It will never not be a fucking miracle that he can come home and be met by Captain Kiki fucking Seiran lounging on his lumpy couch, a warming Corona in one hand and a tub of mint-choc chip ice cream thawing on his coffee table.
That shit’s probably more expensive than his entire furniture set.
It’s been probably milked from Clarinese goats and doused in the sauce of spearmints gathered by a maiden under the first moon of the season, or some such nonsense.
Or it could Swiss. Kiki’s funny like that.
Obi shucks his shoes off and lines up his grocery bags on the kitchen table. He knows better than to compete with re-runs of Project Runway. Kiki’ll speak up when she’s ready to.
Still, Obi makes a point to unpack the frozen pizza first and stick it in the oven. It’s a fucking sin, but he got the cheap pineapple one Kiki gorges on when she’s menstruating. Which - Obi does the mental math - she is not. So, it’s gotta be the other thing.
Someone’s yapping about blood orange silk on the TV and Kiki swears in that personally offended way of hers:
‘Cunt.’
The Corona doesn’t last long after that. ‘You’ve run out of beer.’
Obi smiles.
So it begins.
It should be fucking sad, what they have, really. Obi knows men - and women - who would kill, maim and torture to be this close to Kiki Seiran. It’s a cold day in hell when he doesn’t have to dodge a pissing contest at the local bar when some dude gets it into his head to chase away the Air Force mutt who’s shagging Captain Seiran. It doesn’t help that Kiki gives them all the ‘you clearly have the smaller dick’ stare which Obi then has to live up to.
(The thing is, Kiki has seen him naked. Her historical reaction was So, you’re a shower, not a grower. Figures. Then, she’d proceeded unto dousing him with hot water because the coming-down-from-a-high chills were no laughing matter.)
How those fools would laugh to know that Kiki and Obi have never had sex. Of any kind. Pathetic, but true. After the botched up kiss at O’Malley’s a million years ago, they’d tried to kiss again - on a goddamn dare too - and they’d only laughed themselves silly. He’d even had her naked breast in her hand and… nothing. It was a perfect breast, as far as breasts went, but damn, if Obi didn’t feel like the ultimate perv. Not even the post-mission high, that usually sent them sniffing out to mate, could get a rise out of him or a moan out of her. Hell, not even the porn they decided on watching to get them in the mood could save that night.
(Actually, the porn did help. They ended up muting the whole thing and doing funny voiceovers until Kiki peed herself laughing. He woke up with a knife to his throat the next morning and Kiki - face scrubbed and smelling of his shower gel - looming over him - I did not pee my pants. That never happened. But I am taking your boxers.)
No, the truth is far more prosaic. As in, unromantic. Platonic as fuck. They are brothers in arms. They are - Obi pops the pizza out of the oven and brings Kiki a fresh beer - family.
‘Did you have another fight with your Dad?’
‘Hng.’
Obi hands her a paper plate and napkins and divvies up the pizza between them. God, this pineapple shit is so wrong, it burns his fingers.
Kiki eyes the proffered half and takes a swig of her beer.
‘...peasant.’
‘What are you, like three? Jesus.’
Kiki hates big slices and it is only in deference to Obi’s common-born sensibilities that she does not request a fork and knife.
(The first time Obi saw Kiki take a fork to pizza he’d nearly had an aneurysm. What’s next? Ketchup?)
Obi rips Kiki’s slice into thin strips and tries again: ‘Here you go, Your Majesty. Should I get you a bib, too? A warm glass of milk or something?’
‘Neah, I’m good, thanks.’
Obi scoffs but settles down next to her with his own paper plate and a glass of Coke. He knows - there’ll be hot cocoa later.
Kiki munches on her pineapple abomination for a couple of minutes while Tim Gunn is being a suffering diva-daddy to some poor sod with a scissor and a distinct lack of taste.
Huh, he hasn’t seen this episode.
After a while, Kiki’s tiny foot - on which his sock looks silly - nudges his own on the coffee table. ‘So, how was your meeting?’
Obi nudges back. They’re not joined at the hip. She is allowed to have a life outside of his daily struggles with rehab. But Kiki takes these things personally.
(It is the first and last time Obi sees Kiki lose her shit. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I’m supposed to be a fucking doctor and I had to find out from my Father? And then later, crying in his arms, Obi, why? Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you tell me? How to tell her that Obi is not sorry about any of the horrors he’s visited upon others and himself, but disappointing her is his most unforgivable sin. He was weak. I did. I did.)
‘It was alright. Got some new faces coming in. Bob thinks I might be ready to chair the next meeting, you know?’
Kiki giggles and it is never not the funniest thing he’s heard. ‘Inmates taking over the asylum kinda thing?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Obi grins, ‘I own that place.’
They laugh together and God, that feels nice. Better than the morphine induced relief, better than sex - not that he remembers how that feels anymore though. He’s been sober and celibate for so long now, he probably couldn’t even get it up as fast as he used to. He doesn’t miss it though.
No, he’s got Kiki in a stinky t-shirt - and slacks and socks that she’d pilfered from his closet - and that’s… that’s enough. Just him and Kiki and…
...her Dad.
(He used to laugh about it. He used to think it was such a joke. The blue and gold passport, with the Seiran family crest embossed on the cover. His very own Clarinese ID - as a member of the Seiran household. Family - Lord Seiran would correct him.
It was such a silly thing to cling to - he’d bring it with him on base when they’d be stationed there for longer and he wouldn’t be able to go home for long stretches of time. In his quarters, at night, he’d take it out and look at it, trace his name, smile at the goofy picture Lord Seiran had clumsily snapped with his phone. It was supposed to be a joke, just a joke. But then the old man would find a way to have his children home, with him - dinners, birthdays, holidays, the whole shebang. He’d flown them to Clarines, for fuck’s sake.
We’re doing private jets now? Obi had asked an eerily satisfied Kiki. I’ll hold him down, you take the wheel. Obi had landed Lord Seiran’s plane within inches of the red carpet.
But now - Obi had fucked everything up. In his first moment of lucidity, after that fateful night, Obi walks into Lord Seiran’s office, and hands him back the passport. Never. Lord Seiran stands and takes Obi’s sweaty head into his strong, but gentle hands. He’d been a warrior once, too. You could never. Do you understand, Obi, my boy? He doesn’t, he doesn’t, but oh, how he wants to. This is for life. This is forever.)
‘Dad wants us to quit the Air Force.’
Her pizza is gone and she’s done with her beer. Not even Tim Gunn can delay this conversation.
‘I know.’
(This is your decision. You know where I stand. I’m a selfish man, but I’d be a horrible father if I just made you do it.
You’re disowning me? Obi laughs, because crying is not an option.
No. But I might be disowning Kiki.
That’s... rude. Ruthless is another word that comes to Obi’s mind, but he’s enjoying this.
I was a general once too, my boy. And I am a businessman now - I have the future to worry about. This isn’t a cop out, Obi. You will always be needed, I’m afraid - and for once, Lord Seiran looks old and tired saying that. He is a good man, Obi thinks and his heart is full of love and forgiveness. It’s just that you might be needed elsewhere.)
‘You could make full bird, Obi. There’s still - This is - It’s nothing. Just a setback. You’re stronger than this. We’re stronger than this.’
Kiki’s clawing at the cotton of his sleeve, even though her words are clear, solid. She’s not yelling, not pleading - not anymore. Not ever again. She’s stating facts. It strikes him how much these Seirans are alike. How he loves them both so much, wretched creature that he is.
Obi is intimately familiar with how lethal Captain Seiran’s pale white hands are, but in his bigger and darker ones, hers look so fragile. They are shaking and he knows - he knows - that every target she points her gun at is Obi, naked and bloodied, tied to a chair in a South American prison, her CO’s voice ringing in her ears. Take the shot. Captain, take the shot! That’s an order!
‘We are done killing’, Obi says and Kiki whimpers. ‘Do you want them to take flying from us too?’
Kiki hides her dry face in his shoulder.
‘At least like this we get to walk away. On our own terms.’
Without a court martial and with their ranks. That’s the deal Commander Izana Wistalia, of the Mars Missions, brokered for them on behalf of NASA.
best scene so far this ep: izzy and magnis talking abt alec and his emotions while autopsy and izzy mentioning finding a wife and magnus being like .........??????? no.
text: please tell me you’re feeling a bar night tonight before i bore myself to deathtext: unless you’re gonna make sarcastic comments about my sucky career happeningstext: actually either way we should probably go
Rabastan sat at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall, shoving his food around the plate in front of him with a fork. Normally, he would have been the first person to wolf down a plate and then go for a second, but for some reason he had no appetite. His mind kept wandering to the letter that was sitting up in his room, telling him of his impending future. He was so caught up in his thoughts, he jumped when he felt two slim arms wrap around him tightly, and a chin rested on his shoulder. Quickly turning to see a flash of blonde hair and a broadly grinning face, he relaxed and smiled at the girl. “Thank you, Em. You have no idea how much I needed that.”
Send 💜 for my muses reaction to being hugged tightly.
