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serenlyss · 5 years

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Growing Up

Rating: G Pairing: Background terumob Summary: Shigeo decides to branch out a little. Crossposted to AO3: Growing Up

Here's my second stab at @bisexualwinry‘s fluff prompts!

On an unrelated note, I've been looking for fellow mp100 writers here with the potential of creating a writer's discord! Specifically I've been looking in the mp100 fandom since that's the one I'm most active in rn but it's open to all fandom writers. I haven't created it yet bc I haven't seen enough interest but I feel like it could be a really fun place for writers to get together, find beta readers, workshop ideas, etc! If you're interested, hmu here on tumblr or my discord (LyssaGirl1998). You can send me an ask or an im, whatever you prefer!

“Master Reigen,” Shigeo says one day from his spot on the couch in Reigen’s office, “I think I’d like to learn to play piano.”

Reigen looks up from where he’s tapping away at his keyboard. It’s still odd to hear Shigeo call him that, after he’d admitted to being a fraud, but despite his insistence that he doesn’t need to anymore, he still does anyway. Shigeo reclines against the couch, one leg lifted so that his ankle rested atop his opposite knee. He has a book open in his lap, which he’s been quietly reading up until now.

“Piano?” The voice of Reigen’s unwanted and self-imposed secretary butts into the conversation before Reigen can reply. Tome leans forward in her seat, the seat that used to be Shigeo’s, before he’d stopped coming around as frequently. “What would you want to learn something like that for?”

Shigeo shrugs with a small smile, slipping a bookmark between the pages of his novel and setting it aside for now. The smiles are less rare now, more generously offered and less stifled and withheld. “It was thinking that it could be fun to learn how to play an instrument,” he explains. “I don’t have a lot of hobbies, after all.”

Reigen’s more than a little surprised that piano is the thing that Shigeo has decided to pursue. He’s never seemed like much of the musical type, aside from whatever music he liked to listen to in his free time, and he’d only ever taken interest in a few random activities, like exercising. But he’s in his third year of middle school now, and he’d finally started letting go of the tight hold he’d kept on his emotions for all those years, so it’s only natural for him to want to explore those hidden and repressed sides of himself now. Besides, Reigen finds the idea of careful Shigeo sitting at a piano quite easy to imagine, once he puts his mind to it. “Hmm, I think it would suit you,” he comments. “Why piano, though? Any particular reason?”

“Well, Teru knows how to play, and he’s even offered to teach me a few times,” Shigeo replies, his smile turning a bit more shy and fond with the mention of his boyfriend. “He’s really talented, and I bet he’s a good teacher.”

At her desk, Tome makes choking noises and pretends to be sick.

Reigen ignores her entirely. “I think it’s a good idea,” he says. Shigeo deserves encouragement and support, and if he wants to try something new, Reigen firmly believes that he should.

Shigeo, at least, seems pleased with the answer, nodding with a confidence Reigen still isn’t quite used to seeing before returning quietly to his book. Reigen lets himself stare a moment longer, noting that Shigeo’s gotten taller. It won’t be long before he shoots over Reigen’s head and starts rivaling Serizawa.

He huffs out a breath that ends up sounding annoyed, turning back to his work. These stupid kids, they really do grow up way too fast.

---

Teru and Shigeo meet after their club activities often to study and, occasionally, to have a brief piano lesson. Teru can’t fit a keyboard in his little apartment, so he comes to Salt Mid instead, and the two of them take up residence in one of the school’s open practice rooms in the music wing.

Shigeo’s fingers are inexperienced and uncertain, and he’s quick to doubt the soft way he presses the keys, so different from Teru’s quick and confident playing. He’s stubbornly dedicated to learning, though, and his ear is incredibly sharp. He picks out his mistakes quickly after he makes them, fingers jerking into the correct positions with little need for Teru to correct them for him. Teru’s quick to praise him for his progress and gentle when he points out his missteps, and they quickly fall into a routine in their lessons of sitting on the bench together, close enough to brush shoulders, Teru leaning over to mess with the music while Shigeo does scales and arpeggios and sight reads the kind of music meant for three-year-olds and pretends not to notice how the proximity makes his chest warm comfortably.

---

Ritsu hears Shigeo practice, sometimes, when their mother goes to run errands, their father isn’t quite home from work yet, and it’s just the two of them in the house. Usually it’s when Ritsu is up in his room, working on his homework. He’ll catch the faint, distant sound of piano melodies as Shigeo plays whatever comes to mind: random little tunes that Teru’s taught him, old folk songs and nursery rhymes, and occasionally something of his own creation.

The tunes start out rough and shaky, large breaks between bits of the music Shigeo hasn’t quite committed to memory yet. Ritsu wonders how he can see so little progress and yet still not find himself frustrated. He shakes his head and goes back to his homework, drowning out the quiet plinks of the piano beneath him with headphones and his own music.

---

Shigeo graduates middle school.

Reigen gets invited to come sit with his family for the ceremony, and Teru does as well. They find a seat off to the side, easy to spot but not too overbearing. The ceremony is widely unnecessary, in Reigen’s opinion, and drags on for far longer than he believes it should, but that doesn’t stop the rush of unprecedented pride he feels when he hears the principal call Shigeo’s name.

He watches, speechless, as the boy he’s known for the last five years of his life crosses the stage, and hides the fact that he’s on the verge of tears by pretending he’s sleepy and rubbing his eyes. Ritsu shoots him a look that says he sees right through Reigen’s bullshitting, but not even Shigeo’s snarky younger brother can steal his good mood away from him when he eagerly goes to congratulate his student after the ceremony has concluded.

Shigeo’s parents shell out to buy him a nice graduation gift: an electronic keyboard of his own, one that he can easily put up in his bedroom and take with him when he eventually goes off to college. It’s full-sized, with the nice weighted keys that feel like a real piano’s, but compact enough that he doesn’t need to worry about how much space it takes up. Reigen pitches in to help pay for the accessories as his own congratulations, and it’s beyond satisfying to see the way Shigeo’s eyes light up at the sight of the crisp, new black-and-white instrument already set up and waiting for him when they all go back to the Kageyama house to celebrate.

---

Shigeo keeps practicing. He gets better every time Ritsu hears him, his pacing more consistent, repertoire more confident. It makes him happy that Shigeo has found something he likes, that he’s willing to practice and get better at. He hopes he sticks with it.

---

Shigeo grows older, taller. His daily exercises with the Body Improvement Club show in the lean muscles he hides beneath the sleeves of the better-fitting high school uniform. His shoulders broaden and his face loses its childishness in favor of more mature, angular features, but it retains its softness in the laugh lines around his eyes and the toothy smile he no longer hesitates to show.

Larger hands and longer fingers make playing the piano that much easier, after the initial adjustment he has to make to account for his newfound clumsiness. He runs into things constantly now, banging his feet on chairs and tables that he swears are too far away to be problematic and hitting his head on low-hanging objects and shelves he used to be able to walk right under. He forgets sometimes that he can reach the high shelves now, the ones even Reigen can’t get to unless he uses the little step stool by the pantry.

He joins a music club at his new high school and uses it as his designated practice time, putting his hours into the well-worn pianos in the music room while the other club members hone their own talents all around him. It’s been months since he first touched a piano, and he’s grown confident and deft in the way he moves his fingers over the keys. He can sight read now, at least certain things. He plays whatever he feels like playing, not confined to classes or grades or any sort of classical training. He picks out song with tunes he thinks sound pretty or interesting and then he recreates them, with or without music, content to play on a whim instead of by necessity.

He never becomes so good at the piano that he’s asked to perform outside of occasional pieces he plays for his friends or classmates at his music club. He learns a few duets, with Teru or with friends who play other instruments, but he doesn’t perform in front of large crowds or even attempt to.He’s perfectly content to play for himself, and only himself.

---

Shigeo loves playing the piano. When he feels stressed, it’s an easy way for him to relieve some dormant energy and express those feelings in a productive way. He plays happy things when he’s feeling sad, somber things when he’s feeling contemplative, whatever comes to mind in the moment. He plays easy things and complex things, whatever sounds pleasing to the ear, and challenges himself by picking up pieces that he thinks may be a bit beyond his skill level. He surprises himself by putting in the time and effort into making what seemed impossible his new glass ceiling, and shatters it with every day he pushes himself out of his comfort zone.

Sometimes he plays out loud, for anyone to hear, and other times he plugs in a pair of headphones and plays just for himself. He plays as a break between homework assignments, putting his brain to work in a completely different way, plays when he’s feeling bored and has nothing else to do.

Sometimes he doesn’t play at all, too wrapped up in the business of his schedule as he balances occasional work for Reigen with hanging out with Teru and his brother and all of their friends. He never goes too long without playing, though, his attention inevitably going back to the keyboard set up by the window in his room, where he can glance outside at the neighbors walking their dogs down the street while his fingers drum against the plastic keys. It’s peaceful, and takes his mind off his other concerns.

---

When he finally leaves his parents’ house, he takes the keyboard with him.

#mp100 #mob psycho 100 #mp100 fluff bomb #terumob #kageyama shigeo #hanazawa teruki #kageyama ritsu #arataka reigen #fanfiction #mp100 fanfic #serendipitousfics

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beelieveinfandom · 6 years

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Haunted and Hunted Chapter Six

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 AO3 Link

“Oh,” Alcor smiled widely. “So you want to make a deal?”

“I want to never have the future tell me what to do again,” Vin said firmly. “If making a deal is the way to get that done, then fuck yeah deal me up.”

“Vin,” Renee said gently. “I’m not going to tell you not to do this, but you are talking about making a deal with the most powerful demon we know about. Please be careful.”

“Oh you know me.” Vin waved his hand like he were clearing away the insinuation that he, of all people, might be anything other than cautious. “‘Careful’ is my true name. Now, what do I gotta give you to get you to eat my third eye or whatever?”

Renee winced.

Alcor considered the situation for a moment. On one hand, there was so much potential here. This kid had no idea what he was doing in the slightest and really wanted this; Alcor could get a lot out of him. On the other hand, this was Vin; he’d been through a heck of a lot and Alcor was going to profit no matter what happened. He really didn’t need to squeeze everything he could out of this desperate child. Even if it would be fun. Even if the kid was dumb enough to trust him. Especially because the kid had enough faith in him to trust him. He was one of the most powerful entities in this dimension; he didn’t need to maximize his profit with every single deal.

Alcor sighed. “Okay, now I really don’t want to tell you how to get the upper hand here, but if you think really hard you might be able to come up with a way of getting something out of this instead of giving something away.”

Vin shrugged. “Thinking really hard isn’t my specialty.”

“It would seem that he’s suggesting that could you ask for something in exchange for your extra sense,” Renee said.

Vin perked up at that. “Oh, that’d be cool too. So I could like, get powers that don’t suck? Maybe flight. Flight’s cool.”

Renee’s shoulders dropped. “Vin.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re a bird.”

Vin looked at her for a long moment. “I don’t see what that’s gotta do with shit.”

“You should really think this through carefully,” Renee said. “Demons twist people's words to grant their wishes in ways that they aren’t expecting.”

“Oh! I know!” Vin exclaimed. “I want time powers.That way I can just check out and take a nap whenever the hell I want.”

Renee covered her face. “Vin, do you have any idea what happens if you cause a time paradox in this universe?”

“No,” he said, “but I know how I could find out.”

“You get in huge trouble with the Time Cops,” Alcor said. “And then you go to Time Jail.”

“You’re just making that up,” Vin said.

“Well, they’re not called the Time Cops, Alcor admitted. “They’re called the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron. They form about twenty thousand years from now at the whim of Time Baby.”

“Time Baby,” Renee said.

“Yep,” Alcor confirmed.

“You are absolutely shitting us,” Vin said.

“I am absolutely not. My sister and I stole a time machine once and ended up having to fight in time gladiatorial combat, which was overseen by Time Baby. In the end we won a time wish, which we gave to our friend for his birthday and he created a neverending slice of pizza with it.”

“Okay we’ll just gloss over the fact that that is the fakest damn thing I’ve ever heard and say nix the time powers I guess, cause I’m too young to go to Time Jail or some shit.” Vin said.

Alcor settled cross legged in the air in front of Vin. “So what do you want then?”

“Oh, I know like, for realsies this time.”

“Is it squirrel powers this time?” Renee asked.

“Oh man that is all kinds of tempting, but no.” Vin shook his head. “No, it’s actually kinda serious and boring. How about my ability to sense the future for a future for the three of us. Like, you find a place that we can stay that doesn’t have any doctors getting all up ins our biz or whatever. Someplace safe, that we can, you know, live.”

“Wow,” Renee said, “that was surprisingly actually reasonable.”

Vin shrugged. “Let's be real: I’m not a responsible person. I can’t be trusted with a demon wish. And that’s just a whole lotta possibility and I’m just not able to make a decision in the face of that kinda potential. I can’t even decide what to read half the time. And I figure, this was basically the plan anyway. right? Might as well make it like, official.”

“How’s this,” Alcor said. “I will take the foresight, regeneration, and the third eye that were artificially bestowed upon you, and in exchange I will do everything in my power to ensure the safe transit of yourself, Renee, and Charlie to a place of your choosing until such a time as you wish to leave, in which case a new arrangement will be made.”

“Well that sure is what I said but more so,” Vin said.

“I’m a demon. I like things to be clear.” He paused a moment. “Actually I love it when things are vague and open-ended but if there are that many ways to twist and pick at a deal I can’t just leave it alone, so I figure I should just remove the temptation altogether.”

“You’re absolutely thinking about ways that you could ruin our lives over with the new wording aren’t you?” Renee asked.

“Well, yes,” Alcor admitted. “But I’m not going to.”

“How could I possibly doubt you even a little?” Vin asked. “But yeah, that thing you said is fine.”

Alcor held out his hand, covered in cyan fire. “So then, do we have a deal?”

“Yeah, I just said that it was fine.”

Alcor offered his hand a little more emphatically.

“Vin,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Could I have your hand please?”

Vin gave a him a bit of a disbelieving look. “Hell no, I like my hands.”

“No, I don’t mean permanently. I just…” Alcor shook his head. “Please take my hand. With your hand. So we can seal the deal.”

Vin crossed his arms, leaned back, and said, “I’m pretty sure the seal is already in the deal. You did mention Charlie by name after all.”

Alcor facepalmed with his non-flaming hand. “Vin.”

“Alright, alright.”

Vin took Alcor’s hand. The fire spread to his hand, and disappeared in a bright flash.

“So now what?” asked Vin.

“Now you hold still,” Alcor said with a grin.

Alcor floated up to Vin and reached towards his forehead, his clawed fingers passing through Vin’s head around the scar of his third eye.

“Um,” Vin said.

Alcor closed his hand around Vin’s eyeball and slowly pulled.

“UM,” Vin said.

The eye opened and the ball squeezed through the socket. It came free with a gentle tug from Alcor, who then popped it in his mouth.

“Welp, I’m now scarred for life,” Vin said.

“What?” Alcor asked. “No sense wasting a perfectly good eyeball.”

Vin narrowed his remaining eyes. “You couldn’t have like, waited and done that while we weren’t watching?”

“Well. I could have. But what’s done is done.”

“Please stop talking with your mouth full of my eye.”

Alcor swallowed. “Alrighty then, now that you’ve fulfilled your end of the bargain, time for me to carry out mine. Where do you want to go?”

“Um, shit, I don’t know.” Vin rubbed at his neck. “My vote’s still the moon, I guess?”

“Vin,” said Renee, “don’t just tell a demon you want to go to the moon. He could teleport you to any random spot without any life support.”

“And the problem with that is?” Vin asked.

Renee pinched the bridge of her nose. “You are absolutely unbelievable.”

“That isn’t actually a terrible idea,” Alcor said.

“Please don’t just dump us on some random point on the moon,” Renee said. “I swear that I will find some way to haunt you.”

Alcor rolled his eyes. “I meant you guys living on the moon, in Beta City, not dumping your flesh suits on Mare Cognitum.”

“What about that strikes you as auspicious?” she asked.

“Well, for one thing, it’s outside the influence of the Taskforce, which I would imagine to be desirable after everything you just went through,” Alcor said. “And one of the few cults of mine that I actually trust has a fair amount of influence on the moon. They would almost certainly have someone who could take you in.”

“So you’re the moon demon!” Vin exclaimed.

“That isn’t one of my official titles, but yes, I am the only demon worshipped on the moon.”

“No wonder you think it’s a good idea for us to go to the moon,” Vin said. “You have like half the people there under your thumb.”

Alcor put up a finger. “First of all, only about five percent of the moon’s population is part of the Circle. Secondly, I wouldn’t really describe the Circle of the Dreamer’s Star as ‘under my thumb’. That’s a major part of why I trust them.”

“You trust them because they don’t listen to you?” Vin asked.

“I trust them because they don’t listen to me unquestionably,” he explained. “They believe that I am a very powerful entity with knowledge far surpassing any person’s. They also believe that I am incredibly dangerous and don’t always have respect for the lives and boundaries of others. They listen to everything I say, but they only obey if it seems reasonable.”

“That is surprisingly reasonable coming from a demonic cult,” Renee said.

“I know, right? It’s why I like them.” He grinned. “Also because they manage to supply me with a truly incredible amount of baked goods. I like that about them a lot.”

“So you want us to join your cult?” Vin asked.

“Oh, no.” Alcor shook his head. “No, that would be kinda weird. You’re too young to join officially anyway. I was just going to get one of them to take care of you because that would require the smallest amount of string pulling on my part. Don’t have to alter the nature of reality to ask Georg to find a place to house three kids. At least, not any more than I normally do to exist physically.”

“So you’re dumping us on the moon cause you’re too lazy to do any real work.” Vin nodded a little. “Relatable.”

“What exactly would it mean for someone to ‘take us in’?” Renee asked. “I’m not sure I really want anyone to have that sort of power over me again.”

“They would provide a place for you to stay, make sure there’s food for you to eat, take care of bills and taxes and all the little adult things that need to be taken care of while you guy focus on recovery and catching up in school,” Alcor said.

“And what happens when they abuse the power that they have over us and we end up stuck in another terrible situation?”

“That’s what that ‘until such a time as you wish to leave,’ clause of the deal comes in.” Alcor smiled. “You’re not going to be stuck anywhere.”

Renee diverted her gaze from the demon. “Please don’t take offense to this, but I really don’t want to have to depend on you to get out.”

“That’s fair,” he said. “You could always talk to Georg about getting a new guardian then.”

She met his eyes again. “And why should I trust Georg? For that matter, why would Georg trust us over an adult that they picked out to look after us?”

Alcor frowned. “If Georg is giving you trouble over something like changing your guardian, you let me know. Because if my circle leader is enabling child abuse there’s going to be a reckoning. Anyway, you could probably just physically overpower her if you needed to. She’s a lone gnome, she doesn’t have a lot going for her in the physic department.”

“Your cult is lead by a gnome queen?” Renee hadn’t been expecting that. Gnomes, as a whole, never really integrated into the larger society. They never managed to completely shake their reputation as hyperintelligent vermin, as many troops, especially those without queens, didn’t care about the laws of the societies they lived near and would take pretty much anything that wasn’t being used or nailed down (unless, of course, they had some use for nails in which case they would just take them too). They were also far more social than essentially any other species, and tended to get severely anxious if they weren’t in a group of fifty or more.

“Why not? She’s a good community leader,” said Alcor. “She’s positively asocial by gnome standards, but is still most comfortable surrounded by people, so long as they aren’t touching her. And she’s one of the most organized people I’ve ever met.”

“That’s great,” Renee said. “I’m sure she’s a fine person.”

“But?”

“But… Do we really need to have anyone look after us?” she asked. “We’re sixteen. That’s old enough to be legally emancipated in some places.”

Alcor sighed. “Living on your own is a huge challenge. I’m not saying that you couldn’t do it, but you shouldn’t have to. You’ve been through a lot; you deserve some time to recover without having to worry about where next month’s rent is coming from.”

“I just…” Renee let her arms fall loosely to her sides. “I don’t want someone else to be in control of my life.”

“They’re not going to be in control of your life,” Alcor said. “They’re just going to handle some of the responsibility.”

“They’re going to have power over me.”

He chuckled. “Well, yes. You can’t really avoid that. There’s always someone with power over you. That’s one of the prices of society.”

Renee glared. “You know what I mean. They’re going to have a direct power over me that is unlike that of, say, a politician.”

“And you have the power to leave if they abuse it,” Alcor said calmly. “No one is going to force you to stay with them. It’s a situation that is preferable to you living on your own, but if it doesn’t work out, as you so pointed out, you are old enough to live on your own. And you can. I just really think we should have that be a last resort.”

“But why?” she asked. “Why can’t we try living on our own and get a guardian if that doesn’t work out?”

“Let me put it this way. Do you really think that Vin can take care of himself? In an adult way?”

“He’s pretty capable when he actually needs to be.”

“Nah,” Vin interjected. “He had a good point actually. I’m comfortable with that.”

“Vin,” she said, “you’re underestimating yourself. You can be great when you actually try.”

“Okay, let me rephrase that,” Alcor said. “Is it fair to Vin to force him to put in the time and effort it takes to live somewhat independently instead of letting him focus that energy into recovering from a literal lifetime of trauma? Especially since you two should also be going to school and I’m assuming are going to have a lot of catch up to do in that department - that doesn’t leave a lot of time for mental health.”

“Well, no, but…”

“And it’s not fair to ask that you try and take responsibility for the both of you,” he said firmly. “You also need time to recover and heal. Don’t deny yourself that.”

Renee frowned, “I’m running out of fresh counterpoints, and am, much to my own chagrin, beginning to conclude that you are probably right about this. However, there is one last thing that I have to say that you have yet to truly address.”

“And what’s that?”

She curled into herself and crossed her arms. “Don’t wanna.”

“Well, that is a pretty strong argument. Not sure what to say about that.”

“Good,” she said. “That means I win.”

“But seriously. If it doesn’t work you can leave. This isn’t the facility, no one’s locking you in a room.”

“Still don’t wanna,” she said, holding tight to her airtight argument.

“Understandable,” Alcor said. “Would you be willing to try it anyway?”

She met his eyes again. “How bad is it permitted to get before we can leave?”

“If you want to leave for any reason I’m not going to question it. You want to be out, you can be out.”

She sighed. “Yeah, fine, sure. Let’s try this.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I do sincerely hope that you won’t regret this decision.”

“Hey I have a question,” Vin said.

“Yeah?” Alcor turned to face him.

“So the facility’s like, done for, yeah?” he asked. “Totally and completely?”

“Well, there’s still something to be done about the off-site staff, but as far as it is at all of concern to you, yes. It’s over.”

“So…” Vin said slyly, “we could totally get on the Net without being caught nigh instantaneously then, yeah?”

“There isn’t really anyone left to catch you.”

He pumped his fist. “Fucking sweet. You wouldn’t happen to have a screen on ya that I could borrow, would you?”

“You really want to browse the Net, right this instant?” Renee asked. She really wished she could say that she was shocked at this, but she had known Vin long enough to be used to the way he prioritized things.

“I really wanted to browse the Net like, a solid week ago but it wasn’t a god damn option back then, now was it?” he said. “Anyway, if there’s a chance we’re going moon-ways, I should let Alice know. Also, like, I should probably let her know I’m not dead and junk. She’d probably appreciate that.”

Alcor’s hat floated down to his hands and he reached inside. His arm slowly sank deeper and deeper as he shuffled the contents of the hat around. Soon he was up to his shoulder in hat, and he was biting his tongue in concentration. His teeth sliced clean through the end of his tongue, which grew a small pair of bat-like wings and flew away, without Alcor giving any indication of noticing.

Alcor started pulling things out of the hat, including three trumpets, one of which was only a few inches long; a kiddie pool full of a mysterious sweet-smelling fluid; an ant farm that glowed a dull red; a large pile of small rocks; a small pile of large rocks; a binder full of children’s drawings; and finally, with a triumphant flourish, a pair of computerized glasses. They were fairly slim, with the computer built into the frames. They were black with golden accents.

“Oh my god that thing looks ancient,” Vin said. “Will it even still work?”

Alcor glared at him. “It’s not that old; you don’t have to act like I pulled out a laptop or something. It’ll work just fine.”

“I really expected the guy who made the fucking Alcor Virus to be a little more with the times technologically,” Vin said.

“I was pretty with the times when I made him,” said Alcor. “There really isn’t much point in my keeping up with whatever modern tech is if I don’t have a project. One of the advantages of sapient software is you don’t need to constantly put effort into keeping it up to date.”

“Still. Wouldn’t expect the Alcor of Virus fame to be a luddite. But whatever, it’s a computer. I’ll take it.”

“Sorry it’s not really designed for your biology.” Alcor offered the glasses.

“Nah it’s cool, I can just hold it in front of my eyes. Or like, lie down and let gravity hold it in front of my eyes. Or just lie down and take a nap.” Vin took them. “The world is full of possibilities.”

Vin held the glasses in front of his face and waited for the computer’s various sensors to figure out who he was and log him in. The age of the computer was painfully obvious - it took almost ten seconds for the system to identify him.

Having logged him in, the system opened into his room. Aesthetically, the room looked like an ancient city wrecked in a fight between superbeings. It was massive and expansive, with lots of little hidden easter eggs for those who bothered to look, and also had encyclopedic knowledge of twenty-first century Marvel comics. The sky was filled with a massive portal, churning clouds spiraling in unnatural colors. Every now and then a robot would fly out. The robots looked nothing like real drones did, nor did they even vaguely resemble something that could practically fly, but they did look really fucking cool and that’s what mattered. Links to his most visited sites floated at his periphery. Directly ahead of him floated the comic that he had been looking at his last session. He didn’t even remember where he left off. It felt like it had been a very long time since he had been reading it. It was flicked aside with a thought, and his contacts list was brought into focus.

“Vin‽” Alice’s avatar appeared next to his before he had time to finish pinging her. “You’re back online!”

Alice’s avatar looked, to Vin’s knowledge, pretty much exactly how Alice looked, although he did suspect that she didn’t actually constantly wear Ms. Marvel’s 2020s outfit in meatspace. She was a short reptilian, with bright yellow-green scales and a patch of bright blue along her lower face and neck. Her lustrous yellow eyes were looking at him with concern.

“Yeah,” he subvocalized. “Sorry for disappearing without warning like that.” He picked at his crest, his avatar mirroring the movement. Vin’s avatar also looked like he did, except with legs that were about two feet longer to put his head on the same level as most people’s. “Things got all kinds of crazy.”

“Oh? What kind of crazy?”

“Mad crazy,” Vin said. “Like you’re absolutely furious about how crazy this shit is. You just have no tolerance for this craziness. You’re hella ableist and making everyone around you uncomfortable.”

“Seriously, though.” Alice crossed her arms. “What the hap fuckened?”

“Well, you know, stuff,” Vin said, not meeting her eyes. “Stuff fuckened.”

“What kinda stuff?”

“You know, the stuff kind.”

“The stuffiest stuff?”

“Some much stuff stuffed into that stuff that it’s gonna collapse into like, a black hole or some shit.”

“Seriously though,” she said.

“Serious?” Vin said, as if he had never heard the word before. “What is this ‘serious’ of which you speak? When are we ever serious?”

“What sort of question is that? Serious is who we are. It’s what we do,” Alice said, very seriously. “We don’t even know the meaning of the word ‘unserious’. Don’t even think it is a word, actually. Kinda just made it up right then.”

“So,” Vin exhaled deeply. “Fuck, where do I even start?”

“How about you start at the start, numbnuts?”

“Okay sure, so the long and short of it is that I’ve been lying to you for like, ever. Literally forever,” Vin said.

“The big bang happened and Vin said ‘let there be lies?’”

“Basically. Anyway you know how I said that I was sick and in a hospital?”

“Yeah?”

��Well. I wasn’t. I mean, I kinda was?” Vin shrugged. “It was a bit more Deadpool than that. Actually it was pretty fucking Deadpool; movie Deadpool though, there wasn’t really any Department K analog. And I was too young to agree to shit. And I didn’t end up too horrifically scarred. And I’m significantly less badass than Wade Wilson.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you have superpowers‽” she asked excitedly.

“Well, had. I kinda got rid of them.”

She scoffed. “That sounds very real and not fake at all.”

“No it was this whole thing there was a demon and stuff. It was super real. Mega real. Realer than sliced bread,” Vin assured her.

“There was a demon involved?”

“Yeah, Tyrone. He was possessing a kid but he didn’t really want to be possessing the kid and he’s alright. I’m making the world's shittiest fanfic about him, despite the fact that he apparently doesn’t actually kill people for that.”

“Oh trust me,” The Alcor Virus interjected. “That was by no means the world’s shittiest fanfic.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Vin asked, annoyed. “This is a private conversation between not you and not you.”

“I can’t really help but be listening in.”

Vin crossed his arms. “The NSA’s listening too, but at least they’re polite enough to keep their opinions to themselves.”

“Vin, who the fuck is that?” Alice asked.

“Oh, that’s the Alcor Virus,” Vin said. “He was also there.”

“Like ‘the bane of all shitty fanfiction writers everywhere’ the Alcor Virus?”

“The very same.”

“Okay.” She crossed her arms. “I need some goddamn context.”

“So he’s like Tyrone’s kid or whatever and he called him while we were chilling at this spider’s place and he like, trashed Francis Freeman’s place.”

“I suddenly understand everything,” Alice said.

Vin sighed. “Okay, so Renee and I were at this place and it was bad and I couldn’t tell you ‘cause I’m pretty sure if I did I would have been banned from the internet forever so we went through this whole thing and left. Then my super intuition, that was my non-Deadpool superpower btw, goes off and I’m like, we should attack the place right? Cause fuck those guys. So we do that and end up with this kid Charlie who’s possessed by this demon Tyrone, only we don’t know that he’s a demon yet. So we dick around in the woods and some stuff happens that doesn’t really matter and we end up chilling at this spider's place and she has all this extra computer stuff lying around and Tyrone goes and asks the Alcor Virus to help and I guess if you make someone they owe you like infinite favors or something ‘cause he agrees and he fucking trashes the first place and then we go back because of reasons and get Tyrone out of Charlie and we find out that he’s a demon, which really freaks Renee out, and now we’re trying to figure out what’s going to happen next and it occurred to me that no one’s going to track me down if I get on the Net so I did and now we’re talking and I think that’s about everything?”

“You definitely did not cover how you lost your superpowers.”

“Oh,” Vin said. “I didn’t want them so I gave them to Tyrone in exchange for something.”

“Something, huh?”

“You know. Stuff.”

“Just some totally normal shit from a demon in exchange for your literal superpowers, that’s all.”

“Egg-fucking-xactly.”

“Just bros being bros.” She shook her head a little. “So what was with Francis Freeman’s place? Why were they doing experiments on you? Were they training you to be a super assassin? Did you narrowly escape a fate of being a pawn of the global powers, murdering anyone who defied their wishes or who outlasted their usefulness?”

“What? Nah,” Vin said. “They just wanted to know the future, I think. If you want any more detail than that you should ask Renee, assuming she’s done freaking out about Tyrone. Which she seemed like she was but she might start again; it was a pretty hardcore freakout.”

Alice’s eyes widened. “Are you saying I might finally get to meet this mysterious Renee?”

“Yeah. Pretty much my only hold up for you guys meeting was that she had a tendency to get things on the Net blocked for both of us and I didn’t want her to try and sneak you some info and end our friendship forever.”

Alice laughed. “Well that makes more sense than her being allergic to computers. I might actually start believing that she exists at this rate.”

“What?” Vin cried. “You thought I made up a whole person?”

“You are pretty much the world’s shittiest liar, my guy.”

“Ignoring the part where I literally just told you I’ve been lying to you forever,” Vin said. “What the actual fuck is unbelievable about anything I’ve ever told you?”

“Well, on top of saying someone is allergic to computers, you literally told me that your mother died to a mysterious illness and that your dad was killed by criminals, leaving your sister to raise you in the ways of the warrior before you also got a mysterious illness and had to live in a hospital.”

Vin crossed his arms. “That was obviously a joke.”

“I don’t think it was, actually.”

“Okay fine, but how young was I when I came up with that?” Vin asked. “Can you really blame me for assuming that most parents died off via mysterious diseases or criminals?”

“You can bet your left ass cheek that I can,” Alice grinned. “I am really, really , good at blaming people for all kinds of things. I fucking excel at that shit. I could spend all day blaming anyone for anything. It’s one of my top skills.”

“Well, could you blame this face?” Vin said, making his avatar give puppy-dog eyes before waiting a few seconds and turning his avatar’s whole head into a human butt.

“You present a compelling argument but still I persevere,” Alice said, and laughed. “So you were never sick at all, then? All this time you had just been kidnapped by… whoever the fuck did all that crap?”

“Yep, that’s right. Never in my life have I been sick. The common cold is a stranger to me. I’m pretty sure people made up fevers as an excuse to get out of doing things. My guts are just too damn trashy for any pathogens to be willing to settle down in ‘em. Viruses flee in horror from my fugly ass cells.” Vin shook his head. “Nah, I was sick, at least originally. I bounced around a bunch of medical facilities when I was real young. I think it’s likely that my old guard gave me up under the promise that I could be cured. That or they just really didn’t want to deal with me anymore and were promised I would no longer be their problem.”

Alice frowned. “You know this is all really making me feel bad to complain about things like homework.”

“Why?” Vin asked. “Homework sounds pretty bullshit. That’s the one nice thing about being cooped up in a sketchy ass medical facility your whole life. I ain’t gotta do shit I don’t want to. Outside of like, get cut up and experimented on.”

“Well with that minor of a price to pay why the fuck did you even bother leaving? Sounds like you were set for life.”

“Well, Renee was really pushy about it,” said Vin. “Honestly I’m not really sure what I’m gonna do now that I’m expected to like, know things. I don’t know shit, Alice. Not a damn thing, my guy.”

“Well,” Alice said. “I might be able to help you get caught up in the math and science department. I’m not the world's worst tudor.”

“Obviously you’re not.” Vin pointed at his chest. “I’m the world’s worst tutor, and I will fight anyone who tries to take that from me. Anyway there’s like an actual reason that I wanted to talk to you right now, besides bullshit.”

“This is probably the least bullshit convo we’ve ever had.”

“Okay yes it is but that’s not the point,” Vin said. “There’s a chance that we might end up going to the moon to stay. Like, for the indefinite future. And like, you’re the guy I know on the moon so like I guess I was wondering if there was any reason you could think of that we might not want to do that and junk.”

Alice’s face lit up. “You mean we might get to meet face to face? Why didn’t you start with that? Um, anyway you gotta understand I was like, super young when I first moved to the moon. Like getting parental permission to access all the features of a pet site young. So tiny they had to use magic to make sure that the lower gravity didn’t ruin my development forever. So I don’t have much of a memory of what Earth’s like outside of as a tourist. But from what I understand it’s pretty different here from most places on Earth. For one thing the whole city still technically an experiment on the effects of long term exposure to lower gravity and other non-Earth living conditions, so there’s a lot of doctor office time. Our economy is very different; we provide living essentials for free so money is just for superficial things. Which, mind you, includes things like clothing and any luxuries at all, so people still like getting money. We just take it a lot less seriously than Earth does, from what I’ve seen.”

“Wait, if clothing is considered a luxury good does that mean that there are some poor fucks who don’t have any clothes?”

“Nudity is pretty normal here, dude. It’s warm enough for most species to be comfortable, so there isn’t really any need to wear clothing, outside of aesthetics. There are rich fucks who don’t own any clothes. My mom doesn’t wear clothes half the time, and my parents are loaded. So I guess that’s a difference to be aware of.

“Let’s see here,” she continued, “as far as day-to-day life is concerned, there are three ‘ideal’ time shifts that people operate in. One’s from six to twenty-two Greenwich, one’s from fourteen to six, and the last’s from twenty-two to fourteen. This means we never have like, everyone on the moon trying to use the same hallway at once, which is good ‘’cause old town Beta City was not built with its current population in mind so it would get stupidly congested if everyone had the same schedule. And like, obviously everyone has their own sleep schedule but school and employers assume that you follow one of those schedules like some kind of fucking chump.

“So which one are you on, ‘cause I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you online at basically every hour?”

“Did you hear the bit about the chumps? I ain’t no chump. I’ll awake when I please. Anyway, the air pressure is super low so even with the lower gravity flying’s pretty much impossible. I know how much you just love flying everywhere so I’m sure that’s really hard to hear. The air pressure is compensated for by having the air be pretty much entirely oxygen, meaning everything’s super flammable, so if you were planning on becoming a pyromaniac now that you’re free, it might not be the best place for it.”

“Sounds like it would be the perfect place for it. If you can’t even destroy an entire city then what’s the fucking point?”

“Yeah, but then you’d only be able to do that once, and then you’d probably be unable to make any fires again.”

Vin started to cross his arms before realizing that he needed one of them to hold the glasses up. “You’re telling me that everything is like, super flammable and they don’t even have a way of fighting one measly raging inferno?”

“There’s a lot of safety protocols,” Alice said. “But I was assuming that you would put in the effort to disable them like a pyromaniac with some degree of fucking competency.”

“When have I ever put effort into anything? And you’re assuming I’m competent? It’s like you don’t even know me.”

“Anyway, let’s see here, Beta City’s in a lava tube pretty far underground so there’s no natural sunlight anywhere. I know that can be a turnoff for some people. We don’t have a huge variety of foods; there isn’t really the space for a full-sized farm and shipments from Earth are pretty limited in what they can carry, so mostly we eat genetically enhanced algae. Apparently it used to be awful but these days it can taste like most anything and I think it’s pretty good.

“And you could probably guess, but adjusting to a new gravity is a bit of a bitch. At least, adjusting to Earth gravity is. I don’t really remember what adjusting to moon gravity was like the first time, but now that I’m used to it Earth feels like a prison and returning home feels like such liberation that you couldn’t imagine. Or maybe you could - you did just get actually liberated from a prison-like thing after all.”

Vin waved his hand a little. “Eh, it hasn’t really sunk in yet. It still feels temporary. Although I will admit, seeing the place utterly trashed is helping with that.”

“So I’m definitely not complaining about the possibility of seeing you in the flesh zone, but why the moon?” she asked.

“Oh I think I forgot to mention. Tyrone’s the moon demon.”

She scrunched her face up. “We have a demon?”

“You know,” Vin said, “the guy with the stars symbol that I see every now and then when you’re showing me around the moon.”

“Oh, the Circle’s demon.” She nodded a little. “That makes sense. They do a lot of work with teens. I didn’t realize its name was Tyrone, though.”

“Oh that’s not his like, demon name. It’s his fake name but his demon name sounds kinda dumb so I’m just going to keep calling him Tyrone.”

“Cause Tyrone is the least dumb-sounding name ever.”

“Are you kidding?” Vin said. “It’s like something out of a comic.”

“Right. Isn’t Cloak’s name Tyrone?”

“Yeah I think so, and also that one Roman guy, but who cares about them?” Vin spread his fingers widely. “Consider: Tyrone Tyson, everyman programmer by day, vengeful antihero demon by night; taking down shitty medical facilities and even shittier fanfics.”

“Yeah, I’d read that.”

“That’s great because I’m writing it,” he said, and pointedly turned to where Renee, Charlie, and Alcor were before saying aloud, “It’s nice to hear that someone actually appreciates my creative endeavors.”

“Who wouldn’t support Tyrone Tyson?” Alice asked.

“It probably has something to do with how the last time I pitched it it was as as incestuous, necrophilic erotica about one of the people I was pitching it to,” admitted Vin.

“Dude, If you wrote an incestuous, necrophilic erotica about me as a vengeful antihero I would consider myself completely and utterly blessed.” She shook her head. “Whoever you pitched it to before has no taste.”

“I know, right? But they probably don’t. I’ll let them know that right now.” Vin lifted the glasses away from his eyes. “Hey! Alice says y’all got no goddamn taste.”

“What?” Renee asked.

“You heard me,” Vin said, and then resumed holding the glasses above his eyes.

“No I…” Renee stared at Vin. “You’re not listening. Whatever, it probably wasn’t important.”

Renee sighed and resumed what she had been doing, which was very little.

“You’re right,” Alcor said. “It really wasn’t important.”

She looked him up and down. This was Alcor. This was a demon. This was the entity who created the Californian Archipelago. This was the person who had been helping them for the past few days. Who was apparently actually invested in making sure they had a safe place to stay. It was a lot to take in.

“You’ve been looking at me a lot,” Alcor said. “You have something you want to say?”

Renee avoided his eyes. “I’m not sure it’s something you want to hear.”

“You know you don’t need to walk on eggshells around me, right?” he said. “I’m not going to suddenly change my mind about helping you just because of something you say.”

“I really don’t know that,” Renee said. “I don’t know anything about you, really.”

“Well, since finding out who I am you’ve already called me a baby and got into an argument about the future, so if I was going to bite your head off I probably already would have. What’s up?”

Renee took a deep breath and said: “You seem to care about things a lot more than I would expect from a demon, which is, admittedly, a fairly low bar.”

“I try.”

“Our society has, to put it extremely mildly, problems. You are exceptionally powerful.”

Alcor held his hands in front of him. “I can see where you’re going with this and am going to stop you right there. No matter how bad this capitalist hellhole is, I can guarantee you a demonarchy would be worse.”

She shook her head. “I really didn’t mean to suggest that you become supreme leader of the world. In fact I cannot possibly emphasize enough how much I did not mean to imply such a thing. But, instead of taking over, you could help us move past this, to a better system of governance, or lack thereof. Make a world where no organization has the power to do what was done here.”

Alcor sighed. “The thing is, I’m not a part of your society. I’m not a part of any society. It doesn’t feel right for me to make choices that don’t affect me. I’m not comfortable being one person making decisions for everyone, and if I wanted to do what you’re suggesting I would have to make some pretty big choices.”

“I don’t have any such hangups, though,” the Alcor Virus interjected. “Tell me, what are your problems with this society?”

“Well, capitalism’s the big one. I don't want people to die when they can't get the money required to access basic resources that others have in abundance,” Renee said. “I mean there’s other things, of course there’s other things: the police are awful, our education system needs a major revamp, institutional prejudice is, well, it’s bad, and it sometimes feels like there haven’t been any serious social changes since things calmed down from the Transcendence, even though that was over a thousand years ago now.” “Well, I don't know about the social problems, but it sounds like one of your major concerns would be solved if a universal basic income was established.” "Everyone receiving the basic funds they need to survive would certainly be better than what we have now." She shrugged. “It would be better if personal debts were also wiped clean, so no one would have to spend all their basic income repaying predatory loans and the like. It wouldn’t be perfect, because it would still be a capitalist system and corporate opportunists would find ways to exploit it given time, but it would be a whole lot better than this.” “Yeah,” the virus said slowly. “I think I can do that.”

“What?” “Universal basic income, and a worldwide debt jubilee, starting tomorrow,” he said confidently. “That should be enough time for me to calculate regional rates and the other details.” “What‽” “I can’t believe I’ve never done anything like hijack the world economy before. This is going to be great!” “Please don’t alter the entire world economy overnight because of something I said.” “Why not?” the virus asked. “You seem pretty smart.” “I’m sixteen and would probably benefit from, I don’t know, maybe taking a single economics class?” Her breathing was quicker than she liked. “I am not an authority on this!” “Relaaax,” the virus said, drawing out the syllables. “Debt jubilees have existed since biblical times, and universal basic income has done pretty well where it has been implemented. It’ll be fine.” “I’m pretty sure that historically both those things have been implemented by the people that are going to be affected by them, and they have known ahead of time that it’s coming and have done things to prepare for it?”

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll warn people at least. I’ll go and make an in-depth explanation of what’s happening and put it on every major news site.”

“I guess that’s something?”

The virus paused a moment before saying: “The day after I first implement it.”

Renee buried her face in her hands.

“Oh, you know what might be better?” he said quickly. “Only posting the detailed explanation on sleazy tabloid sites and leaving the major news sites with something along the lines of ‘hello naughty children it’s universal basic income time’ with no further details.”

“Why?” She pushed her face harder into her hands. “Why did I ever think getting assistance from a virus made from a demon would be a good idea?”

“I’m not sure. Personally I would have thought Dad’s line about how he didn’t feel comfortable being one person making decisions for everyone would have been a warning.”

“I wasn’t trying to make decisions for everyone in the world!” she cried. “I was just trying to see if, once I found a group that seemed knowledgeable and competent that I agreed with, you would be willing to help us get our message out or evade prosecution or something! I didn’t intend anything to actually happen right now.”

“I’m not sure why you thought your intentions mattered when dealing with a virus made from a demon.”

“In retrospect, neither do I,” she said mournfully. “Could I at least convince you to try a sample region first to observe how it goes before you implement it everywhere? That way if it goes horribly wrong from the start at least we’ll know?”

“That’s a good point. Sample regions are important.”

“Thank you,” she said, deeply exhaling for the first time since the conversation’s start.

“I’ll limit this experiment to the Earth. Mars, Venus, the Moon, and the colony ships will be left to their own devices as the control groups.”

“Over ninety-nine percent of the population lives on Earth!” she said, throwing her hands up. “That is not how a control group works!”

“Oh, just think about how thrilled all the sociologists are going to be.”

She dropped her arms. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you.”

“I do everything on purpose. Except the molasses thing. That was. admittedly, an accident. A hilarious accident.”

“Molasses - no. I don’t want to know. Moving on from this absolute train wreck of a future I just apparently secured, can we go back to talking about what’s going to happen with the three of us?”

“Well,” the virus said chipperly. “If you decide you don’t want to live on the moon and instead choose to live independently on the Earth you’ll be receiving a modest bi-monthly living allowance starting tomorrow.”

“Can we please stop talking about that?” Renee asked. “Can we please talk about literally anything but that? It doesn't have to be the future. It could be Vin’s comics. It could be an in-depth history of the etymology of the word ‘scissors’. Literally anything would be better than this.”

“Literally anything?”

Renee glared at the nearest speaker in the ceiling. “Upon brief reflection I redact my previous statement; I’m positive you can come up with something I want to hear about less than the near economic future.”

“So um…” Charlie said quietly. “What is wrong with the system that we have - er had, I guess?”

“No, ‘have’ is right,” corrected the virus. “You still have 23 hours 56 minutes and 46 seconds before it’s accurate to refer to the current economic system in the past tense.”

“You had to ask, didn’t you?” Vin said, holding the glasses to his side, his conversation with Alice over. “You had to turn this beautiful conversation about destroying the world economy into anti-capitalist propaganda, didn’t you?”

“To answer your question.” Renee let out a big breath. “Oh man, what isn’t wrong with late stage capitalism?”

“Well, it seems to work alright?” said Charlie. “Work gets done and people get what they need for the most part.” “Well that’s a place to start,” Renee said. “People who do work which our society considers valuable get what they need, unless they need something more expensive than their job will compensate for. Which is not infrequently the case with medical needs. No one should have to choose between their health and their ability to have food and shelter, but many people have to. No one should be stuck in the catch-22 of being unable to work because of an untreated illness, and unable to treat their illness because they don’t have an income, but many people are. Which brings us to one of the larger problems that I have. “People who don’t work and aren't already wealthy don’t have access to resources under this system. Not having marketable skills, or not having the ability to market your skills, is a crime punishable by death under capitalism. And I cannot think of any way to fully communicate the extent to which I find that sentiment to be complete and utter horseshit.” “See Charlie?” said Vin. “This is why you gotta check the mouth of your gift horse before you bring it in your gates. Now your guard’s down and it’s revealing all the theory it was hiding in there.” “Oh, but I have barely gotten started,” Renee said. “I haven’t talked about inheritance, workers’ rights, corporations, monopolies, the prison industrial complex - did you know that there are places where prisons can literally fine the state if they aren’t provided with enough prisoners? ‘Cause that’s a thing. A really fucked up thing

“But as much as I would love to talk about this all day, I will concede this probably isn’t the best time for this. Ask me again once we’ve settled… wherever it is that we settle. And when I have access to the Net. I can hook you up with people who can say it better than I can.”

“So speaking of wherever we’re going to settle,” Vin said. “Living on the moon apparently includes a lot of time around doctors. I really don’t give a shit so long as they don’t like, I don’t know, carve an eye into my damn head or anything, but I feel like this might be a pretty big deal to you two.”

“I highly suspected that that might be the case,” Renee sighed. “Which leaves me in a bit of a predicament; I don’t want to have to go through doctor’s appointments in great frequency. But you seem to really want to go to the moon and I don’t want to take that from you. Also, as of a few minutes ago, I’m not sure this planet is going to be a great place to live in the near future.”

“If you’re really that worried you could just go somewhere that already has universal basic income,” said the Alcor Virus. “I’m not going to change it if a place already has it set up.”

“Yeah, what he said.” Vin met Renee’s eyes. “We don’t have to go to the moon if you don’t want to; I think it would be cool to visit Alice in the flesh but like, that’s the main reason I want to live there and I can always visit her online. It ain’t a big deal.”

“I might have a solution to the doctor problem, actually,” Alcor said. “The tests that they need to perform are entirely automated. Most people do them with a doctor because they’re the one that knows how to interpret the results and, depending on what those results are you might need to talk to them, but it’s perfectly possible to take the tests on your own and send the data to a doctor, and if something’s wrong the doctor could just explain what needs to happen to your guardian. You wouldn’t have to interact with a doctor ever, unless something serious happened.”

“That sounds tolerable,” Renee said. “I would hesitate to call it ideal but it is well within the confines of the workable.”

“So is that it, then? We’re going to go to the moon?” Charlie asked.

“Well, what are your thoughts on it?” asked Renee. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

“I think it would be pretty cool.” Charlie’s gaze swept around the floor. “Well, I think it would be really cool, honestly. Living in space. Even if you can’t actually see the sky it would be pretty neat. I might want to join Renee when it comes to getting tests done though. Hopefully it will go away, but right now the idea of seeing a doctor makes me feel a little nauseous.”

“Alright then, are you all ready to go?” Alcor asked.

“I do believe so,” answered Renee.

“Alright then,” Alcor said. “One future: as promised. Let’s go to the moon.”

And with that he snapped his fingers one final time, teleporting them out of the wrecked facility, never to return.

A year and a month gone by and 72k words later and here we are. Thank you for being here with me for this. Thank you for your reads, and your kudos, and your comments. This story means a lot to me and I'm really glad that it means something to some other people, too.

For those of you who want to see more of these characters, I'm not finished with them just yet. I'm writing a squeal / continuation of H&H. It's going to be RPG shenanigans, starting with a murder mystery campaign GMed by Charlie. I hope you look forward to it.

Thank you again for reading.

#transcendence au #haunted fic #My fic #my shit #Fic

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sincerelyhecate · 7 years

Text

a birthday (date) to remember

Title: A Birthday (Date) to Remember

Pairing: Jason Grace/Percy Jackson

Length: 3.3k words

Summary: Jason will not sulk if his boyfriend forgot his birthday. Nope. Percy thinks Jason's just cute. You can also read this on AO3 and FFNet.

Rating: General Audiences

Prompt: Day 6 - I Hate You, No You Don’t

Note: This self-indulgent fic is written for Jercy Week hosted by @imaginejercy. This work is also self-beta-ed, so all mistakes are totally mine. Given that I haven't posted anything for over a year, you can see that my writing is in decline lately, so I apologize in advanced.

Also, I had the idea to make this a birthday fic because I initially wanted to post something on Jason's birthday but I never got to do it. The WIP is still buried deep in my files. I am a mess. Happy belated birthday, Jason.

Jason was trying hard not to sulk.

Given that he was twenty-three years old (only since a few hours ago) and a full-fledged demigod, appointed Pontifex Maximus at 16 and defeated a titan at the tender age of 15, that was supposed to be easy. Turned out it wasn’t.

He wasn’t a little kid anymore. He knew that much. Yet his gut was wrenching with unease and his chest felt a little too tight, trying to fend off the frustration that was threatening to spoil his day. All because of the way his boyfriend seemed to be forgetting his birthday.

Yep, it was the 1st of July, the day Jason came into this world, courtesy of his father’s overactive sex drive and his mother’s capability of falling for the same mistake twice. It’s not like he wasn’t supposed to be born, per se, it’s more to the fact that he had a pitiable childhood to begin with that highly implicate the former suggestion.

The past was not important. He knew that much. He supposed his thoughts have been in the negative because he had been looking forward to this day so much since the past week, ready to be basked in love and happiness by his loved ones, only to have Percy answering “Friday. Why?” when he, as absentmindedly as possible, asked his boyfriend what day it was that day.

Frowning, Jason sipped his coffee half-heartedly as he watched Percy slowly flipping pancakes in the sizzling pan, adorably yawning as he blinked the remainder of his sleep away. On Jason’s last birthday, Percy had woken him up with a breakfast in bed and lots of kisses that still sent his stomach fluttering whenever he remembered. The year before that, he was brought in by their friends for a surprise picnic at the strawberry fields, Percy trying (and failing miserably) to sing him a love serenade while a hysterical Piper played the guitar as she tried (and failed miserably) not to cackle with laughter.

His boyfriend is silly and lovable and all kinds of amazing. Whenever he was focused onto something that’ll make Jason happy, he strived to make it perfect just so he could kiss that smile off Jason’s lips. He made Jason felt wanted and appreciated, something he could never imagine before he met with the seven.

Maybe that was it. Maybe he was being spoilt too much. Life before the war with Gaea and her giants was a life he hardly wanted to remember, raised by wolves and trained by the legion to be a child soldier. The moment he met his family, his real family with Thalia and Percy and the rest of his amazing friends, life could’ve never been more rewarding. He spent his 17th birthday with an actual celebration for the first time, paper crown on his head and a cake (spiked with candles! Mortals are weird) and lots of hugs and kisses and lots of confetti and presents. He never had one when he was still a praetor; his life back then was just filled with training and battling and serving the Roman legion.

He was never one to be familiar with the way the world work beyond the camps and their little flat he and Percy shared together. Perhaps they stopped celebrating birthdays the moment you grew up into an adult? That couldn’t be it, he’s an adult for five years now. Or could it be that Percy and their friends had only kept on celebrating his birthday to make up for the ones he missed during his childhood? That seemed to be likely, and they’re probably stopping soon since he had a lot of birthday parties already, and Jason’s limbs suddenly felt like lead.

He didn’t want them to stop.

He’s being ridiculous, he knew, yet he couldn’t stop the nausea in the pit of his stomach at the idea of his birthdays ceasing to be celebrated. Jason felt like laughing, albeit bitterly, at himself. Him, Jason Grace, a natural leader, stoic and capable and completely mature, was about to lose his head over something as stupid as birthday parties.

“Jason? You’ve been staring over your mug for the past ten minutes.”

Percy’s concerned voice fortunately managed to stop his ridiculous train of thoughts from heading towards wherever ridiculous place it was going. He started with a little jerk, chuckling slightly as he worked for a smile on his sullen face. “Nothing.”

Making a thoughtful face, Percy hummed softly as he pushed a plate of blue pancakes into Jason’s direction. “Eat up, we have a lot to do today.”

“We do?” He absolutely hated how relieved he felt then, feeling the warmth seeping back his insides. Perhaps they didn’t forget—

“Of course! The new temple wouldn’t finish by itself without us, and Reyna needed our help dealing with the minor god, remember?” The tone of his voice was amused, somewhat. Probably at how Jason’s shoulders significantly dropped after hearing him speak. Percy chided gently, “I’m done eating my breakfast and you barely finished half your coffee, let alone eating yours. Cheer up.”

He pecked Jason’s temple. Somehow, the weight on Jason’s shoulders lifted a bit. Percy’s kisses do wonders, and they’re his absolute favorites.

“This day will be over before you know it.”

Oh. Ouch.

He’s lying if it didn’t hurt a bit, but Jason steeled his resolve. Least of all things, he shouldn’t be petty over these kind of matters today of all days. He’s not a kid and he’s not going to act like one. Jason Grace, son of Jupiter aka Olympus’ big boss, is a responsible adult.

“Okay.”

xxx

“Wow, you look cheerful.” Piper jested good-naturedly as she walked alongside Jason on their break, intending to head over for lunch together. New Rome was gloomy under the darkened sky, mirroring how Jason felt on the inside. He shrugged, eyes scanning over the small copy of blueprint on the clipboard Annabeth gave him while his mind barely registered anything he was reading. Aware at the lack of answer, Piper halted on her tracks and grabbed Jason’s arm to stop him as well.

“What is it, Pipes?” Jason tried to look at anywhere but Piper’s face. He knew that as soon as he saw Piper’s expression, he’ll be compelled to spill his guts, and he’s interested in anything but that.

“Spill.”

She’s scary, Jason thought as Piper effortlessly read through him. One would expect that from the daughter of Aphrodite, an undeniable expert in feelings and emotions. But of course, no way in Hades would he actually confide in her over this stupid anxiety. Because it’s what it was: stupid.

“Um, there’s nothing to spill?” Jason chuckled as he tried feigning nonchalance, but even he knew how unconvincing he looked while saying that. Piper’s eyes narrowed, her kaleidoscopic irises turning a tad darker. Jason could’ve sworn he would actually let all of his worries tumble off his mouth and embarrass himself in the process, or Piper would just charmspeak him into it, because she looked like she was about to do so.

Oh, no. He would rather jump into a river than having to complain to his friends that they’re forgetting his birthday like a 5-year-old.

“Uh, do you know what day it is today?” He decided to divert the subject, and the first thing that popped into his mind was that stupid question. This birthday thing was driving him insane. Piper looked slightly taken aback before cautiously answered, “It’s Friday. Why?”

Jason’s heart squeezed painfully at her reply. Not Piper too.

“O – Oh.” His voice actually cracked for a bit, and he absolutely hated it. Hated himself for actually caring a little too much about this. Hated his anxiety for feeling like he lost something so wonderful, which he actually did, but he’s not mulling over that too.

Piper looked confused at his reaction. Her worried expression deepened as she reached for him, her eyes searching his face as she contemplated on her next course of action. Jason gave her a smile, intending to brush her off. He needed time alone.

He could celebrate his birthday alone. No one would care, right? (Or no one actually cared.)

Piper suddenly smiled knowingly, as if some revelation had dawned on her. “Well, if you’re talking about tomorrow— “

“Uh, could you go ahead without me? Um. Bathroom.”

“Wait, Jason!” He ignored her, regretting this childish act he did on a whim as he strode past her. He heard a distant voice that sounded vaguely like Annabeth’s calling Piper’s name, and using that as a distraction, he walked faster around the corner of a building, intending to lose her. He wasn’t stopped, so he guessed that worked.

He’s a twenty-three years old adult, and he was behaving like this. Slowing down, Jason came to a stop near a pole and sat down, feeling ashamed for treating his best friend like that.

Piper wouldn’t let him get away with it, though. He knew that much.

xxx

“Hey.” Percy’s gentle voice greeted him, their shared bed creaking lightly as Jason felt Percy’s weight dipping the mattress. He kept his eyes closed, praying that sleep would come faster. Vaguely registering his boyfriend’s arm wrapping loosely around his waist, there was a pang in his gut as he felt Percy’s firm chest pressed close to his back. Percy loved being the little spoon, but as soon as he discovered whenever Jason feels sad or moody, he’ll wrap himself around his boyfriend like a protective monkey, and Jason would be damned if he was not aching for Percy’s touch all day.

It was so sweet a gesture that made him realized how much he loved this exasperating boy, all to the point of heartache. He’d never trade Percy for someone else, and if that made him like a child, he couldn’t care less.

“You looked a bit off this entire day and everyone was worried,” Percy whispered into his hair. “I was worried. And before anything, I hope you don’t feel bad at all about that, since it’s our job to be worried for you.”

Yes, they’re always looking out for each other. That’s the thing Jason loved so much about them. He almost hummed in reply before he stopped himself, remembering that he was supposed to be sleeping.

“I thought you needed space, since you looked so lost and bothered. We haven’t kissed at all for today,” to that, Jason felt his fist tightened around the fabric of the duvet. He missed Percy’s lips, “but I could wait a little longer if you need to.

“It’s a big day tomorrow,” Saturday? “so I hope you’re resting plenty.” Percy’s voice had gotten a bit smaller, or was it just Jason falling asleep? “If you want to, you can talk to me about everything later. I miss your cute laugh and your smooches, and I really miss you mostly. The happy you.

“Because when you’re happy,” Percy chuckled, although a little sheepishly, “I can stay rest assured that you’re happy to be with me. Hm. I’d like to believe you do.”

There was some kind of insecurity in his boyfriend’s raspy voice as he said that, clearing his throat awkwardly, and Jason was just. Floored. Over the fact that indeed, there was no denying it, that Percy has worries if Jason ever felt unhappy being with him. The hesitance when he paused to speak was evident enough.

Jason was stunned, all thoughts of sleeping fading away. A bit flabbergasted, too. But mostly he felt mortified over the mere notion that Percy would even thought Jason could feel unhappy with him. The idea was so absurd that Jason felt a little bit foolish to be anxious over a single birthday missed.

Percy love him beyond that. A birthday is a just another day of the week. The most important thing is that Percy was always there for him, and he was there for Percy. Both had their hearts broken before, both ended up together because they realized they needed each other. Jason felt like smacking himself for being so stupid. To have such ridiculous idea planted into Percy’s head was not on Jason’s plan in becoming his boyfriend.

Steeling himself (he was pretending to sleep after all), Jason turned around and buried his face into Percy’s warm chest. He waited for a reaction. His boyfriend seemed to be a bit surprised at the sudden movement, and as Jason felt his cheeks heating up from embarrassment, Percy just tightened his arms around him.

xxx

Jason woke up to a kiss on his neck. The mattress was dipped slightly farther to Jason’s left, so he could’ve guessed that Percy was sitting up at the edge of the bed, his figure probably looming over him as he watched Jason sleep.

Another kiss, this time on his nose. While his brain was still sluggish from his sleep-induced stupor, Jason barely heard a huff of laughter, and a whisper of, “Wake up, sleepyhead.”

He hummed, no intention in getting out of bed for today. He slept peacefully in Percy’s arms, but being anxious over nothing yesterday had been so draining, he wanted to lie down all day. With Percy, preferably, enjoying the warm sunlight filtering through their window, and the smell of brownies and coffee…

Wait.

Jason cracked his eyes open. There his boyfriend was, his breath fanning over Jason’s face as he stared into Jason’s eyes, foreheads just an inch away from touching each other.

“Hi,” Percy greeted, huffing a smile before withdrawing to sit up straight, looking very much comfortable in a baby blue sweatshirt and bed hair, his lovely sea-green eyes twinkling as he watched Jason slowly came to wakefulness. There was a tray on the bedside drawer, and Percy drew a mug from it before passing it to Jason.

“Um, what’s this for?” His insides twitched a bit as he asked the question innocently. His mind was in the gutter, tangled of emotions like relief that of course, of course he wouldn’t forget his birthday, and apprehensiveness that told him not to get his hopes up. Jason’s tired eyes cleared up as he rose to a sitting position.

“Did you forget? Today’s your birthday, silly,” Percy sniggered, brushing their noses together. “Happy birthday, you big dork.”

For the first time that day, Jason knew that the smile he’s sporting on his own face was genuine. He’s so happy that all of his stupid worries faded away like wispy clouds on a bright day, so pleased that he didn’t care if Percy was one day late. Everyone makes blunders (Percy does them on a daily basis), and Jason was always ready to forgive him, like what he’s about to do now.

“I was thinking of making it a tradition,” Percy was speaking, a huge grin on his face, “making breakfast in bed and spoiling the heck outta you.”

“You’re a day late, though” Jason teased, wearing an exaggerated pout on his lips. Percy raised his eyebrows and checked his wristwatch.

“What are you talking about, Jason? Today is the first of July. Here.” Percy turned his wrist so that Jason could see the face of the watch. It revealed the number ‘1’ in a tiny square that indicated the date of the day, emphasizing that Percy had been right.

Huh.

Jason froze up, a bit stupefied at the revelation. Slowly, he could feel his blush blooming from his cheeks all down to his neck, resisting the urge to bury himself in his pillow as he looked at Percy struggling to contain his laughter. So much for the angst yesterday, and it was just for nothing. Turned out the one who blundered was not Percy but him, for a change.

Percy’s voice was trembling as he tried to keep the laughter in. “What are you so shocked about, your eyes are getting real huge just now.”

Jason was so, so stupid.

“I just realized how dumb I was being.”

“Hm?” His boyfriend wrapped an arm around him, eyes bright with mirth as he said, “I thought I’m supposed to be the dumb one in this relationship?”

“Give yourself more credit, you’re smarter than you look.” Jason paused, hesitating the urge to tell, to whine to Percy about everything. But then this was Percy. He gave in, his voice a tad too small than he intended it to be. “I thought you forgot.”

“Hey, you should be giving me more credit,” Percy accused in a playful tone. “I’ve been waiting the whole week for today, okay? I endured Annabeth pestering me about work, the unfinished temple, you being down yesterday, looking like I’ve forgotten about your birthday…”

An awkward silence.

“… wait.”

Jason was sure his face was giving him away. He turned his puppy eyes mode on. Like, full hard mode on, bracing himself as Percy opened his mouth, because nothing good would be coming out of it.

“You are such a baby.”

“Shut up.”

“Oh my gods, that’s why you were so quiet! You looked like your soul has taken a trip to the underworld, and now I realised it was because you were sulking. Hah!” There was no stopping him now. Percy threw his head back dramatically before cracking up in hideous cackles. Jason was positive he was beet-red now, shoulders drawn in to his ears as he sipped his coffee quietly.

“You’re so cute. Gods. Can you be any cuter?” Percy wrapped himself around Jason, mimicking to bite his skin before laying his head on Jason’s bare shoulder.

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

He made a show of sipping his coffee loudly, trying to pretend he didn’t hear Percy, because of course, he loved Percy so much to even consider denying him.

Shoulders still shaking from unabashed laughter, Percy took the tray from the drawer before placing it on Jason’s lap. There were pancakes drenched in syrup and swirls of cream, a plate of home-made brownies decorated with blue icing, a jar of strawberry preserves, and several slabs of toast. Jason felt full just looking at the hearty meal.

“Eat up, hot stuff, we have lots to do today.”

“We do?”

Percy looked at him, unimpressed. Jason watched on as he pulled his sleeves up his veiny arms as if he was preparing for a speech. It was his favorite look on him; Percy had mentioned that the sweatshirt reminded him of Jason’s pretty blue eyes. “I made a schedule today. Breakfast, and then off to a surprise birthday bash with the lot– “

“Not a surprise anymore,” Jason chuckled.

“Hush, you. Next is the aquarium, then we’re gonna hit up dinner at my mom’s house because she told me to bring you over so that she can fuss over you too, and then we’ll end our night with a romantic surprise by yours truly.” His boyfriend raised a suggestive eyebrow in an attempt to be sexy.

(And he actually was. Jason was tempted to kiss that smirk off his smug face.)

Nodding slowly, Jason swiped a finger over the pancake and sucked the cream off. Tasty. Percy was a great cook, but right now, he didn’t feel like eating. Putting the tray away, he ignored Percy’s questioning face as he buried his face at the crook of his boyfriend’s neck, relishing the soft thudding pulse against his cheek.

“I’m sorry I was acting miserable.”

He felt Percy’s lips kissing his hair.

“Don’t apologize. Happens to the best of us. I know how much you love birthdays, Jason. I love it too. You look so ridiculously happy every time we celebrate yours, like full on glowing, so I never wanted the day to end.”

Jason hummed. His joy was pure and unadulterated; his breathing was coming in short puffs. “Happy Jason is back now, treat him well.”

“Aye-aye, captain.”

“Can we lie down for a moment? I want to be alone with you just a little longer.”

“Sure thing. I can squeeze some smooching time in today’s schedule before we head out.”

Jason giggled, feeling like a schoolboy with a crush. He couldn’t complain to that. After all, Percy’s kisses were his absolute favorites.

#jercy #jason grace #percy jackson #heroes of olympus #imaginejercy #jercy week #key writes #birthday fic #3.3k #THIS IS SO SELF INDULGENT #SORRY IF IT SUCKED SO BAD #there were times i was happy with this and times i actually cringed #this is so late forgive me #i haven't written anything for so long

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yukipri · 7 years

Photo

YOI Future!Verse ABO AU - Timeline + Basics

*second image slightly larger in full view

So for this AU, the comics are kinda all over the place in terms of timeline, and the timeline itself isn’t particularly rigid in my mind either ^ ^; There’s some complicated world-building and a lot of stuff that I don’t really mention but is just part of the overall AU in my mind. So here’s a reference for not just you but me that should help give context for the comics that are out and also give you a hint as to the kinds of scenarios you can expect within this AU in the future.

WARNINGS PLEASE HEED:

-A/B/O (yes that’s alpha/beta/omega dynamics aka omegaverse) with unnecessarily complicated world-building, mpreg, and OC children.

-Yuuri-centric poly marriage, the main ship(s) are Victor x Yuuri, Yurio x Yuuri, Phichit x Yuuri, Minami x Yuuri, all simultaneous, with additional Chris x Yuuri and Otabek x Yuuri later in the timeline. Relationships among other members of the family are more or less platonic. (If this isn’t your thing, no need to comment, PLEASE SKIP by hitting the J key)

-The relationship is completely requited and consensual among all parties. This AU does not contain any adultery, endgame unrequited, or past and done with relationships among the main family members.

-No underage romantic/sexual relationships but some characters have crushes while they are underage that are not acted upon.

-Don’t take anything too seriously this is legit my “I don’t want to think, just lemme self-indulge and please roll with it” AU >.>;;

-all subject to change on my whims

This INTRO POST covers some of the basics of how ABO works in this AU, and the following text assumes you’ve read it.

Here’s an even more detailed world-building post

For links to the other comics in this AU, check out the “Future!verse ABO” section of my YOI Art Masterpost HERE!

Please keep ship bashing out of the comments/tags. Don’t like, just skip <3 Thank you.

PLEASE DO NOT REPOST, EDIT, OR OTHERWISE USE MY ART WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT PERMISSION. More detailed rules available on my Rules & FAQ Post.

Okay with all the warnings? LONG text post beneath cut!

Timeline [titles of works in this AU in brackets]:

-5 years pre-canon, Yuuri moves to Detroit.

-4 years pre-canon, Phichit comes to Detroit and becomes Yuuri’s roommate. He presents as alpha around half a year after they meet.

-more or less “canon” YOI

-year following canon - Yurio presents as alpha (and ends up suffering in skating as a result), Vic sweeps gold at all competitions [Yurio presenting comic #1]

-2nd year following canon - Yurio wins gold at Worlds, Yuuri wins gold at the GPF, Vic takes silver at both. (when are the Olympics? who knows!)

-2 years after canon - Yuuri and Victor officially take over coaching Yurio from Yakov, and the three of them also start formally dating.

-3 years after canon - Yuuri and Victor retire, they and Yurio get 3-way married, Yuuri’s pregnant with twins and takes a 3 year leave from full time work (tho he occasionally swaps coaching with Victor) and temporarily relocates back to Hasetsu.

-6 years after canon - kids are 2+, Yuuri returns to full time work, Minami asks Yuuri to be his coach and Yuuri decides to do that instead of returning to co-coaching Yurio with Vic [preview comic + Coach or No? comic + half a year later, Minami’s devotion comic]

-7 years after canon - kids are 3+, Yuuri’s still coaching Minami, and there’s rumors that Yuuri’s pregnant again but this time with Phichit’s kid. Yuuri marries Phichit before the end of the year. [Intro comic (latter part)]

-10 years after canon - Minami also marries Yuuri, and Yuuri gets pregnant with his fourth child.

[EDIT: Chris and Otabek also join after this, details to come]

[note: future comics will be scattered anywhere along this timeline I see fit]

Points to note about this AU:

-In this universe, many countries allow omegas (and oftentimes ONLY omegas) to have multiple spouses because omegas are more likely to give birth to alphas, which many countries want more of. There’s a lot of stigma against poly marriages but it’s legal if an omega is involved. (mentioned in intro post)

-The country our family lives in will be irrelevant/ambiguous in most of my comics, but you can assume they have several houses and occasionally move between them. During his three year hiatus Yuuri stays mostly in Hasetsu bc he wanted to raise them in a quieter, more low-profile location and wanted the support of his family (plus his family home is an onsen. Marvelous for aching). Vic + Yurio + Minami once he becomes Yuuri’s student all home rink wherever the family’s main location happens to be at the time.

-Victor is the catalyst for a lot of things in their relationship, including first proposing invoking the right of an omega to have multiple mates to get poly married. He cares the least about following traditional social expectations and has the confidence to proactively encourage the others to embrace the strange and unconventional if that’s what happens to work for them. While extremely jealous of outsiders, he is self-proclaimed “extremely greedy” and is set on creating the happiest future he can for what started as just Yuuri, but ends up being the entire growing group of people he considers his family.

-Yuuri and Phichit have been in a steady, ambiguous but definitely not purely platonic relationship since pre-canon. Yuuri helped Phichit through his presentation as alpha, and Phichit helped Yuuri through all his heats in Detroit. The Russians are fully aware of their bond and all parties consent to this relationship, though at first Vic and Yurio aren’t entirely sure what to make of it and why Phichit hasn’t pushed for more. Phichit’s not in any rush to officiate his relationship with Yuuri because he’s not planning on going anywhere. Plus, he doesn’t want to make things any more hectic than they already are after Yuuri marries the Russians. Phichit gets closer to the Russians during the 7 years post canon, at which time everyone feels that it’s time for him and Yuuri to also get married.

-Yurio had an ambiguous but growing crush on Yuuri since pre-canon but he’s in strict denial about it even though it’s becoming painfully and almost comically obvious to everyone except him and Yuuri. Things come to a head after he presents and Victor is helping him learn about his new status as an alpha and ends up outing Yurio’s feelings in the process. Yurio expects Victor to flat out crush his chances with Yuuri and is surprised when Victor is oddly encouraging, though it’s a mystery as to why. During their time at St. Petersburg, Yurio feels anxious that Victor and Yuuri’s retirement is getting closer and demands they stay with him as coaches and ends up accidentally confessing at the same time, sparking their three-way relationship which he realizes was Victor’s goal all along.

-Yuuri was worried about marrying Yurio while he was so young but Yurio wanted to get married early because he knew he’d regret it forever if his grandfather was unable to make the wedding. Yurio’s super worried about his grandfather bc Yurio’s always away, his grandfather lives alone in a pretty isolated area and his health isn’t great. After Yurio gets married, Kolya visits Hasetsu and hits it off with Yuuri’s parents, and after that it doesn’t take long to convince him to move in with them which certainly puts Yurio’s mind at ease. Kolya loves helping with the kids and is very happy to be their caretaker when their parents have to inevitably travel away from home.

-Phichit retired relatively early from professional figure skating to pursue his dream of creating his own ice show, which means learning not just the skating part but production design, acting, and everything else. His primary passion is entertaining his audience after all. During one of his theater internships he gets scouted as an actor, thinks it could be a good learning experience, and that lead to others gigs, leading to him becoming a pretty popular growing celebrity. This, combined with his super popular blog he runs about Yuuri’s kids (aided by his “employees,” the Nishigori triplets), has made him pretty high profile even outside the skating community.

-Minami is very openly and unashamedly in love with Yuuri but never pushes for a romantic relationship, being genuinely content and happy with whatever he can get (not that he doesn’t gloat around the Russians when he does get attention). Minami more or less moves into Yuuri’s house when he has kids and is absolutely besotted with them, self-appointing himself as Yuuri’s assistant and taking care of them constantly to the point where Yuuri has to scold him to focus on figure skating. He then also moves in with Yuuri when he gets a separate house from his parents with his current husbands and is sort of a permanent fixture in their family. The Russians bemoan how sometimes it seems the kids like Minami more than them. It seems natural and inevitable to everyone but Minami that he’d also eventually marry Yuuri, but Minami is so shocked when Yuuri proposes that he cries. (Minami’s is the only case where Yuuri proposes; in all previous marriages, his mates proposed to Yuuri)

-While he’s “currently” not really interested in permanently settling down with them, Chris pops by a lot and everyone’s used to him pretty much joining in on whatever he feels like; he’s very much an open lover, his casual relationship with Victor long preceding canon.

-Their other regular family member is Otabek, who isn’t nearly as sexually open but adores spending time with the kids. Yurio suspects Otabek may have a very slowly growing romantic interest in Yuuri and is wondering if he should discuss the possibility of him joining, but the timing doesn’t seem right so they’re content as is for now.

-For now none of them have changed their last names, as they aren’t sure how to hyphenate so many names. When his mates suggested they all take Katsuki, Yuuri wasn’t too thrilled because he’s very fond of their last names. They figure they can always change later if they want.

-They all wear their wedding bands on their left ring fingers. While his mates have more or less standard rings, Yuuri wears very thin bands so he can have them all on simultaneously, each a different color to match his mates’. Victor’s ring is white gold, Yurio’s yellow gold, Phichit’s black gold, and Minami’s is rose gold. Yuuri and Victor still wear their gold bands on their right hands as it symbolizes their unique bond during their time as coach and student. Shortly before his last competition, Minami gets a matching piercing with Yuuri, and in retaliation Yurio and Victor eventually get matching tiny tattoos on the inside of their fingers.

-The kids all call Victor, Yurio, and Phichit some variation of “dad” regardless of biological father and Yuuri some variation of “mom.” To the older three kids, Minami is their beloved “Ken-chan” because they knew him prior to him formally becoming Yuuri’s mate, but the youngest also calls him “dad.” Neither the kids nor fathers show any particular favoritism through blood connection and the kids get especially upset when outsiders try to single them out based on parentage.

Character presentations:

As mentioned in the Intro post, things are a bit more complicated and on a spectrum rather than cleanly divided three A/B/O categories. But the charas in this AU present as follows:

Yuuri - Omega, but leaning heavily towards the beta center of the spectrum. By U.S./international standards he’s technically classified as beta despite being able to bear children. Is not particularly sensitive to alpha pheromones and his own scent tends to be hard to notice. Usually has incredibly mild heats with main symptoms being pre-heat hunger and drowsiness. Went through most of his early life being told that he’s a very “unsexy/boring omega,” which tbh he’s been totally cool with, and he’s used to passing as a beta.

His “nonexistent omega pheromones” turns out to be a bit of a lie; he smells unbearably good to people he opens up to, but ONLY after he unintentionally lets them see who he is, so to strangers he smells beta. Yuuri is bad at opening up to people so has been under this misunderstanding for most of his life. Things change quite a bit after Victor becomes Yuuri’s coach, and Yuuri unintentionally learns how to open up his pheromones during performance and even more in his personal life.

This results in everyone who sees Yuuri perform being able to scent Yuuri’s pheromones, and for the first time in his life Yuuri gets noticed by strangers. Unused to the attention and still convinced that everything’s a misunderstanding and he has no scent, Yuuri always severely underestimates the impact of his pheromones on others which has his mates/future mates going into overdrive with protectiveness. Yuuri’s heats also become more severe based on the amount of alpha pheromones present in his vicinity.

Phichit - Alpha. Presented at sixteen while he was rooming with Yuuri. While smack dab in the center of the alpha range, he is extremely good at suppressing his pheromones due to his culture, his body’s natural biology, but most importantly extreme discipline and practice. As such he tends/chooses to pass as beta in his daily life, which allows him to remain close to Yuuri without anyone asking questions. His regular milder scent means people tend to underestimate him, but when provoked he can remove all restraints and intimidate the crap outa people with scent alone. Yuuri has always smelled amazing to him, and he didn’t know why no one else seemed to notice until Victor’s teaching revealed how Yuuri’s unique scent works.

Victor - Alpha. Very much on the far extreme end of the spectrum. Both due to his culture and how his body is, he tends to leak pheromones everywhere all the time and is very, very noticeable. Yet despite his often overwhelming presence, he is very good at keeping his emotions from coloring his pheromones and remains hard to read. He admittedly did not notice Yuuri’s scent at all until the banquet, and even then it was faint, leading to him assume that Yuuri’s a beta. During their time together he starts thinking Yuuri’s scent is getting stronger which confuses him greatly for a long time until he talks to Phichit and realizes what’s happening. While he’s glad he’s helped Yuuri access his full performance potential, he has mixed feelings about now having to beat off droves of suitors attracted by Yuuri’s scent after seeing him perform.

Yurio - Alpha. Presented at sixteen, and has very similar body chemistry to Victor. Being on the extreme end of the spectrum means more extreme sensitivity to pheromones and more extreme physical changes. More than his growth spurt, the near painful new awareness of pheromones becomes a huge barrier to his skating until he gets used to it, rendering him incapable of being in crowds of people or even stepping outside at first. During this time, the only scent he can stand and actually finds immensely comforting is Yuuri’s. Yuuri assumes it’s because his mild, unoffensive, and “unsexy” scent is soothing to Yurio’s new haywire alpha instincts, since even the scents of other omegas has Yurio feeling nauseous and sprinting to the bathroom. Victor pieces together that Yurio may be scenting Yuuri the way he is because of pre-existing emotional connections and romantic interest. Unlike Victor, Yurio’s emotions tend to bleed out heavily into his pheromones, though he does get a bit better at controlling himself with time.

Minami - Gamma (gamma-alpha). As a gamma, Minami is usually more or less beta, but changes in the pheromones in his environment/his own emotions/mental state can drastically change his pheromone output, how sensitive he is to those pheromones, and even physical factors like stamina. Unlike Phichit, he can’t really control how people perceive his pheromones. His gamma secondary is both helpful and challenging for his skating, because it means he can get a major power up whenever he’s in serious performance mode but it’s near impossible to recreate in daily practice. In addition, it’s risky to depend on “going alpha” because there’s no guarantee his emotions and environment will allow him to shift secondaries at the time and there are also benefits to performing as a beta. Training with Yuuri has helped stabilize him a ton, as being constantly bathed in the pheromones of the omega he loves has kept him in better touch with his alpha side. He tends to be full alpha the whole time whenever Yuuri is in heat.

(others, briefly)

Chris - Alpha

Otabek - Alpha

Leo - Beta

Guang-Hong - Omega

Georgi - Beta

Mila - Alpha

Seung-Gil - Alpha

JJ - Delta

Emil - Beta

Mickey - Gamma (gamma-omega)

Sara - Gamma (gamma-alpha)

Yakov - Beta

Lilia - Alpha

Minako - Alpha

Yuuko - Omega

Nishigori - Beta

Mari - Alpha

Yuuri’s parents - both beta

NOTE: International/most professional sports and other gender-divided things in this AU are NOT divided into “mens” and “womens.” There are standard tests and some sport-specific tests that measure an individual’s projected natural physical potential (such as strength, stamina etc.) and pheromone level. These are used to try to group athletes into the “tier” that best matches their physical abilities, indiscriminate to gender identity, and the number of tiers depends on the sport. Juniors may or may not be separated into tiers at all, but either way are re-tested prior to competing as adults or post-presenting and may be re-categorized. For pair skating/ice dancing/other sports that are traditionally man-woman duos in our universe, a pair’s eligibility is calculated based on a combined numerical value of their physical/pheromone points, which cannot be less than or greater than a certain range.

Figure skating has two tiers and Yuuri/Victor/Yurio/most of the gang compete in “Tier 2,” which tends to be more dominated by alphas/beta men. Some changes: Mila (alpha) and Sara (gamma-alpha) also compete in Tier 2, whereas Guang-Hong (omega) and Mickey (gamma-omega) compete in Tier 1. With his more beta-like physique and impressive stamina, Yuuri was told that despite being an omega he was on the border so could choose his tier and he chose Tier 2 to be in the same group as Victor. Most of the male figure skaters in the cast are alpha/beta because they all compete in the same Tier.

OC Kids

NOTE: They all have hyphenated last names with Katsuki first so they’ll be together alphabetically. They all attend international school in wherever country they happen to be in at the time and are all raised English/Japanese/Russian/Thai multi-lingual though I’ll probably be too lazy to show it in comics ^ ^; Full Name Explanations for the kids

Am open to suggestions for names for the pets I’ve been calling them “dog,” “dog mini,” “cat,” and “ham” in my head bc that’s admittedly what I often call my pets in rl oops

-Yasha Katsuki-Nikiforov (older fraternal twin, conceived when Yuuri is 27 and Victor is 31) - Looks near identical to his twin except for coloration and hair part differences. Looks angelic but is a master at manipulating adults. Has perfected the poker face and is hard to read. In contrast to his ever cheerful smile he can be extremely blunt and rude. Doesn’t really care to make friends outside his siblings. He doesn’t admit to being as dependent on his little brother as Shura is on him but they’re very much inseparable. Takes great joy in terrorizing Yakov.

-Shura Katsuki-Plisetsky (younger fraternal twin, conceived when Yuuri is 27 and Yurio is 19) - The other near-identical twin, he is almost always glued to Yasha’s side. It’s partly out of competitiveness, but mostly because they both just want to do everything together. Despite their similar appearances, he’s the polar opposite of his brother in many ways. He chooses not to appear friendly to outsiders, but is also completely incapable of hiding his emotions and is very much an open book. He’s openly hostile and fiercely jealous of anyone who tries to take away his siblings’ attention, but is extremely affectionate to those he loves.

-Arisa Katsuki-Chulanont (3 years younger daughter, conceived when Yuuri is 30 and Phichit is 27) - Charming, friendly, and easy to please, she seems like she’d be the easiest child to raise after her brothers. Unfortunately, she has both her adoring older brothers wrapped around her little finger and realizes very early on that she can ask them to do almost anything for her. Combined with her rather sadistic streak, this leads to quite a few extreme mischief incidents the likes of which the twins would not have been able to conceive of by themselves. She’s terrifyingly smart and has a knack for reading people both in person and on social media, which she takes to very early. Unlike her more aloof, intimidating, or just plain unapproachable older brothers, their sister is extremely sociable, likable and popular among her peers...or she would be, if said terrifying older brothers didn’t scare them off first with their possessiveness and jealousy. This has lead to her becoming somewhat of an elevated queen on a pedestal, from whom the other kids can only wish they could get a smile or a few words of praise.

-Yuuji Katsuki-Minami (3 years younger than Arisa, conceived when Yuuri is 33 and Minami is 27; not pictured in the family portrait on this post bc not born yet) - Looks JUST like Yuuri when he was younger (+ tooth). Extremely happy and energetic and outgoing, he follows his older siblings everywhere. He’s extremely trusting and gullible, but while the other siblings sometimes like to tease Shura, Yuuji is coddled and protected. Has super powerful puppy eyes and uses them unintentionally to maximum effect. Really loves food and shouting nice things about everyone.

the adults sigh very loudly and wonder how their kids turned out this way...oh wait...

-a large poodle (Makkachin passed away from old age…;_;)

-a toy poodle

-Potya - Yurio’s now very old and crotchety cat

-Phichit’s hamster that likes to taunt said cat

Thanks for reading! Again, for links to the other content in this AU including comics, illustrations, and headcanon posts, check out the “Future!verse ABO” section of my YOI Art Masterpost HERE!

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#YukiPri art #Future!verse ABO AU #YOI #Yuri!!! on Ice #YuriYuu #PhichiYuu #VicYuu #Victuuri #MinaYuu #Polyamory #multishipping #OCs #omegaverse #Alpha/beta/omega dynamics #Katsuki Yuuri #Phichit Chulanont #Yuri Plisetsky #Victor Nikiforov #Minami Kenjirou #longpost #This stupid illustration took WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY TOO LONG #not the best drawing to do while art blocking BUT I wanted one pic with all of them okay #The others suggested Minami sit on the invisible bench with them but he wanted to be closer to Yuuri so on the ground he is #this is probably a photo studio and they're wearing skates bc it's sorta their family thing #but not an actual ice rink hence the pets #but given that it's a studio i figured hamster would probably not be a good idea #is my way of justifying the pose #idk how old the kids are but it's prolly been a few years *shifty eyes*#*is TERRIBLE at drawing children I TRIED OKAY*#Also the twins have blue/green eyes respectively bc ANIME GENETICS just let it go ok

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