Tag: zero time dilemma

“Scene: Truth or Consequences, New Mexico”

~ zecretsanta ~ Leave a comment

To: @silveredfoxxeh

From: @billyweird

Notes: Happy Holidays! I wrote you C-Team polyamory plus road trip plus lots of introspection and fluff.

Ao3

By the time Carlos found Akane lingering in the hallway outside the reception room, it was so late that drunk wedding guests had fallen asleep where they sat. Her back was to him and she held her dress up so the hem didn’t drag. Her bare feet were exposed and without her heels she’d lost three inches. She looked around dazedly, muttering to herself in Japanese, and startled when he tapped her on the shoulder. “Oh, Carlos!” She looked dewy and relaxed and like she couldn’t believe she made it this far. She sniffled, cried, and laughed all day and stumbled into her brother when they danced. They ended up in a bear hug swaying gently as the song petered out. Junpei’s hand was probably covered in makeup with how often he’d wiped her face.

Carlos smoothed down some hair that had fallen out of her elaborate style. When he touched her he thought that he should’ve asked her for one more dance today and one more kiss last night. “Congratulations.” His hand lingered on her cheek, and she held hers over it. Was it bad etiquette to tell a married woman she was beautiful if you weren’t her husband? The wedding wasn’t officially over—she was still a bride. Everyone told the bride she looked amazing. “I’m so happy for you two.”

Her face softened and she held onto his hand when he tried to pull away. “Then why do you look so sad?”

“Do I?” He stroked her cheekbone with his thumb, accidentally streaking some blush that clung to him like the bittersweet feelings he carried leading up to this day. “It’s champagne. You know how I get when I’m drunk.”

“You’re an awful liar,” she said. “‘Say what you need to while there’s time to say it.’” She remembered that far back, and from another history? Of course. She was Akane: she knew the answer to every trivia game show question, how to breakdown fringe science theories, and the Latin names for at least 20 breeds of rabbit.

“I guess I’m happy and I’m sad. I, uh…” Even head over heels for them, Carlos felt hopeless and clumsy with romance. “I picked a crap time to say goodbye, but I’m gonna miss you two. We had some good times, and you guys made even the darkest moments bearable.” And he’d never forget the morning after a bar crawl when Junpei clarified their kiss last night wasn’t impulsive by pulling him in by the collar. Sitting by the phone all night waiting for news that Junpei was out of surgery. Coming home from a 24-hour shift to find them sleeping in his bed. How proud Akane was when he wolfed down her first edible batch of spaghetti napolitan. “And you gave me something I never thought I’d have.” He was content with being alone until they all met, and now he counted the seconds until she walked away. “So thank you. Go be happy together.”

He expected her to smile knowingly and echo similar sentiments, until she brushed his hand aside. She stood on her tiptoes, braced her hands on his chest and tilted her head up. Her typical cue to kiss her. When he hesitated, she bit her bottom lip. “Hey.”

Their same dance—he put his hands on her waist, her wedding dress so fragile and smooth in his grasp, and kissed her until her lipstick rubbed off on him. “We’re happy with you,” she said when they pulled away, him holding onto her even as she eased back onto her feet. “I didn’t think I had to say that.” She smiled and rubbed her hand over his mouth so her fingers came away colorful. “Junpei is my husband. That doesn’t change that you’re mine, too.” She touched his mouth once more. “Speaking of him, I need to go.” She pushed his hands off her waist and turned away.

Carlos grabbed her arm but she slid through his grip, looking over her shoulder once before disappearing into a side room. Even though she was gone he floated in the moment suspended by hope and cautious joy, until she yelped and he ran to action. He arrived in time to find Junpei holding up an empty tumbler, gloating in Japanese to a passed out Aoi, before he too slumped forward. The glass shattered as he fell off the sofa.

Carlos and Akane spent the rest of the night in the ER, waiting to hear about her husband and brother who’d given themselves alcohol poisoning because they wouldn’t quit a drinking contest. “I can’t believe them!” she groaned, and Carlos put his arm around her and let her fall asleep on him.

Akane kept her promise: they continued showing up at his door unannounced or actually reaching out to make plans, and during those visits it was like they were never apart. He and Maria were the only Westerners invited to their second, traditional wedding ceremony in Japan (under strict orders not to tell Junpei’s family they were already married, as if Carlos spoke enough intelligible Japanese to direct them to the bathroom). They treated Maria and Aoi like their respective in-laws.

The dry spells—when they were gone for months at a time for work and semi-unreachable—ground him down. He found their toiletries and clothes around his place and sighed instead of smiled. It all came to a head when they hit three years together, including one year married for Junpei and Akane.

“It’s not that easy to up and leave here,” Carlos said for the millionth time and Junpei rolled his eyes.

“What’s hard about it? You move in for good, you don’t have to think about money again, you—”

“I’m not me anymore.” He couldn’t keep frustration out of his voice. “The Carlos you guys like is a firefighter. He’s a brother. He can take care of himself.” He slumped a bit. “You make me happy, but you’re not my whole life.”

“Does a life with us sound that bad?” Junpei narrowed his eyes, lay down on the couch, and looked at the ceiling like he knew his question was pointless. In the armchair, Akane murmured in her sleep and curled up tighter. Carlos suspected Junpei brought this up now because she wasn’t awake to tell him to respect Carlos’ feelings and drop the subject.  

“Don’t guilt trip me.”

“Answer my question.”

“If you have to ask…” Carlos began, but trailed off seeing how Junpei started snapping one of Akane’s hairbands on his wrist. Carlos sat with him on the couch and pulled Junpei’s legs onto his lap. It was a little-known Junpei fact that he liked foot massages, and he twitched when Carlos started at his arch. “My sister and my job need me, too.”

“It’s just easier when you’re around, you know,” Junpei said. He didn’t elaborate but let Carlos play with his stocking feet until he relaxed and fell asleep.

In the morning, Junpei made “Forget That Conversation Happened” crepes and Akane contributed by cutting fruit into cute shapes. Presentation and making tea were the only cooking skills her brother taught her that stuck. When she was done she put her chin on Junpei’s shoulder and pointed at the skillet as he worked. “No leeks,” he said in English so Carlos would understand, hoping to win someone over to his side.

“He’s saving you from yourself, Akane,” Carlos said, leaning in the doorway. Watching them together always charmed him even when they squabbled during the Decision Game.

“It tastes good.”

“Call your brother if you want catered to,” Junpei grumbled, but put his free hand over her arms wrapped around his chest.

“You think you’d both be nicer to me since our anniversary is coming up.” Their anniversary always seemed to be “coming up” when Akane wanted something. The real date floated because the day they all met was morbid and they never sat down and declared this an official Thing. The only tradition surrounding it was they traded off who got to pick the celebration.

“Speaking of.” Carlos tapped his fingernails against the fridge, over a picture of Maria in a forest in Oregon. He was low-key jealous that Aoi still lived with his sister. Carlos missed Maria to death even though he was happy she enjoyed her life on the road. She was enamored of the landscape, the people, and the weather and swore Oregon was a different world. “I know what I wanna do.” 

*

Akane floored the gas pedal until the needle passed 80mph and the desert and highway signs blazed by in Carlos’ peripheral vision. He thought of every high-speed collision scene he ever worked, and opened his mouth when Junpei beat him to the punch: “You’re gonna kill us!”

Akane giggled. “You never let me drive.”

“This is why!”

At least SUVs have a large crumple zone, Carlos thought—but oh fuck, rollover—"Akane for God’s sake!“ Carlos clenched his hand over hers on the wheel and she hesitated a moment before taking her foot off the pedal. Once they slowed to a highway-legal speed, he turned on cruise control. “No more Speed Racer.”

She pursed her lips. “You two used to be fun.”

In the backseat, Junpei sank back with relief and sighed. “I want a divorce.” It only took him four hours on the road to get to that old line. Carlos knew that at the next rest stop Junpei would still nag her to eat, holding a yogurt cup in one hand and fresh fruit in the other, and surrender when she grabbed two pudding cups and a bag of sour gummy octopi. When she ate those he refused to kiss her but, hey, more for Carlos. He liked that it was three years down the road and she still blushed when he bent down to steal a sweet-and-sour kiss.

Carlos daydreamed about this for years: a road trip through the middle of nowhere, taking pictures everywhere and driving each other insane. When he was thirteen his family tried it but he spent most of it sick, sunburned, and babysitting seven year-old Maria who got the worst of both. The destination was Truth or Consequences, New Mexico—a place he’d been too grumpy and ill to enjoy as a kid—and he pitched a 17 hour, 1,000 mile plus drive with promises of stops at Death Valley, Vegas, and Coconino National Forest along the way. Akane begged for at least one ghost town visit and he caved in the face of her excitement. Whenever Junpei tired of the ride or his companions, he complained that he just wanted to be in Truth or Consequences’ hot springs already.

“I need some music,” Carlos said, and the others looked to the car stereo in anticipation. A minute later they were all yelling along to “Womanizer.” Akane undid cruise control and picked up speed, Junpei lowered his window to put his head out, and what a sight they must’ve made: racing the wind with Britney Spears as their battle cry.

*

They nearly melted in Death Valley, and got fleeced in Vegas (where they also had to sneak out of their hotel via fire stairs before staff could kick them out due to noise complaints when they came back drunk, disorderly, and singing the associated Katy Perry song). They acted their age just enough to avoid arrest and just ridiculous enough to keep each other on their toes. Aoi threatened to block their numbers if Junpei and Akane kept calling him in the middle of the night to say they’d been abducted by aliens or saw a cryptid.

By the time they made it to Coconino, the car was full of eclectic souvenirs, empty water bottles and receipts for dinners at wherever sounded interesting. Refreshed at the thought of a nature park that wouldn’t broil them, they arrived early in the morning at Crescent Moon Ranch with their hearts set on splashing around in Oak Creek.

“Does he realize he’s gonna scare all the fish away?” Carlos said as he and Akane sat watching Junpei wade around, focusing intently on the water. He’d wandered in without care for his shoes and jeans, and was up to his knees in his own world when Akane called out to him.

“He thinks he is one. He always liked going swimming in school.”

“And you were a scaredy-cat at the pool?”

“No!” Akane adjusted her sunhat and pulled the brim down to hide her face. “I just liked having a swimming partner.”

Carlos tried to pull her hat up and she clutched it tighter. “So there are no stories of you crying in two feet of water or needing the teacher to carry you out?”

“None!”

“Junpei told me.” He snorted when she buried her face in the hat. “It’s cute. I’ll be your swimming partner.”

“Shh, I’m thinking of how to get back at him.”

That morning, Akane took one of his favorite photos from the trip: him carrying Junpei on his back in the water. They were mid-conversation about who could catch a fish with their bare hands, and then how to get Akane to join them. They ended up picking her up and dangling her between them and she didn’t stop shrieking and kicking until her feet hit the creekbed. They held her sandwiched between them to show they’d never let her drown.

(Akane’s revenge was picking the eeriest ghost town along the way and disappearing. When they searched for her, she jumped out at them from behind a corner and a group of kids giggled at Carlos’ and Junpei’s screams.)

*

Junpei booked their hotel because it was the the first one on the tourism website that boasted in-room hot spring baths: the Blackstone Hotsprings. He’d pored over their website before they left for the trip and decided on two rooms: one with the largest bath and the one beside it so the third person jettisoned there by hotel occupancy policy could come over at bedtime.

Carlos assumed he’d be that third while the married partners roomed together, but he watched Junpei pick up his and Carlos’ bags and drag them into the <i>As The World Turns</i> (God, he could remember Mom rushing him off to nap so she could watch that soap) room while Akane winked at him and settled into the solo room. Carlos lay facedown on the king bed and let Junpei toss their bags were he would. He drove the last stretch from Coconino and his back ached.

“These people are staring at me,” Junpei said, and when Carlos turned his head he saw on the wall a looming photo collage of former soap cast members with shellacked hair and garish makeup providing a study in Unfortunate Fashion History. “There better not be anything like that in the bath.” The thought of old soap stars watching him bathe was worse than the memory of Delta’s surveillance. Junpei turned to his serious task of arranging various alcoholic beverages in the fridge before rushing to see the spring room without unpacking anything else.

The spring bath passed his inspection: a three-walled corner tub with stone waterfall that promised hot spring water for unlimited in-room soaking. “I’ll see you in an hour,” he said, and shut the door in Carlos’ face. He heard water running, clothes hitting the floor, and a heavy contented sigh as Junpei settled into the tub.

Akane was taking a nap when he peeked in on her, so Carlos took the opportunity to snap photos of the room, the patio, and the stone and wood decor. Since Maria hit the road last year for her indefinite road trip to “experience real life,” he looked forward to the dozens of photos she sent him. She captured everything from architecture to animals, and more recently a tentative shot of a “new friend” she made in Oregon. She was a girl Maria’s age, who with her flower crowns and pastel clothes was the epitome of the style fifteen years ago. Maria beamed in every photo of them together, and though she wouldn’t say he had a feeling she’d bring her home to him someday.

Yay Carlos left the house! she replied. Are you having fun?? Send more pics of Junpei and Akane I miss them. 😦 </3

Definitely, he typed back, but you should’ve come.

Why it’s your anniversary!! A moment later she added, And idk when I’ll have time to drop in cuz I got a job. 😀 Tell you later xoxox.

Her response gave him pause. She was right but it felt odd to acknowledge that there was a part of his emotional life that didn’t include her. Odder still to realize that he’d texted her sporadically during the trip but hadn’t thought about her as often. Or that she wasn’t rushing to tell him about her big milestone. Look forward to it. Xoxo.

Junpei found him lying in bed, sipping a drink from the coffee bar in their room and watching a syndicated true crime show. He lay down next to him and moaned. “You gotta try that.” When Carlos didn’t respond, he looked at him. “Uh, hello?” He gestured to the show. “This can’t be that interesting.”

“I’m fine.” Carlos set the mug down on the floor. “Just had an epiphany is all.”

“Doesn’t look like a good one.” Junpei rolled onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow, resting his cheek on his fist. “What’s up?”

“I don’t think Maria’s coming home.” Thinking it and saying it out loud were two different but equally difficult things. “She likes Oregon, so that’s good, but I always thought this was temporary.” Even though she asked him to ship a bunch of her personal things to Oregon a month ago, and she hemmed and hawed when he asked what to do about renewing their lease.

“Sorry man.” Junpei muted the TV. “I know she means a lot to you. Akane would be a wreck if Aoi left.”

Carlos sat up and leaned back against the wall but bumped his head on the picture frame. Damn rich people and their haughty expressions. “I shouldn’t complain. I wanted her to be happy. If she is now, who am I to stop her?” The thought of moving back into a small apartment and putting her things in storage made his heart sink. She was a massive part of his life but his presence in hers shrunk more by the month.

“Good point.” Junpei sat up and folded his arms over his chest. “She’s gonna be fine. So will you.”

“I still have my job.”

“You still have us.” He leaned into it when Carlos kissed his temple. Junpei didn’t say more, but that was part of his comfort: that he didn’t need to do much to convey what anyone meant to him.

“I guess we should wake up Akane?”

“Or she’ll keep us up aaallll night talking about alien sightings in New Mexico.”

*

To her credit, Akane talked about aliens for only half the night. She was preoccupied with finding a restaurant with the most promising dessert menu, and walking her husband through a boutique of oddities while debating what they should get for Aoi. Junpei scoffed but lingered over the photography and clayworks like her, tilting his head once and asking Carlos if “this one looks like the Funyarinpa.” Carlos nodded along, and Junpei bought it and refused to let anyone else touch it.

“Hey Carlos,” Akane said as they stood outside the store debating where to go next. She grabbed his left hand and slid a truly ugly red-and-black ring onto his index finger. “Oh yay, it fits! It reminded me of a fire truck.” She held his hand between both of hers. “I know you can’t wear it at work, but you can for the rest of the trip.”

“Of course.” When she released him Carlos twisted the ring on his hand. Two over from the ring finger.

Junpei hadn’t had his fill of baths yet, and with his determination and a likely bribe managed to secure a last-minute evening booking for the largest outdoor private bath. The Turquoise Room could accommodate eight people with the bath to prove it, and after a quick shower Carlos sat on the ledge and kicked his feet in the hot water. He had to buy swimming trunks on the way here and he picked ones in “bunker gear yellow.” Junpei and Akane wore blue and red respectively, and Carlos thought to himself how silly that they made up the primary colors.

“Carlos. Bath. Relax,” Junpei ordered while submerged up to his neck with his eyes closed.

“I am relaxed.”

Akane scooted over to him on her soaking ledge and pulled on his arm until he sank into the water beside her. He was used to heat, but he still gasped and braced himself. After a while his muscles relaxed and he tilted his head up, admiring the sunset visible through the gap between the canopy and the walls. Everyone was quiet and still, and it let his thoughts wander. Whether he liked or not, his life wasn’t the same as when he was 28. He didn’t miss being broke and sleep-deprived and watching Maria sleep away her childhood. Twenty-eight year-old Carlos would never believe that in his thirties he’d have his sister back and time for friends outside of work and two people who loved him.

If everything was better now, why was he so anxious about letting go and allowing himself to enjoy something new?

“Can we just keep SHIFTing back to this day?” he said. “Could we go back to this exact moment in time whenever we want?”

“Agreed,” Junpei said. He hadn’t moved from his exact spot and Carlos worried he’d fall asleep.

Akane shook her head and perched her heels on the ledge so she’d curl in on herself. “You could, but eventually you have to make another choice: to stay in that loop or let go.”

“Huh?”

“You can’t resist the flow of time forever.” She tilted her head. “Well, I suppose SHIFTers could, but eventually we would have to choose between living in the past or the present.” She put her arms around her knees and looked over the water. “I think about it a lot. Radical freedom is a big responsibility, and I’m still not used to it.”

“You take 20 minutes to pick your morning tea,” Junpei said fondly. He rose and waded over to them, sitting at Akane’s feet because there was no more room on the ledge. “But isn’t it cool to know you can technically do anything, even if it’s unappealing? You never know the good that might come of it.” When neither answered, he added, “Or maybe I’m just talking out my ass.”

“It’s terrifying,” Carlos admitted. They both looked at him with concern and surprise. Their rock was not invulnerable. “To know that right now I’m free to do whatever I want. I know how to deal when things are hard. When everything seemed impossible, I had a sense of purpose. I did only what I had to do for others.” He looked between them and held Akane’s hand, and she reached out and took Junpei’s when he offered it. “I wasn’t unhappy per se, but I’m happier now.” He looked at them both but couldn’t hold eye contact when he spoke his next thought. “And I want to go with you. What if I regret it and we can never go back to the way things are?”

“Carlos.” Junpei shook his head. “That’s the point—when you can do anything of your own free will, you’re the only one to blame if you hate how it ends. It scares the shit out of everyone.”

Carlos shrugged. “Point taken.”

“Junpei and I aren’t the same people we were when we got married.” Akane squeezed her husband’s hand and Junpei returned it. “But continuing with the idea of radical freedom, we choose each other every day despite the headaches and fears. Nothing forces us to stay together or break up except ourselves.” She ran her thumb over Carlos’ hand in circles. “And maybe you’re second-guessing because you realize all your insurmountable obstacles are in your head.”

Carlos mulled over her words before letting go and getting out of the bath. “You might be right.” He toweled off and sat down in a turquoise Route 66 motel chair and looked back up at the sky. The sunset wasn’t a pleasant distraction anymore even though it was still beautiful. He chose to stay with them for three years. He chose to go on a road trip. He chose to admit that he wanted to live with them. What now?

Junpei and Akane exchanged words in Japanese, muffled by the fountain in the room. He never learned enough to keep up with them, but he was familiar with their habits. If they were speaking it in front of him they were either talking about work, a surprise, or something intimate they could only explain to each other. Suddenly, Junpei got out and helped Akane up. He wrapped a towel around her when she shivered. “We’ve got two in-room baths between us,” he said when Carlos pointed out their 50 minutes weren’t up.

They piled into the same bedroom and Junpei and Akane covered him like cats. They went over all the photos they’d taken between them, and idly discussed how they might just come back here next year. Akane had even more sweets delivered and Carlos marveled that she could eat dessert for dinner and still crave a candy bar, a pastry, and a sundae afterward. She held it out of Carlos’ reach when he tried to grab it, and glared when Junpei took it from her and shoved a spoonful in his mouth. They found a monster movie marathon on TV and watched it late into the night.

At 2AM, Junpei flopped back on his pillow and nudged Akane away from him with his feet. “I’m exhausted. Go to sleep.”

“I’m not tired,” she complained and then crawled over Carlos to bracket him. They both fell asleep before him, leaving him to think in circles again. Of course those two turned his existential crisis into a philosophical discussion that exacerbated it.

He looked to Junpei on his left: the one who took the gun from his hand after he killed Delta and never once judged his decision. Who hated phone calls but sat through every late night confession that Carlos couldn’t stop thinking about it. Who taught him how to kiss and hoarded all the pillows when they shared a bed.

He looked to Akane on his right: the one who never gave up hope they could find a peaceful solution to the Decision Game. Who never hesitated to turn dinner into a debate and refused to back down unless someone made a good argument against her. Who couldn’t sing but thought she was an idol.

Both of them, who admired him for who he was and not just what he did. They reminded him every time they came back to him. They never said the words but always showed that they loved and needed him. Who just might wait for him until he told them to leave. Carlos pictured himself at a crossroads, stepping forward and backward in all possible directions before all the branches merged into a single path.

Carlos woke to Junpei shaking him. “Dude, stop talking in your sleep. You’re so loud even I woke up.” Beside him, the bed shifted as Akane sat up.

“I was?”

“About little green men,” Akane joked, and pushed his hair back from his forehead. “And your past life as a train robber.”

“Take a sleeping pill or something.” Junpei slid his legs over the edge of the bed, but Carlos grabbed his elbow and tugged him back so he fell across his chest. “Hey!” He wriggled but Carlos put his arm around him and even Junpei’s strength couldn’t defy a steadfast firefighter.

“I guess I was thinking out loud.” Carlos’ throat hurt and he swallowed before continuing. “About radical freedom.”

Akane perked up. “Yes?” She was always up for a meandering hypothetical conversation. Junpei resigned himself to his fate of being stuck awake with them and stopped struggling.

“I think it’s easier to say I ‘have to’ do something than think about the alternative. I ‘have to’ wait for Maria. I ‘have to’ be a firefighter to still know myself. I’m jealous that it all comes so easily to you two.”

“I choose to stay sober during these conversations,” Junpei added. “It’s not an easy choice.”

“And I choose not to gag you right now,” Akane said.

Carlos pushed through their banter. “So…what if I chose to stay with you two?” He hesitated, but kept going with his mouth running faster than his thoughts. “Staying in Nevada is ideal, or at least in America. Somewhere where Maria is only a few hours away if she needs me. But if I had to I’d go farther away. I actually kinda like traveling. And my job—”

“Carlos,” they both interrupted at the same time. Did he sound like a fool? “Who says HQ is in Japan?” Junpei said. “Or that we can’t find a use for say…a fire investigator?”

Akane nodded. “Someone with EMT training, too. Or search and rescue? You could still help people.”

“Those are options.” There were too many of those all of a sudden, and for a moment he feared he spoke too soon and he couldn’t take anything back without losing them. “Where would we go?”

“A home big enough for you and us and my brother.” Akane grabbed his hand and began playing with his fingers, lingering over the ring he hadn’t taken off. “And rabbits.”

“I’ve only ever had cats.”

“My brother likes cats. And you.”

“Really?”

“We’ll make him understand you’re there to stay,” Junpei said.

“I would be,” Carlos said softly. “I’d need time to quit my job. I can’t just disappear on them.” And then he’d need months, years to mourn what he left behind. That grief and the happiness he imagined with Junpei and Akane could co-exist, but it would take time.

“We won’t handcuff you and drag you on a plane today.” Junpei twisted in his grip and Carlos finally let him go so he could roll over and prop himself up on his elbows. “You’re not doing this because you think you ‘have to,’ right?”

“Everything is a free choice.” He chucked Junpei under the chin. “This one is messy and complicated, but it’s mine.” He felt the course of his life diverge and one path lock into place like train tracks. No reversing the course, no way of telling his eventual destination. Just the enthusiastic, clumsy kisses they peppered his face with right now, and the hope that someday he’d look back and thank God that he took a dip in the healing waters of Truth or Consequences and finally cleared his mind.

sudden loss of air, impressions in despair

~ zecretsanta ~ Leave a comment

To:  @chainek (galagaleeny)

From: @nursedianaklim  

Tried to fulfill all the prompts… might have gotten a bit too ambitious, but I wanted to fulfill your whole list.

Ao3

“Junpei!”

“How was I supposed to know it was on?  Why would a store have a blender plugged in?  It’s not like people come in here to try them out.”

He took her hand and it sent shivers up her spine, for the umpteenth time.  The other customers were still staring at them, some chuckling with amusement, others frowning in disapproval at the ruckus they had created.  But Junpei was right – it didn’t make sense for Williams Sonoma to have blenders plugged in right on the display so people could turn them on.  He had been so startled by the noise that he fumbled in trying to press the off button and knocked it to the floor.  Luckily it didn’t seem broken, and nobody was demanding they cough up the $899.99 for the Vitamix Professional Series 1020 Blender.

“Do we really need any of this stuff, though?” he asked as they moved into specialty electronics.  Akane ran her fingers over the cool metal of a Zojirushi Rice Cooker – on sale for $449.99 – and it brought up a brief flash of memory.  Aoi said their mother never used rice cookers; always on the stove.  She thought she could recall watching her stir it, wooden spoon in a big red pot.

They had only ever used rice cookers in the institution they had lived in, after.  Good people, but too many abandoned and orphaned and lost children and not enough adults to provide for all their needs.  Even before Aoi had officially become her legal guardian, he had watched over her and kept her safe.  Made sure she got up for school, did her homework, ate healthily, and slept peacefully.

“You okay?”

She met his concerned eyes and nodded.  Junpei didn’t look convinced, but eventually shifted his gaze to the appliances just ahead.  “Four hundred dollars for a toaster?”

“Probably for people with big families or who entertain.”  She could imagine the two of them having friends over.  Their wedding rings clinking against the plates as they brought tempura out for dinner.  Sneaking secret smiles at each other as Light or Aoi or Sigma or Phi chattered on about their new lives, before they moved into the living room.  The house she and Aoi had rented when they were doing research in Washington had a fireplace, and she loved the idea of sitting with Junpei around the hearth.

There were times back in the institution when the space heaters would run out of kerosene, so Aoi would take her and their blankets down to the laundry room.  They would bundle up with the warm sheets until they went cool, then swap them out with hot ones fresh from the industrial-sized dryer, so they could get through the cold nights.

“I could buy four toasters for sixty bucks at the Family Dollar and I bet they work just as well,” he scoffed.  “I can’t ask our friends to buy something like that.  Besides, you and Aoi have a ton of money.”

Akane could feel her face morphing into a mirror of Junpei’s frown.  “We won’t list only expensive items.  But … this is about creating our own home.”

“They have a wine club?”

Although she had seen signs for it before, but couldn’t remember sommeliers ever being present in the store for wine tastings.  He sauntered over to where a smiling blonde was offering him some merlot.

“Should you really be drinking?”

He knocked back the wine and tossed the glass behind him.  “Of course I should be.  I need something to forget everything you’ve done to me.”

“J-J-Junpei?”

More wine, another glass.  This time, he glared at her as he threw it to the ground.  “You ruined my life, Kanny.  Why would I ever want to marry you?”

“This is a dream, isn’t it?”  

The lights dimmed until she could barely see his face.  He took her hand again, but without the gentleness of before.  “We’re both in the field.  I’ll remember this, too.  Another disapp-”

She woke, but kept her eyes closed; as she wasn’t entirely disengaged, she could still feel his phantom touch on her skin.  She could smell him, although his usual comforting scent was tinged with the stench of beer.

Aoi’s frustrated grunts and rapid key-tapping told her he was still awake and something was happening with the market.  The TSE, probably, at this time of night.  Unless she had slept for longer than she thought.

When she had shaken off the last bit of Junpei’s mind, Akane opened her eyes, letting them adjust to the darkness.  The only source of light was his laptop, which he had dimmed and angled away.  

That’s not our future, she assured herself.  That’s not his future.  I’m going to make sure of it.   

* * *

She might have been dislocating Clover’s shoulder, but better that than her being dead.  Alice yanked, roughly, ignoring the other woman’s screaming.  She would break her arm, rip it off, do whatever she had to do to get Clover back on this side of the cliff.  She knew her pants were ruined, that her knees would be bruised and bloody.

“I’m going to kill him,” Clover roared as she finally made it back up onto firm ground.

“Not if I get to him first.”  

Even once they were both safely away from the edge, Alice held on tight to Clover, ignoring the wind and the rain.  When they both started to shiver, she got them to their feet and headed north, keeping a firm grip on Clover’s hand.  They were easily a good mile from their car.  Clover’s gun was somewhere at the bottom of that ravine; Alice was out of bullets and had lost her spare clip.

“Don’t you ever run off like that again.”  Because of the weather, she had to yell back at Clover to make sure she was heard.

“He was getting away.”

“He got away regardless!”

“But you said he might have information on your father.  I couldn’t let him get away!”

That got Alice to stop in her march back to the car.  She thought Clover had gone after Bozeman to get revenge for him kicking her in the face.  A raindrop splashed into her eye and when she wiped it away, she felt the false lashes come off.

“You don’t do something like that again, you understand?!”  There was a volume and an edge to her voice that had nothing to do with being heard over the pounding rain.  Clover didn’t respond, or more accurately, probably grumbled something under her breath that Alice couldn’t make out.  

After what felt like a million years, they made it back to the car.  She had to dry off both the sensor and her thumb twice before the door would unlock.  The leather seats felt horrible against her soaked clothing and skin.  As soon as Alice hit the ignition, Clover pressed the radio presets in the order that would turn off the internal camera – activated automatically by weight in the seats – and surprised her by grabbing her head and kissing her, hard.  Their cold and trembling lips slid against each other for only a moment before Alice pulled away.

“What did I say?  Not in the field.”

“Nobody can see us.”  How Clover could manage to look like she was pouting and glaring at the same time, she’d never know.  She gestured angrily at the rain slanting heavily against the windshield, obscuring the outside world.  “And you saw me shut down the camera.”

“Not at work.  We agreed.”  

Alice’s hands shook as she set the heat as high as it would go.  Clover grabbed the first aid kit from under her seat and then slumped back against the lumbar support.  She treated her scrapes as Alice drove as quickly as she dared.

“We have to be careful,” Alice said finally, when she felt her voice wouldn’t waver.

“I know.”

“They would split us up if they knew.  We could even get fired.  Fraternization is forbidden.”

“I know.”

“I can’t lose … my chance to find who killed my father.”

Although she could feel Clover staring at her, she stayed focused on the road.  The rhythmic swishing of the wipers was the only sound for the longest time.

“I know.”  Softer, this time.  “I understand.”

Not everything had to be spelled out explicitly.

* * *

“It’s just me!” she called out as she stepped inside, swiftly moving to the alarm keypad.  Diana’s car had been in the garage, so Rebecca knew she was here, but when she didn’t get an immediate response, she started to worry.  Diana’s purse and keys were still on the table in the hall – right next to pepper spray and a panic button – and she could smell the chicken fettuccine in the slow cooker.

“Diana?”

No response from upstairs.  Down the hall, the back door was open, but she tried not to jump to conclusions.  And sure enough, Diana was safe and sound, kneeling in the dirt, tending to the poor, neglected flowers there.  Gardening was one of those skills that Rebecca wanted to have, but didn’t seem capable of learning.  Even talking to the plants – as Diana had suggested, as she was doing to them right now – only seemed to encourage them to commit suicide.

“You’re home early,” she said when she glanced up to see Rebecca.

“The meeting didn’t take quite as long as we thought.  Simmons didn’t try to fight it.  Turned in his keys and cleaned out his locker in silence.”

“Oh, good.”  Diana gave her an almost-smile.  She missed seeing the real ones, the bright, beautiful, beaming ones brought on by an adorable puppy or a happy child or a patient making it safely through their trip to the ER.  The ones that started to appear less frequently after their marriage and had mostly disappeared, nowadays.

“Are these new?”  There were bright purple flowers in her garden, leaning over as if they planned to eat her.  The bottom part of it even looked like a tongue on the inside.

“They’re called ‘fairy slippers’.  It’s uncommon that they’d be blooming this early.  Or at least, that’s what the woman at the nursery told me.”  Diana ran a finger over one of the one of the petals.

“You’ll have to stop by more often to make sure I don’t kill it.”

The almost-smile faded completely away and Rebecca felt like someone had injected ice water in her veins.  It was silly, stupid.  She was the one who saw the ad.  She was the one who brought it to Diana’s attention.  She was the one who kept asking her to consider it.  She wanted Diana to do it.

“You’ve decided, then?”

Diana nodded, stood up and dusted the dirt off her pants.  She tossed the gardening gloves in the bucket and headed towards the house, her hand brushing Rebecca’s as she passed by.

It was the best decision for Diana to make.  She knew that.  The money would give her the freedom to go anywhere.  Get away from him.  No more threats left on her voicemail, no more nasty messages keyed into her car.  No more making sure every new security guard they hired could recognize her ex-husband on sight.

But it meant once this Mars simulation was over, there was a chance the last time Rebecca would see Diana was when she came back to pack up her stuff and move far, far away.  And if that happened, all she would want to do is pack up her own life and follow her, even if that ended up being actually to Mars.

“It does something called ‘pollination by deception.’”  Diana was paused in the doorway and Rebecca realized she had been staring at the new flowers.

“Hmm?”

“It pretends it has nectar, to get bees to come in and pick up the pollen.  The bees visit but get nothing in return.  So they learn to stop visiting.  Or at least, the smart bees do.”

“Diana…”

A sad smile, this time.  “I know.  I’m not … I’m not.  I’m going to check on dinner.”

Rebecca tried to swallow the lump in her throat as she wiped away an escaped tear.  As much as she didn’t want to lose her best friend, Diana couldn’t go on living like this.  The money would give her freedom and security.

And no matter how much special fertilizer or garden tools she had to buy, no matter how many YouTube tutorials she had to watch or special classes she had to attend, she would make sure Diana’s fairy slippers thrived.

* * *

“Are you seriously saying you think Matiyasevich was wrong?”

Aureline paused, halfway through removing Phi’s shirt.  “Uh, you want to argue about this now?”

“The theorem has been around for fifty-eight years, and you’re saying there’s a flaw in the logic?”

“Right now, I’m saying fuck Diophantine equations.”  She resumed her task and chucked Phi’s tank top behind her before pushing her back on the couch.

Phi seemed to let herself get lost at first when Aureline kissed a path down from her nose to her collarbone.  This fantasy had played out in her mind more than once since she had noticed the cute girl with the platinum hair in the back row in Mathematical Methods in Nanophotonics.  Now they were here, after dinner and a Nonlinear Optics lecture, on Phi’s couch, half-naked and –

“But all Diophantine sets are effectively enumerable –”

– she couldn’t stop talking about an off-handed comment Aureline had made on the way back to the apartment.

“I’m not saying the conclusion is wrong,” she replied, sliding her hands up Phi’s legs, underneath the turquoise and black skirt.  “I’m saying the way he got there has errors.”

“So you think you’re smarter than … than …”  

Pushing aside her underwear and slipping a finger into Phi seemed to be pretty effective at derailing her train of thought.  Aureline planted sloppy kisses on her knees, her thighs, until the unmistakable sound of a crash outside startled her into raising her head.

“Oh god, that sounds bad,” she said as she hopped up and went to the window.  Not caring about her bare chest or who might see, she pushed aside the blackout curtains.  It looked like an SUV had plowed into three parked cars.

“What happened?” Phi asked.  She had put back on her tank tops before joining her to survey the scene.

“Shit.  I think someone hit my Mazda.”  Aureline bolted for the door, stopping only when she remembered she was naked from the waist up.  The first garment she snatched up was Phi’s sleeveless, pale blue jacket, and she tossed it aside in frustration, accidentally hitting the other woman in the face.

“Hey!”

“I’m sorry, I just … fuck!  I have to get down there before he drives off.”  Finally locating her shirt, she pulled it over her head, realizing that it was inside out and backwards but not having the patience to fix it.

“Even if he does, there are cameras covering the outside of the building and the parking lot,” Phi assured her as straightened her necklace and grabbed her boots.  “But go, I’ll be down as soon as I get these on.”

For some reason, Aureline glanced back into the apartment before she shut the door.  The black flower in Phi’s hair had come loose and she was pinning it back up.

–

It wasn’t until after she had exchanged insurance information with the driver – a Japanese exchange student who wasn’t drunk, but had apparently had a seizure – and surveyed the not-as-bad-as-she-thought damage to her car that Aureline realized Phi had never come down.  She should have been almost right behind her; all she had to do was throw on those ridiculously tall boots of hers.

Confused and a little angry, she skipped the elevator and dashed up three flights of stairs to apartment #306.  The door was cracked, even though she was sure she had pulled it closed.  When she pushed it open, white smoke escaped and she stepped back, expecting to see a fire.  But it didn’t smell like something was burning – more chemical, like a hospital.

She tugged her sleeve over her hand and covered her nose and mouth, but it was too late; she could feel herself start go get woozy.  Time felt like it slowed as she tipped forward and hit the floor.

A black figure moved past her and she tried to reach out and grab its leg before succumbing to darkness.

(fin.)

~ zecretsanta ~ Leave a comment

to: @thefireinthewire

from: @crashkeyes

happy holidays @thefireinthewire!! 

i always thought (and hoped) that after the events of ztd it would be sean who takes care of gab, so when i saw your prompt about that, i knew i wanted to draw something with them!
i hope you like it ♡

(image description: in the picture are sean and gab from ztd. sean has one arm around gab, hugging him and holding him close. they are sitting outside in the snow; it is also still snowing. in the background is a dark, cloudy sky) 

~ zecretsanta ~ Leave a comment

To: @sense8lotuses

From: @waitingforztd

Merry Christmas sense8lotuses! Hey look, it’s Q team with its amnesiac robot child, its big boobs brainy lady and its “would-make-harsh-decisions-to-win-loved-ones’-approval” guy… Nothing’s changed here.

So yeah, I really liked your “ZTD but good” prompt, it gave me a good laugh. 😉 It would probably have been done better as a fic, but alas, I am no good writer. I hope you enjoy your gift anyway. Have some nice holidays. 😀

Another for the Tab

~ zecretsanta ~ Leave a comment

To: @kurohawt

From: @zeiscomplex

Happy holidays! I couldn’t help but write about Phi’s drinking shenanigans, the prompt was perfect and it was begging me to pick it. Phi’s such a joy to write honestly, so I hope you enjoy your gift as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Ao3

“This is all your fault, you know.”

Phi was getting tired of the constant sighs from Sigma’s direction as she added another entree to his tab. It was easy enough to ignore the first many that he had let out, but as the night wore on and her buzz increased, her already low tolerance went down the drain. Down the drain like the many wasted drinks in Rhizome 9’s lounge.

“What, pray tell, did I do to deserve footing the bill on all this? You do know that I have college debt to pay off.”

Phi rolled her eyes. “Oh please, as if Crash Keys wouldn’t pay that off at the drop of a dime if you whined enough about your ‘noble sacrifice’. Besides, there is a reason: crimes against humanity, for one.” Phi shoved a handful of fries into her mouth as Sigma sputtered out his response.

“Wha- Humanity?! And that didn’t even happen in this timeline!”

“Still counts, no take backs Sigma,” she replied, mouth still half full. If any of the others had been around, she was sure they would glower at her horrible table manners, but that was one of the perks to old man Sigma: he didn’t give two shits about correcting her if he didn’t have to. All he did was sigh endlessly.

“Where do you even put all that?”

It was a rhetorical question, but Phi gave him an appropriate answer: “It gets funneled off to the billions of me’s across the multiverse, obviously.” She raised her glass in mock cheer. “To me, me, and me.”

“Someone’s egotistical.”

She ignored his snark and took a large drink, satisfied with the burn the alcohol provided. It almost made up for the wasted drinks. Almost. She figured his debt would be repaid in… 45 years. That sounded appropriate.

“We should be heading back soon, you know Diana will worry,” Sigma said, squinting at the time on his phone. Phi was hard pressed to feel any sort of irritation towards her, but she couldn’t help the disappointment of her night out being cut short.

“She’ll be fine for a little while longer; at least let me get a to go box and another drink.” It came out as more of a plead than Phi would’ve liked, but the buzz was starting to hit her and she found she didn’t really care.

“You’re beginning to sound like an alcoholic, if I didn’t know you any better. Fine, but no more fries. If I have to see you eat another one…” He shook his head, some sort of disapproval on his face.

Phi looked him dead in the eye and ate another one just to spite him.

It took longer than she had expected for him to get fed up and drag her out of the restaurant. By then, it was approaching the hour where everything was dead silent, once they got away from the hustle and bustle of Drunkard Central. She couldn’t say she necessarily trusted Sigma behind the wheel of his car just yet, but she had to admit there was something soothing about his overly slow old person driving. It certainly didn’t upset her stuffed stomach that was finally acknowledging her overeating, so that was a plus. She could do with less grumbling though.

“Who even taught these people how to drive?” Sigma glared at the car that cut him off. “And you guys think I need to go back to driver’s ed.”

“Because you do, old man.” Phi covered her eyes with her arm, tired of the blinding car lights in her face. “If you drove like a normal person we’d be home already.”

She couldn’t see his face, but given his track record she imagined he wasn’t looking at the road. “Would you rather be late or dead? There’s nothing wrong with going slightly under the speed limit. It’s called a limit for a reason.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She waved her free hand dismissively. He mumbled something she couldn’t make out under his breath but shut up for once. Though she complained, she was glad that being overly verbose and feeling the need to comment on everything was something that he shared with his younger self. She sort of missed him, even if he was kind of a dick and flirted with anything vaguely female shaped. She could cut him a little slack; flirting aside, he wasn’t awful.

The car suddenly stopping was the only sign Phi got that she had dozed off momentarily. She blinked wearily, squinting to make out her surroundings. She was relieved to see that the sudden stop was due to them arriving home rather than his poor driving.

“Hey, grab my stuff,” Phi ordered, biting back a yawn as she opened the car door. When he began to protest, she pulled out the big guns. “You said Diana would worry, right? Shouldn’t I go tell her we made it back safely?”

Hook, line, and sinker. Phi knew how to play him like a fiddle. At least she used her powers for good, well, non-harmful demands. She wasn’t an Akane-level manipulator hosting Nonary Games and masterminding complex plans to alter timelines and that was a fact she would easily hold over their heads if confronted.

True to her word though, she swiftly made her way inside, fumbling with the keys aside. To her surprise, Diana didn’t immediately greet her; in fact, she wasn’t even downstairs. Phi frowned.

“Hey, did Diana get called out tonight?” Phi called back at Sigma, who responded with a “no, why?” She ignored him, going farther into the house and glancing at the couch where she expected her to be sitting. She hadn’t accidentally fallen asleep on it, so where was she?

Just as she was about to worry, a door upstairs opened and Diana’s voice floated down. “Welcome home, did you have a good time?” She sounded calm, which made Phi relax.

“Yeah, old man grumbling aside,” she called up, looking over to the entrance where Sigma stood with her leftovers. He rolled his eyes at her remark. Diana softly made her way downstairs as he went to put her food away. Phi allowed her a hug as she passed.

“Sorry we’re back so late, I hope you weren’t too worried,” Sigma apologized, forehead creased with worry himself. Out of the two, he was clearly the one more distressed by their late night out.

“It’s alright, Sigma. You told me you were going to be late.” She gave his arm a loving rub, and as Sigma moved to give her a hug and kiss, Phi noped it out of there. They were family to her in more than simply their shared blood, but that didn’t mean she was comfortable with their PDA.

Besides, she had more important things to do. Like sleeping. And digesting her food so she could eat her leftovers in peace, and thus giving her the power to make Sigma go out and buy her stuff. With her extremely important to-do list created, she dragged herself off to her bedroom, satisfied with her day and herself. Life was good.

(For the Holidays You Can’t Beat) Home Sweet Home

~ zecretsanta ~ Leave a comment

To: @hardcoreprince

From: @pomegranate-belle

This was some of the fluffiest fluff I have written all year and I hope you like it! Happy holidays!

Ao3

It was 9:23am when Carlos heard the knock on his apartment door. He had been cleaning and gathering ingredients since 7:15 in preparation for that knock, and although two hours and fifteen minutes had certainly seemed like plenty of time at the start of it, the truth was that he was still trying to get everything organized.

With an unopened bag of flour still tucked beneath his left arm, Carlos tugged open the door to reveal Junpei and Akane, both of their faces flushed adorably from the cold. He smiled.

“Hey, guys.”

“Hi Carlos!” Akane chirped.

“Hey,” greeted Junpei with a crooked grin.

“You know, my place is pretty far for you two,” Carlos pointed out, quirking a brow as he leaned against the doorjamb. “Why did we do this here and not at one of your apartments, again?”

“Think of it like… A test run!” Akane said pleasantly, her arms piled high with bags of Hershey kisses.

Carlos laughed.

“What, so if you guys like my kitchen enough you’ll finally move in with me?” he joked as he held the door open for her.

“Pretty much,” agreed Junpei, sweeping past with a massive bowl of chilled cookie dough cradled to his chest.

A glance out at the street revealed that Junpei’s junky red car was still stuffed to bursting with baking supplies. And so, after dropping his sack of flour onto the kitchen table and dropping a kiss on each of his partners’ foreheads, Carlos headed down to the car to help transfer things to his kitchen. Even with all three of them, it took two round trips to get everything. The kitchen was overtaken, and the less messy ingredients like bagged candy, pretzels, and nuts were tossed onto Carlos’s bed to make room. Then the three of them washed their hands carefully.

“You couldn’t convince Maria to join us?” Akane asked as she cleared a space on the table to roll out cookie dough.

Carlos shook his head.

“No. Apparently the Klim family is doing a little holiday baking today too, and Phi invited her over. Can’t compete with that,” he explained with a wink.

“Are they actually dating yet, or are they still fucking around ‘not labeling things’?” wondered Junpei.

“Between you and me, I think Phi might ask her out today,” Carlos said. “With any luck. I’m sure we can trust Sigma to be pushy and embarrassing in our place.”

Then he picked up his bag of flour from before and opened it and began ladling flour onto the table with a measuring cup. Junpei pulled the cookie dough out of Carlos’s fridge and began peeling off the Saran wrap covering it. Meanwhile, Akane dug through one of the boxes and produced a plastic bag of metal cookie cutters.

She unsealed the bag and dumped them on a corner of the table that wasn’t covered in flour.

“That’s quite the collection,” Carlos noted, sifting through the pile. “Bells, wreaths, snowflakes… Are these gingerbread people?”

Side-by -side sat two vaguely humanoid cookie cutters, one of which seemed to be wearing a dress.

“It’ll be great!” Akane enthused. “We can make little cookie people that look like us!”
“I dunno,” said Junpei, studying the cookie cutter critically. “Don’t you think it’s a little disingenuous to make gingerbread people out of sugar cookie dough?”

“What I think is that you two are putting way too much thought into this,” Carlos said with a laugh.

That seemed to end the discussion. With the cookie dough unwrapped, Junpei went to lift it out and onto the table, but when he tried to release it globs stuck stubbornly to his palms.

“Ah, jeez, just—!”

Junpei flailed his hands, trying to shake the dough off.

“And that’s why we use flour, Jumpy,” Akane said primly, her palms already caked in a layer of it.

She carefully took the majority of the dough out of his hands. Though the dough didn’t come off onto her palms in big chunks like it had for Junpei, it still seemed to want to stick to her. Carlos dipped up another half-cup of flour and sprinkled it over the dough. Akane shot him a grateful smile. After coating the rolling pin in flour too, Akane began rolling out the cookie dough.

“Why don’t you two work on the cookies while I start some of the other things?” Carlos suggested.

Then he detoured into his rooms to grab two bags of pretzel rings and two bags of Hershey kisses. While Akane and Junpei cut out sugar cookies and placed them on baking sheets, Carlos set to work filling another with pretzel rings in careful rows. Then he unwrapped the Hershey kisses and set each one in the center of a pretzel. Almost the moment he had filled the tray, the oven dinged to alert him it was preheated.

Popping on a pair of oven mitts, Carlos slid his tray and one of the trays of cookies into the oven. When he turned back to start filling another tray with chocolate and pretzels, he caught sight of a head of brown hair coated liberally in white.

“Junpei,” Carlos said with a fond sigh, “you’ve got flour in your hair.”

“Ughhhh! It’s not my fault it gets everywhere!” complained Junpei, trying and failing to brush it out with his equally floury hand.

After a few seconds of his flailing, Carlos finally took pity on his boyfriend and, from his higher vantage point, ruffled Junpei’s hair until all the flour was out – or at least, as much as would be dislodged without a shower. There was still a faint stain of whiteness in his hair that reminded Carlos of snowflakes.

Smiling softly, Carlos set the microwave timer for two minutes and an egg timer for twenty, and set back to work filling a baking sheet. Two minutes later, the microwave beeped at him insistently and he turned it off, slipping on his oven mitts again.

“Could someone get the M&Ms?” he asked, pulling open the oven door.

“Got it!” cried Akane, wiping her floury hands on her jeans and leaving stark white handprints behind.

She hurried into the bedroom and returned, ripping off a corner of the M&M bag in her hands. Carlos slid the tray from the oven and held it out for Akane, who carefully pressed one M&M into the center of each melted Hershey’s kiss, squishing them flat and filling the small pretzel rings. After the final one was finished, before Carlos could turn away to set the pan on a cooling rack, Akane stretched up and pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose.

Despite himself, Carlos could feel his ears burn with heat at the unexpected kiss. He was comfortable with them, certainly, but having spent so much of his life single and not interested in more, he was still sometimes startled by such displays. While he was distracted, Akane drew a little heart on his cheek with the flour coating her finger. Then she danced away to do the same to Junpei, though he protested halfheartedly while cutting out a sleigh-shaped cookie.

Their morning continued in such a manner, filled with flour and silly kisses and the ding of timers, until at last the dough had all been used up. The chocolate pretzel rings were cooling on the counters, and Carlos was cooking a pot of caramel to coat their homemade Chex mix. Akane had rolled their dough for thumbprint cookies into evenly sized little balls.

It was only then, as Junpei went to gather supplies to mix up frosting for the cookies, that they realized something was missing.

“We forgot the powdered sugar?” groaned Junpei. “No way, I double-checked everything!”

“I don’t have any in the house either,” Carlos added sheepishly from the stove. “And with this much cooking at once I don’t know if we can afford to send someone out to buy more without burning something.”

The three of them fell silent.

“Two choices lie before us,” Akane said solemnly, her eyes closed, though neither of her boyfriends knew if she was truly consulting the morphogenetic field or not. “We could call Aoi for help and potentially invite disaster, or we could not call for help, in which case we will definitely invite disaster.”

Junpei and Carlos glanced at each other, and then back at Akane.

“Uh… I’m going to go with my gut and pick potential disaster over certain disaster,” Carlos replied.

“Ditto,” agreed Junpei.

Akane’s shoulders slumped.

Ten minutes and one embarrassing phone call later, there was a knock on Carlos’s front door.

But when Junpei opened it, instead of Aoi Kurashiki, in through the door stepped Santa Claus with a gray Wal-Mart sack slung over his shoulder.

“Uhhhhhhh…”

Junpei glanced from the Santa Claus in the doorway back to Akane and Carlos to see if they were seeing what he was. By their expressions, they were.

“I heard there was a good little girl around here who needed some baking supplies?” the red-clad stranger asked in a false-deep voice, and Junpei realized that they weren’t dealing with Santa Claus at all, but another Santa entirely.

There was a smack, and Junpei’s eyes darted to Akane again to find her hand pressed to her forehead.

“Ugh, please tell me you didn’t go to the grocery store dressed like that,” she muttered.

Aoi smirked back, though his sister wasn’t even looking at him.

“How else would I go?”

“It’s December fifth, Aoi!”

“I think you mean Christmas fifth,” he retorted, handing off his shopping bag to Carlos.

The bag was rifled through quickly to make sure it contained what they needed, and then set in the kitchen. Instead of rejoining the group, though, Carlos moved past them into his bedroom.

“I do not mean Christmas fifth,” Akane complained, making her way back into the kitchen with Aoi and Junpei on her heels. “Why do you have to be so embarrassing? I’m grown up now, you don’t have to pretend to be Santa anymore, you weirdo.”

“You know, Akane,” said Aoi, “insulting Santa Claus is a good way to get coal in your stocking. You might have to shift to a different timeline to get any presents.”

“How about I shift to a timeline where you’re not so annoying?” Akane huffed.

“Good luck finding one.”

Aoi and Junpei startled at having spoken in unison, then shared a quick fistbump. Akane groaned piteously.

“Please just take the beard off,” she said to Aoi. “I’m begging you. God is begging you. The entire morphogenetic field is begging you.”

“It’s not in the spirit of Christmas to ask Santa to take off his beard.”

“Aoi…!”

“No, no,” he protested. “Call me Santa!”

“You are the worst!”

Aoi planted his hands on his hips.

“If I was the worst, would I have brought you that powdered sugar you needed?” he asked, taunting his sister by shaking his head to wave his fake beard at her.

Akane puffed her cheeks out angrily. And then she shoved him.

“Whoa—!”

Aoi toppled backwards with a yelp.

Luckily for him, Carlos stepped back into the kitchen just in time to catch him under the arms.

“Hi Carlos,” Aoi said, looking up at Carlos with a grin that even the floofy fake beard couldn’t hide.

“Hey!” Akane protested. “No flirting with my boyfriends! I never flirt with your dates!”

Aoi didn’t deign to give that claim a verbal response. Instead, he leveled Akane with the flattest stare he could manage while wearing a Santa costume and still half-draped against Carlos. Akane glanced away, and had the decency to look a bit ashamed of herself.

A loud beep filled the kitchen.

“That was one time,” she muttered, turning back to get the paper bag of caramel Chex mix out of the microwave. “And she was really cute.”

Akane shook the bag violently, pretending it was her brother. Setting Aoi upright, Carlos cleared his throat and placed the bag of pecans he’d gone to get on the counter. As he did, his eyes glanced over the microwave’s digital clock, and he did a double-take. It read 1:03pm.

“It’s that late already?” he murmured.

Then Junpei was at his shoulder looking too.

“No wonder I’m starving. We should break for lunch.”

On cue, Akane and Aoi’s stomachs growled loudly. Junpei laughed.

“Want to join us for lunch, Aoi?” offered Carlos.

He shrugged in response.

“What’re you guys having?” he asked.

A glance around the kitchen told them all that, whatever it was, it wouldn’t be homemade.

“We can just order something from that burger place downtown,” suggested Junpei. “Cheap, quick, convenient. I don’t really care as long as I get food.”

“Oh, I want their crispy chicken sandwich!” Akane said. “But no tomato. And a small order of French fries?”

“They got wraps there, right? I’ll just take one of those with chicken in it, I guess,” Aoi added.

“Double cheeseburger and fries,” said Junpei.

Carlos nodded, rubbing his chin.

“They still have that burger with the swiss cheese and the mushrooms, don’t they? That sounds good to me, so I guess we’re all in agreement. But who should go order?”

“I’ll go get it, you lovebirds keep cooking,” Aoi insisted.

“No!” Akane raced past him and blocked the door, her arms spread wide. “No way! You’re not going out there dressed like that again!”

“And are you going to stop me, little sister?”

“Yes!”

The argument only devolved from there, into childish insults and mocking nicknames. Junpei watched with interest, nibbling on a leftover pretzel stick that hadn’t made it into the Chex mix. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to intervene. Which, Carlos realized, meant it was up to him.

“I’ll go,” he said, then louder when the bickering siblings didn’t hear him. “Hey! I’ll go.”

“I will take the ring to Mordor,” Junpei stage-whispered in falsetto.

Carlos bit his lip to cover up a smile.

“Seriously. I’ll get the food, you two,” he said, placing a hand on each of the Kurashikis’ shoulders. “Just keep going with the thumbprint cookies for me, alright?”

Twenty minutes of work later, the caramel Chex mix was drying on wax paper, the small batch of thumbprint cookies had all been baked and thumbprinted, and the chocolate pretzel rings were boxed up in the fridge. Aoi had just finished pulling a tray of sugar cookies out of the oven when Carlos returned with a huge paper bag in his arms.

“Sorry I took so long,” he apologized. “The line was huge.”

“Just gimme the food,” Junpei replied, making grabby hands.

Aoi stripped off the Santa Claus beard at last, so he didn’t end up getting food in it.

“Let’s see…” said Carlos, digging through the massive paper sack and pulling out meals. “A crispy chicken sandwich for Akane, hold the tomato. A double cheeseburger for Junpei. A chicken salad wrap for Aoi… And a mushroom swiss burger for me.”

Akane went up on her tiptoes, peering into the bag.

“And one, two, three orders of fries,” she counted, pulling out her own little box of French fries. “That’s everything.”

Satisfied that everything was as it should be, they settled in to eat.

“Trade you a bite of my sandwich for a bite of yours,” Akane bartered five minutes into lunch, holding out her half-eaten chicken sandwich.

“Tempting,” Junpei replied sarcastically. “Unfortunately, I am already too… Chicken.”

The pun, paired with Junpei’s deadpan expression, caught Carlos so off guard that he snorted soda up his nose and started coughing.

Thankfully that was the only mishap, and once they had all finished eating and thrown their trash in the garbage can, Akane lugged Carlos’s mixer onto the table and started mixing up the frosting. It took several adjustments to get the balance of powdered sugar and milk right for the perfect frosting consistency, but in the end everyone was satisfied with it.

“And now,” declared Akane as she lifted the spatula in the air, “we frost!”

“What colors should we do?” Carlos asked.

“We have to have red and green!”

“Blue,” suggested Junpei, digging through the tiny box of food coloring for Akane’s picks and his own. “And yellow.”

“White,” Aoi said. “You should just leave some plain.”

Carlos nodded, accepting the little bottles from Junpei.

“And what about brown?” he asked.

The other three paused, and then looked at him with equally skeptical expressions.

“Who wants to eat brown frosting?” Junpei demanded, sticking out his tongue.

“But, you know it… I mean… For reindeer and tree trunks and stuff…?” fumbled Carlos.

Akane squinted at him. There was definitely something weird… Carlos could be a hell of an actor, but he also wasn’t good at keeping secrets from the people closest to him. What kind of secret he could have involving the color of frosting was beyond her, but something told her it would be a good surprise so she didn’t ruin it by trying to take a glance downstream in the timeline.

“That makes sense!” she chirped instead.

There was no brown food coloring, of course, so in the end they mixed a few different colors to get it. Carlos was oddly specific about the shade he wanted, and Akane reminded herself very firmly not to cheat with her ESPer powers.

Once five bowls of frosting had been mixed with color and the sixth left plain, Carlos rummaged around in his lower cupboards and pulled out a box filled with white piping bags, plastic rings, and metal tips. Quickly and efficiently, Carlos fitted six bags with the icing tips and secured them with the plastic couplers.

“Wait, you actually have piping bags?” Junpei asked. “What are you, a cooking channel chef?”

“How do you think I frosted Maria’s birthday cake?” retorted Carlos, spooning a glop of red frosting into the bag.

“Uh, I thought you bought it, like a normal person.”

Nonetheless, Junpei pitched in by filling another bag with green frosting. Akane grabbed a spoon and helped out with blue, while Aoi, predictably, filled another piping bag with white frosting. With all four of them working, all six colors were soon bagged and ready to frost with.

“Gonna help us frost cookies, Santa?” Junpei asked with a smirk.

Aoi snorted.

“No way in hell, I’m out. Santa eats cookies, he doesn’t make ‘em. I did my part and now I’m gonna go home and hibernate.”

With a quick half-hug around Akane’s shoulders and a wave for her boyfriends, Aoi was out the door with his Santa Claus beard in hand.

“I’d file that under not-disaster, I think,” Carlos said optimistically.

Akane gave an irritated huff, but made no verbal protest. Then she, Junpei, and Carlos sat down to begin frosting the sugar cookies.

Only a few minutes in, it was clear that the task would not be as easy as it sounded.

“Will it just…! Oh, come on!” Akane muttered, swiping another glob of yellow frosting off the tip of the icing bag with a finger after it refused to stick to the cookie.

Moodily, she stuck the finger in her mouth and ate the frosting off so it didn’t go to waste or make a mess. Junpei, sitting across from her, wasn’t doing much better. But instead of trying to get his designs as pretty as possible like Akane, he had embraced his lack of icing skill and just scribbled lines of blue across several of the cookies nearest him. Carlos, of course, was completely in his element, which Akane found particularly unfair. Still, even he had to occasionally scrape clumping frosting off the tip of his piping bag.

“We definitely made too many cookies,” Junpei groaned after a full hour, massaging his cramping hand. “We’ll never finish frosting them all.”

“If you need a break, you could take the red and start filling the thumbprints,” suggested Carlos. “The red frosting is kind of thin,” he gestured at the cookies with red frosting oozing off them and onto the plastic tablecloth, “so it should be the easiest to use.”

With a worn-out sigh, Junpei got to his feet and picked up the piping bag with the red frosting. But he didn’t complain as he started to fill the divots in the pecan-speckled cookies – Carlos had been right, it was easier. His fingers were still sore from trying to squeeze the blue frosting onto the sugar cookies earlier, but the ache started to ebb. And standing at the counter with the cooling rack full of thumbprint cookies gave him the perfect vantage for looking at his boyfriend and girlfriend. Akane, who faced him straight on, had a cute and familiar concentrated look on her face, the tip of her tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth. And from the side he got a view of Carlos’s forearms, bared by his rolled-up sleeves and flexing as he worked. Junpei grinned.

Ok, he thought, maybe this was worth a little ache in his hands.

It didn’t take long to finish up with the thumbprint cookies, and Junpei settled back down between Carlos and Akane and dutifully continued frosting sugar cookies.

The next time any of them looked at a clock, it was after 7:00pm.

Carlos sighed, leaning back from the table.

“We should eat supper,” he murmured.

“Ehh, I’m not really hungry,” Junpei admitted.

“Me either,” said Akane. “I guess we’ve been snacking all evening, so…”

In truth, they all just wanted to be done. Seeming to realize this, everyone returned to frosting – this time with a little less creativity and finesse. Carlos even ate a few unfrosted cookies as he worked just to trim down the number they had to finish.

When the final cookie, a bell, was frosted, all three let out a sigh of relief and stood to stretch.

“That… Was a lot of cookies,” Junpei sighed.

Carlos nodded in agreement.

“Maybe next year we only need a half batch of dough.”

“But we did such a good job!” offered Akane. “We should at least take some time to admire them and show each other our favorites.”

Junpei smiled indulgently, leaning back into Carlos’s chest as the blond slung an arm around his shoulders.

“Why don’t you go first then, Kanny? Since it’s your idea.”

Akane gestured to a small forest of green tree cookies in one corner of the table, covered in red and blue garlands and yellow stars.

“Look how good they got!” she said proudly.

“That’s really something,” agreed Junpei, looking impressed.

“Yeah, they’re great!” Carlos said with a smile. “You picked up icing pretty quick, Akane.”

She beamed at them both.

“How about you, Jumpy?”

In reply, he leaned forward and pulled out a cookie from the lineup with a flourish. It was splattered with blue and white frosting in a seemingly random pattern.

“Uh… What is that?” Akane wondered.

“It’s a Funyarinpa, Kanny,” Junpei explained impatiently.

Akane squinted and tilted her head, trying to find any familiarity in the scribbles of icing.

“If you say so Jumpy,” she said at last.

“I think I can see it,” Carlos told them. “It looks good, Junpei. The frosting is really even.”

They all stared down at the Funyarinpa cookie for a few more seconds, thoughtfully.

“And which ones are your favorites, Carlos?” asked Akane.

At that, he moved closer to the table, blocking the cookies from view. After a little bit of shuffling, Carlos stepped out of the way to show the other two.

“Taadaa?” he said with a shrug, splaying his hands.

“Ohhhh, Carlos, they’re so cute!” exclaimed Akane, clapping and bouncing on her toes.

There, in a line, sat three gingerbread-person sugar cookies, carefully frosted. The first had several streaks of brown hair and a grumpy face; it wore a red shirt with a blue vest and blue pants. The second cookie-person was the kind wearing a dress. It also had brown hair, though it fell over the front of its little cookie shoulder in a ponytail, and its face was neutral, almost thoughtful. It wore a white dress with a brown belt, and blue pants underneath. The last cookie had yellow hair, a smiling face, and a simple green shirt with blue pants.

“Of course you blew the rest of us out of the water,” Junpei scoffed, but he was smiling too.

Together they packed up all the cookies into Tupperware and put them into the fridge so they wouldn’t get stale, then bagged the Chex mix. Though there were still plenty of baking supplies and tools scattered around, the kitchen looked kind of empty without the results of their work laid out everywhere.

The glowing numbers on the microwave clock told them it was 9:35pm.

“You can go, if you want to,” Carlos said, suddenly a little hesitant. “I’ll clean this up in the morning, it shouldn’t take too long, so you don’t have to stay if—”

“There’s no way in hell I’m driving home tonight,” Junpei declared.

And so, with floury stains all over their clothes and hands tinted by smears of colorful frosting, the three of them piled into Carlos’s bed for a good night’s sleep.

“… Love you,” Carlos said quietly, in lieu of a goodnight.

A soft yawn filled the air.

“We’re gonna move in,” Akane answered.

“Mmm,” agreed Junpei. “Yeah. But you have to cook breakfast. That’s what firefighters do.”

Too tired to laugh fully, Carlos just let out an amused whuff of air, smiling.

“It’s a deal.”