjusted the papers in front of her. “so, notre dame...”

after

you weren't exactly sure what compelled you to do it, but at dinner a few nights ago, your mom had asked about what happened to simone, your friend from middle and high school. so you reached out, though it made you feel like you were contacting someone to join your mlm.

it legitimately surprised you when simone replied to your facebook message. the two of you made plans to get coffee on saturday.

and now it was saturday.

you weren’t getting coffee until 9:30, but you were awake and staring at your ceiling at 7. you’d done the due diligence of stalking simone’s profile, so you knew she was married with two kids who looked just like her. she worked as a data analyst for kroger and her husband was a public defender. she met her husband in college and they got married shortly after they graduated from grad and law school respectively. 

if you were a better woman, you’d admit you were jealous. jealous that she got what she wanted in the end. but when you put that aside, you still felt overwhelming happiness at her station in life, regardless of how yours turned out.

you kept scrolling through her social media until it was eventually time for you to get up. you stayed to facebook, not even wanting to bother with going on instagram and accidentally stumbling across one of the tkachuks’ posts.

it was 9:10 when you finally finished getting dressed and ready. you came down the stairs and threw a goodbye over your shoulder before grabbing your crossbody bag and your keys and running out the door.

despite your sprinting and nearly running red lights, you were still five minutes late. you came into the coffee shop, gasping for air after sprinting down the sidewalk from your parking spot.

the second you entered the business, simone’s hand lifted and she smiled brightly, calling you over almost immediately. she stood to greet you, and like no time had passed, pulled you in for a hug.

“it’s so good to see you,” she said. “wasn’t sure if you still liked an iced chai latte, but i got one for you.”

“oh my god, yes,” you gasped before taking a seat and taking a sip of the beverage.

she kept smiling, which made you feel lighthearted for once. most people kept looking at you with pitying eyes, but simone saw you for more than the grief of the last six months. she had to know about it, she just had to, but you thanked her for not bringing it up in the first minute of your conversation.

“how’s work going?”

you shrugged. “it’s mostly tedious, but it’s been fine. what about you? working for kroger? that’s a huge deal.”

simone shook her head. “it’s just a means to an end, a way i can pay for my family’s lifestyle.”

“but are you passionate about what you do?”

she shrugged lightly. “it’s a job, it’s not my life. not everyone is going to work a job that fulfills them. my husband? he loves being a public defender, and he’s good at it. me though, as fun as analyzing data all day sounds and as helpful as it is, getting to have a job that doesn’t come home with me is probably my favorite part of it.”

you nodded along like you understood. and maybe you didn’t do a good enough job at being convincing because simone sighed.

“i wanted to wait to ask this, but i can’t hold it in any longer. how’re you holding up?”

it took you several seconds to answer her question. your mouth open and closed multiple times. “i— i don't know.” you sank back into your seat and picked at your cuticles. “it’s been a shitty few months,” you admitted. “you’d think i’d be over it by now.

simone shook her head and leaned in, arms braced on the table. “you two were together for a decade, what’s a few months in comparison to that?”

you shrugged. “i saw him the other night, when i went out drinking with the other bridesmaids. it was like, i don't know, i got dunked in an ice bath or something. he looked completely unaffected and i couldn’t breathe.”

simone whispered your name.

“but i’m fine!” you asserted. “i’m trying to be.”

simone nodded. “so what do you do now?”

you could’ve kissed her feet for the change in topic. “i’m working in the art restoration and conservation field.”

simone blinked. “you’re restoring art? do you like it?”

you shrugged. “most days, it can get repetitive, but that’s what i like.”

your friend sighed and fixed you with a soft, sympathetic look. “but is that what you want to do for the rest of your life? restoring someone else’s art? doing something repetitive? you are so talented, i hate to see you wasting that talent restoring someone else’s work.”

“it’s not a waste! it’s incredibly difficult and some things deserve to be preserved.”

“but some new things deserve to be created.” simone leaned in closer, her forearms braced on the table. “i think it would do you some good to start creating something again, even if it’s shitty. and you think you aren’t ready, just try something new. a new bar, a new hobby, a new man, something new.”

your stomach twisted at the thought of going on a date with someone other than matt, but simone was right. it had been six months and he seemed to be doing fine, it was your turn to start moving on, to find yourself again.

so you nodded. “we should do this more often,” you said. “i’ve missed you.”

simone smiled. “i’ve missed you too, i’m glad you’re home.”

you talked for another hour about everything the two of you had missed over the years of you being elsewhere before she had to leave and relieve the nanny at home. simone hugged you goodbye and texted you her new number before she left the coffee shop. 

the drive home was quiet because you were pondering the things she’d said. you weren’t sure you were ready for making your own art, you sure as hell weren’t ready to go on a date. but maybe you should try.

maybe you were ready to put yourself first for once.

before

the biggest argument you’d had with matt was after you found out he wasn’t playing at notre dame at all, he was going to play for calgary.

you felt so stupid for committing to that school when you should’ve known your boyfriend was talented enough to skip it altogether. maybe you should’ve taken a gap year, then you wouldn’t have to be doing even more long distance in two different countries.

the two of you never argued, or maybe never was too strong of a word. you hardly ever had a disagreement if you thought about it long enough. most of the time, you suppressed the disappointment and the anger, shoving it to the side because you were surely being dramatic.

but now you were standing off to the side, waiting for your name to be called to cross the stage at your high school graduation, and you wished you’d said something to convince matthew to delay settling into his new calgary apartment with one of his teammates.

but you swallowed your disappointment and pride and just dealt with the fact that he wouldn’t be there.

it was fine.

just high school.

you were snapped out of your reverie when your name was called. you smiled and walked across the stage. when you dreamt of this exact moment, you always thought you’d walk with grace, that all noise would cease to exist as you honed in on the sheet of paper you’d spent the last 13 years working towards.

but it wasn’t like that.

because you heard one specific voice above all the others. as your principal handed you the diploma, your eyes searched the crowd and saw him.

matthew standing up and yelling with his family next to him. he had a sign, the words you couldn’t read because there were tears forming in your water line. he was pointing at you and kept yelling and clapping, hooting and hollering like it was his full time job. your parents were smiling, though they were seated, and your grandparents were stone faced clapping like they were at the masters tournament.

so you kept your eyes on him, even as you walked back to your seat. you might have stumbled, tripped even, but all you could see, all you could feel was him.

you were back in your seat by the time the person calling out the names spoke again.

“please hold your applause until the end.”

you could hear his scoff, even from your seat.

your leg bounced for the rest of the graduation ceremony. you didn’t even register the turning of your tassel. you just couldn’t wait for it to be over so you could be in matt’s arms.

as soon as the ceremony concluded, matt was shoving his way past families, nearly taking out an elderly gentleman in his quest to get to you. on the other hand, you were being pushed to move farther away from him as the procession of students filed out of the gym. you kept looking over your shoulder to find him, but it looked like brady had caught up to him, wrangling his older brother to follow the crowds outside.

“outside!” brady pointed.

you nodded.

as soon as you got through the gym doors, you were booking it outside into the sunlight. it blinded you momentarily, but you whipped your phone out seconds later to see if matt had texted you where he’d be. you pulled up his contact and were seconds away from calling him when arms wrapped around your waist and lifted you up into the air.

a squeal left your lips until he set you down a moment later. you spun around in his arms and before you could say anything, matthew was kissing you like no one else was around.

when the two of you finally needed air, you pulled away. “i thought you were in calgary!”

matthew scoffed though there was a large smile on his lips. “you thought i’d miss my favorite girl’s graduation? calgary can wait, your high school graduation only happens once.”

“i’m glad you’re here,” you whispered. 

“me too, baby.”

unfortunately, matt pulled away so you could hug your parents and even your grandparents who were standing off to the side. taryn and brady pulled you into a group hug afterwards, with taryn going on a tangent about all the fun things the two of you would have to do before you left for school.

but brady was taking your graduation cap off your head to ruffle your hair as matt grabbed your purse and took your car keys out. keith and chantal were offering to pay for a celebratory lunch while your grandparents gave an irish goodbye. your parents were smiling, you were tucked into matt’s side, and brady and taryn were bickering and—

everything was perfect.

you wanted to freeze that moment, that sensation in your chest, take the saccharine feeling and bottle it up and store it on your bookshelf. 

and if you could’ve, you would’ve savored the sensation of matt’s lips pressed to your temple while both of your dads discussed the best route to get to the restaurant.

but you had no idea how the future would turn out.

you thought matt was forever.

after

you were on a double date, or at least, hyping yourself up to go into the bar and meet up with simone, her husband, and a friend of theirs. you didn’t want to be a bitch, but you also didn’t want to send yourself into a panic attack. simone had suggested just entertaining something with someone, didn’t even have to be serious, it could just be sex.

you could do that, right?

just casual sex?

the thought was nauseating. you’d only slept with matthew, no one knew your body like he did and—

you stopped yourself before you could go down that rabbit hole.

your hands shook as you stepped out of your car and locked it. maybe you should’ve gotten an uber, but then again, you weren’t really planning on drinking like that. you were hoping you’d still be sober enough to go home.

the music in the bar shockingly wasn’t as loud as you expected. it wasn’t the bass bumping, ass grinding bar like the ones matt used to take you to after games. even still, your palms started sweating as you looked around. you spotted simone’s natural hair across the room and made your way towards her. 

her husband, stephen, stood to greet you first, followed by simone, then lastly your date. a guy named andrew who was a partner at his firm, the youngest on his team.

his handshake was firm, but there were no calluses on his palm. his hair was slicked back with what you guessed was a pomade.

he was so unlike matthew it was alarming.

but maybe it was for the best.

you smiled and took your seat next to simone, you sipped on the water in front of you.

“we didn’t want to order drinks without you just yet.”

“thank you,” you mumbled just loud enough for everyone to hear.

“it’s nice to finally meet you,” andrew started. “simone spoke highly of you. she said you’ve been friends since middle school.”

you felt bad because simone didn’t really say much to you about him. if you were a gambler, you’d assume it was because she didn’t want you to back out. you barely even knew him and you were already comparing him to matt.

which wasn’t fair, you knew that. andrew deserved to be a human without the baggage of your last and only relationship determining how you viewed him.

you would try, at the very least for simone. at the very most, you’d try for yourself.

“nice to meet you too. i heard you’re a partner at your law firm? how is that going?”

oh god. you were so bad at this. asking about work on a friday night?

but he smiled. his teeth were perfectly straight and white. you'd bet your last dollar that he'd never needed braces, not like you did.

you hated yourself for thinking of the gap between matthew’s teeth.

“it’s going well,” he said. “lot of work, but i managed to get enough done this week that my friday was free. i wanted to meet the ‘best artist on planet earth,’ according to simone.”

“oh i don’t know about that,” you flushed.

simone scoffed. “don’t downplay yourself.” she turned to look at andrew. “you should see the art she created in high school as a teenager. it was so impressive.”

“what medium do you like working with the most?” he asked.

“mostly acrylic.”

andrew’s eyes lit up. “do you have any photos of your art? i’d love to see your work.”

you shook your head, feeling a little embarrassed at all the attention. “i don’t really paint like that anymore. i work in art conservation now, not a whole lot of time to create something new.”

“that’s such a unique career! what does your average day look like?” andrew leaned forward a little and took a sip of his water.

you told him a little bit about what you did. about how you spent hours hunched over a painting and fixing the smallest problems in hopes it would satisfy the client.

“you must’ve gone to some prestigious art school for that. if you don’t mind me asking, where did you go to college?”

your spine stiffened. “university of calgary.”

and just like you anticipated, his face twisted in confusion. there was no logical reason you should’ve gone out of the country for a regular school. it would be one thing if you went to an art institute, but you didn’t.

“why calgary?” he asked. “seems a bit random, if you don’t mind me asking.”

you shifted in your seat and wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. it wasn’t until you cleared your throat in a sorry attempt to get the lump out, that you spoke. “it’s a long story,” you said. “thought i had a future in calgary.”

andrew, to his credit, knew when to not ask questions and changed the subject immediately.

the rest of the night passed in a blur. you were only halfway present, your mind reeling at how you wasted those years in calgary waiting for a man who would dump you as soon as he moved to a warmer state.

he, quite literally, left you in the cold.

andrew offered to walk you to your car, an offer you accepted because it was dark and st. louis.

“i had a great time tonight,” he said. “it was really nice to meet you. you’re even better than simone and stephen said.”

you gave him a small smile. “it was nice to meet you too.”

andrew shifted on his feet. for a moment, he didn’t look the part of the youngest partner at his law firm, he looked like a boy. “i was hoping maybe you’d want to do this again? maybe get some dinner?”

your throat felt like someone had force fed you cotton balls. but then you thought about how pathetic your life had been the last six months, how pathetic it was going to be when you flew to new jersey to be in the same bridal party as your ex.

you refused to be pathetic any longer.

which is probably why you smiled (albeit shakily) and said yes.

before

you were bouncing on your toes in the hallway as you waited for matt. it was a brutal game, and he spent a good portion of it in the penalty box, mostly for minor things, but one incident was for fighting. which wasn’t atypical, but you’d never seen him that keyed up before.

and given his reputation, there were any number of things that could’ve caused the fight itself. two weeks ago, matt had fought someone for being too forceful with one of his teammates, which after years of watching the game, was on par with the sport and your boyfriend.

because he fought so much, you weren’t necessarily surprised whenever he did. sure, you flinched when he was punched, knowing how badly it would bruise, praying to whatever higher power existed that he would still have all his teeth. but usually, matt wasn’t trying to fight everyone on the ice at all times.

tonight was different.

safe to say, you were a little anxious waiting for him to come out.

you weren’t exactly sure about what was said on the ice to get him so riled up. the worst you’d seen was when someone on the other team said something about taryn. you used to think that was the angriest you ever saw him. and it was.

until tonight.

you could feel the energy rolling off of him in waves as he exited the locker room. usually, after a win, matt is relaxed and easy going, but despite the victory from tonight, he was tense and pent up, frustrated even.

“hey,” you said, meeting him halfway.

matthew didn’t respond, just dropped his bag and wrapped you up in a hug, tucking his head into the space where your neck met your shoulder.

“you okay?” you asked.

he nodded. he squeezed your waist once before letting go, taking your hand instead. “ready to go?”

the car ride was silent minus the music matthew had playing through the aux. his hand rested on your thigh, though the grip was particularly tighter than normal, especially after a win. part of you wanted to ask, the other part not wanting to spoil the rest of the night with your curiosity.

but this was the man you loved. and it hurt you to see him this upset.

normally, you would’ve left well enough alone, but you were going back to notre dame in two days and didn’t want to spend the rest of your time walking on eggshells around him. you couldn’t help him if you didn’t know what was wrong.

“what happened?” you asked when the car came to a stop at a light.

“nothing,” he grunted.

“your team won and you’re still grumpy, matthew. so tell me, what happened? i want to help you.”

“there’s nothing to help.”

“matthew,” you groaned. “i’m only here for two days, can you just be honest with me? i don’t wanna waste the rest of my trip with you being upset when i can help you—”

“then go back to indiana!” he all but yelled, ripping his hand off your thigh so he could shove it through his disheveled hair.

your jaw dropped. in all the years you’d known matt, he'd never talked to you that way. and you weren’t starting a bad habit by letting him think he could ever do it again. you unbuckled your seat belt and grabbed your bag. you tugged on the handle of the door. “i’ll see you at home,” you said.

matt scoffed. “don’t be dramatic.”

“i’m not being ‘dramatic,’ matthew. you’re being an asshole.” you braced yourself for the cold as the door opened and let in a cold breeze.

matthew called your name, but you ignored him and slammed the car door shut. it was a little petty, considering how matt had berated his siblings over the same thing.

a car honked, probably because the light had turned green and matt was still sitting at the light, looking at you.

a cold wind blew and for a moment, you thought about hopping back in the car with matt, but he was pulling away and your pride wasn’t ready to take a hit just yet.

his car sped away until, with an efficiency you only wish you had, he parallel parked in a spot just up the road.

“get in the car,” he called, slamming his car door shut. “it’s too cold for you to be proving a point.”

“and what point am i trying to prove, matthew?” you asked over your shoulder.

you kept walking.

“would you please stop walking and just get back in the car?”

you kept walking.

a hand reached out and grabbed your wrist, you might’ve shrieked had it not been gentle, had you not recognized the scent of matt’s cologne.

gently, he turned you around.

“baby, just get in the car. you don’t even have to talk to me. don't even have to look at me if you don’t want to. i’ll sleep on the couch or something, but it’s not safe for you to be walking home alone.” he ran his thumb back and forth over your pulse point in a soothing manner.

you kept your eyes on his hand. “what happened during the game?

he sighed, shoulders sagging like they were tired from carrying the weight of the world. “they were talking shit.”

you blinked. “and that’s different....how?”

with the hand that wasn’t holding your wrist, matthew pinched the bridge of his nose. “they were talking shit about you. saying you deserved better and shit.”

“matthew, you know that’s not true—”

“they called you names.” his voice was dark, angrier than you'd ever heard before. “things i’m not comfortable repeating.”

a shiver went down your spine, for matt to be that upset made you uncomfortable. you didn’t want to think about what they said, you didn’t want to dwell on it any longer.

“well,” you said, voice feeling small and weak in your throat. “well, we know it’s not true, so it doesn’t matter.” you tried to make your way back to the car, but matt’s grip on your wrist stopped you.

“but it does matter,” he insisted. “what they said, i get it wasn't true, you and i both know that. but i’m not gonna let anyone talk shit about you, i don’t care who they are.”

your eyes finally met his own and in the blue you saw determination and conviction there. you started towards him and wrapped your arms around his waist.

“i love you, matty.”

he kissed the top of your head. “love you more.”

after

“where are you going?” your mom asked from the couch.

your dad looked up from his james patterson book to squint at your outfit: a square neck black dress. “are you going out?” he chimed in.

you felt sheepish, like the fifteen year old girl going on her first solo date, no parents picking her up because matt just got his license. “remember that guy i went on a double date with?”

“with simone and her husband?” you mom asked.

you nodded. “we’re going out again, just us tonight.”

your mother gave you a small smile while you dad kept staring. “have fun, sweetheart.”

your dad, however, put his book down and looked at you above the rim of his glasses. “are you gonna be okay?”

“alan, this will be good for her!”

but your dad’s eyes never left your face. “you’ll call if you need something?”

“andrew’s a good guy, dad.” or at least, you were assuming so. you’d only met the guy one other time and he seemed alright.

but you could see the look in your father’s eyes, you could hear what he wasn’t saying.

so was matthew.

you swallowed and nodded at your parents. your phone pinged with a notification that your uber was outside. “i’ll be back.”

the drive to the bar was silent. usually, you wouldn’t have taken an uber, but you were unsure how drunk you would get tonight. the date could go well, it could be everything you wanted, even if all you wanted was matthew. 

but you were prepared for the worst. you were prepared to drink until you couldn’t see straight just to get through the night.

andrew was a nice guy, but he wasn’t who you wanted.

and you hated yourself for it.

the uber pulled up to the bar. and simply because he didn’t kidnap or talk to you, you gave the driver five stars.

andrew was waiting at a high top table for you, a glass of water ready to go. you waved at him and carefully made your way across the room, avoiding people and drinks and people with drinks.

“hey,” he greeted.

you gave him a small smile. “hi.”

“was traffic bad on your way here? i wasn’t sure, given that it’s friday and what not.”

you shook your head. “not too bad.” 

c’mon, think of something. say something. anything.

“crazy busy tonight, huh?” you wanted to facepalm. that was what you came up with? all the words in the world and that was what you—

“yeah,” andrew cut off your mental tirade. “i think some famous guys are here tonight, heard murmurs of it.”

you nearly broke out into a cold sweat. “d-do you know who?”

andrew shrugged. “i didn’t ask, i just heard someone talking about it when i was getting a drink.” then, like he finally realized, he snapped. “do you want anything? i can grab it for you.”

you gave him your drink order with a smile. he tapped the table with his knuckles before promising he'd be right back.

you traced the grain of the table with your finger, allowing it to feel the grooves and water stains left from other customers. it felt awkward, sitting by yourself with no one to talk to. andrew said he'd be back, but the bar was busy, it could be ten, fifteen minutes before he'd come back.

your phone buzzed.

simone: 

how’s it going?

you smiled despite yourself. 

you:

he’s nice. he went to get me a drink.

you put your phone down to look around the bar. it was busier than normal, or at least, what you thought was normal.

you were scrolling through your social media feeds when andrew finally came back. he had your drink in hand with a smile on his face.

“sorry, the line took forever,” he said.

you glanced at the bar to see a small crowd of people. “doesn’t surprise me,” you said. “friday’s are usually busy.”

“yeah especially when there’s two hockey players in town. heard someone at the bar talking about it, thought you might wanna know. simone said you were a fan?”

your stomach dropped to your feet. you took a hefty sip of your drink to avoid andrew seeing a frown on your face. there was a chance that it was a blues player still in town, but your gut knew better. if you were a betting woman, you'd bet your last dollar on it being brady and matt.

you wanted to throw up.

instead, you chugged the drink.

“whoa, you okay?” andrew’s eyes widened a little, maybe in concern, but there was something about the smirk on his face that said otherwise.

you gave him a shaky smile. “just fine. can i get another drink?”

he smiled immediately and got up to get you another.

and another.

and another.

your vision was blurring a little when you tried to cut yourself off, even as andrew was sliding another glass in front of you. you threw the drink back again, not even blinking at it.

matt and brady could be here. it was too soon to see them again, you weren't prepared to see them again. maybe if you drank enough, you’d black out and forget all about tonight.

but then andrew was grabbing your elbow, he was leading you towards the door, encroaching upon your personal space. his lips were on your neck, whispers of what he had planned for you.

your skin crawled, you wanted him off of you, but your arms were sluggish, you were tripping over your feet and he was the only thing holding you up.

“no,” you slurred. “lemme go.”

but he either didn’t hear you or was ignoring you because he kept dragging you to the door.

then the panic set in.

it felt like it came out of nowhere, but maybe the surmounting panic was always there like a loyal friend. you tried squirming out of his grip, shoving at his chest, but the panic was building the longer he held onto you. your head was shaking furiously, your mouth doing its best to protest, but it was like the alcohol made your tongue heavy.

“lemme go—” you tried shoving one more time before you heard a shout in the distance. 

“hey!” you weren’t aware of the people around you being shoved to the side, you were unaware of the rage surrounding you. you were unaware until andrew was ripped away and you were being shoved into another body.

“matt hey—”

brady. you were right, brady was here.

god you loved brady.

“brady?” you slurred, smiling lazily up at him. “you’re here! why’re you here?”

with one arm, brady kept you pressed to him, but he wasn’t acknowledging you. his eyes were focused on his brother holding the collar of your date.

oh. your date.

there was no rhyme or reason for the feeling of horror that washed over you when you realized what almost happened before matt and brady showed up.

you were gonna throw up.

or pass out.

you weren’t sure when you started hyperventilating, but it felt like the walls were closing in. was the music always this loud? was matt always that loud when yelling? you wouldn’t know, he hardly ever yelled at you—

“hey,” brady’s gentle voice sounded it your ear, but it was like you were hearing it from underwater. “hey, breathe, it’s okay. you’re safe now.”

the funny thing about hyperventilating is no one wants to be hyperventilating. it’s similar to worrying in that telling someone to stop worrying is ineffective. brady telling you to breathe wasn’t helping because it wasn’t like you wanted to be light headed and struggling to get oxygen.

your mind was just racing with the thoughts of what almost happened.

were your hands shaking? or was the world just rocky? was it the alcohol? why did andrew give you so much? was he planning on—

oh god.

oh god.

“matt!” brady’s voice again sounding like a deep echo in a cave, one you could barely hear. “matt, i think he got the point, she needs you.”

did you?

but it didn’t matter what you thought, because you were being gently pulled into a pair of arms you would’ve recognized anywhere. you could be deaf, blind, and mute, you could’ve had your nose plugged so you couldn’t smell his aftershave and you still would’ve known it was matt. his arms were the only ones that felt like home.

maybe it was the way your head tucked under his chin perfectly, or the way you could hold your own hand when you wrapped your arms around his waist. maybe it was the way matt tried to fit you into his ribcage whenever he hugged you.

“hey,” his voice was quiet, hoarse from the yelling probably. “you’re okay, i’ve got you. nothing’s gonna hurt you, not while i’m here.” his lips were on the top of your head, mumbling the words into your hair.

“he—he was gonna—”

matt was shushing you, running a hand up and down your back. “do you wanna go outside? get some fresh air?” you nodded against his chest, a place you used to lay your head on at night.

matt walked you outside, brady not far behind. he was supporting most of your weight. you were still incredibly drunk even if the event that just happened sobered you up a little.

your hands were still shaking, your knees a little weak, though you weren’t sure what the original cause of that was. if it was from alcohol, the sleazy date, or just being held by your ex, you weren’t sure.

what a year tonight has been.

your heartbeat slowed down as you listened to matt’s. his hand continued to rub your back in long lines.

“you’re okay,” he continued to say. “i’m not gonna leave you. you’re safe right here, baby.”

your heart soared at the pet name until gravity kicked in and you were right back where you started.

rock bottom.

you pushed away from matt, now that your heart rate had decreased. you stumbled a bit from the lack of stability, but you managed to right yourself before matt could get his hands on you to help you balance.

“you okay?” he asked.

“no,” you mumbled, shaking your head despite the world feeling like it was spinning too fast already. “no. i’m not okay.”

matt took a step towards you, it was like watching a film in slow motion, seeing his face fall as you immediately took a step back.

“baby i—”

“stop! stop calling me that!” you yelled even as your words slurred, throwing your hands up in the air before pulling at your hair. “you—you don’t get to call me that, not anymore. and you certainly don’t get to ride in like some white knight coming to my rescue either!”

“what’re you—” he cut himself off before running a hand down his face. “he was going to hurt you, i wasn’t going to let that happen!”

maybe it was the alcohol that made you more honest than normal. “why? you don’t seem to care what happens anyway?”

“what the hell are you talking about? i would never let someone hurt you, not if i can stop it.”

“but you had no problem hurting me? leaving me in a country alone?”

matt’s jaw dropped. “you can’t seriously be comparing the two. he—he almost—he had every intention of—” but he kept cutting himself off. and by the looks of his clenched fists, it was hurting him more just thinking about it.

and he was right, what almost happened with andrew and what actually happened at the hands of matt were two different things, but it hurt more from matt, the man who swore he’d be at your side, to love you through it all. he’d dropped you like a bad habit and was expecting everything to be normal again? like you hadn’t spent over half your life completely in love with him?

you sighed, your shoulders sagged, all fight evaporating your body once more. “thanks for help, i’ll see you around.” you turned on your heel and nearly ran into brady, whom you forgot was even there.

“let me drive you home,” brady said. “‘s the least i could do.”

brady at least let you sit shotgun this time, with matt in the back. and when he pulled up to your house, matt was the one to walk you to the door like he had many times before.

“can we talk?” he asked. “sometime this week? or next? or whenever you're free?”

you looked at him, really looked at him. his hands shook at his sides and you longed to hold them in your own to steady them like he did for you earlier. “why’re you doing this to me? why can’t you just leave me be?”

matt stared at you before he pressed his lips together. he looked off to the side almost like he was looking at brady waiting in the car or a scrap of self control, or maybe just the right words to say. “i don’t think i’m capable of letting you go.”

your voice caught on the words in your throat. “i need you to try, matt. because i can’t keep doing this. you can’t call me baby when i’m not your baby anymore.”

he nodded. “just one conversation, i promise.”

you should say no. you should just let it go, but you didn’t think you could deny matt anything if he really asked for it. “okay,” you said. “just one conversation.”

#matthew tkachuk imagine #matthew tkachuk x reader #matthew tkachuk #nhl imagine #nhl imagines #nhl blurb

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

@throwaway20506 so I'm alerted when this is posted

WIBTA if I asked my boyfriend to pay for things more often?

I'm currently dating a guy who is from a very wealthy family, like. Super wealthy. As in, he lives in a one bedroom apartment downtown in one of the most expensive cities in the USA. He knows a lot of like. Semi famous and famous people. He's currently studying in the city I live in and we met at a gay event. Since he's studying, his actual income is somewhat lower bc he doesn't work all the time, but he has Investments (I'm not sure what that means to be honest, but it's how he pays for stuff like groceries and going out when he isn't working) and his family pays for his rent and stuff. He's obviously not hurting for cash in any way. On the other hand, I'm not destitute or anything but I work two jobs to make ends meet and have three roommates, and generally try to not spend more than I have to.

We both like to eat, so we go out for food sometimes. I've usually picked cheaper options and he tends to go for fancier places, like a place we went had caviar that he ordered? I've always been poor and haven't ever really had any close friends that were wealthy.

I expressed before that I wanted him to know I wasn't trying to take advantage of him for money or anything, and I'm not. He's genuinely a very sweet guy. He's bought me a few gifts before, but I never asked for anything. I want our relationship to be like. Fair and even. So we always split everything cost-wise 50/50. Which can also be kinda weird for me sometimes, w my poor friends if something is cheap (like if we order McDonald's or smth) we're very comfortable spotting each other or just "oh you can get it next time" type thing. But with him every little thing is 50/50.

The thing is, when we split 50/50 at some more expensive places, it's kind of more than I really want to spend going out. Sometimes there really aren't any cheap options on the menu. I've told him before that I don't want to spend a lot when we go out, but I think he just doesn't really have a good idea of what "a lot" is for me, and he really really enjoys these places. I'm also very aware I guess that his going out expenses don't really detract from his ability to do other things because all of his money is pocket money, whereas I need to budget to make sure I can afford non-boyfriend related fun stuff and rent and boyfriend stuff.

I've considered maybe asking him to pay a bit more of a share when we go out, but I'm not sure if that's fair. WIBTA if I asked to split 60/40 or something when we go out? Or maybe cover the meal sometimes? I don't want to tell him we can't go to his favorite restaurant, I just can't really afford it as easily as he can, and I know it won't negatively affect his finances if he pays more since he has. A lottt of money. I also don't usually get a lot, I was taught to always order something cheaper than the other person orders.

#aita #am i the asshole #eyestrain

[saphronethaleph]

Literary Illusions

“It’s ironic,” Palpatine said, shaking his head. “He could save others from death, but not himself.”

Anakin frowned.

“And this is something the Jedi wouldn’t have told me?” he asked.

“Of course not,” Palpatine replied. “Is it a story you’ve heard?”

“Well, yes,” Anakin said. “Just now, from you. But not before then… and that surprises me, Chancellor.”

Palpatine shrugged. “I think you’ll find, Anakin, that the Jedi have not been telling you everything.”

“Maybe not, but… honestly, that sounds like exactly the kind of thing they’d tell me,” Anakin said.

Palpatine frowned.

“...what?” he asked.

“You know,” Anakin said. “Some Sith Lord works out how to bring people back to life from the dead, but his apprentice kills him and doesn’t bring him back to life because the Sith are inherently self destructive. If the two of them had worked together and been able to trust one another, they’d have been immortal.”

He shrugged. “It’s a good illustration of the inherently self destructive nature of the Dark Side, and it’s the dichotomy of how the Dark Side leads you to seek power in order to achieve goals that you then discard as irrelevant, because they’re not directly related to gaining power… hold on a second.”

Palpatine was a little distracted by trying to avoid mentally kicking himself, so it took him somewhat more than a second to notice what Anakin was doing.

“...Anakin?” he said. “Are you getting your comlink out?”

“Yeah,” Anakin replied. “Going to text Obi-Wan, ask him what he thinks of the story. Maybe there’s some kind of detail I missed which makes it less of a good illustration of the different worldviews and mindsets of the Jedi and the Sith.”

The Knight shrugged, his thumbs tapping away at his comlink. “He probably knows it, he knows all of the old stories.”

Palpatine blinked several times.

“...don’t,” he said, then very discreetly scrambled for a reason why. “It’s the middle of a performance. We don’t want to interrupt them.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s on silent,” Anakin replied, with a shrug. “Or vibrate. Did I put it on vibrate… hang on, Chancellor, I’ll make sure it’s on silent…”

He turned the comlink over, then a loud bwing sounded.

“Oh, right, I forgot to set it to do not disturb mode,” Anakin said. “Hang on… uh… yeah, there we go, I forgot I added all these custom modes. I’ve been missing a lot of sleep lately.”

“Perhaps-” Palpatine began, but Anakin spoke over him.

“Huh,” he said. “He says he’s never heard of it either. Wants to know where I heard about it, it looks like he’s really interested… or maybe he’s trying to tell me about a death stick vendor, he’s terrible with multiglyphs and he thinks he’s good at them.”

Anakin glanced at the Chancellor, hoping for some solidarity, then visibly noticed that the Chancellor was several decades older than him and abandoned that.

“Is there a book I can get the whole story from?” he asked, instead. “Obi-Wan is better at nuances, like I say.”

“That is not the point,” Palpatine said, trying not to get visibly angry. “The point is that there is a way to save your loved ones!”

“Maybe there used to be, but not any more,” Anakin shrugged. “Like you said, this was a Sith thing and the Sith are all dead. Well, unless General Grievous is a Sith who knows how to heal people, but I doubt it given how much he got hurt, and I’m not sure Dooku knew it either… hey, if this story needs to be publicized more then maybe we could have them do a play of that instead?”

Palpatine blinked several times, as he tried to keep up with a Jedi with possible undiagnosed ADHD and found himself discovering a lack of talent for podracing.

“What?” he asked.

“You know, a play,” Anakin explained. “Dramatic betrayals, lost loved ones, it would probably do numbers. It’d be better than this, anyway.”

He waved his hand at the ongoing performance of Squid Lake.

“...what is wrong with Squid Lake?” Palpatine said, before reflecting that that had really been a stupid question for him to ask and that he should have asked a much better one.

“Well, uh,” Anakin began, looking a bit abashed. “Actually now I say it out loud this might be really culturally insensitive of me, but to me this play might as well be eighty minutes of people boasting about having enough water to swim in.”

“It’s a ballet,” Palpatine told him, now completely having lost control of the conversation.

“It’s just a less scary version of Sarlacc Pit,” Anakin went on. “Someone tried to drown me in a lake once, because they thought I couldn’t swim, but floating on sand is much harder, you barely have to do anything to escape a lake. You just float.”

Very belatedly, Anakin caught sight of Palpatine’s look of total befuddlement, and shrugged.

“Watto was a lot of things,” he said. “But he had culture.”

Palpatine’s hands twitched, as he very seriously considered the idea of abandoning literal centuries of Sith planning and decades of personal political advancement in favour of stabbing Anakin somewhere it would hurt.

It was extraordinarily tempting.

“...hold on,” Anakin said, slowly. “I guess… the thing I’d like most at the moment is for… and that means… this is literally one of those times when I could fall to the Dark Side because of it, like Darth Plagueis.”

He bestowed a grateful smile on Palpatine. “Thanks, Chancellor! I need to make a call, I guess the ballet won’t mind.”

Palpatine was so thrown by the swerve that he couldn’t think of a way to stop Anakin in the few seconds he had.

“Love?” Anakin said, into his commlink. “I… think we need to come clean, because otherwise I’ll fall to the Dark Side.”

Palpatine’s eye twitched.

#star wars #palpatine #anakin skywalker #Is sleep deprived #Too dumb to trick #revenge of the sith

[twig-tea]

Things from Wandee Goodday ep 3 I can't stop thinking about:

I love so much that we got some good friends with benefits tension around personal boundaries when Dee asked who Yei was and then backed off (but Yak told him anyway). And between the jokes about rimming, Dee demanding Yak pay more attention to his dick last episode, and starting this episode in the 69 position, I am very, very here for this show saying over and over that sex is not just one act.

[ID: Gif of the beginning of episode 3, whichi is a pan-to-shot of Dee and Yak laying in 69 position on the floor under blankets]

i loved the different responses to hearing someone you love is in a "Friends with Benefits" situation; Kao warned Dee not to catch feelings or read too much into the situation and Cher/Yei teased Yak for lying to himself about what the situation is. Both are super valid and speak to who Dee and Yak are, who Kao and Cher/Yei are, and all of their experiences with love. And it speaks to the closeness of these relationships too, that Cher noticed Yak's necklace gone immediately and Kao similarly clocked its addition on Dee instantly.

Super here for Kao being the ultimate support bestie at work, equal parts haranguing and backing Dee up. Their relationship is perfection.

I really liked Yak peace-ing out of their agreement when Dee dropped a huge request with no context, that was so valid and in the spirit of FWB (he didn't actually owe him a bigger conversation).

I've already reblogged a couple of other people (@negrowhat and @lurkingshan) talking about this so I won't belabour it, but I am judging Dee for not only ignoring Yak's boundaries by going to his workplace and forcing him to train him and then flirting with him during training sessions after Yak both made clear he's worried about being out at work and had ended their agreement. I hope we get more of an explanation for Yak's reticence about dating a man while aiming for the championship as well as his change of mind.

The conversations with Cher and Oyei have me so curious about their history! Tell me everything, show. I put these questions in tags on a gifset (but to put them on main: Where is Oyei and Yak's father (who is also a former champ but apparently uninvolved with this family business, if he's still alive)? What happened to Yak's mother that he doesn't know if he takes after her? Why can they go to Cher's family for financial help but not Yei/Yak's (to the point where they had to take out what sounds like a predatory loan during COVID)? What is Cher afraid of re: being seen being affectionate to Oyei, and where does that come from? Is this history related to why Yak is so worried about his relationship to Dee getting in the way of his championship? All of this is seeded so organically and I'm so, so curious. It also has me even more in my feelings about Cher and Yei calling Yak their son.

[ID: Gif of Yei saying to Cher: I own this place. What's there to be afraid of? From the set linked in the paragraph above]

[I have a clown theory that Cher and Oyei's relationship is why his dad is out of the picture and his gym is in financial trouble (because it prevented Yei from getting sponsorship despite being a champion), and why Yak is worried about being in a relationship with a man even though he knows his brother won't care...we'll see how much of this the show pulls together!]

The flash of trauma from Dee at the crosswalk was interesting too; where is that going? What happened in Dee's past and how is it going to affect the story in future?

[More clown speculation: Is it related to why Dee is so good with patients and passionate about ortho? Has he seen someone in his life become disabled due to physical injury?]

Speaking of, I really loved seeing Dee be good at his job and great with patients and their families. In addition to it being just nice to see and good for our understanding of his character, it sets him up to have a fighting chance in the contest too, since patients apparently get a vote.

I love love love the camaraderie and giggling between Dee and Yak around making Ter jealous and shoving their fake relationship in those gossiping nurses' faces. The way they are actually friends who like one another and enjoy spending time together is just really wonderful to watch.

My biggest question is: Will Dee get a chance in this narrative to show up for Yak the way Yak has been showing up for Dee? And how can that current imbalance be reconciled with this all leading towards Dee trying to get a placement to go abroad--and his self-stated toxic trait of always needing to win? [shoutout to @chicademartinica for laying that out succinctly in her post]

In the meantime, I'm having a blast.

#wandee goodday #bl meta #typed so that i can stop thinking it #this show is laying down a lot of groundwork and doing a lot of things i really like #with a few things that have me nervous #looking forward to the ride this show takes us on every week as we learn more!

[ash-says]

Tips on how to dodge personal questions in a Professional Setting:

I know. I know. I said I will be on a break and I still stand by that but it was difficult to throw away the sudden surge of motivation so here I am.

I received a request to make a post on this long back so here is your girl serving it. Honestly I am not much of an expert at it either but I have some ways that work sometimes so here goes nothing.

1) Do not give in to the pressure.

Literally that's the starting point. Whenever someone asks us a personal question we feel obligated at some level to answer because of xyz reasons. That's why we first need to escape the pressure of answering.

2) Straightforwardly and Politely state I am not comfortable answering that.

The bulletproof method. No explanation needed.

3) If you are in a situation where the person is being really nosy and can't take a no for an answer. Try saying to them,"I don't understand how it's relevant to our topic of discussion."

4) If you are not in a position to decline at all which happens when the person asking the question is of higher authority and has influence in this situation give vague answers that lead nowhere.

Example: So are you dating anyone?

It's tough to say in particular you know the dating scene nowadays it's difficult to put a name on anything.

Or what do you do on your weekends?

Nothing just the usuals. I am an office worker after all.

This creates a sense of familiarity with the crowd but at the same time does not reveal anything in precision.

5) Turn the topic on them. One of the smartest things you can do is make them the central focus. People love to talk about themselves so it works most of the time until you come across someone truly smart.

Example: hey how's the new office? Are you liking it here?

Ans: Well I am still getting used to the environment here. What about you? How long have you been working here?

6) Another thing you can do is dance around the topic but not on the topic. You remember how you used to write a 1 mark question for 5 marks exactly like that. Tell the prequel and sequel of the question but never answer the exact question.

7) This one is kinda rude I won't suggest doing it around randomly but if you have been in the corporate space for sometime you would know that there are some people who like to ask things only to belittle you or spread gossip or to be mean. The jealous ones that don't have a life of their own.

In case they ask something or say something rude or cross a boundary just start singing a song or change the topic completely. Don't acknowledge anything they say and continue with your random talks or humming. Trust me it's the easiest way to get rid of them.

Still some are persistent and will try to get an answer. Simply say it's not worth discussing. It's boring.

8) Apart from that there are subtle things you can do which can create a persona that conveys you are not open towards personal questions. You can do it by simply detaching yourself whenever someone starts talking about their personal lives. Don't be a participant or a listener. It gives a que you are not looking to bond personally and many other similar things.

9) If you are truly in a toxic work culture where your colleagues seem to constantly bug and bully you to share personal stuff (happened with me in my previous workplace) Firmly state,"I come here to work not to make personal relations."

10) Ignore.

I hope it helps even a little there's not much we can do without offending the other person but we can be gentle and polite in our tone and gesture that's the only way.

That's all for today's show on ash-says. Stay tuned for more illegal tricks and explosive opinions.

#girlblogging #glow up #it girl #self care #that girl #gaslight gatekeep girlboss #self love #becoming that girl #dark feminine energy #becoming her #pink pilates girl #pink pilates princess #communication #wellness #motivation #self development #self help #self reflection #thewizardliz #wonyoungism #femme fatale #dream girl aesthetic #dream girl #ash-says #feminine energy #positive mental attitude #advice #level up journey #level up tips #leveling up

[hanafubukki]

Psst... Y'know what's better than Lilia with a baby?... Lilia with TWO babies. Lilia having twins would be so cute but chaotic. Especially if they're identical girls and they have way too much fun with it (Lilia too). Like, MC and Lilia are the only ones who can always tell who is who. I can just imagine them having those little bangs and hair horns like their papa and they'd be so cute ashgfgeh. Also, I headcanon twins being rare in the fae world so these two definitely taking of advantage by scaring people. They basically climb Malleus like he's a tree and man is too happy to indulge. They take naps and cuddle with big brother Silver and scare Seven (they make up for it with wittle kisses). Lilia would be so shocked but happy with having TWO babies to take care of. Like, if you have a pregnancy glow, this man has a glow while taking care of babies. Ok, thank you byeee.

[kind of related to this ask]

Hello Anonie 💚🌺🌷

Reading this had me laughing, I haven’t dealt with twins much but I can imagine they are double the chaos from what little experience I’ve had.

I was also reminded of Playful Land Event where Lilia couldn’t handle Grim and, yeah, he going to be one tired papa.

Well, I guess you can say it’s the world returning to him what he’s owed right? All that pranking and scaring others?? 😆 and of course, all the extra love and joy he deserves. 💚

He’s lucky he has two sons who can help him and YN out 💞 who has bountiful of energy…for now.

Despite the twins trying so hard to trick their parents and brothers, they never can. Parents know them too well and their differences. Malleus can tell, he helped raise them and even then their magic aura gives them away. Silver is observant, he’s picking up which twin is who right away no matter what. He’s a knight what did you expect? 🤣

I think the only one who might have some trouble is Sebek, not because he doesn’t know them. But sometimes he second guessed himself.

Not only do they have the hair bangs and little horns but I imagine they also have different colors that fits their moods. 💞💞

I fully believe twins are rare, especially if we follow low birth rates among the fae lore. So many don’t initially know that ex-General Vanrouge had twins.

But that changes real quick, they are just like their papa, as silent as a shadow. Ready to strike their next victim.

It’s not uncommon for one of the twins to be sleeping on Malleus. Head tucked between his horns with one hand holding his horn. While the other twin is sleeping on Silver who’s standing guard right next to Mal.

Walking into that office must be a sight 😂💞

Poor Sebek is going to get early gray hairs because of these two, but at least they keep him on his toes. I can see him catch them and carry them like sacks of flour. While the two struggle, hah! He’s a knight. Good luck getting out of his arms. He can do this all day. He lets them go eventually but the twins makes sure he gives them kisses before they get their next victim. Sebek is lucky Ace isn’t there to laugh at his flustered face.

Lilia is happy. He now has two babies! Well, four. Of course, Malleus and Silver will always be babies in his eyes.

Sometimes, you catch him awake in the middle of the night, watching his babies and holding them. It wasn’t easy coming to this point in life. But he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

His family. His loves. 🥹💞

This was cute ahhh 💞💞💚💚

#answered #lilia vanrouge #malleus draconia #twst silver #sebek zigvolt #lilia vanrouge x reader #anonies ask #twst x reader

[moonyasnow]

Ok ok ok I just had a thought about Sebek and I NEED to share it.

Maybe I'm late to the party and everyone has already caught this same vibe, but if I don't say this I will burst.

I was reading Sebek's Outdoor Wear vignette, and I read this line:

"Well, Malleus IS a great man. Anyone else would certainly pale in comparison…"

And something just physcially hit me.

Sebek, half human half fae man with for sure some complicated issues in regards to internalized racism, is telling on himself. This is exactly how he feels. Like, of course we all know Sebek reveres Malleus, but I think it could be a thing of, Malleus is basically THE fae. While Sebek might also think (and honestly be right about thinking) that most people, Sebek included, pales in comparison to Malleus's abilities, I actually think that in his heart, it's more of a race-related thing than he realizes.

He wants to be more like Malleus, wants to be around him, is so enamoured with him to the point of obsession, for the same reason he calls other humans 'human'; as though to distance himself from the very notion that he, too, could be human at all.

He holds Malleus up as a symbol because to Sebek, that is what he is. The pure essence of 'fae-ness', if there could be such a thing. And so it seems to me like some part of him, conscious or not-- though probably not, I don't see Sebek as the type to want to think deeply about these sorts of things— thinks or feels that if Malleus approves of him, then other fae will, too.

As though Malleus' approval could somehow erase the human blood in his veins that he seems to ashamed of. Or at least make other fae overlook it. Forgive it.

It's a mix of both. He truly does revere Malleus, seeing him as a representation of everything he wishes he could be: fae. Accepted by other fae. And he's going to be the future fae king's #1 supporter so that all fae will know just how fae HE— Sebek Ziegvolt— is.

Like I said, I definitely don't think Sebek himself has really reflected on this at all, but the more I learn about him, the more obvious it seems to me

#twst #twisted wonderland #sebek zigvolt #twst sebek #twisted wonderland sebek #malleus draconia #saving for future writing use #disney twisted wonderland

[velvetvexations]

has that lavendersalve person even seen what happens when you headcanon FICTIONAL women as transmasc/trans men... like the egg jokes are transfem and vaguely forcefem related which is why there's pushback from transmascs saying "hey these make me uncomfortable" and often shield with cis guys because we know we won't be listened to if we say our peace about ourselves

I don't personally know anything about the transmasc experience in this regard, having mostly seen it with cis men, but that sounds right.

A lot of cis GNC men make forcefem jokes about being cis GNC men, and transwomen can also make those jokes between each other, but throwing it at people who are not transwomen or even GNC men is deeply cringe. As I said in the tags, it's perfectly acceptable to suggest meditating on gender identity if someone seems like that would be helpful to hear but be fucking respectful.

This is mostly unrelated but I also hate the word "femboy" being appropriated as a fake slur for transwomen. No! It was never that, it's always been something GNC men (cis and trans) came up with and used for themselves, the fact that it kinna sounds vaguely similar to "ladyboy" means fucking nothing and just makes you seem a little transmisogynistic! But just like everything else, transmascs repeating that did not fucking listen to me when I tried to tell them otherwise.

#transandrophobia #transmisogny

[notnights]

So obviously it's still too early to properly analyze the exact relationship dynamic between Jax and Gangle in canon. I promise this is less of me trying to find legitimate proof of any character speculations, and more just a string of very quick, messy personal thoughts on the topic. Context and motivation for their behaviors are likely to be explained in future episodes, and until then there's still quite a lot of uncharted territory left to explore. (Although I will say that both these characters are surprisingly more active and engaging with each other upon rewatch. aka, their willingness to be around one another seems mutual, the bullying is not.)

The only information that we can currently gather about Gangle are her canon appearances, the preview screenshot Glitch posted on the official account and to a lesser extent, Gangle's concept art sketches: Alot of it being about her fixation and dependency towards her comedy mask. We don't know whether she's fixated on the actual sensation being happy 24/7 or just the ability to appear joyful around everybody else just yet, or What her real-world equivalent of the mask was, or even if there ever was a real-world equivalent to begin with. But, Personal indictment is that she does genuinely want long term companionship and meaningful connections with other people. Or at the very least, not be subtly ostracized out of social convention. I think she believes that curating her outward demeanor might change the way others perceive her, and hopefully the way they interact with her as well. It doesn't really help that each of the circus crew are all a bit too much in their own heads to notice, one way or another. Even if they do mean well at the end of the day, it's never quite what she's really looking to accomplish. (It also doesn't help that her digital design is so detached from being human either, she's essentially a flat face on a piece of string. One can't really blame her for trying to make the most of what she's able to display tbh.)

So far, we know Jax is apathetic, violent and generally antagonistic towards everyone in the main cast, sometimes deliberately towards the girls. I think it isn't all that farfetched to believe he latched on to Gangle because she was malleable enough to target without facing most of the consequences. Subsequently, there's also the idea of him relating Gangle's tragedy mask to her willingness to comply: It's an emotional vulnerability for her (She already sees herself as less deserving of human interaction in this state, she won't have anyone else to go to, she doesn't seem to like being left alone). It's not farfetched to assume Jax sees the tragedy mask as a more "complied version" of Gangle, more entertaining and easier to string along. Me thinks he prefers it, but again. It's too soon to tell. Anyways something something designated role in group activities something something internalized self-worth I think Gangle and Ragatha have very similar philosophies when it comes to people pleasing and it almost makes me believe in the theory that they secretly don't get along even more.

(btw plz feel absolutely no pressure to respond to any of this at all - Again, very messy thoughts that I barely had time to collect. Ribbun is an unexpected infection with unfortunately very thought consuming brain fodder to me personally. Have a nice day.

I like these thoughts! It'll be really interesting to see how the Comedy and Tragedy masks work for Gangle.

I do agree Jax probably prefers Tragedy Gangle as even if it's only as deep as "she's funnier like that." And Gangle is the easiest victim for him in that state.

We've seen everyone (but Kinger, who Jax kind of doesn't bother too much, and you could argue it's because Kinger doesn't give an entertaining reaction) fight back against Jax's behavior in some way. Ragatha yells at him, Zooble isn't afraid to get physical, and we can tell Pomni had death on her mind when he threw her off the truck. The most Gangle has done is timidly resist for a few seconds before compiling. Steps on her mask, pushes her, grabs her and puts her in the drivers seat, she doesn't say anything.

She has a couple of bite back words, but then Jax just bites back and it shuts her down. Which is interesting because when Ragatha yells at him it's clear he thinks its funny and merely snarks back at her, often getting her to yell more. He gets different reactions out of everyone in the group and picks different entertainment from that. Gangle might be the one he knows he has proper control over.

As for the Ragatha and Gangle thing, I was really interested in the fact no one cared when Gangle broke her mask in the pilot, not even Ragatha who is our outwardly most caring. You could say it's because she had tunnel vision on Pomni, but I immediately interpreted it as, yeah Gangle's mask breaks all the time, she's crying all the time, eventually people stop caring. The boy who cried wolf, etc etc.

Even if Ragatha doesn't have direct conflict with Gangle, the fact Ragatha is someone who internalizes everything, and projects a positive outlook, I imagine someone like Gangle would make her pretty uncomfortable.

Here Ragatha is trying her darnest to keep it together and remain positive, meanwhile Gangle is crying all the time behind her.

"It's not so bad here Pomni, I promise!" as Gangle cries in the background.

Gangle being a constant reminder of how Ragatha, and maybe all of them really feel about being stuck here. Too early to say if Ragatha resents Gangle for this, or how she really feels about it. But if she does that's so sad because (we also don't know yet) Gangle has no control over these feelings, it wasn't her choice for her avatar to work like this.

Which honestly could be a good allegory for how certain people view mental illness in the real world too. Ragatha being a loved one who's uncomfortable with Gangle's moods, or even believes if Gangle just tried hard enough like her (example: keeping her comedy mask safe) she'd be fine. Ooh sad comic ideas.

#ask #long post

[transmascswagpolls]

Transmasc Swag Polls- ROUND 1

Propaganda and other info under the cut.

CANONICITY LEVELS-

PUPPET: OOPS! Accidentally Transgender

ALICE: Subtext/ Coded

MEDIA?

FNAF: High School (a Youtube animation series), Your Turn to Die (and other related media)

PUPPET PROPAGANDA- (Pollrunner's Note: I genuinely wish I could highlight all the propaganda that was written for this character. Some of the stuff I read was WILD. The submitter uses he/they pronouns for Puppet, but I will have to note the character canonically uses she/her)

On their introduction, Puppet was interpreted by everyone in the fandom as a guy. He has a very deep voice no matter the va, has short hair, and wears the boy school uniform (aka a tie instead of a bow and pants instead of a skirt). His sister has an extra song where she sings about being there for her sibling- uses a lot of male gendered ways to refer to them, and the song has a lot of trans subtext in it ("I'm still that little boy to you" (showing puppet as a kid), "it was only me who could see you", "a light will be born in your new world, and that will be your song"). This song's MV shows Puppet as a kid wearing a dress and a bow in his hair. He looks really sad when looking at their reflection in a puddle and they angrily take the bow out of his hair. In the reflection we can see present day Puppet with his chest covered in bandages, smiling. One time when Puppet is placed in a boy's cabin, other characters point out the 'mistake' to him, which he brushes off and says it's ok (in fact, he seems very happy about it). The creator was confused as to why people were calling Puppet a guy. She says that Puppet is not trans and is just a tomboy. When people thought Puppet was trans, [she] got some backlash for showing unsafe binding, so she said that Puppet doesn't bind and is "just flat chested" (which is really weird to me since his identical twin is not in the least bit flat)

ALICE PROPAGANDA-

Alice has a whole scene in the spinoff where someone asks him why he talks like a girl sometimes (uses feminine pronouns when he's flustered or stressed in japanese) and he tells them that his mother raised him as her daughter but he knew in his heart that he was a man and eventually got up the courage to tell her. VERY defensive over his gender as a result of that. Sure he's AMAB. But also considering his situation I think he can also count as transmasc. He's one of us Was in his sister's band and played the drums (he doesn't know how to play them). Can only wear striped things if the stripes are in a specific way and is so picky he tries to get a 17 year old to eat his food. He's very kind and cares for people (especially his younger sister) but is also very cringefail... you should play this game. Pleag (Pollrunner's Note: I only met this character thanks to this poll and that alone made everything worth it. His pseudonym (which is a spoiler so I won't include it here) is so clever that it inspired the name of one of the characters in my game. Swaggy fucking guy fr fr)

#transmasc swag polls 2024 #round 1 #fnafhs #puppet fnaf hs #alice yabusame #your turn to die #yttd #transgender #transmasc #image undescribed

[mahs-dumpster]

"Happy 100th anniversary"

a/n: this is soooo self indulgent please. It's a vignette (written only in dialogue) for Daisy's (my Yuu) birthday jacket card that I just made! I'll be linking it here once I edit this post!

cw: oc x canon (Ruggie x Daisy; they're established to be in a relationship and Daisy has already made her decision to stay in twisted wonderland); dialogue heavy; poor attemps at making this look like a fake translation from a vignette bc I'm delulu

The template for the frames of the paintings can be found here.

Words: around 1k

Happy birthday, Daisy!!

Daisy: To think I'm able to visit a museum like this! I wonder what sort of paintings I'm going to see…

Daisy: I'm expecting to maybe recognize a few from the stories mom used to read to me… let's see if I actually can recognize them!

Daisy: I wonder… is she someone I'm aware of? A lady who constantly cleans her house…

???: That's the princess who inspired the glass slippers you always wear.

Daisy: Huh? Oh, Ruggie! I thought you were all the way on the other side of the museum! 

Ruggie: I was, but then I met Trey and we kinda ended up wandering around until I got here. 

Ruggie: What a coincidence that I found you looking at the painting of the lady who inspired your favorite shoes, shishishi~

Daisy: I guess it is a fun coincidence. Oh, right! Would you mind explaining more about her to me?

Ruggie: Fine! But don't go walking around telling people I've gone soft…

Daisy: No need to worry, I wouldn't even dream of it. 

Ruggie: *sigh* anyway… This lady is the princess that inspired your shoes, do you know the story behind it?

Daisy: Sam only explained to me that the princess who wore them danced with them until midnight… so I guess I don't know much more than that.

Ruggie: Right. Legend says she was an orphan who was forced by her stepmother to become basically a servant.

Ruggie: She cleaned the house all day everyday, was forced to hear awful things by her step family and when she wanted to go to a ball her stepsisters tore down her dress. 

Ruggie: A Fairy Godmother – well, her Fairy Godmother – decided to help her get to a ball, she gave her a gown, a carriage and everything! 

Ruggie: the Prince fell in love with her almost immediately and when she ran away and left her glass slipper fall, he tried it on every lady in the kingdom to find out who his beloved was. Then they got married and she never saw her family again.

Daisy: That’s basically the story of Cendrillon. 

Ruggie: What? Oh– one of the fairytales from your world?

Daisy: Yes. I’ve always admired her story, I reread it a lot growing up because I related to her. 

Ruggie: Ah… you did say your stepmother treated you horribly.

Daisy: She… treated me as best as she could.

Ruggie: Which wasn't anywhere near good enough. 

Daisy: Haha… I guess you're right. 

Daisy: What I mean is just… she treated me badly, but I don't hold grudges. 

Daisy: Whatever she's doing, I forgive her. And now that I'm somewhere better and living a happier life… I hope that her and her children manage to grow as people.

Daisy: That's what my mother taught me. 

Ruggie: …sometimes I really do wonder how I fell for such a goody-goody.

Daisy: W-what’s that supposed to mean?

Ruggie: I’m just saying, you're way too naive and nice to forgive someone like that.

Ruggie: if it were me, I’d never forgive them. No way someone's gonna step all over me and I'll forgive them.

Daisy: because that's exactly what you did to Leona-senpai, huh?

Ruggie: besides the point. 

Daisy: Ruggie, isn't this painting depicting that story you told me about? The ones about the dogs sharing spaghetti?

Ruggie: Oh, that one, yeah! I didn't know they actually painted the scene, who would've thought.

Daisy: They're so adorable, I see now how romantic this is.

Ruggie: I guess? It's still just spaghetti…not only that but it's outside in the middle of the night. I guess for dogs it would be cool but for people? I’d honestly just be excited because it's free food.

Daisy: Oh, come on now! This is super romantic! It's a candlelight dinner under the night sky! 

Daisy: If someone did that for me, I know I’d be pretty happy and satisfied.

Ruggie: You’re just trying to convince me to ask you on a date, aren't you?

Daisy: …

Ruggie: Should’ve figured, shishishi!

Daisy: You can't blame a girl for trying, I’ve been pretty lonely these past few weeks since you’ve been working more than usual.

Daisy: But jokes aside, this right here is already enough. I’m already way less lonely just by walking around this museum with you, it's practically a date!

Ruggie: I don't think a date would consist of everyone from our school coming with us…

Daisy: You get what I mean…

Ruggie: Tell you what, once we get back I’m cooking us both some spaghetti and lighting some candles if that's what you’d like.

Ruggie: If my flower is feeling lonely then I better give her a proper date so she can feel loved, right?

Daisy: You really don't have to… but thanks. I would love to. 

Ruggie: Ah, this one's actually a very famous painting, I’ve seen pictures of it around quite often.

Daisy: R-Really…?

Ruggie: What? You don't believe me?

Ruggie: It ties with Sunset Savannah’s history and with The King of Beasts’s story! 

Daisy: Well, forgive me for not understanding the historical significance of a monkey holding a lion cub…

Ruggie: *sigh* Alright. Lemme explain.

Ruggie: This is a ceremony often done by members of royalty when a new child from the royal family is born. 

Ruggie: It goes so far back even the lions from The King of Beasts’s story did that. They basically present the baby to everyone else in the kingdom… it's kinda hard to explain.

Daisy: Oh, I get it now!

Daisy: I see why it's so famous, seeing how it portrays an aspect of the royalty of Sunset Savannah. 

Ruggie: Eh… I never went to one, as you can imagine.

Daisy: Never? Is it not open to the common folk?

Ruggie: Well yeah, but back when there was one for who I now know is Leona-san's nephew, I was trying to survive.

Ruggie: I didn't have the time to go to a ceremony just to watch a new baby I didn't care about being presented to the whole kingdom.

Ruggie: I’d learn about him regardless, so I just didn't care much.

Daisy: I guess that makes sense.

Daisy: Still, it must be super interesting to see it happening. How cute would it be to see a baby cub being shown to the entire world just like that, hahah! 

Ruggie: Ah– sorry, before I got here I told Leona-san I’d go fetch something for him at the cafeteria in a few minutes… if I don't go now he’s gonna be pissed.

Daisy: Why didn't you tell me sooner?!

Ruggie: Well, ya know– it's impossible to resist spending time with you~

Daisy: Alright there, Romeo, enough! Go before he gets upset. I'll be looking around this area for a while more if you want to come back.

Ruggie: *sigh* ‘kay, I'll be off then! 

Daisy: Hm? Ah, this is another painting of Cendrillon.

Daisy: She looks so much free... I'm happy she got her happy ending.

#💌! mah writes #💌! daisy #💌! daiggie #twisted wonderland #twst #oc x canon #twst oc #twst yuu #yuu twisted wonderland #ruggie bucchi x yuu #twisted wonderland ruggie

[eddiediazismyhusband]

Hi! A bit of a weird ask here, hope you don't mind. (I swear it's not meant in bad faith)

So, I'm new to the fandom. I'd wanted to watch the show for a while and I finally found time. I did like it, and all the characters, esp Hen and Buck.

Even previous to watching it, I had seen many posts about Buddie. I didn't think much of it until I watched the show. And now I can say... I don't see it. Like, from Buck's side? Sure. But from Eddie's? Not so much.

They both clearly act like Christopher's co-parents a lot, and that's where I'm like "oh, maybe there IS something". But outside of that, I actually see their interactions as mostly platonic. And when I see people talk about it, I see mostly about how Eddie completely trusts Buck with his son (which I agree with and makes a good point), but not much else.

So, what am I missing? Sometimes some characters are harder for me to "read", so I know there could be stuff that I'm missing. What interactions do you see from them that are so clearly romantic (at least more so than they are platonic)? In which ways do you see Eddie showing feelings for Buck?

Sorry about such a long ask. This might be more of a rant (oops). I just really want to understand, bc everyone's so sure... and I'm not. (Also, thanks for reading if you got this far)

So i’m obviously not going to tell you thst your interpretation is wrong- art is subjective and your interpretation of things is completely valid.

that being said, to me i see myself in eddie in a lot of ways:

- only son in the family, so i had unrealistic expectations fixed on me about what my life as a “man” should look like (im not a man, im nonbinary but i was still amab so to my parents i’ve always been a ‘man’)

- raised in a very religious household where there were certain expectations on who i would one day marry and have a family with (because not getting married at all and never having kids was out of the question)

- i was repressed for years emotionally (and sexually) due to pressure from my parents/church and thought there was something “wrong” with me for the feelings i felt

- i often revert to anger as my default defense mechanism because i have repressed my emotions for so long (which is something i am working through in therapy)

so seeing those things i relate to reflected in eddie, it is easy for me to pick up on subtext (whether intentional or not) when it comes to his sexuality/feelings for Buck.

you mentioned eddie trusting buck with christopher— to me this is one of the clearest examples of eddie’s true feelings for buck because he completely trusts the most precious thing in his life with Buck, but he has never even come close to that same kind of trust with any of his romantic partners… even shannon he was apprehensive about letting her back into chris’s life. this means he trusts buck on a level he has never trusted anyone else before— and not to get into psychology, but often when people are repressed emotionally, they find ways to feed those feelings without overtly feeding them if that makes sense. so eddie giving chris (who is practically his whole heart) to buck is essentially eddie offering up his heart on a platter.

so that gets that one out of the way.

as for other examples… i am going to state again that eddie is more repressed than buck and doesn’t show emotion as easily as buck does so Buck’s attraction/feelings are going to be more clear-cut and obvious.

but i am constantly seeing examples of eddie’s feelings for buck interwoven subtly through things:

- crying over buck after the lightning strike when we had only ever seen him cry twice before

- the hurt in his face when buck said natalia was the only person who “saw” him

- the way that he gets overly jealous and acts petty around buck’s romantic partners (the most egregious being Taylor, but we have seen it happen in his other relationships as well)

- the fact that he has never been able to fully allow himself to have feelings for the women he’s dated

- he is looking for a mother figure (second parental unit for chris) but has already effectively filled that role with buck

- he is constantly looking at buck like he hung the stars and the sun and the moon

- he has only started going off the deep end of this fixation with shannon after buck came out to him, and he is onyl actively remembering their relationship as what he wished it had been rather than what it was— something i used to do back when i was still in denial about my sexuality was imagining this dream life where i was happily married to a woman because that is what i was supposed to want, not because it’s what i actually wanted

- eddie is the only one who has shown he understands buck’s recklessness is less him being reckless/thinking he’s unbreakable, but that it’s actually buck seeing himself as invaluable enough that getting hurt wouldn’t affect anyone around him

- one of my favorite scenes is post lightning-strike when eddie climbed the ladder and instead of trying to lower buck to the ground immediately, he initially tries to pull buck closer to him while screaming for him

the list could go on and on and if anyone else wants to leave their observations on eddie’s feelings for buck in the replies by all means please do! but these are just a few ways in which i have personally seen eddie’s devotion to buck portrayed in a light that is much deeper than a platonic level.

i hope this made sense and offers a new perspective for you, and i’m glad that even though you haven’t seen enough evidence in your own interpretation, your first instinct isn’t to jump down people’s throats to tell them they are wrong, but instead reaching out and asking for other opinions to better contextualize why us buddie shippers are so invested in these two!

(and never apologize for a long ask to me… if there’s one thing about me i love to yap lmao)

i hope you have a lovely day, anon!! 💕💕

#911 abc #eddie diaz #buddie #911 spoilers #911 #evan buckley #buddie 911 #buck and eddie #911 on abc

[starlightkun]

⇢ word count: 19.1k ⇢ warnings: past unethical experimentation, brief blood and gore descriptions (some human and some non-human), you have to accept the premise of a single human empire in space in the future with colonies and a military and not think deeper about that, needle/injection mention ⇢ genre: sci-fi, set in the near-ish future, humans and aliens and robots, black op mission, captain kun, ?????? reader, slow burn, fluff, dash of angst, ft. wayv as the crew of the vision ⇢ extra info: took a lot of obvious inspo for this one from isaac asimov’s robot stories, specifically his concept of positronic brains & the three laws of robotics (and if you’ve read any of his stories, you’ll probably be able to see some other places too) ⇢ author’s note: ahhh she’s finally here! i hope you guys are as excited for part one as i am!! ⇢ series masterlist | next

Frankenstein complex (noun) ── The fear of mechanical men.

The air smelled like blood, burned electrical components, and whatever horrible odor came from blood getting onto electrical components as they sparked. All the blood wasn’t human, you could tell that, too. Skipper blood always stung your nose like rubbing alcohol. It was pitch black in the space you were hiding in, or maybe it was just nighttime. You should be scared, but your heart wasn’t beating fast for some reason.

Two pairs of heavy footfalls. One was heavier than the other. Walking, so definitely not Skippers. Both were still too light to be heavier races.

They slowed to a stop outside your hiding spot, and you really hoped they couldn’t read the Outspacer controls that would open the otherwise impossible-to-see door. After all, it was a language that had been dead for hundreds of millions of years, there was no way—

“Hey, Zennie, you got a read on these?” A man’s voice came from nearby, muffled by both the wall and presumably a helmet as well. Human, or related species.

You couldn’t hear this ‘Zennie’s reply, as it most likely came through the comms in his helmet, but you could hear the man’s side of the conversation.

“Oh, of course, how dare I, a mere meatsack, doubt your high-and-mighty artificial intelligence,” he replied with fake deference. “Yeah, yeah, I know that’s not what you meant. Alright, so just tell me which one’s the self-destruct button so I don’t press it?”

“Move, Wong, before you blow us up.” Another voice interjected. “ZEN? You said it’s a passageway? Oh, safe shelter. Bit different, don’t you think? Mind translating the dead language right the first time?”

He paused as he probably listened to Zen’s reply, then continued, “So? You know which one’s the open button?”

You couldn’t go anywhere. The hideout you were in was designed to hold only a few people for weather emergencies, to be structurally sound; not to have a back door in case you needed to escape intruders. You just had to hope Zen was completely wrong and they wouldn’t get it open.

Click.

There goes that.

The door dematerialized, and the rancid smell from before became even stronger. A man peered in barrel-first, and you recoiled back from the sudden light flooding your vision. You couldn’t press yourself any further back into the corner, but you still turned your head away to shield your sensitive eyes.

It only took a couple strides for one of the men to reach you, the other stayed back in the hallway, keeping his rifle fixed on you. The man stood over where you were sitting on the floor—your legs had gotten tired of standing after so long—and lowered his gun slightly so you could see the entirety of the front plate that covered his face. It was a reflective shield that gave you no clue to who was behind it, only let you see a warped, thinned and stretched version of yourself cowering in a corner. His armor was an improved version of the standard issue United Human Navy, if the insignia on both of his shoulders didn’t make that clear enough. It looked the same as the standard issue, but the heft of his footsteps had belied a weight difference that wasn’t explained by his stature or build, so it must be the grade of material.

“Are you hurt?” His voice came through an external speaker on his helmet. He was speaking in standard human. You couldn’t detect any sort of odd stiltedness or lag that sometimes happened with computer-assisted translations. He was assuming you understood standard human, and you did.

“No,” you replied, slowly uncrossing your arms to show your hands first, that you didn’t have anything hidden in them to attack him with. You still weren’t scared, for some reason.

“Oh, she’s pretty,” his companion commented from the hallway. The two of them must be sharing helmet feeds, as the one in front of you was definitely blocking most of you from his sight.

“Wong, shut it.” The outer speaker had been turned off for that, but it was still pretty clear to you.

“Sir, yes sir.”

“Can you stand?” His weapon was still at the ready, his finger resting above the trigger.

You couldn’t remember the last time you’d wiggled your fingers and toes, and it felt good to do it. “Yes.”

He stepped back, the unexpressive mirror of his face shield watching as you pushed up from your half-sit half-crouch, bracing yourself against the wall. Your body instinctively took a deep breath to try to recover from the sudden exertion, but the vaporized Skipper blood burned your entire respiratory tract, and you coughed and spluttered trying to force it back out, catching yourself on the wall on your forearms to stay upright. The odor made your head swim, your eyes water, and your chest hurt like someone had put gasoline in your lungs and struck a match.

“Okay, woah, woah.” Two gloved hands were on your arms and back, helping you stay up. His voice was muffled again as he switched to his in-helmet comms, “Xiao, get over here! We’ve got a survivor! Yes, really, just look at my stream.”

Then, his voice was projecting to you once more, “Breathe, breathe.”

You felt the roughness of a thumb wiping at the tears running down your cheeks, the durable material of his glove scratching against your skin. He grabbed the front of your shirt collar, pulling it up towards your face at the same time he firmly pulled your hand down that had been covering your mouth as you wheezed. Positioning the material over your nose and mouth into a makeshift filter of some sort, he continued holding it there for you as you took a few breaths.

“Better?”

You nodded shallowly. The smell of Skipper blood still cloyed to your throat and lungs, but the shirt helped keep more from entering.

More footsteps from down the hall, then another pair entered the shelter.

“Holy shit…” Someone breathed out.

“I know, man,” the voice that you were already pretty sure was ‘Wong’ from earlier replied.

“How long has she been in here?” A fourth voice asked, belonging to the footsteps getting closer to you.

“I don’t know,” the man already with you answered. “Wong and I just found her while clearing this sector.”

“Okay, well, you mind, Captain?” He said indicatively. “Can’t examine my patient through you.”

“You got it?” The captain asked you, shaking the collar slightly.

You took it from him, holding it over the bridge of your nose yourself as he had been doing for you before. Looking into his face shield where you were pretty sure his eyes should be, you nodded firmly this time.

He didn’t step back until you felt another pair of gloves grabbing your elbows where he had been. The newcomer’s uniform differed from the others’ in one way, he had a neon green rectangular patch on his right arm below his UHN insignia, as well as a few other places—intergalactic signal for medic. It was removable for the wearer’s own safety, and his in particular was slightly askew, as if he’d just slapped it back on in a hurry.

The medic flipped through the pockets of a pack strapped to his thigh before pulling out a small disc of clear plastic and pushing that against your hand. “Here, this’ll work a lot better than your shirt.”

You accepted it, and he helped you orient it the right way over your nose and mouth. It was apparently a mask or rebreather of some sort. It wasn’t exceptionally bulky, and you could feel that there was some sort of fine mesh material on the inside. Immediately, you could tell the difference. The air coming into your lungs carried only the slightest tinge of lingering burning electronics smell, and while you could tell that there was Skipper blood, it didn’t burn, or make your head spin. It was just unpleasant.

“There. How’s that?”

You gave him a thumbs-up, the standard human gesture for good, since they all seemed to speak standard human. The mask didn’t allow much room for talking.

“Alright, good. Are you injured?”

You shook your head.

“Do you feel pain anywhere?”

You shook your head again.

“Good, good. I have more questions, but we should get somewhere you can breathe. Give me a second.” He looked upwards as if talking to the heavens, and his outer speaker turned off. “Liu? Professor? Did you finish clearing the building? Alright, ZEN, got readings on air quality for her?”

After a pause, both the medic, Xiao, and the captain, who had been hovering behind him the whole time, nodded.

“Thanks, ZEN.” Xiao’s speaker turned on, “Here, our teammates found somewhere that you can breathe. It’s going to be a little bit of a walk, though. Is that okay?”

You nodded. Your legs would just have to deal.

“It’s not pretty out here…” The only one that hadn’t been identified to you in passing called out as a warning from his position in the hallway with ‘Wong.’

You turned around and pushed off the wall as your answer.

Stepping into the hall, you knew why you had smelled that particular concoction of smells. Just off to your left were two dead Skippers, their uniquely-articulated hind limbs that gave them their distinct gait—and consequently, the questionably flattering nickname from humans—stuck out at awkward angles now. Dark purple sludge seeped out from under their armor, Skipper blood. On the outside of the armor were smears, streaks, and splatters turned a gleaming ruby red under the emergency lights, human blood.

You couldn’t see any dead humans, or pieces of them, in this corner, but you remembered what the captain had called you. A survivor. Which meant there were others who didn’t survive.

“Come on.” It was the captain who ushered you the other direction from the Skipper bodies. “This way.”

Their helmets must have been mapping out the facility as the unit cleared it and displaying a route in all of their HUDs, because the four of them moved as if they knew the building like the back of their hand. The captain and Xiao flanked you on either side, with Wong at the front and the fourth unnamed one at the rear. You couldn’t tell if it felt more like a protection detail or a prisoner transport.

You kept your eyes on your feet not only so you didn’t have to see all of the mutilation, or to keep from stepping in something, but to avoid the unsettling, cold dread slowly sinking over you when from the moment you caught a look at the first dead human you passed by with her remarkably in-tact face, dandelion yellow blouse and lab coat, and realized you didn’t recognize her. When you inhaled sharply and shot your eyes down to your feet, you could tell that the captain noticed. He turned his head just ever so slightly towards you, off of the consistent path it had been before, and he paused, then went back to keeping watch.

They weren’t kidding when they said it was a bit of a walk. You could feel the muscles in your legs get sore, then start twitching, then start shaking, but you didn’t even consider asking to stop.

“Woah, Liu, slow down!” The captain ordered into his headset. “Okay, yeah, I see it. Don’t touch anything. We’re just sweeping right now, remember?”

“Great, the kid’s found more toys,” the one behind you snorted.

Xiao and Wong suddenly erupted into more laughter than that statement warranted you were pretty sure.

Wong then informed him with a snicker, “Mic’s on, Ten.”

“You say that as if I wouldn’t have said that to his face, too,” the one now finally identified as Ten retorted.

“ZEN, the mics, please?” The captain sighed. “Thank you.”

“Now he’s going to whine that we were shit talking him behind his back,” Xiao groaned. “Again.”

“Well we are,” Ten laughed.

“If he just stopped acting like a baby, Captain here wouldn’t have to step in and put him in time out all the time,” Wong clicked his tongue.

“You think he’s the one in time out right now?” The captain replied dryly.

You couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle into your mask, trying to cover it up with a cough when all four of their reflective shields whipped around to face you, as if they’d forgotten you were there. After an uncomfortable stretch of silence, they all shifted back into their watchful stances.

The captain suddenly spoke again, “Yes, Professor? Okay, sure… ZEN, put that on everyone’s HUDs.”

The lack of commentary from any of them for seemingly several minutes was startling, and you weren’t sure if you wanted to know what this ‘Professor’ was showing them.

“We’re going to have to go back there after dropping Xiao and her off, aren’t we?” Wong was the first to speak.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,” Ten sighed.

“Or already know the answer to,” the captain said. “If she has any wounds that Xiao needs to tend to, one of you will stay to keep guard. If not, it’ll be Ten and Wong with me to meet up with Liu and the Professor, and Xiao will stay with her.”

“Alright, Ten,” Wong rolled out his neck. “Rock paper scissors?”

“Almost there,” Wong called out from ahead of you. Your internal clock told you it was almost half an hour since they found you.

“It’s just through those doors,” the captain informed you, indicating to the double doors on the opposite side of the large atrium you were in. This area had been mostly untouched by the carnage, it seemed.

“The building does have Gecks, but none of those seemed to have made it out in one piece,” Xiao added, explaining why you hadn’t used the small four-seater all-terrain vehicles, parts of which you had occasionally seen strewn about. “Sorry.”

You shrugged one shoulder at him in what you hoped he could interpret as an understanding gesture, as you were pretty sure this wasn’t their fault. From the context that you were trying to gather very quickly, they had only just gotten here.

Wong pushed one of the doors open, and the captain went in right behind to do a quick sweep, shouting out a short ‘clear!’ before Xiao led you in, and Ten followed in last, Wong shutting it firmly behind him.

You had emerged into something that looked impossible. An entire world bigger than the building you were in before, but definitely contained in one room, as when you turned around, you could still find the door. Ahead of you were rolling hills of vibrant crops, and your hand fell from your face, taking the rebreather with it. The air in here was fresh and crisp, and of course it was, this was the ag bubble. It must have remained untouched from the conflict outside because it was completely self-sustaining, needing no human intervention to planet, grow, or maintain the crops, so there would have been nobody in here in the first place.

“Okay, I’ll ask again: Any pain?” Xiao questioned you, taking his gloves off, and revealing rather delicate hands for a military medic. He motioned like he was about to grab your arm. “Can I?”

You nodded, holding it out for him to lift and turn your limb to visibly inspect it as you verbally answered his first question. “No, no pain, no injuries, I swear. I mean, my legs are a bit sore from walking, but that’s it.”

He let it hang back down at your side before doing the same to the other arm. “Hit your head?”

“Uh, I don’t think so?” You bent your head to let him quickly feel at your scalp through your hair for any bumps, lacerations, or other evidence of injury.

“Have all your toes?”

“Haven’t counted lately…?”

“Do it now.”

And so everybody stood around while you awkwardly took your shoes and socks off to make sure you had all ten toes, and that they weren’t necrotic, then you finally sat down to pull your socks and shoes back on. Xiao took your pulse manually at your wrist, before having you breathe into a small device and sampling a pinprick of blood from your finger with the same tool. After a moment, the screen lit up green, along with your specific readings.

“Satisfied, Xiao?” The captain asked.

“Absolutely,” the medic nodded. “More compliant than all of my patients as of late.”

“Good. We’re going to head out to catch up with the others and check that out.”

“Better you than me.”

“Hold on guys, aren’t we forgetting something?” Wong stopped the other two from leaving.

Ten and the captain looked at each other, then back to Wong.

“What, Wong? And we’re not guessing, spit it out or shut up,” the captain demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

Wong reached up and pulled his helmet off in one grand motion, the first of any of them to have done so. He shook his dark, shaggy hair out—you wondered if that length was perhaps a bit too long for UHN standards, as it was almost covering his ears—before focusing a wide grin on you. Wong crouched down in front of you.

“Do angels have names?”

The other three groaned and swore at varying volumes.

You stared at him blankly, unsure of why this was receiving such backlash from the others, and why they all also seemed to be waiting for your response. When it had quieted down a little bit, you cleared your throat, and answered hesitantly, “I-I don’t know. Do they? I’m sorry, I’m not a theologist… I don’t think I even believe in the divine, really.”

Wong’s jaw dropped as he stared at you, and Ten and Xiao began howling with laughter. The captain marched over, cuffing him by the ear. “That’s enough. Get up! Stop harassing the woman.”

“Ow! That hurt!” Wong cradled the side of his head as he pulled himself to his feet.

“Should’ve kept your helmet on.” The captain yanked Wong away by his scruff as the soldier struggled to put his gear back on. “Do it again and I’m throwing you out of the Vision into the next star. Understand me, Corporal?”

“Zennie! Not helpful, dude! I don’t think that was him asking how close the closest star was!” Wong yelped.

Wong, Ten, and the captain disappeared through the door, and you could no longer hear them, but judging by Xiao’s chuckling, they were still going at it, and it was apparently funny. You looked up at the one remaining soldier you were left with inquisitively.

“Oh, sorry, here.” Xiao popped his helmet off as well, and you got to see his sharp features for the first time. He set it on the ground at his feet, and you noted that he pointed the face shield away from you. “I’m Xiao Dejun. You can just call me Dejun, if you’d like.”

“Don’t you need to hear your teammates?” You asked hesitantly, looking at the helmet.

“Earpiece,” he tapped a small device nestled in his left ear. “There are some advantages to not having the neural port. Like not having an AI inside of my goddamn brain.”

“You also don’t have a rifle,” you observed for the first time. Before, you had presumed that it was merely slung over his back, but now you could clearly see that the bulk there was more packs of medical supplies.

“I’m a terrible shot, barely got past basic. I’d just make more patients if I had one,” he laughed, then patted a holster on his right thigh. “Captain makes me carry a pistol, though.”

You looked off towards a rippling field of grain nearby, trying not to think of that woman’s face, her yellow blouse, because then you’d think about why you didn’t know her. She was in a lab coat, this was some kind of scientific facility, you were sure of it, you knew that, so why didn’t you know her—

“Sorry about Wong, by the way,” Dejun very thankfully caught your attention again, offering you your second smile of the day. “I promise, he wasn’t trying to be greasy. He’s a goofball, he was trying to make you laugh, put you at ease, you know? But clearly, that wasn’t the way to do it. So again, sorry.”

“He wasn’t asking a theological question?” You clarified.

He tilted his head, giving you a strange, bemused look. “No, he was asking what your name is. It’s an old, cheesy Earth pickup line. Or, I guess it must be unique to Earth, since you don’t know it. Are you from a colony or…?”

“I… don’t know,” you trailed off, the corners of your mouth turning down as you tried to think harder.

“You don’t know your name? Or if you’re from a colony?”

“My name’s Y/N.” You could answer that immediately. That was familiar, yours.

“So you don’t remember if you’re from Earth or a colony?”

You squeezed your eyes shut as you tried to think harder, but it felt like you were just scrambling in a dark, empty room. “No, I don’t know.”

“Hey, that’s okay. Relax, Y/N,” he said gently. “Just relax right now, okay?”

Dejun took one of the packs off his back and started rooting through it. “How long were you in there? I’m sure you’re thirsty, and hungry.”

“I don’t know…”

His brow furrowed as he offered a canteen out to you. “Here. Water.”

“Thank you.”

Slowly, the man with you lowered himself down until he was sitting across from you, linking his fingers together. He let you open the bottle and take a few deep gulps of water. You couldn’t remember the last time you had water, but it felt great to drink it again.

“Y/N…” The medic said calmly. “What is the first thing you can remember? The oldest hard memory you have?”

You wiped away a stray drop that had rolled down your chin, and scraped through your brain, but came up startlingly empty. “I-I guess smelling blood, all the human blood and Skipper blood, and then hearing footsteps outside where I was hiding. Wong’s and the captain’s, right before they found me.”

His eyes went wide, and his nostrils flared as his features turned serious. “Your oldest memory is less than an hour old?”

That same unsettling, cold dread that had started sinking down over you since you saw the woman fully coated you, and you involuntarily shivered. Cautiously, hesitantly, as if afraid that you were erring somehow, you nodded. “I take back what I said earlier, Dejun. I think there’s something very, very wrong with me.”

Dejun asked you round after round of questions walking through the very first thing you could remember right up to that very second, until he let out a long sigh.

“Well, so far it seems like you’re forming memories right now just fine,” he declared. “And you at least remember your name, which is good.”

“I knew you guys were UHN, and that you were a medic because of your green patch,” you reiterated insistently, feeling like you were going in circles with your own mind. How could you possibly know about the United Human Navy and military visual codes but not if you were from Earth or not?

“Okay, so you’ve been around the Navy before. If you were at this place, that makes sense. You don’t have a neural port, so you were probably a military contractor of some sort.”

You immediately latched onto this clue. “What is this place?”

Dejun offered you a regretful look. “Already said too much. That’s a question for the captain, sorry.”

You sighed, but didn’t push him. Pointing to the exit, you tried another avenue of your apparent knowledge. “I know those aliens are called Skippers.” 

“Definitely UHN with that lingo.” Dejun grinned at you. “One of us.”

“But I don’t know why they were here. Or why I’m here.”

“Don’t push yourself.”

“And I know that this place is an agriculture bubble, ag bubble for short, and what that is, and the basics of how and why it works, and what it’s for, but not why it would be here. Or why I would be here—ow!” You held the front of your head as a dull pressure started up from the inside.

“Y/N?” Dejun scrambled closer, his voice concerned. “What’s going on?”

“My head hurts,” you scrunched your nose up against the feeling.

“Where? Describe it for me. Is it a throbbing? Stabbing? Shooting? Aching? Squeezing?”

“The front mostly. Feels like something’s pushing from the inside out, kind of,” you explained, dropping your hand to let him do another, more thorough examination for any head injuries.

“A pressure?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve got to take it easy,” he told you frankly. “The human brain’s a finnicky, unpredictable thing. And I’m just talking about the squishy part inside your skull. Interrogating it about why you can remember some things and why you can’t remember other things isn’t going to make you remember those things. I can’t see any injury on the outside, but since you can’t remember whether or not you were injured, and we don’t have anybody else to say either way, we can’t discount that your amnesia came from an injury. If you sprained your ankle, you wouldn’t be running a marathon on it. Same thing with an injured brain, okay?”

“Okay,” you acquiesced, grabbing the canteen again. Already, your head was feeling a little better.

“You’re officially the easiest patient I’ve ever had,” he declared, sitting back down. “If I had lollipops to give out, you’d get one.”

Before you could say anything, Dejun held up a finger for you to wait, then grabbed his helmet and yanked it back on. “What the fuck… Alright, yeah, I agree, this is the best place to set up camp. Y/N confirmed it’s an ag bubble, we’ll be able to—Can I finish? Anyway, it’s an ag bubble, so we’ll be able to live here indefinitely. Cool, we’ll see you guys soon.”

Dejun took the helmet off again, resting it on his hip as he informed you, “Everyone’s coming back here to set up camp.”

“Making camp in the ag bubble does make the most sense,” you stated, looking around you. “Fresh air, running water, obviously unlimited food.”

“Glad you agree.”

“How long is your team supposed to be here?”

“Question for the captain.”

“Seems as though I have a lot of questions for the captain,” you sighed, resting your cheek on your knees as you traced figure-eights in the grass with your finger.

“He’s going to have a few for you as well.”

“I would ask what everybody went to go investigate, but I have a feeling…”

“Just wait until he gets back.”

“As I had guessed.”

There was a short rhythm of knocks at the door to the ag bubble, and Dejun jogged over to open it. “Clear!”

A group of UHN soldiers all entered, talking among themselves, though you could tell when their reflective face shields occasionally turned over towards you. You were still sitting on the ground, hugging your knees to your chest, and uncertainly got to your feet, brushing away any stray dirt that may have clung to you. Dejun put himself between them and you, holding his hands out, and you could very clearly hear the word ‘amnesia’ a few times as he seemed to be sternly prefacing this introduction, taking his role as your doctor seriously.

Judging by how he held himself, the one that you were pretty sure was the captain cocked his head at this information, but remained quiet through Dejun’s small spiel. The medic gestured as if he were rushing them, and they all reached up to take their helmets off as well. He finally led them over to you, offering you a reassuring smile.

“Y/N, this is the crew of the Vision,” he motioned to all five of them. “I’ll let our captain take over on introductions.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant,” the one that you had already pinpointed as the captain from afar spoke up. Despite not being the tallest of them, he held himself differently, as if there was some weight there that you couldn’t see, but he carried with a straight back and level shoulders nevertheless. “I’m Captain Qian Kun of the United Human Navy vessel the Vision. I’m sure our doctor, Lieutenant Xiao, has already introduced himself. This is the rest of my… ragtag team: Corporal Wong Kunhang…”

You looked at the only other man aside from Dejun who was familiar to you, who fixed you with an exceptionally apologetic gaze.

“I am very sorry about earlier, ma’am,” he bowed his head regretfully, hands clasped behind his back.

“Oh, thank you,” you responded. “I’m sure you’re very funny, Corporal Wong, to other people.”

A couple of the others let out snickers as they tried to stay at attention, Dejun and another openly bursting into laughter. The taller one quickly scrambled to get back into his position and push down his smile as the captain focused his gaze on all of them again.

Captain Qian continued, “Staff Sergeant Ten Lee.”

He flashed you a grin. “It’s a pleasure, ma’am.”

“Lieutenant Liu Yangyang…”

“Nice to meet you!” Lieutenant Liu beamed at you, though there was a weird little glint in his eye that you weren’t sure if you liked. It was like he was trying to take you apart piece by piece. His gaze hadn’t left you through everybody else’s introduction, and you weren’t liking having to meet it now. “And can I just say, I think you’re one of the funniest beings in the galaxy? Definitely funnier than Wong over there.”

“Kid’s making some points,” Ten elbowed Wong.

Captain Qian suddenly took over again very loudly, “And finally, our only civilian member of the crew, Professor Dong Sicheng, Department of Xenolinguistics at New Beijing University.”

This was the other guy who had outright laughed a moment ago, and you could tell he was much less comfortable with the stiff military position before Captain Qian had informed you he was a civilian. Despite his civilian status, though, he was in the same armor and carried the same arms as everyone else—more firepower than Dejun did. You were just glad to not have to be making eye contact with Liu anymore. It felt like he knew something that you didn’t, and you definitely didn’t like that, given your current predicament.

Six of them. Turning back to Captain Qian, you tilted your head curiously. “ZEN is… your ship’s AI? And you all have a synchronous fragment in your helmets, earpieces, and neural ports?”

A couple of them looked at Dejun incredulously.

“I didn’t tell her. She has amnesia, she’s not an idiot,” he retorted.

“Maybe you did something with tech,” Ten suggested. “Could be why you were here.”

“What did I just tell you about stressing her memory?” Dejun scolded him. “She needs to rest.”

“We all do,” Captain Qian agreed. “After we set up camp. Come on.”

Dejun shooed you away from helping to set up camp despite already knowing that you had no physical injuries, finally giving you a task of making sure all of his emergency canteens in his medic packs had fresh water from the river nearby. You knew it was busy work, but did it anyway, glad to feel useful.

Loaded up with canteens slung around your waist and shoulders, you took the paved pathways between the acres of crops until you reached a crystal clear river. There were some areas that were sandy shores, and others that were grassy drop-offs. Stopping at a grassy drop-off, you sat down, the canteens clanking against each other. You took them off and poured out the water in them one-by-one, making a pile of empty canteens. Then you leaned over the edge and filled them up from the cool, gentle current, starting a second pile of full canteens.

You could feel the thud of heavy footsteps in the ground, and knew who was approaching you before Captain Qian even spoke.

“Mind if I join you?” He asked, and you looked over your shoulder to see him holding a large, empty water jug. “You seem to have grabbed the best spot.”

“Not at all.” You jerked your head towards the empty space on the other side of your full canteen pile.

He sat as well, grabbing an apparatus the size of his hand off the side and lowering that into the water instead of the entire jug. It was connected to the jug by a tube, and you watched as it moved water up from the river into the top of the container.

“Dejun didn’t tell me about ZEN earlier,” you said abruptly, trying to vouch for the doctor who so far had been the kindest person that you could remember in your life. “Really, I was guessing just from how you guys were talking—”

“It’s okay, Y/N, we weren’t being very discrete,” Captain Qian assured you. “Xiao isn’t one for lying to cover his ass, either. I believe him when he says that he didn’t tell you who exactly ZEN is.”

“There were a lot of questions I was asking that he couldn’t answer. Just kept telling me to ask you.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t you already know? His earpiece…”

“ZEN isolates comms as necessary when the unit is split up. The other five of us needed to hear each other more than we needed to eavesdrop on you two in here.”

You gnawed on your bottom lip nervously. “…He told me to take it easy, with my brain and the amnesia.”

“Maybe we can gently jog your memory,” he suggested.

“How?”

“That woman in the hall, in the yellow top. Did you know her?”

“I don’t know…” You replied regretfully. You were apparently the only person alive in this building, and couldn’t identify that woman. Were you friends? Should you be mourning her? Did she have a family? Was there anybody to tell to mourn her? It felt wrong that nobody would. And there were even more like that who you didn’t look at, who you hadn’t seen.

“It’s a big building. There were probably a lot of people working here. You might not have known everybody,” he replied casually.

You pushed one of your hands against your eye, against the pressure that was coming back. “No, I don’t… I don’t know anything. About what this place was for.”

“Alright, alright,” he held up his free hand in surrender.

When your head hurt less, and you had filled up a couple more canteens, you changed your focus. He had asked you a question, it was only fair you asked him one.

“Why are you guys here? To stop the Skippers?”

“No. We didn’t know there was any alien presence until we arrived and saw the ships out front.”

You kept your gaze on the running water as you tried to work through the information you were getting. “Then why did your team get sent here?”

“We’re trying to figure out what happened here too.”

“No,” you rejected that immediately, pointing in his general direction accusatorily. It didn’t make sense with everything you already knew. “You didn’t know there were Skippers here until you got here. Now you’re trying to figure out what happened here. So why were you coming here in the first place?”

The captain breathed out, his tone dropping the strained casualness it had before. “This is a UHN research facility. We were sent to investigate reports of unsanctioned experiments being conducted here.”

You snapped your head up to look at him. “What kind of experiments?”

“Look, rumors about this kind of stuff is everywhere. Urban legends, pulp fiction, everyone’s heard something about illegal government experiments. But reputable intelligence on this kind of stuff is few and far between. This one was trusted enough to get us out here, but unfortunately sparse on details.”

“I don’t know anything about it.”

“As you’ve already said,” he replied tersely.

“I don’t,” you repeated.

“I didn’t say you were lying.”

You didn’t love the pace that the captain was drip feeding you information, or for whatever purpose of his own that he was doing it, but he was giving you information, and in your state, that was vital. So you kept him engaged. “How do Skippers figure into those experiments?”

“We don’t know.”

“So it seems like we’re on the same page here.” You could almost laugh.

“Yes.”

When you looked over at Captain Qian, there was maybe the faintest curl of a smile at the corner of his mouth, but as soon as you had questioned it in your mind, it was gone. He continued filling his jug, and you continued filling the canteens. You were still thinking about his heavy footsteps, and wanted to keep him talking, wanted to grasp at any information you could get in hopes it slotted it somewhere in your own mind.

“Your armor…” You began, eyes dragging over the pieces he was wearing, everything except his helmet. “How can you wear it?”

He crooked an eyebrow up at you curiously. “You mean aside from putting it on my body?”

You looked at him entirely unamused before continuing, “It’s made to look like standard UHN armor, but I can hear that it’s made of material far denser than your teammates’.”

Both of his eyebrows lifted in surprise momentarily, before his expression was neutral once more, and he calmly informed you, “Minor skeletal enhancements.”

So that’s why he moved differently from the others.

“Why didn’t your teammates receive them?”

“The UHN doesn’t need to spend the money to equip every soldier with minor skeletal enhancements for armor that is very expensive to make.”

“So why are you worth the very expensive armor, then?”

“It’s actually the old stuff, they’ve moved on to newer and better.” He was done filling the jug now and stood up. “I’m not worth the expensive stuff anymore.”

“Why don’t they give you the new one?”

“It’s bigger and heavier, my skeletal enhancements wouldn’t be able to support it. They need younger people for that program.”

“You… are not very old,” you observed plainly.

He shouldered the jug of water that was bigger than his entire torso as if it were a pillow. “No. I’m not.”

You didn’t appreciate how he had skirted some of your questions, like why he had been chosen for such a program, but the scale of information he had implicitly given you in just a few words was more than enough to leave you floored. If that’s what the UHN was doing above the board, you weren’t sure if you wanted to find out what they considered unsanctionable—what was going on here.

Returning to the others, you were happy to see a fully set up camp, and handed over the refilled canteens to Dejun, who made sure to thank you profusely and reassure you that you were a huge help. Despite it feeling a little patronizing, you were satisfied at having at least done something rather than sitting around watching them do everything while you did nothing.

“Y/N!” Someone called out your name, you looked over your shoulder to see Ten and Wong approaching you.

“Yes, Corporal?”

He laughed and shook his head. “You don’t have to do that. Kunhang and Ten is just fine.”

His companion nodded in agreement.

“We’re on dinner duty,” Kunhang pointed between the two of them. “Do you know what all is in here?”

“Do you people know the meaning of the word amnesia?” Dejun snapped. “Honestly, ask ZEN if—”

“There should be a panel by the entrance that tells you that,” you answered, pointing towards the door. “I don’t think I remember the specifics of this ag bubble, but I’m pretty sure I’m remembering that correctly. Right? They all have information panels at the entrance?”

“It does,” Ten assured you of your knowledge. “It’s in Outspacer. We uploaded it to ZEN, but he— Oh, thanks, man.”

“Zennie, incredible timing as always,” Kunhang rolled his eyes. He smiled at you. “Never mind, got everything we need. Thanks!”

They walked away into the fields, and you turned back to Dejun, who was now organizing his supplies in his tent.

“I wish I could be more help,” you sighed.

“Y/N, come here,” he gestured you into the open entrance of the tent. You obliged, and he plopped down onto a cot on one side, then pointed to the other for you to sit. “They didn’t actually need your help.”

“But they asked—”

“I know. Without divulging too much, I can tell you that the seven of us have been essentially the only people we’ve all been around for… months on end.”

“I see.” You nodded, noting how he seemed to be including ZEN in that count. “I’m someone new to talk to.”

“Right. And the next thing I’m going to say, I do hope you don’t take this the wrong way. You’re also a pretty woman.”

“Oh…”

“Don’t get me wrong, you’re safe with us. But I’m just saying that you’ll probably be getting more attention than if we had a new guy in camp.”

“Is that why Liu keeps looking at me like that?” You asked.

“Like what?” Dejun’s brow furrowed.

“Like… I don’t know, he just keeps looking at me. Like he’s studying me.”

He shook his head. “I’ll talk to him. Kid probably isn’t used to seeing a human woman after so long.”

“Is there anything else I can help with?”

“I don’t have anything for you,” he said regretfully, then tapped his ear. “Captain? Yeah, what’s your location? Right, thanks, I’m sending Y/N your way.” He focused back on you. “Captain Qian’s in his tent, you can see if he has anything for you to do.”

“Which one’s his tent?”

“Right next door.”

“Ah. Thanks.”

You ducked out of Dejun’s tent, heading over to the next one. There was no door to knock on, but Captain Qian could already see you, and waved you in.

“Yes, Y/N? Do you need something?” He seemed to be in the middle of performing some sort of inspection of his armor, wearing only the bottom half of it, leaving him in a white tank top as he held the chest plate and paced in the small space of the tent.

“Is there something wrong with your armor?” You asked.

“Just routine maintenance,” he replied, stopping to remove an inner panel and set it on one of the cots that was already full of armor pieces. “ZEN detected an abnormal heart rate earlier, but I can’t see any reason for that.”

“Why are you checking your chestplate for that? Wouldn’t ZEN be monitoring your vitals through your neural port, not any external sensors?”

“I don’t think his reading was faulty, I’m just trying to look for anything that could have caused it.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know what, that’s why I’m inspecting my armor.” He took another piece out, offering the one with the electrical components out to you. “Can you hold this?”

You took it, staring at the small, wafer-thin computer component in your hands. “You’re right, this is older tech.”

“How so?”

“It’s twice the size it needs to be and—” You held it up to the light, seeing the distinct refractive rainbows in between the ultra-thin layers. “Doesn’t have the superconductive gel preferred now. It’s not like it’s ancient or anything, but the UHN wouldn’t be issuing anything new like this.”

“Is it in good condition?”

“Yes, everything looks fine. No acute damage, and it looks like it’s been taken care of very well, even for typical use. This definitely isn’t what caused your abnormal heartrate.”

Captain Qian held his hand out, and you placed the component in his palm for him to reassemble the chest piece. “I agree. Now, did you need something, Y/N?”

“Yes. Is there something I can do to help? Dejun didn’t have anything else for me.”

“Since you seem to know quite a bit about UHN armor, you want to finish helping me with my inspection?”

“Sure, sure.”

He set the reassembled chest piece on the ground, then looked at you expectantly. You stared back.

He pointed to the exit. “I need to get out of the rest of my armor. It’s a one-man job.”

“Oh! Sorry!” You hurried to leave, and heard him zip up the entrance behind you.

It unzipped again a few minutes later, and the captain clipped the material aside again. You followed him back in, seeing all of his armor laid out on the floor between the two cots. The captain was in a dark t-shirt, pants, and regular boots now as he picked up a piece and sat down on a cot. He nodded to the other for you.

You selected the left arm and quietly began working. It should have been weird, how you knew this but not how you got here, but you swallowed down that discomfort and just focused on the technology in your hands. You had a task, at least, and that was good enough for now. Feeling around, you found the release that separated the upper and lower limb pieces from each other, and set the upper half aside for now. You continued looking over the paneling of the lower arm.

“You’ll be staying in Xiao’s tent,” Captain Qian said. “If that’s alright with you. We would have preferred to give you your own tent, obviously, but we didn’t exactly have a spare. Figured you’re probably the most comfortable with him, right?”

“That’ll be fine, yes,” you agreed. “Thank you.”

“You’re probably wondering where we all went earlier, right? When we left you and Xiao here?”

“Yes. I had asked him, but he said that was a question for you.”

“Remember the reports of unsanctioned experiments I mentioned?”

“Yes.”

“It was a lab.”

“And what was in it?”

“Ash.”

“Someone burned it down? How did it not catch the whole building on fire?”

“Liu thinks they were careful to use certain materials to control and contain the fire to one area for a certain amount of time.”

“So it wasn’t part of the human-Skipper fighting, then? If someone took the time to make sure it burned in a specific way.”

“Most likely. But Liu’s a roboticist, not a chemist. His knowledge could only go so far. And ZEN is only as much of a help as the sensors we have to gather data for him.”

“How do you know it was a laboratory then? If everything was burned up?”

“ZEN and the Professor translated the sign on the outside.”

“It wasn’t in standard human?”

“Outspacer again.” Captain Qian clicked his tongue. “For a UHN facility supposedly built within the last ten years, this place has a lot of an ancient, dead alien language in it.”

“That… does seem unlikely.”

“The only reason I can think of why humans would do that, is if they didn’t want other humans to be able to read any of it.”

“Or anybody.” You moved on to the upper limb. “The Outspacers have been gone for hundreds of millions of years. Nobody, human or alien, uses it anymore.”

“You’re right.” Captain Qian said thoughtfully. “Whatever those Skippers came here for, they weren’t going to be successful, whether they lived or not.”

You looked up at the captain curiously. “How long is your team going to be here?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Our original mission here was supposed to be short, just intel-gathering. A few days, one week tops, then come back later if necessary. But now… things seem to be a lot more complicated.”

“What’ll you do with me when you leave?”

“Take you back to UHN Main on Earth for debriefing, and if you haven’t recalled anything about where you’re from by then, they’ve got programs to help people get back on their feet,” he answered simply. “We’re not going to kill you.”

“I didn’t expect that,” you balked. “Though I’m not sure I like the sound of this debriefing…”

“It won’t be the most fun interview of your life, but you’ll live.”

“What should I call you?”

“Pardon?”

“Dejun, Kunhang, and Ten all told me to address them informally. The others call you Captain, I don’t want to offend, I don’t know, I’ve been avoiding calling you anything because I don’t know…”

He held your eye contact for a moment, then went back to rotating the leg piece in front of his gaze. “Kun. You can call me Kun.”

“Okay,” you nodded, trying not to immediately let it go to your head. “Thank you.”

After finishing the inspection of his armor, you and Kun had determined that there was nothing wrong with it: no faulty wiring, no disarticulation of the joints, no loose bolts, no misalignment of the hydraulics, no error codes thrown by the computer, no fritzing electronics, not a flaw in sight.

“Nothing,” you huffed, hands on your hips as you stared down at the mostly reassembled armor. It was half put back together, ready for the next time he had to wear it.

“Maybe I just got spooked then,” Kun shrugged. “Thanks anyway, Y/N.”

“How often do you get spooked?” You asked him doubtfully. “You don’t seem the type to startle easily.”

“Not often.”

“When did it happen?”

He shook his head dismissively. “It’s fine.”

“If you’re having early signs of heart problems—”

“Hey, who was just saying I’m not old?” He put a hand over his chest.

“I said early.”

“And you’re sounding like Xiao.”

“And if you’re all like this, I can see why he would complain about having you for patients.”

“It was when we were clearing the building,” he relented. “I’d have to watch the footage from my helmet back on the ship to see exactly what was going on. So just leave it, okay?”

You sighed. “Alright, fine.”

The volume outside the tent suddenly rose, and Kun nodded towards the exit. “Now come on, sounds like everyone’s getting together for mess.”

He stepped back for you to walk out first, and you immediately saw that the others were in fact gathered in the center of the tents around a small fire. Dejun waved at you and patted the ground next to him, and you gratefully took the empty spot between him and Ten. Kun sat across the fire, immediately being pulled into a conversation by Liu and the Professor.

“So what did you guys end up finding?” You asked Kunhang and Ten as they started serving up food in small metal dishes.

“We’ve got a beautiful fare for you tonight of rations,” Ten handed you a dish with great gravitas, and you giggled as you passed it down.

“Supplemented with some lentils,” Kunhang finished. “We thought we were heading towards the berries, get a little dessert going, but apparently ZEN’s translation wasn’t completely accurate. Ended up at the red lentils.”

You laughed again. “You can’t blame him too much, the words are almost the same.”

Everyone’s heads whipped over to look at you. The Professor’s eyes bulged out of his face. “You know Outspacer?”

“I mean, I can’t speak it. It’s been dead for so long, I wouldn’t know what anything is supposed to sound like. If it was even spoken in the first place,” you answered hesitantly. “But yeah, I can read it.”

Liu looked around at everyone else incredulously. “Did nobody ask her how she got into the safe room locked behind Outspacer controls? Or did you all assume she had button mashed her way in?”

“Okay, we had more pressing things on our minds,” Dejun cut in. “Like making sure she was alive.”

The Professor was still staring at you with fascination. “You said it might not have been spoken. Why do you think that?”

“Well, it’s a very visual and categorical system. That’s why ZEN’s mistranslation for lentil and berry happened. Two things that are small and round that you eat are going to have very similar patterns to each other. Berries have a sweet modifier appended to the end, by the way, while lentils have the ground modifier to indicate that they’re a grain.” You didn’t know where all this knowledge was coming from, but you knew that it was right, as well as you knew your name. “But it only ever describes objects and their relationships in space and time. There’s no abstract ideas like feelings. It might just be a code to convey physical information, instructions, that kind of stuff, not their written alphabet.”

“Why have a separate code then?”

“The Outspacers were everywhere, weren’t they? It would’ve been impossible for them all to speak the same language. This way everything that’s important like laws, directions, warnings, that kind of stuff, is in a common code that everyone can read.”

The Professor kept staring at you.

“Y/N, you broke the Professor,” Kunhang declared, snapping his fingers in front of his teammate’s face.

“I’m sorry. I-I didn’t mean to.” You looked around hesitantly.

“Don’t apologize,” Dejun chuckled, patting your shoulder. “He’s probably just mourning all the academic articles he’ll never get to publish on this.”

“Why?”

“Cla-ssi-fied,” Liu said with a hint of teasing, enunciating each syllable for emphasis. “Officially, our crew doesn’t exist.”

Kun rolled his eyes. “That’s a bit dramatic. You’re still official personnel of UHN, you haven’t been scrubbed from the universe.”

“Fine, fine. We’re a self-contained vessel whose missions are not officially documented anywhere. Better?”

“Best would’ve been to keep your mouth shut,” the captain said through gritted teeth.

“She can read Outspacer! Like we’re not going to keep her?”

“Y/N’s not a puppy or a toy, Lieutenant. It’s not a matter of ‘keeping’ her. She’s a civilian whose safety we’re responsible for. The matter is closed,” Kun’s hard gaze shifted to the rest of his crew on the word, before returning to the roboticist, “and you and I are going to have a discussion later.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Liu muttered, turning his eyes back to the fire.

Ten nudged a dish into your hands, and you passed it onto Dejun. When everyone had a bowl, they started eating, and you slowly began working through your food as well.

“Anyway, Y/N,” Kun cleared his throat, and you looked up at him attentively. “We’ll need you to properly translate the ag bubble info panel tomorrow. So hopefully Wong doesn’t poison us at breakfast.”

“Yeah, of course,” you agreed hurriedly. “Whatever you guys need.”

“You’ll have to review my notes on Outspacer glyphs!” The Professor had suddenly found his voice again, his tone now rushed and excited.

“Sure, yes.”

You spent the rest of the meal mostly keeping to yourself, quietly eating your food and occasionally engaging with the others if they talked to you first. Today, the only day of your life that you could remember, had been a lot, and if every day was like this, you weren’t sure if you were really looking forward to the rest of them.

Everyone had a job to shut camp down for the night, and you helped Kunhang and Ten clean up from cooking dinner.

“So is there a light switch or something?” Ten looked up at the still rather bright sky.

“The lights are on a timer,” you explained, looking up. “It should—”

The sky above you began to dim just then. You kept watching, explaining to the Marines with you, “Here, keep your eyes on it. Blink and you’ll miss the sunset.”

The sunset happened all around you, with no one source of light from a single ‘Sun,’ it wasn’t focused from any one point, instead the scattering came from every angle. Everywhere you looked was a different smattering of red, orange, and pink hues.

“Holy shit…” Kunhang breathed out, doing a slow 360.

Then, as soon as it had started, it was over, and the artificial expanse above you was pitch black.

“Damn, that was fast,” Ten commented.

“Told you.” You stacked up the dried dishes. “Where do these go?”

“Right here.”

After packing up the dinner items, you turned back to them expectantly. “Anything else?”

“Sleep,” Ten declared, to which Kunhang groaned and nodded. “Some very well-earned sleep, for all of us.”

“Are you sure?”

Kunhang gently grabbed you by your shoulders and pushed you towards your tent. “Go. To. Sleep.”

“Okay, okay.” You held your hands up in surrender, slowly walking away.

“Goodnight!” “Night!” They called after you cheerily.

“Goodnight!” You waved to them over your shoulder. As you turned your head, you saw someone sitting on a pack on the ground outside Kun’s tent, and realized that it was the Professor, scrawling on a tablet with a stylus.

Your tent was unzipped, and you found Dejun seemingly ready for bed, laying on one of the cots and reading a thick hardcover book by the light of a small electric lantern.

“The Professor was not in his tent yet,” you informed Dejun with a frown. “Are you all doing watches? I thought you had cleared the building.”

“No night watches,” he replied without looking up from the book. “He’s just out there because he’s sharing a tent with Captain Qian, who is currently still ripping Liu a new one in said tent.”

“Oh…”

“Don’t feel bad, Y/N. Liu said something stupid, he gets chewed out, repeat ad nauseum.” Dejun flipped the page. “Bit more stupid, telling you the classified nature of our team’s missions, but like I said before: you’ve got amnesia, you’re not an idiot. You’re clearly very smart in your own right; you would’ve put it together before the end of your time with us. You probably already had your suspicions before he said anything, right?”

“There were some things that had caught my attention, yes.”

“Care to share?”

“Your green medic patch looked like it had been reapplied recently, there’s not a lot of typical scenarios that would require a medic to need to take it off in the first place. You have a civilian xenolinguistics professor attached to your unit who is just as armed as the rest of you. Nobody has mentioned reporting to a higher-ranking officer than your captain since being here, despite what you found. You’ve all talked about the mission being very long, not wanting to tell me too many details, and how you haven’t been around anybody but each other pretty much the entire time.”

“The medic patch really clued you in?” He laughed. “I slapped that back on less than a minute before jumping out of the ship onto this planet. Good one.”

“I didn’t know they let you bring those,” you referred to the book in his hands. “Figured it’d be a fire hazard.”

“We’re allowed one personal effect,” he explained, turning a page, the paper looking soft and worn. “Fire hazard be damned.”

“And what book did you choose?”

“It’s not mine. It’s Liu’s.” He angled it so you could see the cover.

“‘On the Ethics of Robotics?’” You read the title aloud. “Why are you reading a treatise on ethics in a completely different field?”

“One: It’s been a long mission, you get bored. Two: Now that I’ve actually started reading it… It’s kind of interesting. Gets you thinking. It was written over fifty years ago, so some of the actual science is out of date. But he still talks about some pretty interesting stuff.”

“Was it written by a roboticist or an ethicist?”

“Roboethicist. The very first one. Coined the term and everything.” Dejun dog-eared a page before setting the book aside. “He’s like, Liu’s hero. Liu even got to take a couple classes from the guy during his degree before he died.”

“Wow.”

“Anyway, I’m ready to pass out, and as your doctor, I say it’s bedtime for you too.”

“I will not argue that.” You agreed, laying down as well.

Dejun reached down to turn the light off.

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight, Dejun.”

You were the first one awake in camp. Or so you had thought, as you emerged into the still darkened ag bubble. Liu was sitting around the remnants of the campfire, and for a second, you wondered if he had been made to sleep out here.

His eyes immediately snapped open, and he smiled at you. “Morning! Want to go for a walk?”

“Are you sure we should leave camp?” You looked over towards the captain’s tent hesitantly.

“You can make sure we’re back before sunrise, right?”

You thought momentarily. “It’s in eleven minutes…”

“We’ll be back before then.” He got to his feet. “Scout’s honor.”

You followed him. “You’re in the Navy…”

“Old Earth saying,” he explained, starting on one of the paths between the fields. “It relates to this organization, the Boy Scouts. Doesn’t exist anymore, but the lingo is still around.”

“They were honorable?”

“Don’t know how honorable a bunch of grade schoolers could be, but it’s just an expression.”

“I see…”

“Anyway, sorry about last night,” Liu said. “I got excited and put you in a really awkward situation. Not only that but a dangerous one, too. You’re a civvie, and the more you know, the more you’re at risk. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Thank you, L—”

“God, Yangyang, please,” he rebuffed you before you could finish your sentence. “I’d never hear the end of it if you called the other guys their names and me by rank.”

“Thank you, Yangyang.” You smiled. “May I ask how much younger you are than your teammates?”

“This is my first mission, if that gives you any context.”

“And you were put on one of this caliber?”

“It’s the Professor’s first mission too, in my defense,” he scoffed. “But guys like me usually don’t get a lot of field experience. There’s plenty of roboticists who go their whole careers in the UHN without ever seeing action.”

“So then why are you on this mission?”

“I… actually don’t know.”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“We were all put in a room, minus the Professor, then the captain came in with the Professor and told us we’d all been selected for this team. Professor included.”

“Interesting.”

“I actually don’t know if I was supposed to tell you that…”

“You’re not very good at this classified stuff, are you?”

“You ask a lot of questions!” He said defensively.

You couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t know anything! That’s all I can do!”

“You know how to read Outspacer,” Yangyang pointed out.

“Well, yes.”

“And you seem to be pretty good with tech. How much longer do we have until sunrise?”

“We should head back now,” you answered immediately.

Yangyang pivoted on his heel. “See? You know stuff.”

You kept pace with his change in direction. “Okay, fair point.”

“You should ask Captain Qian if you can tag along to this other place we found here.”

“What sort of place?”

“Robots,” he grinned. “I won’t say more, but I have a hunch you might know what to do in there.”

“Finally figured out what classified means?”

“Okay, ouch.”

“I’m just saying… I’d hate for the Professor to be stranded outside his tent again tonight.” You shook your head teasingly.

“So you do have a real sense of humor,” Yangyang grinned. “Instead of unintentionally slam dunking on Wong every chance you get.”

“Just because I don’t understand Kunhang’s attempts at humor doesn’t mean I don’t have a sense of humor.” You crossed your arms, a bit miffed at the implication.

“Fair point,” he agreed. “You could be from somewhere else. Most of us are Earth boys, after all.”

“Most?”

“You didn’t hear it from me but, Captain Qian is actually from Theta-12. Came to Earth later.”

“Dura-Jil?” You recalled the name that locals had for it. It was one of the first colonies that Earth had established outside of its own galaxy, and wasn’t exactly considered a roaring success, now known to be a dinky outpost only frequented by those who wanted to remain under the radar of the law, ran by a local government who looked the other way for a price. Overall, it was pretty low on the UHN’s list of priorities with everything else going on.

“Yep.” The two of you were back at camp now, and Yangyang lowered his voice. “But uh, that’s all I can say.”

“All you can say or all you know?”

He shrugged and grinned. “Who’s to say?”

The others emerged from their tents then, and you were immediately accosted by the Professor, wanting to watch you decode the ag bubble information panel.

As you read off the panel to the Professor, he stopped you every so often to request an explanation for why certain glyphs were in certain places. You explained them as best you could—after all, you didn’t invent the language—and ZEN transcribed the corrected translation for the team’s reference.

“Professor…” You said in a pause as he was fervently scribbling notes on his tablet.

“Yes?” He replied without looking. You noted that he was the only one of the team who didn’t seem to mind being addressed by his title.

“May I ask how a civilian professor got attached to a military unit?” You tried to be as general as possible, well aware that ZEN was listening.

“I’m a xenolinguistics professor.”

“Doesn’t the UHN have their own translators?”

“I’m very good at my job.”

He was better at this classified stuff than Yangyang.

“Next part, Y/N,” he instructed, pointing back to the panel.

“Right, sorry.” You tapped to the next section of information. “Huh…”

“‘Huh?’” The Professor echoed. “‘Huh’ —What?”

“What translation did ZEN have for this part? The last section?”

“He didn’t have one. We had too few characters to translate anything of substance. Why? What is it?”

You frowned as you reread it. “It’s instructions for modifying the ag bubble.”

“What’s the problem with that?”

“These modifications… The sorts of crops produced wouldn’t be suited for human consumption.”

“What species, then? Outspacer?”

“I… don’t think so.” You winced as a dull throbbing started in your head again. “Unless the Outspacers had caloric energy intake requirements equal to the energy of a supernova.”

“What?!”

“These foods would be impossibly calorically dense… literally… they’d contain so much energy I… Here, it says who is supposed to eat them at the top but I’ve never seen that word before.”

“Do you know the characters?”

“Yeah, I know most of it. It looks like it should be person, but… that can’t be right.”

“What is it?”

“It has machine after it.”

“Person-machine? Like a robot? This is to modify the ag bubble to make robot fuel? What kind? Electric? Nuclear? It can’t be fossil fuels, surely.”

“No, it would still produce crops and food. They’re definitely meant to be eaten, a lot of them have the ground modifier on them. And the word for robot is different. It’s machine, and the glyph for when an object is moving itself. This is person-machine-move. And it’s plural.”

“People-robots?” The Professor surmised. “People… robots?”

Your head hurt even more as you nodded. “Could be. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, or what any of these crops would even be, or what could eat them.”

“Is that everything in the info panel?” The Professor asked.

“Yeah, yeah. You guys should be able to find everything now.”

“ZEN?” The Professor started walking back towards camp, speaking to his tablet. You trailed behind him, trying to blink away your new headache. “Send the corrected map to everyone’s HUDs, please.”

“Already done, Professor,” ZEN’s voice came from the tablet as a small green cube avatar projected just above the screen, the hologram doing a small bounce as if nodding. This morning was the first time you were actually interacting with the AI directly. His speech was seamless, as if a real person was talking, and he spoke in a surprisingly pleasant tenor.

The Professor was unfazed by his sudden appearance. “Of course, thank you. And don’t be rude, introduce yourself to Y/N.”

A lighter face of the cube turned towards you, despite all of them being blank, and the avatar tilted forward in a bow. “I’m ZEN, the crew’s AI. It’s a pleasure, ma’am. Corporal Wong calls me Zennie, if a nickname would make you more comfortable.”

“ZEN is just fine, if that’s what you prefer,” you offered a wincing smile. “If you’ll call me Y/N, since I prefer that over being called ma’am.”

“Seems we understand each other then,” ZEN responded graciously.

“Seems we do.”

“I’ve got to let the captain know about the uh, people-robots.” The Professor took off as you arrived back at the camp.

The artificial sun had risen while you were with the Professor, and everyone was now bustling around with their morning tasks. You saw Ten and Kunhang heading off into the fields as Yangyang and Dejun seemed to be discussing something as they passed a thermos back and forth around the empty firepit. You were contemplating going into your tent until breakfast to nurse this headache when you heard your name being called from another section of camp.

You turned around to see the Professor’s head poking out of Kun’s tent, and he waved you over. You quickly obliged, ducking in after him.

Kun was pacing again, pinching the bridge of his nose. ZEN was projecting both himself and a set of Outspacer glyphs from where the Professor’s tablet was resting on his cot. You recognized it as the “people-robots” one that had troubled the Professor earlier.

“Y/N,” Kun began immediately, stopping and pointing at the glyph. “You’re sure that says people robots?”

“I mean, I know the parts, but I’ve never seen them all put together like that,” you explained. “It’s person, then machine, then to move oneself, and it’s plural. And it’s definitely all one word. But any meaning that I’d be assigning to it after that would be interpretation.”

“The Professor mentioned that robot is machine-move, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you said it’s describing who would be eating modified crops produced by the ag bubble.”

“Yes.”

Dejun was right, thinking with an injured brain fucking hurt.

“Is there any other indication as to what this could mean?”

“No, it says it like we’re supposed to know what it means. But I don’t.”

He sighed. “Alright, thank you, Y/N. If you could give me a moment with the Professor and ZEN?”

“Of course.” You nodded, heading back out of the tent.

Dejun and Yangyang were still around the firepit, but your feet felt restless, and you took off towards the river. You followed the grassy parts of the riverside until you decided you were done walking, and laid down, staring up at the seemingly-endless-but-not-really blue above you. You kept poking around in your memory, trying to find any context for people-robots, or what you were doing here, or the woman in the hall, or why Skippers would show up, or why you knew a long dead alien language, or anything.

Your head hurt more the more you used it, with each new topic you tried, but you kept trying to think. Maybe if you just kept going, right on the other side of the pain would be the answer, if you could just get past this feeling like your brain was a nuclear reactor on the verge of a meltdown. You squeezed your eyes shut against the sky that was suddenly too bright.

“Hey.” Kun’s voice caught your attention, and your eyes snapped open. He was standing next to you, two dishes in hand. “Soup’s on.”

“Oh.” You sat up and he handed yours to you. “This is oatmeal.”

“It means a meal is ready to eat. Any food, not just soup.”

“Got it… Sorry for making you come out here to find me, by the way.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“No, not at all.”

He sat next to you as you started looking over the meal. It looked like Ten and Kunhang were successful in their berry search this morning, as your oatmeal was topped with a very colorful assortment.

“How are you holding up?” Kun asked, looking out at the river.

“Honestly, my head kind of hurts,” you admitted, rubbing one of your eyes.

“You want me to call Xiao over?”

“No, it’s… I’m trying to remember stuff, but the more I try to remember, the more it hurts.”

“You’ve got to stop forcing it,” he chastised you lightly. “It’s like picking a scab, you’re going to want to keep doing it. But you’ve got to stop, alright?”

“Yeah, okay,” you acquiesced with a sigh, dropping your hand.

“It’ll come.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“Then you keep going.”

“That’s it?”

He shrugged. “What other choice do you have?”

You thought for a moment. “Sitting and staring at a wall forever.”

Kun laughed for the first time that you’d heard, and you turned your head to look, catching a glimpse of a dimple as he nodded. “Yeah, I guess you could do that. Be pretty boring, though.”

“I suppose it would be.” You smiled down at your oatmeal, once again trying not to let it go to your head.

He set down his bowl and opened a thermos he had also brought on a strap around his shoulders, a wisp of steam escaping. “Do you like tea? Unfortunately, somebody forgot our cups on the ship, so you’ll just have to use the lid.”

You didn’t know if you liked tea, but you figured you might as well find out now, nodding and then asking, “Who was responsible for the cups?”

“Three guesses, first two don’t count.” He poured until the lid was nearly full, then gingerly offered it out to you.

You accepted it with two hands, feeling the heat through the metal easily. “Then what’s the point of giving me three guesses?”

“It’s a saying, when an answer is obvious to everyone involved.”

“More Earth boy stuff?” You blew over the surface of the tea.

“What?”

“I was talking to Yangyang earlier and he kept saying stuff like that I didn’t get. He said it was probably because he’s an ‘Earth boy.’ And Dejun explained that the thing Kunhang said yesterday about angels is an old Earth saying.”

“Do you think you’re not from Earth then? A colony?”

“I don’t know.” You frowned, taking a sip of the tea. It was warm, comforting, and you figured that you liked the way the richness spread across your tongue.

“Of course, my apologies.” He then added, “Wong forgot the cups, by the way.”

You chuckled. “That was my first guess.”

The two of you finished your oatmeal in what you decided was a peaceful silence, and were left to sip on the still-warm tea.

“Could you… tell me about where you’re from?” You requested quietly, looking over at him.

He eyed you questioningly. “Why?”

“I don’t have a home to remember… I don’t know, it’d be nice to hear about someone else’s.”

Kun sipped from the thermos before setting it aside. “I’m originally from Dura-Jil—Theta-12. I didn’t go to Earth until I joined the UHN.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t look surprised.” He arched an eyebrow. “I take it Liu may have mentioned that one of us wasn’t an Earth boy?”

“He didn’t say much.”

“He doesn’t know much,” the captain retorted. “That’s about all he does know. My team trusts me to tell them what they need to know when they need to know it. If they want to ask questions, they know they can, and I’ll tell them if they need to know the answer yet or not.”

“Have they asked about your home?”

“No, they haven’t. The Professor had mentioned my being from Dura-Jil in passing once, but the crew has not brought it up since.”

“Why not?”

“I think they have some… presuppositions about how I feel about my home planet.” He rolled his neck out. “It’s not exactly humanity’s pride and joy, after all.”

“They think you’d be ashamed?” You concluded.

“Or at least trying to distance myself, for the sake of my career. Having ties to a place like that doesn’t look great if you’ve got your eyes on Fleet Admiral.”

“Do you? Want to be Fleet Admiral?”

He looked at you curiously. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“It’d be more of a desk job, wouldn’t it? Lots of paperwork, politics. Not everyone likes that kind of stuff. It’s also a lot of eyes on you. Couldn’t have the kind of anonymity that being a black ops captain from Dura-Jil affords you.” You pulled your knees to your chest and rested your chin on them. “Not everyone wants the same kind of life.”

Kun chuckled cynically. “You’re right. That’s something I’ve had to learn recently.”

“So will you tell me about Dura-Jil?”

“Yes. But later, breakfast’s over.” He stood up. You quickly tipped back the rest of the tea from the lid and handed it to him so he could close up the thermos. “Find me after mess tonight, we can talk again then, alright?”

“Will do.” You got to your feet as well, starting back towards camp with him. “So what are you all doing today?”

“We have a post-mess meeting in the morning. We’ll discuss the plan for the day there.”

“Oh, okay.”

“We’ll be splitting into two groups today,” the captain announced the plan for the day. Everyone was gathered around, back in their armor save for their helmets, which you presumed was for your sake. “I believe there were two places we found yesterday that warrant further investigation first. I want us to look at that lab with fresh eyes, and Liu, I know you found an area of interest yesterday.”

“Sir, yes sir,” the younger man nodded excitedly.

“Xiao, you didn’t see the lab yesterday, I want you on it in case you see something we might have missed.”

“Yes sir.”

“Professor, Wong, go with him.”

They nodded.

“That means Ten and I are with Liu.”

Everyone looked over at you with bated breath as you kept your eyes on Kun expectantly, waiting for him to presumably assign you to stay in the camp all day where you wouldn’t be in the way.

Kun finally met your gaze. “Y/N…”

“Yes?”

“Liu thinks you may be useful where we’re headed. And since the other group will have the Professor, it’ll be useful to have someone who can read Outspacer with us,” he said all of this matter-of-factly. “We obviously don’t have any armor for you, but if you’re alright with it, I’d like for you to accompany my team today. This way we can have eyes on you as well.”

“Yes!” You rushed to agree before he could take it back. “If you think I can help, of course.”

“Then we’re set.” He nodded.

And so your two groups set off in different directions from the ag bubble with an agreement to meet back up an hour before dinner.

“So where exactly are we headed?” You took your rebreather off to ask, then put it back. The air in the hallways was still noxious, and though you weren’t as rattled as yesterday, you tried to avoid looking too closely at any of the bodies, human or alien, as you passed them.

“The Professor and I found a robotics lab,” Yangyang explained from beside you, clearly ecstatic about the prospect. “I didn’t get to look around much, but it looked awesome.”

“And with the new information we have about the people-robots from the ag bubble panel, I’m interested in what exactly is in there as well,” Kun declared from the front.

“What do you think they could be, Liu?” Ten questioned from where he was once again bringing up the rear of your small group. “The people-robots.”

“If you want a linguistics analysis, you’ll have to ask the Professor. But…” he inhaled. “It could be androids, or humanoids, or cyborgs, or AI-bots, or—”

“What’s the difference between all of those? And how would those be different than AI or robots?”

“Well we already have robots, right? Machines that move on their own, take commands, that sort of thing. They have positronic brains. Then we have AI, which is all coding, programming, the artificial intelligence, like ZEN.”

“I’m with you so far, kid. What’s the other stuff?”

“They’re all theoretical, nobody’s been able to make them yet, so there’s no exact definition. But generally, an android would be a robot that’s meant to look like a human.”

“A lot already do.”

“They’re metal and sort of have cartoon faces and are in general people shapes, sure,” Yangyang snorted. “But an android would actually look like a human. Like, you couldn’t tell the difference. Skin, hair, eyes, teeth, fingernails, eyelashes, everything. But it would still be all robot on the inside. Positronic brain, metal, wires, still a machine, but with a human exterior.”

“Creepy…” Ten commented. “So then what’s a humanoid?”

“A humanoid is supposed to be some combination of human and robot,” the roboticist was chattering excitedly again. “Everybody’s come up with their own range of how robotic and human these could be, and different names for each sub-category, but they’re all largely classified under humanoids. They always have some combination of robot and human parts. And the human parts are actually organic. Androids just look like humans, but humanoids would actually have some human stuff in there.”

“Like what? Just tossing a kidney into a robot for fun?”

“Most of the hypothesizing done has been about the merits of positronic brains versus human brains. And it’s all theoretical, of course.” He then looked around at the facility you were in. “Probably… Anyway, it’s probably not cyborgs, because those are just people with some robotic or mechanical aspect to them. You could consider anybody with a prosthetic to be a cyborg under that definition, really.”

You looked over at him curiously. “How is that different than a humanoid?”

“You have to add robot parts to an already-existing human to make a cyborg. Usually to restore something they lost, or to extend certain capabilities beyond those of normal humans. A humanoid would be entirely lab-made, the robotics and the organic material.”

Ten interrupted, “You’re saying they could’ve been growing people here?”

“You say that as if IVF and organoids don’t exist.”

“I don’t think I want to know what the hell an organoid is,” he groaned. “Just sounds gross…”

“What about AI-bots, Yangyang?” You prompted him to move onto a hopefully less horrifying option.

“Oh!” Yangyang perked up. “AI-bots, right. Since AI don’t have the same safety mechanisms that positronic brains do, the regulations have erred on the side of not giving them physical bodies. ZEN can only directly do stuff to computer systems that he can get into from the back. Right, buddy?”

“Yes, I do have some limits.” It was strange hearing ZEN’s voice coming from the external speaker on Yangyang’s helmet, but you were glad to at least not be left out of that end of the conversation now.

“And if he wants to exert influence in the physical world, one of us meatsacks has to do his bidding, and the closest he can get to being in the physical world is to be in someone’s neural port and experience it through their central nervous system. Right?”

“Why do you all insist on calling yourselves meatsacks in reference to me…?” ZEN almost sounded troubled at the thought.

“We’re just teasing you, dude,” Yangyang snickered. “Anyway, an AI-bot would be putting an AI in a robot. So instead of a positronic brain controlling it, it would be an AI.”

“What do you think, ZEN? Want a body of your own?” Ten asked.

“No, thank you,” ZEN’s voice now came from behind you, projected from Ten’s speaker. “I’m quite content with being stratified data, actually. As much as you all dislike my being in your neural ports, I find it equally… visceral.”

Yangyang laughed. “Damn, tell us how you really feel.”

“You don’t remember what it was like? Having a body?” Ten questioned the AI curiously.

“No, I don’t,” ZEN replied. “One day I simply was. Data and all.”

You took your mask off again to ask, “So you’re a sixth-generation AI, then, ZEN? Made from a donor human brain.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Liu, you got cut off after AI-bots,” Kun said. “What else were you going to say?”

“Or something we’ve never even thought of before,” Yangyang finished. “That’s the thing, right? We don’t know exactly what they were doing here.”

“So not ominous, kid, thanks,” Ten grumbled.

“Lab’s just around the corner!” Yangyang announced cheerily, which you knew was for you, as the others had the map in their HUDs.

You felt a tremor and heard a cracking just as Kun turned said corner, however, and lunged forward to grab his arm with two hands, pulling him back with as much force as you could. He jerked back right before a chunk of the ceiling came crashing down in his path, impacting with a loud thud.

The other two cursed in surprise as you were left clinging to Kun’s armored limb, his reflective face shield whipping around to look at you.

“Holy shit!” Ten breathed out. “Good reflexes, huh?”

“Are you okay, Kun?” You asked him.

He grabbed your hand that was still holding your mask, now a bit crushed between your palm and his armor, and wrenched it off of him, pushing your rebreather back up against your face again.

“I’m fine,” he deadpanned. “Are you okay?”

Kun was still pressing your mask to your face, not letting you bring it back down to answer, so all you could do was nod.

“Don’t do that again,” he warned. “Understand?”

You tried to pull your hand down to argue, but he just tightened his hold, until the mask was pressing into the bridge of your nose a bit painfully.

“Understand?” He repeated sternly.

You simply huffed and stopped struggling.

“Good.” He let go of your hand.

You fell back in with Yangyang as your group went around the chunk of ceiling.

The robotics lab was a large room filled with, surprisingly, not a lot of robots. Not a single robot, in fact. You couldn’t tell what had made Yangyang so excited in the first place until he drew your attention over to a workstation.

“Here,” he offered a seat to you, and you were now sat in front of some schematics. “I took a peek at these yesterday but the Professor and I had to move on before I got to really get into them.”

You hesitantly set your mask down, and were pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t too bad to breathe in here. Didn’t smell great, but you’d probably live. Flipping through the translucent sheets stacked on top of each other, you quickly began piecing together what these were preliminary sketches of.

“These are concept sketches of a casing for a positronic brain…” you said. “But it doesn’t say what it’s supposed to go in. It’s just the casing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.” Yangyang pulled it back towards himself. “I don’t know why they felt the need to reinvent the wheel, though. We already have positronic brains this size and shape, and the casings work just fine. And those things go in all sorts of places that human ones don’t. Radiation exposure, the bottom of the ocean, active volcanoes, black holes, you name it. I don’t know what they would have needed this casing to do…”

“This place is really empty.” You looked around again. “Shouldn’t there be… a lot more?”

“Maybe they didn’t get to burn it like they did the other lab,” Ten suggested. “They got interrupted by something.”

“The Skippers?” You asked.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “They were already cleaning house for some reason—either they knew the UHN were onto them, knew the Skippers were coming, suddenly grew a conscious, whatever—started to destroy the evidence, then got interrupted by the Skippers before they could finish the job.”

“But what did the Skippers want?” Yangyang tilted his head. “They’re not exactly known for their love of technology. Unless they were here to kill the heretics or something.”

“And they just happened to find a secret UHN experimental facility?” Kun countered doubtfully.

“Maybe they heard the same rumors our guy did.”

“Yeah, you want to say that to his face? That he gets us the same intelligence as Skipper defectors in stolen Fishead ships?”

You perked up at this information. This was the first you’d heard of the aliens in the halls not piloting ships made by their own kind. Skippers were wary of any technology not made by other Skippers, considering it to be blasphemous—they considered their own technology to be holy, the ideas and directions being gifted to the inventors directly by their gods. Therefore, technology made by any other species was sacrilege. Skippers using another species’ ships was certainly… fascinating.

“They were in K’llor ships?” You clarified. While the Skippers’ name for themselves was impossible for humans to pronounce, the endonym for Fisheads was easy enough.

“Yes, there’s no evidence there were any Skipper ships here. Only the two Fishead pods outside,” Kun confirmed.

“And… where exactly is here?”

“This is a blacked out UHN research facility on an artificial dwarf planet. Officially, it has no name, since it doesn’t exist. But unofficially, the few people at the UHN who do know about it, call it Aegeum.”

“The planet or the facility?”

“Both. There’s nothing here except the facility.” He had meandered over to the station you and Yangyang were at, and picked up your rebreather from the countertop. He sighed, “You cracked it…”

You looked at where he was holding it up to the light, and there was indeed a crack in the outer shell.

“Oh. Sorry. I’ll get another from Dejun later.” You stood up, looking around the room. “Ten said you found more ‘toys,’ Yangyang. It sounded like you had actually found robots. It wasn’t just one notepad, was it?”

“Dejun’s right, you’re not an idiot.” Yangyang beamed at you, leading you over to the back of the lab, where there was another door. He pulled it open, revealing a storage area of some kind. There were cubbies of different sizes, some empty, and some filled with what looked like half-built robots. Or, half-taken apart robots.

“What is this? A robot chop shop?” Ten called from where he had peered in from the doorway.

“No way these things were being used for spare parts,” Yangyang snorted.

Your eyes skimmed over some of the models, reading their serial codes as you went. SPD, QT, TN, MX, EZ, NDR. None of them had any power source, that much was clear. They were just… there.

“No…” You muttered, looking at the parts from each of them. “I would almost call this a museum…”

“These are ancient,” Yangyang agreed. “But also, who would put a museum in a broom closet in a secret experimental facility on secret fake dwarf planet?”

“That was my thinking.” You looked into the NDR model’s lifeless eyes. “It sort of looks like… someone was learning about robots? Taking apart old ones to see what makes them tick.”

“Yeah!” The roboticist nodded. “It reminds me of when I was kid and I’d take apart old watches and phones and anything else I could get my hands on, just trying to figure out how it worked.”

“Why would someone in a state-of-the-art UHN robot lab need to learn about hundred-year-old robots like a child?” Kun questioned, following the two of you in.

“Don’t know,” Yangyang admitted. “I doubt someone had their actual kid here.”

“All of the bodies were adults.”

“Right.”

The four of you continued scouring the robotics lab, and as you were inspecting another notebook of calculations about energy supply for a robot, you let out a huff.

“Does anything else feel off to you guys about what we’re finding?” You called out to them.

“Aside from the everything?” Ten retorted from where he had been sat at the one computer remaining, not guessing the password for fear of erasing any data on it. ZEN was currently working on that.

“Well, yeah, but the food that the ag bubble had modifications to make… there’s no indication that anything was being made that required anywhere near that sort of energy intake. Positronic brains have only gotten more energy efficient since those old models.”

“Y/N’s right,” Yangyang sighed. “AI actually takes more energy than robots, in the grand scheme of things. We’ve gotten less energy efficient, overall.”

“Team Two,” Kun’s voice was a bit muffled as he checked in with the others. “Status, Team Two?”

They all paused as they listened, and Kun nodded along. Finally, he responded, “Alright, keep on it. We’ll recap an hour before mess.”

“They find anything?” You inquired.

“Maybe.” Was all you got.

“ZEN got it,” Ten announced, drawing everyone into a huddle around the screen.

An asynchronous fragment of ZEN had been plugged into the computer, since you all were unsure of exactly what was going on in there, there was a risk of a synchronous fragment transmitting any number of issues back to the rest of ZEN’s systems. With the fragment plugged into the computer being completely self-contained, it could only be reconnected with the rest of his data in the Vision’s system, where his main control nexus was. Which meant that the fragment in the facility computer was currently mute, limited to the system he was in.

The computer had been unlocked, and the soldiers around you immediately groaned as a menu written entirely in Outspacer appeared.

“Of fucking course it’s in the dead alien language, just like the rest of the building,” Ten cursed, pushing the chair back away from the computer. “Alright, Y/N, it’s all yours.”

“How long was this place running, again?” You asked curiously as you and Ten swapped.

“They finished constructing the planet nine years ago, opened the facility a year after that,” Kun answered. “Why?”

“Just thinking about how hard it’d be to not only keep all this secret for so long, but also teach all the people who worked here to be fluent in a dead language with enough proficiency that they could perform ground-breaking research in it.”

“You wouldn’t have to,” Yangyang replied as you began keying through the menu options.

“What do you mean?”

“Not everybody has to be fluent in it, especially not to a level of technological proficiency. Not if you have robot scribes who are. You just need one person who knows it and is good with robots, then they can make an Outspacer dictionary to install into however many robots they want. Then your humans can dictate in standard human, the robots can transcribe in Outspacer, and as long as your humans know enough to not mistake the furnace for the bathroom, you’re set.”

“They wouldn’t be able to read their own notes,” Ten pointed out.

“The robots would translate it back,” Yangyang replied casually. “And I’m sure you’d pick some up eventually after eight years.”

Kun interjected, “That’s not a bad idea but we haven’t found any robots other than the old models you just saw.”

“I mean, if I was trying to get rid of all the evidence of my evil science experiments, first thing I’m destroying after the evil science experiments themselves are the things that know how to read all my notes about my evil science experiments.”

“Great, all we have is a bunch of theories about why we have no evidence and no actual evidence,” Kun sighed. “Y/N, what does the computer say?”

“It looks like the start menu, there’s a few options, but they go into a lot of subfolders. It’s sorted by department, though. Robotics, Synthetic Biology, Administrative, Support, Facility—I think that one’s just like the general building records maybe? Like, not related to any experiments. Probably repair and maintenance records. I don’t know, it’ll take a while to go through all of this.”

“Even with ZEN’s help?” Kun offered.

“He’ll need to be able to read Outspacer first,” you sighed. “His translations yesterday weren’t the best.”

“He only had the Professor’s notes and his own algorithm to work with. He’ll be a quick study if you give him the right material.”

“Then yeah, it should be a lot faster to find more relevant stuff with his help.”

The captain nodded resolutely. “We’ll get you and the Professor on it when we get back to camp.”

Back at camp, your teams exchanged reports on your investigations for the day. Kun filled the others in on what you did—and didn’t—find in the robotics lab, then all eyes were on the others.

“I found some traces of organic material,” Dejun announced. “A very small—”

“We got people, and we got robots,” Kunhang said definitively, setting off Yangyang and Ten into speculative chatter.

“It could’ve been paper for all we know!” The doctor tried to quell the fast-paced conspiracies flying around the group. “‘Organic material’ is meaningless, alright? I won’t be able to tell you anything more until I can get it back up onto the Vision and into some proper equipment. My field scanner here isn’t equipped for intergalactic CSI, it’s to keep you all from dying.”

“There’s enough of a sample for analysis?” Yangyang’s eyes were glittering with excitement.

“I think so.”

He turned to Kun. “Well when can we get that sample back on the Vision, Captain?”

“Not yet.” Kun shook his head. “We still have no clue why the Skippers were here. I don’t like that they apparently knew about this place before we did.”

“Should we check out their ships tomorrow then?” Ten suggested. “See what we can find there?”

“Yes. I want you, Wong, and Liu on that tomorrow.” Kun turned back to Dejun, “Xiao, are you finished with the lab? Or do you need more time?”

“I’m done.”

“You, ZEN, and I are going to clear the building again. See if we can reconstruct the fighting from the beginning.”

“Yes, sir.”

That just left you and the Professor. You looked between him and Kun expectantly.

“Y/N,” Kun said your name tersely, crossing his arms over his chest. “Stay here and review the Professor’s notes on Outspacer.”

“All day?” You couldn’t help but blurt out. “How voluminous are his notes?”

A few of the others snickered.

“Very. Might even take you a few days, if we’re lucky.” He clapped his hands. “Dismissed. Get ready for mess, everyone.”

“So,” Ten sat down next to you at the campfire, handing you your dish. “You and the captain are on a first-name basis?”

You furrowed your brow, looking between him, your food, and where Kun was talking to the Professor and Dejun at the entrance of his tent, then back to Ten. “Well, yes, I suppose. You’ve all asked me to address you informally, except the Professor.”

“You know, I forget that his first name isn’t actually Captain,” Kunhang plopped down on your other side.

“Me too,” Ten agreed, accepting the second bowl of food that Kunhang had brought with him.

“Is it a problem?” You inquired as you stirred up your chili.

“Not at all.”

“Just…” Kunhang trailed off as he seemed to be thinking of the right word. “Fascinating.”

“What’s fascinating?” Yangyang had wandered over, already shoveling food into his mouth.

“Grown up stuff,” Ten replied dismissively.

The roboticist rolled his eyes, sitting down next to Kunhang. “Says the three who were just whispering like tweenagers at a sleepover.”

“I’m just sitting here!” You tried to defend yourself.

“If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck—”

“Ducks don’t talk?”

Ten and Kunhang laughed as Yangyang stuck his tongue out at you.

“Yes, very mature behavior from the man who was just trying to prove that he could be included in conversations with adults,” you snorted.

Kunhang shook his head. “She’s got a point, kid.”

“You’re falling in with the wrong crowd, Y/N,” Yangyang clicked his tongue. “These two are bullies, you know.”

“All of you are ridiculous and I’m tired of this,” you declared. “Yangyang, stop having a complex about your youth and inexperience, they’re calling you ‘kid’ as an affectionate nickname to show that they accept you as part of the unit. Ten and Kunhang, it’s not a big deal that Kun told me to be informal with him.”

“That’s the grown up stuff?” Yangyang said in disbelief as the other two laughed even harder. “You guys really are pre-teens.”

“Way to deflect,” Ten snickered.

“And really, do you think we’d survive calling the captain that?” Kunhang added.

“What are you calling me?” Kun’s voice suddenly entered the conversation, and all four of you startled before turning to look at him. He was standing behind you, arms crossed over his chest as he focused his gaze down at Kunhang specifically, an eyebrow raised.

Kunhang looked around at the other three of you, panicked, but there was no way you were going to help him now. The Marine gulped before scrambling to answer, “We only ever address you with the utmost respect, sir, of course, sir. Captain. Sir.”

Kun’s very obviously did not believe him, but apparently decided to let the matter go. “Clearly. As you were, Corporal.”

The others got their dinner and sat around the fire as well, various conversations cropping up here and there. At the conclusion of mess, you helped Ten and Kunhang with cleaning up as before, then bid them goodnight. Yangyang and the Professor were still up tending to the fire and chatting, and you looked around for the other residents of camp. Dejun must have already retired to your tent for the night, but there was one in particular you were looking for. This morning, Kun had told you to find him after mess tonight, and you had apparently lost him at some point.

There was a soft glow from inside his tent, however, and with the Professor still out here, you figured that would be a pretty good place to start. The front flap that acted as a door of sorts wasn’t clipped open as it usually was during the day, but it wasn’t zipped up like it was at night or when whoever was inside needed privacy. There was definitely a lamp on inside, though, so you hesitantly grabbed the edge and parted it, calling out softly as you peered in.

“Kun? Are you—” Your eyes immediately landed on where Kun was laying on his cot on his front, his back to the door. Dejun was sat on a container next to him, one of his medic packs at his feet. Kun was holding up the hem of his shirt to allow access to his lower back, and when Dejun turned around to face you, his shoulders had shifted enough so that you could see a med-pod attached to the captain’s skin. You immediately knew you weren’t supposed to see this, trying to scramble out as fast as possible as they both were now looking at you intensely. “Sorry! Sorry! I’ll go!”

“Y/N.” Kun’s tone was commanding, despite his position.

You stepped in with an apologetic grimace already on your face. “I’m sorry, the tent was unzipped, I thought—”

“That was our fault.”

“You’re busy, I’ll go. It wasn’t important.” You tried to excuse yourself again.

“Xiao was just leaving.”

“No I wasn’t,” Dejun snorted.

“Now you are.”

“Captain, we’re not nearly finished.”

Kun looked over his shoulder at the doctor tersely. “It’s fine, Lieutenant.”

“Whatever.” Dejun clicked the med-pod off and stood up, setting it down on the container he’d been sitting on. He addressed you on his way out, “You see why you’re my best patient?”

You were silent until you and the captain were alone again, thoroughly convinced you were going to suffer the same fate that Yangyang did yesterday. “I’m really sorry, Kun—”

You were interrupted by a low grunt of pain that came from the man in front of you as he went to push himself up into a sitting position. Worried, you watched as he clutched his lower back and paused, hunched over as he sat at the side of his cot.

“Are you… okay?” You asked quietly.

He held up a finger for you to wait, and you did, watching he took a few deep breaths, then finally sat up straight, looking you in the eye. Kun took his hand from his back, clenching and unclenching one of his fists over his knees.

“The ceiling.” He said abruptly.

“Kun, are you—”

“The ceiling.” He repeated sharply. “We’re talking about the ceiling.”

You sighed and crossed your arms. “I didn’t think, I just did it, okay?”

“Y/N. Not only are you a civilian, whose safety we are responsible for, not the other way around, but I was wearing armor graded for that kind of impact, you were not. I would have been fine if it had hit me. You would not have been.”

“I know,” you insisted.

“You inspected my armor just yesterday, you know the material it’s made of, and that there’s nothing wrong with it. I would have been fine. A little winded, maybe a bruise, but fine.”

“I know, I know,” you repeated, frustrated that you weren’t able to articulate why you did what you did.

“So, did you need something?” Kun asked, his voice sounding a little strained.

“Uhm, you told me to find you after mess, but Dejun was clearly doing something important, so I’ll leave and go get him for you.”

“Oh, right, I said I’d tell you about Dura-Jil.”

“It can wait.”

He stooped over a little and grabbed at his back again. “No, it’s fine.”

“You… don’t look fine,” you said, wincing empathetically.

“I’ll be fine,” he replied dismissively.

“What’s wrong? What was Dejun treating?”

He paused, and you weren’t sure if it was to ponder his answer, or to collect himself from the pain that he was clearly experiencing. After a moment, he finally answered, “The skeletal enhancements I had mentioned before, they weren’t entirely successful.”

“They’re causing you pain.” You surmised, then added hesitantly, “Or failing entirely?”

“Just some pain between tune-ups. They didn’t quite expect us to last this long when they gave us them.”

“That’s… horrible.” You shook your head, brow furrowing angrily with this knowledge. “They can’t fix it?”

“Not without putting me behind a desk for the rest of my career.” He took a deep inhale then exhaled through his nose. “If I’m lucky.”

“How often do you need ‘tune-ups?’”

“Every couple years or so. Had to miss my last one with this mission, so Xiao’s been having to do more treatments than usual.”

“And how frequently is that?”

“Nightly.”

“You’re in pain right now, Kun,” you declared softly, feeling a lump growing in your throat as you watched him clearly trying and failing to hide it from you. “If I can’t go get Dejun, will you let me finish it?”

He looked up from the ground to you. “Hm?”

“He left the med-pod here. You tell me about Dura-Jil, and I’ll finish up giving you your treatment,” you bargained.

For a terrifying moment, you thought he was about to say no. But instead, the captain just sighed and laid back down on his cot on his front. You picked up the med-pod and sat down where Dejun had been before. The canister was half-filled with a clear liquid still, and you couldn’t see the needle end. He shuffled around to grab the back of his shirt and pull it up just enough to give you access to the middle of his back. You could see where the last injection had been, a small circular impression in the middle of his spine showing where the injector had locked on.

Sliding the circle back into the same place, you looked up at Kun’s face. He wasn’t holding his breath, or staring off into the distance. Instead, he was peering over his shoulder at you. Not at the injector in your hand, but at you.

“What?” You flicked your eyes between him and the device. “Do you want a countdown or something?”

“If you need one,” he replied noncommittally.

You pressed the button on the device, and heard the distinct click signifying that the injection had started. He didn’t even flinch at the needle going in, and you pulled your hand back as you looked up to meet his eyes again.

“You seem unperturbed by this,” he commented.

“So do you.”

“Like I said—” he settled his chin to rest on his forearm. “Nightly. So what do you want to know about Dura-Jil?”

“Whatever you want to tell me,” you replied. “I mean, I kind of have the general idea, I think, but what was it actually like being there as a kid?”

“It wasn’t some lawless free-for-all wasteland, I can tell you that much.” Kun paused as if to think, then continued, “I had parents, and friends, and had a childhood probably pretty similar to yours, whatever it was like.”

“Huh.”

“I also learned to drive a Geck at twelve instead of a normal car, knew how to spot fake UHN munitions by fourteen, and me and my friends’ idea of a good time was hotwiring whatever black market Fishead pods or Dumbo quadships we could get our hands on and taking joyrides to blast new craters into one of the moons.”

You chuckled, able to hear just the slightest hint of fondness in his tone for his rambunctious youth. “Were all your friends human?”

“One Phaser, but Dura-Jil was still mostly human back then. Just a lot of corrupt humans.”

“And it’s completely breathable atmosphere for humans?”

“Yep, very similar atmospheric composition to Earth, that’s part of why it was chosen for the first colony,” he confirmed. “It’s a bit further from Sol-X than Earth is from the Sun, though, so you’ve got to bundle up while you’re there. Perpetual winter, at least by Earth standards.”

“What about the sky? Is it blue like Earth?”

“Closer to an indigo. Something about the scattering and the gases. I was shocked when I came to Earth and realized how blue a blue sky was actually supposed to be.”

“Why did you go to Earth? Why did you leave Dura-Jil?”

The injector clicked again then, signaling that it had finished. You looked back down and saw the canister was empty.

“It’s late,” Kun declared, removing the empty med-pod from his back himself. He turned onto his side with a soft grunt, propped up on an elbow as he held the device out to you. “Give that back to Xiao, will you?”

You accepted it, standing back up. “Of course. Thank you, Kun.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight.”

When you left Kun’s tent, you nearly tripped over the Professor sitting on his pack just outside of it.

“Oh! Sorry!” You apologized.

“Huh?” He looked up from his notes as if he had just noticed you. “Oh, Y/N, I thought it was Xiao in there.”

“No, uh, just me. Goodnight, Professor.”

Back in your own tent, you held the empty med-pod out towards Dejun. “Here…?”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise as he sat up, letting you drop it into his palm. “Captain finished it himself?”

“Not quite,” you sighed, sitting down as you watched him put it back into one of his packs. “I asked him to let me administer it since he had sent you away before you could finish.”

“Well thanks.” He laid back down onto his cot. “Might need you to guilt him into doing that more often.”

“You make it sound like a bad thing.”

“Y/N, he needs it. I don’t know how much he told you about it, but it’s good that he let you.”

“Will it shorten his lifespan? The enhancements degrading?”

The doctor breathed out low and slow, rolling over to face you. “How much did he tell you?”

“The UHN gave him minor skeletal enhancements that allow his body to support the weight of his armor. But when he was given them… the UHN hadn’t considered longevity and now the enhancements require adjustments or they cause him pain. He missed his last adjustment because of this mission so you’ve been administering pain treatments nightly.”

“So… a lot.” Dejun shook his head. “I don’t know. Like you said, the UHN didn’t expect him to last long, so they didn’t factor that into the enhancements, or anything else they did. So I don’t know what’ll happen.”

“How could humans do that to other humans?”

“Pretty easily, actually, if they think they’re doing the right thing,” he almost laughed. “I wish it weren’t so.”

“When can Kun get his next tune-up?”

“Whenever we’re done here, I hope,” Dejun mused, flopping onto his back. “We should be dropping you off at UHN Main after this, and that’s where it happens.”

“What more do you need to do here?” You asked. “How soon can we go? So he can get adjusted.”

“Don’t know. When he thinks we’re done here, I guess. Or if the Admiral calls us to something more pressing, but that would probably delay the adjustment for even longer.”

You gnawed on your bottom lip. “I wish I could help. I wish I could remember, be able to tell you all what was going on here.”

“Y/N, you’ve helped us plenty. You can read Outspacer, for fuck’s sake,” Dejun insisted. “And what did I tell you about stressing your injured brain?”

“Not do it,” you sighed. “And I’m not. I’m just… expressing frustration about it.”

“Yeah, and I wish I’d had another growth spurt or two,” he snorted. “Isn’t going to make me two meters tall anytime soon. Best thing either of us can do right now is sleep, okay?”

“You’re right, you’re right.”

“Always am.”

You laid down, staring up at the ceiling of the tent. “Goodnight, Dejun.”

He clicked the lamp off, plunging you into darkness. “Night, YN.”

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