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even-after-a-millennia · 2 years

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Found: The Goddess of Lost and Forgotten Things

At the end of January, I was asked to be a pinch hitter for Andromaquynh Secret Santa 2021 for @beepbeepsan. Unfortunately, between a new job and pretty bad writing burnout, it took wayyyyyy longer than expected to finish this fic. So welcome to my Secret Santa/Pride Month extravaganza, I guess? Beep, I'm so sorry it's so late. I hope you like it and you have a great Pride month!

You can read the fic on my ao3 here or under the cut below.

Summary: When Quynh's computer crashes and all her research is lost, she desperately reaches out to the universe. She didn't expect an exhausted, foul-mouthed goddess to appear out of nowhere and land on her couch.

Rated T | 4.7k | Andromaquynh

In Quynh’s defense, she didn’t mean to summon an ancient goddess into her studio apartment. But it was two in the morning, her paper was due by nine a.m., and her computer’s screen had just gone black.

“No, no no no no, no!” she chanted, checking the power cord, hitting the power button, and then smacking random keys trying to get it to come back to life. “FUCK!”

She threw it down on the couch beside her and pushed the palm of her hands into her eyes, trying to stop herself from crying. But her nose was starting to go and tears were starting to form and really, was a Master’s degree worth all this fucking stress?

“If there is some fucking person out there who is the deity of forgotten or lost things who could help me out, I would really fucking appreciate it,” she said, her voice breaking as lights danced behind her eyelids.

Then she realized it wasn’t her eyes doing that. The lights of her apartment were fluttering, and she had a moment of worry she was about to lose power when suddenly, a woman plopped onto her couch beside her.

“What the fuck?!” Quynh shouted, leaping to her feet and throwing the closest textbook she could find at her.

“Ow, fuck!” the woman shouted.

“How did you get in here?” Quynh demanded, hefting another book, ready to throw it. Then she remembered that it was a rental and lowered it slightly. Best to use it as a last resort.

“You summoned me. Why’d you do that?” the woman groaned, dropping her head in her hands.

“My computer died,” Quynh said. “And it’s not like I asked for you specifically!” She realized that the computer in question was halfway under the woman’s body. “Shit, you’re crushing it!”

The woman lifted her head and pulled the computer out from under her. Waving it around, she asked, “This thing is what you lost?”

“My paper on it, yeah. All my research. I’ve had that computer since undergrad, if everything I’ve written on there is gone, there’s no way I’m going to be able to graduate. I don’t have backups anywhere,” Quynh said, her eyes starting to well with tears as she realized all she had lost when that screen had gone dark.

The woman sighed. Then she waved her hand over the computer and Quynh watched with wide eyes as it came back to life.

“There. It’s back. Now leave me the hell alone,” the woman said, getting up.

She walked to the door and Quynh realized she was leaving.

“Wait!” she yelped, not ready to let her go. “Who are you?”

The woman looked back. Her hair was short, but still almost covered her eyes. It was only now that Quynh noticed just how tired the woman looked. Her eyes were older than her face let on.

“Andromache the Scythian,” the woman replied. “But you can just call me Andy.”

Quynh nodded, not really sure how to respond. “I’m Quynh,” she finally settled on.

Andy looked at her a moment then nodded back. “Goodbye, Quynh.”

She was out the door before Quynh could really think why there was such a note of finality in her tone.

Then she was alone in her apartment, where she was pretty sure some kind of magic being just popped into, just to fix her paper because Quynh had asked her to.

Her paper!

“Shit!”

She got back to work, reasoning that she would think about the woman, Andy, more later.

____________________________________

“So I’m pretty sure I summoned someone last night,” Quynh said to Nile as they ate lunch.

Nile stopped mid-chew to raise an eyebrow at her. “Are you going to leave me hanging for the details?”

“My computer died,” and at this, Nile gave a wince of sympathy, “and I just asked for someone who helps with lost or forgotten things to help and suddenly there was a woman in my apartment. She fixed my computer and then left.”

“When was this?” Nile asked.

“Like, two a.m.?”

“And you’re sure it wasn’t a dream?”

Quynh considered. “Well, I had to go relock my door for the night, and I don’t think that a dream would have been able to unlock it in the first place.”

“That’s so weird… Did you get a name?” Nile asked.

“Andromache the Scythian, she said.”

Nile immediately had her phone in her hands and was searching for anything on the woman. Being. Goddess? Even though they had been face to face, Quynh wasn’t really sure what to call her.

“There’s nothing on her online,” Nile said. “No history, no mentions in ancient stories, no mythology, nothing.”

“That is so weird…” Quynh said. “The person in charge of lost and forgotten things, lost to history herself. She didn’t even want to be called upon, I don’t think.”

“What do you mean?”

“She seemed mad when she showed up and said to leave her alone.”

Nile’s brow furrowed. “I wonder why.”

Quynh got an idea. “I’ll ask her!”

“She wanted to be left alone, remember?”

Quynh flapped a hand at her. It was a gesture she had picked up from Nile herself, and she liked to use it whenever she could.

“She seemed… tired. I think she needs something to do, someone to help, even if she doesn’t realize it herself,” Quynh said.

Nile shrugged. “Alright. But if it goes badly, just know that I will say I told you so.”

_______________________________________

Quynh was going to summon Andy later that night, but then she had to do her responses for her classes’ discussion posts and start doing research for the next big paper coming up, so she didn’t even have a chance to do more than fleetingly think about the mysterious woman who had showed up in her apartment until the weekend. Even then, it was past ten o’clock on Saturday night and she was putting down her computer for the first time in hours when she remembered her idea.

“Um, hi, Andromache? I’m a little lost at the moment, I was wondering if you could help me?” she asked her ceiling.

The lights flickered again, then there was a plop onto the couch.

And there she was.

She was wearing the same clothes as last time, a long trench coat over pants and a faded t-shirt, her short hair brushed off her face this time.

“What.”

“Hi,” Quynh said, smiling at her.

Andy softened slightly. If Quynh hadn’t been looking for it, she would have missed it, but a couple of the crinkles around her eyes disappeared and her eyebrows were slightly less frowny than before.

“Hello. Now, what have you lost?”

“Ah, but I didn’t say that I had lost something, did I? I said I was lost,” Quynh said. “And I’m lost because, unless this is all a hallucination, which I doubt because I can feel the couch bending around your weight, how is it that a woman can appear in my room then give me a very specific name, and yet I cannot find any information about her at all?”

Andy sighed. “Some things are best left forgotten, Quynh.”

Quynh raised an eyebrow. “And you think you should be?”

She shrugged. “Only way for me to have peace.”

Quynh cocked her head. “Peace? How so?”

“In between summonings, I don’t really… exist. I can just sink into the nothingness of time and just be. I was hoping this time, I wouldn’t come back.”

Quynh sat there, taking that in.

“Well, that’s horrifying,” she concluded.

Andy blinks at her. “What?”

“You want to stop existing, Andy. That’s not healthy, and you deserved a better existence than that.”

“I don’t really have a choice about not existing, Quynh. It’s just what happens between summons.” And Andy looked so tired as she said it, that Quynh made up her mind on the spot.

“Alright. I evoke you, Andromache the Scythian, to help me get through grad school. Because I am always lost and forget things a lot. Ever since my girlfriend broke up with me last month, I could really use a friendly face around. You’re stuck with me.”

“To what end?” Andy asked.

Quynh shrugged. “Until I graduate, I guess. I’m in my last semester, so just under three months. That okay?”

Andy looked her over and Quynh tried not to squirm under her very probing gaze.

“What’s in it for me?” Andy asked.

It was Quynh’s turn to analyze the woman — well, goddess — in front of her.

“Think of it as one last hurrah before you sink into nothingness,” Quynh said. She didn’t think it was a good idea to lie to a goddess, but here she was.

Luckily, Andy didn’t call her on it.

“Deal,” Andy said, holding out a hand.

Quynh took a deep breath and shook it.

I’m going to somehow keep you alive, Andy.

_______________________________________

Having a goddess who helps with lost and forgotten things around was doing wonders for Quynh’s grades. She got begrudging reminders when assignments were due, help finding her notes when her pile of papers got too high, and another person in her small apartment, filling up the emptiness that had been there before.

They quickly fell into a pattern, with Quynh going to class and leaving Andy in the mornings, going to the library between classes, then coming back and doing homework in the evenings. Her evenings were suddenly full of conversation and even some reluctant laughter.

Andy filled the time slowly going through Quynh’s bookshelves. She didn’t seem picky about what she was reading at first, going from fiction to an old textbook and back again. It wasn’t until about a month into staying with Quynh that Andy held up a sapphic romance and asked, “You have any more like this?”

Quynh did. And when she ran out, she went and got more one by one, trying to sneak them into her collection so that Andy wouldn’t know that she was buying them for her.

The semester was going by quicker than Quynh could have anticipated and midterms nearly destroyed her.

She woke up the day after handing in her last paper to Andy nudging her with her foot.

“Wha?” she asked, disoriented.

“Wake up, you gotta eat. I can tell you forgot to have any real meals yesterday,” Andy said.

Quynh blinked blurrily up at Andy and realized that she was carrying a tray of food. She pushed herself up on her pillows and pushed her hair out of her face.

“Here,” Andy said, holding out the tray.

Quynh took it and saw a stack of toast, a pile of fresh fruits, and a whole package of bacon on it.

“Holy shit, I can’t eat all of this. Sit and help me with it,” Quynh said, scooting over on the bed.

Andy eyed the space, then shrugged and sat down. She popped a whole piece of bacon in her mouth and started chewing.

Quynh had to stop herself from laughing. Throughout her time living with Andy, she had noticed that she was gruff and kind of grumpy, but that at least part of it was a front. Quynh saw through it constantly, like the time Andy had peeled her off the sofa when Quynh had drunk a little too much wine on a night out with Nile. She had laughed at Quynh under her breath, but Quynh had heard it anyway. She held onto that sound as she drifted off to sleep.

The awareness of her roommate had existed since the first time that she had flopped down onto Quynh's couch, but instead of becoming more used to it with time, Quynh had only become more aware of her. She felt every inch of space between her hip and Andy’s, and was keenly conscious of how small her pajama shorts were.

“Thanks for this,” she said, grabbing a piece of toast. She didn’t even care about crumbs. She needed to do laundry anyway.

Andy hummed, the only acknowledgment of her deed.

“How much of a break do you get until your classes start up again?” Andy asked.

“Just over week. Just enough time for me to get used to a completely different sleep schedule before class comes back to fuck it up,” Quynh said with a grin.

Andy huffed out a laugh, looking down at the bedspread. “Do you need me during that time?”

Quynh looked at her incredulously. “I mean, duh. What, you have something else to do?”

Grinning ruefully, Andy replied, “It’s kinda the point that I don’t, Quynh.”

“Right.”

They crunched bacon and toast in silence for a while.

“How were you forgotten?” Quynh asked. She knew she was throwing the question out there unexpectedly, but it had been on her mind for so long that it made perfect sense to say it.

Andy sighed. “I’ve been around for a long, long time, Quynh. Most things in museums are younger than me. There isn’t a record of me because the history of me and my people were wiped from existence. The civilizations that came later destroyed them. There’s a blank spot in history. And that’s where I live.”

“Not anymore, though,” Quynh said. “I’ll always remember you and I’ll make sure other people do too.”

Andy laughed and it wasn’t a happy sound. “I don’t think that’s how it works, Quynh. You are not the first person to inadvertently summon me throughout the millennia. But I still go back to that limbo once they are done with me, no matter what.”

It was Quynh's turn to hum.

“Maybe I just need to dig deeper…” she mused.

Andy looked at her and shoved another huge bite of bacon into her mouth.

“I don’t know how successful you’ll be, but I’ve seen the research spirals you’ve gone down, so I’m just going to say good luck.”

Quynh smirked. “I won’t need it, but thanks.”

Her hair fell into her face as she leaned down for another strawberry. She didn’t think anything of it until she felt fingers running through it, pushing it back behind her ear.

She froze, then looked up at Andy. She was sure that she probably looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a car, but her heart was suddenly pounding and she couldn’t make herself look away.

Andy didn’t look unaffected either. Her eyes drifted from where her fingers were curled at the back of Quynh’s neck, up to her chin, before they settled on her lips.

Quynh felt herself leaning forwards, her lips parting slightly as Andy’s face became closer.

Then her phone chimed loudly and they jumped apart.

Clearing her throat, Quynh snatched it up. “It’s Nile. Said she got home safe in Chicago.”

Andy nodded, getting up. “Good. I’m going to go shower.”

Quynh wanted more to ask if she could join almost as much as she wanted to be done with grad school. But she bit her tongue and simply nodded as Andy left the room.

Then she flopped back into her pillows and stared at the ceiling until Andy’s shower was over and she could have her lonely turn.

___________________________________

Quynh thought she was keeping her pining for her reluctant roommate pretty well under wraps until she ran into her ex-girlfriend three weeks before graduation. Sure, she was making herself have headaches with how much she was researching Andy’s history and yeah, she mentally cataloged every touch, deliberate and accidental, that they shared. She thought about their almost kiss more than she slept. Despite all that, she thought she had it handled. But then Andy had to go and ruin all of that.

She stopped by the small bakery three roads down from her apartment on the way back home because no matter how much Andy tried to hide it, she had the biggest sweet tooth imaginable. Quynh had to get them the chocolate croissants because they were usually out when Quynh came in and she could not pass up this opportunity. Also, her finals were fast approaching and Quynh would take every chance for comfort food that she could get.

As she walked out the door, she ran into someone.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t-” she cut off when she saw it was Alexis.

They had met through one of their classes and hit it off. Or Quynh had thought they had until five months into dating, Alexis had dumped her abruptly because a “better prospect” had come up.

Nile had supplied her with so many croissants after that. Only a month later, Andy had appeared in her apartment and Quynh had realized that she hadn’t ever felt anything like she did for Andy. Looking at Alexis now, Quynh was surprised to find that she didn’t feel any leftover emotions for her. Well, except anger.

Alexis didn’t look uncomfortable at seeing Quynh, though. “Oh hey, I was wondering when I would run into you on campus. How’ve you been?”

Quynh let out a semi-hysterical laugh. Apart from being told she was a lesser opportunity and accidentally summoning and then falling for an ancient goddess, not too bad.

“Busy,” she settled on.

“Same. Hey, you wanna get dinner sometime? We could catch up,” Alexis said, her inflection hinting at more than catching up.

Quynh let out another laugh, a lower, uglier one this time.

“No thanks.”

Alexis’ face furrowed in a frown. “Wow, okay. I thought we could be mature about everything that happened.”

Quynh smiled, but it probably looked more like a snarl.

“Sorry,” she said, using her words very deliberately, “I lost the ability to give a fuck.”

She saw someone very familiar manifest behind Alexis and pushed past her to get to Andy.

“Hey,” Quynh said, lifting the brown bag in greeting. “I got you a chocolate croissant.”

Andy hummed, looking from Quynh to Alexis and back again. She came even closer to Quynh and raised a hand, running her fingertips alongside her jawline. Quynh shivered at the touch, unable to take her eyes off of Andy as she leaned in and murmured, “Thanks, Quynh,” before brushing a kiss against Quynh’s lips.

Quynh knew that it was supposed to be a kiss in gratitude, or maybe meant to throw Alexis off. She didn’t really care the minute that she felt Andy’s lips against her own.

The fingers of her free hand plunged into the short hairs at the base of Andy’s neck and pulled her closer, angling her own head so their noses weren’t brushing anymore. She felt Andy pause and pulled back long enough to breathe Andy’s name, making her melt into Quynh. Andy’s hand came to Quynh’s hips, pulling her closer until everything from their hips to their chests were touching. Quynh hummed in pleasure at the feel of Andy against her and pulled back before she got too deep into the moment.

She glanced behind her and saw that Alexis had gone into the shop.

Looking back at Andy, she asked, “Can I teleport with you?”

It took a second for the question to register, then Andy’s eyes cleared and she nodded.

“Awesome,” Quynh said. “Take me home.”

She blinked and missed the moment of transition, only to find herself in her living room.

“Oh, that’s cool. I’m gonna have you do that on days that I’m running late to class from now on,” Quynh said.

Andy laughed, her breath hot on Quynh’s cheek.

“Whenever you need,” she agreed.

Quynh set the croissants down on her secondhand coffee table and pulled Andy close once more.

“I don’t want this to be misconstrued so I’m going to tell you this,” she said, the blatant look of want on Andy’s face making it easier to get the words out, “I really like you, Andy. This isn’t just something I want to do once and get out of our systems. You’re not a one-time thing for me.”

Leaning down, Andy pressed her forehead against Quynh’s. “There was only darkness for a long time for me, Quynh. And then I heard your voice pulling me into the light. I hated that you brought me back, because I didn’t want to be here. But you had me stay. And with every morning that you ran late for class and every night that you were stressed with work, I started to feel alive again. You make me want to be alive again, Quynh. With you.”

Quynh felt tears well in her eyes and leaned forward to peck Andy’s lips softly. “That was always the goal,” she admitted. “I just didn’t think it would be like this.”

Andy smiled and nodded. She leaned down and kissed just below Quynh’s ear, making her shiver, before she murmured, “I’m so glad you found me, Quynh.”

“Always,” Quynh whispered before she pulled Andy’s face up and connected their lips once more. The tenderness of the moment slowly faded as the passion between them grew.

Quynh pulled back after a few minutes to ask, “Bed?”

Andy nodded and Quynh let out an “Oof,” as they suddenly landed on Quynh’s bed.

“That’s going to take some getting used to,” she muttered as Andy kissed her jawline.

Their lips met again and again, hands pushing clothes off, panting intermingling with laughter as a piece of clothing got stuck.

Finally, they were both naked and Quynh took a long moment to just take in all of Andy.

Then she looked her in the eye and said, “You know, I’ve never been able to find my g-spot.”

She grinned. “Wanna help me?”

Andy smirked. “Best use of my powers ever.”

___________________________________

As useful as Andy had been so far this semester, she was just as distracting in the last weeks working up to graduation. They finally had to put a rule in place that they couldn’t touch each other until Quynh got another page written in her final paper, one paper at a time, until they were all done.

It was a great motivator.

Quynh dove into finding out as much as she could about forgotten deities and wrote page after page of what she could find, proposals for future study, ideas for archeological digs that could reveal more.

It helped when the person who lived that history was in her apartment, but she had to find sources that backed up what Andy told. Which was infinitely harder, dammit.

“Hey, Andy, do you know anything about two deities called Yusuf and Nicolò? They keep cropping up in my searches,” she asked her.

“Oh, yeah. They’re the gods of enduring love. We’ve met over the centuries,” Andy said.

“Huh. Thanks!”

The last two weeks were a blur of writing and research and not-sleeping. Finally, finally, she handed in her last paper online.

“The prof wants a paper copy too, so I’m going to print one at the library, drop it off, and then maybe we could cuddle together for a while?” she asked hopefully.

Andy smiled. Her smile had changed a lot in the last few weeks. It wasn’t forced. Wasn’t small. It lit up her eyes and her whole face.

“That sounds good,” she said.

“Okay, see you soon. Love you,” Quynh said, leaning in and giving her a kiss goodbye before she went to grab her keys.

She was two feet away from the door when she realized what she had said and froze. She was almost scared to turn around and see what Andy’s face was doing.

Then she heard, quietly, “Love you too.”

She let out a shaky breath, then rushed back and kissed Andy one more time.

“We can talk about this while we cuddle,” she murmured when she pulled away. “But this professor is a hardass and I need to get him this paper by five.”

Andy huffed a laugh and nodded. “Sounds good.”

Quynh was in a daze all the way to the library, the whole time she printed her paper, even as she handed it over to the professor and left his office.

It wasn’t until she got to her apartment and found it empty that she snapped back to reality. At first, she thought that Andy had just stepped out to get groceries or something. Maybe something to celebrate Quynh’s last assignment. But when she called Andy’s phone, the prerecorded message said that the number was unable to be reached.

“I evoke you, Andromache the Scythian, to help me get through grad school.”

No, there had to be a mistake. Andy wouldn’t leave her, not if she had a choice.

“To what end?”

But what if Andy hadn’t had a choice?

“Until I graduate, I guess. I’m in my last semester, so just under three months. That okay?”

Suddenly, Quynh couldn’t breathe.

What if the void had pulled her back, now that their contract was finished? What if it finally did what she had wished initially and had her cease to exist?

“Andy! Andromache the Scythian, I need you!” Quynh shouted to her empty apartment. It echoed, highlighting the wrongness of being the only person there.

The lights flickered, but Andy didn’t appear.

“Please, Andy, I need you,” she continued, quieter now. “I know you wanted to be forgotten, I know the ache you felt to sink into nothingness. But didn’t that change? You said you loved me. I’m going to be exceptionally selfish and beg you to come back to me. I’m lost without you, Andy. Please,” Quynh begged.

The lights flickered. Then went out.

Quynh let out a sob. She hadn’t even realized that she had been crying until she realized it was hard to breathe with how hard her chest was heaving.

“Andy, please,” she cried in the silence.

Nothing.

Then there was a knock at the door. Quynh wiped her face, trying to get herself under control. It was probably one of her neighbors coming to check on her, or angry at her shouting.

She pushed herself off the couch and felt her way toward the door.

Opening it, she wiped the last of her tears away as she said, “I’m sorry for the noise, I’m-”

Then she froze.

She knew that outline, that body. She had caressed almost every inch of it, worshiped it like the goddess it belonged to deserved.

“Andy?” she asked, her voice cracking.

“Quynh,” she said, her own voice full of emotion in the shadows of the hallway. “Sorry that it took a while. I used the last of my power to get here.”

“The last-?” Quynh broke off, her mind scattering with possibilities. “Is this our last goodbye?” she asked, reaching out to Andy, terrified she would disappear before her, finally dissolve into time and space like she had wished.

The lights came back on just as her hands made contact. And there she was, in her faded band t-shirt and torn gray jeans, combat boots and leather bracelets in place. The circles under her eyes were still dark, but her shoulders were lighter somehow.

“Hopefully, but not in the way you’re thinking,” Andy said. “Can I come in?”

“Of course!” Quynh said, pulling her into her apartment. She couldn’t take her hand off of Andy. If she did, Andy might disappear.

“Hey,” Andy said gently, reaching up and caressing Quynh’s cheek. “I’m okay. We’re okay.”

“I was scared,” Quynh admitted. “I thought the void had taken you back.”

“It tried,” Andy said and Quynh’s hand squeezed even tighter, trying to get her to stay. “I ended up reaching out to some friends. You remember talking about Yusuf and Nicolò?”

Quynh nodded.

“Well, they’re still around too. Pulled me out and helped me with my request.”

“Which was?” Quynh asked hesitantly.

Andy leaned forward and kissed Quynh, quick and gentle. “I want the life I have with you to be my last. I gave them my powers. Should ensure their power for a couple more millennia. I’m human now, Quynh.”

Quynh’s free hand covered her mouth. She was crying again, unable to speak. In moments that she could scarcely allow herself to have, with as much studying she was doing, she had wondered what would happen after their arrangement. After Quynh was gone, long down the road.

She had never imagined this.

“I love you,” she finally choked out. “I want forever with you, I can’t believe we get it-” She threw herself at Andy and together, they tumbled backward on the couch.

“I’m not lost anymore, Quynh,” Andy said into her hair.

Quynh pushed herself up so she could look her in the eyes. “No, you’re not,” she said with a grin. “I found you.”

#andromaquynh #quynh #andromache the scythian #andy #fanfic #my fic #andromaquynh secret santa 2021 #i don't even want to tag it that #it's so late #but it's DONE

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