#two-parter

[random-imagines-blog]

Fly {Michael Emerson x Shapeshifter!Reader} Part 1.

Requested by: Anonymous Wordcount: 3083 Summary: You're an oddity in Santa Carla, but you try to protect the town from the other 'odd ones'. Notes: Reader! Character is based off of Nimona from Nimona.

Divider by: @targaryen-dynasty

Despite it being the middle of the day, no one ever stopped you from doing what you wanted to do. Not the cops, not the citizens, no one. You raised the bandana up over your mouth once more to protect yourself from the awful smelling fumes, shook the spray paint can and started to go over the large black letters that you already did with red. Accentuating them, making them stand out more. Black and red made for a very eye-catching combo. 

‘Murder Capital of the World’ 

Sunny, beautiful, Santa Carla, most people wouldn’t believe that a place so pretty, and shining, and popular held a dark secret. And this was your attempt to warn them without completely breaking the treaty that you had with the vampire coven that took over the nights. 

The lines were straight. You were practised in this. You were responsible for half of the graffiti in town, whether it was doing moustaches on billboards of beautiful models, or just doodling something random on a brick wall, no surface was safe from you and your paint. You took a couple of steps back, admiring your handiwork in the light of day. It would be impossible to see in the dark, you knew that, so those vampires were unlikely to ever notice the warning that you put out to those that were driving through. You just hoped some of them would think to take a peek in the rear view mirror once in a while. 

You sat down on one of the wooden planks that held the foundation up. You weren’t the only one hanging around there, since it was next to the beach, but no one was giving you any trouble. You leaned against another plank, watching the cars stream on through. Families coming for a vacation on the boardwalk, mostly. The town got pretty dead in the winter, when the temperatures turned frostier and the rides were shut down. That was your favourite time of year. Less people to judge you, to see you free yourself with your shape shifting abilities. Summers were tough. 

You saw a dog sticking its head out of a red and white station wagon. A husky. Your heart leaped at seeing the adorable dog, its tongue waving in the wind as the owners drove on by, a red U-Haul wagon attached to the back. New townies? With all of the missing, there were a lot of homes opening up, so it made sense, unfortunately. You managed to catch the dog’s eye and shape-shifted your head to match the dog’s, making it let out a sharp bark. You shook your head quickly, making it go back to your normal face, grinning after it.  

You had no idea at the time just how often you would be seeing that dog. 

The boardwalk was your favorite place to go at night. It was usually a flood of new faces, with people coming in to stay for a couple of days and then leaving, never to be seen again. It was easy to slip in among them, to feel like you two were just one of those faces. It made you feel less lonely that way. It was almost ... nice. 

The breeze was flowing through your hair as you made your way among the crowds. You could smell the different greasy foods at the plethora of stalls and you were trying to figure out what to have as your dinner tonight when you heard the sound of a familiar voice, one that made you feel as if you had just swallowed a coconut whole. 

Star. 

She had been a good friend to you once. When she first made her way here to Santa Carla, she saw your colourful hair and thought that you were just the coolest person in the world. You hadn’t told her about your powers, since you were sure that she would reject like everyone before you had, but you let her into your life as your friend nonetheless. You would roam the boardwalk together, ride the rides, share giant slices of pizza. The way that you both would scream as you rode the roller coaster - it had been some of your best memories in recent times. 

Until she met the vampires.  

The ‘boyfriend’ syndrome as you called it. 

She changed. She started blowing you off to go and spend time with the four boys and their motorcycles, clinging onto David the way that she used to cling onto your hand when riding the Zipper. Your hangouts went from nearly every night to once a week, to once a month, to being nonexistent. She smelt like them now. You didn’t need to be a dog to pick up on that. 

Your eyes settled upon her, watching her mane of curly brown hair as she walked with a boy. Not one of the vampires, this one had brown hair and Dwayne was the only one with dark hair. Much darker than this boys’. Your eyes narrowed and you decided, fuck minding your own business, you needed to investigate what she was doing with this boy. Feeding the vampires? Trying to bring another one into David’s little cult? Either way, it wasn’t a good sign. 

Speaking to her wasn’t going to do anything. You’ve tried that before. And you didn’t know this boy so you probably would just look absolutely insane if you tried to warn him off - which normally you were alright with, but you didn’t want your crazy to make him move closer to Star and to David. You didn’t want to be the reason this guy died. 

“Damnit,” You sighed, looking around to make sure that no one was watching you, and you turned into a vampire bat, wings flapping through the sky, keeping you aloft. The things that you did for a humanity that didn’t even appreciate you.  

You screeched as you flew through the sky, garnering attention from those that were around. There were some shrieks from teenage girls, from some ladies, and a couple of guys reached up towards the sky to try to bat you off. But you had one destination in mind and you were not going to be swayed from it. You went right towards the brown curls of the boy that Star was working with, your wings brushing against his face. Star screamed, as the boy tried to slap you away, and he succeeded, thwapping you right into Star’s mess of frizzy hair. Now you were really stuck, not just pretending to be. 

Star’s screams were giving you a headache as you tried to untangle yourself, pulling at her hair at the same time. You were tempted to just change into something else - a hummingbird, a squirrel, anything, but there was too much heat on you right now. Then to your surprise, you felt a softer hand take hold of you and manage to get you out and you realized that it was this boy. He had slapped you and now he was taking care of you. You hadn’t been expecting that. 

As he let you go, you lingered in the air in front of him for a moment, hovering, wings flapping, your beady little dark eyes looking straight into his bright blue ones. And as best as you could, you shook your head, your little bat head, as he stood there, frozen, staring at you. 

“Let’s go, Michael,” Star said, taking hold of his hand and shivered. She looked frightened, more so than you had ever seen her. If she hadn’t abandoned you, you might have felt guilty. But you felt absolutely nothing towards her. And now you had a name to attach to this face - Michael. You flew up into the air and away towards the lights of the rollercoaster to transform into your human form once again, hoping that it worked. Hoping that some supernatural encounter with a bat that was warning him off would be enough to give him second thoughts.  

You headed back their way, walking as casually as you could muster, hands in your pocket, eyes wandering around the scene. Some people were muttering about the bat, how they usually don’t come so close to humans. And then you saw Star, trying to pull Michael towards the motorcycled boys. But he seemed a lot more hesitant. His eyes were towards the sky, looking around for more bats. Had you actually made a difference - did you just save a life? 

Apparently not. 

Michael was brought towards the vampires and they seemed to be having a talk. You hung back, trying to listen in as they had some sort of pissing contest. Over Star, really? The girl could smother you to death in your sleep with those curls of hers. You rolled your eyes - the things that boys will do to try to win over a pretty girl. 

You weren’t jealous, of course. 

Never. 

Michael went to his bike and Star got onto the back of the bleach blonde’s. His hair was basically a halo, glowing brightly against the night, but at least he would be easy to follow. Rather than a bat this time, you chose a peregrine falcon for its speed, cutting through the night sky to follow after the vampires on their motorcycles, trying to think of a plan B. 

They were headed right towards the bluffs, and the cliffs beyond. It was dangerous territory unless one had wings. The vampires knew it well, but Michael - 

Improvising, you turned back into your human self and stood near the cliff’s edge, the fog swimming around you as if you were in a stage production. He managed to catch sight of you just in time to turn his bike, narrowly missing you - and missed falling off of the cliff. 

“What are you playing at, huh?” He asked, hopping off of his bike and walked up to you. He looked pissed, but also concerned. Nervous.  

“Look, we only have a minute before they realize that they didn’t manage to get you to crash after all,” you said, looking around to see if you could see any headlights streaming through the fog. So far, so good. “Those boys - they’re going to either try and kill you or turn you into a vampire. Star is working with them, being little miss Honeypot to bring the food in.”  

He stared at you for a moment and then laughed, shaking his head slightly. “Vampires? You’ve been watching too many movies or something.” 

“Okay, you don’t want to believe they’re vampires, that’s cool,” you said, quickly. “But think about other things right now. You knew Star for all of two minutes before you were ready to fight off a gang of four bikers for her. And there’s the fact that they did try to kill you. Look there.” You pointed towards the edge of the cliff, the waves breaking against the rock many feet below. “Didn’t your parents teach you about stranger danger?” 

Michael ran his fingers through his hair, looking over your shoulder towards the water. To the steep drop down to it, and what that would have meant for him. 

“How did you get here so fast, if you knew all that?” He finally asked.

 

“If you won’t believe in vampires, you wouldn’t believe me, trust me,” you said, stepping away from the ledge, the feeling of the wind being at your back a bit too much. Unfortunately, that’s when the headlights and the motor of engines came up upon you, four different motorcycles, spread out enough to make you feel surrounded. 

“Hey Animal,” Paul said with a grin on his face. If there was one among them that you could tolerate, it was Paul. He was honestly just a bimbo, and could be entertaining. But just because he called out your nickname didn’t mean that things were all good right now. 

“You always make me sound like the damn muppet,” You called back, making him laugh. You watched David get off of his bike, Star climbing up after him but she hung back. She looked confused, scared, as you were getting involved. She didn’t know that you knew the boys. Knew what they were. 

She called your name, your real name. You ignored it for now, focusing your eyes on David who was moving closer. “I’ve had just about enough of your meddling,” he said.  

“Yeah, well, I’ve had just about enough of you turning my best friend into your little succubus, but it looks like we don’t always get what we want,” You crossed your arms. This was definitely a dangerous situation but your mouth tended to go before your brain could catch up. “You should stick to your Nazi bonfires and your douchebag tourists. This one is off-limits.” 

“Star, what’s going on?” Michael asked, looking to the one person that he thought that he knew. He was looking around at the rest of the boys on their motorcycles - at Paul’s big grin, at Dwayne’s stoic silence with Laddie hiding behind him, at Marco who constantly had a mischievous look on his face.  

“Michael wants to know what’s going on,” David smirked. “Y/N, didn’t you tell him what was going on?” 

“He didn’t believe me,” You admitted. “Though I can’t really blame him for that - you four don’t look cool enough to be vampires.” 

“Oh, come on, that’s just mean,” Paul said with a pout. You shot him one back, your lower lip sticking out exaggeratingly.  

“Sorry Paulie. But you’re no Christopher Lee and you know it.” 

“And what are you then?” David asked, his stare heavy on you. If you were the type to be afraid, you might have felt a shiver going up your spine. As it were, you didn’t let yourself be bullied by anyone. Even if it meant exposing who you are.  

“I think Paul already explained. I’m an animal.” You said with a shrug. “But I’m not a monster. I’ve looked the other way for a long time, but you’re not making more vamps on my watch. Not here, not him.” 

“Michael still wants to know what’s going on,” Marco snickered. You looked over your shoulder to see the confusion on his face, which was turning into frustration. 

“Alright, I’ll tell you what’s really going on, I saved your life,” you told him. “You can buy me pizza on the boardwalk sometime or something as a thank you. Now get on your bike and get out of here. Oh, and don’t go off with strangers, seriously, your mother must be disappointed.” 

“Animal is in a bitchy mood tonight,” Paul whistled. “Maybe they’ll turn into a dragon.” 

“And burn you alive,” You threatened. “I wonder if your vampire body would be able to handle that kind of heat?” 

“I love when you flirt, baby,” Paul winked and you rolled your eyes before taking a couple of steps away from them. Wings unfurled from your back, large and black, replicating the dragon that you had seen in a Disney film once. You continued to step back until you were off of the ledge, your wings flapping, letting you hover.  

“I’ll make sure he gets home safely, and I’ll be keeping an eye on you four,” You threatened towards the vampires, before you reluctantly caught Star’s eye. And it was everything that you feared - but knew - was going to happen. She looked at you with terror in her eyes, that was to be expected. But there was also the repulsion. The realization that you were a monster. 

You tore your eyes away and looked towards Michael who was mumbling to himself, but he got back on his motorcycle. “I don’t know how the fuck you drugged me, but I’m out of here.” 

You rolled your eyes. But better he thinks that he was drugged and gets out of here than sticks around and tries to pick a fight. Paul was the only one who waved you a goodbye, David shot you a glare, Marco and Dwayne just revved up their bikes. Star stayed staring at you for a moment longer, her gaze even heavier than David’s was. You flew up higher to be above the clouds that were guarding the moon and stars tonight, and followed after Michael, keeping good on your word. You made damn sure that the vampires weren’t following. There was bound to be retaliation after you stepped in like that but so far, it didn’t seem to be towards Michael. 

Michael looked up as he got off of his motorcycle in front of an old house. It didn’t look like a ramshackle house though it clearly had the potential to go into that state. You lowered yourself down to land gently on the roof, your feet nearly slipping on the shingles. It wasn’t graceful, but you managed. “Are you real?” He asked, his eyebrows furrowing, looking more like a puppy than before. 

“A real pain in the ass, sure,” You joked, crouching down so you could maintain balance and look down at him. “But yeah. I’m real. Vampires are real. And Star is a bit of a succubus now so - I’d change my taste in women if I were you.” 

“Shit,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “This is like something out of one of Sam’s comic books.” 

“I tried to be in a comic book once, it didn’t sell well,” You sighed. “Which is absolutely ridiculous because the possibilities are endless.” 

“Right,” he said, slowly, drawling it out. 

“All that matters if you’re safe for the night, so go on in and go to sleep or whatever it is you humans do,” you said with a shrug. “Sweet dreams and all that?” 

“Thanks,” He mumbled. He looked a little dazed as he started to walk towards the house, stopping and looking up for another second before he went back inside. You jumped up off of the roof and turned into a fox on the grass, skulking around the front lawn for a while before going back to your own home, a shoddy apartment that you didn’t spend much time inside of but thought of as home sweet home nonetheless. You threw yourself down onto your bed, and grinned to yourself. You normally weren’t a hero, you only used your powers to benefit yourself, rarely helping people. But this felt good. Yeah, this was good. 

[theknightmarket]

"Sometimes I wonder what you saw in me."

In which Mark and an old friend reunite - this time, with feeling! Part 1 - Part 2 TW: cursing, angst/comfort Pages: 27 - Words: 9500

[Requests: OPEN]

“Mr. Patton!” 

Having been a director for many a year, Patton had learned that someone yelling his name with that much intention could be one of three things; the first being that someone had died, the other that X, Y or Z had too much coffee and puked their brains out into a stall, or something good had happened. The latter was less common, but it was always a welcome surprise. Hoping for Christmas to come early, he turned around and saw two of his assistants. Yours and Mark’s, the ones who were supposed to be with you at all times. 

So, not the latter. 

“Is everything alright?” he asked, tiredly. 

The events they spilled were, all in all, not normal. They had taken it upon themselves to fix your relationship, and it had gone well, it seemed. You hadn’t been figuring out new insults, at least, and had even said a good morning on the way in. Patton didn’t see what the problem was, but it didn’t stop him from continuing on with his very busy schedule. 

“Nice job, you two, well done,” he commended without effort, “Now, we’ve got five scenes to shoot today, so we’re gonna need a lot of touch-ups and coffees. I think that café nearby is open until six—” 

Juliette ran in front of him, effectively blocking him from rushing away. She spoke pleadingly, “Well, we were wondering if you could help us send them off together?” 

Patton’s face dropped. He liked his prize actors, he really did, but not enough to take away from the working day. 

“We don’t have time for that,” he responded, watching as her face, too, fell, “Look, whatever they do on their own time is up to them, but I can’t have them fixing anything during work hours.”

Toby stepped up to bat now, saying, “But, sir, this is helping them.”

But Patton wouldn’t budge. “We’re on a tight schedule as is, we can’t lose any more time.” He tried to move past them, but they were a brick wall that couldn’t be knocked down. He would have better luck throwing a baby at them and seeing if it stuck. 

“Then just for lunch.”

“Toby.”

“Please?”

Those puppy dog eyes might have actually worked three years ago, when he had been younger and more open to convincing. Now, though, they just made him sidestep and wave down another crew member. 

“The Captain and the Engineer are supposed to like each other, right?” Juliette interrupted when she saw a camera man approaching, a particularly bulky one at that. “And it’ll be easier for them to act like it if they do like each other in real life, right?”

She was pulling at straws here, desperately hoping for him to agree with one single thing they pointed out.

It was his own death sentence when he muttered, “Well, yes, but—”

She stuck to that sign of weakness. “Or do you want them to go back to spitting insults and potentially jeopardize the entire movie?”

More tired than he was resistant, he replied, “No, I don’t. But I also don’t want to sacrifice daylight.”

Toby rounded, finally, to stand directly in front of Patton. “You said that you need touch-ups and coffees, so what if we did the fixing bits and they get the coffees together?” 

The director glanced between the assistants. They raised some good points and gave even better solutions, and what would he be if he weren’t a lenient boss. That and the puppy dog eyes Toby had maintained were working wonders now that his resolve had broken apart. 

“I suppose—” Barely a complete sentence, not even a yes or no, and they were getting excited, like two children being offered anything they wanted in a candy store, “—that could work… Fine, we’ll send them, but I don’t think Mark will be too happy as an errand boy.”

That was the least of their concerns and the farthest thing from their minds as they received the go ahead. Hyped up grins appeared over their mouths; Toby bounced on his heels while Juliette nodded vigorously.

“I’ll deal with him when they get back,” she responded with an assuring thumbs-up. 

“Alright, go get everyone’s orders, and then they can leave at lunch.” 

They skittered off to each and every crew member in that building, stopped before the dressing rooms and collected as many as they could to keep their project busy. It was with a devious exchange of laughter that they separately knocked on their wards’ doors. 

“I cannot believe him.” 

It was a mystery how Mark resisted yelling the second they were sent off. You had half the mind to ask him, but that would surely prompt outraged responses.

Instead, you busied yourself with wrapping your coat further around you. Although it had been sunny the day before, the weather took a turn for the worst. A dangerous chill blanketed the city, cooling water and making breath look a fine mist. 

“Well,” you started, making your way carefully down the path, “moaning about it won’t get us back inside.” 

“But we’re the heroes of this whole thing, who gave him the right to give us chores?” You couldn’t tell which word held more venom, ‘chores’ or ‘us’. You might’ve said something about him being a baby the day before, but it didn’t seem as appealing to you now. 

Also, to be fair, you weren’t overly thrilled to be getting coffee, either. You should’ve been running lines or actually enjoying your lunch break, not trying to keep balanced on icy concrete. 

Moving your arms barely outwards to stay upright, you replied, “Considering that Mr. Patton’s the director, probably himself.” 

You latched onto any supporting thing you could find: a bike rack, a lamppost, once a tree that you didn’t realize was mostly made of leaves and you almost toppled over forwards because of. Luckily, Mark was at your side in an instant, pulling you backwards and gripping onto a wall to stable himself. 

You thanked him, before wondering aloud, “And are we really heroes?”

Mark scoffed, not as annoyed as he used to be, “Of course, we are. What else would we be?”

“Protagonists.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

Shaking your head, you watched the air in front of you turn to smoke. You liked colder days, but not when they threatened to knock you on your ass in front of the whole street. “But protagonists aren’t always heroes,” you replied, trying to stay focused on your walking, “just the people the camera is following, and even then, it can change.” 

“We save the universe,” Mark responded. You glanced to your left, noticing that he was walking completely normally, as if the slippery ice melted right under his boots.

“From a mess we created.” 

“So?” He brought a hand from his pocket, gripping your upper arm just tight enough to stop your inevitable keeling over. You hoped you could play the redness that rose in your cheeks off as the cold. “We still save it; we could’ve just let it crash and burn.”

“You’d feel bad, though, right?”

“Depends. Do I care about the people on board?”

After thinking it through for a second, you nodded. “Yeah, you’ve worked with them for ages, and it’s your ship.”

“If I built the first one, I could build another,” Mark stated, like it was obvious. You’d always had a problem with getting attached to inanimate objects – still living with Mark, when your coffee machine had broken, he had to comfort you for a solid day before you could buy another one. 

But Mark didn’t think that way, so you tried a different approach. “Then what about the people?”

Silence. 

You turned your head, for a moment sacrificing possible embarrassment, to see him mulling it over in his head. He hummed and tutted for a few seconds, enough time for you to ask, “You’re not seriously thinking about it?” 

Mark huffed, his shoulders dropping, and head bowed. “It’s a lot to go through,” he admitted, “Wormholes, problems, dying over and over again – I’d only do it if I really cared about them.”

“What about me?” You didn’t catch his dip in eyebrows, a clear sign that he was back to thinking, while you turned a corner. “I’ve gone through the same stuff, and I’m still trying to save the crew.” 

“I didn’t know you were with me.” He squinted and then sighed. “Well, if that’s the case, then, of course.”

Something stirred in your gut as those words met your ears. They weren’t honeyed or mocking, Mark spoke like what he said was obvious, like he couldn’t have said anything different. For a moment, it crossed your mind that he didn’t hate you, but there was so much evidence to go against that – and yet you wanted to believe the former side of you. 

Trying to keep the interest out of your voice, you asked, “Why ‘of course’?” 

“I wouldn’t be alone.”

A frown forced itself over your mouth. Was he really that scared of being alone that he would give up his own life? It left a bad taste in your mouth, and you couldn’t help but wonder if it was because of what you did. You had left him, alone in that big, old house. 

“So,” you swallowed, “the problem isn’t the wormholes, it’s the loneliness.”

The café appeared in front of you before you had noticed you were on the same block. It was a cute thing, pastel blue and pink decorating the umbrellas, but nobody was sitting outside on that day. Everyone was safe and snug in the warmth, and, lucky for you, that was only two or three people, not counting the staff who waited patient and bored at the counter. You’d surely be here for a while with how many orders you had to place, so you were glad you wouldn’t be holding anyone up. 

Mark stepped forward and held open the door, replying carelessly, “I think I’d be able to go through the different universes, but I wouldn’t be able to survive rebuilding the warp core.” 

One foot through, you stopped. “At that point, you’re saving yourself, though.” 

You moved on to order, about half of them being plain, black coffees and a third the most complicated requests that you were pretty sure were just jokes. In the end, you just passed them the notepad with all of them on it to the barristers. Fatigue waved over them when they saw the second page, so you slipped then a twenty for their troubles. 

It was then that you noticed Mark hadn’t replied, despite him standing directly next to you with his lips sealed tight. You risked a glance and saw him thinking intently. They were hypothetical scenarios, ones you’d never have to deal with, but he sure was putting all of his effort into them. 

This muted state lasted until you were back out the door again, a good 15 minutes later, and a bad feeling settled in your stomach. Had you messed everything up? You weren’t sure what you had done, but it must’ve been something to get the guy infamous for running his mouth to shut it down completely. Frigid air not the only thing making you shiver; you decided to offer up another comment. 

“I don’t think I could do it.” 

He hummed back absentmindedly, still caught in the whirlwind of his thoughts. 

“Go through it over and over,” you explained, now back to keeping balance, “I think… I think I would try, but I’d end up cracking eventually. I’d feel guilty, but not being able to get out of it would kill me.”

And it was back to the silence. The swish of tree leaves overhead calmed your nerves, but the steady tap of shoes and the studio lot appearing in the distance brought them back up. You had enjoyed this little break, albeit unnerving at the end, and you feared it would revert entirely. The both of you would go back to swapping insults and being rude, like children on a playground. 

But you were allowed a breath of relief seconds before you arrived back at the set.

“Where do you think you would end up?” Mark asked, jostling cups in his hands to open the door.

You felt the warmth of a climate-controlled building swarm around your legs, and you basked in it as you answered, “I’d stop with Miss Whitacre. She seems nice and the void could be comforting after not taking a break for so long. Plus, Pam is really cool.”

In fact, Pam was the last person who you delivered a coffee to. Really, she was more of a tea girl, but you thought the barrister would kill you if you switched it up at the last second. She was grateful, and you moved back to your dressing room for a few minutes of lunch.

From across the room, Juliette’s eyes widened. Not from a realization, but from fear. She had watched Mark stalk around the room, not as confident or cocky as he was before you had left, and now, there he was, a lost soul floating around the set. 

“Oh, God, something must’ve happened,” she hissed to Toby. 

His shoulders collapsed in disappointment, but he still replied reassuringly, “We don’t know that.”

It didn’t do much to settle her panic. “Have you ever seen Mark so… not dramatic?”

The actor was creepily blunt with everything he was doing, the flair sapped out of him just like that. No comments, no arguments. The assistants watched Mr. Patton approach him and he almost numbly accepted whatever decision he had made. 

“It’s only our second day,” Toby muttered, despite him knowing that it was odd. 

“Yeah, exactly.”

He swirled the cup of coffee around, wishing to find an answer in the dark, steaming mass. It came up blank, which led him to wonder simply, “How about we ask them?”

“And get us caught?” Juliette gasped, “No thanks, I’d rather be friendly towards the guy I’ll be working with for the next few months.” Toby looked away, somewhat surprised and somewhat having expected her to be so outraged at his suggestion. “What if our efforts have been for nothing? All those hours slaving away at getting them together, and for what? For all our hard work to be thrown away.”

“Again, second day, and we bought them takeout.” 

Julie planted her hands on her colleague’s shoulders, drawing him out of staring into his coffee. Her own sat idly by on the table beside them, ignored in favor of her meeting his eyes. “We have to take drastic measures,” she warned. 

Instantly, Toby practically deflated. He was over getting them to be nice together, he just wanted to go back to work and get paid, and this was detrimental to that very idea. Weakly, he replied, “Seriously? And you don’t think we’ll be fired for that?”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

She hadn’t left any room for discussion; the metal plating that decorated the set bent underneath her moving body, at a faster rate than Toby could keep up with. Sighing, he tried his hardest, but not without complaint. 

“Get a job as an actor’s assistant, they said—” Juliette swung open a door, “—it’ll be fixing makeup and getting drinks, they said—” He trailed behind her down a hallway, “—nobody said I’d be meddling in their personal lives and possibly committing crimes!” 

His friend – for, he believed, not much longer – only skidded to a halt when they arrived at a door clearly marked maintenance, which they were not. Juliette acted like she hadn’t seen it, though, and pushed with some force against the heavy-duty iron. She huffed and gestured for Toby to help, before offhandedly replying, “You wouldn’t have taken the job otherwise.”

“You say that like this is normal.”

The door gave way to dust particles floating around the air, a flimsy light hanging above them, and a dingy staircase that led into something unknown. At least, to Toby because Julie neglected to tell him what her plan was, so he was along for the ride. 

The very woman was already marching down steps, skipping a couple and disappearing entirely into the blackness below. 

Toby keeled back. “Juliette, is this normal?” he called, gripping the banister like he would die if he let go. She didn’t answer.

“Juliette!?”

He ran down in a panic.

When his feet made contact with stable ground, a cold concrete that he felt through the leather of his shoes, he saw an entire wall of switches and wires and buttons. Most were unhelpfully unlabeled, but they were separated into categories that meant with a fine amount of trial and error, they could figure out what they needed.

You had just wrapped up a scene, one of your favorites that was scheduled for that week. You figured it would look better after edits, since the colors were supposed to be regressed to black and white, but you still enjoyed the vibe of the piece. Currently, you were heading up to the recording booths to finish off the voiceovers, and then you’d be home bound until the next day. 

The elevator dinged as it came slowly to a stop, allowing you to get in and press the button for the fifth floor. It was a tall building, but it also held a lot of storage rooms and editing offices the rest of the company used. 

Doors sliding closed, you sighed and leaned back against the mirror. A stressful day deserved a moment of calm sprinkled somewhere inside, and this short break would have to do. A minute to yourself, to think, to breath. 

“Wait!” 

Your eyes shot open, and you lunged to press your foot between the shutters. Luckily, they stopped short of crushing you, and, in the inches of space, you saw Mark running to catch up to you. Really, it was more of a fastened jog, but it was more than you had ever seen him do. 

He muttered a ‘thank you’ when he was safely inside. You nodded back. 

You weren’t entirely sure what you were meant to say at a time like this. Could you pick up your last conversation, or did you have to choose a new subject? Or, even worse, were you supposed to wait in silence until your floor came?

You settled for making idle small talk. “Um, nice work in the noir,” you spoke softly. 

Mark looked startled for a second, until he recovered and replied, “Yeah, it was weird to constantly be squinting, but you did well, too.”

“Thanks.” 

A comment about the costumes was about to leave your mouth, but another question in your mind caught your attention. Thinking back to when you had distributed the coffees, both of your assistants had been shifty. The same look on their faces as when you had interacted after dinner. You figured that it could have just been a coincidence, though it wouldn’t hurt to ask Mark if he had seen anything similar. 

“Has Juliette been acting weird lately?”

He tilted his head and looked confused at you, a question evident in his eyes that he bypassed by saying, “Not that I’m aware, we’ve only been working together for a couple of days.”

It made sense that they could just be like that in general, but something was off. No mannerisms – Juliette’s nor Toby’s – indicated they would be suspicious. You bit the inside of your cheek in thought. 

“Yeah, I know, just…” you trailed off, considering your phrasing, “when we finished dinner last night, Toby was being strange.”

“How so?”

“It looked like he wanted to ask a question, or he wanted me to tell him about something, but he never did, and then he told me that you and Juliette spoke about our relationship.”

Automatically, the air flexed and bent under the strain of awkwardness. You tried to fight off regret for bringing it up; it was bound to happen sooner or later, and you had surmised to get it over with before everything boiled over. 

It seemed it was already too late – if how he spat, “We did,” was anything to go by. 

Reminding yourself that it didn’t matter, you replied, “Toby and I did, too.”

“Nice to know.” 

The silence was killing you, it kept coming back like waves lapping at a shore, except it did more than get your feet wet. It delivered guilt and tension and a mood too rigid to fit inside that confining box comfortably. It was either now or never, but you didn’t like either of those options. Go back and change what had happened would be preferable, but you didn’t get that choice. You had to deal with the here and now, however much your heartbeat sped up or your breathing shook. 

Closing your eyes and hoping for the best, you said, “Look, I just wanted to know if you’d be open to talking about it?”

“What is there to talk about?” he snapped back. That bad feeling deepened into a pit of despair, but you wouldn’t be put off that easily. He should’ve known by then that you weren’t going to go down without a fight.

“A lot. We hadn’t had an actual conversation in a year before this movie.”

Mark pushed back against the mirror, causing the elevator to shudder under the pressure. “And we got on fine without one.”

On the bright side, he had apparently grown from being a child to a moody teenager. 

“But now we’re working together, and it’d be nice to, y’know, be normal again.” It wasn’t meant to sound like a question, but it definitely came out like one.

“So far,” Mark stressed, “I’ve been operating on the idea that we won’t see each other again after we finish these shoots.” 

He was slowly but surely breaking down your will to argue. Sure, you wanted to get along, but he was being so resistant to the mere idea that you questioned if it was worth it. He pushed for an end to the conversation, you wanted to continue it, and that left the both of you at a standstill. 

“It’ll be a long three months,” you offered. 

“I’m willing to wait it out.”

Normally, you were level-headed. Normally, you focused on one thing and stayed focused. Normally,you were able to calm yourself down within a few minutes, distance yourself from the problem, and relax. 

It was not normal to be waiting in an elevator with your famous ex because you’re shooting an action movie together where you had to pretend to care for each other.  

So, you couldn’t relax, and you burst out of the gates with, “Well, I’m not!”

Mark flinched, though his stare stayed trained on the doors. 

Not caring that he was ignoring you, you continued, “Mark, I’ve liked talking to you recently – I enjoyed our dinner and our walk to the café, and I think I’d like to be on speaking terms with you again.”

It set you off even further when he laughed. Mark laughed, some super-villain chuckle that belonged more to an insane man that it did him. “What, so you can manipulate me?”

“Mark.” 

“Save it—” he rolled his eyes and crossed one arm over the other, a poor attempt to comfort himself that you didn’t bother to consider, “—I know what you’re like, and I don’t believe that you’ve changed, so it’s either this business thing or nothing.” 

“But that’s exactly it, I haven’t changed because I was never like that in the first place!”

Another pitiful chuckle. You felt the sentiments from the first day with him blend together with new ones; you wanted to repair your relationship, but a spiteful, immature part of you wanted to throw every insult under the sun at him and see what sticks. Like a baby.

Of course, you clenched your teeth and listened to him say, “I don’t know how we could talk about us if you aren’t willing to admit what you’ve done.”

“That’s exactly why I want to talk, to sort all of this out.” At this point, you were pleading, one step away from getting on your knees and begging him to just listen to you. Your pride would never allow it, only giving you the reigns to let anything spill out of your mouth that would convince him. 

Mark only sighed. His head shook the glass as it slammed back into it. “What aren’t you getting?” he hissed, “I don’t want to talk about it, I just want to leave it all behind and get on with my life.”

You stood still for a minute, thinking through it all. You didn’t move, Mark didn’t move, and, although you tried to will it into existence, the doors didn’t move. There was only one thing for it, then…

“Look me in the eye right now and tell me honestly that you’ve hated every second you’ve spent with me in the last two days.” 

To you, it was a simple request with big consequences; if he were able to, you wouldn’t continue a conversation. In fact, you would probably leave everything there, come in only when you were requested and spend all the other time in your dressing room. 

However, to Mark, everything came crashing down around him. He didn’t know what to do. His pulse raced. His breath caught in his throat. What was he supposed to say? Was he supposed to say that this had been the best shoot of his entire career – seeing you again, as kind and calm and witty as you were the first time that he had met you, spending time with you like how you used to, the sense of pure joy and completion that breached his soul – or was he supposed to lie? He didn’t know which he would prefer. After all, you had wanted to talk, but what if that was to just clear the air and get you back to square one? Too many unsure and incomplete scenarios waved over his mind for him to do anything but lie. 

So, just barely managing to make eye contact as you had ordered, he parroted your words bluntly and definitively. “I have hated every second I have spent with you in the last two days.”

And it broke his heart. 

You nodded, choking yourself on the tears and hoping to anybody that was listening that they didn’t pour out. “Okay, then,” you whispered. 

Mark shifted his gaze back to the doors in front of you, tried his hardest to keep them from wandering back to the crestfallen look on your face. It wouldn’t do him any good, but every movement, however minor, that you made, it became ever the more difficult to stop himself. He only got so far by focusing his attention on the digital numbers that showed the floor number. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 

Except the screen wasn’t following his count, and it hadn’t been for the last two floors – or, rather, the last two floors that they should have passed. 

Exactly four and a half floors under the elevator, in the basement of the studio, were two people. And they were panicking. 

“Oh, my God, what did you do!?”

Juliette practically strangled any excess electricity out of the wires she held, yelling back to Toby, “I don’t know!” 

“Well, put them back!”

“I don’t know how!” 

The boy snatched them from Julie’s hands and held them naively to the wall. Being an assistant usually didn’t require any mechanical knowledge, so he was shocked to find that it didn’t sync up the moment they touched the circuits. 

“It’s not working,” he pointed out. 

Juliette might have mentioned his lack of common sense, but she had also ripped the wires right out of the box just seconds before. She settled for panicking more. “We’re gonna lose our jobs, we’re gonna get arrested.” 

“I told you!” 

But their day got even worse as their freaking out was overthrown by the clicking of familiar and intent shoes. Their faces paled and they debated whether it was better to book it or stay right there and wait for unemployment.

They were forced into the latter when Mr. Patton rounded the corner and inspected the room. 

“What is going on in here?” he asked, squinting from the change in lighting. “We’re back up in five, and you two are here fiddling with the breaker box.”

He moved closer, to which the assistants responded by stepping forward and blocking their mistake. It didn’t work, based on how Patton’s squinted eyes quickly changed from a reaction to utterly skeptical of them. 

“Okay,” Toby started, hand out as if to calm him how you would a wild animal, “sir, don’t be mad.”

“What did you do?”

One look, and he repeated the question, much more exasperated and worried than he had the first time. “What did you do?!”

Toby caved faster than an unstable mountain in earthquake season, though his words came out little more than a garbled mess. “Juliette tried to get the elevator to stop between floors so they’d be stuck and have to talk to each other about their relationship, but she didn’t know how so she ripped out all the wires and now we can’t get them back and we’re pretty sure they’re stuck in the elevator with no way to get them out, we’re so sorry, please don’t fire us.”

Patton exhaled shakily, before asking with as much calm as he could muster, “Toby, who are you talking about?”

He didn’t need more than an embarrassed look to realize who ‘they’ were.  

“You’re idiots.” 

They nodded with varying degrees of responsibility. 

“We know, sir, and we’re so sorry for meddling in their personal lives."

“It’s not me who you should be apologizing to—” He guided them back to the hallway, ready to send them on their way, “—but you’re not fired. At least, not if we can get them out of there. Those two were going to be a pain to deal with if they didn’t get on better terms, and I have you to thank for getting them to play nice.”

They each exhaled with relief, having thought they were screwed the second he had entered the room. 

He wasn’t done yet, though, and he dropped them in the doorway. “However, please, if you’re going to mess with people’s relationships, don’t make it our main stars, and don’t do it on company time.” It was slightly concerning that he cared more for that mistake than those exact stars being dangled three floors in the air. “You’re lucky you’re with me – go on, get them some water or something, they’ll be shaken when they get out.” 

“Right, sir, thank you, sir,” Toby muttered. He gripped Juliette’s arm and tugged her back towards the staircase. Patton shook his head, feeling as though he had been dealing with unruly toddlers, but he still laughed when he heard a distant, “Leave the wires!” and the flop of equipment at the door. 

Finally, by himself, he glanced back at the mess they had made of the breaker box and sighed. “We’re going to get so sued.”

It didn’t take long for you to realize what had happened. With the elevator stuck in whatever position it was, you could only pass the time in silence. What’s worse was it was getting stuffy, so you had to remove your jacket in such an awkward manner that had you nearly squirming. Why did that have to happen after you completely destroyed any chance of getting back to how you used to be? Did a god hate you? Had you offended some cosmic power so much that they decided, hey, let’s completely fuck you over on this one particular day? You didn’t know and you were over trying to work around the silence that infested the elevator. 

That left Mark to be the only one to ask, “How long do you think it’s going to take?”

“I don’t know,” you responded bluntly, “an hour maybe?”

He slid down the wall, coming to the same level that you were currently sat at. Your eyes would have met had you been looking up – instead, you stared intently at your hands. 

“Fuck.”

You didn’t give him an audible response to that, you didn’t feel like you had to, just a vague nod. The new principle you had come up with in the last thirty minutes wasn’t something you were happy with, but it was better than annoying him more and making your days just as miserable as you had expected them to be. 

Just like before, Mark was thinking differently, and he scoffed to say, “I don’t see why you’re complaining, isn’t this what you wanted? Us to talk?” 

Ignoring the fact that you only agreed with him, you answered, “I wanted it to be on our own terms, not locked in an elevator. You said you didn’t want to have a conversation, so we won’t.”

“Stop doing that.” 

You managed to bring your head up ever so slightly. Mark wasn’t looking at you, he couldn’t bring himself to, but there was definitely a look of conflict fixed starkly on his face. A confused noise fell to the silence. 

He explained, “You’re being nice and then I can’t fight back without seeming like an asshole.” 

This time, you laughed through your nose. He didn’t react but he noticed it. The sound didn’t fit right, like a different person had replaced you. He wanted that boisterous laugh, or none at all, but he was left with the small chuckle to deepen his frown.

“Would you rather me be mean to you?” you asked. 

“Yes.”

You couldn’t be held liable for what you were about to say, then, if he had asked for it. “Fine,” you sighed, half upset that it came down to him requesting you to be rude, “I think you’re being childish and ignoring a problem that could be easily solved if you just agreed to confront it.”

You both knew you could do worse, and Mark was split on whether he would have appreciated a harsher tone than the one you supplied him with. Either way, he was glad that you listened to him, allowing him to reply, “Not until you admit what you did.”

“And that’s another thing, you won’t tell me what I did for me to explain it.”

Shoving his reservations to the side, Mark’s upper half darted forward away from the wall and towards you, as if getting closer would get the message across better. “You do the same thing. Yesterday, you didn’t tell me what was wrong and then stormed off.”

You granted him that, you hadn’t given him much to go off of, but it was still insulting that he had forgotten so easily – but also you supposed that was what he was feeling, too. “Okay, tell me, now,” you ordered softly. 

Mark fumbled for a second, not actually having expected you to say anything. Instantly, regret swarmed him, begging him to just stay quiet, but he couldn’t. He refused to because, and it was near painful to acknowledge, he did want to talk about it, or, more accurately, he wanted to rant to you about what had happened. Everything would be out in the open, then, and he wouldn’t have to walk on eggshells every time he thought that maybe, just maybe, he liked talking to you. Only, he had dug himself into such a deep pit that he could barely remember what the sun looked like. 

“I know you cheated on me.” 

As much as he wanted to slap a hand over his mouth and never speak again, the pot was already boiling over, every word possible ready to spill out the second the lid was lifted. 

That was done with a simple, “What? When?”

“June 12th—” Just shut up, “—I came home from the last shoot, and I heard you talking on the phone to someone about sharing a bed—” Really, shut up, “—and telling them that you loved them—” You’re an idiot, Mark, “—I was able to figure it out from there.” 

The elevator went quiet, because of course it did, he had just confronted you about something in the making for a year. If he could, Mark would’ve reached out and caught the story that fell, brought it back inside and left it to stew for a couple more months. 

But he couldn’t, and he didn’t, and you were left with your mouth wide open. Throwing possible replies around in your mind, your first reaction, involuntary and primal, was to mumble, “Mark, why didn’t you talk to me about it?”

The two of you were stripped down to bare bones, now. No words nor actions required manual thought, everything playing fast and loose with the rules and social norms. 

“I… I didn’t want to embarrass you.” You both knew it was a lie, and the imploring look you sent had him amending, “I didn’t want to end it. I thought that if I just ignored it,” he took a deep breath, calming himself, “you would come back to me. And that didn’t happen.” 

Suspended 20 feet in the air and unsure of when you’d be free, everything was on the table. Mocking, arguing, reconciling. 

Even pure, unadulterated laughter. 

And that was what happened when a beat had passed, a break in the music that had you nearly tearing up with amusement. You fanned yourself and tried to calm down, but that sentence kept repeating over and over. Having spent years in the same house as Mark, you knew his thought processes and his movements, but you seemed to have forgotten how much of a dumbass he could be sometimes. 

Including right now, when he scowled and shuffled further to the side, away from you, and huddled into the corner. You almost felt bad, with how he was subtly trying to hide, like a dog having been found ripping up a shirt. 

Numbly, hoping that his words would cover up the tears constricting his throat, he muttered, “Well, I’m sorry for wanting to continue that relationship, then.”

“No, no, I’m sorry,” you cut him off with another chuckle. You finally found cause to relax against the cold metal of that box, and you crossed your ankles over one another. “Mark, I wasn’t cheating on you.”

His jaw dropped – not because it was some sudden realization, but because he truly believed you were still lying. This was a step for you, a leap into gaslighting he hadn’t thought you’d make. He bit his lip to maintain his defense against tearing up before spitting, “Still? You’re still denying it?”

“No, well, yeah, I am,” you explained, “because I wasn’t talking to who you think I was talking to.” 

“Then, who was it?” What were you going to make up now? A contractor for a private project, a co-star who you just couldn’t be cheating with behind his back. He was ready for it all, bring it on, you horrible liar.

“It was my brother.” 

Ah. 

Now. 

That was actually possible.

Mark’s mouth flopped like a dying fish. “What. Michael. What, no, wait—” He continued to splutter and every failed attempt at a word made your smile grow a few centimeters more. 

“He was going to be in town for a week, and I said he could stay in one of our guest rooms. He said about not liking the artificial style of them, so I joked that we could sleep in the same bed, like how we used to when we were kids.” 

The wall disappeared from behind him, the floor fell, and those bright, artificial lights snuffed. Time itself froze and there was the odd feeling of being tugged away from the whole world. It was a tough pill to swallow, to realize that a relationship, a person, who you had devoted nearly all of your life to had broken apart in a matter of minutes because of simple miscommunication. Mark wanted to slam his head through the mirror. 

Getting his bearings, he stumbled out, “But… why didn’t you tell me?"

You shrugged. “You weren’t there to tell. I knew how much that movie meant to you, I didn’t want you to have to fuss over something you wouldn’t even be affected by.”

Although he hated to admit it, Mark started to backpedal; if you really were just talking to Michael, then that meant… that it was his fault that you broke up with him. 

He grasped at straws, pointing out with unsteady breaths, “He didn’t come, though.”

Shaking your head, you were slightly confused. “Of course not. I saw that interview and I immediately broke it off. Mike stayed at home, and I left to stay with him.” 

No, no, no. 

Meekly, hoping that you weren’t talking about what he thought you were talking about, he brought his head up to meet your gaze. Oh, you were confused, but you had that stupid half-smile on your face anyway. Why did you have to be like that? Why did he have to choose you, of all people?

“Which interview?” he asked.

“The one for that action, actually. Where the guy asked about us and you spilled everything.” That smile was still there, but that look in your eyes, the glint of joy added just for a second, was replaced by distance. It was as if he went from being up close and personal with a blazing star to staring up at it from Earth. You kept going, though, “You said how I distanced you from your friends and ignored you all the time, and how I probably cheated on you.”

Well, it explained that part, huh? Your head bobbed up and down, enough time between for Mark to slide closer to you across the frigid floor, not that you noticed until he was sidling up beside you. 

“Well, that last one, I thought was true… but you’re right, I did say that. Didn’t I?”

Lazily, you nodded. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Reality caught up to you, and your head snapped to look at him. Now he was the one who looked distant, as if nothing he felt really clicked with him. Neither of you were thinking, and you supposed that Mark just didn’t feel like doing anything. 

Different for you – it always was – and your instinct had you wrapping your arms around his waist before your brain could have any input. The points of contact went as fuzzy as static, and the feeling quickly spread like a wildfire up your arms and into your chest. It was overwhelming, but not harmful – it more resembled being pressured by a weighted blanket, comfortable and gentle. You even felt the temptation to laugh swell in your heart. 

Mark didn’t respond, not for the first few seconds, but he gave in to a little, childlike giggle before encasing you in his own arms. Protectively, he squeezed, as if the chill of the elevator was something he could fight away from you. 

In reality, it was him checking that you were actually there, hugging him without hesitation or worry. He had to check for fear that the elevator had collapsed, and you had actually died in the crash. But you hadn’t, he was sure of it as he felt the heat radiating from you. A blush ghosted over his cheeks, and he pulled you impossibly closer. It had been a year and yet you smelled exactly the same as you had the last time you had been so close. He suddenly became aware of how much he had missed this; you being pressed against him, his head resting on your shoulder, the stability that came with it all. 

You were the first to pull back, though it was only a few inches, and you still held your hands on his upper arms. 

Despite that, Mark was the first to speak. Almost jokingly, he whispered, “Sometimes I wonder what you saw in me.”

Your grip tightened in shock, but you manually loosened it to bring your hands to cradle his cheeks. It was a sweet gesture, guiding him to look at you and decorating his face in a small blush. 

“So much,” you replied forcibly, “I saw a man who knew what he wanted and would go for it – I saw a man who was devoted to projects and relationships and was able to prioritize. You were ambitious and loving and brave. And you still are.”

While one hand of his own swam up to caress yours, stabilize himself throughout your words, he tried his best to look away. “I put my work before you.”

“And I think you were right to do that. I was working, you were working, we had separate lives and things we cared about, but we still ended the day together in the same house after everything was said and done.” 

A squeeze, a smile, a chuckle. “I shouldn’t have said all those things, though, they weren’t true.”

He was right, and both of you were aware. “No, you shouldn’t have,” you admitted, but your hand and eyes stayed right where they were, “but I should’ve told you what was going to happen under your roof.” 

“It was your roof, too.”

And there it was. Everything was out in the open, and it wasn’t as hard as you thought it would be. Of course, getting there was horrendous, but everything had turned out fine. Better than fine, actually, because neither of you were weeping and neither of you were dead. Getting trapped in an elevator was a surprise, though. You briefly wondered what was happening outside of your metal bubble – and you decided, quickly, that it didn’t matter. If it took days for them to even notice, then so be it. You were comfortable, finally feeling complete and stable after so long on the edge. They always said that you didn’t know what you had until it was gone, and not having Mark to return to at the end of the day was as bad as branding yourself when you came home to an empty apartment.

“Hey, what’s that?” 

Having adjusted into a more comfortable position, your back against the wall and your legs stretched out in front of you, your costume had ridden up to show your ankle. Lightly, you laughed at yourself, imaging a Victorian crowd going absolutely ape shit, but then you remembered that a little picture was also exposed to Mark’s view. 

You dragged your knee up to your chest, and, after bringing your pant leg up a few more inches, you said, “Moving out wasn’t the only thing I did when we broke up.”

You remembered getting that tattoo surprisingly fondly, for the state you were in when you chose it. A little pumpkin, cute without context, but exciting for people who did know where it came from. Michael Myers’ pumpkin, with the sections that were meant to be lit up shaded in instead. A lot of people had trouble seeing Michael in the intros, so you made sure to request it be obvious. 

“Why a pumpkin?” Mark asked, drawing a finger over it. A slight chill shot through your veins. 

“It’s from Halloween.”

“Okay, but why is it a pumpkin?”

Mark was a dumbass, but he was your dumbass. 

“No, you dolt,” you insulted softly, “the movie Halloween. Michael Myers.”

He rolled his eyes but there was obviously no intent to be mean about it. “How would I know that?”

“It was the first horror movie I ever showed you,” you responded, before rolling it back down. The bottom few bumps of the pumpkin still peaked out from below the fabric. 

“Exactly,” he huffed, “it was so long ago, how would I ever remember it?”

Shaking your head, you were happy with how this turned out. It was a mess coming into it, sure, but it was good to be able to talk about what happened after you broke up without your heart panging every time you opened your mouth.

“Didn’t it hurt?”

“Nah, I got used to needles after the third one I got.”

“You have more?” 

“Actually…” you trailed off. Instead of just giving him a vague idea, you brought your shirt up and over your head, shocking him for just a moment with the question of what in the hell you were doing. When you had twisted around to give him an easier sight of your back, those brown eyes blew wide with awe and recognition. 

Decals littered your back, like the spread of a shotgun. You had spent so long looking at them that you had memorized where each and every one was located, so when Mark caressed a certain tattoo, you were able to explain the stories behind them, after recovering from the shivers. A cassette tape labelled ‘play me’ in the centre of your spine, a carved-out puzzle piece that inched onto your shoulder, and a miniature dragon shaded spectacularly by your artist were the main ones that you talked about. Nearly all of those tattoos were horror-based, down to the dragon’s teeth being visibly sharp, except for one. 

Mark’s fingertips ghosted gently over your side, bringing you to almost flinch away. You stayed put though, long enough for him to wonder, “A round chicken?”

“I played a lot of Stardew Valley in my free time.” 

He backed away, giving you space to put your shirt back on. After it was over your head, you turned to look at Mark. Sure enough, the crimson blush had increased ten-fold, and you found yourself smirking a little bit wider. He would have thrown something at you if there had been something to throw. 

“What’d you do after we went our separate ways?” you asked, crossing your arms over your chest. It was getting cold, but no way in hell would you put that death-trap of a jacket back on. 

“Now, that is a question,” he trailed off awkwardly. 

“Sure is.”

He glanced around the elevator, the impression that he would get an answer if he just looked hard enough settling in his mind. When he found no such thing, he sighed and glanced back to you. “Really, I can’t remember. I guess, I just waited for a new script, learned it and then… kept going. I hadn’t imagined a life without you, and when I was living that life, I couldn’t stop imagining one with you again.”

Huh. You hadn’t thought of that. You could remember the first couple of days like watching them in a theater, but you supposed it was only because you hadn’t fully processed it yet. You spent most of your time trying to find a job, then worked at that job, then got more tattoos, rinse, and repeat. And when you finally understood that you were no longer dating, enough time had passed for you to distance yourself. 

“And what did that look like?” 

He was quick on the draw this time. “Everything that we used to do – except I actually took more steps forward than back.”

Curiosity overtook you, forcing the question, “So, now that I’m back, what are you going to do?” out of your mouth nearly without your permission. You wanted to ask it; it had been knocking at the back of your mind like an unwelcome houseguest since you had admitted everything. It was better this way; you would’ve surely regretted not saying anything when you got out of there. 

“Make up for lost time.”

Especially when, just as the words came forward into the open air, so, too, did Mark. The impact of his lips on yours was small, gentle, nothing more than a bee landing on a flower – but your mind celebrated. It shot off fireworks and turned on the lights, as if it had gone through the year in a darkened cave. Your gut joined the party, flipping, twirling, dancing along to the quickening pace of your heart. The grip you had before on his arms returned with fervor, and you squeezed excitedly, while his hand carded delicately through your hair. A slight pressure on your waist and you deepened the kiss. Barely a sound passed through your joined lips, but the surprised air played on Mark’s like it was the first time all over again. He moved, you moved, you tilted your head one way, and he the other. Perfect tandem, a perfect kiss. You traced his mouth and found everything to be just as you remembered – the ever-present artificial feel of lipstick, the plush skin buried underneath, the warmth that radiated from it no matter how many layers it drowned under. 

And when you pulled away to see the look on Mark’s face, you figured one more kiss wouldn’t hurt. So, you went in for another, and Mark shifted away from you after a few more seconds, only to decide, hey, you had the time. 

That process continued with minimal breaks for the next minute and a half. 

It wasn’t until you felt a break in the temperature that you parted for good. Or, until you could get some alone time again, because a voice called out to the two of you from the now-open elevator doors. 

You swirled around on your legs, clumsily red in your face and lips swollen. Mark laughed, to which you immediately turned back around and landed another peck directly on his own. That shut him up. 

“Are you two alright in there?” you heard a familiar voice yell, panicked as you had expected he would be. 

You shouted back, “Yep!”

Luckily, there was enough open space above the floor that you were able to climb through when the firefighters wrenched apart the doors. One hand shot down, which you grabbed at to haul yourself up, using the remaining section of metal as a step. 

Mark watched, the redness in his cheeks steadily growing before it was his turn.

Finally on stable ground, you took a test jump and decreed you were in no mortal danger. Not that you ever suspected you were, but it was always helpful to check. Then, you noticed that your hand was still wrapped around the firefighter’s who had taken you out, so you promptly dropped it and spoke a faux-confident, “Thanks, love.”

A tap on your shoulder and you turned to see Mark out, too. He looked slightly unimpressed, but you just winked at him and leaned across to give him another, more assuring, kiss on the cheek. 

Your assistants had scurried away from the door when you were hauled up, partially to give you the space to get to your feet comfortably, and partially to escape whatever punishment you would have for them, if you had figured out what had really gone wrong with the elevator. With the way you looked at them, they were able to let out separate sighs of relief. You didn’t know. 

“Juliette!” 

Mark, however, sounded absolutely pissed. 

“Good luck,” Toby joked, happy that she was getting some cosmic karma for it being her plan in the first place. Plus, it wasn’t as if he had to face any consequences for being an accomplice, not that he thought, anyway, since you had yet to connect the dots. 

You stepped closer and closer, stalked closer and closer, until you were barely a foot’s length away from him. It seemed Toby had forgotten that this was a studio, you were an actor, and, by God, were you good at what you did. 

“Toby,” you spoke simply. 

One second. Two. 

Juliette attacked Toby’s arm with a vice grip that rivalled a boa constrictor, likely cutting off some blood flow. Your grin was murderous, Mark’s eyes flooded with anger, and they were the objects of those sentiments. 

They had the good sense to run before they could be drawn and quartered. 

Neither of you ran after them – you’d be seeing them the next day for shoots, after all – and you took the break alone to share another kiss. After so long spent apart, you were owed some time together. Preferably at home, resting snug on the couch and watching a stream of Love Actually, and not in full view of the director and his assistant, who exchanged a wad of cash for Patton’s celebratory whoop. 

[a-gal-with-taste]

Midnight (Part 1)

Summary: "You seem eager to be in my presence," The scarred man hummed, receiving only a chuckle in response before you decided to display your eagerness with a hand on his arm, squeezing lightly as a leg brushed against his. “Oh, you have no idea.” (Cinderella/Masquerade AU)

Warnings: SFW, growing romance/fluff, mutual pining, secret identities, flirting, suggestive, teasing/couples banter, bit of a cliffhanger

Theme-nights were a certain hell all on their own. 

Normally, he had little issue with signing off on the little things that kept his lackies entertained - cheap entertainment that kept them amused, and more importantly, loyal. It was why the Last Drop remained as a tavern, why he allowed his building to vibrate with music and party goers night after night, after night. 

However, theme-nights were something particularly exasperating to the reigning kingpin. And not even reclining back at his signature booth, favorite drink clenched in hand, could stop the faint scowl appearing on his face when he saw another one of his man prancing about along the dance floor - Silco could swear he heard the fool pointing to his mask, and asking every passing patron, ‘hey, guess who!’

"Do you always get so tense when you see someone having fun?" The scowl loses a bit of its tension, but the knuckles around his glass go a bit whiter as the palm on his chest rubbed in slow circles, enough that he could almost feel the warmth. "Owner of a place like this... one wouldn't expect you to be such a stick-in-the-mud." 

"Careful. I haven't decided if I'm enjoying your company quite yet." 

"Oh, I think you're enjoying this much more than you're ready to admit, Silco," Lips curl into a smirk, and he watches as your hand slowly slips from his vest, curling around the glass on the table.  Silco swears you make a show of it, tongue slowly swiping at your bottom lip as you finish the drink, before breathing out, "You wouldn't still be here if, deep down, you weren't enjoying my company." 

A clink on the tabletop, and then that hand is back on his chest as you lean close. He can just-almost identify the color of your eyes from beneath the mask, as you whisper with mirth, "You've been enjoying my company three nights. Don't play coy now - we both know it would be a lie." 

The first night of this theme-weekend the Eye so-loathed, he had considered signaling for security the moment you'd been found reclined comfortably in his booth. The anonymity that the mask provided, seemed to encourage courage enough for you to merely smile at his glower, and gesture to the seat - his seat - beside you. 

An invitation to his own booth.

For Silco, it had been as insulting as it had been intriguing, leaning more toward the latter when you simply waved a hand to the bar, and a prepared glass of his preferred beverage was set before him. 

"I thought you'd come, or at least, I had hoped you would." 

Such strange, almost familiar sentiments gave him more than enough reason to return for the second-night. If Silco arrived a bit earlier than the prior night, any hopes to catch you unawares or unmasked dying on-sight as you waved at him slowly, fingers curling with the smirk on your face when your eyes caught from across The Last Drop. 

"You seem eager to be in my presence," The scarred man hummed, receiving only a chuckle in response before you decided to display your eagerness with a hand on his arm, squeezing lightly as a leg brushed against his. “Oh, you have no idea.”

Strange, and almost familiar. At the very least, Silco couldn’t deny that he had felt enough at-ease to respond in kind to such flirtations, and not signal for the bouncers. 

Gloved fingers found themselves tracing along the designs of your clothing - well done, custom and clearly meant for someone who had extra coin available. Not much, but enough for a splurge - though Silco found it curious, and perhaps a bit suspicious, even as he hummed in approval around a cigar when a leg found itself hooked over his lap.

Why, exactly, would a stranger wish to show off for him, seemingly without a want for anything save for his undivided attention? 

Combined with the familiarity of your voice, though not with your actions, which seemed to grow bolder with each passing hour, Silco was already developing several theories as to the true face beneath that mask. 

You wouldn't tell him outright, and admittedly, he was a bit too bemused with watching your confidence grow enough to trace nails along his shoulder, bypassing his neck, and just barely brushing against the short hairs on the back of his skull, then to simply ask. 

"I suppose I've been…entertained by your company, at the very least." The admittance seems to succeed in causing you to chuckle, humored at his faint resistance even as you lean your head on his upper-arm. Mask or no, he knows those eyes are solely on him… he can just barely catch them glimmering, in the slim space the mask provides and the dimmer lights of the booth. 

"I'm glad." He has to fight the urge to blink his remaining eye in surprise, because the way you phrase it was so… genuine. Even with that brazen curl still on the corners of your lips. "Really, I am. You always seem tense… not that anyone could blame it, but even kingpins have to learn to relax once and a while." You paused suddenly, and he watched as you bit down lightly on your bottom-lip, hesitating.

Silco loses track of where you were at with your sense of confidence, attention partially drawn to the fingers beginning to glide through his hair. Nails ease along his scalp in slow careful movements - he should be snatching your hand off of him. He should, and the brief stints of hesitancy in your touch makes it clear that you know he could, but he doesn't. 

He realizes, suddenly, that he doesn't want to. 

"I'm glad I could be entertaining, even only by being here, for a little bit…" 

"I could think of a few other ways you could entertain."

Punctuating the layered-suggestion with a squeeze on the thigh across his lap, Silco hummed while you laughed in breathless mirth, curling fingers against his skull as you tease, "Aw… so you do enjoy my company." The one-shouldered shrug the Eye of Zaun gives is weak, but he continues trailing his half-gaze along the contours of the facial-cover. Three simple, easy words could give him the answer he wants, and a simple yank of the mask covering all but your fondly-smirking mouth would more than be enough to give him the answer he needs, but the off-duty kingpin finds himself far more perplexed at the mystery. And more importantly, the reason for it.

Because you certainly are not doing this recognition, nor for any backhanded goals that would leave him more than a bit annoyed, and possibly foolish for falling for.

Save for the mask covering a third of your face, the only reason Silco could see you doing any of this, including leaning until your head is just resting against his biceps without eyes ever leaving from his, is because you want to.

Another reason he's suspecting, though still not quite believing, is that you're wholly enamored with him.

"You have no idea how much I want that," You breathe, the air brushing across his chin and own lips as he just barely tilts his head down, catching you in a gaze of blue and red that makes you smile. "Entertain you… Gods know you entertain me. Oh, you don't mean to… but you do." "Glad to know I'm such a form of enjoyment for you," Silco says, attempting to sound short, but your nails gently shift to scratch behind his ear, and it comes out as a croak that you chuckle over.

"You're good for many purposes," You tease, before the smirking lines of your mouth soften. 

Your head lifts off from his shoulder, but the warmth you leave-behind only seems to spread through his body, and perhaps it's contagious, that urge to soften just slightly. Any remaining faux-annoyed bemusement remaining at your gall fades fast, as your fingers cart through dark hair to cup the back of his head, and Silco feels his lips part slightly as your own move up towards his.

The Eye of Zaun is on the verge of moving forward to close the gap himself, when you stop, and murmur just barely against his lips, "Think someone is using the benefit of the masquerade-theme tonight to rob the bar."

It's unacceptable not to kiss you now, but it's far more unacceptable to allow someone to rob his establishment under his own watch, and with a snarl, Silco jerks his chin over to the direction of the bar, just as you slide your legs from his lap. Even worse than seeing some half-drunken try to reach over and under the bar to grasp blindly for the lockbox, is that you take those fingers massaging against his scalp with you, as you settle off of him.

"It's okay, I think you can handle it," That tease is back in your voice, but it doesn't erase the fact that you looked besotted by him not seconds prior, and he pointedly calls it out with a narrowed look. 

"If you have doubts, you're more than welcome to join me after… and if you still have doubts about what I can handle…" You jerk when you realize that his hand has never left your thigh, a fact he brings to attention with an unsubtle squeeze. "I'm more than happy to demonstrate, and I imagine you're more than wanting to see it."

"Oh," Confidence doesn't diminish, but there's a nervous, giddy edge to your voice as you chuckle under your breath. "You have no idea."

"I'm starting to get the picture."

Silco expects there will be time later for names and the like. But for now, he's content to lean forward, briefly brushing partially scarred lips on the space between skin and mask and enjoy this preview of the gasps he wants to reduce you to make, with a particularly pitched-hitch in your breath at the feel of his touch on yours.

Overconfidence turns out to be his downfall, because his expectation for more opportunities causes him to turn and slip from the booth without another word or look. Causes him not to turn and glance back as he makes his way to the bar, grabbing the fool by the collar hand hauling them back over firmly to the patron-side of the bar, without any concern to look over his shoulder.

So self-assured he was, in his expectation of more time with you, that once the Eye of Zaun drops the fool - his own drunken lackey, apparently trying to look for the 'good stuff' under the counter - and turns back to the booth he shared with you, there truly is a sense of shock that runs through him when he sees the table has been vacated, drinks cleared, and you? Nowhere in sight.

At the height of the evening, midnight, his booth is now empty.

Save for a carefully placed mask on the table.

-

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[solain-rhyo]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/2 Fandom: Predator Original Series (1987-1990), Prey (2022), Aliens vs Predators Series - Various Authors, Predators (2010) Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Naru/Greyback, Naru/Yautja, Naru/Predator Characters: Naru, Aruka, Taabe, War Chief, Feral Predator, Elder Predator - Character, Veteran Predator, Greyback Predator, Clan Lead Predator Additional Tags: Continuation of "Prey", Naru is victorious, Other Yautja bear witness, Yautja honor the victor, Yautja curiosity, Human and Yautja Hunts, mutual fascination, Human Perspective, Yautja perspective, Graphic Violence, disturbing imagery, Eventual Smut, Exploration of yautja and human intimacy

Summary:

Naru's victory over the Feral Predator is witnessed by other yautja. One among them comes to pay her his respects.

Part I.

[white-collar-lawmen-and-conmen]

25% (Part One)

Summary: Neal added himself to a national bone marrow registry. He unexpectedly matches closely to a female cancer patient a few months later.

Word Count: 5,392

A/N: Requested by anonymous. This was a oneshot but it got too long so now it's a two-parter. Potential trigger warning of blood cancer, chemotherapy, and mention of hypodermic injections. Dr. Wilson and House are borrowed from House, M.D. Longer A/N at the bottom. Enjoy!

February 2010

“Peter, did you know that someone in this country is diagnosed with blood cancer every three minutes?” Neal asked, paraphrasing from the informational leaflet.

Peter, standing in the line just ahead of him, sighed sympathetically. “Yes, Neal, I read it, too.”

The thief looked back down at the trifolded pamphlet, reading the rest of it through a second time while the line slowly moved forward. Gift of Life adorned the top of each third of the cardstock. When the nonprofit had reached out to the businesses and organizations in Federal Plaza, the bureau had forwarded the notice to its New York agents en masse, and for the last two days, agents, as well as lawyers, clerks, police, and civilians, had been filtering through the queue to be tested. Neal had opted to go with Peter, not seeing any harm. Now, reading the leaflet he’d been given to ensure his consent was informed, he was altruistically glad that he’d come.

“White patients are almost guaranteed to find a compatible donor,” Neal read, tapping Peter on the shoulder to make sure that the agent was paying attention. “The odds go down for other ethnicities. This says Black Americans only have a two-in-three chance*.”

Peter’s sigh sounded more irritated this time. “I read the same thing you did, Neal.” He turned partway to talk more easily to his consultant while still able to move forward when the line did. They were almost at the front.

“I wonder why,” Neal thought aloud. “Have fewer Black people been tested? It could be their sample size. Maybe some demographics aren’t as willing to be tested.” Knowing the country’s history of medical abuse towards Black citizens, that wouldn’t be too surprising.

“It could be about genetics,” Peter answered, grudgingly curious.

Before they could theorize further, the line moved forward. A woman in scrubs wearing a paper mask over her face poked her head out of the small tent and gestured for Peter to come inside. Peter ducked in and Neal waited alone. Maybe a minute later, she stuck her head back out and gestured for Neal.

Inside the pop-up tent, a collapsible plastic table had been set up. One volunteer sat at the table, taking down information and using a small barcode printer to code information to the stickers put on samples. Beside the table were two milk cartons full of empty little vials, and a huge glass jar had nothing but long cotton swabs.

Neal wrote in his name, birthday, and contact information, then responded to a short checklist of yes or no questions about his medical history while Peter had his cheek swabbed. When he was done, he turned the clipboard back towards the volunteer. She took the sheet he’d used off the clipboard and then turned it back towards the table for the next donor. His handler was ushered out of the other side of the pop-up, and Neal took his place while the nurse sealed the vial shut and added the printed barcode sticker corresponding to Peter. She beckoned the next person inside, then turned to Neal.

He didn’t remember getting his cheek swabbed so roughly before, but at least it didn’t hurt. He wasn’t even supposed to stay until the sticker was on his vial, instead being shown the door (well, exit flap) by the nurse. Neal came back out of the tent into the sunshine and saw Peter had stopped to wait for him a few feet away.

“Done your civic duty for the day?” The agent checked dryly.

“Yeah,” Neal said, folding up the leaflet he’d been holding onto and putting it in his pocket. “Now that that’s over with I can get back to my foreign duties instead.”

“Ha! Maybe in 44 months,” Peter snorted, leading the way back to the FBI building.

July 2010

You’d known something was wrong since late March, when your pants stopped fitting. You hadn’t been worried then; it was just a sign you needed to make sure you were getting enough to eat. But then you realized you couldn’t remember the last time you’d woken up feeling refreshed. And then there was the brain fog that started crowding your thoughts out on bad days. None of these things would have concerned you alone, because everyone had bad days, and sometimes when you couldn’t sleep, you were tired, and it was hard to concentrate. Finally, the pain in your back started, and you realized too much was wrong at once to not go to a doctor. Two visits and a specialist appointment later, you had a diagnosis. Multiple myeloma.

And now this: it wasn’t getting better.

“I thought the chemo was helping,” you said, feeling sick to your stomach at the thought of cancerous cells multiplying and spreading, poisoning your body from within. And, worse, you’d just been making yourself feel and look like shit pointlessly because the chemotherapy wasn’t even helping.

“It was. The results were promising and we still aren’t seeing any signs that it’s moved to your other organs,” Dr. Wilson told you kindly. You hated him. Well, no. You hated coming to see him. His track record for giving you good news was pretty bad, considering he was the one who’d given you the cancer diagnosis in the first place. But he was one of the best oncologists in the tri-state area that you could get in to see. “But we’re also not seeing the cancer going away any more now than it was this time last month.”

It was just sitting there, festering. You squeezed your eyes shut so tightly you started seeing dark spots flashing against your eyelids, and then breathed in heavily and looked at the doctor again.

“Do I have any options?” You asked hopefully, battling the bone-deep tiredness that you felt both physically and mentally.

“I think, with your permission, it would be best to look at a more aggressive treatment,” Dr. Wilson said, reaching back over to his desk. When his patients came in, he often sat with them on one of the couches or chairs instead of being several feet away behind a table. He gave you one of those little thin hospital leaflets. Bone marrow transplantation.

“When we’re looking at this problem, there are two factors to consider.” Dr. Wilson explained patiently. “First, you’ve got the cancerous cells. We have to take them out of your body so they can’t keep replicating and, God forbid, metastasize. Second, you still need to have some cells to be healthy, so we need to make sure you have those.”

“But you can’t specifically take out only the cancerous cells,” you said dully, seeing where it was going. As if the leaflet hadn’t given it away already.

“No, we can’t,” he confirmed. “So in cases like this, sometimes our best option is to just… well, to weaken your immune system and kill off all of the cells in that area. No more cancer. A healthy donor supplies some replacement cells, and while your immune system is down, it’s more likely to accept the donated material. Those cells then replicate and offer a new supply of healthy, non-cancerous marrow.” Dr. Wilson locked his fingers and set his hands on his knee. “It’s not always fast to find a donor, and there’s always the chance your body will reject the transplant, even after everything. And, as you know, there’s no cure for cancer – you would be in remission, but you wouldn’t be cured.”

The moment he said remission, you knew that you were on board, no matter how apprehensive you still felt. Even in the simplified explanation he had given you, there were a few things you didn’t feel confident that you understood. But… to be cancer-free…

You wrung your hands nervously and, wanting to know what you were getting into, asked, “Will it kill me if it goes wrong?”

Dr. Wilson shook his head quickly. “That’s always possible, but it would be an exceedingly rare case. It’s an inpatient procedure. You’d stay here at least overnight and if there were any signs that your body was rejecting the donation, you’d have medical care immediately.”

“But my immune system would be shot,” you said worriedly.

“But in a sterile environment with doctors and nurses on call at all times, that’s not nearly as dangerous as it used to be,” he reassured you. “And the body is strong. It’s usually only three to four weeks before any chemotherapy patient is back to full immunological health.”

Biting your lip, you weighed the risks. Dr. Wilson seemed pretty certain that it was worth taking the risk to go ahead with it, and that those risks were relatively small. And the thought of not having this mutation sitting in your back anymore was incredibly tempting. Resisting it, you imagined, was like asking a recovering alcoholic to resist a Cosmo put right in front of them. Every day you felt unsafe and paranoid of your own body – the one place you could never actually flee from.

“When you say aggressive treatment…”

“It’s aggressive in the sense that we would be deliberately, albeit temporarily, shutting down your immune system. It won’t be pleasant for you, but it wouldn’t last very long,” Dr. Wilson offered. “And in that the transplantation process is inherently an invasive procedure. But it’s also a relatively low-risk one, given a close genetic match.” He lowered his head down to try to meet your eyes as you stared towards a crease on the knee of his pants. “Does that mean you’re considering the option?”

You nodded without thinking. Considering was the absolute least of what you were doing. “I want to do it,” you said.

It wasn’t like you weren’t signing up to be a chemo-weakened shadow of yourself for yearsjust for one longshot operation. You were signing up to feel like hell and be vulnerable in a relatively safe environment, and what sounded like a relatively minor operation. Having a needle put in your back, or even into your bones, was a far cry from the open-heart surgeries which were successful most of the time. Maybe your judgment was skewed, but there was little you wouldn’t do to put yourself in remission. Even if it wasn’t permanent, it would be worth it to have your normal life back for a little longer.

“Oh – okay.” Dr. Wilson blinked and sat up straight. “Alright. The first thing we do is find a donor. Once we find one, and they’re willing to go through the donation process, then we begin the more intensive prep work. Until then,” he said, standing up from the chair and going back to his desk. The oncologist grabbed a pen and made a few notes for himself while you listened, daring to look up hopefully and track him with your eyes. “You stay on your current treatment plan. Not getting better’s frustrating, but for now, we know you’re not getting worse, and you’re still able to function.”

That was debatable. Some days were worse than others. You decided not to point that out. The glumness you normally felt about it was absent now as you grew excited. This was happening. You were going to get better!

“For that donor,” the doctor said, turning back around to you and sitting on the edge of his chair. “Do you have any living biological relatives?”

… Oh. Nausea slammed into your stomach and your heart dropped. You hadn’t thought about that. About what it meant when he’d said that you’d need to find a close genetic match. The sun shining through the huge, clear windows felt horridly inappropriate; you expected and wanted to be swallowed up by the dark.

“I’m sure I do,” you said quietly, “But I was adopted. I have no idea who they are.”

Dr. Wilson’s smile had fallen in concern when yours had, but then he started to give you a reassuring smile. “That’s okay,” he said swiftly, seeing how your mood had changed. You raised your eyebrows skeptically. “We’re not matching DNA, we’re matching protein markers. Siblings are only about 25% likely to be a match, anyway. There are massive donor registries that cover the entire country. Your odds aren’t too bad. I’m going to send an order to the lab you go to.” He uncapped his pen to make more notes to himself. “They’re going to do a blood draw, and when they do, you’re going to have to sign authorization forms for them. With your consent, they’ll submit your sample to the biggest registries and contact me when they find possible options.”

You tentatively started to smile. “When,” you repeated after him quietly. “I really hope you’re not just trying to make me feel better.”

The blond man looked at you seriously and promised, “I would never mislead you about your medical situation. I think you should be optimistic. I’ll let you know when I have an update for you on your search, and if nothing comes up in the next month, then I’ll see you at your regular time.”

August 2010

If Lauren was allowed to doodle angry little sharks in the margins of her notes during meetings, then Neal strongly believed he should also be allowed to multitask. Judging by the fact that Peter confiscated Neal’s phone during their latest meeting, the agent felt differently.

Peter gave it back to him with a scolding order to pay more attention next time. Neal looked as apologetic as he could in the face, while in the eyes he made sure Peter could see he wasn’t contrite at all. It wouldn’t do to have Peter thinking that Neal was so easily cowed about something so trivial, but performing the lip service had the best outcomes for him because no one else knew him well enough to read the defiance in his eyes. That message was only for Peter, and Peter couldn’t rebuke him for it.

During the meeting, he had missed a phone call from someone who wasn’t in his contacts. Neal returned to his desk while waiting for it to dial back and hoping it wasn’t a spam call. There was a chance it was Mozzie, though, or even Alex, so he couldn’t not call back.

No one picked up, but the answering machine piqued his interest. It was an oncologist. Instead of leaving a message, the artist opened up a new tab on his desk monitor and searched the man’s name. Google had a couple small articles on the guy. As of two years ago, he was working as a cancer specialist at a teaching hospital in New Jersey. He double-checked and found that the area code he had called from was a New Jersey number, so it seemed like he was still there.

Mozzie would only go to a doctor if he were literally dying, and he would only go to a doctor in New Jersey if he were half-dead and being escorted there against his will by someone else, so Neal knew that wasn’t it. Purely out of curiosity, he called back, and this time, he left his name and phone number on the answering machine, and added that he was more reachable in the afternoons.

A few hours later, his phone rang again. It was from the same number. Neal excused himself from his desk and strode quickly towards the kitchenette so that his call didn’t bother anyone who was working, and answered it quietly by the coffee machine.

“Is this Mr. Neal Caffrey?” A man’s voice asked on the other end. “This is Dr. Wilson from Princeton-Plainsboro. I tried to call this morning.”

“Yeah,” Neal said vaguely to both. “You’re speaking to him. Can I help you?”

“Not me, specifically,” the doctor answered. “Do you remember registering with Gift of Life this past February?”

Neal blinked. That had been so long ago, and so much had happened since, that he’d all but forgotten about it. After he’d gotten home that evening, he’d looked up more information and found out that most donors would never be the closest match to someone looking for a donation. The thief had put it out of his mind and worried about the more important things on his plate, like corrupt OPR agents, his girlfriend’s murder, and how quickly he was going to be released from prison a second time.

“Yeah,” he said again. “I remember. Am I a match?” He couldn’t think of any other reason he’d be getting called.

“I have a patient whose HLA markers are a close match to yours,” the doctor told him. “If you’re still willing to be a donor, would you mind coming to the hospital for more thorough testing?”

He’d been through so much ugliness in the last couple of months that the idea of saving a life, even by something as passive as holding still and getting stuck with a needle, felt like it satisfied a mellow desire in his chest. He couldn’t save Kate, the one he’d desperately wanted to save, and he was gradually coming to accept that. But he knew that Kate – his Kate, at least, the one she’d been before she left – would’ve agreed to such a request in a heartbeat, and maybe this was a way to honor her.

Except that hospital was about 50 miles out of his radius.

Neal looked down at his right ankle and the lump under his trouser leg. “I actually don’t have a way to get to Princeton,” he said remorsefully. Even if Peter were willing to drive there, and he may have well been, the US Marshals would have had something to say about them taking a personal trip out of state, no matter what their intentions were. “Would it be possible to do that testing in Manhattan?”

The answer was absolutely. Dr. Wilson told him that compatibility testing could be done and transplantation performed from any medically licensed facility, and that his patient was willing to travel to said facility. Neal felt a sympathetic pang about that. Who wouldn’t be willing to go fifty miles out of their way to help themselves survive? If it were his health in jeopardy, he’d cut his anklet and run for it if that’s what it took to prolong his life.

On Tuesday morning, Peter picked up Neal and drove him to the hospital, carrying a messenger bag with cold cases to review and a deviled ham sandwich to eat for lunch since they’d taken the morning off. Peter didn’t even complain about the lost time once Neal said what he needed to go to the hospital for, and again, the artist was comforted by the knowledge that he was friends with genuinely good people. A part of him hoped their goodness would rub off a little bit more.

The longest part was having to wait to be checked in and taken back, but it wasn’t a short time in the office, either. Neal had to answer detailed questions about his medical background, and a doctor came in quickly to perform a routine physical and ensure that he was in good health. The nurse explained that, although they were only collecting blood to compare his protein markers to the anonymous patient’s, they liked to make sure that anyone they tested for compatibility would be healthy enough to go through with a donation process. If they weren’t, then it was a waste of everyone’s time to collect his blood. He saw the logic and signed a release permitting his history, evaluation, and blood results to be sent to Dr. Wilson at the Princeton-Plainsboro hospital.

Finally, a nurse came to draw his blood. “Last step and then you can leave,” she told him helpfully. “You’ll be contacted again if your HLA typing matches the donee closely enough to satisfy her doctor.”

“Her?” Neal asked curiously. He had assumed he was going through the process to donate to a man, although now that he thought about it, there was no real reason he’d thought so.

The nurse nodded. “The patient’s a woman with multiple myeloma. Blood cancer,” she added at Neal’s inquisitive look. “And based on the initial comparison, I’m hopeful you’ll be a good match. We usually don’t see them so close, except in siblings.”

“Huh,” he said aloud. Neal didn’t consider himself to be spiritual, but Kate would have seen that as a sign.

She took his blood quickly, having done it to other patients hundreds if not thousands of times before, then stuck a piece of gauze on his arm and a band-aid on top of that. Before he knew it Neal was being seen out of the room so it could be sanitized for someone else to use.

“How did it go?” Peter asked in greeting once Neal re-entered the waiting room.

Neal showed him the beige band-aid on his arm. “They stole my blood. And you call me a thief,” he joked.

September 2020

When Dr. Wilson saw you at your regular appointment, you had barely held your tongue long enough to sit down before you asked if there was any luck finding a donor. Although the man didn’t answer you right away, you were unbelievably relieved by how he seemed to fight to keep the smile off his face and remain measured and professional. That was a good sign, and it felt like suddenly this lead in your lungs was evaporating to let you breathe easily for the first time in weeks.

“We still need some time,” the blond had told you, gently making sure you didn’t get ahead of yourself. “A promising match is only so much. We need to run more comparisons, make sure that the odds of a rejection are as low as we can make them with the potentials that we have.”

Curious about the plural form, you’d asked if you actually had multiple matches. Dr. Wilson had nodded slowly, watching your face carefully to make sure you understood his explanation. You’d had two potential matches come up in the Gift of Life registry. Both were theoretically close enough to work, but one of them was a significantly closer match than the other. Dr. Wilson had already reached out to both about further testing so that if the closer match refused, or wasn’t that good of a match after all, the time wouldn’t have been wasted.

Another two weeks, almost three, and you were back in the office early at the doctor’s request. The markers were in, and so was the donor’s physical workup. He was in good health and willing to proceed. He was just about all you were able to get out of Dr. Wilson, what with the HIPAA laws in place for a reason. He was a he, and he was in your general age range, and he lived in Manhattan.

The doctor moved the process along, while you did all the preparations you could for the procedure. You tolerated what felt like exhaustingly long chemotherapy sessions and felt like you’d been hit by a slow-moving bus after each one. Though you fell asleep quickly, you were also woken up quickly by anything from a queasy stomach to muscle soreness, and even when you slept through several hours, you didn’t feel very refreshed. Your body was being put through the wringer in a new way. You just kept telling yourself that it was for the sake of a life where you didn’t have to do this all the time.

You wondered what he was like. The donor, that is. In your head, you’d started calling him X in place of a name. Whose protein markers were so much like yours that he was quite literally saving your life, granting you four, five, maybe even up to six extra years just by taking some blows for you this week. Finally, on the day of your last chemo treatment before the transplant, you decided you had to at least try for some answers and stopped at Dr. Wilson’s office after your treatment was over. Fortunately, he was still in his office.

“Hey,” he said, getting the door for you and guiding you to a seat. You didn’t need the gestures, but you did feel fatigued, and you knew that his walking with you was as much about liability if you fell than about thinking you needed the assistance. “Hey. Are you okay? What brings you here this evening? Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“Very,” you replied confidently, clenching your fists around the hem of your shirt. The taxi company had already called to confirm the fare out to Manhattan in the morning. “I was just hoping… well, I mean, I know you can’t tell me. But I’d like to know who my donor is, and meet him, if he’s willing.”

Dr. Wilson tilted his head to you curiously. “There’s a waiting period*, of course,” he said slowly. “You have to be 30 days post-op, no indication of required further transplant activity. That keeps it clean in case we have to ask the donor to go through the process again.”

You nodded, disappointed but understanding. You couldn’t know who was saving your life until it had already been saved. Maybe you weren’t meant to know at all, and maybe that was the point of the registry in the first place: you didn’t need to know Donor X, just that they were a fellow human who cared enough to be a good Samaritan.

“But after the waiting period, I can share your contact information with him, and vice versa, if you both consent,” Dr. Wilson offered after you didn’t say anything.

You perked up a little. “Yes. I’d like that, when it’s allowed.”

“Okay.” The oncologist nodded to himself. “I’ll make a note, and if you can just remind me in one of your follow-ups-“

A wheezing sound came from the ajar door to the hall. The wheeze was so bad it sounded like a balloon was slowly squeezing out its air. Dr. Wilson looked over your shoulder, and you tiredly, slowly craned your neck to look behind you. A rubber chicken continued to make a low squeaking noise while it slowly reinflated.

Silence. You looked at Dr. Wilson to ask if this was normal, and he was speechless, mortified.

A second rubber chicken came rolling through the open door. Someone in the hallway was throwing them. This one landed further in the office and inflated itself faster, at the cost of the wheezy, squeaking sound being more high-pitched.

Dr. Wilson finally recovered his voice and awkwardly forced a laugh, standing up and fixing his tie to hang straight. “I’m so sorry about this,” he told you profusely, his face turning red.

Before you could ask what he was apologizing for, since you were still very confused on the entire spectable, a third rubber chicken appeared, this one held up at the side of the door at eye-height. A man’s hand was squeezed around its side, and one finger at the back of its neck made it bob its head forward aggressively. The man on the other side of the door bawked equally aggressively.

Dr. Wilson’s embarrassed blush turned into a pink-faced scowl of anger as he rushed around you and to the door to deal with the rubber chicken man. “What do you think you’re doing?” He yelled at the other person in a tight-throated stage whisper.

“Bawk?” The other guy asked, using his tone to convey his meaning while he made the chicken squeak. “Bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk.”

“House,” Wilson said tersely, “I’m with a patient right now. I can’t deal with you.”

“Bawk,” the rubber chicken man – House – said. It sounded very accusing.

Your doctor must have thought so, too, because he paused, then came storming back into his office. He vehemently kicked both of the rubber chickens on the floor back out into the hallway, ignoring their wheezy screams of protest, and the judgmental, bawking cry from the rubber chicken man. Then the oncologist closed his door, hard enough that it made you jump, and kept a hand on it while he leaned to keep it closed, turning his body back to face you and forcing a polite, if nervous, smile.

“I – ah – what were we talking about?”

“Work friend?” You asked knowingly, making a face at the long, despairing bawk made on the other side of the door.

Dr. Wilson paused only for a second before he realized there was no point in pretending that hadn’t just happened. “Friend is a strong word,” he grumbled. “Right. Like I was saying. If you still want to share your contact information with the donor, I can pass it along after the mandatory waiting period has passed.”

You nodded in acquiescence, knowing you didn’t have a choice. It was for the best. Now you could put a pin in those worries about what Donor X would think of you and just focus on handling your fluttering nerves about the operation… and leaving without being ambushed by rubber chickens.

Meanwhile

Neal had lost track now of how many times he had rubbed at the injection site now. It already felt hot and swollen, and the itching and achiness hadn’t gone away since the second day after the regiment had started. To say he was relieved that it was almost over was precariously close to being an understatement.

He checked the clock again as the day slipped into the evening. The artist wasn’t usually such a clock-watcher, unless he was trying to agitate Peter by doing it very obviously during a boring meeting. It was just that the Filgrastim shots were draining. He still knew he wasn’t the one getting the short end of the stick – that would be the poor cancer patient he was donating marrow to, who was probably going through aggressive chemo today, if the Internet was right about her side of things. Knowing that didn’t make him physically feel any better, though, and he waited for the minutes to tick forwards until he could go home, put on his softest pajamas, and hide in the warmth of a tightly-tucked blanket.

Although Peter had asked without mockery in his voice, Neal hadn’t admitted to anyone that he was just a little nervous about the operation tomorrow. It was an outpatient procedure on his end, but it was still a procedure, and Neal hadn’t had any sort of medical procedure done on himself since some cosmetic dental work in his early adulthood. Afterwards, he'd be recovering in the hospital from the anesthesia, free of charge, until he was released in the late afternoon to go home. He knew the ins and outs as well as he could, short of going to medical school himself.

Thankfully, Peter was a nine-to-five man. Reliably, as soon as the clock hit five, Peter began to show the signs of packing up to leave. It took him a few minutes to get all of his last-minute boxes checked, but the agent was leaving his office with his coat in hand by ten after, and Neal stood up quickly in eagerness to go. He braced himself on his desk and hoped that the dizziness didn’t show too clearly.

The conman was losing some of his touch, he realized, when Peter stopped and asked sympathetically, “You need an Advil?”

It was beyond tempting, but Neal shook his head. He could manage the trip back to June’s. The doctor had said to take something if it became unbearable, but he could read between the lines and knew it was ideal if he didn’t have any drugs in his system come morning. Peter waited patiently while Neal collected his things, careful not to bend over or stand straight so quickly again. On their way out, the agent put his hand up on Neal’s shoulder while they waited for the elevator.

“You’re doing a good thing,” Peter stated gruffly. Neal chanced a look at the agent’s reflection in the shiny metal front of the elevator. Peter wasn’t looking at him, and was also smartly refusing to look in the reflection, too. The thief thought he heard what might have been pride in the older man’s voice.

“I know,” Neal said, resolutely not questioning how nice it felt to hear it from a source other than his own conscience.

~~~ ~~~

A/N: I hope you enjoyed! Part two will be coming soon.

* This is a real, ongoing problem in American healthcare. Medical experts believe it’s a combination of what Neal and Peter both suggest; specifically, there is a much smaller pool of Black and African-American donors, and some doctors also believe that, due in significant part to the transnational nature of the slave trade, people who are Black may have comparatively more racially mixed genetic combinations, making it harder to find close matches.

Blood cancers include leukemia (common in children), Hodgkin’s lymphoma (common in adults), and a number of other variations, including multiple myeloma, as the reader has in this story. In addition to treating blood cancers, bone marrow donation can also treat some immunodeficiency disorders and aplastic anemia. If you haven’t already, and are in good health, please consider being added to a national bone marrow registry to potentially help save a life.

* While this is true, for the sake of the story I shortened the waiting period significantly. It is usually at least a year, according to the resources I could find online.

[usstrekart]

“Future's End, part II” (S03E09, Stardate 50312.5) wraps up the story with a traditional Voyager reset button. I do enjoy the promise the Mobile Emitter brings, and Rain and Tom were fun. But Starling went from interesting to one-note stereotype and there was a lack of gravity to the finale.

Mirroring my poster for Future's End, my poster for part II features Voyager traveling forward in time after saving all of reality.

[rgbyshipper101]

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

DAWN IS BACK!!!

[arcwriteundertale]

... Nothing much, what's up with you?

*It took me a moment to realize what you meant with that...