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samwrights · 4 years

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I Found You

I have no excuses for this one except I’m a dirty dirty Overhaul fucker.

On the real though, this one was very loosely inspired from Yagami Yato’s plot lines for Dabi and Overhaul. These routes inspired the Underground and Dabi and Kai’s occupations, otherwise everything else was just me being a simp.

⤞ Pairing: tattooed!Reader x Former Villain!Chisaki Kai

⤞ Word Count: 16,850. Yes you read that right.

⤞ Warnings: language, arson, awkward questions, reader smokes, I shafted Dabi again and made him the best friend...again, slightly vivid gore, mentions of death, male masturbation, daddy kink, age difference, breeding kink (ish), dirty talk, dom!Kai,

I’m sorry this is so long. Just kidding, no I’m not. I love writing really long fics. Honestly, I’m trying to see how much I can push the boundaries of my writing and how long I can keep one idea conhesive and consistent and how much I can flesh out. Eventually these longer oneshots will be cross-posted to my AO3, I just really need to do my paper. Also Tropium Tattoos is pronounced as Tro-Pie-Um.

The color of fire always burns in accordance to temperature as well as the material that it’s burning. Watching the local Underground clinic slash orphanage burn not only red, but an almost ethereal green from the copper couplings and details of the building felt like an early Christmas warning—like the Underground was a target and the rest of the hidden city would soon follow by the holiday. That warning was only followed by disgust at the thought of someone feeling the need to go after a free clinic and orphanage in a city built out of a hollow sewer full of exiles for whatever fucking reason.

Your heart is an amalgam of aching and sorrow and anger as you watch the flames burst through the windows of the shoddy building from a safe distance. From where you stood outside of your tattoo parlor only two blocks down, you see a crowd beginning together. Much to your surprise, most of them were only kids with one adult herding them—a man you recognized to be the owner of the building currently meeting its demise.

The doctor of the clinic is as calm as ever, or rather trying to be, quietly attempting to do a headcount of his children. It seemed that concentration was alluding him, given the situation, because he swears up and down that he knows he has nine kids. Yet, he seemed to be unable to count past eight. He’s trying not to panic, but one of the kids speaks his greatest fear into fruition. “Daddy, Eri’s not here!” Golden eyes widen until the sclerae are fully round, pupils constricting in fear. This ‘Eri’ was special, you realize as you observe from a short distance away. The doctor is looking back at his children who are all in some form of tears and shambles then back at the burning building like a ferocious game of ping pong. Chisaki Kai can’t just leave his kids out here—not when he is almost certain that this attack was premeditated. But his daughter, his eldest daughter at that, was still inside potentially being engulfed by flames.

Back and forth.

Your body moves without a second thought.

Your body moves, ignoring the screams from other bystanders for you not to go inside the burning clinic as you burst past the dilapidated red door. Upon entering, copper decor and steel support beams had fallen from the ceiling, sparking flames that were separating you from the stairwell that led up to the orphanage. There was no way you would be able to find this Eri person through the wreckage—not alone at least. Maybe your dumb quirk was good for something.

You didn’t even realize you had a quirk until the age of twenty when you had gotten your first tattoo. It wasn’t anything crazy—a traditional-style three-eyed wolf’s head on your arm—only to wake up the following morning with no soreness, no tenderness, and no ink on your body. The wolf laid beside you, curled up in your bed, somehow manifesting into real life. At first it was terrifying, of course, but after learning how to return the creature back to your body you realize it might not have been a total waste of money. Your quirk, something you jokingly called the Magic Pencil quirk in reference to a Spongebob Squarepants episode from your childhood, was officially registered through the government on the Surface as Life Canvas. Again, it was a pretty dumb quirk unless you knew just what to utilize. Now your body was littered with dozens of creatures, weapons, hell even a telephone just in case you might need it. But the wolf was your favorite, as it was your first, and he was just the one to call for in this situation. Activating your quirk, you pinch at the ink on your forearm until it begins to peel off before setting it down on the ground. The line work stands on its own before the ink fills out into a three-dimensional mass and a now recognizable creature.

“There’s a child somewhere here. Help me find them,” you implored your creation, cautiously climbing around the shambles while it did the same, though much nimbler than you. Fragments of the stairs were missing, some of railings were in flames—it was hard for you to get anywhere at the moment. A scream rips through the walls, a young girl you realize. She’s probably now seeing your large and somewhat creepy three-eyed wolf. Maneuvering carefully, you find spots that have yet to burn until you see a little girl cowering away from flames in her bedroom and away from your quirk. “Take my hand!” You try to scream, but the way building was going down was deafening. Instead, you cross a patch of fire to scoop the frail child in your arms and trapping the both of you behind a brazen wall of flames. Patting the wolf on the head, as if deflating it with your magical hands, it flattens back into a two dimensional drawing and returns to your body to grant you the ability to switch out to a manifestation that would prove to be more useful in this situation. You repeat the process, this time with a Phoenix from under your bosom that emerges just outside the window closest to the two of you. “Hold on tight,” you tell her as you pull her flush against your own body before smashing through glass to land the back of the Phoenix, covering her head to make sure the shards didn’t mar her skin. With a gentle descent, you place her feet first on the concrete with her family.

“Eri!” The doctor of the clinic calls out in relief, arms wrapping around his daughter tightly. Your lips purse in a small, tight smile before you’re off on your way again, riding off into the horizon on the back of your strange creature. And for a moment, Chisaki Kai is torn between going after you to thank you while Overhaul wants nothing more than cleanse his children and you for touching his precious daughter with a vile quirk. He settles on the former, golden eyes watching your back disappear into the dark cavern of the Underground city.

Weeks had passed since the fire burned down the orphanage clinic. Tabloids were published trying to figure out who the mysterious hero was, though most of the articles feared that an actual Hero was among the residents of the Underground. The Underground welcomes Heroes like the human body welcomes the plague—they tried to be eradicated and killed off. Not to say that quirks themselves weren’t welcome, no. It’s just that most of the residents were quirkless and those that did have one were all registered in a public database, separate from the government mandated one up on the Surface, so that quirk wielders were no secret.

All but you, anyway.

One of these well-known resident holders was Chisaki Kai. Quirk: Overhaul. Local doctor and caretaker of the orphaned, quirkless kids. Though, whether their powers had yet to manifest or he had removed them himself due to his vile distaste for the genetic mutation was unknown to the public.

Another was the leader of the Underground: Dabi. The Cremation user who was presently lounging in one of your dingy, beat up sofas of your tattoo shop. “You know, most of the people just want to know who you are,” he supplies, flipping through the most recent news article. Instantly, he knew it was you that had rescued the little girl from the burning building, knowing full well of your quirk regardless of how rarely you used it.

“And half of them want my head because they think I’m a Hero,” you spit the last word out as you finish tidying up your workspace. Your last client of the evening had just left, leaving you to close up shop while Dabi came to bother you as you did so. Not that you complained considering he had been a close friend for a long time. “Like I would ever be a Hero.” Heroes were the reason you and many others here in the Underground existed in this hidden sewer metropolis. Whether the Heroes had destroyed their livelihoods, their families or, in your case, accidentally killed your parents while you were still a teenager and you had nowhere to go, they were at fault for the creation of this cozy, dingy city.

“Says here that Eri wishes to personally thank you,” Dabi adds, turquoise eyes flickering in your direction as you stop at the mention of her name. “We could hold some little rally, get you a medal—“

“Dabi, no.”

“—or you could just stop by town hall with me. Overhaul and the kids have been staying there while the clinic gets rebuilt.” You mull his words over in your head while capping all your ink bottles and putting them away in their respective drawers. Dabi takes your silence as a gesture of you thinking, even more so as you aggressively sanitize your client chair. “Come on, [ name ], she’s just a kid.”

“Yeah, but I hate kids.”

“Then stop acting like one.” With that, the leader leaves your shop, bells tolling as he exits. You weren’t being childish, you internally bite, silently and stubbornly. It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t want to just announce that the lone tattoo artist of the Underground had a quirk that the public didn’t know about. It wasn’t your fault that your body moved without thinking. And it certainly wasn’t your fault that you rescued the daughter of the most notorious quirk hater in the city.

Chisaki Kai was not quiet when it came for his distaste of quirks despite having one himself. Rumors floated all around the Underground that all of the children in his care had their quirks removed by his own hand, Eri included. What kind of monster did that? To his own child, no less. The thought made you sick to your stomach, only reaffirming your initial decision to not meet with Eri.

But thinking of her brings great sadness to you. She was merely a child—a child who probably didn’t understand her father’s distaste. A kid who just wanted to thank the woman who saved her and nothing else. A sigh passes your lips as you head up the stairs from your shop to your attached apartment, turning off the lights to Tropium Tattoos. It’s not fair to deny her, you think.

Maybe you’ll just sleep on it for now.

The following morning was quiet, as it was every morning in a city built out of a sewer. But eerily...too quiet. The sound of chirping nature and wildlife was a foreign concept now, especially years later. But there were no sound of bikes or clunky old cars passing by or arguing neighbors—if noise was present at all, it was in the form of faint crackling and crinkling of papier-mâché but somehow on a grander scale. It was new. There’s a grotesque smell in the air; a cross between a stale bonfire and rotting wood and warm smoke.

Oh no.

Oh fuck.

Panic fills your veins, throwing your nearly bare body out from under the covers. Ripping open your bedroom door and flying out the narrow entryway that led to the stairwell, you’re met with orange flames burning the wood of your staircase leading down to your shop. There’s no time for you to think about anything other than retreating back to your living room, to where the flames had yet to enter the threshold. Glancing out the large bay window behind your couch, you debate how steep of a drop it is from your second story down onto the cold pavement without sparing a second thought to how you could break your own fall. Contemplation wears down at your time to escape, you realize, as the fire is now entering your living space and burning brightly like a firework and catches onto the wooden console table in your entryway as well as the walls. Without another moment’s hesitation, you throw yourself through the window, bracing for impact from both the glass and the inevitable shattering of at least one bone.

“[ name ]?!” You hear Dabi yelling over the sound of collapsing support beams from the inside of the building. All that’s on your mind is pain—throbbing pain and an ear-splitting cry as you try to cradle your probably broken arm from the back alley of your shop. Dabi calls out your name again, running over towards you while still trying to be somewhat mindful of all the shards of glass in fear of accidentally kicking more in your direction. Between rapid breaths, a few heavy coughs escape your lungs, no doubt from smoke inhalation. “I got you,” he murmurs as he picks you up gingerly. Another groan leaves your lips—your whole body hurts and were you more coherent and not in shock, you probably would have realized sooner that you’d broken more than just your arm. “Find who did this and bring them to me,” Dabi snarls at the small squadron behind him attempting to put out the fire that was destroying your livelihood as he makes his way back to town hall.

It takes everything in Dabi’s body to not stamp his entire way back into his living quarters and the only reason he isn’t is because he’s carrying your busted body. This is the fourth fire in two weeks with no discernible pattern. All he knows is that it started with Overhaul’s clinic and now has somehow reached your quaint and quiet tattoo shop. As a leader, it makes Dabi want to tear his hair out. As a friend, he’s just pissed off.

He’s thankful you’ve passed out just so he doesn’t have to deal with you bitching about how gruff he’s being. Though, it certainly dawned on him that you had probably fallen unconscious from the sheer agonizing pain of breaking multiple bones simultaneously. He sets you down, far from gently, in the residential living room upstairs of the Town Hall building. “Overhaul!” He bellows out, not even caring if the children heard his angry tone right now.

“I told you to stop calling me that,” the doctor appears from around the corner, a clearly agitated look on his face, even beneath a simple black mask. The irony isn’t lost on Dabi despite his composure—he remembers once upon a time when Kai only went by the name of his quirk. Funny how years go by. “Her again?” Overhaul all but sneers, looking at your limp body that was covered only in a thin tee shirt and a pair of panties. Ignoring that little fact of seeing so much painted flesh, he notices the distinct smell of burnt wood and swelling under the skin where the breaks were. “What happened to her?”

“Someone set [ name ]’s tattoo shop and apartment on fire. She jumped out of a window to get out.” Dabi is absolutely seething, little sparks of blue flames leaving his nostrils as he lets out tufts of air. “Idiot had no idea how to break her fall and busted her shit. Can you help her?”

“I suppose that would make us even.” The doctor snarks back thoughtlessly, but he can’t help but wonder why you didn’t use your little quirk to save yourself as you had with Eri.

“Good. I’m gonna go find this fucker.” With that, Dabi storms out of the living room and out of the town hall building, leaving Kai with the woman that saved his daughter’s life. At least maybe now, Eri could say thank you like she had been asking to do. He could say thank you.

Chisaki adjusts you on the couch so that you’re entirely flat on the cushions, mindful of the glass that’s embedded in your skin. If anything, he should probably remove those first. With gloved hands, he picks out all the shards he can see with his golden eyes while his mind wanders as he looks at the lines and colors of the tattoos that covered your body. From neck to toe, there was ink on nearly every inch—even the one dragon-snake hybrid on your face that wrapped around your temple and cheekbone. Despite your [ hair color ] locks matting your skin, Overhaul found all of your tattoos rather intriguing to look at; almost as if it weren’t flesh because the contact wasn’t causing him to break out in hives. Like your body told a story without you even needing to speak.

After getting all the glass cleared up, Kai gently pushed on your arms and legs, checking for any signs of bones out of place from where they should be or cushioning and swelling to protect the damaged areas, outside of the very obvious ones that nearly looked like softballs. Two breaks in your femur, four in your ulna from what he could feel—nothing that Overhaul couldn’t fix. Though, he had to make sure that everything had set the way it was supposed to and that you were able to use your limbs after he did the repair. That meant he would actually have to speak to you, and he comes to the realization the two of you never actually had the chance to speak to each other before. Maybe he shouldn’t be as judgmental of the fact that you had a defect—maybe you were like him and abhorrent at the fact that you had a mutation to begin with.

After using his own quirk, Overhaul checks for a pulse on your neck with two fingers, making sure you at least had a heartbeat before patiently waiting for you to regain consciousness. In the meantime, he continues picking out the fragments of glass that escaped his initial sweep—a task made slightly easier when the shards caught the light contrasted the dark lines embedded in your dermis. For a brief second, you stir against his touch before your eyes snap open. “Holy fuck, what happened?” You all but howl when you come to. You let out a deep gasp for breath, suddenly aware of the dull throbbing in your arm and leg as you attempt to make sense of your surroundings.

“Can you tell me if this hurts?” The doctor to your left says evenly, emotionless even, as he holds your wrist between his thumb and middle finger, moving your arm in all sorts of ways. A sharp inhalation sucks in between your teeth as it twists in ways you weren’t sure it could before. A grimace touches his lips underneath is plain, black cloth mask—maybe he didn’t set the bones correctly? Overhaul lays your arm flat, ready to make his adjustments, but as his gloved fingers padded closer, you found yourself retreating further into the depths of the couch cushions.

“I-I’m good,” your words come rushing out, desperate to dodge his touch. Why did you wake up with Overhaul over you? Did he take your quirk away? You’d have to investigate further when you were alone, test it out in private. Ignoring the dull hums of pain coming from your arms and legs, you manage to sit up, slumping over your knees before you realized where you were. “Town hall?”

“Yes. Do you remember anything?” You shake your head—you remember waking up to smelling the smoke in your apartment. You remember the fire creeping up the stairwell and the way orange painted your once tan walls. You remember jumping out the window, but everything else after is met with a blank slate. “You broke your arm and legs in a few places—I reset them with my quirk.”

“Oh,” is all you have to say. “Uh, thank you.”

“Speaking of thank you,” Overhaul palms his knees before pushing off of them from the wooden stool he’s sitting on, standing at his full height and smoothing out his black dress shirt and slightly creased slacks. “My daughter would like to thank you for rescuing her a few weeks back.”

Dammit.

It wasn’t like you could just say no to Eri’s father when it was only the two of you—that would just make you look like an asshole or worse; he could just kill you and say you died in the fire. It was even more difficult to decline considering the young, silver-haired girl was peeking her head from behind a partition, wide-eyed when her dad mentioned her. With your own eyes softening at the sudden contact, you offer an awkward smile that you pray comes off as welcoming. Overhaul beckons her to come closer, holding one hand open until the young girl is tucked underneath his hip.

“U-Um, t-thank you for saving me,” a squeak spills past her dry lips before she runs out of the room as quickly as she came. You didn’t blame her. Even if Overhaul is her father, he gave off an intimidating air that surely would frighten any child. It made you wonder how such a man ran an orphanage. But to your surprise, Eri returned, though this time not alone. A flock of children was accompanying her, each of them with bright eyes and big smiles adorning their unique appearances.

“Thank you for saving our sister!” They chime in unison. The sight made your heart swell and soften, even if only slightly. Eri steps forward cautiously, pushing through her own trepidation as she stands before you and throws herself at you, hugging you tightly with arms around your neck in gratitude. As if triggering a domino effect, a few of the other children felt the need to express the same sentiment. An uncomfortable laugh bubbles past your lips as you awkwardly wrap your arms around the gaggle of kids—you may not like them, but you weren’t that much of an asshole to deny them a hug.

Kai’s typically hard, cold expression mellows at the sight. It’s heartwarming, he gave it that, but a part of him cannot stave off the tiny bubble of envy he feels seeing his children so ready to embrace you when they initially had such a hard time adjusting to life with him. He loved these kids—and it was quite clear you felt the opposite—so why hadn’t they gravitated towards him like they did you? Underneath his mask, he grimaced before internally shaking his head. They were his children, they loved Kai regardless and he knew that. “Alright kids, why don’t you go play and let [ name ] rest? It’s been a rough morning for her.” The use of your name shouldn’t have shocked you, or maybe it was fear that crawled up your spine at the doctor’s endearing tone. You weren’t aware that he knew who you were. The kids let out a collective groan before listening to their father and exiting the living room. As soon as each of their little, youthful heads is out of sight, you breathe out a sigh of relief.

“S-sorry,” you mumble out, suddenly reminding yourself that it was probably rude of you to make a sound as such and you wanted to make sure you did nothing to insult Overhaul to his face. A huge part of you felt that one wrong word out of your mouth meant the end of your quirk or your life.

“It’s alright, I know they can be a handful. Though, they seem to be quite taken with you.” His tone is still rather polite, you notice, and his voice is entirely different than what you’d thought it would be in a one on one interaction. You thought it would be deeper, as whispers and rumors of Chisaki Kai being an incredibly cruel, bitter man painted a different picture in your head. But the man standing before you looked every bit as broken as you felt on the inside—as if a part of him had an empty chasm residing in his chest that could not be filled by the nine children in his care.

“I can’t imagine why,” you reply.

“Neither can I,” he says without skipping a beat, his tone still airy and light. Before you can rebuttal with your quick wit, Dabi storms in with his eyes locked on to your now conscious body. Gesturing with his head, over exaggerating the folds of his damaged skin, he encourages you to follow him downstairs to the mayoral study. Silently, you sauntered off behind him, leaving Overhaul alone in the living room, while you could feel the internal flames burning within Dabi. Pissed didn’t even begin to describe the look on his face.

In the office, photographs of burnt down buildings, rubble, and the skeletal framework of Underground businesses were littered across the large, maple desk. All the while, the leader of the Underground was grumbling to himself repeatedly while tugging at his raven locks in frustration. Not only had someone burned down local businesses in the city, let alone a close friend’s business, but it seemed that someone was attacking his city from the inside. “I wasn’t able to save Tropium.” You offer no response, mostly because there isn’t one to have. You felt anguish over losing your home, sure, but knowing how hard Dabi worked to protect the Underground, you can’t quite imagine how he’s feeling.

Instead, you respond with, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I should be asking you that. Your home is gone, [ name ].” He had a valid point. Perhaps you could find a few local contractors and give them some work—it wasn’t like you didn’t have the money to spare. But that would probably take some time considering, from photo evidence, the place—all of them—was going to need to be built from the ashes. “Stay here while you figure it out. It’s the least I can do.”

“Don’t you already have Overhaul and the kids staying here?” Maybe Dabi didn’t notice the way your voice trembled as you spoke his name, even more so after having woken up to him by your side. But the thought of you, a quirk wielder that kept that little fact hidden from the public, temporarily boarding with a man who was vehemently against the abomination of quirks gave you severe anxiety. Additionally, there was the nine little children that also were a factor and the thought of one of them waking up in your temporary residence and intruding on what little privacy you would have—

“And?” Dabi asks, pulling you from your reverie. “[ name ], I know I don’t say this enough, but you’re one of my closest friends. I don’t feel right not giving you a place to sleep.” His quirk may be Cremation, but Dabi was a master manipulator when it came to pulling at your heartstrings whether or not he was aware of that. You let out a sigh of conceding, knowing you wouldn’t be able to argue your way out of this one.

“One condition, bud,” you hold up a single index finger, the black quill feather tattooed there standing erect, “find me some contractors to help rebuild all the buildings that were burned dow.”

“That’s gonna cost ya,” Dabi hums, as if contemplating. And he was, but rather in estimated cost as opposed to the proposal itself. Physical currency was a rarity in the Underground, as the city ran on a merit and bartering system. Real Surface money was only used for certain occupations. Realistically speaking, he knew money was no object to you considering the wealth, or rather hush money, you acquired from your parents’ death, so there had to be another reason. Knowing you as well as he did, it was probably the fact that the faster your homes were rebuilt, the less time you would have to spend sharing walls with Overhaul. Very smart, the leader mused. “You got a deal, doll.”

You lost count of the days that had gone by since you took over the project of rebuilding the structures that had gone down. While the orphanage project had already begun, you had hired two additional bodies to help the progress go faster so that Dabi could return to his duties without the addition of eleven more mouths to feed. Simultaneously, you had been at your own construction lot from metaphorical sunup to sundown, helping contribute and manage the two men that were hired for your location.

You weren’t avoiding Overhaul, you told Dabi repeatedly when he asked where you’d been all day.

This project was an opportunity for you to set up shop in a reimagined way—to be able to design both your studio space and your living space exactly to your tastes. It had sort of become your baby and you wanted to be as hands on as possible.

You weren’t avoiding Overhaul, you kept telling yourself.

Tropium’s new store front was stunning, albeit a bit ill-fitting with its new modern style in contrast to the Underground’s more rustic, steampunk look. But the charcoal grey stone walls with chunky white trim filled your heart with a sense of pride that your business would hopefully rise from the ashes much like that of the Phoenix tattooed under your bosom.

Currently, you were upstairs with the tiny team of contractors while going over the floor plan of your currently bare apartment. Given the space of the empty building, you managed to enlarge your rooms at the cost of downsizing your entryway and living room. It still felt homey and, with the addition of a small office that served as a spare bedroom, you figured on nights that Dabi hung out and didn’t feel like going home, he had a space too. After laying out the floor plan and going over schematics with the team, you ventured back downstairs to continue sanding down the counters for your studio space.

“So, this is where you’ve been spending your time?” Oxygen freezes in your throat as you’re met with Overhaul’s golden eyes and black mask. Albeit he wasn’t in his normal dress shirt and tie for once, but rather sporting an oversized hoodie and tight denim jeans.

“W-what are you doing here?” Is all you can say back. You aren’t sure if you’re moving or even breathing at this point. The pressure you feel from a man whose face is half-covered is terrifying—liquid gold was dull in comparison to the intimidating eyes of Chisaki Kai.

“Dabi told me about your little deal,” his voice rolls like honey straight from the dripper as he makes small flits toward you that subconsciously leave you retreating back up the stairs one step at time. A deep groan rumbles in his chest when he sees your reaction—not that he blames you in the slightest. Overhaul is more than aware of his notorious reputation both in the real world and in the Underground and is accepting of strangers’ reluctance to be around him. He knows he’s partially to blame for not trying to quell the stigma around him by formally introducing himself prior. maybe not being such a condescending jackass when he first officially met you would have helped as well.

But he can’t squash the little bouts of jealousy that filled him seeing his children flock to you like dragonflies in search of water that almost make him bask in your trepidation.

“Take a walk with me,” Overhaul adds, torn between offering you a gloved hand as a metaphorical olive branch or simply turning around to see if you follow. He opts for the latter merely for the fact that you’re covered in dust and paint from your days’ work. Bounding after him, you stuff your hands into the pockets of your loose overalls as you try to catch up while bearing in mind to keep a short distance between the two of you. The two-block walk is brief and silent as you end up at the construction site of the clinic. Perhaps your memory of the building you never visited beforehand was skewed, but it you were certain it was much larger now. “Feel free to look around. After all, you’re paying for this.” There’s a twinge of malice that paints his invitation that isn’t lost on you, but you decide to forego the welcoming regardless.

Passing through the threshold cautiously, you’re greeted with what looks to be a regular, two story home. The skeletal structure foreshadowed a kitchen, dining room, living space, and a hallway leading to two rooms. One staircase that lead to a basement, one that lead upstairs—it was strange to see the clinic become more of a home than anything else. “Where are you putting the clinic?” You ask meekly, careful not to touch. Just because Overhaul invited you to check out the specs, doesn’t mean he wanted your lingering fingerprints ingrained in his space.

“Basement. I figured it would be better for the children to have majority of the space.” A pregnant pause takes over the conversation once again, leaving you to roam around the new space in appreciation. A part of you was pleased with the work the contractors did for this family, a large part even, but there was a small nagging voice in your head that was still telling you to retreat back to your own project. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?” A brief chuckle that is muffled by his mask dances on his lips. He’s not sure which of his theories he wants to start unraveling first. So he starts with the one he believes to be most ludicrous—the conspiracy that you or somebody you worked for was trying to take this children away, or Eri at the very least. If people on the Surface knew about her and her quirk, Kai doesn’t doubt a bounty would be on her head. But truth be told, he knew this seemed unlikely. You had never bothered to even engage with him or anyone else in his family until recently, despite having come to the Underground shortly after its establishment.

“Rescue my daughter, for starters.” Of course he starts with the question you don’t have an answer for. To which you can only respond with the truth—your body moved on your own when you saw the panic in his eyes. Also knowing he had to watch his eight other children and ensure their safety prompted your body to act automatically. “You used your quirk to save Eri, but not yourself. Why?” Your eyes narrow slightly in both suspicion and out of confusion. It was strange that Overhaul kept demanding answers and logic and reason for things you did as a knee jerk reaction. Considering you’d only discovered your quirk just before going to the Underground, it wasn’t exactly what you would call a natural reaction. Plus, weaving through danger for someone else wasn’t as simple as just running in and out of the building as it was to jump out your bay window. Judging by his silence, it seemed he accepted that answer. “And the contractors?”

“I just want all of our lives to go back to normal, including Dabi.” It wasn’t exactly a lie—rather just a short omission of the truth—and it wasn’t like you could tell him that you couldn’t stand living in such close proximity with him due to fear. But Overhaul had a knack for pinpointing a fib like a honeybee in search of something sweet.

“You’re lying,” he bites. You shake your head almost violently, as if the movement will deter your mouth from telling him the truth in its entirety. There was no way you could admit the fear he instilled in your bones or the anxiety you felt standing close enough for him to touch you. Sure, you may have felt that your quirk was less than impressive but that didn’t mean you wanted him to take it away or worse, your life. Knowing that he knew about it too, while the public didn’t which was a requirement for living in the Underground, only reaffirmed your worries. “Do you fear me?” Overhaul asks, making note of the way your fingers were trembling and way your eyes constantly averted his.

“Yes,” your voice comes out as a mere whisper, barely rising above the hammering and drilling of the construction workers. A part of you wished that your admission made you feel better—like it felt like a weight lifting off of your shoulder rather than making it feel like you were denying some greater truth—a part of you just wanted to run and hide and pretend this interaction wasn’t happening.

It shouldn’t have hurt Kai as much as it did to hear you say it out loud, considering you were nothing but a stranger. But you were a stranger that his children were so utterly enamored with and all he wanted was to understand. Yet, the feeling of disappointment is a dull thrum in his chest, long forgotten with a wide array of other emotions and coming only second to his envy. “I’m sorry,” he says finally, though the monotone voice almost sounds insincere.

Perhaps, his jealousy is misplaced, he thinks. His children may be drawn to you, but at least they didn’t tremble or wrack their bones with trepidation the way you do when you see him. If anything, his jealousy is replaced with empathy. Despite your clear distaste for youth, you got along swimmingly with his kids and they clearly wanted to be present with you. It must have been difficult for you to be near them, even more so considering you trembled in their father’s presence. The two of you stand in silence with you looking away pretending to soak in your surroundings of the plastered walls. Overhaul is observing your nervous ticks—the way your twitching fingers are exaggerated by the ink in your skin or the way your knee bounces impatiently along the hardwood.

“Daddy, daddy, daddy, come look at my roo—oh! [ name ] is here too!” Bounding down the unfinished staircase was one of the orphans in Overhaul’s care; Shura, if you remembered correctly.

“Just stopped by to see how the place was coming,” you offer in addition to a sheepish wave. Before you know it, Shura is grasping one of your hands with both of his while guiding you up the stairs.

“Come see our rooms, [ name ]!” Overhaul watches with curious eyes at the way one of his sons is so overzealous to include you in their little world. The appeal makes no sense to him—you were just a stranger with skin like a Monet painting that had made little to no effort for these children outside of rescuing Eri and allowing them to shower you in their affection.

Why did acknowledging that their enthusiasm to include you hurt Kai even more so, knowing you were afraid of him?

Trudging behind, Overhaul peers through the open doors upstairs to see each of his kids decorating their freshly painted walls. In Shura’s room, you were sitting on the floor with your arms wrapped around your knees while the little boy explained to you that he wanted his room to be decorated with narwhals. The excitement he had, and the knowledge of even knowing such a creature existed, was quite charming. “[ name ], are you gonna join us for dinner this time? Dabi says you’re always working, but daddy always makes you a plate just in case!” Your eyes glance over to Overhaul and his leisurely pose as he rests one arm on the door jamb. For a moment, your mouth open and closes repeatedly as you try to stutter out some semblance of an answer.

“Just in case,” the doctor adds, as if to add more pressure to his son’s convenient question. The golden orbs you normally deterred from swirled with an intensity that, much to your surprise, didn’t wrack your nerves like they normally did. It was as if they were filled with remorse rather their typical bitterness, maybe sympathy even, imploring you to consider Shura’s inquiry.

“I should go finish my work for today then so I can be home for dinner,” pushing yourself off of the freshly carpeted floor to stand. At some point while Shura was giving you the grand tour of his room, your legs had fallen asleep, causing your first step to hobble and throw you off balance and trip.

“Careful,” Overhaul chimes, bemused at the way you flail to recover from your stumble. To your surprise, he’s pushed himself off the door jamb, crossed through the threshold of Shura’s room, and has his arms locked underneath yours to keep you steady. “Drink some water before going back to work.”

“R-right,” you stutter out, hyper aware that his hands are touching you. He feels the way your tendons bunch together in your arms at the contact, even more so when your pupils lock into his. It untangles one more thread in his theories, one he figures he’ll push on later because it’s a theory just as farfetched as his last one. “I’ll, um, see you at dinner,” the last syllable rises in intonation as you squeak, flitting away and ignoring your numbed legs and blood burned cheeks. Meanwhile, Overhaul chuckles as he watches you scurry away, the blush painting your cheeks burning into his mind just as well. The way you moved was reminiscent of when he had reset your bones and the way you recoiled thereafter. But through thorough observation, he knew that reaction wasn’t fear this time around, no. Fear made you quiet, not nervous or jittery or force your pupils to dilate.

This was something else entirely.

Something else entirely to the point where Chisaki Kai is unsure if he even wants to entertain the possible theory that maybe, maybe, you’re the slightest bit infatuated with him.

“How nice of you to join us,” Dabi sneers teasingly when you set foot into the private entryway of town hall’s attached home. The makeshift family of ten is already seated at the extended dining table, an empty seat awaiting you on Dabi’s left with Overhaul on his right. Each of the children that you had come to be familiar with over the last few weeks had lit up like your presence was a treat—a strange feeling, considering you’d done the most to avoid being in the temporary residence.

“Go wash up, we’ll wait for you,” you had never seen Chisaki Kai without his mask, let alone heard his voice so clear. The angelic lilt rivaled expert fingers rimming crystal glasses, hypnotizing you to do as he said without so much as a fight. Entering your room, you immediately discard your dirty work clothes and shower hastily, scrubbing off flecks of dried paint and dust. In seven minutes and nineteen seconds, you’re out of your en suite bathroom and shucking on leggings and a long sleeve tee before joining everyone else at the dinner table.

To your surprise it felt quite...normal. Was this how families had dinner together? You were unsure, considering your parents had never been one to have the three of you gather together for a meal—they were always too busy working until the day they were killed nearly a decade ago.

It surprised you how natural the flow of conversation was, even with nine children ranging from ages four to seven. Even more to your shock, Dabi was more than willing to indulge the kids in their stories. But the creme de la creme was seeing maskless Overhaul smiling and laughing and attempting to get his kids to eat their vegetables. Was this the real Overhaul? Had his notoriety preceded him so greatly that you feared him for no reason at all? Your intuition tells you no and, perhaps, to some degree it’s right. There was still a dangerous air that encapsulated Chisaki Kai, but it wasn’t one that made you instantly retreat like touching a cake pan you’d recently pulled from the oven with a bare hand. If anything, it was alluring as opposed to intimidating.

The kids were so happy you finally joined them all at dinner. Rapid fire questions from any one or even two of them made you hesitate to answer but you did your best to keep your face even and amused. Children may not have been your favorite, but however the heck Overhaul was raising these ones, especially all nine of them, was truly wonderful. Throughout conversation, Shura and even shy little Eri had scrambled into your lap with each one of them taking a leg while the three of you ate. Initially, Kai had scolded them both, saying they were being rude to which you only shook your head and allowed them to stay, much to his surprise.

After dinner, the children cleared the table. Those that were able of the younger ones brought stacks of dishes to Eri and Shura whom were in the kitchen washing plates and silverware—their duties as the eldest of the nine. Dabi has pardoned himself after thanking the family for the meal to hole himself up in his office. According to the leader of the Underground, the investigative team was still working around the clock to unearth who was responsible for the fires. You had found yourself in the garden of Town Hall, tablet and digital pen in one hand with a cigarette in the other. Drawing was the only leisurely activity you indulged in when not working on rebuilding Tropium.

Typically, Dabi would join on you on these evenings with stacks of papers and a cigar between his lips as he bounced ideas off of you to figure out potential perpetrators. Needless to say, it surprised you when Overhaul enters the makeshift garden that was really just a manmade pond with lily pads and rose bushes aligning the sinkhole. “Hi,” you offer meekly, averting his gaze by keeping your own glued to your tablet screen.

“Hi,” he returns, twisting up a shapely brow at the cigarette between your index and middle finger. For a moment, he’s torn between asking what you’re working on or if you had any ideas to who burned down both of your homes or even how the rebuilding of Tropium was coming along. But he can tell by the way the filter of the cigarette squeezes between your fingers that you’re tense, that you can sense there’s a reason for his presence and decides to forego small talk. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” his voice is small and unsure and drastically different from the Overhaul you were used to. Nonetheless, his statement catches your attention and pulls it away from the screen of your tablet.

“I’m more afraid of what you can do,” you admit quietly, “I don’t want people knowing about my quirk. Dabi was the only one who knew and now your entire family knows and—“ you pause for second, hesitating on whether or not you should continue. But Overhaul was brave enough to tell you had what been bothering him, even if only a minuscule issue, you figure you owe him the same. “And I don’t want you to take it away.” The broken syllables leave your lips bare above a whisper, reaffirming at least one of the theories the doctor had about you. Of all the conspiracies, it made sense that this one was the most likely to explain your reactions to his presence, no matter how much he had hoped it to be some strange, magnetic attraction.

You had bought into the whispers of the Underground that said Chisaki Kai’s life mission was to overhaul the population and remove quirks.

Dejection fills his chest as he lets out a sigh. Maybe this was being too honest, his inner voice argues as it debates on his next words cautiously, but he feels the need to burn clean. “[ name ], what do you know about me?”

“That you were a Yakuza leader and you think quirks are a plague that need to be eradicated.” Overhaul closes his eyes languidly, peeling them back open at a snail’s pace while the warm, golden orbs stare off into the never-ending tunnels of the Underground.

“I became the leader of the Shie Hassaikai when I married my wife at twenty-three and took over for her ill father. It was a quirk marriage, but a happy one, nonetheless. At twenty five, my wife had Eri and while most children’s genetic code didn’t activate the gene for a quirk until a few years later, Eri was born with her quirk activated,” you listen deeply, soaking in every word leaving Overhaul’s maskless lips. His eyes drop down to stare at his gloved hands before burying his face in them for a moment to swallow his guilt quietly. “Eri can rewind time on living things and the first person she used it on—“

“—was her mother,” your voice barely vibrated past your lips as you made the connection. Bile rose in your throat, threatening to spill the contents of your gut not out of disgust, but rather an overwhelming surge of sorrow.

“I lost my wife when I was twenty-five. The rate that she was being rewound at was too much for her body to handle and I had to overhaul my own daughter at birth just to get her quirk to deactivate so she didn’t destroy everyone she touched,” had Chisaki Kai not come to terms with the truth a long time ago, he would have shed at least a single tear recounting these memories he had buried. Either that, or almost hurled recalling the way his wife’s body had imploded until chunks of skin and muscle tissue and blood ended up spewing all over his chest and face. There was a reason he constantly wore gloves and a mask—the smell of cooking carcass and burning meat never left him and the exaggerated mask stuffed with lavender was the only scent that eased him. “I was angry at the world for a long time.”

“I am so sorry, Over—“

“Kai,” he interrupts, “or Chisaki, at the very least. I don’t go by that name anymore.” After a bout of silence, Chisaki continues further. Eri never grew up with a mother or siblings and after things had gone south on the surface, he wanted to raise Eri in a place where people didn’t know the truth about her or the mother she never had the opportunity to meet. So he fled to the Underground with Dabi; he started helping tend to the ill and taking in quirkless children who had lost their parents on the Surface to Heroes.

In a moment of vulnerability, you felt the need to offer the olive branch and share your own story with this man after he bared his soul to you. And so, you tell him about the accident. How, while in pursuit of a villain, the small mom and pop diner that your parents frequented on Friday afternoons was accidentally set on fire by Endeavor and trapped and killed of the patrons inside. You were in your first year of high school at the time—fourteen and preparing for university until you realized you would need to work full time in order to continue paying the bills until the settlement from Endeavor came. University was down the drain. It took years for the dividends to be decided and the lawyer managed to get you a considerably high amount thanks to emotional damages, but riches and wealth would never quell the resentment you held towards the then number two pro Hero for being so reckless. That was nine years ago. Somewhere along the way, you’d met Dabi and he granted you a home and space to continue to hone the craft of tattoo artistry that you had picked up from working part time in a parlor, as recompense for his father killing yours. Though, you’d left that last little tidbit out, unsure if Kai knew of Dabi’s lineage. “I’ve been in the Underground for the last three years, give or take.”

You had always been rather indifferent to the concept of heroism until that day. Even more so when you had met Dabi—a man who was wanted and was supposed to be a villain. Yet he extended warmth and welcoming to you, offering you refuge in a new city he had created for the exiled and wandering.

The grey areas only widen with this conversation with Chisaki Kai. A notorious man, an infamous man, known for causing utter chaos on the Surface both as the leader of the Shie Hassaikai and as a super villain, was sitting across from you and sharing the most intimate moments of his life.

Maybe the concept of heroism was skewed to begin with, you think to yourself as you put out the cigarette in the ashtray in front of you. Maybe Dabi and Overhaul weren’t the real villains—only designed that way because of the way some omniscient creature in the stars that you couldn’t see.

“I remember when you first opened Tropium,” Chisaki hums bemusedly, “the children said you looked like a coloring book.” The only fitting response you have is laughter. Neither of you thought laughter would be something the two of you would indulge in together. But the way your cheeks cinch together at the corner of your eyes or the tufts of air leaving your nostrils in a short snort and the somehow smooth staccato of your chuckle sounds like holiday bells after the first snowfall. It was a peace that Chisaki Kai hadn’t known for some time now. It was a peace he didn’t know he needed, and it makes him wish that his magnetic attraction theory had some truth to it. “Your secret is safe with me,” he says finally after the laughter had died off.

“Thank you, Chisaki,”

You started coming home for dinner every night, figuring the two contractors didn’t need you there to micromanage them, until you stopped dropping into the worksite all together. With a full house, Dabi was out more frequently, preferring to be in the field to investigate the fires as much as he could. This left you with Chisaki and the kids more often than not. On occasion, you would run to the local market with Eri and Shura or had even done arts and crafts with some of the younger ones. As a sort of inside joke, you had bought each of the nine coloring books.

Currently, the kids were playing volleyball in the makeshift garden while you and Chisaki supervised. It was no longer tense between the two of you, a sort of bond forming since that one night. You should have seen the inevitable question coming. Though you more so imagined it would come from Dabi in the form of some snide comment with sexual implications regarding how close you and Overhaul had become. Never did you anticipate his oldest son asking, “[ name ], are you going to be adopting us? Are you going to be our new mom?”

“I-I—“ you were a deer in headlights and the question was a freight truck gunning in at ninety. Looking over at Chisaki for help, who seemed almost unwilling or at the very least unsure on how to, you shake your head before staring back at Shura’s big blue eyes. These children had begun carving a special place in your heart due to how they came to be in Chisaki’s care, sure, but you still had your reservations about kids in general. Not that the doctor blamed you—maternal instincts didn’t necessarily apply to every female. “I-I don’t wanna take you away from daddy, he works so hard to take care of you all and he does such a good job,” for a second, Shura’s expression becomes crestfallen.

“But we all like having you around, [ name ],”

“I’m not going anywhere, buddy, I promise,” the seven-year-old boy promptly wraps his arms around your neck, squeezing tightly as if you were going to dissipate into the air in front of his very eyes. Without hesitation, you hug back briefly before telling him his siblings were waiting for him to start the next set of volleyball. “Was that okay?” You ask quietly, looking over to the doctor. From underneath his mask, you can see the twists of pain coloring the dusty gold hues of his irises and the way his jaw tenses. When he remains quiet, you anxiously reach for an e-cigarette—a fruity one that wouldn’t alert the kids or burn Chisaki’s nostrils from the scent—and pull the tip to your lips. Maybe you shouldn’t have said that to Shura, you think as you exhale a large cloud of smoke.

But Overhaul’s stomach is twisting and churning, and he crosses his legs over the knee to squeeze his legs together tightly. He’s thankful for the black cloth mask that covers majority of his facial features as he bites his lip and his nostrils flair while he tries to control his breathing. Think of anything else, his mind snarls. Think of the days in the Shie Hassaikai, think of the children, think of literally anything but the way you called him “daddy” and how the blood rushed from his brain and straight to his dick at an alarming rate. It was so innocent—there was no reason Kai should even be thinking of it in any other way—but primal instincts were taking over, twisting into a delusion in his brain into hearing you repeatedly call him daddy while he fucked you from behind.

“Can you watch the kids?” Chisaki chokes out, standing up abruptly and fleeing inside the temporary home. He doesn’t even have the chance to hear you ask if he’s alright as he’s rushing upstairs to his en suite bathroom. Entering his room, he rips off every shred of fabric covering his body before turning on the shower to the coldest temperature he could tolerate. But there wasn’t enough cold water in the Underground or gruesome thoughts of his wife’s sudden death that could stave off the erection he was currently sporting. “Fuck!” He snarls out viciously, mind running rampant with salacious daydreams. Out of sheer need, Overhaul wraps one hand around his cock, the other bracing himself on the shower wall while the cold water runs down his spine.

Chisaki Kai is livid—raging over the fact that he is reduced to such actions over a simple word that he hears multiple times on a daily basis. It wasn’t that he was abhorrent at the thought of masturbation in the slightest—he was a human with natural human needs, after all—but this desperation that filled his gut and fueled his hard on was less than desirable. But he can’t stop the aching he feels to hold onto that blip of memory of you calling him daddy. He savors it like the first bite of a meal and indulges it in the same way he’s trying to coerce his own orgasm.

Throaty groans and grumbles wrack in Overhaul’s throat as he fists his angry, weeping cock, twisting and turning it as he prays for reprieve. It’s not enough; it’s not your mouth or any other oriface he would rather be shoving into, but the friction rubbing against his veins would have to be enough. He’s far from gracious at this point. Cupping and massaging his balls with one hand while thrusting into his enclosed other at ferocious speeds was all in the name of merely getting off. “Fuck,” he hisses out once again as he feels the very start of his orgasm. As much as his natural instinct is just telling him to sit back and enjoy the ride, his common sense tells him otherwise, tells him that he’s filthy for doing this and he doesn’t deserve to indulge in these thoughts.

But he needs that extra push to satiate his natural instinct.

Succumbing to his deeper, carnal desires, his imagination wanders back to you. With golden eyes screwed shut, he pretends it’s you he thrusting into, that it’s you stringing together languid profanities between your lips; that it’s you begging for daddy to fuck you harder.

That it’s you begging daddy to fill you up and make you into a mother.

“Oh, shit,” Chisaki is gasping for breath as he cums on the shower walls—the last thought to flood his mind serving to break the dam. He licks his lips and swallows hard, his skin becoming dry despite standing in the cold shower. After his ragged, uneven breathing returns to some semblance of normal, he peels his heavy lids open and stares at the fluid coating the shower wall. For a moment, shame washes over him because he feels pathetic and small. But the moment is brief before it was replaced with a dull burn of hunger that may never be quelled.

Pathetic, Kai thinks again as he scrubs his body clean, before exiting the arctic shower. Never before had he been in such a state, even at the ripe age of thirty-two, to masturbate to the mere thought of another person. Perhaps he was that touch-starved, all things considered.

He can’t bring himself to gaze at his reflection as he gets dressed. Adorning grey joggers and a red zip up hoodie, in addition to his usual mask and gloves, he maneuvers his way back to the makeshift garden where the children are still playing with together. But rather than you sitting alone at the patio table as you were, Dabi had joined you in the seat directly across from you.

Both of you were sporting matching cigarettes in your respective hands with matching distressed looks on your faces.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” you say in an almost indifferent tone, a departure from the way Kai had heard you in his mind seconds ago. It was a sentence typically accompanied with some sass, but your eyes were devoid of emotion at the moment. Cautiously, Chisaki took a seat beside you at the patio table, propping an elbow on the armrest closest to you before resting his temple on the same closed fist he had just used to beat himself off. You pay it no mind, how close he is to you, but rather put out your cigarette on the ashtray on the table as a courtesy to him. “Dabi,” your tone is thoughtful as you say your best friend’s name, making a hand gesture that signifies him to speak.

The leader of the Underground opens the manilla folder that was harboring the photos of both of your burnt down homes as well as the two other destroyed businesses. “It’s been a challenging investigation, but after eyewitness accounts and working with local law enforcement from the Surface, I’m pretty sure my bastard brother was behind this shit,” Dabi grits out.

“Brother?” Kai asks, confirming your suspicions of him being unaware of Dabi’s genealogy and family tree. To this, the leader pulls out a mug shot of Todoroki Shouto. The face wasn’t entirely familiar to Kai, save for the small resemblances to Dabi. Same jaw shape, same blue eye with the same dead look.

“Why us?” You ask, flipping the photo over. While it had been awhile since you had resided let alone visited the Surface, you knew that there was some rumors in the air about the start of a war, but what possible reason did Todoroki have for going after the Underground when everyone kept to themselves? For Chisaki, who ran a free clinic, and his children? What about you—why go after you?

Outside of Dabi, hadn’t the Todoroki family tortured you enough?

The city leader takes a deep breath, exhaling smoke as he extinguishes the dead cigarette on the ashtray. According to the patchwork man, Todoroki had confessed that he was selected for a covert mission from the Hero Association. The primary goal was to eradicate any and all quirk wielders within the Underground so they didn’t procreate further, so no overpowered quirks would mutate in the next generation of Underground born children. Overhaul lets out a scoff at the explanation—leave it to the Heroes to act so recklessly and selfishly.

If quirk mutation was the concern, only him and Eri would have been targeted, maybe Dabi as well. Probably Dabi as well. But they burned down Tropium Tattoos, the home of you whom had the legally registered quirk Life Canvas up on the Surface. They burned down a farm whose owner had a quirk that could manipulate light and sunshine—whose farm fed the patrons of the Underground. They burned down the house of the guy who had a weird magnet quirk. It sounds more useless than he actually is—Dabi ended up capitalizing on his manipulation of magnets to create magnetic elevators up to the surface for supply runs and other necessities.

This was about population control.

It was a form of genocide that Overhaul himself was all too familiar with.

“Well that’s fucked,” you sneer, reaching for one more cigarette, “the fuck is wrong with your family, dude, and why are they all trying to kill me and my family?” Chisaki turns his head in curiosity, no longer resting on his knuckles. The only time you had brought up your family, around him at least, was when Endeavor killed your parents—

Oh.

He pretends he doesn’t feel disappointment when he realizes you weren’t implying he and the children were your family.

“Why the hell do you think I left, [ name ]?” Chisaki almost feels as if he shouldn’t be present for this conversation; like it was meant to be private between the two of you. But he can’t bring himself to leave your side, not with the way anger is crinkling in the form of crow’s feet at the corner of your eyes. Dabi excuses himself after a long bout of silence, leaving you to stew in your bitterness while Overhaul directs the kids to wash up for dinner. You don’t realize all nine of them had left the garden until the doctor is standing over you, despite the small wisps of smoke billowing from your cigarette with a hand extended towards you to pull you from the patio chair. You’re sure to extinguish the stick, knowing how the smell often offended him before taking it.

“Why don’t you go rest inside for a minute and wash up while I make dinner?” He offers quietly as he pulls you to your feet. The entire time, Chisaki maintains eye contact, his golden orbs unwilling to break their trance with your form. But thanks to the distress and the rapid pace that your brain is moving, you aren’t even aware of your surroundings or the way Chisaki is just standing in front of you until you’re running into his broad chest. Instinctually, you recoil away from him. Not out of disgust or fear like before, but rather respect, knowing how he is about touch and physical contact.

“Sorry—“ his arms are nestling at your waist to keep you in close proximity and you’re suddenly reminded of the time your legs fell asleep at the orphanage and you had stumbled trying to walk. Chisaki had been there then too, holding you steady much like he was now. There was something drastically different to the scenario now compared to back then. The doctor didn’t shy away from the contact anymore, didn’t draw his hands back like he touched a freshly stoked lump of coal or break out into itchy hives. If anything, his gloved hands lingered just a little bit longer—too long even for Chisaki—before gingerly patting your head and retreating inside the home.

And maybe if you weren’t trying to process the fact that the Surface was attempting to start a war with the Underground, you would have dwelled more on the warmth and security coming from Kai. The poise he held coupled with the fire and desire in his eye would have been enough to reassure that everything was going to be alright.

Dabi never came back that night. Rather than leaving his head seat at the dining table empty, Chisaki sat to your left with his daughter filling his space temporarily. You sat directly across from Eri, the girl who was once too timid to thank you now smiled brightly every time you looked at her. Other than your best friend’s absence, dinner was relatively average. Conversation went on as normal, sharing laughter and smiles between all of you—it was a nice delusion that for a moment, you were all a complete family and you weren’t so enrapt with the heartbreak of knowing these ten humans were targets to the surface.

The children cleared the table as they always did, but rather than having the two oldest do the dishes, you offered to clean up instead. “Why don’t you kids gather up in the living room and have daddy put on a movie for you?” Clearly excited from the reprieve of duty, the orphans all head off, touting something along the lines of Frozen versus Tangled. But your back is already turned away from the family, getting started on putting away leftovers and scraping away scraps on plates and entirely missing the way Kai’s eyes drain from gold to a murky mustard. It misses the way his jaw clenches tightly as he settles the debate for his children, turning on Tangled—the clearly more superior film—before he returns to the kitchen.

The sleeves of your ragline tee are pushed above your elbows as you hum an unknown hymn, unaware of Kai stepping cautiously toward you. Despite having just eaten, the doctor is filled with a renewed hunger entirely as his grip finds limp purchase on your hips much like they had before dinner. “You know, I think we need to have a talk about you calling me ‘daddy’ in front of the children,” he murmurs hotly against the shell of your ear, causing the hair on the back of your neck to stand up. Your blood is torn between running cold from the predatory drawl in his words and boiling from the sudden close contact.

“I-I’m sorry, should I stop?” Kai licks his lips before running his teeth behind your ear and down your neck, suckling on the flesh as he mumbles a response.

“Do you want to?” You contemplate his question in full, though it proves to be a challenge with the way he’s pressing warm, open mouth kisses to your neck and shoulder and the way his hands are kneading at your hips. “Are you afraid of me, sweetheart?” He asks again, his voice a low grumble yet somehow is louder than thunder as it isn’t hidden behind a mask. Had this been months ago when he had asked you an identical question when you were perusing the reconstruction of the orphanage, you would have said yes again. But this wasn’t fear—fear wasn’t a word you associated with Chisaki Kai anymore.

Warmth. Strength. Dedication. Resolve.

Love.

Those were the words you associated with him now.

“No,” you finally respond, shutting off the water before turning to face him. It was a rare, momentous occasion when you got to gaze upon his bare face outside of having meals together. His golden eyes swirl with elation, even more so as your painted fingers brush stray locks that fallen just over his brows. Despite a rather simple appearance, especially in comparison to yours, there’s something elegantly charming about Chisaki Kai that had never gotten the full appreciation he deserved.

Tentatively, you nudge him closer to you from the back of his neck until your lips are pressed against his. For you, it’s an experiment just to feel him in such a manner. For Kai, it’s torture in every sense of the word because it’s a tease after all of the salacious thoughts that have marred his imagination. Taking a leap of faith, his arms tighten around your waist, pulling your body flush against his because right now there isn’t enough contact in the world that would satisfy him.

The once delicate, experimental kiss becomes hungrier at his hand as he’s exploring your mouth with tongue, groaning as he does so. The scent of smoke and fresh cotton wafts into his nostrils between his sharp intakes of breath as he refuses to break contact. It’s as if he’s trying to commit the moment to memory, to burn it into his brain.

As if this was never going to happen ever again.

“Kai,” you whimper out his name, his true name, between pants of breathlessness for the first time. Just as gingerly as before, your fingers are cradling the man before you by the temples. You’re gazing at him fully, unabashedly, as you run a thumb just below his distinct lower lashes. Chisaki’s head dips a bit further into your brief touch before you skip away from him.

“Wait, where do you think you’re going?”

“Come on, let’s go watch the movie with the kids,” you chime, holding a hand out to him as if he didn’t just have you all but pinned to the kitchen sink.

“I was serious when I said we needed to have a talk.” Despite his verbal protest, he takes your hand in his, trailing behind as you saunter off towards the living room where the children are fully invested in the film. Plopping down on an empty space on the couch, you bring Kai with you until he’s nearly resting on top of you. For a moment, he releases your hand, opting to wrap an arm around you to pull you closer. “Back to avoiding me, angel?” The doctor grumbles into your ear, low enough so as not to alert the little ones.

“Figured it would be better to not risk being interrupted,” you whisper back, smirk twisting your lips. Chisaki’s licks his own dry plains, tugging you even closer so that you’re sitting on one of his thighs instead. That predatory miasma that surrounds him on a day to day basis is seeping out of him tenfold, but intimidation when it came to Kai was now a foreign concept to you. It brought back that same seductively dangerous feeling you’d felt the first time you had dinner with the family or, thinking back further, to when you went to scope out the renovations. A part of you wonders if that fear you once had was displaced as soon as you knew he was going to keep your quirk a secret. Displaced with an attraction to him that was easily confused with fear.

A part of you wonders if you ever really did fear him at all.

Maybe you didn’t.

Your mindless thoughts wander to anything other than the screen, casually leaning back so that your head settled on Kai’s clavicle. The doctor looks down at you with a curiosity that is replaced with a warmth that temporarily quelled his lust. As much as he had been fighting his day dreams of fucking you, having you in his arms surrounded by his kids stoked a different fire inside him.

He didn’t want this domestic moment to end.

He hopes that desire translates into the simple gesture of his lips pressing into your hair.

Chisaki Kai was finally caving into his wants and being honest with himself. He doesn’t want this makeshift family to go back to normal when you finally returned to Tropium or when his family returns to the Underground clinic. There isn’t a single cell in his body that believes having you in his lap and curled into his chest feels anything other than right. He’s overwhelmed with the idea, the fantasy, of you moving in and being with the family. Your family—in the collective sense—with Kai by your side with your nine orphans.

During the lantern scene of the film, he presses another kiss where the roots of your hair meet your forehead, lips lingering a little longer than normal. In response, you look up at him curiously to find his muted golden eyes staring right at you. There was a plethora of different things that Chisaki wanted to say to you, especially with the way you look so heavenly in his arms. But he settles with the murmur of, “I don’t want things to go back to normal.”

“Neither do I,” you whisper, gracefully accepting the way Kai’s lips mould over yours almost lovingly. In a sense, it’s your way of finally admitting to yourself the feelings that worked and wriggled their way into your chest. The thought of returning to your lonely little two-bedroom apartment by yourself just seemed daunting now, despite the initial rush to get to work on the remodel. No more waking up to bright eyes at the table for breakfast or coloring with the kids; no more having Kai cook a delectable meal or having him accompany you in the garden for a smoke. It broke your heart just thinking about all you would be missing out on when life returned to somewhat normal, war aside.

The doctor sucks gingerly on your lower lip, nipping slightly with his canines as his tongue wholeheartedly dances with yours. The kiss is full of longing and desire and it made his brain go fuzzy with strange thoughts. A part of him can’t remember ever feeling this recurring surge of wanton lust and infatuation when Kai would kiss his wife and, in regular circumstances, he would have felt guilt over it. But this warm, wet entanglement of your tongues is more loving than he was accustomed to and it excited him. Than you were even accustomed to.

“So stay with me, sweetheart,” the nickname he’s given you sounds almost patronizing. But the admiration that seems to be laced in with it sends a shiver down your spine and leaves the hairs on your arms standing at full attention as the film comes to an end. “Time for bed, children. We’ll be by in a little bit to check on you,” Chisaki calls out to his protesting kids, though making no motion to move from his planted position on the sofa. When he’s certain that all nine of them are out of earshot, he adjusts you in his lap so that both of your legs are draped over his thighs. You call out his name, pulling him from his thoughts that take him far away from the present.

“You said you wanted to talk,” you remind him. A part of you is afraid to start conversation because you aren’t sure what direction he wants to take this. Chisaki could have an entirely different meaning of returning to normal than you, but for you...

You didn’t want to wake up every morning without him being nearby. In the rawest form, that was the only way you could piece it together into a coherent thought. But even more than that, you felt as if there was so much more you wanted to see from Chisaki Kai. He was becoming more open with touch, no longer breaking out into hives when he touched others and even going so far as to hold you, albeit very languidly as he was now. Another part of you wanted to know if he would be beside you when it came to the impending war with the Surface.

Mostly, you just wanted to know if he wanted to be by your side too, even if logic wanted to tell you this was a bad idea.

“Will you stay? With me?” Kai implores quietly. His eyes are locked with yours, the gold shining brighter than ever.

“You say this after I renovate our homes?” A short, lighthearted scoff leaves his lung in lieu of laughter at your attempt of a joke. Because, despite him echoing your own deeper, innermost thoughts, a part of you refused to believe this was reality. As if reality was actually playing a prank on you.

Of course he had thought of that little fact. It was the longing desire he felt in his bones to have your presence that he hadn’t taken into account, but that need burning at the pit of his stomach had outweighed any semblance of logic that urged him to keep his thoughts to himself.

“The kids will grow up eventually and need their own space away from the orphanage. We could always save it for them.”

Answers you were expecting from Chisaki Kai: not that.

Had he invested that much into the idea? To the point where he planned on you still being a part of the orphan’s lives until they were adults?

“‘We’?” You ask. “And what if “we” don’t work, have you considered that?”

“No,” Kai’s voice is clear and calm as ever, exuding the very confidence that once made you tremble, “I want you in every sense of the word. I’ve already said my vows and had my shot at forever. I want that sort of permanence with you and I know that some part of you wants me too.” At a loss for words, you opt to brush the backs of your nails along his cheeks endearingly, trailing them down until your hands find purchase around his neck to bring him close enough that you can feel his lashes tickle your cheekbones. The silence between the two of you was deafening and damning, yet welcoming as it’s broken with him pressing his lips fully against yours.

For a moment, it feels as if the hunger stirring within his gut is satiated—satisfied with the even the tender, loving gesture of pulling you closer still until you’re straddling his lap. As if you were trying to fuse your bodies together because there was no such thing as too much physical contact right now. Kai encircles your waist with his arms, hoisting you up as he motions to stand and causing you to wrap your legs around his midsection. You don’t ask where you’re going; partially because your tongue is too busy just indulging in a private dance with his, partially because it doesn’t matter where he takes you. You’d go with him anywhere, no questions asked.

It’s a challenge and a half maneuvering up the stairs with you anchored around him so tightly—even more so that with every step he took ended up grinding your pelvis along his ever-growing erection. Kai felt liberated this time around, shamelessly rubbing against you this time rather than scurrying off for a cold shower and a five-minute session with his hand. Your eyes open as he unceremoniously tosses you onto the plush blanket of your borrowed bed. Immediately, you’re greeted with the sight of Chisaki Kai hastily shredding off his tee shirt and lounge pants, leaving the doctor in strained boxer briefs.

Briefly, you’re blown away by the sheer beauty of him—like a statue of Adonis come to fruition before your eyes. Even with the uncomfortable twinge in his golden orbs from your unnerving gaze. It was different, to say the least, to have you gawking at him with such adoration when he felt he was the only one doing so. “C’mere,” your voice comes out as a near broken whimper, a call to which Kai heeds graciously. The bed dips as he kneels at the edge, crawling closer until he’s hovering above you. Gingerly, your fingers trace over the smooth skin of his cheeks, tracing down his lips and neck until they ghost over his collarbones.

“Sweetheart,” Kai groans out, snatching your hand in his as it continues to trail further down his bare skin. “As much as I want to bask in the romance of all of this, you called me ‘daddy’ earlier, and I think it’s time you suffer the consequences.”

“Yeah?” You sneer sardonically, pushing into your elbows until you’re both touching nose to nose. “Like it when I call you that?” His breath is hot as it fans over your features, the wanton lust tangled within the golden hues of his irises becoming overwhelmed with feral desire. Kai’s hand that isn’t supporting him over you grips tightly at your baggy tee, pulling harshly to tear at the fabric keeping your bare body from him. For a moment, his breath becomes caged in his chest upon seeing your semi-nude form for the first time. But the moment is flitting as he’s reminded of his aching, hard cock twitching underneath his undergarments.

“Hands and knees, baby,” the slow, torturous movement you give in reply grates at Kai’s nerves, prompting a resounding smack to the ass of your joggers the moment your bottom is visible to him. “Daddy’s already impatient, dear,”

“And what’s Daddy going to do about that?”

Similar to the treatment he gave your shirt earlier, Kai dug his fingers into the waistband of your joggers. Though he did not have nearly as much luck tearing off the thicker material, the gruff motion is enough to expose you, leaving your bare, pulsing core in plain sight while the cloth gathered at your knees. His chest presses against your back, his skin searing hotter than hellfire, as he places languid kisses along your shoulder. “I promise, I’ll spoil you with attention later. But right now, I need you,” his voice is something reminiscent of begging, only amplified by his suddenly bare cock dancing along your slit and smearing pre-cum along it before cautiously slipping the head in.

Throaty groans leave both of your lungs simultaneously. Kai swears up and down that this was heaven manifested into reality. Part of him thinks this is all a dream, the way your walls are squeezing him to tightly as he pushes in centimeter by centimeter. “K-Kai,” you whimper. The calling of his name awakens something gutturally primal within him.

“Uh uh,” the doctor tuts, ceasing his movements. “What’s my name, baby?” In lieu of a response, only pants of shortened breath escape your slackened jaw. There was no way Chisaki Kai was human, you decided. Not with the way his words sent every cell in your body into overdrive or the way his fat girth stretched you so deliciously without even entirely plunging his engorged cock. Not with how, despite his notoriety once proceeding him, he was often blatantly honest with you and certainly not with how utterly enamored he was with you and vice versa. “Say my name, baby, and I’ll give you a reward,”

“D-daddy, please,” you whisper in between breaths. Abiding by his word, Kai works his thick length into you, albeit still slowly, until your bones presses into his pubis and his whole cock carefully bottoms out inside you. His right hand trails up your tummy and dances along the skin of your sternum until his fingers encase your throat gingerly. Keeping still within you, the doctor tugs at your throat until you’re only resting on your spread knees as his lips ghost along the outer shell of your ear while he gives slow, deep, steady thrusts.

“You like having daddy’s fat fucking cock in you, angel? Feel so fucking good around me, yes you do,”

A real poet, Kai was.

Turning your head to face him, your fingers lace themselves in his messy locks and pull his lips to yours in a kiss that is entirely devoid of lust. He can bring the heat all he wants—it was your mission to make sure he understood that you wanted him in more than just sex. Even if the slow torturous withdrawing of his cock was absolutely divine.

And he felt it too. Even with his hand delicately cupping your throat or the way his pelvis greets your plump ass with every thrust or the way your wet walls clench on him as if trying to expel his cock from inside of you. Kai can feel it in the way your nails are digging into the flesh of his arms or in the tufts of breath that leaves your nostrils because he leaves you absolutely breathless. He feels the love, and he wants to bask in it.

Now that he’d quelled his hunger slightly, Chisaki pulls away from your endearing lip lock while simultaneously withdrawing his length from you. A small whimper leaves your lips at the loss before Kai turns you over, pressing your back against the mattress and sliding home once again. The passion and intimacy he feels is overwhelming, boiling his skin through every pore as he bears weight on one arm while the other caresses your cheek. “I meant it, you know,” the murmur dances like air along your own lips, warm breath inviting. “I want you in every possible way. I want to wake up next to you in the morning, experience every season that doesn’t pass for us in the Underground with you.”

“Kai...” in return, you seal you mouth along his, wrapping your arms around him to pull him closer and coaxing him to move. Slow and steady, he withdraws himself from within you before snapping his hips once again until he’s fully sheathed. Each thrust feels like thunder. “M-more,” you choke out, breaking apart your kiss momentarily to beg. His focus shifts down to where you’re connected—where each vein of his throbbing erection greets and becomes acclimated for every crevice within your cavern. Angling his hips along with your own with the assistance of his hand, he manages to welcome that spongy weakness that makes your knees buckle and regurgitate a scream in response.

“Right there, princess?”

“P-please!” The hand under the small of your back moves to hook around your knee, it’s twin mimicking the gesture and leaving you entirely at the mercy of Overhaul whose mission at the moment is to rearrange your insides in an entirely different sense. Pinning your knees to the bed, Kai is at the perfect angle to ram into your g-spot over and over at a rapid, even pace until you’re clenching around him deliciously, silently coercing his orgasm. “Oh my fucking god,”

“Mm, you’re so tight, baby. Ya gonna cum? Gonna cum nice and hard for me? Cum for daddy,” his words are almost enough—almost. And it was as if he knew the filthy, slopping sound of his cock reaming you wasn’t enough. Though whether enough for you or him remained a mystery, his thrusts are becoming erratic as he’s panting and grunting an unabashedly as he chases his release and oxygen. “I love you,” Kai’s voice is broken, “love you so much, just wanna fill you up over and over until your body only knows the taste of me.” And you aren’t sure if it’s his nasty, vile words or the way he is utterly knocking away at your g-spot that is causing you to convulse around him—that brings you over the final hurdle and over the dam. Screams rip past your lungs as your back arches as much as it can from it’s confines while your fingers twitch out of necessity to grip something—anything.

You’re granted no reprieve in that regard, but it matters not with the way Kai is still smacking his hips into yours, dragging out your orgasm even longer while in pursuit for his own. There is no amount of physical contact in this moment that is enough for him, even as he slats his lips over yours and slides his tongue inside your mouth to greet yours. Hips beginning to stutter, Kai is fighting every fiber in his soul—torn between the dichotomy of wanting to cum and stave off his orgasm because he wants to feel the welcoming, convulsing walls of your pussy forever. And though you’d already came at least once, the pressure was building again rapidly from the stimulation of the uneven rhythm of Kai’s hips. Part of you is thankful his tongue is hungrily dancing with yours to keep your screams muted so as not to wake the children down the hall. But the rumbling in his chest from his own throaty groans become overwhelming, forcing him to break away to and let his grunts and slew of curses fly from his mouth freely.

“I love you, Kai,” the moans are just as bad coming from you, but those four words coming from your lips are what do the aforementioned man in. And he can tell there is no lie dripping from a silver tongue here—you mean every ounce of these four little words. For everything that is Chisaki Kai—the former Yakuza leader, the former villain, the doctor, the father—you loved the man before you.

“Fuck! Fuckfuckfuckfuck, ‘m gonna cum,” he wails, the rhythm of his cock head tamping against your womb matching the pacing of his broken speech, “daddy’s gonna cum so fucking deep in you, gonna make you mine forever, angel.” Another hissed out string of profanities pass through as his dick twitches almost violently, shooting out ropes of seed and painting your walls white. You can tell he meant what he said, even in his lustful spew, by the way he leaves his softening erection inside of your spasming cunt and sealing his emission inside until he was almost certain his claim held permanence.

“I meant it too,” you mumble into Kai’s sweaty neck as he collapses on top of you. Though he’s boneless at the moment, having spent all of his energy, you feel the breath of his questioning grunt beside your ear before his face is attempting to look at you while half buried in your pillow. Gingerly, he removes his now flaccid member from you, adjusting himself so that his form molds around you and wraps his arm securely around your stomach.

“You know,” Kai starts off slowly. The rich timber of his voice is thick with exhaust but is warm and welcoming all the same. “I was jealous before.”

“Jealous? Of what?”

“My children love you—a woman who was nothing but a stranger who doesn’t even like kids. They warmed up to you so easily, much easier than they did with me,” there’s a brief pause between his statements, causing you to adjust under his grasp until you’re touching nose to nose with the doctor. His eyes are closed for a moment, his long and feathery lashes greeting the tops of his delicate cheekbones. “So I tried to understand. Tried to figure just why they gravitated towards you.”

“And what did you find?” Peeling back his eyelids, Kai’s rich amber eyes bore into your own. Irises swirling with admiration before the view is flooded with a sudden closeness and the press of his plush lips against yours in the most loving fashion.

Truth be told, he wasn’t sure how to answer.

He had found determination and independence, qualities of a strong woman that his daughters looked up to. Free and proud and brave, he thinks, are the reasons his sons admired you. But there’s something more. There’s a love and warmth that you bring to the family, yet a sternness that doesn’t allow them to run rampant (not that they would under Overhaul’s upbringings) that spoke so motherly to each of his nine children. And somewhere along the way for the last six months that the Clinic had been under remodel, Kai found himself gravitating to all of those exact qualities in you, the envy transforming into an admiration of his own. It was an error in his initial magnetic attraction conspiracy theory; he thought that your fear had changed to attraction when it was his all along.

But Kai’s not always the greatest with words, and the thought of spilling his deepest thoughts of you seems a daunting task that he’d rather replace with kissing you instead. Considering you asked a question, however, he did feel the need to respond with something—anything.

“I found you.”

“Honey, I can still help, you know,” you whine for the umpteenth time, folding your arms over your chest as you stand in the mayoral office of Dabi with your partner. It’s been a year since Todoroki Shouto had burned down Tropium Tattoos and the Underground Clinic and tonight was finally the night that the Underground had planned on mobilizing their forces. It had taken a full year of investigating, planning, building alliances with those on the Surface, and patience for the citizens to finally strike back.

Enough was enough.

All of you had been exiled at one point or another, but now the Surface was trying to exterminate all of you.

“Angel, no,” Kai chides sternly, igniting the twitch on the leader’s face. Granted it had been six months since you and Kai had first declared this little relationship of yours and, as your best friend, Dabi was still slightly hesitant on the idea. Not that his opinion had much weight considering—

“Kai, I am only three months along. I can still fight!”

“Hell no,”

“Absolutely not,” both men snark simultaneously. Best friend or not, personal opinion aside, there was no way in the ninth circle of hell that Dabi was going to let you go to war while you were pregnant. And with Kai being the father, the chances of you getting your way in this moment with him were even slimmer. The doctor pinches the bridge of his nose underneath his black cloth mask with his thumb and middle finger before letting out an annoyed rift of air. “Dabi, I’m gonna take [ name ] home before we go over invasion plans. Do you mind?”

“Nah,” the leader waves his purple and nude hands in dismissal, “besides, we should wait for Hawks to get here before we start all that.” With that, Kai grabs your wrist with his gloved hand and drags you away from the office. He knows you want to fight, and he knows you want to protect your family—all eleven with himself and the embryo included. But as a father with another—biological—one on the way, Chisaki Kai just can’t bring himself to allow you to put yourself in harm’s way.

“Sweetheart,” he calls out, stopping just outside of the currently closed Tropium. The grey and white building looked crisp and clean and everything you wanted it to be but you often found yourself closing up shop early and coming in late to spend more time with your nine children at home. At the very least, you were grateful that your parlor was only a block or two away from the clinic. “I need you here where you can keep our children safe in case anyone slips through the cracks.” Even with his mask on, you can tell that Kai is trembling ever so slightly. The thought of someone making their way into his home and hurting his kids, hurting you, was enough to unleash the beast within.

“I know,” you respond quietly. Using his grip on you to your advantage, you pull the doctor towards you until he’s towering over you and looking down directly into your eyes. “But you know me, always ready to jump headfirst into the fire,” his amber eyes soften, thinking back to a year ago when you had saved Eri from the burning clinic. To think that a year later, you would be living with him and carrying his child and occupying nearly every cell in his brain.

“It’s your turn to watch the kids,” he jokes pulling down his mask below his chin to slat his lips over yours lovingly. It’s only half a joke—he knows better than anyone you would do anything to protect them. He’s known that since day one.

“You better come back to us,” your demand is quiet and breathless and laced more with concern than it is with threat. The thought of Kai dying while on the Surface has plagued you for the last six months, even more so when you found out you were pregnant. He knew it too, knew how much worry and panic had disturbed your sleep when the realization that war was an option had settled in. Despite the knowledge that he carried about different afflictions and ailments; Kai had been at a loss for how to quell your anxiety. He hopes that circumstances aside, him reaching into the right-side pocket of his heavy, army green coat and pulling out the small black velvet box is the correct move. Gingerly holding up said box until it’s in your line of sight, he takes a step back before peeling back the lid to showcase a single, solitaire diamond set in a simple gold band.

“I promise you I will come back. And when this is all over, we can finally enjoy our life in peace, so long as you’ll have me.”

158 notes · View notes

taelme · 4 years

Text

High school classmate!Lucas

genre: it’s kind of set in like the past? like u know those like Taiwanese school dramas like that kind of vibe mixed with like reply 1988 vibes idk how to classify it , so high school!au (fluff, slow burn, angst with a relatively happy ending)

pairing/s: Lucas / Reader, ( some of nct/superm/wayv appear in this!! ( just Kun, Ten, and Sicheng ) )

word count: 12k+

tw: like domestic abuse like,,, tough family situations,,

a/n: this was kind of inspired by a dream I had of Lucas and like I’m honestly really in love with like the vibes of those like Taiwanese school dramas like ‘Our Times’ and like those dramas with the vibes of like the Reply series, so I thought I would try something different and do something for Lucas inspired by that,,, so enjoy!! I had a lot of fun imagining how Lucas would behave if he were in this situation..

Usually, Lucas would have stuck to just pacing around the stretch of field near his house whenever he left his house out of boredom when his parents weren’t home, but he didn’t regret wandering into the market on the day of his 8th birthday, after a ritual cutting of a small cupcake his housemaid had prepared for him. Because if he hadn’t decided to wander, his life wouldn’t have changed, according to him. ( which really meant he wouldn’t have stumbled across your grandma’s noodle shop )

“Hello,” your grandma smiled in greeting, waving at the young boy who looked fascinated at such a place, never having been to any eating place other than a restaurant before. Lucas waved shyly at her, carefully climbing onto a stool near the table next to the kitchen, watching in fascination as your grandma cooked.

“What’s your name, dear?” she asked the rosy cheeked boy, who fiddled with his short bangs before replying a quick, “Huang Xuxi,” to her.

It didn’t take long for your grandma to realize why the name sounded so familiar, realizing this boy was from the rich family that had just moved into the neighbourhood barely a month ago.

“You want something to eat?” Lucas considered her offer as seriously as any 8 year old would, glancing between the kitchen to your grandma, before reaching into his pocket and being only met with fabric, frowning upon realizing he hadn’t brought money with him.

Shaking his head in reply, rather sadly at that, he told your grandma, “I don’t have any money with me....”

She had simply laughed in reply, shaking her head, “Oh, that won’t be necessary, Xuxi. You can have it for free.”

His eyes widened in delight, smiling at her appreciatively.

She’d brought a small bowl of her dumpling soup noodles back to where the boy sat. Watching with a motherly smile on her face as he took his first sip of the soup, his eyes widening.

“Aunty...I love you,” your grandma guffawed, reaching out a hand to pat the boy’s head endearingly.

Lucas’ eyes widened in realization, “you know...” he leaned closer to your grandma with the intention to divulge a big secret, his eyes widening the closer he got to her, his voice lowering to a whisper. “A girl in my class gave me a dumpling that tastes just like this!”

Your grandma tilted her head at him, having a feeling she knew who he was talking about. “And what might this girl’s name be?”

“Y/N!” he told her with a grin, munching on an amount of noodles that seemed too much for his tiny mouth.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” your grandma leaned closer to his ear, “she’s my granddaughter.”

The noodles threatened to slip out from Lucas’ mouth when he gasped loudly, giggling after as he covered his mouth so his noodles could stay inside.

“What do you think of her?” your grandma asked him, seeing him stare at his noodles with a smile playing at his lips, shrugging repeatedly.

“She’s....cute,” he mumbled, making your grandma laugh.

“I’ll tell you what, whenever you come here you can get a free bowl of noodles,” his eyes widened, nodding profusely till your grandma continued, “on one condition.”

He nodded at her, putting on his best serious-looking face to show her he was ready, “Help me look after Y/N in school,” Lucas figured at that time that this was a simple request, bringing his hand up in a salute position.

“Will do, aunty!”

===

Now, 18 year old Lucas had developed his ‘efficient fool-proof system’ to do small things that would make things easier for you without you knowing.

For instance, using his good rapport with the market vendors to make sure you would already have the freshest possible selection for the noodle shop, to even silently going out of his way to make sure nobody in school gave you trouble for your background ( which meant that he would personally pay for your new set of uniform every school year, passing it to Sicheng and instructing him to tell you it was given by the school )

“You look lovely, dear,” your gaze fluttered to the figure standing at the doorway, which was none other than your grandmother, dressed in shoddy clothes and an old apron, what you recognized to be her work clothes.

Your family wasn’t well off ( well by family, you meant your grandma and yourself since it's been that way since you could remember ), you barely scraped by off of the profits your grandma made from her noodle shop that you occasionally helped out with, but you still received supplies from the school.

Such as the uniform you were wearing now. Ironed crisp and clean, you passed off as any other average student in your school. You were thankful your school decided to implement uniforms earlier than other schools, since you really didn't think your normal clothes could compare to the other girls in your school, not wanting a repeat of the episode you experienced in the past.

You picked up your school bag from where it was on the bed, walking over to kiss your mother on the cheek, “bye mama, I’ll be home by 6.”

Your grandma waved her hand at you in dismissal, clucking her tongue at you disapprovingly, “It’s okay, it’s okay! Take your time. Have a good day at school!”

You picked up the pace as you walked, eager to avoid bumping into Sicheng and his friends, especially not at this time of the morning. But you seemed to have spoken too soon, hearing the familiar sound of bicycle wheels whirring and boyish shouting.

They would call you with a teasing tone, making you wince, avoiding eye contact with them until one of them wheeled their bicycles in front of you, stopping your path.

“What do you want, Sicheng,” You huffed, staring up at him impatiently.

The boy scrunched up his nose as he shot you a mischievous smile, “is it such a crime that i wanted to say good morning to you?” his words were all meshed together in a combined mumble, a habit of Sicheng's ever since he was young, but the black haired boy never seemed to care too much about it- since after all, to him it didn't make a difference as long as you understood him.

“Yeah, okay fine, good morning. Now would you please get out of my way so I can go to school?” Believe you, you loved Sicheng, but sometimes you really did miss your quiet walks to school to enjoy the scenery at your own pace.

“C’mon, your grandma wouldn’t be happy if I just let you walk even though I have a bike, let me give you a ride.”

You knew this could go either of two ways. Either you stand firm and have a long battle with Sicheng to let you walk to school on your own, or you suck it up and let him give you a ride to school.

The ride to school would have seemed harmless to anyone else, since Sicheng was a friend of yours for as long as you could remember, but it was just that you would rather not hang out with him while he was with his friends, since they didn't exactly have the best reputation in school.

You did a once-over at his friends that were with him currently, a senior named Ten with short choppy black hair and many piercings (and very expensive shoes, you noted), and a boy your age that went by the name of Lucas. Although you could talk and joke around with Ten one-to-one, you don’t think you’ve ever had a proper sentence spoken to you by Lucas before.

The boy was all expensive sneakers, sports brand bags, the latest music tapes that were extremely hard to get if you didn't save up. He lived pretty near you, so you would usually walk past his giant- at least compared to yours -house whenever you were on your way to the market, sometimes even catching a glimpse of his mother leaving the house to go to work on rare days when the car was parked in the house. It was almost as if the placement of his house was just a daily reminder for you that you were both from different worlds.

Sure there were times you would think was cute, and you may have given him your last dumpling when you were younger as an unspoken love offering, but as you grew older, you felt like maybe you and Lucas just shouldn't, and wouldn't happen. After all, you figured your heart was too weak to get put up for rejection.

You were pulled from your thoughts when you saw Sicheng snapping his fingers in front of your face, snatching your gaze from Lucas.

"So...?" he raised an eyebrow.

“Alright, but don’t drive too fast,” you told Sicheng, hurling yourself onto the back of his bicycle with your back facing his, making sure your skirt was covering whatever it needed to cover, grabbing on tighter to the seat when the abrupt start of the bicycle moving almost made you lose your balance.

Ten had gone ahead and rode his bicycle faster than Sicheng, which had only meant Lucas was directly in your view. He pedalled effortlessly, his gaze on you intent, as if he had wanted to say something, but decided against it in the end. You had almost let yourself get carried away watching how he would do things with a certain amount of charisma that you found almost difficult not to look at, even the small smirk he gave you when he caught you staring at him left you breathless.

“Don’t flirt with Lucas behind my back, okay.” Sicheng sing-songed, earning a hearty eye-roll from you, your eyes darting nervously to look at Lucas for a reaction but strangely he had seemed absolutely unaffected. Instead, he simply huffed and pedalled faster, overtaking Sicheng and maintaining his pace there.

You felt almost hurt at this unspoken rejection, not knowing how to come back from the incident, tried your best to push any kind of curious thought you had about Lucas away from your head during the ride.

What was so special about him anyway? you huffed at the thought. Other than the fact that he was the son of a prestigious lawyer and company owner, and that he was the star of the school's basketball team, there wasn't much else for you to work with when it came to unraveling who exactly Lucas Wong was. ( well other than the occasional rumour that he was in a gang and got into fights frequently )

Though Sicheng was your closest friend, you had never spoken to him on the topic of Lucas any further than simple things like how well he played at a game or how nice his hair looked that day. There were rumours floating around that his family situation was rough, but you knew it wasn't your place to ask.

Little did you know, Sicheng wasn't as well informed about it as you thought he was; only aware of the fact that Lucas would leave home occasionally, and skip school a few days after.

"Hey! Wait up! Oh-I guess he isn't gonna wait up after all," you peeped your head around to see Lucas having disappeared from sight.

"Let me know if you see him at class today, yeah? God, it's the first day of the school year; he can't possibly be skipping already," Sicheng huffed with the tone of a worried mother, but instead of laughing, you couldn't help but sympathise with him, wincing slightly out of pity.

You shrugged your shoulders, your hands still gripping the seat of the bicycle, "to be honest, I just wouldn't care if I were you, I mean, what's the point if he's not gonna listen anyway? I wouldn't be surprised if he gets kicked out of his house again, he's asking for it with those bad grades he brings home all the time," you were taken aback by the sharp thump on your head you received from Sicheng after that statement.

"Don't ever say that again. I'll tell you this once and I won't say it again, Y/N. Sometimes for Lucas, just a little care is all he's asking for."

===

"Class, please look at the notice board in front of the class for your new seating arrangement," your class representative had announced amidst the sound of reunions and loud chatter before the teacher arrived.

Making a beeline for the notice board, you analysed the seating plan as you munched on the dumplings your grandma had packed for you for breakfast, your index finger finally landing on your name on the square at the corner of the room, looking at the squares to your seat’s perimeter, you noticed that the table behind you, at the very back corner of the class next to the window belonged to the very boy you were hoping you wouldn't need to be in such close contact with, Lucas. The sound of the girls at the table near you chatting animatedly suddenly becoming deafening.

"Did you hear? Lucas Wong rejected Hana from year 3's confession? She looked so afraid I almost felt bad for the poor girl!" you heard one of them lament, and you made to walk past them as slow as you could so you could hear more.

"When did she do it?"

"This morning!" you tuned out the rest of the conversation, figuring this was just another reason to add to your list of reasons 'why you shouldn't go after Lucas Wong'.

You figured if you wanted to continue to lay low in school, you would stick to admiring him from afar, instead of putting yourself up to get hurt like that. There were only a few ways to look at Lucas for people in your school: you either didn't want to get involved with him, were scared of him or you liked him ( sometimes all three for people in situations like yours )

You reassured yourself that seeing Lucas wouldn't be a problem if you just didn't try to cross paths with him, until you looked for your seat and realised that there was Lucas seated at the desk behind yours. His long legs stretched out on your chair, hoodie-covered head leaning against the windowsill, eyes closed peacefully with earpiece plugged into his ears.

Your hands unconsciously clenched harder on the dumplings, anxiously contemplating finding another chair since yours was currently being used as a leg rest, but you couldn't see a free chair in sight, eventually deciding to munch on the dumpling you had, in the hopes that it would give you strength for what you were about to do.

Just as you were going closer to Lucas, he was already very aware of your presence next to him, the dumpling you were eating awakening his senses to the very first time he ate that same dumpling. His stomach growling softly, making him flush in embarrassment with his eyes still closed.

Your gentle fingers prodded at his shoulder lightly, and you had to remind yourself to keep chewing as you saw the way his eyelids fluttered open and his gaze landed on you. Shifting his upper body slightly to face you, Lucas lifted a hand to remove the earpieces from his ears, giving u an expectant look.

"Uh...sorry, I know you were sleeping and all but uh..I kind of...you know, need my chair," you pointed at the chair his legs were currently resting on, "and there's no extra chair here so uh...yeah if you could just...you know, give it back?"

Lucas looked at you with a curious expression, setting his earpiece down on the table, and you found yourself almost afraid to make eye contact with him, lest your face turn red from the attention he was giving you.

"What do I get in return?" his voice shocked you, seeing as you've never heard it in a while, you never noticed it could get this deep.

"Uh...what do you want? I'm not sure if I can get you those branded stuff, then again you probably have them already-"

His gaze flickered between you and the item of food you were holding in your hands, "I want the dumpling," he spoke.

You cocked an eyebrow at his unexpected request.

"This? You want this dumpling? Are you sure? You've probably tasted a lot better.."

He shot you a smirk, tilting his head at you, "I said I want the dumpling, not your house. You don't have to fight me." He held out his hand expectantly, making you reach out hesitantly before finally placing the small plastic bag onto his hand with a shaky breath leaving your lips, seeing him shoot you a smile and use his free hand to pat your head twice.

"Good girl," he lifted his legs off the chair with a thud that seemed both harsh yet dramatic, "the chair's yours."

You turned around and hauled the chair back to your seat, all sorts of confusion washing over you from that interaction, completely oblivious to the stares your classmates were giving the both of you. God help you if you wanted to get through this year sane.

===

“Y/N, I packed an extra breakfast, pass it to cheng cheng for me would you? His mother is out of town so he doesn’t have lunch.” You hummed as you packed the blue lunchbox with white flower patterns on it into your bag, though you knew for a fact that Sicheng had no problem with his mom not cooking lunch for him, since it gave him an excuse to loiter out later with Lucas and Ten.

You proceeded to school as per normal, handing Sicheng’s lunch to him when you passed by his class in the morning, assuming it was very much enjoyed by him judging from how the lunchbox would come back to you practically clean at the end of the day.

You noticed that Lucas was coming to school more often, tending to see him hanging around with Sicheng. But you weren’t sure for exactly what since you were on a short school break now, and the only reason you went to school was because you had to prepare for the sports fest as part of class committee.

After which, you would usually wait for Sicheng to be done with soccer practice before you two would go home together. So there was your routine for your break thus far, and now, on an absolutely blistering Tuesday afternoon, you found yourself sat in the spectating area overlooking the soccer field, using your textbook to shelter your head from the heat.

You contemplated filling your water bottle since you were thirsty and well, had nothing else better to do, but figured stealing from Sicheng would be a lot more convenient. Making your way down the bleachers carefully, you straightened out your messy skirt, smoothing out the creases that had formed after sitting for so long.

Quickly locating Sicheng’s bag from the messy scrawl of his name in white marker on the bag strap, you shuffled around in it and was about to take the water bottle from his backpack, until you realised there was something missing from the bag; your extra lunchbox.

You found it a little strange, not knowing why Sicheng would have misplaced your lunchbox like that, about to turn around and pull him out of practice to give him an earful about it before you saw Lucas jogging towards you, standing abruptly still upon spotting you, his hands behind his back and his gaze looking elsewhere as he quickly made a sharp turn, walking away from your direction.

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion, completely forgetting that you were thirsty since Lucas had definitely seemed as though he was going to go towards your direction before he'd seen you, so you decided you would carry out a little experiment.

Stepping away from Sicheng's bag carefully, making as if to walk to the water cooler, you'd hid behind a pillar where you would be blocked from Lucas' gaze, watching said boy indeed making his way back to the bleachers carefully, his long legs stumbling and stretching over the bags to bend down to Sicheng's bag, finally pulling out what he was holding behind his back, your gaze practically burning holes into the lunchbox as you watched him shove it back into Sicheng's bag quickly.

Sicheng was going to have to answer to this.

After practice, you bounded down the spectator stand, standing with your hands on your hips next to Sicheng, a deep frown on your face.

“What’s got you looking so ugly?” He smirked, using his knuckle to nudge your head lightly, flicking his hair away from his face as he reached over to pick up his bag and sling it over his shoulder.

“Dong Sicheng, you’d better get some answers ready.”

===

“Alright,” you began just as you both turned onto the road of your neighbourhood, the clicking of his bicycle almost unnoticeable from how long you both had been walking, “have you been eating my grandma's lunch boxes?”

Sicheng shot you a look of disbelief, his sudden slip of his hand on his bicycle giving away that you had caught him off guard, though he straightened up quickly, replying ever so stoically.

“Yeah, of course, I mean, they come back to you empty don’t they?”

“Oh yeah, they do. D’you remember what she made for you yesterday?” Sicheng's eyes darted in so many directions within a span of a few seconds. Praying to God that what he would guess would actually be correct.

“Noodles with soup?” you frowned at him, earning a sigh from Sicheng, knowing he had trapped himself then and there.

“You’ve been giving them to Lucas, haven’t you?” you accused, like a parent who had found their child doing something they weren't supposed to behind their back.

You held the silence, watching Sicheng squirm visibly before he gave in.

“Okay, fine! I did. But what’s so bad about that?!”

“God, Sicheng, he’s rich! Why can’t he get his own lunch? Why does he have to eat yours! What have you been eating for lunch then?”

Sicheng sighed, “Look, he doesn’t get lunch either, alright? And I mean, isn’t it good that he loves your grandma's cooking so much? What’s with you and always thinking people have bad intentions?” He told you, disbelief laced in his tone.

Ignoring his last question, you scoffed at him, “that wasn’t my grandma's cooking, Cheng, it was mine. Mama told me to start making them on my own because the restaurant needed to open earlier and she couldn’t get enough sleep so I did it instead. All those extra dumplings ‘you’ asked for? All me.”

“Oh,” Sicheng murmured, making you groan loudly, “Lucas doesn’t even acknowledge my presence on a daily basis, and I’ve been making lunch for him for two weeks now? You’ve gotta be kidding me, Sicheng.”

“Okay, Y/N, I’m sorry. But there wasn’t much I could do, he looked really happy eating it. It's the first proper meal he’s had in ages.”

“He should pay me.”

Sicheng shot you a pleading look, “can’t it be service for a friend?”

You glared at him, “No. He’s not my friend, he’s your friend.”

“And any friend of mine is a friend of yours, am I right?” he smiled at you sheepishly, flinching slightly when you snapped at him.

“Cut the crap, Cheng. If he wants more noodles, he can come to the store and pay for them himself.”

===

“Hey, Y/N, can you stay back to finish up the boards for next week? we sort of need them by the end of this week” you were stuck in the dusty classroom trying to design, draw and colour the signboards for the sports fest, only halfway done when you heard a knock at the door, from the class representative informing you she was about to lock the classroom so you had better find another place to do the signboards and hold the flyers.

You complied, albeit reluctantly, stacking the boards and boxes of flyers ( which were atrociously heavy you may add ) until they piled up so high you couldn’t see the stairs as you were heading down them.

Hoping to God you wouldn’t bump into anything, you slowly made your way down, but soon you heard the loud thundering of running on the steps.

“You’d better run!” you heard a boy shout before something hard smacked into you from behind, causing you to lose your balance, sending you falling down the stairs with a yelp.

You tried to break your fall but were too late, your wrist coming into contact with the floor and feeling as though you had just had it run over by a car, the boxes and boards strewn about around you. Hearing light footsteps in a run, you felt a hand on both your shoulders, looking up to see Lucas in his sports attire, his hair messy and slightly damp with sweat, looking at you with concern, before turning to the direction of the people that had bumped into you, shouting what would have sounded like a threat if you weren't too focused on the pain in your wrist to pay attention.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” you tried to recover from the shock that he was actually talking to you before replying him,

“I hope not, I mean, I think I’m okay? My wrist really hurts though, I feel like it's broken.”

He made a grim face, “come with me,” he easily helped you up.

“Can you walk?”

You nodded in reply, watching him scoop up the boards and carry the boxes along with an ease you were almost envious of.

You let him lead you to the school nurse's office, though you were still a bit tense regarding the whole lunchbox exchange you had with Sicheng earlier that day. You found that Lucas was very familiar with the nurse from always faking sick to get out of school.

“Hey doc, she fell down the stairs, can you check if her wrist is messed up?”

“It feels like it’s broken,” the nurse smiled, letting a small laugh escape her lips.

“For the last time, I’m not a doctor, Lucas. And it’s not broken, honey. Looks like you’ve just sprained it. You might find it a little difficult to write or do things with your hand the next few days, so just be careful, hmm?” she scribbled something down on the paper attached to her clipboard, noticing the way Lucas stared at her and nodded intently with a pensive look on his face as if she was giving him life advice, almost making you smile.

But that moment was short-lived when your gaze shifted to the incomplete signboards you were supposed to send for approval the next day, not knowing how you were going to complete all of that in time with your bad wrist.

The nurse kindly wrapped your wrist, and once you were done you noticed the sun was already setting, making you sigh once again. You weren't even able to push your worry aside to have enough time to refuse Lucas' help to bring the flyers and banners to your house, being an unspoken agreement.

You found yourself almost nervous during the walk home, afraid things would get awkward again given Lucas' non-existent urge to talk to you on the daily. But what had happened instead gave you a surprise, and a rather pleasant one at that.

“Are these the signboards for the sports meet thing?” you nodded with a hum of confirmation.

“I have no idea how I’m gonna finish them by tomorrow with my wrist like this..” you lamented, kicking at the ground as you walked.

He bit his lip, cutting in quickly before you could continue, “I can help you...and stuff. I have nothing on tonight...and it's not like you can do everything yourself with that wrist and all....” Lucas offered, his lips pressing into a thin line as he looked away from you to try to calm his heart which was racing so much.

“Are you sure? It’s not exactly the fun-est thing in the world..”

“No, really it’s fine, I want to,” he dismissed you, making you scrunch your nose up in distaste but agreeing anyway, not in any position to refuse.

===

“My grandma's still at work, so is it alright with you if I just heat up something from the fridge?”

He nodded profusely, setting the materials down with a rather loud thump on top of your dining table, “yeah, that’s fine by me. If you need help just tell me, alright? I’ll just get started on the boards first.”

You decided to take a quick shower first, undoing the wrap around your wrist so it wouldn’t get wet, after which, you changed into your more presentable pyjamas since Lucas was over, you quickly went to the kitchen and looked in the fridge to see if there was any leftover noodles.

Doing your best to heat it up and pour it into a nicer-looking bowl with your bad wrist, you slowly carried the bowls one by one to the living room, seeing his head shoot up at the smell wafting in from the kitchen. It was safe to say you wanted to present the best you could to him, not wanting him to think lowly of you or anything.

“Oh my God.” His mouth dropped open at the sight of the food before turning into a big smile, staring intently at the bowls before glancing at you, his gaze moving to your wrist and realising it was unwrapped.

The smile disappeared from his face, being replaced with a slight frown, letting out a little upset sound, a ‘tsk-tsk’ leaving his lips, he grabbed the bandage he saw lying on the table, “come here, sit down,” he instructed you.

You nervously watched as his big hands carefully wrapped your wrist just like how the nurse did, delicately but firmly, seeing how careful he was in tucking the ends into the bandage.

Letting a small smile of satisfaction appear on his face after he was done, “there, better?” he looked to you for affirmation, and you finally looked up from your wrist to make eye contact with him, seeming awfully similar to a little boy with that expression as you gave him a smile in return, nodding.

“Much better, thank you.”

You pushed the bowl towards him on the table, a little part of you feeling happy at how his smile grew bigger at the gesture.

“Thank you,” he murmured with a gentleness unlike anything you’ve seen before when it came to Lucas. Usually when one thinks of Lucas they would think of rowdiness, or big, rough actions, nothing like the Lucas you were currently witnessing for yourself.

“You really like the noodles, don’t you?” he looked at you mid scoffing down the food upon hearing your voice, making you let out a giggle.

Slurping the rest of his mouthful, a shy smile graced his face he nodded at you. “It tastes really...nostalgic.”

“How so?” you asked, curiosity taking over you.

“I uh..it’s a funny story actually, but...maybe for next time.” you hummed, nodding because you didn’t want to push him to do something out of his comfort zone.

After you ate, he had insisted on helping you to wash the dishes, claiming you had to let your hand rest.

"I noticed you've been coming to school more recently," you murmured casually, standing next to where he stood at the sink washing your dishes, seeing Lucas turn his head to look at you with a smirk.

"Well someone's pretty observant," he teased, a giggle leaving his lips as he looked back at the soapy dishes.

“What made you want to come?” you asked him, watching him pause his scrubbing at the dishes.

Lucas hummed in thought, pursing his lips before giving you a shrug, "Just, felt like it I guess."

“So...you didn't come to school before because you didn't feel like it?” you helped to put the dishes aside as he washed his hands, wiping them on his uniform as he let a small huff of half-hearted laughter leave his lips.

"Guess you could say that," he murmured.

“Weren’t you scared?”

Lucas turned to look at you with an eyebrow raised, “Of what?”

You frowned in confusion, “you know, don’t the teachers give you shit for not coming to school?”

He shook his head, walking back with you to your small dining table where the banners and posters were laid out. “They don’t really care anymore. But I’m planning on making a change this year!” he grinned at you, making you raise your eyebrows skeptically.

“You serious about that?” slightly surprised at his determination.

He nodded. “The serious-est.”

You let the conversation topic drop, with him taking a seat next to where you sat at the table and picked up on where he left off on the board, and you made yourself useful by doing whatever you could with your left hand, as well as telling him your ideas for the layout of the signboard and how you wanted to use the various materials. Though after a while Lucas had noticed you kept forgetting your wrist was injured and trying to help him cut things, nagging you for still trying to work when you should have been resting according to him.

“Lucas seriously, just let me help,” you insisted, a small pout on your lips.

“You can help me by resting,” he remained stubborn as ever, eventually leaving you to sit there and watch him.

You were surprised at how quickly he finished up the boards, just in time for when your grandma came home.

“Y/N! I’m back,” she called out, and you heard her soft shuffling get louder as she got closer to the dining table.

“Mama, I have a guest over,” you called out, hearing her squeal, practically running over to your room, her eyes lighting up when she saw Lucas.

“Xuxi?” You swore you'd never seen such a soft look in Lucas’ eyes before, seeing him get up to hug your grandma as if they’d known each other forever. “You’re so big now! I haven't seen you in so long,” she frowned playfully, making you even more confused.

“Do I wanna ask why?” you muttered, seeing Lucas’ cheeks tint pink in embarrassment, stepping back from your grandma and picking up his bag.

He brought a hand up to the side of his mouth in an action as if to whisper to you, mouthing a 'next time' to you with a soft smile,

“I hope Y/N has been good to you while you were here,” she looked at you pointedly, making you huff in exaggerated offence.

Lucas was quick to reply, shaking his head in dismissal, “oh, no it’s fine, I brought her home because she fell down the stairs in school, kind of messed up her wrist,” he gestured to his own wrist as he spoke, and your grandma's eyebrows knitted in concern.

“Oh gosh, sorry, she’s a clumsy one," she laughed, her hand reaching out to hold Lucas' hand in a rather delicate way, leaning in to whisper something to him you couldn't quite catch. You were beginning to feel as though you were the outsider here.

“Mama,” you whined, seeing the tiny crow’s feet beside her eyes appear as she laughed, shaking her head at you.

“You’d better be getting home, love, it’s getting late,” her tone was gentle as she spoke to him, and he nodded, bidding her goodbye before she left the room.

Lucas turned to face you, and you stood up, taking a step toward him, “I’ll be...heading off now,” he sounded almost breathless. “Rest your wrist, okay? see you,” he smiled at you, waving goodbye before he turned to leave.

You hadn't noticed you called him until he turned around, looking at you expectantly with his eyebrows raised, making you flush when your voice had sounded softer than you intended it to.

"Thanks, by the way, for helping me with the banners....I couldn't have finished it tonight without your help," you pressed your lips together in a tight-lipped smile, your hand reaching up to play with the lobe of your ear.

Stepping forward so he wasn't so far from you, he shook his head, "I'm glad I could help."

You felt for the first time as if you were watching yourself from a third person’s perspective, the way the wind suddenly seemed to be blowing at a perfect speed, and the music you could hear wafting outside from your grandma’s radio, to the way the streetlamp outside your house was casting the perfect shadow on Lucas’ face, right down to the way he smiled at you as if you were in a scene of a romantic drama ( that you were pretty sure if you were watching with Sicheng this would be the part you both start hitting each other excitedly )

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

You were lost for words, almost breathless at his soft shy smile. “Goodnight, Lucas.”

===

The next time you had lessons and your wrist was already starting to heal, you braved through the soreness you felt in your wrist and did your best to make lunch for both you and Lucas, even adding a small compartment where you placed a small packet of candy you had in the house.

Wrapping it up nicely, it was safe to say Lucas was shocked when you had handed the lunchbox to him directly, gaze darting between you and the lunchbox as if searching for some sort of affirmation that it belonged to him.

You felt eyes on you from some of your classmates, all eager to see how Lucas would reject you like how he usually did to girls who gave him things like this, but you barely noticed their gasps and murmurs from how happy you were when he took the lunchbox into his large hands, smiling so widely to you his happiness practically radiated from him.

"Consider it...a 'thank you', for helping me the other day," you told him, seeing him nod at you gratefully,

He lifted the lid of the lunchbox slightly, eyes widening when he saw its contents and looking at you with bright eyes, "I really, wow uh, I just, I wasn't expecting this...you made this?" he gestured at the half-opened lunchbox with his index finger.

You nodded in reply, "I've been making almost all of Sicheng’s," you swore you saw his face flush at that, his eyes widening but went back to normal quickly.

"You're really good at it," he said firmly, as if trying to convince you. To which you simply shrugged in reply.

"Wasn't sure why you liked them so much, but it's... all I have to offer, really." You took your seat in front of him, doing your best to suppress your racing heart when he leaned forward, as if he knew your heart was racing and he intentionally wanted to make it worse. ( But little did you know his heart was practically pounding in his chest he almost couldn't concentrate )

"Trust me, it's all I need."

"How are you gonna pass it back to me?" you asked him after class, watching how he slung his bag over his shoulder so smoothly, watching the way his eyebrows would raise as he thought, his lips pushed out resembling a duck.

"I'm working after this, so you can just pass it to Sicheng, he'll hand it over to me," you suggested, not very keen on Lucas seeing the ruckus of the noodle shop during peak hours.

Glancing at your watch, your eyes widened in realisation of the time, "I've gotta get going, bye Lucas!" you waved, seeing him wave back with a smile, his loud "Bye!" making you laugh.

What you didn't notice until now was that Lucas was the kind of person that would seem quiet on the outside, but once he was comfortable enough with you ( which for him, seemed to have happened after you injured your wrist ), he would let his true colours show. For example, especially with regards to Lucas, you tended to hear him before you actually saw him in most situations.

Now when he saw you in school, he would bellow your name from afar before jogging up to you, his hair ruffled and his shirt untucked, tie askew. He was the kind of boy to get through the crowd and go through all the trouble of getting to you for the sake of a 'good morning' greeting, or wanting to walk to class together.

Of course you couldn't refuse, because of how he'd already gone through the trouble of finding you in the crowd, simply choosing to enjoy his company instead of pay any attention to the girls who stared at you with such envy or shock. But you barely paid them many attention, since Lucas himself seemed to command all of your attention whenever he was with you. You couldn’t say you were complaining though, not when he’d been smiling a lot more and looking happier in general.

Your grandma was out of town temporarily, since she had to visit her sick sister. You were currently in the noodle shop on a weekday evening, trying to wait tables as quickly as you could since the dinner crowd was starting to come in.

With your hair pulled back into a ponytail, you wiped the sweat on your brow with your sleeve, trying your best to take orders and make the food at the same time, all the while trying to ignore the soreness you felt in your wrist whenever you carried things on the heavier side. You had just seated a group of middle aged working men who clearly had a few drinks before coming here. They had always given your grandma trouble, so you were praying in your heart that they wouldn’t be as troublesome to deal with today as well.

You had brought their food to their table, the narrow aisle between the tables preventing you from manoeuvring yourself around the table to serve them individually, choosing to stand at the same place and trust that they could pass down their bowls themselves since you knew your wrist wouldn’t be able to take it.

“How have you been? Haven’t seen you helping your grandma out in a while,” the uncle next to where you stood had let his hand linger on your arm, an uncomfortable warmth lingering there as you tried to calm your racing heartbeat.

You hadn't noticed Lucas’ bicycle pulling up next to the store over the loud chatter in the store, as he stepped into the doorway of your humble shop, his eyes practically glaring daggers at the uncle whose hand was starting to creep down your back, resting on your bum as you wriggled in his hold.

The rest of them were busy in their own tipsy state, telling you just how much you’ve grown.

“I have to get back to work-” you felt a presence behind you before the uncle in front of you had his hands roughly taken off you by Lucas.

Lucas pulled you back protectively behind him, “I don’t think that’s very appropriate of you, she’s clearly uncomfortable.”

The men had recognised Lucas to be his mother’s son, looking at him with evident contempt before cursing under their breath and resuming with their meals.

He followed your quick steps into the kitchen as you hurriedly cooked another bowl of noodles.

“Thanks, for that, by the way,” you said in choppy intervals, the steam from the wok giving you a good excuse for the blush creeping onto your cheeks.

“There’s no need to thank me,” he murmured from where he stood in the kitchen, his arms folded over his chest as he leant against the doorframe yet making sure he didn't get in your way.

“What are you doing here?” you looked away from your cooking to stare at his ruffled hair and messy school uniform, and almost lost it at the smile he gave you when you made eye contact with him.

Lucas' hand came up out of habit to cover his mouth, trying to regain his composure before he remembered he wasn't at one of his family dinners with corporate guests and that he could just be himself without you, slowly lowering his hand and letting his smile show.

Lucas gestured to the lunchbox he'd placed on the empty table in the kitchen. “Here to return your lunchbox, remember?” you made an ‘o’ shape with your mouth in realisation, nodding in understanding.

“Is it just you running the store today?” you nodded, seeing him shake his head, not seeming to like the answer you gave him.

“I’ll help you, alright? I’ll wait the tables and seat them and all that stuff, you just focus on cooking here, we’ll get the crowd cleared in no time,” he flashed you another of his optimistic smiles, his hand coming up in a fist to cheer you on before putting on a small apron and carrying the bowls you made to where you told him to bring them to, figuring you weren't in any position to say no to him right now.

And he was right, in no time you were finished tending to the dinner crowd and he had sat himself at the counter as he watched you take a seat next to him, rolling your wrist around slightly in an attempt to soothe it.

“God, that was fast, like really fast, thank you so much. I can’t imagine how much longer I would’ve taken if it weren’t for you helping me,” you told him. Lucas shook his head with a loud sound of dismissal, waving his hand at you, “It’s no problem. How come your grandma's not here?”

“She’s out of town for the month...her sister’s sick so she went to visit her, so I stayed here to take care of the house and the shop and all, since it’s pretty much...all we have," you sighed, refusing to look at him as you anticipated a look of pity or for Lucas to look at you as if you weren't good enough.

“I like it,” you shot him a confused look, and he was prompted to continue, “the shop, I mean. It’s cozy and warm.”

“What are you talking about? We can barely feel the heating in here unless you’re in the kitchen,” you laughed, shoving his shoulder playfully, seeing him shake his head.

“The feeling,” he explained, making you smile at how genuine he sounded.

“Hey, you know, if you could use some help here after school I don’t mind helping you...you know, since your grandma is out and everything..” he trailed off, looking away nervously as he anticipated your answer.

You pretended to contemplate even though you knew what you wanted to say, but then reality hit you again.

“Lucas, you know, as much as I would love some help around here while my grandma is gone, we can’t afford to pay you.”

His answer came back in a heartbeat, looking at you with the most serious expression you’d ever seen from him, “I’ll work here for free.”

You scoffed in shock, not finding it in you to be able to believe him, “What? wha- why would you do that?” you frowned, seeing him shake his head at you, insistent on his proposal.

“I don’t want to work here for the money, I want to work here to help you.”

You felt like all of it was so surreal, even as you outstretched your hand for him jokingly, “well, then you’re hired, Lucas.”

“On one condition, though,” he added quickly before he shook your hand, so it stayed clasped in his, the warmth of his very much bigger hand causing butterflies to flit wildly in your tummy, “call me, Xuxi, it's my actual name, not Lucas.” You smiled, nodding as you shook his hand.

“Sure thing, Xuxi. ” The smile you saw on his face after that was your favourite by far.

===

Before you knew it, seeing Xuxi became a daily thing, you had started to get used to the way he would get flustered when he knocked things over in the kitchen, to the way he did silly dances for you to see from the kitchen when he was wiping up tables and stacking chairs.

The shop had attracted quite a new number of girl students as well, all eager to see Xuxi look charismatic and charming when he was working, but you had to admit you enjoyed seeing the different side of him for yourself when you two were closing up the store or preparing ingredients before it opened.

You absolutely loved how the Xuxi you got to know now was so different from the Lucas you had all thought out in your head. For instance, he would ask for you to teach him how to make the dumpling, then never make it ever again and insist you make it for him, since his ‘didn’t taste the same’. He would walk you home every day, and take you on his bike to school sometimes ( much to Sicheng’s amusement ), as well as drive you to the shop whenever he didn’t have basketball practice.

And with Lucas in the shop, that brought Ten and Sicheng's presence occasionally as well, always teasing you and Xuxi as if you two were a newly married couple that opened up the store, never failing to make Xuxi blush and make you scoff. And you had enjoyed getting to know Ten more, with how he would recommend you new music and lend you his cassette tapes and you would share with each other your reviews on the different artists.

What Sicheng always loved the most from this entire new arrangement was telling you how Xuxi was so excited to work every day that he could, so excited to go to school, a side he’d never seen in Xuxi before, which you would never admit to Sicheng that loved to hear you played a part in.

Out of your own pathetic attempt to keep modest, you would always tell Sicheng to stop making things up, but the boy was just dying to tell you how much Xuxi actually talks about you when he’s with Sicheng and Ten, which of course you didn’t hear because if you did Sicheng would be dead meat.

But you hadn’t known the fact that Xuxi thought you knew this fact all the while, and you only discovered this when you were walking back from the store one night, after he had bought your favourite ice cream for you as a means to celebrate the end of a long day. Enjoying the way everything ( which may or may not include Lucas ) looked and felt warm with the sunset in your line of sight.

“You know, I never would’ve thought you’d be this nice,” you murmured around a mouthful of ice cream.

You heard a gasp on his end, feigning hurt as he placed a large hand against his heart, “I’m hurt,” he laughed.

“For real! I always got scared when I saw you rejecting those girls who would write you love letters and buy you buns from the bakery in school.”

He made a face at that, licking his ice cream before replying you, “That’s because I was never interested, and I figured might as well let them know straight up instead of lead them on.”

“Why not? Some of them were actually really nice, you know?” you wondered out loud, licking a particularly substantial amount of ice cream at one go that it made the roof of your mouth sting, your features scrunching up in a grimace.

He shrugged simply, glancing down at you and smiling at the expression you made from the ice cream, “guess I wasn’t paying too much attention to them.”

“Yeah, cause you were too busy paying attention to my grandma?” you joked, searching his expression for a reaction only for him to remain unfazed.

“Maybe ‘cause she had such a pretty granddaughter,” he said nonchalantly, making you choke on your ice cream, stumbling slightly only for him to reach a hand out to steady you.

“Careful what you say, Xuxi, people might start rumours you like me,” you joked, trying to calm yourself down both from choking and from his words that caused you to choke, turning to frown at him when you heard no answer. Looking at him with your eyebrows raised expectantly, he made no move to act as though you were saying anything he objected to, simply shrugging at you.

"Not something entirely possible if you think about it," he told you, finishing up his ice cream. "I win!" he cheered, pointing at your still half-eaten ice cream, making you roll your eyes with a laugh.

"Doesn't count, I didn't know we were competing," you shoved him playfully, laughter bubbling out of your lips uncontrollably at the way he stumbled back dramatically, using his bike to hold him up.

You were interrupted by his phone ringing, and his expression changed the moment he saw who was calling. “I have to go, I’ll be seeing you soon, then?”

You frowned. “Not tomorrow?” he shook his head,

“I’m pretty packed this week with basketball finals, you can uh...come for my game if you want.” you nodded, bidding him goodnight.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” you chuckled at how cheesy the scene was, feeling once again like this was a scene you would see in those dramas you would watch with Sicheng on his tv, waving him off as he laughed cutely, cycling off home, leaving you smiling like an idiot to yourself.

===

Lucas returned to his house, only to see his mother exactly how he had a feeling he would find her--in the living room with an almost empty bottle of wine next to her, her glass perched dangerously at the edge of the coffee table she was sitting next to, crying into the empty glass, not even bothering to look up when she heard Lucas enter the house.

She sobbed, grabbing the sleeves of Lucas' shirt when he had crouched down in front of her, the impact causing his bag strap to slide nearer to his neck uncomfortably. His mother had hiccupped, her breathing erratic from how hard she was crying, letting her head slump on his shoulder. The sight being nothing new to Lucas, he carefully nudged the wine glass nearer to the centre of the table, slowly peeling her hands from his sleeves.

"Ma. Hey, listen to me, you need to stop thinking he's still coming back," he looked resolutely into her eyes that resembled his so much, except hers were so filled with pain, whereas Lucas' were just filled with pity at how his father had managed to leave his mother in such a state once again- without even having to be physically there to cause it.

Lucas hadn't seen his father in months, the only sign of his existence being that he would send money to his family at the start of each month, and the action would always leave his mother at a loss, since he knew he spent each month hoping that the start of the next month would be greeted with his person instead of just his money.

"You don't understand, Lucas. He told me he was coming back," she cried, hot tears streaming down her face quickly, making anger bubble in Lucas, spilling out before he could control it.

"Yeah, when? That was months ago," he told her, making her frown at him.

"Don't say that. He loves me, he wouldn't do this to me."

"Don't say what, ma? I'm telling you the truth! He's left and he doesn't plan on coming back anytime soon, it’s not like he’s contacted you ever since he left," he told her, his voice raising in an attempt to get his words in her head more.

"Don't raise your voice at me!" she stood up, abruptly, albeit a little unstable, judging from how she leaned on the armrest of the sofa for support.

"You can't keep waiting for him, you know. You're going to reach your limit at one point," he told her, desperately wanting to get through to her and put an end to both their suffering.

"You," she pointed a finger at him condescendingly at him, prodding at his chest roughly, "don't get to decide my limits for me. I need him to come back, he's all I have." Lucas’ mouth shut at that, he knew his mother’s first priority was his father, but she had never said anything like this to Lucas before. And now that he had heard it, it hurt him more than anything.

"So I’m just nothing, then? Just someone to clean up your shit every time you get drunk and you act like a goddamned child?" Lucas was blinded by his hurt now, his words escaping him faster than he could process them, "please, if he loved you so much he wouldn't have left in the first place."

Lucas's mother was absolutely furious, not knowing how to retaliate, so she did what she always did. Looking for the nearest moveable object near her, which just so happened to be the empty wine bottle, she hurled it towards her son, Lucas having to bring his arms up to try and block it as she looked for more things to throw at him, seemingly directing her anger towards her husband to her only son.

"Ma, stop it!" Lucas' shouts went unnoticed, his mother picking up a pillow to hurl it at him roughly, his mother chucking the wine glass at Lucas, which had happened to shatter on the wall where he was standing next to, the glass pieces shattering and nicking Lucas on the face slightly. Only upon the sight of blood on her son’s face did Lucas’ mother realize what she had done, already feeling absolutely horrible about it.

Her grip on the item she was holding loosened, letting it fall with a soft thump onto the cushion of the sofa. Lucas’ eyes widened, his hand coming up to touch his cheek and wince at the sight of the red on his fingers when he pulled his hand away from his face.

“Honey-” Lucas held a hand up, flinching slightly when his mother tried to take a step towards him, taking steps away from her as he felt himself shaking from sheer anger and hurt.

He didn’t want to fight with her, that was the last thing he wanted, yet it seemed to be the only thing he got nowadays.

Shrugging his bag onto his shoulder, he left the house as quickly as he could, not bothering to close the door gently in his hurry to leave. He made his way to Ten’s house, who simply greeted him with a sad smile and let him in, no questions asked, when he saw Lucas at his doorstep, face cut and chest heaving from the angry tears he was shedding.

===

You weren’t surprised when you hadn’t seen Lucas show up to school the next day, not daring to ask any questions when Sicheng showed up at your doorstep to send you to school with a very tired-looking Ten.

You had no means of contacting Lucas, only hoping that he would decide to come to the noodle shop or even to basketball practice so you could talk to him, but even that didn’t happen.

Sicheng noticed the slight dulling of your mood after a few days had passed and Lucas still hadn’t shown up to school, trying to make you feel better by telling you he was okay.

“That’s not the point, Sicheng, I want to actually see for myself that he’s okay. I thought he was actually getting back on track, you know?” Sicheng nodded, understanding where you were coming from but not knowing how to comfort you.

Ten had told him prior to that day that Lucas absolutely refused to talk about what had happened, choosing to simply coop himself up in Ten’s guest room all day, only ever coming out to eat and even then it didn’t look like he was enjoying himself very much. Which of course was an abnormality in Lucas’ case.

What Ten wasn’t aware of was that when Lucas had returned to the house the day after the incident, he’d found a note his mother left for him, saying she was going to look for his father, and that she wouldn’t come back unless she was coming back with him. The last sentence of the letter not even a small ‘I love you’ but instead a reassurance that she would send him allowance every month.

Lucas figured he needed time to cool off and figure out what he was going to do now before he could even go back to see you- despite desperately wanting to do so. But he didn’t want to see you like this, not when he was preoccupied with all his thoughts you knew nothing about.

“I know,” Sicheng murmured, turning to you with a tight-lipped expression. “Just give him some time, he’ll be back in time for the game, then you can have a proper talk with him or whatever,” Sicheng sighed, standing up and offering you a hand to help you up.

“How about some ice cream?”

===

The day of the sports meet had arrived, the basketball nationals being the highlight of the day, and almost your entire school had gathered at the spectator stands to watch the game. With Sicheng next to you, you saw the home team arriving in the court, a small part of you relieved when you saw Xuxi on the court, next to Ten, looking perfectly fine and happy.

So you went through the game doing whatever you figured a supporter should do, raise your giant banner with Sicheng and cheer for your school’s team, especially when Xuxi or Ten would make a particularly impressive pass or score.

Thankfully, they had won, so you figured their spirits were still high by the time they finished their team debrief and were dismissed. You were standing outside the room waiting for Xuxi and Ten with Sicheng. You looked up expectantly when you heard the double doors of the school entrance open, only to huff in disappointment when you realized it was just another one of Xuxi’s teammates, Kun.

You kicked at the ground absentmindedly before you felt Sicheng start to nudge you, his nudging growing more rapid as the seconds passed, making you look up at him with an annoyed expression.

“What?” you asked, seeing his face scrunch up, trying his best to gesture to your opposite direction with his eyes without making it to obvious.

“Hey,” you turned to the direction of the voice only to see that it was Kun, looking at you with a soft smile, his hand gripping the strap of the duffel bag he had slung across his chest. Sicheng looked away so his staring wouldn’t make Kun uncomfortable, though he was intently listening to your conversation with Kun.

“Y/N, right?” you nodded. “Uh...I wanted to thank you for coming to the game,” he smiled sweetly at you, his voice matching his expression.

You shook your head in dismissal, “Oh, it’s nothing, really. I mean, Ten and Xu- I mean Lucas, are my friends too so I just, you know…thought I should support them.” You saw him nod in understanding, glancing up at you again, looking almost nervous.

“I was actually wondering if you would like to go watch a movie with me one of these days? It’ll be my treat, I kind of want to get to know you better....I mean, you don’t have to say yes but it’d be nice...if you did.”

Sicheng let out a small snort, making you kick his leg firmly, all the while still smiling at Kun.

I mean, it wasn’t as if you didn’t like the idea of a date with Kun, you just...would prefer if it was a date with Xuxi, to put things simply.

“Would you let me have some time to think about it? Can I let you know by like…next week?” you asked, seeing him nod at you, that same sweet smile appearing on his face.

“Of course, no problem, have a goodnight,” he smiled at you, Sicheng taking that as his queue to turn back around and exchanged a nod with Kun as a goodbye, practically bursting into laughter when Kun was out of sight.

“Poor Kun, doesn’t know he’s gonna be waiting the whole weekend for a rejection,” he snickered, making you roll your eyes, shoving him as you saw the double doors open again and Ten and Lucas walk out, laughing about something while looking for you and Sicheng in the area.

“Okay, shut up, no more talk about this or Ten will mock both Kun and me,” you shoved him, your glare softening and a small smile appearing on your face when you saw Xuxi.

He smiled widely, waving at you and Sicheng, the both of you making your way over to them and walking out of the school grounds together.

You walked in pairs, Ten and Sicheng walking in front on purpose so you and Xuxi would have to walk next to each other.

“You played really well, today,” you told him as a passing comment, seeing him let out a shy laugh, muttering a small ‘thank you’ to you.

“Have you eaten dinner yet?” he asked you, you shook your head in reply.

“Not yet, I was kind of just feeling like some ice cream.”

His smile brightened at that, nodding at you eagerly, “Me too!”

He bent down, half leaning towards you to whisper, “should we ditch them?” he used a finger to gesture to the pair walking in front of you, watching you give him a hesitant look.

He shot you a pleading look, his eyes closed and his palms together in front of him, rubbing them together in a begging action, making you smack him on the shoulder, covering your mouth in a poor attempt to stifle your laugh.

Ten and Sicheng already having anticipated your next sentence with all the giggling they were hearing behind them.

“Hey, uh guys, me and Y/N are gonna detour and get some ice cream. Catch you guys next week?”

Not without shooting each other a knowing look, Ten and Sicheng pretended to be upset before waving the both of you off quickly, wanting this to happen more than anybody.

You walked with Xuxi in the silence to the small convenience stand, Xuxi paying for the ice cream, and you ripped open the packet quickly, walking with him back in the direction of your neighbourhood.

“Thanks for paying for the ice cream,” you said, a little belatedly, making him huff in amusement, using his free hand to ruffle your hair in reply, the action making you blush unexpectedly.

Xuxi started to walk towards the direction of the small playground you were nearing, the both of you silently taking a seat on either of the two swings, Xuxi ditching his bag on the ground to sit comfortably.

“Are you okay?” you asked, chewing on the small bit of your ice cream you’d bitten off by accident, “you were gone for really long.”

Xuxi scoffed teasingly, “I was gone for like 5 days.”

“Well it was long for me, okay,” you huffed, “It was weird...going from seeing you every day to not seeing you suddenly.”

Xuxi bit his lip, licking the ice cream that had gotten on his lips as he turned his head to glance at you, his legs pushing the ground gently to swing himself lightly.

“My mom left,” he murmured. Abruptly raising his hand for his palm to face you, “And before you start feeling stressed ‘cause you don’t know what to say and all that, I’m alright if you don’t know what to say. I mean, neither did I, I spent 4 days not knowing what to even feel about it.”

You ate your ice cream quietly as he spoke, processing what Xuxi was trying to tell you. A small part of you understanding a little bit of how lonely he may have felt since you had found yourself in a somewhat similar situation when you were young.

“She told me she wasn’t coming back until my dad comes back with her, so...I took that as a ‘I’m not coming back at all’,” he used his fingers to make air quotes, shrugging afterward as he took a bite from his popsicle, “but I’ll live, I guess....I have to.”

“That’s really strong of you, Xuxi,” you murmured, seeing him turn to you, expression blank before he smiled softly.

“I have you by my side, so I’ll make it through this no matter what,” he grinned, turning his attention back to his ice cream.

“I’ll hold you to that,” you joked, suddenly thinking of Kun’s proposal just now after the basketball game, debating on whether to tell Xuxi but something inside you ( that strangely sounded like Sicheng ) was telling you to just do it.

“Kunaskedmeout,” you blurted, seeing him turn to you with a raised eyebrow, a small hum of confusion leaving his lips.

“Kun, he...asked if I wanted to go watch a movie with him when I was waiting for you and Ten to come out just now,” you told him, gauging his expression carefully as you told him, “I mean, at first I was kind of hesitant because I was kind of worried about how I would pay for the movie ticket but then he said he was paying and all so...I guess it’s not so bad?”

Tell me not to go. Your eyes pleaded, watching intently at the way he took his time to nibble on the last bits of his ice cream, holding up a hand as if telling you to wait as he stood up from the swing, taking your empty ice cream wrapper to dispose of them together, returning to you with a serious expression on his face. Stopping in front of where you were sitting, he leaned down so his head was level with yours, eyes narrowing at you, before straightening up.

“Don’t go.” he told you casually, sitting back down on the swing.

Your mouth gaped, unsure of what to make of his reaction. You looked at him with furrowed eyebrows, pursing your lips before speaking.

“You don’t think I should go?”

He looked at you with a blank expression, shrugging nonchalantly, “you shouldn’t go if you don’t want to,” he reminded you, his shoes scuffing on the ground as he rocked the swing back and forth.

“What makes you think I don’t want to?” you narrowed your eyes at him.

He shrugged, “maybe the way you told me about it? But of course, I could just be assuming, so go, have fun with Kun if that’ll make you happy,” he laughed, making you frown at him.

“But...” you started, though there was no other way to say this other than to admit you wanted Lucas to tell you not to go.

Lucas stopped swinging, looking at you expectantly, with a small glint of mischief in his eyes and a smirk playing at his lips.

“But? Is there a problem with what I just said?”

“Yes, a very big problem,” you told him, a small pout playing at your lips.

“Why is that?” He prodded you some more, to the point where you threw away your anxiousness, exasperatedly admitting to the tall boy,

“The problem is that I don’t wanna go ‘have fun’ with Kun because I like you!” you blurted.

He looked at you, pressing his lips together, before his eyes crinkled into crescents as he smiled.

As if nothing had happened, Lucas stood up, dusting off the imaginary dust from his track pants, slinging his bag on his shoulder, using his hand to shield the non-existent sun from his eyes as he looked up at the sky, “It’s getting late, let’s get you home.”

It was an understatement to say you were upset as Lucas walked you home. You felt so humiliated, that he would have the audacity to ignore the fact that you’d just confessed how you felt towards him, making you huff in annoyance when you realized you had reached your doorstep.

Not looking at him, you glared at his chest, being the only thing at your eye level, about to say goodbye when you felt him pull you into a hug. Not just any kind of lazy armed, lean-in goodbye hug, but an actual, warm, comforting hug, a hug of greeting instead of parting.

He let his head rest on top of yours gently, and you heard his laugh vibrate in his chest slightly, as his hand went up to pat the back of your head gently.

“I’m glad,” he told you.

You frowned, pulling away to see him look down at you, his hair flopping over his eyes only slightly as he gave you what you had deemed as your favourite smile of his, where his eyes would shut tightly and his mouth form the cutest grin you had ever seen.

And for the third time, you’d felt transported into one of the romantic dramas, you could practically hear Sicheng saying matter-of-factly, ‘he’s totally gonna confess’, which you would always reply with a shush, wanting to savour the moment.

Opening his eyes, Lucas reached one of his hands reached down to hold your hand, “because I like you too.”

It was as if you had become hyper-aware of your surroundings, the way your heart was beating at a steady pace for once, and how gently Lucas was holding your hand, to the way the moonlight was so bright today, being the perfect backdrop for this moment you wanted to capture in your head and remember forever.

Letting go of your hand after a while, it was as if things were moving in slow motion when Lucas leaned over to plant a shy kiss on your cheek, pulling away and covering the lower half of his face with his hand, hiding his blush from you.

This time, you smiled at him first, “Goodnight, Xuxi.”

He had to look away to compose himself since he was smiling so widely, turning back to you and nodding at you, waving his hand as he’d started taking slow steps back, desperate to run home so he could giggle and be shy about this in the privacy of his room.

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

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the-goddamn-queen · 5 years

Text

The Girl I Thought You Were

Bucky Barnes x Readers

Warnings: swearing, brief death/torture mention, zero knowledge of the legal system

Word Count: 2058

Summary: Scoring a position working for the Avengers reveals a lot more about your past than you anticipated.

A/N: For @sunmoonandbucky‘s 1.5k Constellations Challenge! My prompt was the Legally Blonde line “if you’re going to let one stupid prick ruin your life, you’re not the girl I thought you were.” Post-Endgame, but no one died.

You were lucky, you suppose, with the job you’d managed to find. The snap yanked you out of your senior year of college, and when it spit you back out, you didn’t have a degree or the money to finish it.

A non-descript assistant position wasn’t exactly ideal, but it was something, plus they were offering housing for people who’d been ‘blipped.’

You walk up to the shoddy office building, second guessing yourself at every step, but what other choice did you have? You reach the door and give it a firm tug, stumbling backwards when it doesn’t open as you expect it to. You try a few more times with the same result. Had you gotten the time wrong? The address? What this a set up? Your anxiety spikes, and you begin to back away when an Irish woman’s voice prompts you for your name and appointment time.

You manage your name through chattering teeth. “I-I’m just here for the assistant interview.”

“Ah, yes, Mr. Stark’s 3:00.”

Mr. Stark? As in Tony? It couldn’t be.

The door swings open of its own accord to reveal a completely normal office space.

Completely normal, that is, until you step through the hologram straight into a very high-tech elevator.

You barely have time to register the change before the door slams behind you and the elevator starts to drop.

A few moments later, you’re spit out the other side of the elevator into a surprisingly plush conference room.

“Six months away from graduating top honors in political science and intelligence from Columbia University. What happened?”

You snap from your daze to focus on the voice in front of you. The man who spoke was still covering his face with your file, but you’d recognize his voice anywhere. “You’re Ironman.”

“And you were on course to be recruited by the CIA. What. Happened?”

You cleared your throat in attempt to rid your voice of any nervousness. “The university wouldn’t reinstate my scholarship when I, uh, came back, and I didn’t exactly have the money to finish paying since my accounts had been closed for…five years.” It felt weird saying it out loud.

Tony dropped the file to look you over. “Well that’s shitty.” His blunt choice of words shocks you a bit. “I’ll have to have a word with board about that one.” Tony stands and flicks his wrist, opening up a holographic screen that he starts tapping on. “Don’t worry, kid, you’ll get your degree.”

“Mr. Stark, I don’t understand. Is this part of the interview?”

“Interview?” He shakes his head. “No interview. You have the job,” he says as he rounds the table, “this is more of an…” he gestures vaguely to the room, “orientation.”

“So, am I to be your assistant, Mr. Stark?” you question. You’re still pretty confused considering the situation.

Tony gives you a strange look. “Assistant? Is that what FRIDAY posted?” He huffed a laugh and went back to punching at the hologram. “And you can do away with the formalities, kid, ‘Tony’s fine.”

“I don’t…I don’t understand.”

Tony waved away the floating screen and faced you. “I had FRIDAY mockup an ad to attract you specifically,” he said pointing at you, “which is funny to me ‘cause your resume’s too damn good for an assistant.”

You stiffen. He was right, of course, but your field wanted a degree. “Who’s Friday?”

“My assistant.” He takes a step forward and claps a hand on your shoulder making you jump. “And you’re our new government liaison. Welcome to the Avengers.” He pulls away. “Let me show you to your room.”

The fake office/bunker, it turned out, was temporary while the compound was rebuilt, and being the government liaison basically meant you were the face of the Avengers during negotiations. And no matter what you said, Tony insisted that you were the only person for the job.

You were pretty sure, though, that he was just desperate because the first assignment he gives you is the renegotiation of the Sokovia Accords.

You spend the next month pouring over the original documents and interviewing various Avengers for affidavits.

Steve and Natasha help you outline the full events of the Battle of New York, Wanda gives her own account of the battle with Ultron, and Bucky, poor Bucky, gives you every single detail of how Hydra tortured and brainwashed him.

Clearly, he liked talking to you, though, because after that, he started stopping in pretty regularly, bringing you food, coffee. One time he actually brought a pillow to your office because he caught you asleep on your desk.

A few days later, he brought a blanket.

The day before the hearing, he brings you two takeout boxes and two forks.

“Am I supposed to double fist this orange chicken?” You’re surprised manage humor through your focus.

“Of course not.” He drags a chair from the corner and plops down across from you.

You glace up, brows furrowed. “I’m done with interviews, you know. You don’t have to hang out with me.” You weren’t trying to kick him out or anything, you just didn’t want him to feel obligated.

“Yeah, I know,” he replies with a mouth full of food.

You stab your fork into the chicken. “Why do you keep doing all this?”

“Why do you keep doing all this?” Bucky counters, gesturing to the plethora of notes you have laid out for tomorrow. You’d been studying them since daybreak to make sure it was perfect.

“It’s my job,” you say defensively, shuffling some of the papers out of his reach.

“A job that you’ve repeatedly claimed you’re not qualified for,” he points out.

“I’m just anxious, okay?” You sigh. “I’ve been going over old videos, and there’s this one fucking senator—”

“Who’s not there anymore.” You both know why. He was Hydra.

“Sure, but there’s always going to be more like him.”

“Look, if you’re going to let one stupid prick ruin your life, you’re not the girl I thought you were.”

You look up at him, shocked by his choice of words. “And who, exactly, do you think I am?”

“Why’d you take the job?” It wasn’t a question, really. He believed in you, they all did, he just wanted you to admit it.

“Well,” you have to word it right, “my parents were SHIELD—”

“You’re lying.”

Your eyes pop. He knows. Of course, he knows. Who else does? Tony, probably. Nat, definitely. Columbia, for sure. It was the real reason they took your scholarship, well before Thanos got to you. The history wipe, the name change. None of it could’ve lasted, anyway.

You take a deep breath, eyes down. You’re not sure you can look at him now.

“My parents were Hydra.” You steal a glance. Bucky’s eyes are sympathetic. You wonder if he knew them. “Hardly knew them, though.”

“You grew up in the Red Room.”

You nod. “I escaped when Hydra fell. I wanted to be better. I had to be better.” A tear drips onto the corner of one of your pages, but you can’t bring yourself to care. “But I’m a fucking pariah.”

You feel Bucky slide one of his hands into yours, and you squeeze down, using it as an anchor as you sob. “Me too.”

You stutter and look up at him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” He shakes his head to cut you off. “I just tried to hide it but I couldn’t keep it up I got found out and kicked out –”

As you ramble, you don’t notice Bucky rounding the desk until he wraps his arms around you, effectively shutting you up.

You instinctively reach your arms around his neck, sobbing into his shoulder as you cling to him. “I just wanted to start over.” He lowers the two of you down until you’re practically sitting in his lap, your face still buried in his neck. Bucky smooths his hand over your back as the tears die down.

“You’re gonna get your second chance, doll,” he whispers into your hair, “that’s why you’re here.” Then he adds quietly, “that’s why we’re all here.”

You could almost feel Secretary Ross’s eyes burning a hole into your head, but he’s not your problem at the moment. The panel of senators sitting in front of you were much more important. You’d given them everything, you just hope you can handle whatever they throw back at you.

A few of the committee members that had been convening finally pulled their heads away from each other. One of the women leaned into her mic.

“Miss, is it true you were once part of the Soviet training program ‘The Red Room?’”

Your heart clenched. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And how did you find yourself in this program?” she pressed.

“I don’t see how this is relevant—”

“Just answer the question.”

You take a deep breath and glace over to Bucky. He offers a warm smile, nodding at you to continue. He has faith in you, it’s all you need.

“My parents were members of the shadow organization, Hydra—”

“The Nazi organization—”

“If you would allow me to answer your question, senator,” you fire back, “and if I remember correctly, a number of your colleagues were involved in Hydra as well.”

“They are answering for their crimes—”

“And my parents died for theirs.” A stunned silence fell over the courtroom. “They threw me into the Red Room when I was three years old. Hell bent on turning their own daughter into a weapon.” You were half standing now, but still leaned in on your mic. “They ruined my life. I carry no allegiance to them or the organization that tried to brainwash me and countless others. I was lucky. I escaped and got to go after my second chance. Thanks to the Avengers, we all got a second chance.”

It starts with one person, but it doesn’t take for the entire gallery to erupt into applause. The committee head practically has to yell into his mic about reconvening the next morning. It wasn’t over, but you sure as hell made an impression.

“Don’t you think this celebration is a little pre-mature?” you ask as Tony hands you the glass bottle.

“No way, kid,” he insists, “you earned that beer. You did us proud today.”

You smile and start to turn from the bar but stumble back when you smack straight into a pillar.

“Shit, sorry, you alright?” Oh, okay. Not a pillar. You look up.

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m fine,” you reply, not realizing you still had a hand on Bucky’s chest.

He smiles down at you. “Walk with me?” He offers an elbow.

“Sure.”

The two of you wander the hallways for a while before you stop him. “You knew me didn’t you? In Hydra?”

Bucky parts hips lips for a moment and then nods, and you see his eyes get glassy.

“Bucky, what is it?”

“Nothing, really,” he shakes his head and you can tell he’s fighting tears. “Yeah, I knew you.”

“I didn’t know you though. Bucky why are you crying?”

A tear escapes and he chokes on a sob. “Because I watched you die.”

You feel it then. The echo of the electricity weaving its way into your head, latching onto bits and pieces of memories and frying them into obscurity. The realization hits you, and you grasp at Bucky’s face, forcing him to look you in the eyes. You let the blue run over you until your own tears start to fall. “I didn’t die,” you reassure him, smoothing with wet cheeks with your thumbs.

“They let me think it killed you.”

You choke out a laugh. “You know it takes a hell of a lot more than that to kill me.”

He smiles at that and pulls you a little closer. “You really are the girl I thought you were.”

You take a deep breath and lean in just enough to press you lips to his. Bucky sighs into you and returns the kiss. The two of you stay that way for as long as possible, letting the connection work a balm over the charred parts of your brain until all that was left was the memories of him.

“They made you forget me,” he murmurs against your lips.

“I could never forget you.”

#bucky #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #the winter soldier #the winter soldier x reader #the winter soldier imagine #the winter soldier fanfic #avengers #avengers fanfic #avengers x reader #avengers imagine #1.5kconstellationswritingchallenge

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holycafe · 5 years

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Coldflash Week Fall 2019: Len’s Oculus Powers. AKA the Bad Wolf AU

Yet another fic idea that I’ve been meaning to write for years. If you feel inspired then, by all means, feel free to write it out! Just please give me credit for the idea (or, at the very least, credit Dr Who since this is based on Rose Tyler as Bad Wolf). PS, please forgive me my shoddy editing skills. I was in a bit of a rush.

(I have a lot of edits and fics for this ship as well as destiel, sterek, etc. My masterposts can be found here. If you’re on a desktop site then you can just jump on over to my page to view the rest of my coldflash edits.)

“What can we do?” Mick asked, and Rip shook his head.

“Nothing. The human body isn’t designed to absorb all the information of the timestream.”

“So, that’s it, then?” Sara asked, indignant. “Leonard’s going to just die again? We’ve only just got him back!”

“What about a speedster?” Barry asked, and all eyes turned to him. “I have the speed force running through me, how much different could this be?” He asked. “Is there any way for me to, I don’t know, absorb it from him?”

“It’s… possible,” Rip said after a momentary pause. “Though, speedster or not, you are still human. It may not be any safer for you than it is for Mr Snart.”

“It’s not worth it, Bear,” Joe was saying instantly. But Barry shook his head; he had to try.

So, that was how, ten minutes later, Barry found himself standing in front of Leonard Snart. Leonard’s eyes were glowing an unearthly blue as they tracked Barry’s movement. He was silent and emotionless. Though, not the put-upon mask that he often wore to keep people at bay. His face was just… blank. Barry wondered, not for the first time, if Snart was even in there or not.

“It’s okay, Leonard,” Barry said softly, stepping up to Snart until they were only a mere foot apart. He cast a look back over his shoulder at his friends, feeling nervous about what he had to do.

When he looked back to Snart, the older man was still just standing there silently. And, Barry didn’t know whether that made things easier or more difficult. Because, according to Rip, there was only one sure-fire way for Barry to absorb the remnants of the timestream which clung on in Snart’s body, and that was through open connect. Specifically, a kiss.

“I’m going to make it all okay. Just… don’t punch me, alright?” He laughed humourlessly. Then, before he could overthink this, Barry took that last step and crashed their lips together. For a moment, nothing happened. And then everything happened.

Barry saw it all. Every moment that ever was, every moment that ever would be, everything that could be, and everything that had never come to pass. He saw it all. It was like running through the speed force, except it was a million times bigger and in a fraction of the time. He saw hatred, war, peace, love. So much love.

He saw Iris, Felicity, Caitlin, Cisco, Joe, Leonard… no, Len. He preferred Len. Barry could see it now, everything that Len had been through, everything that had ever happened which had made Len who he was. The good and the bad. And there was a lot of bad. So much that Barry wanted to hold him tight and never let him go again.

And, oddly enough, Barry saw this moment. It was like an out-of-body experience, watching himself kiss Leonard Snart in the middle of the lab and with all of his friends watching. It started innocent enough, a quick peck, but then Len lifted his hands to cup Barry’s jaw, and it deepened. Barry could feel Len’s rough hands against the skin of his cheek, and he watched the scene play out as though he was watching it on TV rather than being an active participant. He felt his tongue slip inside Len’s mouth, though he didn’t remember making the conscious thought to do so.

A second passed, and then Sara let out a rowdy hoot behind them, and Mick began laughing so hard that he nearly fell to the floor, Joe started face palming and shaking his head, while pretty much everyone else just uncomfortably averted their gaze. Barry realised he probably should have been embarrassed, but he was so caught up in everything – in Len, in them, in memories and futures, in life itself – that he just didn’t feel it.

But soon it became overpowering.

Barry’s head began to buzz painfully, his eyes hurt as though he was straining to see everything, his mouth began to feel numb. He stumbled back from the kiss, and the second that the connection between himself and Len broke, Len’s body slumped, and he fell to the floor. Barry tried to catch him, but his vision was swimming now, and his limbs felt heavy. He heard someone shout his name behind him. He heard it echo through his head as it happened again and again and again in countless timelines.

And then everything went black.

When Barry came to again, a few days had passed. He was lying in a make-shift hospital bed in one of the smaller labs at STAR, and both Cisco and Caitlin were hovering around him expectantly and asking him relentless questions. At first, Barry didn’t really remember what had happened. But soon, it all came flooding back to him. Well, not all of it. He struggled to remember most of what he’d seen while connected to the timestream, which had apparently faded from his body due to his accelerated healing factor. But, the memory of Len’s tongue dancing against his own was all too real.

“Where’s, erm…” Len. Just thinking his name made Barry’s heart beat a little faster and he was forever glad that Cait had already unhooked him from the heart rate monitor.

“Your boyfriend’s over there,” Cisco joked, and Barry blushed. He was about to stutter out some sort of excuse when he glanced over to where Cisco had been pointing and found Len lying in a hospital bed identical to Barry’s, connected to an IV drip and various machines.

The words died on Barry’s tongue as he abruptly stood up and flashed over to Len’s side without really thinking about it. His reaction must have been a surprise to Cisco because the other man’s smile was already dropping from his lips.

“Is he okay?” Barry asked, and Caitlin nodded.

“He’s not deteriorating anymore. He’s actually been healing. On a cellular level, he’s fine,” she said.

“But?” Barry asked, seeing the hesitation on her face.

“But… we don’t know how long he’s going to be out for. Or, if he ever will wake up.”

Barry shook his head. He didn’t go through all of that just for Len to get stuck in a coma for the rest of his life. Barry couldn’t accept that. He wouldn’t.

Barry didn’t know whether it would work, but he’d done it once before with Jesse. He reached forward, his fingers crackling with electricity, and he took Len’s hand in his own. The second their skin made contact, Len was gasping and bolting upright in his bed. Wordlessly, Len looked at Barry, his blue eyes lacking the unnatural glow they’d had before, as Caitlin scrambled forward to check him over.

Barry tried to take his hand back and give his friend more room to work, but Len grabbed him tighter and refused to let go. Barry let out a shaky laugh and smiled as he took in the unfiltered emotions covering Len’s face. He looked as though he was in absolute awe of Barry, and it made Barry blush.

“Well, if it isn’t my Scarlet Speedster,” Len said, his voice sounded dry from disuse, but it made Barry’s heart flutter all the same. “You owe me a real kiss.”

“Please don’t,” Cisco muttered. “I’ve seen enough of that particular show for one week.”

“Then look away,” Len drawled, tugging sharply on Barry’s hand until he stumbled forwards and into Len’s arms. Barry was smiling as their lips met. He couldn’t help it. It was a messy kiss, and there was a little bit too much teeth involved, but neither Len nor Barry could care about that.

As far as Barry was concerned, it was perfect because it was with Len.

#cffall19 #coldflash #len x barry #lenarry #Leonard Snart #Barry Allen #dc #my aus #pieprincesswritescoldflash #pieprincesswritesdc #pieprincesswritesfics

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pendragonfics · 6 years

Text

Down Under

Paring: Mycroft Holmes/Reader

Tags: female reader, long-distance relationships, romance, cutesy, tooth-rotting fluff, Australian politics, Australian slang, swearing,

Summary: Reader, a London-native, is working away from home for the first time, in a whole new country. It's all very new, especially since today, there's a surprise in her room, according to her roommate.

Word Count: 2,614

Current Date: 2018-09-26

Sydney is nothing like London. Well, there’s still cabs, but they’re white, not black. There’re crosswalks linking pedestrians from one sidewalk to the other. But here the drivers more often than not don’t slow for those on them. There’re people here, but there isn’t Myc. You thought the move from home to the land Down Under would be easy - it was another continent. Australians spoke English. Most of the nuances were understood between the cultural differences.

But for once, you were on your own.

No Mum and her odd assortment of cats crammed into her country house on the outskirts of the city limits. No Sherlock and his antics every other afternoon. It was only you and your thoughts, and FaceTime every afternoon at five o’clock, and lots of paperwork.

The move to Sydney was to advance your career. A bold move, for a girl who came from nothing. A girl who had nothing before graduating with scholarships and better marks than ever seen before. That’s where you met him; the last year of studies at university, at a small party. You were in a dress salvaged from a friend of a friend, a nice afternoon tea dress from three seasons ago, he in a two-piece suit, holding the jacket over his arm, a plastic cup of warm beer in his hand.

Your mutual friend introduced you to one another. He was bored of everything already, and you, well, tried your best to not make a fool of yourself around the other people who smelt of old money and perfume from Côte d'Azur. You cracked a joke, and his façade broke, or, was it the beer that broke it? It didn’t matter. By graduation, you were inseparable, and while he climbed the ladder of government, you worked on your connections in the ecopolitical sphere.

Working in the British embassy was nice. But it wasn’t exactly what you wanted. It was…like a resume builder. Except, instead of working at Burger King for three years to get customer service as a tag on it, it was a whole new country. But it was fine. Good. Great, even. You wore a nice uniform, worked through people’s problems, and found solutions for your own. When you ran out of milk in your shared flat, you spent half an hour wandering on foot around Ultimo looking for a Tesco, but it wasn’t until you heard someone’s unmissable Aussie accent when it clicked that you needed a Coles. Or a 7-11 corner store. It felt strange to hear Australian voices on the radio stations in the break room, and the bus ride from the flat to work. The money was weird, too. Everything was cheaper than British pounds, but it would be hard to scrape enough of it by to buy necessities.

Five o’clock in the evening never came fast enough, especially today. You checked out of work, and on the walk to the train station – sometimes catching the train from the Quay was nicer than the buses that were engraved with everyone’s five-minute romance initials – you’d boot up your phone and hit call on Myc’s profile, and thread your earbuds into your ears in muted excitement. Just like now.

But when he’d usually pick up after three dials, it rang out. You frown, but you think nothing of it.

The robot recording of a woman reading the train times overhead haled the next train as if from thin air, and boarding, you sat amidst the rest of the sweaty bodies. Springtime here was nothing like home, and your stay in Sydney was for six months on probation, and up to two years if you worked well. But that meant two summertime’s, and if spring was anything to go by, you dreaded the oncoming heat. The one summer you spent with Mycroft in Barcelona – he was at a conference with the local Catalonian and Spanish officials – oh, that made you feel so warm, your skin felt heated as if from the bones out, your hair and clothes too heavy and hot.

When the doors opened at Central station, the people around you left the carriage like blood from an open wound. You followed suit, pocketing your phone. It was a little walk from the station, but, you took this time to clear your head. A whole day of talking to people, sorting problems out often left you with a head that felt like a fruit blender.

When you pass by the McDonalds, you take five minutes to order a coffee. When you walk by the university, you crane your neck up to see the ugly tower that looms over the city skyline. When your phone finishes its shuffled playlist, you realise you’d been using your roaming data the whole time and turn the phone to airplane mode in panic. Even though your apartment had a shoddy version of the National Broadband Network (“Not to be confused with the TV channel”, your roommate Blue would laugh, or, when she was in a bad mood, it was known as “the fuckin’ NBN”), mobile data was like a prized possession. You practically lived off public Wi-Fi.

Someone on the street corner of Broadway and Mountain is hustling flyers at unsuspecting pedestrians, shouting about the end of the world. You chuckle to yourself, evading the paper held to you that reads The End Is Near!; at least there were still fundamentalists over the globe. By the time you make it into your street, your feet are aching more than ever, and your shoulder weighed down by your handbag and all its contents.

Blue is in the main room when you unlock the front door; the kettle is boiling along to the sound of her meditation CD that’s playing from the machine beside the tiny TV. She’s in her yoga pants and a giant t-shirt that says RIDE FOR PRIDE with a motorcycle underneath surrounded by rainbow fire. Blue looks up from her Downward Dog when you place your keys in the bowl, a grin on her freckled face.

“You look too happy to be a pretzel.” You comment, kicking off your heels into the shoe rack by the door. You blink, noticing a pair of shoes that you hadn’t seen in the rack before; brown brogue-laced leather. “Blue…”

“There’s a surprise in your room, _________.” She winked, and, along with the sultry sounds of the meditation track, went up, and twisted into Monkey pose.

You make it to the stairs, and with every step, you’re not sure what you’re to expect. Has Blue’s nephew come over again for homework help with his mathematics? He never came over on weekdays, and today was a Thursday! And that didn’t explain the brogues at all! The door to your room is ajar, and pushing it all the way, your mouth goes dry. Eyes blink, unsure if this is just another of your vivid fantasies. Mind racing.

“_________! Love –,” Mycroft comes to you, steadying you on your feet. It’s then you know it’s real, because his hands are cool, and they stick to your warm skin. You’re speechless, but perhaps that is for the better, because at once, you drop your handbag to the floor, and push Mycroft further into your room, hands up, cradling his face.

“Oh my God, you’re real,” you whisper, words finally found. “I’ve missed you so, so, so much.” You sniffle, laying your head against his chest.

“_________, don’t cry,” he says, holding you close. His lips brush over your forehead, slow kisses, soft, like the wings of a butterfly on your skin. He’s wearing a suit, like always – it’s a blue which brings out his eyes, and the jacket is stitched with a tiny pattern of diamonds. And now its covered with splattering of your tears. “I didn’t come all the way over here to make my girlfriend cry.”

You chuckle at that. “But you did, Mr. Holmes.” You take a breath, and a seat on the side of your bed. “How did you get here – and I mean in my room.” Mycroft licks his lips, holding back a smile. He unbuttons his jacket, and sits beside you, leaving some space between you both.

“Your roommate Harleen found me loitering around near your verandah, and let me in. I assume it’s because she recognised me from your photos.” He frowned. “Does she always let in men she doesn’t know?”

You shake your head. “Harley – I mean, Blue – she’s more interested in Terry.” You blink, and remember Mycroft doesn’t know her as well as you do, “Uh, they’re a couple.” You feel a blush cover your face and place it in your hands. When you look up, you turn to your boyfriend, and address him. “So, why are you here, Myc?”

He blinks, perhaps disarmed by the wording of your question. But Mycroft is not the sort of man to be disarmed, and if so, not for long. “I heard your desperation in our last video chat,” he says, looking at his hands. They sit in his lap, empty.

“So, you took time out from your position in England, caught a plane –,” you stop yourself, and sigh. “I really should be grateful you’re here…it’s just that there’s never such a thing as a free lunch. Especially with you, Myc.”

“I –,” he stops himself, perhaps hearing the words he was to say in his head.

“Is it Sherlock? Or your position, do you need any help?” your voice rises with every question, “Your mother –,”

“It was me,” he replies, voice so very small. You’re suddenly aware that the both of you are not alone in the house, because it’s then when Blue’s meditation music plays a loud gong noise. “_________, I missed you.” He wipes a hand over his face, and you notice the slight hint of stubble threatening to appear. His eyes have bags that look heavier than your handbag. And they look sad. “I can’t believe that now, of all times, I realise how you feel all the times when I’m away for work, wherever it be. I took time from work, bought a ticket here – _________, you have no idea how much I missed you.”

“I think I can guess,” you whisper.

You lean over the bed to the fan that’s plugged into the wall. As soon as it is whirring to life, your skin begins to prickle with the welcomed sensation of goosebumps. Mycroft sheds his jacket, and moving toward him, you take hold of his tie. Under your fingers, it loosens.

It’s just like all the times in London when Myc would come to your place above the green grocer in Russel Square. You’d kick off your shoes, and he his, you’d ruffle his hair – to his dismay, but, you knew he liked it when you did it – and before you shut the curtains in your room, you’d loosen his tie. It was a ritual. A spell. And always, like always, the Mycroft who walked from the street would transform into the Mycroft who walked into your heart.

But this time, it’s too warm to do what you’d usually do after the tie comes off, and like two lovesick children, you lay beside him in the bed, wearing nothing but your underclothes. Mycroft looks so at home in your quaint bedroom, and it makes your heart swell.

It isn’t until your phone chimes – a message from your co-worker – that the fantasy of the situation breaks, and you’re back to everyday life. And you’re once again a bidding political advisor, and a lucrative socialite.

“When do you go back?” you whisper. Your breath is warm, and opening his eyes, Mycroft sighs.

“I have to fly back this Sunday.” He replies. “It’s a twenty-hour flight. I managed to pull some strings with the airplane, so I can try to stay longer than I would if I went commercially…”

You feel that melancholy return to you. It’d be only four – no, three days that you see him.

And then how long?

You’re not a needy person; Blue knew that. When she’d be watching Netflix as she wrote her column, you’d quietly drink your tea, when she’d have Terry and her friends from Darlinghurst over, you’d chat politely within their circle, complain about the ongoing strawberry scandal, try to understand the current situation of national politics (“I’m the Prime Minister, all I had to do to get the job was stab two other people in the back to get here!” one would say, and watching silently, you’d hear another two friends shout, just like Monty Python, “I am your Prime Minster!” – “Well I didn’t vote for him!”)

“I suppose that’s how it’s going to be, now,” you reply. “We’re like two kangaroos passing in the night on the highway.”

Mycroft frowns. “Is that a local expression…?”

You shake your head. “I don’t know. I just made it up. But if anything, what I know of Australian culture is that in making things up and going with them, it’s commonplace.” You laugh at that. “As much as I want to be happy you’re here, Myc, I can’t help but wonder if a shoe’s about to drop.”

He gathers you closer. If it weren’t for your fan, it would be too hot to be this near to one another. Mycroft plants a kiss on your forehead, and you kiss him back, but he moves at the last minute, and it lands upon his nose.

“I’m not here to break up with you, if that’s what you’re thinking, _________.” He murmurs.

It’s then when you’re startled away from Mycroft’s embrace, because Blue’s shouting up the stairs, “I’m making chili con carne for tea, _________!” You chuckle to yourself, as she goes on, “Is your hot businessman friend staying for dinner?”

You feel your cheeks heat up at that. But Mycroft’s the one who remedies it and grasping the railing that looks over the hallway – it felt so strange to have a loft bedroom – he calls out below, his British accent so different to Blue’s native Aussie twang, “Yes, the hot businessman is staying for dinner,” he says, a cheeky look on his face. He’s never been this relaxed in so long, and you let out a laugh at his wording. “But you can call me _________’s boyfriend.”

When he returns to the bed, you’re sitting up, pulling on your around-the-house shorts and Myc’s old sleepshirt he let you keep, shaking your head to yourself.

“What is it, love?” he asks, pulling his trousers back on.

You chuckle. “I’m always your girlfriend. You know, everywhere we go in London, to whomever we’re introduced to. Sherlock knows my name, but simply calls me ‘The Girlfriend’. But here…” you smile. “Oh-ho, the tables have turned, Myc! My boyfriend!”

He kisses your temple, and gathers your hand in his, and walks with you downstairs to where the smell of chili is wafting from. “Yes,” he admits, “I guess I am.”

Sydney is somewhat like London. There’re tourists everywhere, and the people who walk the streets who are locals don’t think twice about the knowledge they know. There are people here, like Blue and her friends and when you’re not working at the British Consulate, Blue and her friends take you to the most fantastic shows and places you wouldn’t find on your own. The beach is around the corner, and the ice-creams on Manley Island drip down your hands before they’re even scooped in their cones. Mycroft leaves every time he comes, but comes every four weeks or so, bringing his laptop, and plenty of free time to be with you.

Perhaps Sydney wasn’t so bad after all.

#mycroft holmes x reader #mycroft x reader #mycroft/reader #mycroft #Mycroft Holmes #Sherlock Holmes #bbc sherlock #bbc sherlock fanfic #sherlock x reader #chaotic--lovely #pendragonfics #Female reader

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tremendouspeachduck · 5 years

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Japan is big news - YEAH!

why?

In 2019, Finland has the best schools but not recognized in the USA. Why? Gov. run schools can indoctrinate students.

Also, in many countries, the United States included, students’ economic backgrounds often determine the quality of the education they receive. Richer students tend to go to schools funded by high property taxes, with top-notch facilities and staff that help them succeed. In districts where poorer students live, students often get shoddy facilities, out-of-date textbooks, and fewer guidance counselors.

Not in Japan - ranked 2nd. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group of 35 wealthy countries, Japan ranks highly among its peers in providing its rich and poor students with equal educational opportunities: The OECD estimates that in Japan only about 9 percent of the variation in student performance is explained by students’ socioeconomic backgrounds. The OECD average is 14 percent, and in the United States, it’s 17 percent. “In Japan, you may have poor areas, but you don’t have poor schools,”

John Mock, an anthropologist at Temple University’s Japan campus, told me.

Perhaps as a result, fewer students in Japan struggle and drop out of school—the country’s high-school graduation rate, at 96.7 percent, is much higher than the OECD average and the high-school graduation rate in the United States, which is 83 percent. Plus, poorer children in Japan are more likely to grow up to be better off in adulthood, compared to those in countries like the U.S. and Britain (though Scandinavian countries lead in this regard). “It’s one of the few [education] systems that does well for almost any student,” Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the OECD's work on education and skills development, told me, adding, “Disadvantage is really seen as a collective responsibility.”

For instance, in the village of Iitate, which was evacuated after being contaminated by radiation after the Fukushima nuclear-power-plant disaster in March 2011, many families still have not come back. Piles of contaminated soil, covered up, still dot the landscape, and many homes are shuttered. The local primary school has just 51 students, compared to more than 200 before the accident. Yet the quality of education given to returnees is top-notch.

The government built a new school for students outside the radiation zone, in a town called Kawamata, and though the classes are still very small—first grade has only two students—the school is well staffed. In a classroom I visited, all five second-graders in the school watched a teacher demonstrate flower-arranging as three other teachers surrounded them, helping them with each step. In another, a math teacher quizzed students on odd and even numbers, and as the students split into groups to discuss a problem on the board, another teacher leaned in to help. Walking around the school, it almost seemed there were as many teachers as students.

“The quality of education is better than before March 11th [2011],” Tomohiro Kawai, a parent of a sixth-grader and the president of the school’s parent-teacher association, told me, citing the low student-teacher ratio. Many of the children who returned to the area are from single-parent families, a group prone to struggling economically; some parents moved back to Iitate because they needed help from their own parents in watching their children, according to Satoko Oowada, one of the school’s teachers. But the federal government takes pains to prevent economic hardship from affecting the quality of students’ education. It gave a grant to Iitate so that all students in the school would get free lunch, school uniforms, notebooks, pencils, and gym clothes. “Equality of education is very important for children in Iitate Village,” the school’s principal, Takehiko Yoshikawa, told me. “Everywhere, students receive the same education.”

The equity in Iitate stands in stark contrast to a place like New Orleans, which was also hit by a disaster. While Japan’s national government tried to ensure that students in the affected area got more resources after the accident, officials in New Orleans disinvested in the public educational system in their city. Public-school teachers were put on leave and dismissed, many students disappeared from schools’ rolls, and the New Orleans system now consists almost entirely of charter schools. (To be sure, New Orleans is something of an outlier—districts in New York and New Jersey, for example, received federal money to help deal with Hurricane Sandy’s impact on education.)

There are a number of reasons why Japan excels in providing educational opportunities. One of them is how it assigns teachers to schools. Teachers in Japan are hired not by individual schools, but by prefectures, which are roughly analogous to states. Their school assignments within the prefecture change every three years or so in the beginning of their careers, and then not quite as often later on in their careers. This means that the prefectural government can make sure the strongest teachers are assigned to the students and schools that need them the most. “There’s a lot going on to redirect the better teachers, and more precious resources, towards the more disadvantaged students,” Schleicher said.

It also means that teachers can learn from different environments. Young teachers are exposed to a series of different talented peers and learn from their methods. That’s a big contrast to some place like the United States, said Akihiko Takahashi, a onetime teacher in Japan and now an associate professor of elementary math at DePaul University’s College of Education. “Here in the U.S., the good teachers go to the good schools and stay there the whole time,” he told me.

Japan’s educational equality is also a matter of how funds are distributed. Teacher salaries are paid from both the national government and from the prefectural government, and so do not vary as much based on an area’s median household earnings (or, more often, property values). The same goes for the funding of building expenses and other fees—schools get more help from the national government than they would in the U.S. According to Takahashi, the Japanese educational system aims to benefit all students. Their system is really carefully designed to have equal opportunity nationwide,” he said. This contrasts with the U.S. education system, he said, which he judges to raise up the best students but often leave everyone else behind.

What’s more, Japan actually spends less on education than many other developed countries, investing 3.3 percent of its GDP in education, compared to the OECD average of 4.9 percent. It spends $8,748 per student at the elementary school level, compared to the $10,959 that the United States spends. But it spends the money wisely. School buildings are not much to look at. Textbooks are simple and printed in paperback, and students and teachers are responsible for keeping schools clean. Japan also has fewer administrators on campuses—there is usually just a principal and a few vice principals, and not many others in the way of staff.

Despite the country’s relatively low spending on education, Japan’s teachers are paid more than the OECD average. And the profession has high barriers to entry: Much like the bar exam for American lawyers, Japan’s teacher entrance exams, which are administered by prefectures, are very difficult. Oowada told me she took the Fukushima Prefecture teaching exam five times before she passed it. She’s now a permanent teacher, guaranteed a pension and a job in the prefecture until age 60; she said that the year she passed, 200 people took the test, and only five passed. (Her co-teacher, Yuka Iinuma, had still not passed the test, and was working as a one-year contract teacher, moving from school to school each year. Many people who think they want to become teachers eventually give up when they can’t pass the exam, Oowada and Iinuma told me.) And even after their full certification, teachers have an incentive to perform better and better, as every three years they get reviewed for a promotion.

There are of course some downsides to being a teacher in Japan. Because they feel responsible for all students in their classes, teachers often spend lots of time outside of normal hours helping students who are falling behind. Yoshikawa, the school principal, told me of a teacher from Iitate who, when there was a gasoline shortage that prevented him from driving, rode his bike 12 miles to school each day from the evacuation zone to Kawamata, which includes an impressively hilly stretch. One teacher in Tokyo I talked to, who didn’t want her name used, said it wasn’t uncommon to work from 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., and said some teachers stayed until 9 at night. (There are teachers’ unions in Japan, but their power has eroded somewhat in recent years.)

Still, Japanese teachers are rewarded with a great deal of autonomy on how to improve student outcomes, Takahashi said. In a process called a “lesson study,” teachers research and design a new lesson over a set time period, and then present it to other teachers, who give feedback. Teachers also join together to identify school-wide problems, and organize themselves into teams to address those problems, sometimes writing a report or publishing a book on how to solve them, he said. “It’s not about an individual star teacher, but about teamwork,” he said.

Schleicher says that teachers’ focus on pedagogy contributes to the Japanese education system’s equality. The emphasis, he says, is not as much on absorbing content as it is on teaching students how to think. “They really focus on problem-solving, which means the ability to attack problems they had never seen before,” Takahashi said. In subjects like math, Japanese teachers encourage problem-solving and critical thinking, rather than memorization.

For instance, Japanese students were explicitly taught how to solve just 54 percent of the problems on the international Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) test, but received an average score of 565, according to the Lesson Study Alliance, an education nonprofit. Students in the U.S. were explicitly taught how to solve 82 percent of the problems, yet received a lower average score, 518. Ironically, some of these Japanese teaching methods came from the United States—in particular, from an American group, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, which urged American teachers to change their methods throughout the 1980s. But it was Japanese teachers who listened to this advice.

Indeed, in the math class I attended in Kawamata, there was a great deal of back and forth between the students and the teacher, who was asking the students increasingly difficult questions. Even after the bell rang, the discussion continued, with students running up to the board to try their hand at the problems. The teachers seemed particularly good at helping students develop complex problem-solving skills, and Schleicher theorizes that this is why the persistence of Japan’s “cram schools”—programs that many students attend after the school day to study for high-school or college entrance exams—doesn’t entirely disadvantage students who can’t afford to attend them; when students are taught how to think, they can still excel in tests on math, science, and reading.

Of course, there are other reasons that Japanese schools are more equitable than American ones—reasons that have more to do with features of the U.S.’s system. Japan has an extremely homogeneous population, which means that the racial segregation that persists in U.S. schools is a nonissue there. Japan also doesn’t track students into gifted programs, which means that all students share the same classroom, and better students are expected to help ones that are struggling. Tracking students may help the sharpest American students thrive, but it can also leave other students behind.

And wealthy students in Japan do hold several advantages over poorer ones. Child poverty is growing in Japan—about 20 percent of kids in Tokyo live in poverty, according to a recent government survey. I visited Kid’s Door, an organization in Tokyo that provides tutoring and after-school programs for children from low-income families. Yumiko Watanabe, the founder of Kid’s Door, told me that some poor students in Japan drop out of school because they can’t afford expenses like field trips or school uniforms. When I asked her about the OECD’s data indicating that Japan’s schools performed well in equally educating rich and poor students, she said that this might be true in elementary schools, but that as they get older, poor children get less help on homework from their parents since their parents are working. These families are also less likely to be able to afford tutors or other outside help. “There's a natural tendency to fall behind because they are not getting the support that wealthier children get,” she said.

One single mother, Shinobu Miwa, whose 16-year-old son attends programs at Kid’s Door, told me she was frustrated that she couldn’t send him to cram school and worried he’d be at a disadvantage. “He’s in a weak position compared to other families,” she said. He’ll likely face even more problems if he decides to go to college; Japan’s colleges are very expensive, and there are fewer scholarships available to poor students than there are in the U.S.

Japan’s schools can also be extremely stressful places for students, who are sometimes bullied if they fall behind. “As long as I performed well in school, things were okay. But once I started to deviate just a little—they [parents and teachers] went to the extreme and started treating me incredibly coldly,” one student told Anne Allison, a cultural anthropologist at Duke University who has written extensively on Japan. Japanese students are also expected to belong to after-school clubs for sports or dance, which can keep them at school until 6 p.m. “When they come home, it's already dark and all they have left to do is eat dinner, take a bath and do their home assignment and sleep,” the Tokyo teacher told me.

Despite these flaws, Japan’s educational system still sets an example for other countries to follow. That’s partly because Japan has different goals for its schools than somewhere like the United States does. “The Japanese education system tries to minimize the gap between the good students and everyone else,” Takahashi told me. That means directing more resources and better teachers to students or schools that are struggling. It also means giving teachers the freedom to work together to improve schools. This could be difficult to transplant to the United States, where education has long been managed on a local level, and where talk of sharing resources more often leads to lawsuits than it does to change. But Japan’s success is relatively recent, according to Schleicher. About 50 years ago, Japan’s schools were middling, he said. Countries can make their schools more equitable. They just need to agree that success for all students is a top priority.

ALANA SEMUELS is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Sadly, in the USA we’ve learned that Control of public school curriculum is a very desirable prize for those who seek to control the future.

A Proposal: The school administrator in charge of curriculum holds the responsibility of providing the destination and/or direction for the development and implementing a comprehensive school curriculum. Curriculum development for all disciplines necessitates the establishment of a districtwide curriculum council that meets on a monthly basis during the school year.

The curriculum council should consist of professional staff in leadership positions— that is, the curriculum director, building principals, department heads, team leaders, and others in leadership positions.

Council members should be cognizant of the school district’s mission, vision, philosophy, exit outcomes, program philosophies and rationale statements, program goals, program objectives, learning outcomes, learning activities, assessment, textbooks used (including publication year, edition, and condition), and so on.

The curriculum council should also select teacher representation for curriculum development. The representatives should be chosen using one of five methods: voluntary, rotation, evolvement, peer selection, or administrative selection.

The community also needs to get involved. How to get participation?

Please leave message below, then Go To top, nav to previous or next

#japan #emperor #osaka #summit #kim jong un #north korea #abe #foreign #politics #school #curriculum

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mst3kproject · 7 years

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Frankenstein meets the Space Monster

What have we here? Marylin Hanold from The Brain that Wouldn't Die and James Karen from Being from Another Planet in a stupid alien invasion movie that doesn't actually have Frankenstein (the doctor or the monster) in it? Sounds like MST3K to me.

NASA has plans for advanced space exploration without risking any more lives: they've invented a robot astronaut, designated Colonel Frank Saunders, to do all the dangerous stuff! On Saunders' first mission, he is shot down by a ship from Mars and lands in Puerto Rico. The Martians also land, looking to finish the job they started, and their weapons damage Saunders' positronic brain, leading him to go on a berserk rampage! Meanwhile, the Martians are afraid that NASA is aware of them now, and accordingly step up their invasion plans. A recent nuclear war has left Mars uninhabitable, and the Princess is currently the last woman on the planet. In order to survive, they must get breeding stock from Earth!

Yep, it's Mars Needs Women meets The Astro-Zombies! The closest thing the movie has to Frankenstein is a brief and totally useless remark from one of the scientists about Saunders' malfunctioning state: “you mean he'll become some kind of... Frankenstein?” Frankenstein's monster normally has connotations of something pieced together from bits, whereas Saunders at this point has been broken down from a whole, so I don't see how it's equivalent. I think they only put the line in so they could call the movie Frankenstein meets the Space Monster. There is a space monster in the movie, which the Martians have apparently brought along to punish disobedient crewmen by eating them. It's... you know what? I'll get back to the space monster.

The summary makes it sound like there's a lot going on in this movie, but when I think back to what I actually saw in it, I'm pretty sure Frankenstein meets the Space Monster is mostly montages. The first one is characters driving to a press conference at Cape Kennedy, past all kinds of space-themed diners and motels in the town. This one is kind of cool, as it gives an impression of what living there would have been like during the space race, with the whole population caught up in it. Then there's a montage of preparing for launch. Then the two scientists drive around San Juan to another montage. The troops are called in, with a montage. Jets are scrambled in a montange. Is anybody counting? Because that's five montages in a seventy-five minute movie, and I don't think that was all of them.

You will probably not be surprised to learn that these montages are mostly made of stock footage. The massive military force mobilized against the Martians is pretty much entirely stock footage, because there's no way this movie could have afforded helicopters and tanks. Assorted space launches and the view from the Martian ship in orbit are provided by stock rocket footage we've all seen before, much of it considerably lower-quality than the stuff filmed for the movie. The Cape Kennedy footage is probably all stock, as is all the aerial footage (of which there is a surprising amount). I can imagine Joel and the Bots paying tribute to this by mustering stock footage to make it look like the SOL is in command of a huge army – the Martians trying to invade are convinced by it and run off.

A movie designed around the available stock footage is not going to be a masterpiece, and the storyline of Frankenstein meets the Space Monster is pretty messy. There are times when it almost feels like they're trying to make two different movies at once: the one about the out-of-control robot astronaut, and the one about the Martian invasion. The movies overlap at several points, but characters from the Robot movie don't actually interact with characters from the Martian movie until around fifty minutes in, when the female scientist Dr. Karen Grant is captured and interrogated by the Martians. Because so much of the preceding time has been spent on setups and montages, we feel like the story is only just getting started at this point, and it's something of a shock to find things building to the climax only minutes later.

Where no stock footage was available, or where the characters needed to be in the same shot as something fantastical, the movie had to come up with special effects, and these are mostly pretty sorry. The Martians, typified by the Princess' advisor Dr. Nadir, look like Dr. Evil in Vulcan ears. Keeping helmets on them most of them (and covering the Princess' head with her silly pseudo-Egyptian headdress-tiara-thing) saved money on bald wigs. We do see some exposed circuitry on Saunders as he wanders the countryside, but the closer we look, the more obviously it's just a couple of computer parts stuck in bad burn makeup. His glowing eye is particularly pathetic. The Martian saucer is a geodesic dome made of cardboard, and then there's the titular Space Monster, which looks kind of like Trumpy as the Colossal Beast. It's all very cheap and shoddy, but usually in a funny sort of way.

There actually is one quite interesting idea in Frankenstein meets the Space Monster, and that's in the character – or not quite a character – of Frank Saunders and his relationship of sorts with his creators, Dr. Karen Grant and Dr. Adam Steele. Saunders is designed to be the perfect astronaut, both in functionality and for PR purposes. The personality he shows at the press conference is that of the clean-cut, all-American overachiever, accomplished but humble, trusting in his superiors to make the right decisions. Although Steele chides Grant for talking about Saunders as if he is a person, it is clear that both of them are very attached to him emotionally as well as in their work. Grant cannot help anthropomorphizing him even when she is told not to, and Steele refuses to abandon him even when it would be easier to do so.

Saunders is also very attached to them. We are told that he is wandering around Puerto Rico with his memory destroyed, lashing out because he does not know what else to do – the first human-shaped being he encountered after landing attacked him, so he believes he must defend himself. When he encounters Grant and Steele in the cave, however, he recognizes them as people he must take orders from. When he finds Grant captive on board the Martian ship, he makes a decision to save her without being given any orders at all. In fact, Grant must stop him from saving her and leaving the other women behind! Some form of emotional bond clearly exists on both sides, here.

It would be fair to call Saunders a major protagonist of this movie. We are invited to like him right away when we meet him at the press conference, and later to sympathize with him both in his confused wanderings and through the bond he shares with his 'parents'. He selflessly rescues the captured women and destroys the saucer, saving the world at the cost of his own life. I really wish the movie treated him more as a character and less as a plot device. Does he know what he is, or does he believe what he told the reporters, that he's an Air Force test pilot? Does he believe, as is somewhat implied, that he is in love with Dr. Grant? What is he thinking upon finding himself in Puerto Rico with amnesia? Maybe I'm the one anthropomorphizing him now... I wish I could tell if the movie wants me to do that.

If there really are two movies, perhaps with their scripts crossbred in order to make one long story out of two that fell short of feature length, then the Berserk Robot Astronaut one is by far the better. The Martian Invasion one is basically here to show us women in bikinis being abducted by aliens, where they are laid out on a table and covered with a piece of somebody's wedding dress to be 'electronically purified', whatever that means. There are a couple in there that the Princess doesn't like and I think she orders them disintegrated. A scene in which the Princess 'inspects' the first captive is all about the objectification of this woman, conveniently blamed on another woman.

The most interesting thing in this movie is the relationship between the Princess (according to the credits her name is Marcuzan, but it is never used) and her advisor, Dr. Nadir. Nadir often seems to believe he's calling the shots, and he certainly has a much wider knowledge base than the Princess – but every so often she puts him in his place and does something he does not approve of, and when this happens the other Martians obey her without question. She does ask questions when she doesn't understand something, but she makes her own decisions rather than relying on Nadir to do things for her. Her people clearly have great respect for her, and it's somewhat impressive that the idea of her as 'breeding stock' for the Martian race never even comes up. She can't sit around having babies – she has a civilization to rule! – and it's quite clear that none of her subjects would dare think of forcing her.

As usual in crummy movies, these good ideas are at best a very minor part of the movie they appear in. The main narrative chugs away with its bikini babes and stock footage, wasting our time with montages and carefully avoiding anything that might make the audience think. The result is a mess that takes forever to get started, but there's just enough amusement here to be worth a watch. It would definitely make for a classic episode, and since it's widescreen, maybe we'll see it in Season 12.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #frankenstein meets the space monster #60s

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gobbochune · 7 years

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Changeling WIP

Still and silent was the twilight as a greater faerie named Quasey zipped through the open chilly air. It was not often that he traveled at this time, he usually slept in until the entire world was thoroughly bathed in darkness. Tonight, however, he would be in deep trouble if he did not find a gift for his husband’s birthday.

The old boy didn’t have many days to himself being so occupied with their children, so every year Quasey did his best to get him the best present he could find. This was quite difficult; Dolan had hundreds of thousands of children all competing to find him the best gift as well. Not to mention Quasey had to outdo his own gifts from previous years, at a certain point he had to wonder if there was anything his husband didn’t have.

Billions of years, billions of birthdays, billions of sons to compete with, not much left in the world to present to him. Squinting through the last remnants of day Quasey wished for the strands of Gisli’s hair to retreat slower into the horizon.

There had to be something he could find before his husband woke up, something in this huge world he didn’t know about before. Absently he noticed a strange formation of little boxes climbing up the side of a mountain, their shadows long in the fleeing light.

At first Quasey took no notice of them. Humans were a more recent addition to the cosmos, awkwardly bumbling through a clumsy and ungraceful existence with little to no sense of style or purpose. It was rather tragic really; the strange little things started with nothing between their ears but unlike lesser faeries they died before they had a chance to learn much of anything at all. One might even feel sorry for them, if they weren’t such naughty things. When they had first began building little huts by the riversides many of the fay emerged from all their hidey holes to take a look, only to be screamed at and attacked with sticks and rocks.

However, there was something that the greater faerie couldn’t help but notice as he glanced down again by chance; it seemed that one of the human dwellings was quite a bit larger then the others. With a frown he lowered himself from the canopy of the clouds to see a large structure made out of stone. That was something, had it always been there? Thinking back Quasey could remember gossip about some humans collecting into groups, a bit like families but made up of hundreds. While they were pathetic as individuals, the humans supposedly made up for their short lifespan by boosting their numbers. That made a grim sort of sense, he supposed, and this thought caused him to light on one of the pointed rooftops to look around.

With a low whistle he inspected the spires and courtyards, marveling at how big the structure was. Humans must be taller then they looked from the sky, that or more then a few of them lived in this stone fortress.

Drifting through a window in one of the towers, Quasey was shocked to find there was no resistance magical or otherwise. What was the point of building a house out of stone just to put holes in it? Quasey passed a few times in and out of the entrance, shaking his head and tsking to himself.

The room he found himself in was hexagonal in shape, each wall adjourned with strange little trinkets Quasey had never seen before. Going to inspect one he frowned with confusion. It was a lump of what smelled like deep ore that had been shined and melded into an ornamental slender thing that held six rods crafted out of beeswax. What could possibly be the purpose of this? Upon closer inspection he saw little blackened strings poking out each of the tips, smelling faintly of fire.

When Quasey realized what it was he laughed aloud. It was a candelabrum, but instead of a sapling they had crafted it out of this strange array of materials. Still smirking he flicked a flame from his index finger to light the candles, causing the room to brighten. Why on earth wouldn’t they just do it the normal way? Surely collecting beeswax and melting ore took more time and energy then what was required to grow a tree and cast an illumination spell. A hideous thought occurred to him; could humans not use magic?

Shaking his head he turned his back to the amalgam of nature to see the rest of the room was filled with decor created in a similar manner. Tables and chairs were made from wood, vases from minerals and water, blankets from woven fibers dyed with the blood of flowers, and pillows filled with the feathers of birds. It was both creative and mildly disturbing, Quasey could not help but be fascinated.

One thing was for sure, Dolan had nothing like any of this in his possession.

A smile crossed Quasey’s lips as he wondered which decoration was the most hideous and strange to bring to his husband. Dolan had a taste for the macabre, perhaps there was something here that violated the natural world in more then one fashion.

Quasey found himself drawn to a piece of furniture he couldn’t quite recognize. It was made of wood, rectangular in shape, but draped in a large white cloth that hung from the ceiling. Two sides of the object, the one that stood against the wall and the other facing the room, were ornately carved and painted with little flowers and animas, while the other two sides were made of bars. Quasey might have assumed it as a bedframe if not for those bars, trapping whatever lay underneath the sheet inside.

With a gentle hand he pushed the curtain to the side, and saw the strangest of creatures sleeping within.

It was pinkish in color, no fur whatsoever, and covered in wrinkles. Granted, most of it was wrapped up in an ornate cloth, Quasey couldn’t really get a good look at it. He reached down to pick up the thing, funding its body lumpy and delicate. Despite his gentle treatment the creature stirred and whimpered, its tiny face screwing up with distaste. Rather expressive for a lump of flesh, something oddly familiar in its large round ears and chubby fingers.

“Hey! You put that down!”

Quasey jumped a bit at the screech, worried a human had caught him here. Upon turning about however, he sighed with relief.

“Oh, hello Celosia,” he said, recognizing her from the Samhain a few cycles ago.

The land sprite crossed her arms and scowled at him, her cheeks red with anger.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, “That’s my changeling, I told everyone in the radius that when it was born it would be mine!”

Quasey’s eyes glanced down at the ugly thing, “What, you mean this?” he asked holding it up.

“Yes, it is!” Celosia barked, “I’ve been watching these humans for decades, waiting for one that was the right color. My mother in law snatched a blonde one once and has been bragging about it insufferably ever since!”

“This is a human?” Quasey marveled, brows rising with surprise.

“Humans start out very small so they’re easy to carry around,” Celosia explained irritably, “She will grow into a person shaped like you or me, capable of walking and talking and learning.”

“And then it will die in just as short a time,” Quasey said, “Why on earth would you want one of these?”

Celosia’s face went a darker shade of red as she crossed her arms. “Don’t ask stupid questions, all you need to know is that this one is mine.”

Quasey frowned at her rude behavior. In his memory of her at the Samhan he hadn’t noticed how screechy she could be.

“Well I didn’t even come for this thingy,” He said, his own voice getting hot and defensive, “I wanted to find something to give my husband for his birthday.”

“You’ll be giving it to me and leave, then,” Celosia snapped, marching up to him in an attempt to grab the thing.

That was the last straw. It was one thing for her to be rude to him over matters of ownership, but the mean little sprite hadn’t even wished dear Dolan a happy birthday! Quasey held the human away from her reach and glared at her.

“Well maybe I don’t want to leave now,” he said, “Maybe because you’re being so rude, I’ll be taking this thing for myself!”

At this Celosia screeched again, some incomprehensible babble known only to sprites. She hopped up and down and kicked Quasey’s legs, and with a grunt of irritation Quasey smacked her across the face. The sprite stumbled back and gripped her swelling cheek, hot angry tears steaming from her eyes.

“You arsehole!” she spat, the air around her growing cold as she raised her fists for a counter attack.

Quasey didn’t feel like having a slap fight with an impolite land fay. On impulse he muttered angry words to lock Celosia’s body stiff as a board, causing her to fall to the floor with a thud.

“That…actually worked.” He said slowly, astonished, “No wonder you’d think a human is a useful thing to have around, you might as well be one yourself!”

The immobilized sprite struggled and tried to speak, only managing to grunt and moan through lips forced shut by a superior fay’s magic. Shaking his head Quasey turned back to the tiny bed. In accordance to etiquette when stealing from another faerie, the thief always left behind a trick in place of whatever they take. Sometimes it was a curse, sometimes a trap, sometimes a comically shoddy replica of what was stolen. Humans were so delicate, Quasey wouldn’t be surprised if any prank he left behind would kill the poor sods, and it wouldn’t be nearly as funny if someone were hurt.

A replica then, and based on what he had to work with in the room, a really bad one.

Stepping carefully over Celosia he looked for something that would make a good decoy. A piece of wood could be funny, but wood was made of trees and trees had no sense of humor. A goose feather pillow was soft and lumpy like the child was, but he’d feel dreadful if the replica thought itself a fowl and got hurt trying to fly.

Finally he found something that wouldn’t cause too much trouble and would probably be good for a laugh, a pale crockery vase. He set the vase in the bed where he had found the creature, and muttered a few words. Slowly the vase changed shape, the crackly white ceramic morphing into wrinkled skin. Looking between his trick and the original, he tweaked it here and there to make a better resemblance. Giggling to himself Quasey prepared to leave again just as the hex on Celosia began to wear off.

“You idiot!” she spat, “Your fake is a boy! The changeling is a girl!”

This caused him to pause, looking down at the grubbly thing. As far as he had seen, humans came in male and female variety, despite all of them being born on land. Some landy humans could be quite pretty, sometimes even prettier than the landy fay. This one, however, wasn’t. How unfortunate for her.

“I’m sure they won’t notice,” he assured himself aloud, “It was nice seeing you Celosia, send my love to the wife.”

With that he was gone, flying into the night and ignoring the screeching behind him. Very faintly he could see other windows in the castle light up, the harsh accents of the human’s strange language as they were horrified to find a sprite in the child’s bedroom.

This caused Quasey to slow somewhat. There was no way a human could best a greater faerie like him, but so many of them might give poor Celosia a hard time. Well. That’s what she got for being so rude. Telling himself there was little chance any true harm would come to the naughty sprite, he continued his ascent into the sky.

Quasey wasn’t up too high when he realized that he had forgotten all about Dolan’s gift. Pausing in the air he smacked his forehead, the action jostling the girl awake.

Upon first discovering how much noise could come from something so small, Quasey started to think maybe this hadn’t been the best idea.

There were no more strands of Gisli’s golden mane in the sky, night had finally fallen and Quasey was out of time. Overhead he could see his sons blinking in celebration for their father, and could hear the whispers of merriment on the wind. Quacey tried to think of what to do, but the screaming drowned out his thoughts.

More then anything he wished that he knew what Celosia had wanted from the girl, what the landy fay saw in keeping human pets that the æther fay didn’t. Dolan loved taking care of the children, and would often act in a fatherly way to sprites and other lesser fay as an extension of his own family. Being an æther fay meant he and Quacey had only sons, and while it never crossed either of their minds to desire a daughter there was no reason he wouldn’t want one. If anyone could see the value in a gift like this, it would be Quasey’s husband. Dolan also might know how to make her shut up.

The gift screamed all the way up to the party, making the guests turn and look at Quasey with concern. It was all Quasey could do to politely insist that no he wasn’t in any sort of pain, and it was just the nature of the birthday present he had bought for his husband. Some of Quasey’s sons smirked at this, confident that father’s reputation of getting the best presents was about to be bested.

Dolan was seated on a throne of clouds, one of their younger sons sleeping by his knee. For all that this was his day off he seemed on edge, watching the party warily. Obviously he had heard the cries as well, Quasey could see him itching to get up and investigate. But Dolan knew that this was the only day of the millennium that he could be scolded if anyone caught him trying to be responsible instead of relaxing.

Soon Quasey’s glow caught his husband’s eye, and he looked up with a relieved smile.

“Quasey, good, you’re here,” he stood only to have his son give him a look, them reluctantly seated himself again, “There’s this awful screaming and I can’t see who is crying from-”

Dolan paused as he realized that the offensive sound was coming from his husband, his dark features knit in confusion.

“What…” he began, but Quasey interrupted him.

“I got you a present!” he said, holding out his whimpering offering, “Something you don’t already have!”

Dolan took the infant and studied it.

“Ah… thank you. I don’t believe I have one of these yet…” he winced as the screaming grew louder, “But…er…what is this exactly?”

“It’s a type of human,” Quasey said, trying to remember how Celosia had described it, “Apparently its small so they can carry them around. And then they get big and can walk and talk just like us! Its called uh…well some kind of thingumajig…”

“Thingumajig…” Dolan repeated, “So it works like a child but smaller and…cloud shaped?”

Quasey nodded his head, “I think so, it definitely cries like one of ours, though louder then any of the boys ever were.”

The thingumajig seemed to calm some as Dolan held her, though perhaps she was just trying to catch her breath.

“Hello little thing,” Dolan said slowly, “What is your name?”

Dolan waited for a response, but got none. Quasey dreaded that out of all the thingumajigs he could have stolen he hadn’t gotten an impolite one. Dolan frowned at her screaming, afraid that he had offended her somehow.

“…Do I already know it?” he asked, no response, “Don’t tell me its actually Thingumajig.”

Just then, entirely by coincidence, something like a smile appeared on her little face. Later years would prove that it was nothing more then the expression she made when trying to work a difficult bellyful of food through her intestines, but knowing nothing of human children both faeries looked at each other in astonishment.

“Well…alright Thingumajig,” Dolan said, “Why are you making such a fuss?”

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best insurance quotes for young female drivers

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best insurance quotes for young female drivers

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