#if your brain is better at pattern recognition than mine feel free to tell me anything you see lol

[cheetahing]

writing patterns

List the first and last sentence of your last 10 AO3 works.

stole this off @bbcphile just bc i wanted to do it. this goes back to like 2017 because i am not particularly prolific outside of fic meme fills.

01. everything grows stronger in the light, E, mysterious lotus casebook first: "this is biological warfare," di feisheng says, looming large over li lianhua's tiny kitchen table. last: he rubs his nose against di feisheng's collarbone, lulled by his partner's steady, even breathing, and drifts off.

02. darling, roll the window down, T, bad buddy fic meme dump first: in your third year, you take the train out to the ocean. last: you are alive and you are in love and you are here, where you belong.

03. like summer in your teeth, T, bad buddy first: In a fit of mild insanity, or maybe mild drunkenness, Wai invites Korn out for a drink. last: "Yeah," he says, thinking about summer at beach, sunlight through the blinds, and the sound of waves outside. "We have time."

04. boy tasting wild cherry, G, bad buddy first: somewhere along the way it becomes a tradition: a long weekend at the beach, just the three of them. last: it's more than enough.

05. kindling, T, bad buddy first: joint field training, they'd said, and so far that has meant sitting in a windowless room, waiting. last: then, "pran," he shouts, breaking into a run, and leaves both of them behind.

06. light a match, start a riot, M, bad buddy first: "joint operation," pran says, sounding entirely too cheerful for the time of day — or, really, night — "it's undercover work so we're sending wai. which one of you wants to volunteer?" last: korn kisses his palm. he can work with that.

07. i do not know where this love will take me, G, chihayafuru first: on their third night of cohabitation, arata kisses taichi in the narrow corridor of space between the kitchen and the bath and says goodnight like they've been doing it for years.  last: taichi takes a breath and knocks.

08. and you're no one's but mine, T, daiya no ace first: it's raining when youichi wakes up, the air in ryousuke's apartment close and humid. last: ryousuke's been on his own a long time and youichi hasn't got all the answers but he wants to learn, together, what it means to build a home.

09. but remember this, T, daiya no ace first: kazuya is roughly six years old when his mother vanishes into the balmy summer dusk. last: he's not uncertain now, feet steady on the path and heart steady in his chest, sure of his place and his way forward.

10. the shape of you, T, daiya no ace first: Ryousuke graduates from Seido almost exactly a month before his nineteenth birthday, cool spring sun shining down like a farewell benediction. last: He's still like a rocket sometimes, quick to take off, but they both know where he'll land, north-star-steady, compass true.

bonus: mysterious lotus casebook wip (current) first: in the end, what they find is a body. (current) last: regret or love or grief or hope, di feisheng has only ever laid claim to what he can carry.

patterns: there are two sets of related stories in here (the bad buddy fic meme fill/boy tasting wild cherry and kindling/light a match, start a riot) and both of them i consciously mirrored the opening of the previous work. i will probably refrain from doing that again seeing as i've done it twice now.

i tend to start in the middle of action with openings and, if not, there's an at least somewhat atmospheric scene setting sentence because atmosphere is extremely important to me. endings tend to be short and punchy (eg, a couple of these i included the last two sentences) or contemplative. not on show here, but for "things you said" meme fills i do tend to end on dialogue since that's kind of the point.

idk man, i write on vibes and instinctive grasp of grammar, i can give no advice about craft other than "don't give up." the main advantage of being a fandom old that's still writing is that, even when i don't like my own writing, i have a level of baseline competence that comes from having continued to write.

tagging @chlorophanes, do it if you wanna!

#dumb fic woes #meme #waves hands #i'm honestly just like squints at this #if your brain is better at pattern recognition than mine feel free to tell me anything you see lol

[writingmysanity]

Feel free to ignore, but I saw your tags on that post about asking kids follow-up questions. I'm wondering what signs you saw and how you went about probing to figure out more about your son's dyslexia. My child is an early reader about that age, and there are things they do and say that make me wonder about dyslexia. It runs in my family, but I personally don't have it, so I don't really know how to phrase things in a way that would make sense to a 5 year old but also isn't leading, either. Again, if it's too personal or not something you want to share, I totally understand.

HI 👋

I totally didn't see this! I hope you weren't waiting too long!

Okay, so really, it was a ton of little things that added up for me, if that makes sense. Dyslexia runs high in my family, and I watched my baby sister struggle before her diagnosis.

Specifically, things my son had trouble with were recognition and memorization as.. broad terms. I could show him the letters A, B, C and we would name them out loud and almost no matter how many times I showed him a letter, he genuinely struggled to remember.

Another thing is writing backward. I do know that a lot of kiddos write backward, but it's usually in a very uniform manner... almost all of his letters were upside down and backward - because that is how he was seeing them.

Another thing I learned (which makes sense) is because he had trouble with recognition and memorization as a whole due to his dyslexia, he often struggled to memorize anything. Including things like nursery rhymes. He couldn't remember simple songs like patty cake and itsy bitty spider and it wasn't from a lack of trying.

Many times, you'll see them just get so so frustrated. We forget sometimes that they don't always have the words to describe what's going on in their brains because they don't know what's going on! But they see a problem that OBVIOUSLY others can do, and they're struggling, and that's FRUSTRATING. My son struggled very hard with his self-confidence in the first 2 years of school because the other kids were learning to read, and he just.. couldn't. He thought he was stupid.

Another one his dyslexia tester told me was MATH. Apparently, dyslexic children tend to lean more towards numbers because letters give them so much trouble.

Now, when it comes to diagnosis, it's takes a while. I was able to get the ball rolling in kindergarten because I knew what I was looking at. I was able to tell them, "Hey, this runs super high in my family, and he's showing a lot of symptoms. What do I need to do to see about getting him tested?" Now, they didn't test him until the very end of first grade because some kids are just slower to learn to read! Reading is hard! And the part of the brain that needs to fully develop in order for kiddos to learn to read (which funny enough controls pattern recognition) doesn't finish development until about 6 or 7. So they had to give him the chance to try. But because I was on top of it, and I worked with his teachers, we were able to put in for proper testing. We did consistent check-ins, where he was at, where he was supposed to be, what sort of progress he had made, and where he just needed more help.

Some schools are better about it than others, and I truly hope that your school will be as on top of it as mine was! If you have any other questions, clarifying or otherwise, please don't hesitate to reach out again, lovely. I will try to answer the best I can! I can only speak to my own experience, but if I can help at all, please don't hesitate to ask.

#anon ask #i hope at least some of this was helpful #personal ish #kiddos #dyslexia

[iluxia]

Unsolicited writing advice???

A ton of you have commented with such kind and complimentary words about my Naruto fic Hiding in the Leaves and its characterization through the shifting POVs. Thank you all! I’m gratified to hear that you’re enjoying it. Some are asking how I shift perspectives and still manage to keep the characters in line. Actually, a fair number of readers have asked for actual advice, so here we go. This is a lot of writing babble, I hope it makes sense but feel free to drop me an ask if anything is unclear! 

(1) I read a lot. I read all the time. Easily a book a day, maybe two days. And when I do, I practice critical reading—or as they say, reading like an editor, so I can pick at techniques other writers use. Writing is an art you learn largely by example. A lot of what I read influences what and how I write, so when I need to change my tone or voice to fit a different character, I usually read something that matches what I want my prose to sound like, on top of using techniques like changing tenses and playing with vocabulary choices. 

I recently had the chance to flex these writing muscles because I went from writing two very distinct human voices (Tony Stark & Stephen Strange) to writing an alien voice (Loki). It was fucking hard; those in the Marvel fandom might know what I mean. Tony and Stephen are both human, born and raised in America, with specific life experiences that inform their daily decisions and personalities. Loki, on the other hand, is an alien: raised in Asgard, stolen from Jotunheim, well-traveled throughout the Nine Realms, and moreover raised as a prince. Just stop and think about that. When your characters do not have the same experiences that you do, they’re bound to not have the same earthbound concerns that you do. Anthropomorphizing non-human (or even non-living) beings is an age-old practice, but to be faithful to his character, I tried my best to twist my writing voice into a different shape—a shape that more befits the prince of a realm that is somewhat humanoid but very different from what we know on Earth. And in order to do that, I did four things: 

I changed my prose from past to present tense; it sounds more immediate and assertive

I read three books, written in present tense, where the prose mimics what I imagine Loki would sound like in his own head

I made a huge spread of everything about Loki (both canon and my own orginal additions) that would inform his motivations, internal concerns, emotional responses, and decision-making processes

I drowned myself in Loki fanwork

Immersion is key! If you saturate your brain in a specific type of rhetoric or style, that’s what’s likeliest to come out of your productive process at the end. So controlling what you read/watch/listen to will help control your writing style too.

 (2) This further breaks down what I just said in the third bullet point above. Before I start writing from a specific character’s perspective, I’ll take the time to brainstorm and build that character from the ground up. This might take a day or two and includes a staggering amount of detail—just as much detail as mine or your life might comprise. Silly little things like favorite colors and foods, hobbies, dislikes. Oftentimes, if you’re a fic writer, this is easier because canon gives it to you. Those amazing wiki-pages exist to make your life easier in this regard. (Bless.) What canon doesn’t give you is where you can dig in. Go deeper. Pin your character down. Think about more serious considerations like emotional triggers, conscious motivations, subconscious motivations, coping and defense mechanisms. When hurt or under stress, are they the type to lash out or curl in? Are they the type to hold on to a grudge, or do they prefer to forgive and forget? Do they get hurt easily or do they have a thick skin? I imagine the character’s relationships in life, I rank them and network them in my head. Who do they run to when they need advice? Who do they like hanging out with when they’re happy? Who annoys them, who inspires them, who scares them, who do they want to be like? Even if these questions aren’t necessarily things you might discuss in your fic, it helps inform this person you’re writing about, so it helps you keep a clearer and more consistent mental picture of them as you go.

But most critical of all, I sit and imagine myself in their shoes and think of how they perceive themselves. That is a major factor when writing, because that’s what their head-voice will sound like. And if the story is written from their perspective, then that means you, writer, are writing in that head-voice!

Here’s a more HITL-specific example (I’ll try not to spoil too much lol):

Sasuke

How he sees himself:

Ordinary; not very impressive as a shinobi, but not absolutely terrible either – just ordinary

Average looking

A slow, impatient learner

Awkward with people, but polite and with good intentions

Emotionally stable

A good reader and listener

How he actually is from someone else’s POV:

Incredibly skilled for his age and level as a shinobi

Actually quite handsome

An intuitive learner, very tenacious and will keep at a task forever until he gets it just right; perfectionist much

Quiet, polite, notices a lot about how others act

Absolutely does not handle emotions well

Selective listener; sometimes only hears what he wants to hear

Rationales:

He’s surrounded by a clan of perfectionists and overachievers who constantly laud his aniki for being a genius while paying him no attention. Of course he thinks he’s ordinary.

No one ever compliments him for his looks in the clan compound, and what he sees in the mirror looks just like a younger version of everyone around him. Of course he thinks he’s average, even though he actually has looks.

Because he’s largely self-taught (except for when Obaa-sama teaches him), he thinks he’s slow. (Ever learned a new skill or maybe even a new language by yourself? I have. I can tell you that my perception of how much time I spent learning ‘basics’ was skewed.) He also holds himself to a higher than normal standard because that’s what gets him positive attention (or attention at all) within his family. Add the fact that Itachi was there blazing through everything before him, and it’s suddenly easy to understand why Sasuke thinks the worst of himself as a student. But he (and Naruto) are actually fast learners—we see this even in canon—and both of them boast high levels of natural intuition, or as I (the neuroscientist) likes to call it, pattern recognition. Some people are naturally better at this than others; there have been extensive tests done to show it. But we also know intuition can be trained, so the more Sasuke works at something, the better he gets, and the faster he learns the next skill—as long as the learning is patterned. Which is why Orochimaru, who has picked up on this trait, walks them through learning each jutsu in a stepwise manner every time.

Sasuke doesn’t have a lot of social interaction outside of his family. The Uchiha clan in this fic is very segregated from the rest of the village, so if you’re not active as a shinobi, you probably don’t get out of the compound much. Interacting with people probably intimidates Sasuke a lot so he feels awkward about it and reverts back to habits of politeness and silence that he was taught from childhood. That doesn’t mean that he’s not paying attention, however; Sasuke is naturally observant and remembers a lot about how people act (and not so much what they say). I have a theory about this related to the Sharingan but I won’t go into too much here because it would be a straight-up spoiler, sorry. :D

He thinks he’s emotionally stable because he doesn’t remember many incidents of severe emotional upheaval in his life. That’s because he hasn’t had them; apart from the whole thing with Itachi, he’s been fairly sheltered his whole life. But he actually doesn’t handle emotions well—something he’s about to find out soon enough—and for the same reason! He hasn’t been exposed to an extensive range of it.

Because he’s largely self-taught, he has confidence in his reading skills. He also remembers all of Obaa-sama’s stories so he thinks he’s a good listener. Well, he is—to an extent. If he wants to listen, he will. If he doesn’t, he’s just as proficient as Naruto at pigheadedness. (I think it’s an Uchiha trait too lmao.)

That was a lot, right? But you can see that if I’m writing from Sasuke’s POV, I have to keep a different set of pointers than if I’m writing from Naruto’s POV about Sasuke. The way I think of it is like changing lenses or shades depending on the light outside.

A few more techniques/guidelines I use:

Stay consistent with vocabulary. Orochimaru is far more verbose than the rest of them, Shikamaru right behind him, and Naruto uses shorter, simpler words. You can even assign particular words to a character, a word only they would use when referring to something. This applies to how your character addresses other people too, i.e. Orochimaru calls them ‘little ones’; Shikamaru calls his dad ‘oyaji’ in front of his peers but ‘otou-san’ in front of his sensei; Naruto is quick to give people nicknames and most of the time it sticks.

Watch the adjectives; different people describe things differently. Orochimaru uses more nuanced words that can mean different things depending on the situation and mood; Naruto thinks in terms of emotions, a lot of how does this make me feel; Sasuke is very visual and notices a lot of colors.

Use speech habits wisely; how your character talks should reflect their life. Just like accents, speech habits can tell a lot about a person. Sasuke always speaks politely because it’s how he’s supposed to talk at home, otherwise there’d be trouble. Naruto grew up in a poorer district and had no one to really teach him how to talk politely, so he’s very casual. Shikamaru cusses at age eleven because his parents and family are incredibly laissez-faire and honest around him, so he thinks it’s acceptable and normal (and he was never reprimanded for it).

Play with your tenses. Writing in past tense sounds and feels very different from writing in present tense. Depending on your character, one or the other might sound more appropriate. There are some expressions and figures of speech that sound fine when written in past tense but awkward when written in present tense, so that will end up inadvertently changing your prose a bit, which can be useful.

Read your work out loud. Cardinal rule of prose-writing. What looks good on paper doesn’t always sound good when read out loud. If you read it and it doesn’t sound like how your character talks, time for a vibe check. You might need to change a few words and move sentences around, or you might need a complete overhaul… an editor (and I mean an editor, not just a beta-reader) can usually help you out.

 A note about editors vs beta-readers:

There is a cardinal difference! A beta-reader is usually not professionally trained but should be experienced enough to point out things that aren’t right. In fandom, I’ve found that beta-readers mostly focus on a story’s general feel, flow and readability, sometimes character consistency, sometimes they point out typos and mistakes. An editor goes further than that. I’m fortunate to have Tria (aventria) who has edited my work for, gosh, 14 years now, fuck, we’re old! I call her my editor because when she goes through a piece, she will fix everything and make my draft bleed and I love it. (I actually get a little upset when she doesn’t fix anything, even if that means everything was good.) As an editor, she does a vibe check and looks for typos/errors, yes, but she also critiques the prose extensively. She can rearrange phrases or entire paragraphs for better flow. She will cut out entire scenes or make me rewrite them if they’re that bad. Like a copy editor, she looks at stylistic inconsistencies, grammar errors, and iffy word use. She’ll usually suggest or replace the offending word altogether. She has a lot of freedom with the work and can actually kick a piece to the curb if it’s really that shitty. She also questions plot progression, character development, and the relevance of a scene. (She’s made me cut out many, many scenes.) – That all being said, it’s not easy finding an editor, much less a good one. It also has to be someone you trust to have this much power over your work. It’s worth it, however, and my writing has gotten so much better because of the help.

If you’ve read this far, wow, thanks! You’re also probably thinking, “Shit, she takes this too seriously. It’s just a fic.”

I have… gotten into fights in the past before because of this. I feel strongly about the stuff I write. Just because it’s fanfiction doesn’t mean it isn’t a labor of love. I’m a perfectionist by nature, so that’s why I put so much time and effort into what amounts to ‘just a fic.’ And you know what? At the end of the day, writing it gives me satisfaction and happiness, so I will keep pouring into it as much as I can. It’s just a bonus to hear that other people are enjoying it too. (Yes, I’m one of those weirdos who intensely enjoy reading my own work…)

 Aaand the final point:

(3) I double-majored in psychology for undergrad and have by now accumulated thousands of hours of clinical hours spent using the theories and techniques I learned from those classes on real people. I’m also specializing in neuroscience, so a portion of my time is spent in psychiatry. Characterization was actually not one of my writing strengths at first, but I definitely noticed leaps in improvement after my clinical rotation started. People skills are just that: skills which are honed with practice. It’s amazing how much you learn about how people think and what make them tick when you interact with a whole spectrum of examples: from your neurotypical everyday well-adjusted person, to high-functioning neurotics and obsessives, to patients who have suffered complex stroke syndromes, to encephalitic brains burning under septic fevers, to druggies stoned so high they’ve breached the atmosphere, to patients whose brains are growing insidious tumors, to schizophrenics and catatonics and the depressed. My job also allows me the rare opportunity to interact with people from all walks of life. All I need to do if I wanted insight about how life is for soldiers who served in an active warzone, for example, is to hit up Bill at the ICU and ask for stories about Korea and the Gulf and Vietnam. Or if I wanted to know about how to survive the Rwandan genocide, I could sit down with Amida, who survived it as a barely-teenager with her brother and sister in tow while only “losing my innocence and an eye.” Or I could talk to Heather, who is building a life with her husband and two rambunctious children, for a perspective on the daily concerns and delights of a ‘perfectly normal and ordinary’ working mother. (Her words, not mine; Heather is amazing even if she eats the doctor’s lounge out of Tita Annabel’s cookies.) Anyway, you get my point. When I write, I almost always write about people, so it makes sense that a lot of my inspiration comes from people too. A lot of my original characters—and even some that are not—often speak with the voices and inflections of people I know in real life. You probably have people with interesting stories to tell in your life; you just have to work up the courage to ask and take the time to listen. You’d be surprised at what you learn!

A few helpful writing resources: (most of these are classics)

The Elements of Style by Strunk & White

The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman

How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren

And more books that helped me get into people’s heads:

Hallucinations by Dr. Oliver Sacks

The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon

Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon

The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo

Admirable Evasions by Theodore Dalrymple

I hope you got something out of that. Again, feel free to drop me an ask if you have any questions or want to chat!

#fanfic #on writing #fandom: naruto #answers

[lanaisnotwool]

410 Investing in Real Estate From Scratch - Interview with Ola Dantis

http://moneyripples.com/2020/07/30/410-investing-in-real-estate-from-scratch-interview-with-ola-dantis/

Chris Miles, the "Cash Flow Expert and Anti-Financial Advisor," is a leading authority on how to quickly free up and create cash flow for thousands of his clients, entrepreneurs, and others internationally! He’s an author, speaker, and radio host that has been featured in US News, CNN Money, Bankrate, Entrepreneur on Fire, and spoken to thousands getting them fast financial results. Listen to our Podcast:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/moneyripples/2020/06/20/410--investing-in-real-estate-from-scratch-with-ola-dantis

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chris Miles (00:09): Hello, my fellow Ripplers! This is Chris Miles. Your Cash Flow Expert and Anti-Financial Advisor. Welcome you out for another wonderful show. A show that's for you and about you. Those of you that work so hard for your money and you want your money to start working harder for you now! You want that freedom. That prosperity. That cash flow. Today! So you work because you want to, not because you have to, because you want to live that life of freedom, that life of joy, and not just a life of luxury necessarily, right? But you want to have comfort for yourself, but more importantly, you want to create a ripple effect as a Rippler for the lives of those around you. Through your family, creating a legacy that lasts well beyond you, not a legacy of scarcity and lack. The legacy of abundance and prosperity, and it leaks out to your community and the country across the world.

Chris Miles (00:53): And how amazing would it be if all of us would prosper this way? So I'm excited to have you guys on here today, because again, this show has done amazing things. Thanks to you guys. You guys have been bingeing on this show. You've been sharing it. You've been applying the things we talk about, which I appreciate so much. So again, thank you so much for following us and being a part of this movement.

Chris Miles (01:12): Here's a reminder, check out our website, MoneyRipples.com. You know, you're going to get the ebook Beyond Rice & Beans. You can download there to find more resource, more cash. And also too, you know, if you've got questions for me, shoot me an email through there. So anyways, check it out guys.

Chris Miles (01:25): All right today. So I've got a special guest here, Ola Dantis. Now I actually first met Ola because I was on his show. He's actually got the Dwellynn Show that he's got going on as well. That's really cool. And we'll talk about that a little bit too. But the thing is like, this guy is so impressive, right? Because you know, some of us have been born and raised in the United States for our whole lives, you know. And I meet a lot of people that feel like they don't have opportunity or they hope and pray that something will come along that'll work. And I'll tell you like, Ola, gets rid of all of those excuses. Right? And so that's why I'm excited to bring him on. Now a little bit about Ola here. Like, as I mentioned, like he has the show, of course, but he's also the founder CEO of Dwellynn.com. He's a multifamily investment syndication firm. Should I say that 10 times fast? Right? He's successfully sourced deals of over $40 million by working with closely with sellers and with other apartment syndicators cross country.

Chris Miles (02:18): Now, although he's only lived in the U S for about six or seven years, he has successfully completed rehab projects in excess of $1 million. Now not only has he exceeded his investors returns, right? But he also has this great success in the multifamily space. In fact, he just closed on a 160 unit apartment deal in Houston, Texas, and another 104 unit deal in another place in Texas as well. And again, he does huge value adds across the country, mostly in strong Metro areas across the U S. Now he loves working with new investors, both here and abroad, even those that are international. Which is kind of where Ola's background comes from as well. Now, one cool thing too, is that his firm also aims to give back. So they have, what's a one house pledge where by every Christmas they donate a house to a family for Christmas. So starting in Baltimore, for example. So in fact, he just did a recent trip to the Philippines and Bali. And he's visited the slums and now working on a local initiative to help people in need. So huge guy like big heart, welcome to our show, Ola, how are you doing?

Ola Dantis (03:17): Doing fantastic, Chris. I really wish I had just put that on full blast. Called my wife i here so she can hear the introduction. Thank you so much!

Chris Miles (03:24): I totally get it. People introduce me way better than my wife will. You know, it's awesome. That's how you keep it real. So tell us, like, you know, where'd you come from and why did you come to the U.S.?

Ola Dantis (03:34): Yeah. I, you know, obviously you got to have a fantastic podcast. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate you for bringing me on. I'm going to be, I'm going to try to be as stutter free as I can be. So I was born in a place called Nigeria. Many people probably know that country for several interesting reasons, but we're not going to go into that. But I actually grew up in London. That's probably where my interest in also, I call it hybrid accent comes from. And it's still coming from that I live in the US so obviously grew up in the UK where, you know, got my degree and my master's degree there shortly after that went back home to Nigeria. I've set up firm doing pretty okay. But my wife, who is Filipino. She's born in the Philippines, but also American, but she was born in a military base in America because dad stuff in the military.

Ola Dantis (04:22): So she's like, she was working in the US even though we both went to school in the UK, it's like, Hey, you should come check Disney out. Cause she was interning at Disney. This was years ago now. And so I, you know, I jumped on the plane, you know, I was about to touch down in Florida. I was just looking at I'm a, windows seat guy. So I was looking out and looking at Florida and it's just beautiful. The aerial view. I mean, you can see all these, you know, the suburbia America, you know, the code is acts on, you know, it was just, I was like, this place is gorgeous! You know, why didn't anybody tell me about this place? You know, obviously go to Florida, you know, go to Disneyland. It was happy place. Amazing! Fantastic! Anyway, fast forward, my wife and I moved to the US I think two, three years later, after that very first trip, you know, to try the American gym.

Ola Dantis (05:09): And here we are the American gym. We're loving it. We had a nice fancy apartment. We didn't move to Florida. You'd assume we did. We actually chose Baltimore, Maryland. Well it was actually Columbia, Maryland. We started in, you know, in Maryland, we had great jobs. We had a fancy apartment. You know at the time, I didn't know anything about real estate. And then a friend of mine called me and said, Hey Ola, do you want to, you know, fly and meet me in Dubai? I need you to help me with my business. So come to Dubai! I was like, Oh, okay. So I did well, you know, smart man does a wise man. I prayed a body, obviously and then ask my wife, like, Hey, you know, my friend whose got this real estate business wants me to come and help him with his business. But he wants me to meet him in Dubai. She's like, well, have you guys heard of, I mean, this was years ago, this is all pre COVID. Just what to put that out it was years ago.

Ola Dantis (05:59): So it's just like, have you guys ever heard of Zoom? You know, Skype or whatever? I was like, well, maybe if I go on this trip, maybe I'll learn something, you know, really good or cool. I mean, I can use it. We can use it. The reason I'm, you know, having these anecdote accounts is people really get a context, right? It's not like this guy just fell out of the sky. What does he think he is? He think that America is the greatest place on the planet. I really do think that. And I'll come back to that later. Anyway, the reason I'm telling this story is, success never comes to you as a golden box with a ribbon on it. It could come as a phone call. So be opened, right? Be receptive to things that might maybe might seem outlandish or out of the box, but that could be the beginning of your success.

Ola Dantis (06:44): So that's why I'm bringing up this story. Anyway, I was on my way to Dubai. Met with my friend, you know, just standard hotel. I were way like in the desert court biking, none of that, it was just three days, you know, with my friend and his business, which was real estate. Back home in the UK. So I was like, Oh my goodness! If he's doing this in the UK, certainly I can do this in the US! By the way, you know, I didn't mention this. I was living the American dream. Go to work. Come home. Go to work. Traffic. Come home. Go to work. It was just like, Oh my God, is this it? I'm just going to do this and die? So I was kind of having that...

Chris Miles (07:19): The dream we all have, right? We all hope we get stuck in traffic and work all day!

Ola Dantis (07:24): You know, I was like, this, there's gotta be something else. I mean, this is great. You know, we had great jobs, but it was just. So anyway, so I was like, I think this is what I've been looking for. Right? Great entrepreneurial excitement, go back to the US really just went hard on, I didn't know anything about real estate. So I just asked my best friend, you know, Google. And I started learning, you know, a website kept coming up Bigger Pockets. So watched that website, that podcast. This book kept coming up, Rich Dad Poor Dad. So I'm talking about pattern recognition yet, right? So every guest was saying, you know, read this book. So I read the book and literally what happened to me was an uppercut in my brain like, Oh my goodness! Whoever this guy is, stole my idea. Whatever this guy is saying is what I've been trying to say to myself.

Ola Dantis (08:14): You know, it's just that Eureka moment. Right? And anyway, fast forward. Put our first building, our first piece of real estate, and by the way, we were just in the US probably by then maybe two or three years also. But our first building, it was a duplex in Baltimore, Maryland, in the class A area of Baltimore. Because when folks hear Baltimore, you know, anyway, whatever, and you know, we did that, right. This was three, four months probably after my trip back. And my wife and I were having our home one night, you know, kind of doing what lovers do. Cooking! We're having a conversation. And I was like, Hey, like my account just keeps growing, growing and growing and growing. And she's like, me too actually! So we think about like, Hey, what did we do different? We bought real estate. And we had tenants in the top floor paying for most of our mortgage. So now we have the new problem, which is just money accumulating.

Chris Miles (09:14): Now what?

Ola Dantis (09:14): Now what. Right. And I say this because there might be folks out there thinking, well, I don't know what to do. I go to work. All my money is gone. I don't know where it goes. I kind of come for it, but you could house hack. Right. Which is what we did. You could buy a piece of property. It doesn't matter where you are in the United States. You know, it could be two doors or three or four. So a duplex or triplex or fourplex. You live in one and you rent the others. Right. So if you're thinking I don't have money, I don't know where to start. You could start there. Now.

Chris Miles (09:48): True.

Ola Dantis (09:48): Just to throw that in there. If you have kids and you have your wives, I mean, you know, it might be a little bit tricky because my wife and I did this when it was just me and her. We could live in a one bedroom. We didn't care about parking. You know, even though you've never find parking in city. That's the things that we sacrificed in the beginning. Right. So that's how I got into the game. And I realized we were making all this money. I was like, Whoa, maybe we can do this. If we did this 10 times more, we wouldn't have to go to any Ruby board. We wouldn't have to go to a job. Right. So that's what started. That was the impetus for Dwellynn, our company. Dwellynn.com. And I found a mentor, were kind of, you know, he was buying apartments and I was like, Oh, that's really what I want to do. I mean, I'd have to buy 10 of these things. I could just buy a building and maybe I'll retire. Right. That's how it works. Anyway, I got a mentor and then we started Dwellynn. And, you know, as they say, the rest is still history in the making, I guess.

Chris Miles (10:48): Yeah. The rest is history, right? That's awesome! Kind of take us back again. Like what, cause I know with a lot of listeners on this show, like sometimes they have a fear. I mean, one, they have a fear right now what's going on in the world. Right. So they're kind of, someone we're kind of scared of getting real estate anyways. But even before this, there were still people like, yeah, but isn't it risky? What if I do it wrong? What would you say to them?

Ola Dantis (11:12): So a couple of things, right? It, you know, is it risky? I don't think so. But living in the house every single day is risky. Stepping out of your door is risky. Living life is risky. Right? So that's, let's have that. The back of our mind, as I continue, I don't think it's risky because that's my opinion. I'm just one out of 7 billion people on this planet. But another way to mitigate risk is knowledge. Right? So try to go learn, you know, it's like if I talked to a friend of mine who maybe is a developer, right. I mean like programmer right in I.T. He's not going to learn about real estate cause he doesn't have the knowledge. Right. So if you'll speak into people who don't know about real estate, the natural thing. They're not bad people. They just said, Oh, he's in a risky. It's just a, I don't know. And he's, you know, risky. It's not a, you know, they're not technical people. So, so for you to be able to mitigate those risks is you need to understand and educate yourself about the subject matter. It doesn't matter if it's real estate or if you want to start buying stocks or whatever. So I think that's what I did. I may have skipped that in my story. But when I got back, I divulge and just binged podcasts, I read a lot of books and I had a big library of books and I continue to be, and that's why I said, Google is my best friend. Right. So, cause that's what I do. So Hey, when you do that, that would help you to mitigate that risk.

Chris Miles (12:40): What was one book that you really enjoyed? Like what really helped you a lot?

Ola Dantis (12:43): So at that time, it was definitely, definitely Rich Dad Poor Dad, that got me started. It's not much of a real estate book as such. You would think it is. Yeah. Yeah. And it's more life philosophy. But another book that really helped me was this book. Right? So this is like free, just free knowledge, Investing in Duplexes, Triplexes & Quads by a guy called Larry Loftis. Well you still see, it's like, arms length to me, right. I've always got a book around that. I got another book I'm reading right here. The reason I'm doing this is people will say stuff like, is it risky? Or can I do this? There are things that you can do to get successful.

Chris Miles (13:25): Yes.

Ola Dantis (13:26): One thing is this, you have to be a reader. And I'm going to throw something COVID-19 related. You know, Bill Gates knew that we could have a pandemic that we're having today. Now people might say, how did this guy know? Cause he's a reader, right? Of course there's crazy conspiracy theories out there. But just put that aside. The way Bill Gates could predict this is cause he read. He just reads. So if you're out there, you can hear the sound of my voice and you want to be exceptional and excellent in anything you do. Be a reader! But more importantly, be a divergent reader. Don't just read one topic. Be broad as much as you can.

Chris Miles (14:12): Interesting. I love that. I love what you're saying about risks too. Cause there's lots of different types of risks, right? There's market risk. Like a lot of people worry about, but you mentioned about like education is key, right? Because you want a lower risk. The best thing you can do is try to figure out how you can get risk within your control. How can you manage the risk? How can you reduce it yourself? And education is a key piece of that, right? Like you mentioned a little bit of these different books and things like that and podcasts, you know, not saying that we're we got two podcasts you might want to listen to, to help with that. You know, between Ola's show and mine. Right. But self serving of course, but it's true. That education is critical. Like without it, you're right. You know, cause that's where, I remember people would ask me all the time like, well isn't that risky? I said for you, it probably would be. For me, not so much because I've got the education and training behind it. And that's why a lot of people will end up coming to me because they're like, okay, how do we get trained and educated to know what to do or how to do it? You know, or that sort of thing or what to know, like what questions to ask even. Right. And I'll tell you if you think real estate is risky. I mean, if you've been investing in a 401k, an IRA or any kind of mutual fund where you have zero control of any markets and it gets you mediocre returns with lots of high risk and volatility, trust me, you're already taking more risks than any risk that Ola or I are taking right now.

Chris Miles (15:34): You know, if you're putting money in every single month, you are essentially losing money every month, putting money into something that you won't be able to get back out without asking for permission and sometimes waiting weeks to get that money. You know, like that's what happens when you put money in mutual funds or especially IRAs and 401ks, right. You know, real estate. It's like, Hey, you know, if you apply the same thing, you said, well, this is how it reduce risks with my mutual funds. I just hold onto it forever. Right? Like it's okay. Because in the long haul it goes up, well guess what happens to the real estate in the long haul? It always goes up, you know, like it's no different. The only difference is that you don't have to keep putting money into it all the time.

Ola Dantis (16:09): Right. And then with mutual funds and kind of some of this intangible assets, one they not had, you can't touch and feel them. But to the beauty that a lot of people don't really get with real estate is leverage. If you want to buy a mutual fund for a thousand dollars, you have to actually exchange a thousand dollars in cash.

Chris Miles (16:33): So true.

Ola Dantis (16:35): For that value of that mutual fund or stocks or whatever. But for real estate, if you were to buy a piece of real estate for $1,000, you only have to put down 200 bucks, 20%, like it's genius, it's gold. So that the power, the leverage piece is a lot of people don't really get that. They don't really understand that.

Chris Miles (16:53): Yeah. When I was, securities licensed back in the mid 2000s, right. I remember, you know, we'd have to have people sign waivers saying, I am not borrowing money to put in the stock market. Right. Like I am not borrowing money. This is not coming from a bank. You know, why they having to sign that because banks won't put their own money in, why would they want you to put their money in? Right. So, you know, with the real estate probably different. Real estate banks were like, Oh, you want some money? Here. Here you go. I'll pay for most of it. You know, you put your little down payment, I'll pay the rest. You know, like if obviously banks thinks it's less risky, why you keep putting money in the place where banks won't put money? Right. It's a good point. So let's, let's talk about like your syndication. Cause you have a syndication that you have as well where you, you buy into multifamily stuff. First. Like, do you still see deals out there or are you being very cautious and holding back saying, Hey, I know the deals are coming, but I'm not jumping right now. What's your viewpoint on it currently?

Ola Dantis (17:46): Yeah. So, definitely. Transactional value has gone down and I don't want to get overly technical, but essentially what syndication means is, you know, pulling together a group of investors to buy an asset that you cannot buy by yourself.So, If I were to go out on the streets and buy home. Yeah. I probably could double myself. Why you want to buy a 200 unit, 150. You'd definitely need a couple of partners, at least a ton of investors. Anyway. So that's what syndication is. So in terms of, do you feel definitely a lot of us in the syndication space are kind of taking a wait and see approach of the fascinating thing is what we're doing at Dwellynn is we're not waiting, you know, for the whole country. I mean, as we know, as you know, we record this in May. Early May.

Ola Dantis (18:34): Now some parts of the country I opened for business or at least partially opened and it's been phased out, but we don't want to wait for a time when the flood gates open and it's too late to get to. So we've taken the present approach and kind of looking at the daily numbers of new cases, not only in the United States, but we checked in Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom. So just to make sure that we're going into the market at the right time, a little folks that talking about that wants to see, you know, kind of to quotas of, you know, positive GDP growth. I think that's too late because you know, then confidence goes up and you just backed away. You were pre COVID. So what exactly. So we really try to time the market. And to be honest with you, now more than ever is when multifamily, which apartment buildings, the space we're in is doing pretty well. You know, not so much from an economic perspective, but really from an asset class perspective. People have to stay in place. They have to, you know, shelter in place. You have to stay in a place. So yeah.

Chris Miles (19:37): Very, very true. So if people wanted to like follow you more right. Or learn more about the deals that you have going on and stay up to speed on that. Because obviously like things are changing at the speed of a tweet and nowadays, you know, like Trump tweets something and all of a sudden people go crazy. You know? So health organization says something or CDC, or heck anybody the fed say something, the world keeps constantly changing. So if people want to follow you Ola, and they want to be able to follow your deals or even your show, what would it be the best way for them to do so.

Ola Dantis (20:08): Yeah, sure. Thanks for that, Chris. So best way is InvestWithOla. So that's InvestWithOla.com and that would kind of take you to our website. And then also if you want to check out the Dwellynn show, feel free to do that. You know, on iTunes where pretty much everywhere. So for those folks out there, Instagram, you know, folks I'm on Instagram, I'm ubiquitous. You wouldn't be able to miss me. So just go on Instagram, @OlaDantis or just Google OlaDantis all over the place. Linkedin, if you're into LinkedIn too, I'm right there.

Chris Miles (20:40): Awesome! I love it. Well, cool. Happy to have you on today, man. Cause this is such good information. It's so good to hear a perspective of someone who won. I mean, you really kind of kill a lot of the excuses we have, right? I mean, you come to a brand new country, you know, you work nine to nine grind almost, you know, if include traffic, right. Or, you know, seven to seven, you know, and you've done all this stuff. And then you built from the bottom up. I mean, you start with individual houses all the way to buying a hundred, 200 type unit apartment buildings. I mean, that's incredible. I mean, that really is. So I really appreciate you sharing experience and we'll put your information in the show notes that people can have see, InvestWithOla.com as well as your show there. So again, thank you so much for your time, Ola.

Ola Dantis (21:21): Thank you Chris. I really appreciate.

Chris Miles (21:23): Hey everybody else, like thanks for joining us today. Again, check out Ola's stuff, you know, and remember like everything, almost everything starts with your brain first. Educate yourself, empower yourself, reduce the risk and do something that actually will create great wealth now because now is as good of opportunity as any trade amazing wealth. And so, and Ola is a perfect example of that. So everybody, I appreciate you guys coming on, have a wonderful and prosperous week. We'll see you later.

#Anti-financial Advisor #Cash flow #Cash flow Expert #Debts #Entrepreneur #Financial Freedom #Money Ripples

[thesickbcy]

💛

💛- A memory that makes them feel angry

“What… what did you just say?”

Fae’s standing in the office of none other than the Reverend himself, face busted up and knuckles raw. He just got back from the job that was supposed to set in stone the hierarchy of his future. He spent months hunting down this high-end target, spent the past hour finally beating him to death for being stupid enough to show his face in a club, and now the Reverend has the audacity to call him up for a meeting and tell him…

It was staged?

“The fuck do you mean it was staged?”

The Reverend sits deep in the large office chair behind his large office desk in his large business office far, far away from his large church. Hands crossed, fingers knit together - he looks just about as holy as he does behind the podium, although this time it’s not his sheep he’s preaching to. Sharp shoulders (softened only slightly by the fancy drapes over his cassock) seem relaxed despite the aggression sent his way. Aesther has no intention of giving in, either: he’s used to Fae’s sharp tongue and mean attitude. It’s how he survives out there on the streets, dealing with lost souls and stray sheep. Nasty business, that. Not that the king pin would know exactly, but he was somewhere similar once (and never would be again). He understands.

“I needed to make sure you’d do anything I asked you too, no matter how long it took or how bloody it got.” Aesther’s voice is unrelenting, even when calm and gentle. “As my heir, you’re going to have to deal with things you won’t want to do, but you’ll have to do. No matter what your opinion on me or my orders are, you have to do as I say. You’ll also be leading a sophistocated group of smart individuals who won’t throw their loyalty to just anyone. I needed to make sure you’d be willing to go the extra mile for me and our men. To see if you could gain their trust enough to make this work out. And, as usual, you did not disappoint, Kairos.”

“Didn’t I already prove that with the, what, hundred or so years I’ve already served?”

“Well, let’s just say now it’s officially on record. It only took you a year to get everyone’s trust, yet you’ve been spending the years prior doing… whatever it was you do. Jumping off buildings, flipping my cops the bird, acting like a child. You’re not just a kid anymore though, are you? Now you’re an adult - one who can finally pull his own weight in this family. It��s about time.”

The smug look on his superior’s face is enough to get Fae’s blood boiling. He clenches his fists tight, angry that this man had the audacity to once more lead him on and string him out like some kind of cat, but the pain in his split magic causes his fingers to relax. Of course he would. Of course it was fake. The Reverend just needed more reason to make a fool of him, as if waiting until his dying breath to force a deal wasn’t humiliating enough.

For once, Fae has no words.

“Congratulations, my boy! You’ve successfully proven yourself capable of growing a pair and running a business like mine. You’ve led my men through a year-long stake out and not lost a single soldier. This is even better than I could have imagined. You’re really quite the leader, Fae, whether or not you think you are.”

There’s no paper making it official, no celebration or ceremony to congratulate him on straining his mind and resources to the brink. Just him, the guards at each of the doors behind and to the right of Fae, and the Reverend. Fae has half a mind to throw himself out of the windows behind his father just to stick it to him, but there’s no point. He’s finally worked himself hard enough to get the recognition he deserved. He’s not going to waste it.

But there’s something in Aesther’s eyes that tells him there’s something on his mind he has yet to say. What, does he want Fae to call him on it? The Reverend pulls out a bag of dust and a pipe from his desk and takes his time lighting it, focused momentarily on the glass in front of him before inhaling deep. The smell from the smoke’s rich and pungent; that must’ve been the purest Dust Fae had ever seen. He didn’t even know it came that pure, especially given the way magic sparked and glittered as the powder in the pipe burned. God damn.

“There’ll be a more official ceremony later. You’ll get your just desserts then. The whole flock will attend just to pay their respects. Should be quite a good haul; several of our boys would give their right leg if we asked for it. Feel free to ask for anything you want. Daughters, sons, dust, life savings. They’ll do anything for you now, or they’ll die. That’s how it’ll be from here on.”

But that wasn’t what Aesther was thinking, was it? God, Fae hated this stupid game he played. Make your son ask you directly, just to see him on his knees. Make him beg like the rest of your dogs since it’s sooo funny seeing him get his designer jeans dirty. Fucking unbelievable. Fae crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at the ground before deciding to finally speak up. (It never got easier talking strong to his father, even if he was supposed to be family).

“What is it.”

“Hmm?”

There lapses a silence between them before he tries again.

“I know that look. There’s somethin’ else on your mind. What is it?”

A mumbled exhale is all the response he gets for a moment. The air’s so thick he could cut it if he pulled his knife out. The guards remained completely stoic, as if they were statues glued to the wall. Fae can’t see their thoughts on their faces, or read their bodies for any emotion. It’s completely eerie how good they are at remaining composed no matter what. At least the Reverend knew how to train them well. Must be real trusted to be in this office, hearing everything that went on. Including what the bishop was about to say, given how he adjusted in his big office throne.

“You remember the day we met a second time, Fae? The day your mother died.”

Fae’s quiet at this. His voice is low, cold, as if he’s trying not to let emotions flood his already aching body, “clearly.”

“Then you should remember the men who came after your family, right?”

“Absolutely.”

Oh, he did not like that smile on the bishop’s face. A terrified knot coiled within Fae’s stomach, turning his magic cold. Where was this going… no where good, that’s for sure.

“And yet here we all are, with you completely unfazed by standing in the presence of your parents’ murderers.” An exhale of glittering smoke left the bony lips of the boss as he grinned wider, needle-like teeth bore in absolute delight. “I’m surprised, Fae. Normally you’d kill people who threatened the ones you love in a heartbeat… but you’ve been working for them for a full-on century now.”

The news falls on closed ears at first. Fae’s too busy trying not to heave out of dread while his brain processes the meaning behind everything his so-called father just said. He’d say it came in waves, but it didn’t. The fury wasn’t cold like the ocean, but instead a meat freezer. He could feel it on his bones the second he walked into the Reverend’s office. It’s finally to the point where he’s shaking where he stands, eye lights completely black and knuckles bleeding fresh due to scabs popping open at the tight grip he holds. His head’s lowered, eyes locked on the man sitting before him until the guards nearby remove their sunglasses and expose their faces.

The same faces printed on the back of his skull the day he was supposed to die.

“W h a t   d i d   y o u   s a y.”

Aesther laughs, which forces Fae to suck in a breath.  “There’s the temper I’ve been waiting for! There it is! That’s what I expected the very first day I brought you up to this office. Yet here we are, years later, only just sharing the good news with each other.”

“Oldest trick in the Fae book, my boy. If there’s a deal you just can’t pass up… you make it happen any way you can. And you… you held such potential, such magical prowess that I haven’t seen since I first showed up on this ugly dead planet. See, I simply had to have you down here with me, as one of my own, since you’re the only likely candidate to become an Original when my time here is up. But your mom…

“See, your mom? Was wise beyond her years. She was one of the only mortals I knew who outsmarted every Fallen she encountered, just like her mother, and her grandmother, and so on so forth. Her entire family went up in flames around her, yet there she stood, tall and proud, with her husband and her three kids who-. Well, two, since one was stolen from her by us, too. Regardless, there she was… and there you were. A byproduct of centuries of wise women who could outsmart the Fae and even cheat death. A witch more powerful than any I’ve ever seen.

“And guess who inherited all of that magical byproduct? Of course… witches are smart to our tricks. So I had to act accordingly… to keep you on my radar before she could pass on the secret knowledge she possessed that would eventually make you immune to even an Elder Fae’s charms.“

Aesther leans forward onto his desk, giving Fae a small frown beneath laughing eyes, “you really should’ve burned that seeing eye stone you took when you had the chance, huh?”

There’s a phantom throbbing in Fae’s right eye. It’s the place where, at the beginning of this mission, Aesther had carved the paisley and floral patterns right into his skull. He told Fae it was just precautions, that he, as the Reverend’s son, needed a Mark to show the rest of the flock he was high ranking. Then came the Eye… a surgical proceedure also performed by Aesther himself. Something about cursing his eye, combining their magic so that he could pop up any time Fae needed him. But now Fae realizes the truth behind the Mark and the Eye.

They’re tracking devices. They let the Reverend see what he sees, know where he goes, they Mark him so that everyone in the entire underground and the entire surface knows who he is…

No.

Who he belongs to.

He had not only made a deal with the most powerful Fae in the underground thinking it was the only thing that could save his younger brother, but he had just about sold his soul to him as well. He had given literally everything to Aesther and he had no idea. Fae thought he had the upper hand, had the Original under his thumb by making him merge SOULs with Papyrus in order to save him. In reality, it was Fae who was the fool.

His mother was right. She’d be so disgusted with him if she knew… And to think, she would have taught him how to truly outsmart the Fae… if he had just. 

Just.

“Fuck. YOU. YOU FUCKING MONSTER! YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU AND YOUR WHOLE FUCKING UNDERGROUND, I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU-”

“Put him in the cell. He’ll be unreasonable when he wakes, so he’ll stay there until he can learn to behave like a proper son again.”

Arms grab the younger Fallen before he can leap over the desk and grab the fixation of his ire. He’s screaming, spitting, thrashing, doing as much as he can to get all these pent-up emotions out of his system. The Reverend Bishop is ever calm as he watches his protege curse his name, smiling and inhaling a deep hit of Dust before exhaling that sweet rich smoke through his needle-sharp teeth. All it takes is a gesture of his holy hand to get a Guard to hit the butt of their weapon into the back of Fae’s skull, ‘curing’ him of that unholy rage of his enough to drag him off with ease.

He tries not to remember the rest of what happened. The cell remains one of his most unpleasant memories, right after this one.

#hcs; #` THE PAST #npcs; #drabbles; #big oof #long post #somehumerusbones #the reverend; #fae;

[vaguely-concerned]

McHanzo Fantasy AU

Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada, PG-13, 2 400 words

Heavily inspired by the art of @nickutried, in particular this post right here — please check it out if you haven’t already, it’s good stuff!

On AO3 

The dragon is watching the sunset as its twin lies curled up asleep next to it, letting out a low humming snore that sounds like nothing so much as a giant cat purring. When it spots Jesse it ducks its head in acknowledgement, a formal yet oddly cordial gesture.

Jesse tips his hat and takes up position next to a gnarled tree valiantly clawing for purchase on the craggy hillside. Beneath them the valley is dappled with golden light, patterns shifting as the sun goes down.

“Nice view,” Jesse comments eventually.

“Indeed. I trust you are well?”

The rumble of the dragon’s voice is like distant thunder in his mind, even as its mouth doesn’t move.

“Sure. Thanks for askin’.” Maybe he’s just going crazy but he thinks he’s getting used to the sheer size of them; having them towering in his peripheral vision has somehow gone from deeply unsettling to comforting over the last half a year or so.  

The dragon tilts its head as if in polite inquiry. “You two have seemed busy today. Is he still doing better?”

Now that they seem confident their master’s wounds will all heal they have dialled back on the mother henning, to Hanzo’s obvious relief, but they still grill Jesse about how he’s doing from time to time as if he is privy to something they’re not.

“Yeah, think so. He’s just finishin’ up some training stuff,” Jesse says, gesturing with a thumb over his shoulder towards the tent. “Apparently tossing me around like so much lint doesn’t quite cut it on its own.”

To be fair to himself it’s not like he’s really a pushover when it comes to the hand to hand stuff — he has survived enough bar brawls unscathed to prove that much, at least — it’s just that Hanzo seems to be made of different stuff than mortal men that way. Jesse has a sneaking suspicion that Hanzo considers him a sort of glorified free weight in these situations, but he can’t really say he minds. The sparring is nice, actually; it’s been a while and when you find him in the right mood Hanzo’s a surprisingly patient teacher. Never too late to pick up some new tricks.

(If Jesse has some less honorable reasons to not mind Hanzo pinning him to the ground with amused, fluid ease… that’s neither here nor there, and no one ever needs to know.)

“Have you decided where to go from here?”

“We’re looking to head north tomorrow. Mark seems to be tryin’ to shake us through the mountain passes, so we’re gonna cut him off half way.”

Considering that only one of the involved parties has the advantage of actual flying dragons… Jesse’s not too worried about this one. He’d almost feel bad for the guy, if he made a habit of feeling bad for men who have lined their own pockets by sending children to their deaths in unsecured mines.

It makes a vague sound — the dragons seem wholly disinterested in the details of any job beyond what’s needed to keep Hanzo safe. Jesse guesses that if he were a hundred feet long and could generally fit anyone trying to mess with him into his mouth in one chew he’d take the long view more too. “You are staying with us, then.”

Jesse clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck. “At least until the end of this job, sure.”

The dragon blinks its huge eyes at him with indulgent amused knowing. Jesse feels the tips of his ears grow warm and tilts his hat into his face slightly. Man, he needs to work on getting his poker face back in place.

“This is good,” the dragon says simply.

“Yeah, well.” He’s still smiling, though, doesn’t quite know how to make himself stop. Folding his arms over his chest he stands there a while soaking up the last warmth of the setting sun. The air is clear and sharp up here, like autumn’s making an early guest appearance.

He lights a cigar, trying to gather both the courage and the words he needs. As nice as all this has been — is, he supposes — he still doesn’t know the why of it, and it’s been bothering him.

Finally he says: “Y’know, I keep meanin’ to ask… Back there, when you found me. Why’d you choose me to help him, of all people? I’m hardly the kinda guy you reach for when you need a medic.”

The dragon takes some time to answer. “There was a recognition; there is something alike in you. You feel the same.”

“And how might that be.”

No pause this time, no need for deliberation: “Homeless.”

Jesse leans back against the tree, crossing his legs at the ankles and not looking away from the horizon. “...well.”

The dragon tips its head to one side pensively. “Does this surprise you?”

Jesse buys some time by breathing in a lungful of smoke and letting it out slowly. “No,” he says. “S’pose it doesn’t. Could’ve just asked me, though, instead of trying your claw at kidnapping.”

“Would you have said yes?”

“Well, I sure as hell almost said no after bein’ dangled by the scruff of my neck over twenty miles of rocky countryside, you might as well have given talking a shot first and gone from there.”

The dragon chuckles. It sounds a little like a jovial earthquake. “Your insight, as always, is most illuminating. I will take it under consideration for next time.”

“What, you got plans to snatch someone else? Lookin’ to replace me with a better model so soon?” He means it as a joke.

Lowering its head the dragon bumps its snout against his chest, absurdly gentle for such a humongous thing.

“No,” it says, gazing down at him. This close you can’t help but smell it, like the scent in the air just before a thunderstorm and the sharp used fireworks tang of magic.

Jesse tries to meet its eyes but has to look away — still, he reaches out and lets his hand rest on its head, hoping that says what he doesn’t know how to. The dragon closes its eyes and turns into the touch like a cat. An enormous, scaly, startlingly-hot-to-the-touch cat conjured out of inexplicable arcane forces. Brushing his thumb over the smooth blue scales he wonders again where the hell Hanzo comes from to have ended up here, this wealth of magic bound to him and full up with ghosts like a haunted house of a man. He’s seen enough to know it wasn’t anywhere good, but then that’s a safe bet for anyone living the way they do, drifting from place to place and job to job.

Everyone out here carries their own ghosts with them, yeah, but Hanzo seems uniquely loyal to his.

Jesse’s left hand looks less unnatural against the pattern of the scales somehow, like the metal could have grown into the shape organically instead of under a hammer. Perhaps he should’ve asked Torbjörn to add in some filigree or engravings or whatever when he’d had it made, soften up the look of it a bit.  

“Hell, what do I know,” Jesse sighs, letting his hand fall away. “Maybe kidnapping was the right call in this case. Not like anyone’s gonna miss me.”

“No?”

“No.”

Not now, and perhaps, in truth, never; for a while there he’d thought… well, easy mistake to make. Happens to the best of us. Half of them are dead now, anyway.

“He would. If you left.”

Jesse looks at his feet and doesn’t answer.

“He has been alone for a very long time,” the dragon says. “He has never let anyone stay before.”

An image flashes through his mind: Hanzo lying broken on the ground the first time he saw him, all that blood slicking the grass. Jesse flinches a little, shaking his head to make it go away. “He ever get hurt like that before?”  

“Never. Before this I had not even seen anyone land a blow on him if he did not intend them to. He closes off his mind and refuses to tell us why he let them…” The dragon trails off. “Hm. I suppose his reasons are his to share or to keep as he wishes. Perhaps you could ask him, though.”

Jesse snorts, scuffing his heel against the ground. “Sure, that’ll go over well.”

“Hm?”

“Listen, my ma used to tell me both that you don’t gamble with somethin’ you’re not happy to lose and that only idiots go around opening old wounds expecting anything but blood. Smart lady — never had reason to doubt her before.”

“Could one question really change everything? You think yourself so insignificant?”

…I don’t want to have to leave again. Not this time.

“I’ll think about it, how ‘bout that,” Jesse says. “If the… moment seems right or whatever.”

The dragon lets him off the hook, giving a thoughtful hum and gazing back out over the valley.

After twenty minutes or so Hanzo turns up, clearly having had a quick wash in the nearby stream, shirt carelessly open and his hair down, still damp and tangling over his shoulders — it’s grown out a bit in the time they’ve known each other. Jesse takes a deep pull on the cigar.

“Hello again,” Hanzo says as he reaches out to absent-mindedly stroke the head of the sleeping dragon, who stirs amicably and cracks one eye open. You can see the pink lines of the scars on Hanzo’s chest through the opening in his shirt when he lifts his arm like that, too raw for Jesse’s liking even now but still healing.

“Hey,” Jesse says, giving a little wave with the cigar. Hanzo glances at him from behind a curtain of dark hair, his mouth soft with a small smile — he always looks more relaxed after a workout, as if he’s managed to burn away some of that tight terse restlessness he carries himself with. Those first few weeks of bedrest must’ve damn near killed him, in hindsight. “All wrapped up?”

“Mhm. You two — we have a long flight ahead tomorrow. You are free to hunt the rest of the night,” Hanzo says, giving the dragon’s flank a friendly slap. “Be back before dawn.”

The newly awoken dragon gives an anticipatory shiver, and were it just a smidge less draconically regal and dignified you get the feeling an excitable ‘fuck yeah’ might enter the picture right about here. It uncoils itself, exchanges looks with its twin and then gives a blithe nod to Hanzo and Jesse before rising up.

They take off and as always it’s disconcertingly quiet — some part of Jesse’s brain is still trying to argue that nothing that massive should be able to fly, never mind so silently. One of them twirls in a loop in the air on the way up, seemingly in a simple fit of joie de vivre. Jesse chuckles.

“Someone’s about to have a fun night out, anyway.”

Hanzo gives a noise of agreement as he folds his arms and leans against the tree next to Jesse, close enough that Jesse can feel the warmth of him along his side. It’s a peculiar, delightful sort of torture.

“So long as they do not overdo it and get careless again. If we are set upon by another huddle of villagers with pitchforks and torches I will be less than pleased.”

“I dunno, being mistaken for an evil sorcerer was kinda flattering, in a way. A class above the stuff people tend to want to arrest me for on sight.”

Hanzo huffs. “If not for your quick thinking we might have had to fend them off by more direct means. They should have fallen to their knees and thanked you.”

“Hell, if everything could be solved so easily by settin’ off some fireworks and shouting a lotta mystical-sounding mumbo jumbo…”

Grinning down at his feet Hanzo gently bumps their shoulders together. “It was an inspired move, I grant you that. If… characteristically unorthodox.”

“And I’ll stop bragging ‘bout it when I’m dead, that’s the one fuckin’ thing I’ve gotten right in years.”

His shoulder feels warm for much longer than it should from the brief contact, his chest even longer from the sound of Hanzo laughing. They watch the dragons fly away until they’re just faint pinpricks on the horizon.  

Hanzo pulls his hair away from his face, the fading light playing over the silver at his temples. He shoots Jesse a look as he ties it back.

“Dinner?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jesse says, kicking away from the tree. “Let’s get some stew goin’. You cut the cabbage, I’ll do my best with the spice we got left, it’ll be good.”

Hanzo grins a little as he does up a few buttons on his shirt. “Mhm, no hunting for us until tomorrow. I fear our evening may have to be a little more mundane.”

“Guess we’ll just have to make our own fun,” Jesse says, feeling all blood leave his face as his brain hears what his mouth just said and in what tone.

“Perhaps if we drink for long enough you could even beat me honestly in a game of cards,” Hanzo says breezily, thankfully sauntering off like he hasn’t picked up on the innuendo Jesse hadn’t quite meant to slide in there.

“Hey, that’s lies and slander, I’ve won my fair share of rounds,” Jesse protests, scrambling to follow him when he throws a glance over his shoulder.

“Because you cheat.”

“Because I cheat,” Jesse agrees, slinging his arm companionably over Hanzo’s shoulder. “That’s half the game, the gettin’ away with it. Doesn’t get more honest than that. I could teach you some of the tricks of the trade, if you’d like, never know when you might need an ace or five up your sleeve.”

“Who could turn down an offer like that?”

When he’s honest with himself Jesse can admit that the way Hanzo’s eyes narrow when he laughs makes him want to go all in with a bad hand, even if he knows he should by all rights have folded and walked away from the table months ago. Amari had been right all those years ago; he never did figure out how to quit while he’s ahead. It can only be a matter of time before his bluff is called and Hanzo realizes he’ll always be more trouble than he’s worth — but, well. He’s not proud. He’ll take what he can for as long as his luck will let him.

“We’ll make a proper scoundrel of you yet,” Jesse promises, the twilight settling around them as they walk.

  Needless to say while Jesse’s freaking out about this, Hanzo lies awake at night staring up at the inside of the tent going ‘But how do I let McCree know how loved and wanted he is???’ haha, I am nothing if not predictably On Brand at all times  

I’m not sure yet if I’ll write more for this AU or not, I just wanted to write something inspired by nickutried’s art for such a long time! If I do end up doing it it’ll likely be a longer more involved affair so please don’t hold your breath, you WILL die and I can’t be responsible for that D:

#overwatch #mchanzo #hanzo shimada #jesse mccree #mchanzo fic #Perhaps there is still a future for anachronisms #My writing

[divinebird]

momentous 2/2

pairing: sheith (shiro/keith) wc: 13,939 notes: This is still a gift for Aki. Considering how late it is, I’ll make it a Christmas gift. Merry Christmas, Aki. I love you. warnings: mention of amputation, mention of c-section, attempted suicide (I'm still not sure how to warn this. A character put a gun to their head for one moment. That's it.) summary: Right now the fear outweighs any other emotion because it’s not a scare this time, it’s real. When he rests a hand across his stomach a new one starts to blossom, starting in his chest and slowly spreading everywhere else until he finds himself smiling.

He feels happy.

(trans keith + unplanned pregnancy + zomb au)

{AO3} (formatted better here)

Someone is humming.

The tune is slow, almost sad, and there’s a definite pattern in it. A song, perhaps; one that he cannot name but does recognize, and it urges him to move forward. His fingers trail along the wooden walls as he slowly makes his way toward the source, fingers catching on every groove he passes over.

A house, he thinks as he turns the corner to walk down a hallway, one blurry picture hanging crookedly on the left side. My house.

He remembers doing this on days where there was nothing to do, following the paths and feeling all of the flaws within his home. He played little games with himself, and often pretended they were hidden portals holding trapped people that he had to free to save the day.

It was the imagination of a child, one that was encouraged by his—

“Dad.”

His father is sitting out on the porch, large figure easily seen from the living room. He turns and smiles at Keith, tune not faltering, and he feels his heart lurch at the sight.

Keith pushes the door open and steps outside, taking in the way the sunset paints different shades of orange and pink across the sky. It’s a regular sight outside their home, but it’s one that never gets old.

“Is that an actual song?” Keith asks when he sits down beside his dad, who wraps an arm around him once Keith leans against his side.

After clearing his throat, his dad opens his mouth and starts to sing. Keith pays close attention to the lyrics and frowns when it’s over. “That’s a sad song.”

“It is. But it’s got a good tune.”

“You used to hum it to me before bed.”

“Amongst other things.” The arm around him slides away before a hand ruffles his hair. “You always fought hard to stay awake, though. Stubborn little thing.” His dad chuckles.

Keith laughs with him. “Yeah,” he pauses and then speaks in a quieter tone. “I miss you.”

There’s a sad smile on his father’s face when he says, “Miss you too, sweetpea.”

“I’m not a pea, dad.” Keith says with an eyeroll, the smile on his face betraying his act of annoyance.

“You’re as small as one, though.”

The pet name brings a fresh wave of sadness but it’s not tainted with the bitterness, anger, and confusion that he got so used to feeling when he was a child. Back then he couldn’t understand why his dad suddenly disappeared from his life, unable to comprehend death as well as abandonment.

It’s soothing to hear it now, a balm gently applied to the wound on his soul.

He’s happy that he got to hear it one last time.

Leaning against his dad again, Keith asks him to hum the song.

With his arm around Keith, his father does so with a content smile.

☆ ☆ ☆

A warm hand encompasses his own, while another brushes cold over his forehead, and a soft voice speaks only seconds later, “Open your eyes, Keith. We need you. I need you.”

A cry rings through the air, followed by shushing noises, murmurs of words that are too low for him to hear but the crying eventually stops, leaving an ache in his chest.

A scent fills his nose when he breathes in as something gently brushes across his stomach.

The voice making a return, desperation coating every repeat of, “Please, sweetheart, please.”

The soft noises come after another cry, tiny hiccups that slowly fade away.

The smell of lavender and fire, the source seemingly somewhere beside him.

Warmth fills him to the brim, spreading to every part of his body until he feels like himself again. He inhales and feels the way his lungs burn, exhales and feels the way his mind goes dizzy, and a small voice inside of Keith tells him, “Wake up.”

☆ ☆ ☆

Awareness comes slowly.

It starts with the feeling of settling back into his body, bringing a heaviness where there was weightlessness. He’s lying down on something, but his mind is too muddled to figure out why. All he can do is lie there and wait until the rest of his senses kick in.

Keith doesn’t know how much time passes before he’s finally able to move.

Opening his eyes is a much more difficult task than it should be, eyelids heavy and lashes feeling like they’re glued together. His vision is blurry and it takes a while to focus on his surroundings, mind catching up only a few seconds later.

He’s in a room.

Not mine, Keith thinks, staring at an unfamiliar beige walls. Where am I? How did I get here?

Is he missing something?

There’s nothing to indicate who lives here, if anyone does, and no one else is in here with him. At least Keith can look around, noting the glass of water on the drawer, the single empty chair that is next to the bed, and the fact that he’s hooked up to an IV.

A door opens to the left of him, dragging his attention to the man that just stepped through.

The sight of him stirs something within Keith, a kind of warmth that makes his breath hitch. It also sends a spark to his brain that ignites it, recognition hitting him hard. He tries to call out Shiro’s name, but all he can accomplish is a grunt, tongue too heavy in his mouth.

That catches Shiro’s attention, and when their eyes lock it’s like the world is complete.

“Keith!” Shiro cries out, rushing to the chair beside him. “You’re awake!”

Keith notices the tired lines in his face and the dark circles beneath his red-rimmed eyes—has he been crying? His hair is unkempt, his scruff looks rougher than normal, and his clothes are rumpled. He looks like a mess but the expression on his face, one of pure happiness, seems to bring some life into him. It gives Keith the strength to curl his fingers around that hand that slips into his own.

“Hi,” he manages to whisper.

Shiro, teary-eyed but smiling, says, “Hey.”

Glancing around again, Keith frowns when he still can’t recognize anything. “Where…” He starts, wanting to get at least one of his questions answered. When he tries to sit up a dull throb in his stomach makes him wince and forces him to stop moving.

“Careful,” Shiro says quietly. “You’re still healing.”

He’s helped up only seconds later, pillows arranged in a way that allows him to lean back against them without discomfort. The throbbing continues, though it’s fainter now, so he lifts his shirt to inspect his abdomen and is met with a line of stitches.

Brows furrowing, Keith’s mind comes up blank when he tries to recall what happened. He looks over at Shiro in hopes of finding an answer.

“It’s okay if you don’t remember right away,” Shiro says. “Ulaz and Colleen said you would be confused.” He lifts Keith’s hand toward his lips and brushes them across his knuckles, voice hushed when he says, “I’m so happy that you’re okay, baby.”

He startles at that, the memory returning quite suddenly and bringing a wave of panic that seems to stab into his very being. Ignoring the flare of pain, he stares at Shiro with wide eyes and exclaims in a hoarse voice, “Baby! Are they…?”

Shiro’s eyes light up as he beams back at Keith. “She’s fine,” he answers, the most sappiest expression appearing on his face. “Perfect, even.”

“Really?” he asks, voice breaking. The relief that courses through Keith leaves him feeling dizzy.

“Yeah,” Shiro lets out a delighted laugh. “All ten toes and all ten fingers. A bit underweight but Colleen says that it’s nothing to worry about. She drinks milk like a champ so it definitely won’t last.”

“She’s okay,” Keith murmurs in relief, blinking away his own tears.

He repeats it in his head, a mantra—she’s okay, she’s okay, she’s okay, she’s okay—and relaxes against the pillows, sniffling and bringing his free hand up to wipe his face. Shiro hasn’t let go of him, a thumb brushing over his knuckles, and Keith focuses on that sensation. It calms him even further, which helps when a new concern arises.

“How long was I out?”

“A few days,” Shiro answers with a definite waver to his voice.  

There’s something to unpack in that statement, the emotion in Shiro’s voice strong enough to make Keith’s insides crumble, but they can do that later when he can think better. He squeezes Shiro’s hand and hopes he understands.

“Can I see her?” Keith asks softly.

Shiro returns the gesture and smiles. “Of course,” he says, planting a kiss on Keith’s forehead before leaving to fulfill Keith’s request.

Keith starts to feel jittery, the prospect of finally seeing the one person he’s been waiting to meet is just within his reach. Will he be able to hold her correctly? Will she even enjoy being in his arms?

He doesn’t even know how to care for a baby. Is it the same as caring for a child? Keith doubts that his newborn daughter has the capacity to enjoy the imaginary games he used to play with his sister or read stories in the tent they pitched up in the living room.

“God,” Keith whispers and rubs a hand down his face. “How the hell am I going to do this?”

“I’ll be here to help you.”

Once again, his attention is dragged to the doorway where Shiro stands. Keith’s gaze rests on the soft smile he wears before dropping to the bundle of blankets in his arms, heart skipping a beat when he realizes who it is.

“Put a pillow on your stomach,” Shiro says and Keith is quick to obey, knowing that Shiro wants it there as a precaution. “I’m gonna place her in your arms slowly, okay?” Shiro continues, edging closer. “She’s still sleeping.”

Keith holds his breath while she’s being transferred to his arms, discovering that she’s not that heavy and actually quite warm. He welcomes Shiro’s guidance and fixes his arms so she can rest comfortably.

All he can do is stare down at her in wonder.

Her cheeks seem very squishy, and she scrunches up her button nose when he lifts a finger to poke one gently. Dark, wispy hair covers the top of her head, soon hidden by a small beanie that Shiro slips on. Small feet kick out once, their baby stretching in place before releasing a tiny noise and settling back down. Keith places a thumb in her tiny palm and she wraps her hand around it tightly, which makes him smile.

Shiro’s hand wipes away the tears he’s been unknowingly shedding and his concerned expression is all he sees when he looks up.

“Are you okay?” Shiro asks.

Keith sniffles and drops his gaze back to their daughter. “I love her,” he chokes out.

It’s different from what he felt for his foster family and what he currently feels for his friends, so much stronger. He already adored their baby while she was still in him, but now that he’s holding her he feels his affection grow. Keith makes a silent promise to himself to do everything he can to make sure she grows up safe, happy, and loved.

He loves her so much.

“Yeah,” Shiro says with a soft laugh. “I understand the feeling.”

A distressed noise suddenly leaves her mouth and Keith gets to watch her eyes flutter open, too dark to know what color they are. They fixate onto him almost instantly and she stares at him as if entranced.

“Hi, baby,” Keith whispers, smiling. “I’m your daddy.”

She makes another sound while her body starts wiggling in his arms. The hold she has on his thumb slackens before suddenly growing tighter, and he allows her to bring it up to her mouth. Keith barely contains his laugh when she starts sucking on his thumb, the sensation new, strange, and ticklish.

“She’s hungry,” Shiro says. “I’ll go fix her a bottle, okay?”

Shiro is the one who feeds her but she’s peering over at Keith while she drinks her milk, gaze following him whenever he shifts on the bed.

Keith is in the same boat. He can’t take his eyes off of her either.

☆ ☆ ☆

Despite being awake and able to walk around on his own, he is forced to stay in that room to rest and recover some more.

Not wanting to risk himself anymore than he already has, Keith readily agrees to this. Shiro seems relieved that he didn’t put up a fight and it only makes him feel guilty, knowing that he must have been in agony while he was sitting there, hoping that Keith would open his eyes.

Their daughter is another reason why Keith doesn’t complain.

Shiro brings her the moment Keith wakes up from his naps, placing her in his arms without being prompted. It makes staying in that bed more bearable because he gets to sit there and stare down at her cute face, holding her or feeding her.

She also has no complaints about the situation. The only time she cried was when Shiro tried to take her from Keith’s arms when Keith was getting tired, and she only settled down when Shiro stopped.

“How come she likes you better?” Shiro had complained with a pout. “I take care of her too!”

“We share a bond, Shiro.” Keith had replied with a teasing smile. “I carried her around for nine months, after all.” He then reached out to tug on Shiro’s hair, which still looks a mess. “She loves you too, okay? I’m sure of it.”

Love is hard to read in the face of a newborn, but Keith is certain that she at least recognizes Keith and Shiro as something important. It’s shown in the way she’ll snuggle in closer to Keith when he’s holding her and in the way she’ll reach out for Shiro, relaxing when she’s grasping one of his fingers.

It’s exhilarating.

After staying in the room for three more days, learning that it’s actually in a makeshift clinic that Colleen hastily secured just for him, Keith finally gets to go home.

“Thank god,” Keith says when Shiro tells him. “I was ready to break down and start begging. I even had an escape plan ready in case you said no.”

“You have to sit in a wheelchair,” Shiro says, completely ignoring what he just said. Jerk. “You can hold the baby in your arms and I’ll push you all the way home.

“I can walk just fine, Shiro.”

“But do you want to?”

Keith thinks about it.

Thankfully, there’s not much to bring with him on the trip home, so he is able to keep a firm grip on their daughter the entire time, who continues to sleep undisturbed. The setting sun means that none of their friends are around the community, and Keith feels a bit sad at the fact, part of him having hoped that they would at least come out and greet him.

Do they not know that he’s awake?

By the time they arrive home, Keith is actually feeling a bit grateful that no one is around. He can finally go to their bed and sleep comfortably.

Shiro takes the baby after locking the wheelchair, allowing Keith to stand up on his own. He holds his arms out to take her back but Shiro shakes his head, placing a hand on the small of his back and guiding him to the front door.

“You’re not supposed to strain yourself,” Shiro chides lightly. “Baby holding counts as strenuous. We’ll just get in and go to sleep, yeah?”

“I can’t wait to sleep in our bed,” Keith comments as they climb the steps slowly. “I know I’ve already gotten enough rest, but nothing beats sleeping at home.”

Keith opens the door and steps into the house, toeing off his shoes and pushing them up against the wall. He walks to the living room and stops when he’s greeted with a banner that hangs from the ceiling, bright red words declaring ‘WELCOME BACK FROM THE DEAD’. All of his friends are standing beneath it, beaming at him.

After the momentary shock wears off, Keith is strangely touched by the gesture despite his weariness. All he can manage is, “Thanks guys.”

He welcomes all their hugs after Shiro herds them to the living room, wincing a bit when Hunk squeezes him with obvious joy. Keith sits with him on the couch while Shiro stands with Allura, Coran, and Lance—falling into a discussion about their supply count, judging by the few snippets of conversation he hears.

“It’s really nice to see you up and about,” Hunk says. “We were all worried for you, and I swear I cried until my eyes felt raw when I heard you were awake.”

“Really?” Keith asks in surprise. No one has ever been that worried for him (except maybe Shiro).

“Yeah,” Hunk smiles at him. “It wouldn’t have been the same without you, Keith. I hope you understand that.”

“I think I’m starting to.”

An itch develops beneath his skin as he repeatedly glances over at Shiro and their daughter. He feels weird over not holding her when he’s done only that for the past few days, so he stands up and walks to Shiro, tapping on his shoulder to take the baby back.

Shiro hands her over happily and once she’s back in his arms he discovers that she’s awake, half-lidded gaze peering up at him. Her nose suddenly scrunches up, eyes growing wet as she starts to squirm in his hold. Keith shushes her quietly when an upset whine leaves her lips and starts to rock her, catching Shiro’s gaze and gesturing to their room with a small jerk of his head.

He nods, understanding, and turns back to his conversation with Allura while Keith heads over to the bedroom. The baby is making more soft, upset noises, on the verge of erupting into tears.

“Don’t cry, baby,” Keith murmurs, pushing the door open with his foot. “Are you hungry? Is that it? I got a bottle for you right here, okay? There’s no reason to cry.”

Shiro prepared one before they left the clinic. Keith sits on the bed and scoots to the side with more pillows, leaning back against them to get comfortable. The baby makes another noise, eyes locked on the bottle, and he huffs out a laugh.

“See? What’d I tell you?” Keith asks, tipping it close to her mouth.

She latches on with a strength that surprises him, distressed noises calming now that she’s being fed. Unfocused, wet eyes observe him intently as the sound of her suckling fills the air. His lips curl up into a smile when her eyes flutter shut, already dozing off even though she just started drinking.

When only half the milk remains, and her rapid paced drinking has slowed down, Keith starts to pull the bottle away. Her eyes fly open the moment it leaves her mouth and she lets out an angry-sounding grunt.

It’s hard to suppress his laugh when it seems like she’s glaring at him.

“Sorry, baby,” he murmurs, leaning down carefully to kiss her forehead. “Don’t be mad at your daddy, I gave you your bottle back.”

Once she’s officially done and burped, he places her in the bassinet that’s nearby and keeps a hold on her tiny hand until she drifts off to sleep. Keith sets a baby monitor up (one that Lance found on a run, still in good shape), placing it on the drawer that is closest to her and taking the other one with him to the living room.

Shiro wraps an arm around him when he sidles up to him and Keith lets the conversation drift by, nodding whenever a friend asks if he’s okay and keeping a tight grip on the baby monitor.

Everyone leaves when it starts getting dark, claiming that they’ll be stopping by in a few days to have a real welcome home party. Hunk adds that he’ll prepare some food for the occasion and, hopefully, bring over fruit that should be picked soon.

“Ready to go to bed?” Shiro asks the moment the door is shut, looking tired but happy. “She’s still asleep so we should take advantage of that.”

The baby monitor crackles to life as a cry comes through. Keith bites his lip so he won’t laugh at the sigh that Shiro lets out and pats his chest like he’s comforting him.

“Thanks for jinxing us,” Keith says. “Now go, it’s your turn.”

“She probably needs to be changed,” Shiro mutters, brightening a second later. “Actually, you should come with me! You’ll learn how to change her by watching me do it, rather than me trying to explain the process. I’ll even guide you through it later.”

“You don’t think I can figure it out by myself?”

“Colleen had to show me like three times before I finally got it right. It’s more difficult than it seems at first, and then it becomes muscle memory.”

And so, they go to their room to deal with their crying daughter.

☆ ☆ ☆

Keith might be losing it already.

Four days have passed since he came home and he’s so exhausted.

He’s still learning how to care for their baby and there have been many ups and downs, the former, sleeping for more than two hours at a time, and the latter, cleaning up messes left and right. It doesn’t help that he’s still supposed to take it easy, so there have been moments when he snaps at Shiro for trying to take more of the load as if Keith is too fragile to do a thing.

It’s overwhelming.

Keith and Shiro work together to try and juggle the new addition to their life. One thing that helps is the feeding schedule they start to establish, giving her milk every three hours or so until she adjusts to it. She starts to get fidgety when it’s time for a feeding, tongue sticking out like she’s searching for a bottle, and they’re usually able to give her one before the crying starts.

She’s a pretty calm baby, which is surprising to Keith since he thought babies were constant screaming machines. She quickly teaches him that she can be on occasion—she loathes baths with a passion, even brief ones, and it takes so long to calm her down afterwards.

Sometimes, when Shiro is changing or feeding her, Keith will lock himself in their empty guest room just so he can catch his breath.

(They still haven’t had the talk they need to have but Keith knows it’ll come up. It looms ahead of them, bringing forth anxiety that churns in Keith’s gut.

He hates that feeling.)

A couple of days later, Allura, Hunk, Lance, and Coran come over in the afternoon, right when they’ve put their daughter down for a nap. She’s been good with napping but is prone to waking up if either Keith or Shiro leave her alone for too long, as if she can sense when they’re no longer in the room.

At least the baby monitor will alert them to her cries.

“We actually found a solar powered battery charger the other day.” Hunk is saying. He slides a plate of casserole in front of Keith and he digs into it eagerly, nearly moaning at the taste. So good. “Which means you don’t have to worry about burning through batteries for the monitors. I’ll get it from Pidge and bring it by when I can; she was trying to see if she could make modifications to it.”

“Where is Pidge, anyway?” Keith asks with a frown. “I haven’t seen her since the day I came home, and she left before I could talk to her. Is she okay?”

Hunk shares a nervous look with Allura while Coran leans forward, eyebrows knit in concern when he asks, “Don’t you remember what happened?”

Keith shakes his head.

Shiro takes the seat next to him with his own plate of food and starts speaking in a quiet voice, “Sam called Matt and me out to check the outside perimeter with him. We don’t exactly know what happened, but one second everything was fine and the next there was just… screaming. None of us were paying attention and Matt got bit because of that mistake.”

“He didn’t…” Keith can’t even finish the question, reaching out to hold Shiro’s hand.

“No, no.” Shiro’s smile is weak. “It was on his calf so we cut it off to prevent the spread of the infection, and so far he’s been fine.”

“I’m certain that the reason Pidge is staying away is because she wants to help Matt adjust to life without a leg.” Allura adds. “Lance and I found some crutches for him on our most recent run and he’s learning how to navigate around with them. I imagine you’ll probably see her soon enough, when she feels like Matt will be okay without her.”

They chat about the community and the runs that they’ve been on recently as they eat. Keith sits there with nothing to offer, content over the fact that he still gets to do this with his friends.

He also wonders if Pidge is actually okay and decides that he’ll drop by her house, whenever he has the chance, to check up on her. Maybe he’ll bring the baby with him so Pidge can meet her, and also to give Shiro a break.

A soft noise comes through the monitor long after they’re done eating. Keith gets up before Shiro can when their baby gets louder, patting his shoulder.

“I’ll go check on her,” Keith tells him. “Maybe she’ll fall back asleep.”

“Can I come with you?” Allura asks, and Keith looks over at her, confused. Her cheeks tinge red and she sounds embarrassed when she says, “I know I saw her the other day but I’d like to see her again. Up close, I suppose. I’ve never really been around babies.”

“I’d like to see her as well,” Hunk chimes in. “Lance does too! He was complaining about how he wanted to see the baby but didn’t want to bug you two!”

“Hey!” Lance swats at Hunk’s arm. “Don’t rat me out!” He looks over at Keith and shrugs. “But it’s true.”

“You guys can come up,” Keith says after receiving a nod from Shiro. “Just be quiet, okay? I don’t want her to get overwhelmed with so many people in one room.”

“I bet she’ll love me!” Coran declares. “I’ll become her favorite uncle the moment our eyes lock!”

“This isn’t Pokémon.” Lance mutters.

Keith can already hear her fussing by the time they reach the bedroom, so he hurries inside and picks her up. Shiro has pulled back the bed covers for him and he smiles in thanks, sitting on the bed and arranging her position until she is lying down comfortably in his arms.

The others edge closer, practically vibrating with contained excitement. She stares at them unblinkingly, intensely, and Keith wonders what’s going on in her little head.

“She’s adorable,” Allura sighs. “You guys did a good job.”

“Thank you?” Keith says, confused. He really doesn’t know what she means by that and figures it’s something he’ll never understand. Might as well express gratitude in response to the compliment.

“We’re really becoming a family now, aren’t we?” Hunk remarks with a happy smile. His eyes are starting to shine, a sign that he’s close to crying. “I mean, I already considered you all my family but now it seems way more real.”

“I’m glad our baby is going to be the bridge between the designations of ‘friends’ and ‘family,’ I really am,” Shiro deadpans, looking down at their daughter. “You hear that, sweetie? You’re the reason why we’ve all become family! Good job!”

She drools in response.

Keith catches Shiro’s gaze and raises an eyebrow. Shiro blinks back at him with mock innocence and the only reason Keith knows that it’s fake is because he can see the quirk to his lips, amusement shining in his eyes.

That expression might kill him someday.

The baby makes a sound that he’s come to associate with hunger and Shiro moves over to one of their counters to prepare a bottle. He glances at the clock they have on top of a drawer, the time confirming that it’s about time for her to have one.

“Sorry, guys,” Keith says, looking at the others. “She’s getting hungry.”

“We don’t want to kick you guys out,” Shiro is saying as he returns to the bed, shaking the bottle in his hand. “But—”

“We’re kicking you guys out,” Keith cuts in with a shrug. He takes the bottle when it’s held out to him and gives it to the baby before she can burst into tears. What a life she lives. “Only out of the room,” he tacks on quickly. “It won’t take long for her to fall back asleep after having milk, so I’ll head to the living room when she does.”

“It’s best if we go back down anyways,” Hunk pipes up. “I brought some fruit and I don’t want it to go bad. Or worse, attract bugs.”

“Oh! Did you bring those sweet apples?” Allura asks him excitedly. “I love those!”

They start to filter out of the room and Keith focuses on his daughter, tilting the bottle up so she can drink more milk.

“All of you can go on ahead,” Lance says suddenly. “I’m gonna stay behind and keep Keith company.”

Keith looks up in surprise, catching Shiro’s raised brow when he stops at the doorway. There’s a hint of concern in his gaze when his eyes flick over to Lance and back.

“It’s just Lance,” Keith says with an eyeroll. “I’ll be fine.” He then asks pleadingly, “Save me some fruit?”

Shiro sighs and shakes his head, but the smile that Keith sees before he leaves tells him that he’ll do it.

Lance awkwardly lingers a few inches away from the door, kicking at the floor with his hands in his pockets. Keith lets out a sigh and scoots over to make room for him to sit, hushing the baby when she whines in protest (spilling some milk in the process, which he quickly wipes off with his sleeve—eugh, that’s gonna stink later).

“Just sit down,” Keith commands when he eyes her cautiously. “She’s not gonna bite.”

“How would I know that? I just met her!”

In spite of his complaint, Lance still sits down beside him and leans in close enough to peer down at her. It’s strangely hilarious to watch the two of them stare at each other unblinkingly, as if caught in their own staring contest, and he snorts when Lance mutters, “Okay, you win,” after blinking.

The baby relaxes even further in his hold, seemingly content with that.

The silence that falls is not at all unpleasant, but there is a certain energy in the air that leaves Keith waiting to hear the reason why Lance wanted to stay behind. Keith opens his mouth when nothing comes forth, only to be cut off by Lance.

“She’s cute,” he comments with a cheeky grin. “Cuter than you, Keith!”

“I actually agree with you for once,” Keith replies. His daughter suddenly flails one of her arms and Keith lets out a laugh when she accidentally smacks her hand against Lance’s face. “I don’t think she does, though.”

“Another Kogane hates me,” Lance bemoans, jokingly upset. “Not even being part Shirogane stops her from hating her tío!”

“Tío?”

“It’s Spanish for—”

“I know what it means, idiot. I’m just… surprised that you’re taking up the mantle so quickly.”

“Well, like Hunk said, we’re becoming more of a family now.” Lance shrugs, cheeks tinged pink. “I know I can be an annoying asshole sometimes, but I feel the same way. You’re like a brother to me, man.”

“Oh,” Keith says quietly. “Back at you.”

Lance smiles at him before continuing, “I used to have family friends that I would call aunt and uncle even if they weren’t related to me, because they were such a huge presence in my life, and I saw them all the time. I thought I could be the same for her.”

“You can be,” Keith tells him. “I want you to be.”

“Really? I didn’t expect you to agree so fast. I had a speech prepared and everything.”

Rolling his eyes, Keith leans back against the pillows and explains simply, “All of you are my family. I know you’ll care for her and love her as if she’s your own.” He tries his best to suppress his grin. “Though I do have one question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Why did you really stay behind?”

Lance’s eyes go wide and a nervous sounding laugh leaves his mouth. “Can’t I just spend some time with my favorite buddy?”

Keith raises his eyebrows in surprise. This is new. “Your ‘favorite buddy’ is Hunk.” He points out. “You obviously want to talk about something, so go ahead. It’s not like I can do much, I’m literally stuck in this bed because of my daughter.”

It doesn’t take long.

“I know we’re not as close but I trust you,” Lance starts, staring down at his lap. “And I trust that you’ll keep this a secret from everyone. I mean, you’re not like Hunk. I love the guy but he can be such a blabbermouth sometimes.”

“I’m well aware.”

Lance slumps in place. “I’ve been going out of my mind over this,” he says glumly. “It’s been getting harder and harder to deal with and I figured that you might have some advice since you managed to get together with Shiro.”

All Keith can think is: oh boy.

“Did you see how long it took for us to get together?” Keith asks incredulously.

This new side of Lance is shocking to him, even more so when Lance curls in on himself even further without a retort. He stares at him for a few seconds longer before sighing, casting his gaze to the ceiling and wondering why Lance decided to come to him for love advice.

Keith is still pretty new to it himself.

“Look,” Keith says, staring at him again. He continues when Lance lifts his head, “I was never good at giving advice but I will say this: don’t waste any time. You should confess to this person as soon as you can.”

“What if she doesn’t feel the same way?”

After sneaking a peek at his baby and seeing that she’s deeply asleep, he pulls the bottle out of her mouth and rises slowly with her. Keith walks over to the bassinet and places her in gently, tucking the blankets around her until she’s completely covered and brushing his fingers down her cheek.

“Do you remember when you first came to Lotor’s community? Lotor told me he killed you all.” Keith starts quietly, not looking at him. “I hated myself so much after he did—because I didn’t kill him when I had the chance, because I basically sentenced my friends to death, because I didn’t get the chance to tell Shiro how I felt about him.”

“What does that have to do with this?”

He faces him with narrowed eyes and speaks in a firm voice, “Don’t let those fears hold you back, Lance. You never know what could happen tomorrow, today, or even five minutes from now. I’m glad I got the chance with Shiro, especially after thinking I had lost it. Use the chance you have now. Maybe she likes you back, maybe she doesn’t, but at least you’ll know instead of thinking about all those lost what-ifs.”

“Wow,” Lance says after a while. “Never good at giving advice? I didn’t take you for a liar, Keith.”

Keith scowls. “I hate you.”

A knock on the door catches his attention and he smiles when he spies Shiro standing there, smile growing wider when he see the plate of fruit in his hand.

“You brought me fruit,” Keith says happily, and a tad bit smugly, walking over to take the plate from him. He picks up one of the apple slices and bites into it, delighting in the crunch it makes and the sweet juice that fills his mouth. “Are they all waiting for us?” he asks once he’s swallowed it down.

“Yup. I was sent to bring you back because Coran found a board game in our hallway closet.” Shiro says, and the three of them depart from the room together—Keith grabbing the baby monitor at the very last second. “Have you ever heard of Clue?”

Keith shakes his head, eating another apple slice.

“The murder mystery game, right? It’s pretty easy to understand once we start playing, but I’ll still show you how to play!” Lance says. He claps a hand onto Keith’s shoulder with a smile, gratitude in his voice when he whispers, “Thanks, Keith. You really helped me out.”

“Anytime,” Keith replies around his mouthful of apple.

They play the game well into the night, sharing pieces of fruit with each other and laughing over the ridiculous suggestions that are made. Keith finds it funny that he used to resent this kind of ‘normal’ when he first met these people and now here he is, enjoying it like the world isn’t a mess.

He actually doesn’t mind.

☆ ☆ ☆

As the days drag on by, the two of them still getting used to parenthood, things begin to grow tense between Keith and Shiro.

It starts off with a few short answers here and there, which could be blamed for the lack of sleep that comes with caring for a baby. Keith only thinks that something might actually be wrong when Shiro stops looking at him whenever they’re having a conversation.

There’s also a space between them that was never there before. It grows and grows until things are just utterly silent and the only time they talk is when they’re discussing their child. Keith’s mind races with possibilities until his stomach is twisting terribly.

The most prominent one is the idea that Shiro is getting ready to leave him.

A stupid thought, of course, but anxiety grips his heart tight and refuses to let go. He fears that there might be some truth in it, that Shiro is distancing himself so he can do exactly that, and Keith starts to do what he does best—pushing Shiro away and burying his feelings so it won’t hurt as much.

(He’s not sure Shiro even notices.)

Despite his best efforts to ignore it, the tension is still suffocating even when they’re not in the same room. Keith decides to get out of the house one day to escape it for a while, taking the baby with him when she wakes up as he’s getting dressed.

He changes her quickly and grabs a gray, hooded one-piece to put on her. It fits a bit loose but it’s fine enough to leave it be, slipping a pair of fuzzy socks onto her feet. She’s not hungry for milk (it is too early for her first feeding anyways), so Keith is able to strap her into the stroller and leave the house after preparing the diaper bag and writing out a note for Shiro, informing him of what he’s done.

With no real destination in mind, and not many places to go to in their community, Keith walks up and down the streets and makes sure to check on his baby from time to time. He does stop, eventually, but he doesn’t go back home just yet.

Keith ends up at the Holts.

“I apologize for not seeing you sooner,” Colleen says after she lets him into the house. Even though she looks weary, her smile is still warm. “We’ve been helping Matt adjust to his new situation.”

“How is he doing?” Keith asks curiously, sitting on the couch and rolling the stroller closer.

“Pretty well, actually! He’s been zipping around on the crutches that Allura and Lance brought in, and the rest of us mostly keep an eye on him in case the infection somehow makes a return. We also make sure that the wound stays clean, can’t risk a different infection happening.” Colleen frowns. “Though I am worried that he hasn’t been taking his painkillers, claiming that he’s okay without them. Is he hiding his pain?”

“Maybe it’s not as bad, or maybe he feels nothing at all.” Keith skims the hem of his shirt with one hand, aware of his slow healing scar. “I know it’s not the same, but sometimes I forget my scar is there because I feel no pain. Unless I move around a lot, I’m good.” He pauses and grimaces, adding, “Also when I sneeze or laugh, which really sucks.”

“I’ve heard about that from one of my friends,” Colleen replies with a soft laugh. “Does that mean you haven’t been taking your painkillers either?”

“I did for the first couple of days, after I came home, but I still felt discomfort in the general area. It also made me really tired and I didn’t want Shiro take care of the baby all on his own.”

Keith feels himself falter when his husband’s name leaves his lips, looking down at his daughter so he can avoid Colleen’s concerned gaze.

“Is Pidge in her room?” he inquires.

“She should be,” Colleen answers. “You go on ahead and talk to her; I’ll stay here and watch after the baby.”

Pidge doesn’t notice when he opens the door, lying on her bed with her gaze directed at the ceiling. She seems to be deep in thought, so he waits for the wrinkle between her brows to smooth out before knocking. She shoots up in bed with a surprised shout, and Keith’s barely-formed grin is quick to disappear when he meets her gaze.

She stares at him with wide eyes, red-rimmed like she’d been crying recently, and Keith can’t help but note how exhausted she looks. His gut twists at the sight, protectiveness rearing its head in him. He opens his mouth to ask how she is, but is cut off before he can get a word out of his mouth.

“Keith…” Pidge breathes out in a tone of disbelief. She rolls off her bed and rushes to him with her arms outstretched, which wrap around him tightly when he meets her in the middle.

Keith can’t help but wince as pain flares up at the embrace. “Ah, Pidge…”

But Pidge doesn’t loosen her hold, growing tenser by the second. Her hands twist in his shirt, to the point where Keith thinks it’ll tear, and the sound of a wet, hitched breath freezes him in place.

“Pidge…?” Keith asks cautiously. “What’s wrong?”

She lifts her head to stare up at him with anguished eyes, and Keith is surprised to see tears spilling down her cheeks.

“Everyone was so afraid that we’d lose you, you know?” She sniffles and chokes out, “Especially me.”

Keith wraps his arms around her, initiating the hug this time, and she falls into it without complaint; sobbing into his shoulder with so much grief and worry that Keith aches just listening to it. All he can do is hold her, hand rubbing up and down her back in an attempt to soothe her.

Eventually the tears die down, leaving behind the occasional hiccup and shaky breaths. Keith lets her go when she makes to pull away, and doesn’t say a word when she wipes at her eyes with her hands.

“I was afraid,” Pidge says quietly. “That I would lose two brothers that day.”

Oh.

He’s honestly stunned at the admission, unable to think (or breathe) for a moment. It’s much more different than hearing the majority of his friends agree to being a family, because Pidge is someone that he saw as family way before this.

Keith always felt that Pidge was like a little sister to him. He’s glad that she shares the sentiment.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Keith finally says, reaching out to ruffle her hair. “Matt won’t either. I may not know him well, but I have the feeling that he’d do anything to stay with his family, especially you.” He smiles at the frown she wears when he pulls away, tweaking her nose. “Like any big brother would.”

With wet eyes and ruddy cheeks, Pidge beams back at him.

They move over to the bed, sitting at the edge while they talk to each other. Pidge tells Keith about all the stuff that’s been going on with Matt and how she’s in the process of trying to make the house easier to navigate for him, and Keith talks about life with a baby, huffing when Pidge laughs at his complaints about the lack of sleep.

“No regrets, though,” Keith is quick to add. “I love her with all my heart.”

“It’s kinda obvious with the way you talk about her.” Pidge bounces her heel against the bed. “I still haven’t properly met her yet. Sorry about that.”

“Well, you can right now. She’s in the living room with your mom.”

Pidge looks excited and wary. An odd combination. “Do I have to hold her?” she asks. “The last time I met a baby I was forced to hold him for pictures, and then he spit up all over me.”

“Not if you don’t want to,” Keith informs her, and together they leave her room to go into the living room.

Colleen smiles at the them when they enter and nods at the stroller. “She’s awake. Looking for you, I think.”

“Probably,” Keith says. “Or maybe looking for the person who will give her milk,” he adds, looking at his watch. “It’s about time she has a bottle.”

First, he grabs the diaper bag from the stroller’s undercarriage and takes out a container with baby formula, holding that in one hand while he grabs a baby bottle full of water. Keith sets the container down so he can unscrew the top of the bottle to pour some of the formula into it, slipping it back into the bag while he shakes the bottle well enough to mix it properly.

She’s already wiggling around by the time he goes to undo the straps that keep her in the stroller, head turned towards the bottle. Keith tsks softly when she shoves a hand into her mouth and starts gumming on her fingers, sitting down on the couch after he removes her from the stroller.

“Hungry?” Keith asks, despite already knowing the answer. He takes the hand out of her mouth and replaces it with the bottle. She starts drinking it down immediately and her squirming ceases, until the only movement that comes from her is small kicks of her feet.

Pidge leans in closer and says, “She’s kinda cute.”

“She is, yeah,” Keith agrees. He thinks she’s the cutest baby to ever exist, but he might be biased since she’s his baby.

“Does she have a name yet?”

“We haven’t figured one out yet,” he answers with a shrug. “I said before that I wanted to wait because I was hoping to find one that actually fits her, but so far nothing comes to mind.”

“Katie the Second,” Pidge offers with a grin. “I think that’s a good name, don’t you?”

“It sounds pretty decent,” he tells her, laughing when she pouts. “Thanks for the suggestion, but I think I want to figure it out on my own. It’ll come to me soon enough.”

☆ ☆ ☆

Colleen offers to watch over the baby right as he’s getting ready to leave the Holt home after staying long enough for Sam and Matt to meet her (they adored her). He gazes at Colleen with some confusion, not understanding why she did.

“You two deserve a break,” she says. “I know how tough it is and I’m more than happy to help you out.”

“I don’t know…” Keith replies hesitantly. A large part of him wants to reject the offer, not wanting to leave his baby alone for too long, but the rest is encouraging him to take it. Just to be sure, he asks, “Are you okay with it?”

“More than.” Colleen wraps her arms around him and Keith feels his resolve falter as he hugs her back. “Learn to accept help, Keith. You don’t have to do this alone.”

“I’m not, though. I have Shiro with me.”

She pulls back and holds him by the shoulders, eyebrow raised. “Do you?” she asks. “Communication is important when the two of you are caring for a child. If you can’t talk about whatever it is that’s bothering you then it’s just going to make this harder. On you, on him, and on her.”

Although there’s no judgement in her voice, Keith feels a rush of shame and guilt at her words. He’d been ignoring the problem with the hope that it would simply disappear, and that’s not fair on Shiro (or their daughter, since she would have to grow up seeing these issues).

Keith stares into the stroller, where his baby is all wrapped up in blankets as she sleeps on peacefully, and sighs.

☆ ☆ ☆

“I’m home,” Keith calls out as he enters his house, heart sinking when he receives no reply.

His disappointment is short-lived, and he gets a response only seconds later: “I’m in the room,”

Shiro is sitting on their bed, reading a book that he found only months before. He looks up when Keith enters the room and frowns.

“Where’s the baby?” He asks.

“Colleen took her for the day so we could have some time for ourselves,” Keith explains and sits down on the edge of the bed, staring at Shiro. “She told me something that made me realize that we haven’t had our talk yet, and we’ve been having problems with each other. Maybe if we talk things out then we can… move on from this bump in the road.”

Shiro snorts, eyes back on his book. “Bump in the road. That’s a funny way of putting it.”

After closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, exasperated (not for the first time) at this attitude that Shiro has been displaying, Keith quietly says, “Please, Shiro. Let’s talk.”

The silence that follows Keith’s plea stretches on for too long, filling Keith with discomfort. He stares at Shiro while he waits for a response and resists the urge to fiddle with the stray threads that poke out from the bed covers. Shiro’s face is mostly neutral, the furrow in his brow the only tell that he heard Keith.

“You almost died, Keith.”

Keith startles at the sound of Shiro’s voice, watching as he sets his book aside to stare back at him with tired eyes. He looks like how Keith currently feels, but he knows there’s more to it. Has he been thinking about this the entire time? Was he waiting for Keith to take the first step or was he planning to keep it locked up inside until it tore the both of them apart?

Staring down at his lap, Keith doesn’t know what to offer besides, “I’m sorry,” hoping that it’s what Shiro wants. He’s not sure how to continue from there.

“I don’t think you know what you’re apologizing for, Keith.” Shiro leaves the bed and stands a few feet away from him, facing the wall. “You… you didn’t even tell me.”

“Tell you what?” Keith follows after him, reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder, hoping that the gesture will offer some comfort. Nothing else comes from Shiro, other than his body tensing beneath his touch, and Keith feels a spark of irritation. “Shiro, please. I’m trying here.”

“How can you keep pretending that everything is okay?” Shiro suddenly asks, whirling around and leaving Keith’s hand hovering in the air. “How can you go back to this ‘normal’ life we live without even thinking about what happened?”

“Shiro, wha—”

“How come you didn’t tell me?” Shiro’s voice contains a hint of desperation. “I had to find out while it was happening, Keith, and it was terrifying.” His eyes are wet as he stares back at Keith, an image that pierces his heart sharply. “Why?” Shiro continues. “Please…”

Keith swallows around the lump in his throat, the guilt so heavy in his chest that it nearly suffocates him. “I didn’t think it would come to that,” he admits. “It was only a backup plan. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d worry yourself into the ground.”

“Keith,” Shiro says quietly. “I’d rather know about the decisions you make than worry about how I might have to raise our daughter by myself if you died.” He lets out a laugh, sad and bitter. “Did you not trust me enough? Is that it?”

“No!” Keith shakes his head and steps closer to Shiro, trying to do his best to put his thoughts into words that will make sense to him, “It had nothing to do with you, Shiro. I was… thinking of the baby. I didn’t want there to be any chance that I could lose her.” He takes a deep breath and clenches his shaking hands. “I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if that happened and it’s selfish, I know it is, and it’s even more selfish that I kept it from you but I knew you wouldn’t like the idea. Especially if you knew how I cared so little for my own life.”

“You’re not allowed to think like that,” Shiro sounds (understandably) upset. “Not now, with our baby. She needs you. I need you.”

“I know,” Keith pauses to breathe, taking another step closer to Shiro before continuing. “I need both of you just as much, and after I came so close to dying I realized that I wanted to live more than anything.” They’re only a few inches apart now. Keith’s hands unfurl at his sides. “I’m sorry for hurting you, Shiro. I never meant to cause you any pain.”

“You almost broke our promise,” Shiro whispers.

“I know,” Keith blinks away his own tears, raising a shaky hand and resting the palm against Shiro’s cheek. “I’m sorry.”

Shiro takes a shuddering breath and leans into the touch with his eyes closed. Time drags on by as the two of them linger in this small moment of intimacy. When Shiro speaks his voice is hoarse and broken, telling Keith just how agonizing it must have been for him.

“I thought I was going to lose you.”

Something inside Keith breaks and he brings his other hand up so he can thumb away the slow leaking tears. He continues to do this even when the tears come to a stop, moving on to stroking his cheekbones while Shiro gently grips his wrists.

“I’m right here, Takashi,” Keith says softly, lowering Shiro’s face to plant a kiss on his forehead. “And I don’t plan on going anywhere for a very long time. Not without you, and not without our daughter.”

“You promise?” Shiro asks in a small voice, so vulnerable.

“I promise,” Keith murmurs, and seals it with a kiss.

They end up with their foreheads pressed together, Keith’s arms around Shiro’s neck and Shiro’s hands gripping his hips. He knows that they aren’t okay right now, but he believes that they’ll be on the path to an even better relationship soon enough.

It will just take some time.

“You know,” Keith comments, breaking the silence. “I heard you, both of you, while I was out.”

“I didn’t leave your side.”

Hiding his smile, Keith leans into Shiro’s neck and sniffs dramatically. “I can tell,” he replies and pulls away, breaking into laughter when he catches sight of Shiro’s offended look.

“If you think I smell so bad then I’ll just go,” Shiro says with an indignant huff. “Leave my house and my husband forever since he doesn’t seem to appreciate my musk.”

“Calm down, calm down,” Keith says with a laugh, tugging on Shiro’s arm when he turns toward the door. “I’m joking, Shiro. You smell fine. I’m pretty sure I’m the smelly one since all I’ve done is wipe myself down with a wet towel.”

“We could shower together,” Shiro suggests in a questioning tone.

Keith steps away from him and pushes his sweats down in response, kicking them away and doing the same with his boy shorts. “Sounds like a plan,” he says, gaze locked with Shiro’s as he slowly starts to pull off his shirt. The movement tugs at his incision, but it doesn’t tear the stitches so he ignores the small flicker of pain.

“You’re so beautiful,” Shiro says, and the look of awe on his face makes Keith’s cheeks warm.

After Shiro removes his own clothing, Keith takes his hand and leads them into their bathroom. They decide to indulge a bit by turning the knob to warm and while Shiro is readying some towels for them, Keith opens the shower door and steps inside.

He groans at the feel of water hitting his skin, already feeling cleaner than before. Keith closes his eyes and tilts his head up towards the spray, lips curving up when he hears Shiro enter and move in closer from behind.

A hand grips his hip, thumb rubbing circles over it, and Keith releases a content sigh as he leans back against Shiro’s chest.

“You okay?” Shiro asks.

“Yeah,” Keith answers and turns around, peering up at him with a smile. He cups Shiro’s face and brings it down for a kiss, whispering against his lips, “I’m good.”

☆ ☆ ☆

They stay in bed for a good couple of hours after their shower, exchanging kisses and holding each other—intimacy that makes him feel warm from the inside and out. Shiro can’t seem to stop touching him, a faint smile resting on his face whenever he does.

He only leaves the bed when someone knocks on their door, heading to the living room to open it and smiling when Colleen stands there with the baby stroller in front of her.

She doesn’t even let Keith thank her, waving a hand and saying as she is leaving, “No need to thank me! Just know that you can ask me to babysit anytime! I’ll be happy to do it!”

Guiding the stroller into the house, Keith peeks inside it and sees that his daughter is awake, chewing on her blanket. After checking her diaper to make sure she doesn’t need to be changed, he decides to leave her there for a bit. He takes the diaper bag out of the undercarriage and sets it on the kitchen counter, pulling the used bottles out to wash them thoroughly.

Once he’s done with that he goes back to the stroller and unstraps her from it, smiling when she yawns and rubs at her face.

“Tired?” he asks, holding her close as he slowly walks to his room. “It’s about time for you to take a nap.” Keith starts to rub her back with one hand and she puts her head down on his shoulder, releasing a sigh as she relaxes.

He’s getting better at this.

Shiro’s not in the room when he gets there, but the bathroom door is shut so he guesses that he’s in there. Keith doesn’t bother him, he can put their daughter to sleep on his own.

She starts fussing the moment he tries to place her in the bassinet, already on the verge of tears. Keith is quick to hush her and holds her in his arms again, head in the crook of his elbow this time, but the damage has already been done. Her face starts to scrunch up, upset noises leaving her throat, and Keith does the first thing that comes to mind.

Keith starts humming.

He faintly recalls his father humming the tune from time to time when he was young, one that has been plaguing his head for some time. He walks around the room while rocking her in his arms, amused by the fascinated expression she wears as she gazes up at him.

She drifts off a few minutes later, mouth suckling on air like she has a bottle in her mouth. Keith huffs out a laugh and carefully places her in the bassinet, brushing back her wispy hair as he continues to hum.

“What song is that? I don’t recognize it.”

Jumping, Keith’s rhythm falters when he looks up and notices Shiro standing in the bathroom doorway. He hadn’t even realized that he came out.

“Can’t really remember the name,” Keith tells him.

“Do you know the lyrics at least?”

“They’re kinda sad.”

Arms wrap around him and a kiss is pressed to his shoulder. “I wanna hear you sing,” Shiro requests.

Keith doesn’t even respond, thinking about the lyrics. His mind is snagged on one of the words and it rings out in his head, repeating itself over and over again. When he opens his mouth it’s not a song that comes out, the same word leaving his lips in a whisper instead, “Clementine.”

“Hmm?”

“Clementine,” Keith repeats, and already he can feel the way his heart skips for it. The name settles down in his chest, in the spot where she resides, and soon his heartbeat syncs up with the change—Shiro, Clementine, Shiro, Clementine, Shiro, Clementine.

He stares down at their daughter and smiles. “Her name is Clementine.”

“Clementine,” Shiro repeats in a quiet voice. He reaches past Keith and glides a human finger down her cheek. “I like it.”

Clementine sighs in her sleep, turning her head and latching onto Shiro’s finger. Her eyes flutter open, unfocused and sleepy, and she makes the smallest noise. It’s not an upset or hungry one, and she seems content with both of her fathers’ focus on her.

“Hi, Clementine,” Keith whispers with wonder. She wiggles in response. “Yeah, that’s you.” He taps her nose and she makes another adorable sound. “You’re our Clementine.”

☆

☆

☆

“Are you sure you can do this by yourself? I can beg Colleen to watch over Clementine so I can go with you.”

“I know you can,” Keith says with a smile. He grabs the pistol off the kitchen table and checks the magazine, also checking the safety, before shoving it into the holster strapped to his thigh. There are two other weapons on the table and he reaches for the sword without hesitation, strap going over his head and resting across his chest, sword at his back. The knife is the last thing he grabs, slid into the sheath that rests on his lower back.

A small, canvas messenger bag bounces against his hip when he turns, reaching out to poke Shiro’s chest while he says, “But I’m already going to be gone for a while so you need to be there for her, especially right now.”

Shiro doesn’t look happy with the answer but they both know it’s true.

Their daughter was unlucky enough to catch a flu that’s been going around, leading to a day full of sobbing on her end because they had no children’s medicine to help deal with it.

He and Shiro had quietly talked the situation over after Clementine managed to settle down in the night. It was decided that Keith would go out first thing in the morning to try and find some medicine for her, since he’d be fast enough to make it back before the day ends.

A cry comes from the living room and Keith quickly heads over, looking into the playpen that they set up there.

Clementine peers up at him with miserable, wet eyes. She sniffles and holds her arms up, indicating that she wants to be carried, and Shiro steps in to take her.

She’s dressed in a brown one-piece with bears all over it (the hood also has two tiny bear ears as well), unzipped halfway down her chest since she grew uncomfortable with it after he put it on. She grows restless as Shiro holds her, and the flush to her cheeks doesn’t put Keith at ease.

Tears spill from her eyes when she looks over at Keith, leaning towards him while making grabby hands. She blubbers out a stream of, “Da, da, da, da, da,” and Keith feels his heart ache.

“I know, baby, I know,” Keith says softly, placing the back of his hand on her forehead. He grimaces at the heat that he feels and smoothes her hair back, wiping her tears away with his other hand. “Daddy is gonna go get medicine, okay? It’ll make you feel better.”

Still sniffling, Clementine rests her head on Shiro’s shoulder as if tired. Keith rubs her back and kisses her forehead, lingering for several seconds before pulling away.

Shiro walks with him to the front door, still holding their daughter in his arms. He’s staring at Keith worriedly and the emotion leaks into his voice when he whispers, “Be careful.”

Keith kisses him and says, “I will.”

He takes the motorcycle out, wanting to get into town as fast as possible and leave just as quickly. It’s a red and black one, found and brought in by Shiro. Keith fixed it up himself before anyone else could get their hands on it, and now he uses it whenever he has to make quick runs, weaving between infected that shuffle across the streets.

This time he needs to be extra careful since Lance said that there’s been more infected trickling into that same town. Keith doesn’t want to alert them all to one place by driving his motorcycle in, so he parks it between some trees that are on the path to town and covers it up with enough bushes to keep it hidden.

The walk into town is actually pretty quiet and he only runs into a few infected here and there, which he quickly dispatches with a swing of his sword. Keith could have used his knife, sure, but he wants to get even better at using the weapon—practice makes perfect, after all.

It’s also really fun to use.

Keith goes into the stores first, killing off any infected that are stuck in there before searching through all the shelves. Frustration prevails him when he continuously comes up with nothing, only empty boxes of what he needs. He does eventually find two small water bottles, hidden in an emptied out cabinet and wrapped up in a plain black t-shirt, and he stuffs it into his bag with the thought of Clementine drinking it after her medicine.

Slightly despondent, Keith leans against one of the store buildings and tries to think. Looking through the nearby houses would be pointless since they all searched through them a while back, but maybe he could double-check—just in case.

Then he remembers that there is one place he hasn’t checked.

It’s a mall that stands tall in the center of the town, with clothing stores and restaurants scattered on the outskirts of it. The only problem is that he doesn’t know how many infected are in there since no one has attempted to get in; even the ones in the Marmora community don’t dare risk their own to seek that knowledge, and have cautioned them against going in.

They all listened, trusting their warnings of danger and even hearing the hisses and groans of the undead when they searched through the stores on the outside.

But Keith is desperate right now.

He enters through one of the clothing stores and slowly navigates his way through the store, picking off any infected that block his path by slicing their heads off with his sword and jamming the point into their skulls.

A gate closes this store off from the rest of the mall and it’s lifted up high enough to allow someone to crawl beneath it. He peers out the display window right next to it to make sure it’s clear on the outside and drops to the floor, inching his way beneath the gate and getting up once he’s inside the mall.

Tightening his grip on his sword, Keith takes a deep breath and ventures in deeper.

Some of the infected that he encounters are dragging themselves across the floor, missing one or both legs. Bullets are scattered across the floor, and when he spies three army vans blocking the front entrance from the outside he figures that they probably came in early and tried to clear out the problem, not knowing how to actually do it.

“Idiots,” Keith mutters, taking note of which side of the mall the vehicles are parked at. There might still be weapons there and that’s always something of use for the community.

The different sections of the building either have flickering lights, dim ones, or natural light pouring in from the glass ceilings. Some infected are attracted to the flickering sections, bumbling around in circles. He picks them off as he walks through, stopping at a snack kiosk when all the bodies are on the floor to clean off his sword.

He doesn’t want a buildup of blood and brain matter on his blade; it makes it harder to kill other infected because it’ll get stuck on their bodies.

(It’s something he had to learn the hard way.)

Walking through a broken-down store to get past a block in his path, a few different kiosks that were placed in a horizontal line, Keith finally finds what he’s looking for when he exits.

Tucked away in a corner, next to a shoe store, is a pharmacy.

Keith feels his entire being light up at the sight of it, victorious at finally finding something that might have what he needs, only to wilt a moment later when he notices the electronic store across it.

Static is playing on the TV monitors inside, and it’s loud enough to be heard throughout this entire section of the mall. A group of infected have been drawn to it, too many to kill off, and Keith wonders how the hell he’s going to get to the pharmacy without being spotted.

“Don’t be a coward,” Keith whispers to himself, crouched down behind a jewelry display case. “You have to risk it for her.”

He takes a deep breath and slowly makes his way over to the shop, keeping an eye on the infected the entire time. They pay him no mind and he makes it there without any trouble, silently breathing out in relief.

The pharmacy doors are covered up by a security gate but there’s plenty of space between them. Not enough for him to slip through and try to open the doors, though, since the diamond shaped holes in the gate are much too small for him to try.

He actually doesn’t have to worry about figuring out a way to get inside.

One of the display windows is broken and he carefully slips through it, going slow so he won’t disturb any of the extra glass. Keith makes it inside without making any noise, searching through all the shelves for children’s medicine after finding the pharmacy empty of infected.

“Yes!” Keith whispers excitedly when he finds a few boxes, doing a small fist pump as he props his sword against the wall to read the drug facts.

The dim lighting of the pharmacy makes it harder for him to see the words, so he has to squint to try and make sense of it. So focused on this, he doesn’t notice that he has company until he hears a growl right in his ear.

Keith barely has time to jump away from the lone infected’s teeth, cursing loudly when he knocks his sword over. Not wanting to risk himself by diving to the floor for it, Keith pulls out his knife and and grips it tightly, waiting for it to stumble closer before lunging forward and sinking the blade into its skull.

They both fall to the floor, causing bottles of pills to scatter all over the place. He tugs the knife out, wipes it off on the body’s sweater, slides it back into its sheath, and rushes to gather up the medicine. Keith shoves them into his bag and takes a few seconds to make sure that it’s covered up by the shirt, snatching up his sword and hurrying to the window.

Another infected snarls in his face and he suppresses his shout as he kicks it away. Horror fills his body when he sees that half of the group is standing before him, reaching through the glass, and the other half is shuffling their way over to join them.

He jumps to the side when a few rotting hands swipe at him and slips on a flat piece of glass, falling through the side of the window display and grunting when he lands on the floor harshly.

Picking himself up, Keith can feel his stomach sinking when he realizes the situation he’s in.

Too many infected block both of his exits, and he thinks that he sees more trickling in from other stores, drawn to the noise that’s being made as they rattle the bars of the security gate. Gnarled fingers reach through the holes and try to grab at him, rotting jaws snapping and wet groans filling the air. With how trapped he currently is, Keith doesn’t see a way out of this.

He’s going to die here.

The hold he has on his sword goes slack as he sinks to the floor, burying his face in his knees. Giving up is never his forte but Keith can already feel the dread settling in his stomach, acceptance starting to flow in.

His head is still racing with panic, making it hard to think, so Keith tips his head back and tries not to focus on the sounds of the infected. Their inhuman sounds slowly fade away, white noise to him as he stares at their disgusting faces.

This is it, Keith thinks. This is really it for me.

Only one thing left to do.

Keith grabs the pistol with his free hand and points it at his head.

Shiro’s worried eyes come to mind, his happy smile, and his loving kisses. Clementine’s sad eyes appear only a second after, her delighted giggles, and her sloppy attempts at kisses when she’s imitating Shiro. He lowers the gun after this all flashes in his mind, feeling calm enough to finally think clearly.

“We won’t ever leave each other, okay?”

“Okay.”

Shoving the gun back into its holster, Keith rises up slowly and grips his sword tightly. He stares at the infected as they start get frenzied, pushing at the gate with hunger in their wild eyes.

He’s not going to die here.

He’s not going to die, period.

☆ ☆ ☆

The gates open up without him having to say a thing, probably alerted by the engine of his motorcycle. Keith gets off to walk it in, ignoring the obvious staring that comes from both Lance and Coran.

“What happened to you?”

“Killed a bunch of infected,” he states, continuing down the street without glancing back. “Have a nice day.”

There will be questions and concerns later on, people dropping by his doorstep once word gets around that he came in looking like someone straight out of an old horror movie, but he doesn’t give a damn right now. He has more important matters to attend to: getting the medicine to his daughter and seeing Shiro.

Leaving the motorcycle in his driveway, Keith steps into this house and breathes in the comforting scent of home. The sound of footsteps occur the moment he shuts the door, which come to a stop when they reach him, followed by a surprised exclamation.

“Keith!?”

“Honey, I’m home.” Keith says tiredly, one hand against the wall as he unzips his boots and toes them off. He pushes himself off so he won’t dirty up their home, offering a weak smile in response to Shiro’s alarmed expression.

“Is that your blood?”

“No,” he answers shortly, pulling the messenger bag off his shoulder, then the sword, and shrugging off his jacket. Keith lets the last two fall to the floor before digging through the bag.

“Are you okay? Did you get bit?” A hand grabs his arm. “Come on, Keith. Talk to me.”

Keith doesn’t respond, focus single-minded as he carefully unwraps the boxes of medicine and bottles of water he brought with him. Happy to see them in good condition, he shoves the shirt bundle into Shiro’s hands.

“Give her the medicine,” he orders, taking off the rest of his clothes and leaving it in a pile beside his boots. They’re all going to need a harsh scrubbing later. “I’d do it myself, but I don’t want to get near her when I have blood all over me.”

Shiro arches a brow.

“I’m fine, Shiro. No bites and no scratches.” Keith walks past him and heads into the bathroom. “I need to shower, okay? I’ll be out in a few.”

“Maybe longer,” Shiro calls out before he shuts the door. “You stink, Kogane.”

“Shirogane!” Keith corrects. “We’re married, remember?”

Standing beneath the warm spray, Keith watches the blood wash off of him and go down the drain. The reddish-brown water turns pink, then the pink turns clear. That’s when Keith grabs the small towel that hangs off the top rail, scrubbing at his skin with it. He combs fingers through his hair afterwards, making sure that nothing is hidden between strands of hair before washing it with shampoo, then conditioner.

He shuts off the water not too long after that, checking over himself for any remnants of soap suds and then stepping out.

A pile of clothes rest on top of the toilet lid, a towel accompanying it. Keith picks up the towel first and dries himself off, patting his hair with it so he won’t tangle it up like he did last time. Shiro made fun of him for it and only relented when Keith playfully ignored him.

Finally dressed in his own sweats, his own shirt, and one of Shiro’s pullover hoodies, Keith exits the bathroom and quietly makes his way to the living room.

Shiro is tying up a bag by the front door, yellow rubber gloves on his hands. He lifts his head when Keith arrives, like he can sense him, and smiles at him as he yanks the gloves off and leaves them on the bag.

“Hey,” Shiro says.

“Hi,” Keith replies.

He stands still as Shiro strides over to him, cups his face, and kisses him deeply. His hands drop to Shiro’s waist to pull him closer, closing his eyes and humming into it. Shiro presses his forehead to Keith’s when they part and they just breathe together; remaining suspended in this moment, uncaring of how much time passes.

“You wanna talk about it?” Shiro asks quietly, breaking the silence.

“Not really,” Keith admits. “Maybe later.” He wraps his arms around Shiro, tucking his face into his neck. “I’d rather take a nap with you right now.”

Shiro hums. “Sounds like a plan.”

☆ ☆ ☆

Later in the night, when they’re both well-rested, Keith sits on the bed with Shiro and talks about what happened. He rests his head on Shiro’s shoulder and plays with his fingers while he speaks, welcoming the hug that he’s brought into when he’s done.

They stay pressed up against each other until soft sounds come from the crib that’s pushed up against the wall, tiny hands gripping the bars of it. Keith sits up a bit and waves at their daughter when he sees that she’s peeking through, laughing at the smile he gets in return—two tiny bottom teeth shown off with the action.

“You feeling better now?” Keith asks, letting go of Shiro’s hand to walk over and get her. She grabs ahold of his hair the moment he lifts her up and he tries not to flinch. “I guess you are.”

“It might be time for some more medicine,” Shiro says thoughtfully. “We should give her something to eat first. I’ll go mash up some apples.”

Clementine eats it all happily and takes the medicine without complaint, Keith even has to hold her away when she leans forward as if asking for more. She stays on the bed with them, lying down in-between them and tries to grab at the hand he’s holding above her.

He almost didn’t make it back to her or Shiro.

“I don’t think any of my fear has left me.” Keith says in a whisper. “But it’s not for me anymore, no. It’s all for her. What will happen to her if we…” He can’t even finish the thought.

A hand encompasses his thigh and gives it a squeeze. Keith looks up, meeting Shiro’s gaze and feeling a bit reassured by the smile he sees on his face.

“We’ll get through this,” Shiro says.

We’ll survive. Keith hears.

Clementine finally curls her hand around his fingers and brings them to her mouth to bite. She does so without a care in the world, covering the digits in drool. Keith fixes her messy bed head, tapping her nose just so he can see it scrunch up.

He hopes she’ll never have to learn how life really is outside their walls.

“We will,” Keith agrees, and some of that fear melts away.

We’ll keep going for her and for each other.

It doesn’t take long for Clementine to fall back asleep, the flu making her more tired than usual. Her forehead is still warm but at least it’s not as much as before, and her breathing sounds clearer so Keith takes that as another sign that the medicine is working. He covers her with their blanket and brushes his fingers down her cheek.

“I’ve always wanted a family,” Keith confesses. It was a desire that dwelled in the recesses of his mind, wanting to start one of his own after spending so much of his life alone—being adopted did not extinguish it.

He never talked about it since he didn’t want to be seen as less.

That no longer matters now.

“Me too.” Shiro replies in a quiet voice. “Never thought I’d have the chance, considering…” He lifts up his bionic hand and gives it a shake, gesturing to his face afterwards. “But then you came along and gave me everything I wanted, and more. You made this life worth living by giving me a family.”

“I’m glad I found you,” Keith says, looking over at Shiro with a soft smile. “I’m glad you’re still here. I’m glad you’re a part of this family.”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” Shiro says. He leans down to kiss Clementine’s forehead and then leans over to kiss Keith.

Love swells up within him, warm and everlasting, and Keith doesn’t have to cling to the feeling like he normally would. They can live in this community for the rest of their lives and keep their daughter safe from the dangers of this world, and he has the family he has always craved.

Keith kisses Shiro and tastes their forever.

#sheith #;writes #honestly? it's better formatted if you read on AO3. #hope you all like it :)!

[pions]

This turned into more of a "tips I've learned that I'm sharing" list, because a lot of what makes me happy about myself is constantly learning new things and applying them to my life. So here are some positive things about me with commentary. Requested by @probablypartalien

I've been stressing over who to tag because I don't want to make anyone feel weird, but if you're a follower of mine and you want to do this when please do, and tag me in it. :)

Anyway, here's the content --------------

1. I'm super happy about how much my communication skills have grown in the last few years. I was a pretty stunted kid as far as "talking normally to others" went, and I had a lot of anxiety about saying weird things that would get me teased, so I often wouldn't know what to say at all. I'm still pretty awkward but I don't seem as anxious about it anymore so I think it helps. one-on-one's have been a lot better ever since building my arsenal of "script" phrases too. I can make appointments, and order food without having to worry so much because i better know what to expect now. So that's cool

2. I saw an disordered eating post today and that reminds me that I'm way better about my eating habits than I used to be. For almost all of my childhood I was surrounded by adults who did name brand diets, and encouraged weird eating to trick the body into losing weight. At no point was there a balanced diet and exercise plan, and when I wanted to lose weight as a kid my mom told me to stop eating carbs. (I was 13! And I did and got super small but it's also caused me many body battles and fluctuations and dizzy spells and overall it's bad kids don't diet like that)

But anyway, ever since becoming an adult I've had a lot of success with not starving myself, and applying other good tips for keeping my body machine running smoothly. There's still a lot to unpack, but it's definitely better :) many thanks to that nutritionist I saw a few times lol. I'll share a few of the takeaways

- only put on your plate what you're going to eat

- put enough on your plate, don't go back for seconds. feel free to add a cookie or snack or anything you want to eat that makes you happy, just make sure to only take what you can eat

- Your diet shouldn't feel restricting or make you feel like you're missing out! It's all about moderation of food intake

- Don't eat in front of distractions. Find a table and make it an event of its own. That way you'll better focus on the way your body feels when you get full. You don't have to eat once you're full, but it takes about 10 minutes before you can even tell that you are

- your body will adjust itself based on food intake, and it knows how to best regulate itself so don't worry if your food plan doesn't make you look like someone else on the same plan, because your body is always doing what's best for itself, and trust that if your diet is healthy that your body is doing its best too, even if your not seeing "results"

3.) learning to throw away my pedestal for the raw intelligence mentality was one of the best things I've ever done. Probably most of us here can relate to being one of the smart kids, and I specifically was one of those kids singled out at an early age and placed in a 'gifted program' (and jeez did that do nothing for me but isolate me socially, and set an impossibly high standard was what was clearly my "God-Given genius") I've seen the same pattern from every single gifted kid I know. They have a hard time working for things because if they're not already good at it then they must've been faking this 'gift' the whole time

Honestly I'm here for saying FUCK intelligence/genius/IQ culture altogether. The thing that keeps me going is knowing that just because you're bad at something, and ESPECIALLY if you're slow to pick things up, doesn't have any say on your worth as an academic. The human brain is so so powerful, and it's better and faster when it's trained to know how to do the thing! Even problem solving is a SKILL! All skills take practice, even if it's quick mental math, even if it's pattern recognition, even if it's reading-comprehension. We need to stop writing ourselves off as 'less than' just because someone is already better at it, or they picked up on it easier. We're all on different paths and levels and it's okay to know just to do you on your own time. You're capable, and I know I am.

Definitely happy that I've taken that one to heart. It helps all the time

4) Speaking of cultivating skills, I have a few I'm pretty damn proud of.

One: I'm really really good at problem solving. I spend so much of my waking time thinking about problems, and I'm told by a lot of my friends that I come up with efficient and creative solutions, and I really value that.

Two: You bet your ass I'm the best researcher around. I know so so many things specific to my interests. If you ever want to know or need help with computer programming, astronomy, or physics I'm pretty much your guy. I love to know things deeply so that I can re-explain them in a simple way. It's one of my favorite things to do, chewing up impossibly large topics

Three: this is a good one: I'm way better at asking questions now. Might sound weird, but I used to be really bad at asking questions because I had a hard time understanding why they didn't immediately have my answer. I considering myself a dummy level of meticulous, so if I'm asking a question you best bet that I've crafted it to sound like it makes the most sense in my head, but what would you know? Other people aren't me, and so I would repeat the same wording over and over and they would drive me crazy with the wrong responses. A good step is to let the person answering the question know what you already have in mind. It keeps them from repeating concepts your already have, and instead of them guessing whats wrong, they can start nit-picking or confirming your thoughts. It was so hard for me to understand that others are not in my head when I'm asking these things, but keep in mind that they're often on another planet and it requires some grounding before you can make progress. Saves so much time and frustration if the questioning process is dynamic

5. I'm the autistic nb your parents warned you about, and I think that's pretty sexy of me. I shan't explain

#tag game #probablypartalien #nobody has interacted with this post yet and now I'm embarrassed

[princegastronome]

The Pseudoscience of Summerhill Pyramid Winery

A few days ago, I wrote and posted a review of Summerhill Pyramid Winery in Southern Kelowna.  They posted a rebuttal, so I am compiling the exchange here.

First, to talking points of the actual review of Summerhill Pyramid and their restaurant, Sunset Bistro.

The man behind Summerhill, Stephen Cipe—considering himself a spiritual visionary at "Canada's most visited winery”—attributes the winery’s success to the unique process of utilizing the sacred geometry of their signature pyramid, designed as a perfect scaled replica of the larger one in Giza, to instill their wine with the same positive essense naturally occurring in all life forms.  Lacking any ferrous components and placed to face True North, this platonic solid rests on a region devoid of interference energy and is placed on dirt compacted to 100%.  This results in the pyramid acting as an interface between positive and negative space-time, a bridge between matter and anti-matter, and becoming the gate through which two realities meet and interact.  This is related to Einstein’s theory of relativity, specifically his predictions on the existence tachyons (faster-than-light particles).  Time and space are distorted within the pyramid and would most likely explain how the builders of the great pyramids in Egypt were able to employ negative space-time to levitate huge stones and build the pyramids in the first place.  And somehow this also make wine taste better.

This is an example of data mining pseudoscientific sources and combining them with numerology and astrology along with long debunked theories that serious science left behind a very long time ago in hopes of selling overpriced alcoholic beverages already fighting dubious claims about their benefits.  Here’s the uncomplicated truth about humans, we evolved as pattern recognition machines, finding answers in chaos.  Our desperation to explain everything when we knew almost nothing gave rise to the mythologies of antiquity.  Summerhill attempts to weave confirmation bias, ignorance, and good old-fashioned quackery into a soup of utter nonsense to justify their business.  

You don’t even have to search long to find verified evidence debunking every single point made on Summerhill’s website.  The data they “cite” isn’t even accurate—they list dimensions of the Giza pyramid to justify numerology, but then list incorrect numbers.  There’s no doubt the pyramids at Egypt, and other locations are amazing historical monuments.  And the designers were intelligent in constructing them.  But they didn’t employ magic—they used their brains to solve problems.  They are tombs to narcissistic despots, and anything more than that is just a plot point in Stargate.

Summerhill is bonkers, and not the adorable crazy like Perry in The Fisher King.  I’m talking homeopathy, dowsing, phrenology, Pythagoras bonkers.

I’m serious; Pythagoras was crazy, flat out nuts.  He was afraid of beans, hated the square root of two, and had a guy killed over a disagreement about a triangle.  So best avoid that lest you start believing in sacred geometries, ley-lines, or astrology, basically everything in the Rifts role-playing game.

As for Sunset Bistro...

I admire restaurants that pull ingredients from their neighborhoods, and Sunset Bistro claims theirs are sourced from their own biodynamic gardens and wildlife preserves, another concept worthy of…wait, what?  

What was that?  

“Biodynamic”?  

I must admit not hearing that one before.  I had better do some—DARN IT!  It’s more pseudoscience! Using planetary locations and lunar cycles to determine sowing cycles?  It quite literally uses magic.  

I’m trying my best to tolerate organic farming despite the overwhelming evidence pointing to its dangerous side-effects including nutrient leaching, soil conservation, and the massive increase in land use required to produce food over its safe GMO alternatives, substitutions credited for saving hundreds of millions of lives in regions cursed with overpopulation and untillable land.  But no, you’re right, don’t trust Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution; instead, embrace geomancy.  I can accomplish the same effect with a traditional organic farm and a deck of Magic: The Gathering cards.  

Seriously, folks, you have to read up on the field preparations for this lunacy...hmm…lunacy…madness brought on by the moon.  And before you start with the defense of biodynamics, remember they were invented by someone claiming to be a clairvoyant that taught that a disease may be part of a patient's "karma" and that interfering with said illness would be unwise because treating only the physical body would require the patient to compensate in a future life.    

And you must grind quartz crystal that’s buried in a cow horn through the summer to aid in plant growth.  

If I ever walk into the restaurant again, I’ll bellow at the top of my lungs, “When single shines the triple sun.  What was sundered and undone shall be whole.  The two made one by Gelfling hand or else by none!” before leaving.  If you got the Rifts joke, that one should be easy.  

They made good food.  I just wished they had sacrificed a goat to Demeter using the old ways in order to secure a higher quality crop.  Probably would have made the difference.

This morning, Summerhill’s founder replied.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Science is good and I applaud you for caring about truth. Narrative is also good. Science can tell us “how”, but can never answer the question “why”. There will always be a central mystery in life that we answer with story. Sacred geometry is a good story. It is a story about beauty, harmony and perfection in nature. We do not sermonize, and we never claim that our pyramid ‘makes wine taste better,’ only that it acts as a clarifier. There is a wonderful feeling in the pyramid chamber, which we invite all of our guests to experience. We honour our wine by cellaring it there. Summerhill has been awarded the trophy for Best Sparkling Wine at the IWSC in London, England, and another for Canadian Producer of the Year. We have also just been awarded the highest scoring wine at France’s 2017 Chardonnay du Monde competition with 750 entries from 38 countries. It is no accident that our wines are so often at the top of the podium. Is it the organic viticulture and winemaking? The time in the pyramid? Our team’s experience and expertise? In the end, the reason is the love that we put into everything that we do. I am sorry to read that you believe our love and care for the earth and our nurturing of the human spirit, imagination, and feeling of connectedness is ‘spiritually bankrupt’, as you term it. I invite you and welcome you with open arms to be with me at our model of man and nature. Come and walk around our biodynamic vineyard to experience the biodiversity and feel the living soil. Come in the pyramid with me and have a real experience. The precision chamber is a uniquely conducive place for meditation. We’ll drink good wine together and tell good stories. With love and gratitude, Stephen Cipes Founder/Proprietor, Summerhill Pyramid

And I responded.

Science is not just “good”, it’s mandatory to understanding the world. It’s the first step in personal enlightenment, and we are obligated not to ignore it.  It’s how we protect ourselves from false hope and charlatans.  The flaw in your reasoning is directly connected to your statement that “Science can tell us “how,” but can never answer the question “why”.”

Your statement is the impasse pseudoscientific believers subscribe to denounce how actual science works.  Yes, science can supply the “how” within a range of error to be acceptable by peer-reviewed sources.  That’s how it works.  It can also supply us with reliably predictable estimations to “when,” “who,” “where,” and positively “why,” and a “why” to many of the important questions.  Some remain, and always will.  The issue I have is that you’re supplying answers you could not possibly possess, and then manipulate scientific terms you don’t fully understand to make your page sound more scientific when it is nothing of the sort.  This is confirmation bias.  It is an insult to the scientific process to use those terms in your selling points.  

Yes, there are questions science cannot yet answer.  That’s how science works…people can turn to spirituality if they find gaps.  But ignorant people claim more gaps than there really are, and then possess the hubris to fill those gaps with answers lacking any evidence, or better, ones flying in the face of answers already discovered.  If it’s belief, then it remains belief, but I will not subscribe to bottling that belief and selling it as snake oil.  

When you attempt to employ scientific terminology and claim scientific methods, you’re insulting the actual scientific community.  Sacred solids, numerology, and astrology have no place in science.  And as for your biodynamic gardens, I’ve enough issues with the ignorance around organic farming, but then to professes a system developed by a self-proclaimed clairvoyant that taught that a disease might be part of a patient's "karma" and that interfering with said illness would be unwise because treating only the physical body would require the patient to compensate in a future life.  Grinding quartz in a cow horn and burying it to improve a harvest?  Utilizing lunar cycles?  

 If you wish to employ these practices, you are always free to do so, but the people—paying customers—deserve to know that nothing you boast is backed by scientific scrutiny.  There is no evidence that it works (and no, trophies don’t count).  It flies in the face of commons sense, and is considered pseudoscience by the scientific consensus.  The information is available out there, and I invite people to do their own research.

 I’ll keep people updated

(Pssst. By the way, I don’t think they noticed a pyramid is not a platonic solid)

#skeptic #skeptism #pseudoscience #Science #Food #Foodie #Wine #Winemaking #Winery #Kelowna