i am shamelessly horny for fictional men

You were ashamed at how long it took you to find your mother’s grave, but you did, sitting down in the grass and pulling your knees to your chest. 

“You were all I had,” you said, your words swallowed up by the gloomy, overcast sky. “My only place in the world.” You dropped your cheek to your knee, smiling sadly. “Once you were gone, I tried to carve out my own place, but I didn’t fit. I know why now. It wasn’t your fault, or my fault. But now—”

You lifted your head, scooting closer so you could rest your hand on the top of the grave. 

“I’ve found a place. Somewhere to belong, Mom. You wouldn’t believe where if I told you,” you laughed. “You always told me love isn’t about passion and fire and adventure. Those are nice, but you said love is about feeling safe. Feeling seen and heard. All those things you never got.” You ran a finger over her name—Captain Mary Y/l/n. “Well, Mom, I think I’ve found that too. Too soon to say, but I’m saying it anyway.”

You touched the flowers on either side of the gravestone, finding them both still fresh. It made sense; as chief of police, your mother had been a beloved pillar of the community. Your world hadn’t been the only one shattered when she passed.

“I just wanted you to know,” you said, standing up and brushing the dirt off your pants. “You only wanted me to be happy. I think I’m getting there, Mom.” You started walking and then paused, turning back over your shoulder. “Also, Dad’s a multiversal criminal from another dimension. Was a multiversal criminal from another dimension, I should say.”

You thought you could hear her laughter in the sudden burst of wind, ruffling the leaves of the few trees poking up through the graveyard.

You were walking away when you felt a sudden stab of pain on your lower back, brushing a spider off of the sliver of skin showing between your shirt and pants. You watched it as it hit the ground, legs twitching. You narrowed your eyes, looked back at the grave.

“You’ve got a sick sense of humor, Mom.”

When you used your new bracelet to portal back to base, it was the dead of night. You didn’t have to think where to go; you’d arrived at the cafeteria before you even knew where you were going.

Miguel stood from his seat at the sight of you, and you smiled. 

“I didn’t think—”

“I’d come back so soon?” you said, crossing the room. “I know. But you let me go anyway.”

He simply watched you, still standing as you sat down in the seat across from him.

“I had some goodbyes to give,” you said. “Just one really.”

He slowly sat, eyes scanning over you as if he still didn’t believe you were here. In front of him. “No te merezco,⁸” he said, tilting his head as he watched you. “You still owe me nothing.”

“Then I guess that means we can start over,” you said, reaching out your hand before you. “My name is Doctor Y/n Y/l/n. Pleasure to meet you.”

He grabbed your hand and used the leverage to pull your forwards until your noses were nearly brushing. “Miguel,” he said. “The pleasure’s all mine.” When he kissed you, it was soft. No trace of that half-feral man who’d defended you against your father. He was unremarkably soft, tracing a finger along your jaw as you pulled apart.

“I wouldn’t mind continuing this introduction in your room,” you said, and, finally, his smile sharped into something more wild.

“Whatever you want, mujer implacable.”

When you woke the next morning, you had to slowly untangle yourself from Miguel’s arms, smiling at the way he instinctively reached out, mumbling something incoherent in Spanish. You picked up his t-shirt from the floor and tossed it over yourself, flicking your hair from beneath the collar. That was when you saw yourself in the mirror.

You squinted, stepping closer. 

You were bigger, that was for sure. There was muscle definition where there hadn’t been, and you simply stood there, staring. You reached out to touch the mirror, and to your horror, your fingertips stuck to the surface. Your other hand immediately reached for the small bump on your back where the spider had bitten you. You almost laughed.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” you said.

🕷

(8) “I don’t deserve you.”

“What does that mean?”

“My father was what they call a jumper, and he knocked up my mom in a universe other than his own, leaving my DNA split between two different universes.”

He took another bite, considering you. “I don’t see how that’s your fault.”

You shrugged. “It’s not, but my universe was collapsing because of me, so…”

“So you came here,” he finished.

“Came is a nice word for it.”

“You were taken like me,” he said, and you stood from the bed.

“We don’t need to talk about this,” you said, beginning to prep your station.

Sam stood, dropping his empty food container in the trash can right beside you. “Do you ever think they’re lying to us?” he asked, his voice dipped into a whisper.

You went still. “I—I don’t know. I saw my universe glitching. I could feel it collapsing.”

“And have you seen it since then?”

After no response, Sam quietly slipped out, leaving you to your work. His words kept turning over and over in your mind, and every spider that came through that day was met with a distant-eyed, little-spoken Y/n, a sight none of them had encountered before.

Were you mad at Miguel? Yes, because he’d spoken thoughtlessly, perhaps unveiling some unconscious belief he still needed to unravel on his own. But to think the man that had done something so soft as carrying you to your room and bookmarking your book after you’d fallen asleep was in charge of some multiversal fascist regime, using a fabricated conception of the universe to blind people to his own abuse of power was—

No. That wasn’t right.

“Can we talk?”

You didn’t turn around at the voice that sounded behind you. The med bay was empty save for you, but it still felt wrong having this conversation in public.

“About what?” you asked, still facing the counter, not turning to face Miguel.

“About what you said last night,” he said, before tacking on, “And what I said.”

“What is there to talk about?”

“You don’t owe me anything, Y/n,” he started and you could feel him stepping closer. “I’ve never believed that you have, and—I’m sorry if I made you feel that way. Neither of you are prisoners, except maybe of your own circumstances. While you are here, you can do as you please.”

You still didn’t turn.

“We begin clearing out the lower-threat anomalies at the end of the week. Sending them back to their own universes,” he said. “You know you aren’t low threat, but I’ll give you the option to go.”

“What?”

“I believe you’ll choose right in the end,” he said. “But you’re right. It’s your universe, not mine. I shouldn’t have robbed you of your right to choose.”

You slowly turned around, finding him once again standing in a t-shirt and sweatpants instead of his suit. He didn’t look like he’d slept a wink.

“You’re telling me—I can leave?”

He nodded. “Staying is also an option. But it’s up to you.”

“And what about the inevitable collapse of my universe?”

He looked down at the ground, bringing his hands to his hips. “You’ll have time once you return. Time to see for yourself. Decide for yourself.”

“And if I leave and decide to come back?”

“You will still have a place here,” he said, and without a response from you, he nodded once and turned to leave.

“Miguel,” you said, taking a few steps towards him. He paused, looking at you over his shoulder. “Thank you.”

He looked you over once before nodding again, stepping out of the med bay and leaving you to quell the two worlds now colliding within you. You looked around at the space around you—too big. It seemed to swallow you whole. Was this just another trick?

🕷

It was two days later—the end of the week approaching—when Lyla appeared before him at his station with a wide smile.

“Guess what?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Don’t remember programming any guessing games.”

“You’ll want to play this one,” she said.

He rolled his eyes. “What is it?”

“I’ve found the Jumper,” she said, and Miguel only blinked at her.

“You found his trace?”

Lyla shook her head. “I found him. He’s been in the same universe for the last two weeks.”

Miguel glanced towards the door, imagining the stretch of the med bay just beyond and the woman currently pacing its floor. He looked back at Lyla with a nod. “Full alert,” he said. “I want every spider on base in the Jumper’s universe pronto.”

🕷

Sam stepped into the med bay long before his shift, ten minutes or so after the entire base had been cleared out—save for a few spiders to guard the prisoners, far off from the med bay. 

Miguel had come to say goodbye before he left, and you could tell simply by the rigid tilt of his back and the apologetic look in his eyes that he was going after your father.

“I thought you could use some company,” said Sam, sitting on one of the beds at your station. “Seeing as this is likely the calm before the storm.”

You nodded, not turning to face him fully. You couldn’t—not when you’d been given the option to leave, and he hadn’t. Or maybe he had, and he was withholding it from you for the same reason. 

“Have you always worn that?’ he asked, nodding his head towards your wrist. You looked down at your wristband, furrowing your brows as you met his eyes.

“Since I got here, yes,” you said. “You felt how painful it is to glitch.”

“Have you? Glitched, I mean,” he asked.

You shook your head, turning back towards your station.

“Odd,” he said. “Considering you are supposedly an anomaly. Figures you would have spent your whole life glitching in and out in your own universe.”

“It wasn’t really mine,” you said, turning to face him. “Do you have a point?”

He did, and it was the pointed end of a scalpel coming down on your wrist, severing your wristband and letting it fall to the floor.

“What are you doing? Are you insane?” 

You lunged for the scalpel, but he dodged your reach, stepping away and leaving a chasm of space between you as you—didn’t glitch. You felt no different at all. 

“And if I do it—” he started, before slicing off his own wristband. You called out, taking a step closer as he began to glitch in and out.

“You’re different, Y/n,” he said, as his body became shapeless, jumping between forms. “Someone like you shouldn’t exist.”

“Someone like me?” you asked, voice on the verge of breaking. “Please, Sam, just—let’s find another wristband, we can—”

“Someone who is made up of more universes than one,” he continued, his voice distorted and strange. “Someone who can exist in any of them.” And then for a heart stopping moment, he coalesced back into his own shape, long enough to offer a sickly-sharp smile. “You’re welcome, kid.”

🕷

It was quiet. Too quiet. Usually, if Miguel caught the tail end of one of the Jumper’s escapades, the dimension was in chaos as he liked it. But this was a simple, peaceful universe, with nothing more than a light flickering on and off in the Jumper’s window.

“You’re sure he’s here?” he asked as he swung up onto the building, landing outside the window. 

“I’ve never felt a trace so strong,” said Lyla, and he glanced inside, seeing nothing more than a messy apartment. A few other spiders had jumped with him, even more coming up through the stairwell, even more keeping watch around the building to make sure everything went smoothly.

Miguel shook his head. “Something’s not right,” he said, before slowly easing open the window and slipping inside. 

He smelled it first. As did the rest of the spiders trailing in behind him, covering their noses at the stench of decay. 

“God, who died?” snapped one of them, and Miguel began combing through the apartment, stepping into the kitchen and pausing his step.

“The Jumper,” he said, finding the man’s body laid out on the floor. 

“Was he killed?” asked one of the spider’s, and Lyla appeared above the body, shaking her head.

“This can’t be right,” she said. “I felt his trace for certain. And there’s no sign of death.” She flickered out and appeared again on the other side of the body, scanning it. “It’s like he was never even alive.”

“Boss!” came the voice of a spider still in the living room and Miguel stepped away, finding a book in the spider’s hand. He grabbed it, scanning the cover. The Gentleman’s Guide to Astral Projection. He looked up at the spider, and she gestured to a stack of books on the table. He stepped closer, thumbing through the titles.

How the Demons Do It: A How-To Guide to Possession

The Multiverse Within Each of Us

The Mutable Physics of Personhood

Unhappy With Your Own Body? Steal Someone Else’s!

“O’Hara!” came a voice from another room, and he left the books, stepping into what must have been the Jumper’s bedroom. The walls were lined with photos and madly-scrawled notes—so many that Miguels’ eyes could barely catch on one.

“Look at this,” said the spider, and he came up to the far wall, following the spider’s gaze to a picture and a various set of IDs. He blinked. Blinked again. They were for one Dr. Sam Eddard. “I think the Jumper found himself a new ride.”

“No,” he said, “That’s not—”

“—the worst part,” finished the spider, gesturing to the entire right wall. The wall Miguel had somehow not even noticed. Hundreds of pictures. 

Of you. 

Just you. 

And a note in the middle he ripped down—the key to multiversal travel? no singular universe’s DNA; can exist in any (and destroy any?).

“I don’t think Sam Eddard is his final destination,” said the spider, and Miguel’s heart went still in his chest.

“This was a trap,” he breathed, taking in all of the spiders currently combing through the apartment. All of the spiders. Away from base. It was a split second before the note was fluttering out his hand and he was stepping—no, running—through a portal.

🕷

You don’t think you’d ever run so fast in your life. Sam—your father—whoever he was, was nothing more than a blocky, multicolor glitch of a person as he tailed you, but somehow that made him faster.

“This is your destiny, Y/n,” he called after you. “You can’t run from it.”

“Watch me,” you said, skirting to a stop inside Miguel’s control room. You looked around for something—anything—to use as a weapon as Sam stepped through, finally settling back into his own shape.

“I’m the reason you exist,” he said. “You owe me this.”

“I don’t think you understand the concept of fatherhood,” you answered, trying and failing to yank a metal bar off a piece of shelving, feeling him drawing closer.

“Do you know how long I had to wait?” he asked. “Wait until you’d grown, wait until I’d figured out this body jumping bullshit.”

“Terribly sorry for the inconvenience,” you said, finally managing to rip a slender iron pipe free, leveling it out before you as a warning.

“And then when I finally find my way back to your mother’s universe,” he shook his head, laughing. “You’re gone. Snatched up by a horde of spiders.”

“Lucky me,” you said, before swinging the pipe out, narrowly missing his head. 

“Are you really happy here?” he asked, dodging another blow. “Think of it as me taking your life off your hands.”

“Oh, well when you put it like that.” And then you lunged, iron pipe suspended between your hands as you crashed down on top of him. His head ricocheted from the pipe to the floor to the pipe again, and he kicked out beneath you, sending you tumbling.

When you regained your senses, he had jumped on top of you, pinning you to the ground.

“You’re not getting anything for father’s day,” you said, kicking out your feet enough to leave him unstable for a moment, but not enough to get him off you.

And then he started chanting. 

“Is that fucking Latin?” you asked, squirming beneath him. 

He continued, eyes distant, not focused on anything at all. As he chanted, the edges of his form glitching in and out, there was a moment where you blinked and found yourself staring down at your own body, falling limper and limper beneath Sam’s hold.

You couldn’t say anything. You couldn’t call out and beg your body to keep fighting. You could only watch.

You saw the flash of orange light cast sinister angles around the room before you saw the portal, and by the time Miguel had stepped through, you were back in your body with a sharp gasp. 

He’d ripped Sam off of you in the matter of a second, tossing him across the floor like a rag-doll. He spared you one glance—chest heaving, teeth bared—before he launched himself off his haunches and directly on top of Sam.

“Yep, I see the half spider part now,” you said, kicking your feet against the floor to get as far from the fight as you could. You braced yourself against the nearest wall, watching as Sam clawed back at Miguel, something so desperately futile in the way he fought, his face already wrenched with defeat.

But he was holding Miguel off. He wouldn’t keep him at bay for long, but perhaps, just as long as he needed. Because, with Miguel on top of him, he started chanting again.

“No,” you said, crawling closer. “Shut him up. He’s trying to—”

But Miguel couldn’t hear you, he was too invested in landing blow after blow, ignoring the Latin curses whispered in between each one. You looked around, reaching for the iron pipe still rolling on the floor beside you.

It was another adrenaline moment, one you’d never be able to describe in detail. You thought you could remember shouting a warning. You could vaguely see Miguel ducking out of the way. But the image of driving an iron pipe down into your father’s skull was one you’d never forget.

It stopped the chanting.

You and Miguel barely had a chance to glance at each other before portals started opening up all around you, the flickering orange light making it seem like the room was slowly burning. In a lot of ways, it was.

🕷

“Follow the light,” said Miguel, waving a flashlight in your eyes.

“I don’t have a concussion,” you said. “You have bruised knuckles and possibly a broken rib, but I am absolutely fine.”

He clicked off the light, simply staring at you, the both of you sat on your own bed in your own room. He’d wanted to take you to the med bay, but you quietly admitted you couldn’t stand being around all the spiders who’d just witnessed the aftermath of you killing your father. Or, at least, the body your father was in.

Miguel shook his head. “I can’t believe I didn’t know. I can’t believe I played right into his hands.”

“He had a long time to plan this,” you said.

“And I’ve had a long time to catch him.” He stood up from his spot beside you, running a hand through his hair. “He would have stolen your body and disappeared without a trace.”

“Is it true?” you asked. “About me being immune to all the glitching?”

He shrugged. “I’m ashamed to say I didn’t even think about you when we picked you up,” he said. “All I knew was that your universe was collapsing, and you were at the center of it. If I stopped to think, I would have realized the lack of glitching was strange. But I didn’t.”

“So, I was right,” you said.

He pulled back the curtain on your window, looking down at the view below. “I was so caught up in my mission to save the multiverse, that I forgot it was made up of people.” He looked back at you, stiff shoulders falling at the sight of your soft, kind eyes watching him. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” you said, before looking down at your lap. “Is your offer still on the table?”

He blinked at you for a moment. “What?”

“To go home,” you said, lifting your eyes to his. He could’ve broken down right there, but his swallowed whatever words threatened to come out and simply nodded.

You smiled before looking back down at your lap. “I’d like to go home, Miguel.”

🕷

He’d taken this mission by himself, still getting used to the stretch of his scars beneath his suit. He hadn’t expected to find your father—he never did. On the occasion that he showed up, it would be a base-wide affair. Your father had earned the nickname The Jumper because of how often he hopped from universe to universe, leaving chaos sown in his wake. Several spiders had their own universes nearly wrecked by his hand. Every spider on base would be more than happy to help if he was found, and Miguel would be more than happy to utilize them.

“Find anything, Lyla?”

He was poking through the Jumper’s apartment, coming up short on anything.

“From the radioactive traces he left behind, I’m guessing he was here a while ago, for no longer than a week.”

He nodded, taking one last sweep of the room. “Keep combing through universes for that trace,” he said.

“What do you take me for? An amateur?” she asked, before winking out. He swallowed a groan of annoyance before pressing his own bracelet, calling forth a portal and stepping through.

When he got back to headquarters, it was already well-past twilight, the base void of its usual noise. His feet carried him to the cafeteria of their own accord—or, perhaps, by the accord of his stomach. When he got there, he found a familiar insomniac curled up at a corner table with a reheated cheeseburger and a book.

You looked up at the sight of him, eyes going wide. He realized then that he still had his mask on, and he likely blended in with the thousands of other spider people you saw on a daily basis. He tugged off his mask as he stepped inside, and your shoulders slumped with relief. You smiled at him before turning back to your book.

His heart did a somersault at the realization that you felt comfortable, maybe even safe, around him, and he turned towards the vending machine before he had to start unpacking that. You didn’t need to bait him with a bag of cheetos this time; he sat down across from you of his own accord. You didn’t glance up from your book, and it was only then that he saw the slight tightness in your shoulders. Maybe not completely safe.

“Still contemplating your own existence?” he asked, and you smiled at her book.

“Just riding that wave of existential dread,” you said. “How did your mission go?”

You still didn’t look up, but he could hear the quickened beat of your heart, the way you held your breath as you waited for a response.

“Dead end,” he said, and you let out a breath. He couldn’t tell if you were relieved that your father hadn’t been caught, or simply grateful to get that part of the conversation out of the way. “You never met him?”

You shook your head.

“Sorry for freaking out earlier,” you said. “I just walked in, and Sam was glitching in and out, and I wasn’t sure what to do.” You finally lifted your eyes towards him, and he simply watched you. “What?”

“You two seem to get along well,” was all he said.

You lifted your eyebrows. “Me and Sam? Sure, yeah.”

“Sure, yeah?”

“What exactly are you asking?” you said, your eyes narrowing.

“Nothing, I'm just inquiring about your life.”

“You know he’s about twice my age, right?”

“Yes, is that—” He paused. “Do age gaps matter to you?”

You bit back a smirk, setting your book down on the table between you. “Was there a specific age gap you were curious about, Miguel?” you asked. 

“No,” he answered, a bit too quickly. You smiled. God, he hated that smile.

“You gonna eat that honey bun?” you asked, nodding down at the snack before him. He forgot he’d even gotten it. He ripped open the packaging and took a bite, glancing up to find you still smiling that stupid goddamn smile.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he said around a bite of honey bun, and your smile only widened.

“Ten years older,” you said, picking up your book again. “That’s my limit.”

“I didn’t ask,” he said. You hummed in response, sticking your nose back in your book. Silence settled between you two before he gruffly admitted, “This is nice.”

“The honey bun?” you asked.

“No,” he said. “Just—being with someone. Not having to talk.”

You glanced at him. “I agree. It’s a lot like what Sam and I have.” He slowed his chewing, and your smile widened. “Kidding,” you clarified, and he shook his head.

“¿Por qué te aguanto?⁴” he muttered, taking another bite.

“You better be saying nice things about me.”

“Always,” he replied, gazing your way as you yawned. “Perhaps you should get to bed.”

You shook your head. “One more chapter.”

He sat there, finishing his honey bun, standing up to get a bottle of water and sitting back down to finish it as you read. He didn’t even realize you had fallen asleep in the booth until his water was gone and he was standing to leave.

“Y/n,” he said, nudging you. Your head plopped onto your shoulder, but you didn’t stir. “Y/n, wake up.” Another nudge, still you slept. “Lo que sea,⁵” he muttered, before calling softly for Lyla. “Where is Y/l/n’s room?” he asked. “Don’t say it,” he tacked on after she smiled. She told him where you lived, and he waved her off. 

He grabbed your book first, noting the page number, tucking it under his arm before he scooped you up. The walk to your room was slow; he was sure not to jostle you as you slept. At some point, your face fell from his shoulder into the crook of his neck, and you softly muttered something delirious against his skin. He passed only one or two spider people as he trekked up to your room, and they all gave him a wide-eyed look of disbelief, before promptly turning away. When he got there, he laid you softly against your mattress, tugging your blankets over your slowly-breathing frame. He rummaged around until he found a sticky note, quickly tucking it inside the book on the page you were on before he quietly slipped out.

🕷

“Miguel and Y/n sitting in a tree—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” said Miguel, waving Lyla from off of the top of one of his screens. She dissipated and reappeared right beside him, smiling wide. 

“I’m happy to report that Y/n was significantly less talkative with Sam this morning,” said Lyla. “After your late night rendezvous.”

“It’s none of my business who she’s talkative or not talkative with,” he said, once again brushing her away. 

“Is it your business that your rival is currently approaching?” she asked, before disappearing.

“My rival? Lyla, what are you—”

The door quietly opened, and he turned, watching as Sam stepped through. 

“Cosa descarada,⁶” he mumbled as he swung down from his platform, landing in front of Sam. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, I—uh—” Sam simply blinked at him, and Miguel raised his brows, crossing his arms over his chest. That only made the man falter more, crossing his own thin arms. “I was just coming to thank you.”

“To thank me,” Miguel repeated.

“Yes,” he said, his eyes glancing about the room as he spoke. “So, thank you.”

“Y/n—or, Dr. Y/l/n, is the one who helped you,” he said. “I just happened to have a wristband.”

“Of course,” said Sam. “So, thank you. For having the wristband.”

“Right,” said Miguel, narrowing his eyes as the man scanned the room, taking everything in. “Was there anything else?”

“Quite the impressive setup,” he said, stepping past Miguel. “Is this the base of operations?”

“You’re still a prisoner here, Dr. Eddard,” he said, making the man pause. “Don’t breach your welcome.”

He wasn’t sure where the sudden ire had come from, but he needed this man to know where he stood. Sam Eddard had appeared out of nowhere, far out of his universe, using weapons from his own to pull clunky, petty robberies as if he was itching to get caught. He wasn’t guiltless. He wasn’t Y/n. 

When Sam turned around, there was something sunken on his face, and Miguel felt bad—for a moment. Then the man was scurrying away, and Miguel was letting out a breath, and he could only try his best to stop thinking about Sam Eddard and the woman he worked alongside.

🕷

When he slipped into the cafeteria that night, he found you there as usual, but there was no smile to greet him. Instead, you slammed your book closed and sat up straight in your seat.

“Still a prisoner here?” you said, and his heart went still in his chest. 

“What?” he asked, still standing halfway across the room.

“Is that what you think of us?”

“Us?” he asked. “Who’s us?”

“You thought Sam wouldn’t tell me what you said?” you asked, and his heart fell as you closed the distance between you. “You forget him and I are the same.”

“No, you’re not,” he said, crossing his arms. “He was a criminal, Y/n. You weren’t.”

“But neither of us knew what was happening. Both of us deserved to stay exactly where we were, criminals or not, before we were taken hostage.”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t have chosen to stay,” he countered.

“How am I supposed to know what I would have chosen?” you scoffed. “I wasn’t given a choice!”

“What would you have had me do? Allow your entire universe to collapse? For one person?”

“I don’t know!”

“I don’t know why you’re upset with me!”

“I’m upset, because I’m apparently still your prisoner!”

“¡No me estás escuchando!⁷” he said, running his hands over his face. “You’re not him. You’re not a prisoner.”

“Then what am I?” you asked, throwing up your hands. “What am I, Miguel?”

“You—” He gestured vaguely before him, trying and failing to find the words. You took a step away, shaking your head.

“You can make jokes, and share my table, and carry me to my room, and bookmark my goddamn book, but that doesn’t change the fact that you had me brought here and caged like an animal—”

“The multiverse—”

“The multiverse is made up of people, Miguel. It seems you’re so blinded by your mission that you may have forgotten that.”

He brought his hands to his hips, standing taller. “I thought you had made peace with all this.”

“I haven’t made peace with the fact that I even had to make peace, and I—I don’t know,” you said, laughing slightly. “I don’t even know. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I don’t know you.” Then you crossed the room, grabbed your book, and started towards the door.

“Y/n,” said Miguel, jogging to catch up to you, wrapping a hand around your arm to stop you. 

“Am I not free to go?” you asked, and the venom in your tone had him dropping his hand and taking a step back.

“Y/n,” he repeated, softer this time. “You know it’s not all so simple.”

You shook your head, laughing again. “God, and to think I was sitting here giggling like a teenager at you and your stupid smile like I’m not just some easy catch already on the end of your line.”

“That’s not true!”

“If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here—”

“If it weren’t for me, your whole universe would be gone! If it weren’t for me, you’d be dead!”

You only smiled, shaking your head once again. “And what kind of gratitude do you expect?” 

He said your name again, but he didn’t dare follow you as you left.

🕷

Part 4

(4) “Why do I put up with you?”

(5) “Whatever”

(6) “Cheeky thing”

“Leave me in peace,” he said, groaning into his pillow. “Just once.”

“I thought perhaps we could discuss expanding the operation,” she said. “Letting more anomalies integrate into spider society. So long as they wear their wristbands like Y/n, they’d pose no threat.”

“Except that Y/n is an exception,” he said, finally sitting up, biting back a groan at the stabbing pain in his gut. “Most of the other anomalies here are criminals, Lyla.”

Lyla kicked her feet together, shrugging. “Just something to consider.” And then she winked out, leaving Miguel in his supposedly cheerless room. He glanced around; maybe he did need to get a hobby.

The rest of his day was spent in his control room, standing—and then after insistence from Lyla—sitting in the midst of his endless yellow screens. The rest of his week went as such, and by the end, he realized Lyla had been going back and forth between him and Y/n, reporting on his progress. It had been Y/n demanding that he sit and take a break to eat and drink water and change his dressings; her demands had simply come from Lyla’s mouth.

At the end of the week, as planned, he returned to the med bay to have his stitches removed. A part of him realized that in any other circumstance, he would’ve just ripped them out himself and blown off whatever overbearing doctor insisted to do it for him. But he squashed that part of himself deep, deep down inside, plopping himself down on a bed in front of your station. 

“How are you feeling?” you asked, lining up your tools on a tray beside the bed. “I know you’re too tough to feel pain, but has it subsided at all?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m just a bit sore.”

You nodded, and then you just stared at each other—you sitting on a stool beside the bed, him propped up on the mattress. You cleared your throat after a minute.

“Usually, I need access to the wounds in order to pull out the stitches,” you said, eyebrows raising as your eyes dropped to his suit.

He didn’t respond, but his face went a little red as he worked himself out of the top of his suit, leaving it pushed down to his waist. And then, very suddenly, he wasn’t the only one blushing. You were a doctor in training, you’d seen plenty of bodies. Bodies meant nothing to you. But they meant—something, when he was unquestionably ripped and blushing like a schoolboy. 

You smiled as you began to pull back the bandaging, nodding to yourself as you began to cut off the stitches.

“Think I’ll live?” he asked, and your smile widened.

“He’s a proper comedian now,” you said, pulling out the last stitch on his abdomen, standing up and coming around to his back to begin pulling out those. 

“General cheer and joy,” he said. “Doctor’s orders.”

You were glad you were tucked out of his line of vision, your cheeks growing warmer. “We’ve been over this,” you said. “I’m not a doctor.”

You had to climb halfway onto the bed to reach his wound, and it didn’t escape your notice the way his shoulders tensed at the slight dip of the mattress under your knee. “What did you do?” you asked. “Before all this?”

He went silent, the only sound between you the occasional snip of your medical scissors. “I had a family,” he said, the weight of the words hunching his back as you worked. “A daughter.”

“What’s her name?”

More silence.

Eventually, he said, “Lyla’s convinced me to start allowing more anomalies into spider society.”

“That’s long,” you replied. “Did she have a nickname?”

You couldn’t see the soft smile that curled his lips, but you could physically feel the tightness ease from his muscles. “Gabi,” he said.

“Cute,” you replied. “And do you mean that? About the anomalies?”

He nodded.

“Good,” you said.

“There’s a man from Earth-55403 who was a doctor in his own universe. We picked him up after he’d jumped unknowingly,” he said. “He starts next week.”

“It’ll be nice to have an actual doctor around here,” you said, and he didn’t reply.

After you’d finished, you climbed off the bed and came around to face him once more, peeling off your gloves. “You know your body and its limits. I have a feeling if I told you to wait another week, you’d just ignore me.”

“Probably,” he said. 

“I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you here again soon after you’ve reopened your wounds on a mission.”

“Probably.”

“And I have a feeling that if I gave you ointment to prevent any scarring, you’d just say, scars make me look cool, and not use it.”

“That’s not what I sound like,” he said. “And probably.”

You laughed, and turned towards the sink to wash your hands. “Alright. Well, I’ll see you the next time you’re on the brink of death, Miguel.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” he said as he stood, and by the time you turned around to face him again, he was gone.

🕷

You hated him. You hated him and his stupid face that refused to ever flee your mind. You hated the hitch in your breath every time someone stepped into the med bay, and the sinking of your shoulders every time it wasn’t him. Which was every time. You weren’t some blushing schoolgirl. You were an adult. An almost doctor. You shouldn’t have been fawning over a man you’d had a handful of conversations with, but there was some sort of easy charm, the kind you lulled yourself into, whenever his stone facade gave way.

You’d made other friends—several accident prone spiders who came in often. One such spider was Peter Parker from a universe that sounded stranger and stranger every time he described it to you. But he was funny and awkwardly pleasant—like nearly every spider person that came through. Save for one.

“You know, when Miguel told me we’d be catching multiversal anomalies, I expected giant goo monsters and half-human nutcases,” he said, watching me with his mask off as I bandaged a cut on his arm. “Not smart, pretty girls with extensive medical knowledge.”

“How do you know I’m not secretly a half-human goo monster nutcase?” I asked, taping off the bandage and sitting up straight to look at him.

“That would make you even more mysterious and alluring,” he said.

“You’ve got a concerning taste in women, Peter.”

It was then that a person—just a person, seemingly not a spider—you hadn’t seen before stepped into the med bay, looking about with Lyla perched on his shoulder. 

“Who’s that guy?” asked Peter.

“Another secret half-human goo monster,” you said, before patting his shoulder and standing to greet the newcomer.

“Dr. Eddard,” said Lyla, floating between you two. “This is Dr. Y/l/n.”

“Just Y/n Y/l/n,” you said, reaching out to shake his hand. “Not quite a doctor.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Y/n,” said Dr. Eddard. “You can call me Sam.”

Sam was nice. Quiet, diligent worker. Lyla had him shadow you that first day just to get acclimated to the space, but after that, you only saw each other when your shift was over and his had begun. After a little while, he started bringing you dinner when he came to relieve you, and a little while after that, you greeted him each morning with breakfast in hand. After a week of your new routine with Sam, and over a week since you’d seen Miguel, the spider reappeared. 

He stepped into the med bay while you were patching up another spider, standing awkwardly by the door as he waited for you to finish. You noticed he wasn’t in his suit as usual, but in a t-shirt and sweatpants. He looked—domestic, almost.

“Rip open your wounds?” you asked as soon as the other spider had left, and he crossed the room, standing stiffly before your station.

“No,” he said. “I came by to check that everything with the new doctor is going well.”

You nodded. “No complaints from me. How are you healing?”

His response was to lift up his shirt and put his new, gnarly-looking scars on display. You smiled.

“They do look kinda cool,” you said.

He dropped his shirt back down, clasping his hands behind his back. “That’s not all,” he said. “It’s been explained to you that your father is a multiversal criminal.”

“Um, yes,” you said, sitting down on your stool as he continued.

“We’d lost his trail for a long time, but I believe we’ve found it again.”

You just blinked. “Okay.”

“He’s put countless universes at risk. Collapsed some, nearly collapsed your own.”

“Are you asking my permission to catch him?” you asked.

“No,” he said. “I just—wanted to let you know.”

You shrugged. “I’ve never met the guy, I’ve got no objections.”

He watched you as you turned towards your station, reorganizing lines of already perfectly organized medical supplies. You knew he didn’t quite believe you—you didn’t quite believe you—but you didn’t want his pity. 

“I’m jumping to his last known universe tomorrow,” he said. “I can keep you updated if you like.”

You shook your head. “No need.”

At that moment, Sam arrived with a take-out box, and you lifted your eyes to the clock. Your shift was already over. Sam sidestepped Miguel with a nervous smile at the man before offering the food to you. “I got you that turkey sandwich you like,” he said, and you thanked him, feeling Miguel’s eyes on you the entire time.

“Uh, Dr. Eddard, this is Miguel,” you said. You left out the fact that he was in charge, not sure exactly how Sam was feeling about the whole multiversal anomaly thing.

“I’m Sam,” he said, extending a hand out to Miguel. Miguel simply glanced down at it before lifting his eyes back to Sam’s face with an unimpressed twitch of his brow. Sam cleared his throat and dropped his hand.

“Thanks for checking in, Miguel,” you said, offering him one more smile before turning towards Sam, laughing at something as you opened up your takeout box, jokes already being exchanged between the two of you.

Miguel stood there for a beat longer than acceptable before slipping out, oblivious to your eyes following him out the door.

🕷

“Are they—close?”

Lyla simply blinked at Miguel, once again going against her programming by not giving him an immediate answer. Well, she was giving him an answer in her wide, judgy eyes, but not the one he wanted.

“They’ve known each other for a week,” she eventually said.

“I know that, but they seem well-acquainted,” said Miguel.

Lyla’s mouth slowly curved into a smile. “You’re jealous.”

“No,” he said, a little too quickly. “I am simply in charge of the anomalies here, and I want to be sure I haven’t put Dr. Y/l/n in danger. Dr. Eddard was a minor criminal, but a criminal nonetheless.”

“Well then sure,” said Lyla. “They’re close.”

“How do you know?”

“They are each the person the other has seen most since they left their own universes,” she said. “I believe they call it trauma-bonding.”

Miguel stared at her for a moment, before grunting and turning away. “¿Porqué me importa?³” he mumbled to himself, to which Lyla rolled her eyes.

“You care because you haven’t gotten your dick wet in years,” she said.

Miguel crossed his arms. “I’m sorry? I don’t remember programming you to give hookup advice.”

“It’s not advice,” she countered. “Just an observation. Everyone else here is essentially you in another form, but Dr. Y/l/n is a fresh, pretty face, who also happens to be smart and funny and kind, and it’s got your dick in a knot.”

“Can we stop talking about my dick?” he said, head whipping in the direction of the doors as they burst open, and the last person he wanted to see in that moment stepped through.

“I really don’t want to know what sort of conversation I was interrupting,” you said, breathless. “But something has happened.”

Miguel followed you as you started speed walking out of the room, and you explained that Sam had accidentally cut off his wristband while helping someone, and he’d started glitching nonstop. 

“No one else knew where the wristbands were kept—” you started, but he simply placed a hand on your shoulder.

“It’s alright,” he said. “I’ve got it.”

You watched him wrap a new band around Sam’s wrist as soon as you got to the med bay, placing a steadying hand on the doctor’s back as he settled back into his body.

“God, I’m so sorry,” Sam said, half to Miguel, half to you, as he leaned back against the nearest bed. “I don’t know how I could have been so careless.”

“How did it happen?” asked Miguel, eyeing the only spider in the med bay—the one Sam must have been helping. The man had an ice pack on his knee. No wounds. No stitches. Nothing that required anything sharp.

“I don’t know,” said Sam. “My scalpel must’ve slipped.”

“I was just coming in for my shift, and I found him like this,” you said, and Miguel stalked over to the bed where the only spider was siting, watching the scene before him with wide eyes. Miguel picked up the severed wristband from the floor, turning it over between his fingers.

“You understand that you will continue glitching and eventually disintegrate without this?” he said, eyeing the man.

“Yes, yes, I was just careless. My apologies.”

He stared at the man for a moment longer, before glancing back at Y/n.

“Perhaps he should stay under your observation for the day,” said Miguel, and you nodded.

“Right, of course,” you said, and he lingered until your breath had evened out and the panicked look in your eyes had eased.

--

Part 3

You made use of your figuratively-shackled hands in the med bay. You’d been a medical student when you’d been stolen from your universe, and you knew enough to patch up the wounds that came through your work station with ease most of the time—sometimes, after skimming a medical textbook and winging it. So far, no one had died on your watch, and you called that a success.

But your confidence, it seemed, may have been overinflated.

When a group of spiders rushed into the med bay with a large, tattered body strung between them, you felt profoundly out of your depth for the first time. But they couldn’t know that, lest you ended up caged once again.

“Put him on the bed,” you instructed. “Stomach down.” They heaved the body onto the bed, and you could make out the navy and red lines of a shredded suit, as well as a mess of brown hair, matted with blood you were hoping wasn’t his own. “Do you know exactly where he’s wounded?” you asked, running hands over the expanses of skin you could see, trying to make out where the various bloodstains were coming from.

“He was sliced along the back,” answered a breathless spider. “Stabbed twice in the abdomen as well.”

“Help me turn him on his side,” you said, to no one in particular, but there were suddenly several sets of hands helping you turn the man over. “You,” you continued, nodding to the spider standing across from you. “Grab a towel and keep pressure on the wounds on his abdomen.”

You conducted as thorough an examination as you could with your heart fluttering like a hummingbird in your throat, so many eyes trained on your shaking hands. The man had a few other shallow cuts and bruises, but as the spider had said—the biggest concerns were the slice along his back and the two stab wounds in his stomach.

Several of the spiders lingered as you worked, offering tools and towels and anything you needed to speed up the process. And then, in a half hour that felt like a handful of seconds, your work was done. If you had been asked to recount your actions movement for movement, you’d only be able to offer up a breathless blur of adrenaline and then the sudden empty stillness in the room after you'd managed to stabilize him. 

He was laid face up on a bed, covered by a blanket since you’d had to cut portions of his suit off of him. He couldn’t quite put a pin on his age, but he was handsome. You’d done your best to wash the blood out of his hair, and it fell in half-dry curls over his forehead. The angles of his face were severe, but they were soft, even kind somehow. At least in his sleep.

And then, to your great misfortune, he woke up.

At first it was a fluttering of eyelids, and you stood sharply from your chair, trying to look busy, as if you hadn’t just been sitting there staring at him. And then it was a few quiet groans as he tried to readjust himself. 

“Don’t sit up,” you said at the sight of him trying to push himself into a seated position. “You’ll rip out your stitches.”

He just blinked at you. “Who are you?”

“The person who saved your life,” you said, bristled by the gruff, mumbled annoyance in his tone.

He shook his head. “I have enhanced healing, I don’t need anyone to—” He was cut off by his own sharp gasp as he tried to haul himself off the bed. He went still and then avoided your eyes as he slowly lowered himself back down onto the mattress.

“You were saying?” you said, a smile curling your lips. You turned to the counter behind you, pulling a roll of gauze and medical tape from one of the cabinets. “You had a severe laceration on your back. You’re lucky it missed your spinal cord.” You turned towards him, gauze in hand, as you sat and scooted your stool towards the edge of your bed. “And that’s not even mentioning the two stab wounds.”

“What are you doing?” he asked, scooting away at your sudden closeness. 

“Your stab wounds were still bleeding when I finished, so the gauze likely needs changed,” you said. He lifted the blanket from his torso, peeling aside what was left of his suit to find two bandaged wounds, with—as you’d predicted—red-drenched gauze. He didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t protest as you reached out and began to peel back the tape. After a minute or so of quietly working, he finally spoke again.

“You’re human,” he said.

You smiled down at his abdomen, not pausing your work. “Are enhanced deduction skills part of the wide cache of spider abilities? Because you are remarkably observant.”

You could feel his eyes on your profile, but you didn’t turn to face him, not even when he quietly finished his thought. “You’re the anomaly.”

“I was under the impression there were more than one,” you said, pressing down the last stretch of tape and pulling the blankets back over him.

“You’re the anomaly I let out,” he clarified.

“Ah,” you said, standing and walking to the sink to wash your hands. “So you must be the big man in charge. The one who ordered me to be stolen from my bed.”

“There is much more—”

“I know,” you said, turning back towards him, hands braced behind you on the counter. “It has been explained to me plenty. My father was from another dimension and never should have jumped into mine and knocked up my mom, and I never should have been born.” He watched you as you spoke, scanning your face for any sort of malice, but you merely shrugged. “Wish I could have told my mom that’s why he flaked.”

“You’re not upset?” he asked.

“And who would I be upset at besides him? You?”

The man simply blinked at you, hand mindlessly reaching to brush his abdomen, the expanse of skin you’d just bandaged. The carefully stitched wounds answered the question of any lingering resentment towards your captors.

“It would be natural to hate—your circumstances,” he said eventually.

You turned back towards the counter, quietly putting away your supplies. “You should rest until the end of the week.”

“That’s not—”

“In bed for the next two days, and no missions until the stitches come out.”

“But I have en—”

“Enhanced healing. Believe me, I’ve heard it a thousand times,” you said, finally tuning to face him. “But like it or not, you’re still just as human as I am.”

“I’m only half as human as you are,” he said, and it was the clearest he’d spoken since he’d woken up. At the slight flash of fangs with the lift of his lips, you understood why.

🕷

The next morning, you found him fast asleep where you’d left him. It was more instinct than choice, your gut churning with curiosity, that led you to slowly reach out your hand and pull up the right side of his lip, confirming you hadn’t in fact been hallucinating. He had fangs. Before you could pull away, his hand shot up and caged your wrist before his face as his eyes waned open.

“I have to ask,” you started.

“No, I’m not a vampire,” he said, keeping your wrist in his grip, his voice deadpan, as if he’d answered this question a million times before.

“What are you then?” you asked, pulling your hand from his.

“Half spider.”

You lifted your eyebrows. “A spider bite made you half spider?” you asked, but he simply stared. You could tell by the low drop of his brow that he’d already told you more than he would have liked, so you simply turned away, prepping your space for whatever spiders might come through your station that day.

It turned out to be a slow day. Only two spiders came through, both needing minimal attention, and you sent them on their way about as quickly as they’d turned up. And the whole time, you felt a set of red, half-lidded eyes watching you. You would occasionally slip over to his bed to redress his wounds, answering negative to his questions of leaving. “Bed rest until the end of the day,” you said after the second spider had left. “And then I’ll fit you with some crutches and help you to your room.”

“I don’t need crutches.”

“What you don’t need is that attitude,” you said, lifting your eyes to his. “Or else I’ll send you home without a sucker.”

He tilted his head, entertaining your humor but never cracking a smile. “What’s your name?”

“Y/n. Y/l/n.”

He blinked at you as if he was familiar with the name, but all he said was, “Not Doctor Y/n Y/l/n?”

You clicked your tongue. “I was two years from being Dr. Y/l/n.”

He nodded down at his bandaged abdomen. “You seem like a doctor to me.”

“And you don’t seem half spider,” you said. “Appearances can be deceiving, Mister…”

“O’Hara. Miguel O’Hara.”

You nodded and turned back towards your station, beginning to slowly clean up for the day.

“I’m sorry,” he said, making you go still. “That you can’t be in your own universe.”

You turned back to look at him, offering a wry tilt of your lips. Not quite a smile. “That’s alright. I imagine you're similarly displaced for the sake of your noble mission. You just had the luxury of choice.”

“Would you have chosen to stay?” he asked, a sudden sharpness in his voice that made his fangs flash from behind his lips. “Knowing your universe was collapsing?”

“I didn’t say that,” you said, eyes narrowing at the sudden malice. You turned back towards your station, tucking supplies back into cabinets. “I guess I should thank you for letting me work in the med bay. I was losing my mind in that cell.”

“Don’t thank me for that,” he said. “Just makes me feel worse.”

You turned back towards him with a smile and a sucker held between your fingers. “Well, we wouldn’t want that.”

🕷

An hour or so later, when a spider with basic first aid training—a.k.a. the only kind of medic they’d had before you—came to relieve your shift, you helped Miguel out of bed and onto a set of crutches, carrying an armful of medical supplies behind him as he trudged to his room. If people stared at the sight of him limping, sucker in his mouth, they received a look from the man. You couldn’t see said look from behind him, but you could see the way it had people turning—occasionally running—away. 

Once you got to his room, he seemed annoyed at the way you slipped in behind him, but he said nothing as you laid out medical supplies on his nightstand. 

“You’ll want one of these in the morning and one with dinner for the pain,” you said, jingling the orange bottle you set down.

“Don’t need it,” he gruffed out.

“Alright, well then I imagine you don’t need help getting into bed,” you said, crossing your arms over your chest.

He leaned the crutches against the wall. “Now you’re catching on.”

You gestured to the bed beside you, stepping away so he had enough room to climb up onto it. It was slow, sliced up by the occasional grunt or half-swallowed gasp of pain, but he got up there, tugging the covers over himself.

“Bet you’re regretting that decision,” you said, and he only huffed. You took that moment of silence to look around the room. It was all black and gray angles, not a touch of personality anywhere. Not a picture frame or flower vase, no posters or art.

“You know, having some kind of general joy or cheer in your room might speed up your recovery,” you said, walking over to the window to peer out at the street below.

“Now you’re giving interior design advice?” he said, face half buried in the pillow. He was likely still groggy from the pain medicine you’d given him before.

“I’m just saying, maybe try getting a hobby or two,” you said, pulling the curtains on his window closed.

“My hobby is saving the multiverse,” he huffed out. You turned slowly from the window, eyebrows raised as you met his eyes.

“Was that—a joke?”

He huffed, turning over onto his side. “Good night.”

You started towards the door. “Oh, of course, you’re welcome, Mr. O’Hara. I was so happy to patch up your bloody wounds and gently tug you from the precipice of death. Saving such grateful spider people like yourself is truly my calling in life.”

You stopped before the door, hand lingering on the knob as you glanced back at his figure, curled away from you on the bed. He gruffed out something inaudible and you stepped closer.

“What was that?”

“Mujer implacable,¹” he cursed, before turning over just enough to meet your eyes. “Thank you, Doctor. Now get out of my room.”

You smiled and reached for the door. “Good night to you too, Miguel.”

🕷

It was midnight when Miguel woke up again. The dull buzz of the pain meds had worn off, and the sharp ache of his limbs pulled him sharply from sleep. And then, shortly after, the rumbling of his stomach had his feet hitting the floor.

He told himself he’d simply go to the cafeteria and grab something to eat, but it proved to be easier said than done. With a few curses muttered in Spanish, he sunk against the set of crutches you’d provided, letting out a breath at the sudden lack of pressure on his wounds.

When he made it to the cafeteria, he found it not empty, as he had been hoping. A singular figure was sitting in the corner of the room, the tray before her stacked neatly with various food. Of course. Of all the people to witness his shameful hobble into the cafeteria, it had to be you.

You glanced up as he entered, eyes going wide for a moment.

“You look like someone who didn’t take their pain meds,” you said, lips curling into a smile at the grunt he offered in response. You watched him fumbling with a vending machine around the awkward angle of his crutches and stood, crossing the room to come up beside him.

You didn’t wait for him to ask for help, you simply gestured before you, silently asking what he was trying to reach. He stared at you for a moment before nodding towards a pack of flamin’ hot cheetos. You fetched it for him with ease, before carrying it away from him.

“What are you doing?” he asked, watching as you sat back down at your seat and set his cheetos at the spot across from you. You didn’t respond, you simply watched him with raised brows, waiting. Eventually, he grunted out something in Spanish and joined you, grabbing a bottle of water on the way.

“What does mujer implacable mean?” you asked.

“What?”

“That’s what you called me.”

He ripped open his cheetos and sat back in his chair, watching you as he took the first bite. “Relentless woman.”

“Hm,” you said, smiling. He watched as you stood up and grabbed a pair of chopsticks from the counter, eyes narrowing as you sat back down and offered them to him.

“What are those for?”

“They keep you from getting cheeto dust on your fingers,” you said, smile growing as his eyes widened.

“Mujer brillante,²” he breathed, taking the chopsticks and ripping them open. Something adjacent to a pleased smile overtook his features as he sat back, chopsticks in hand. And then he seemed to remember who was talking to, and his smile flattened out.

“Why are you awake?” he asked.

“Oh, I was just crushed by the weight of endless, multiversal knowledge trying to fit within a mind only equipped to handle the existence of one, pondering the meaning of my birth without a clear place in a singular universe and a purpose only carved out by my own inability to accept my multiversal irrelevance.”

He blinked.

“Also, I’m an insomniac,” you said, and he shoveled another cheeto into his mouth. 

“I don’t think anomaly equals irrelevance,” he said, and he wasn’t quite sure if he believed it. You didn’t seem irrelevant though, and he was going off of that.

“Then what does it mean?” you asked, and there was no humor in your voice. No malice either. Just a sharp curiosity.

“It means that the universe is delicately balanced, and you, mujer implacable, are a wrecking ball.”

“So I’m relevant, just not in any of the good ways.”

He shook his head. “In your old life, maybe. But you can be whatever you like here. Relevant. Irrelevant. Whatever suits you.”

“I think I’d like a healthy middle,” you said.

“Midrelevant,” he said, almost smiling.

“Exactly.”

The conversation was sparse as you both ate, but something soft opened up before you within Miguel. You’d already seen him at his weakest, so he had no reason to hide from you. And as you helped him back to his room, he couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

🕷

Part 2

(1) “Relentless woman”

“I think Heimerdinger is right in a way,” she said, leaning against the end of the desk as Viktor sat in front of the core, head resting on his hands.

“How so?” He asked, his voice flat.

“We can’t employ the core until we understand it,” she said. He opened his mouth to protest, but she continued. “That just means we need to work twice as hard to understand it, to help the people who can’t wait another year or two years before this technology is available to the public.”

Viktor smiled softly, turning his head back to the core, it’s blue light dancing in the reflection of his yellow eyes. That was what pulled her to the softer, ganglier of the two scientists—and what pulled him to her—that willful, unrelenting drive to help others no matter the cost to themselves. The late nights and the bad coffee and the mornings waking to neck aches as they lifted their heads from the desks they’d sat down at two days ago—it all meant nothing. Nothing compared to the things they needed to accomplish.

“You’ve been up for 48 hours,” she said, standing from her spot against the desk and coming up behind him. “You go get some shut-eye, and I’ll run some more tests.”

“I’m your boss, Dr. Cole,” he said with lethargic amusement in his voice. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“When you’re being stupid, I do,” she said, leaning back against the desk next to him. He smiled and closed his eyes, letting out a deep breath. To her surprise, he reached around her for the cane leaning against the desk, standing with a grunt. “I’ll get a few hours sleep,” he relented, his voice deep and slow with exhaustion, his accent thicker than ever. “And then I’ll be back here to relieve you.”

“More than a few hours, Viktor,” she called as he left, knowing he wouldn’t listen to her. His lack of response said just as much. She sat down in his chair and sighed.

She thought about Jayce, the acting head of the council, busy with political endeavors and Mel, although she couldn’t blame him—if the councilwoman showed even the slightest bit of interest in her, she wouldn’t hesitate to fall into her arms. But despite his distractions, Jayce had been the one to tell her about Viktor’s trip to the hospital. He had been the one to beg her to force Viktor to take care of himself. “He listens to you,” he’d insisted. She spent every day with Viktor, but he revealed nothing—beyond the poorly masked coughs.

He needed this. He needed this promise of future, this promise of life. But he wouldn’t make it to that point of discovery if he kept pushing himself like he was. That was what Jayce had explained to her, translated from the doctor’s prescription of rest, rest, rest. As if that would cure a dying Viktor.

She ran her fingers along the edges of the core, feeling the cool, textured metal against the pad of her thumb. The core seemed to thrum in response, the light within it pulsing playfully. She pulled two wilting plants from a shelf beneath her, setting them on the desk on both sides of the core, and she curled into Viktor’s chair, just watching.

Stems of blue light, curious and alive, reached from inside the core, caressing the leaves of the plants until they started to bristle. Brown, papery skin became smooth, became green and waxy and full of life. The plants lifted themselves from their wilted position section by section, until two entirely different pieces of greenery sat on the desk before her.

She picked one of them up and walked it to the other side of the room, leaving the other by the core. She paced as she watched them both. She watched how the blue light burst and blew one plant apart into a sprout of black thorns. She watched how the other plant wilted again in the absence of the core’s life-giving power. It didn’t matter what life it gave—it was gone in a matter of seconds.

Or maybe mint plants were just inhospitable hosts for this power.

She sat back down, making a list in her head of new hosts to try. She hated the thought of animals, but maybe testing on sick or nearly-dead ones wouldn't be too unethical. Bugs were fair game, but their anatomy was so starkly different from a human’s that how the core affected them would be irrelevant.

It took her a moment to realize the core was still reaching, still hungry. It wrapped its light around the now lifeless tangle of black stems in a constricting, almost predatorial way. It took Y/N an even longer moment to realize it had started reaching for her. Her eyes widened, the light growing brighter before her. It took her too long—just a moment too long—to think to stand up out of its way.

It took another three hours for Viktor to find her collapsed on the floor in front of the desk, the core still pulsing on the surface.

—

Viktor told her she had lost her being-alone-in-the-lab privileges as soon as she woke up in a hospital bed, and Jayce frowned at her, as if saying how is he supposed to rest now, genius? She gave him a tight smile that said I tried my fucking best.

Before an entire non-verbal argument could play out, Mel appeared in the doorway, a soft coat wrapped around her slender frame and a vase of flowers in between her hands. “We leave you alone for an hour, Doctor, and look where you end up.”

“What can I say, I have a proficiency for poor decision making,” she said, and Mel laughed, sitting down at the end of her bed after setting the flowers on Y/N’s bedside table. She smiled at the arrangement of roses, some of them closed tight against the cold hospital air. “Thank you, Councilor,” she said. “These are lovely.”

“You’re welcome,” Mel said, before turning her eyes to Jayce. “But I’m afraid there are some matters that Councilman Talis and I need to attend to. I wish you a speedy recovery, Doctor,” she said as she stood, patting Y/N’s shin through the blankets.

Jayce mumbled a goodbye as he and Mel left together, leaving only Y/N, Viktor, and heavy silence that lingered in the air like molasses.

“I appreciate Mel’s sentiment,” she said softly, “but I hate roses.” Viktor looked up at that, watching her with wary eyes. “I don’t like how they close up.” She lifted a hand and ran a fingertip along one of the closed flowers as if to prove her point.

Her hand stilled as the petals quivered beneath her touch, before bursting open in a quick rush. Viktor stopped breathing. She drew her hand back. And then she lifted it again, reaching for another closed rose. It opened much the same, and she could hear Viktor’s sharp intake of breath.

“Find me a dead one,” she said, and it took Viktor a moment to even realize she had spoken.

“What?”

“A dead plant. Find me, uh, a dead plant, to—”

He was out of his chair and limping down the hallway before she could finish her sentence. He returned a moment later, a poor nurse hauling a browning plant in a large planter into the room.

“Beside the bed,” he said softly, and the nurse deposited it there, staring at them both expectantly. “That will be all, thank you.”

Once he left, she reached out, pressing her fingertips against one of the wilting leaves. Like mold on bread, green spread out beneath her fingers until the entire plant was living again.

“What have you done?” Viktor breathed, and she shook her head.

“I don’t—I don’t know,” she said. She looked down at her hands, the same as they were last night, and shook her head again. “I ran the same test we’ve run a million times. The plants—the plants died and withered, but the core–”

“What about the core?”

“I don’t know. It was different.”

“Different how?” He said, scooting the plant away and sitting down in the chair beside the bed. “I need you to explain it to me in detail, Y/N.”

She bristled at the sound of her first name in his accented voice. He always called her Doctor or Cole or Dr. Cole. But she didn’t have time to linger on the significance of it when he was staring intensely enough at her to make a lesser person shrink away in discomfort. But she knew this gaze—his problem-solving gaze. She just wasn’t used to being the problem he was solving.

“The plants were enough to wake it this time, but not enough to satiate it. It was hungry, and then,” she paused. “Predatorial? I saw it reaching for me, and I was just too stunned to move. And then I woke up here.”

“That’s all you remember?”

“Yes,” she said. He reached out to take her hand in his, to study it, but she pulled back. His narrowed eyes met hers. “Don’t—don’t touch me, we don’t—”

“We don’t what?” He asked slowly.

“We don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t want any… unintended side effects.” She thought about the mint plant bursting into wild black and shivered, Viktor’s face hovering in front of hers. She pressed her hands beneath her legs for safe measure.

“Yes, right,” he said. And then he was gone for a moment, returning with a pair of lamb-skin gloves dangling from his fingers. “To prevent any unintended side effects.”

—

Jayce was ecstatic when he returned to the lab later that day, explaining to Viktor’s unimpressed face how Y/N’s ability was a vital step in understanding the core. How she was fine, as the doctor’s had confirmed, and she now had the ability to bring plants to life.

“With none of that turning black and dying stuff,” he added, gesturing to the two plants now basking in the window—the vase of fully-bloomed roses and the potted plant, both still alive.

“Just like we do not understand the core,” Viktor explained, “we do not understand what it has done to Dr. Cole. We need—time.”

“Time?” Jayce said. “Weren’t you the one who said people need help now? Here’s your answer, Viktor,” he said, gesturing to Y/N as if she were a potted plant as well. “Why not take advantage of it?”

“Maybe because it is our friend and our colleague, and there is no need to put her in more danger than she has already subjected herself to,” Viktor said.

Y/N frowned—upset that she was actively being excluded from this conversation, and glad because she truly didn’t know who she sided with.

“What about you, Viktor?” Jayce continued, his voice softer. “You thought the Hexcore was the key to curing you, and now,” he looked over at her, “the key might be Y/N.”

Viktor stood, putting his weight on his cane to stand face-to-face with his partner. “Enough,” he said. “This was an unfortunate accident, an accident we still do not know the full repercussions of. Dr. Cole is not a trinket, she is not a science experiment, and I won’t treat her as such.”

Y/N stood, and they both turned their heads towards her. “I need a glass of water.”

Jayce was quick to fetch it for her, and then both men were watching her intently as she drank, eyebrows raised. She sighed.

“Jayce has a point,” she said, apologetic eyes meeting Viktor’s. “This could very well be a blessing in disguise, Viktor.”

Jayce lifted his hands in an I told you so gesture that had Viktor rolling his eyes.

“But,” she continued, and both the men’s focuses returned to her. “Viktor is right that the risks of getting ahead of ourselves right now far outweigh the potential rewards.” It was Viktor’s turn to gloat, but he just smiled softly. “We don’t know if those plants will blacken and die. It may only take longer for them to do so.”

Viktor’s smile disappeared at that, before he nodded solemnly.

“Let’s monitor your power,” he said. “We will test it on more plants, on dying animals, and we will see what becomes of them.”

“Because sickly rats are more deserving of this power than you,” Jayce said, sharp eyes on Viktor’s profile as he watched her. Viktor ignored him, crossing the room to pull a mint plant from our withering collection.

Jayce’s eyes met Y/N’s, and she shook her head. He clenched his fists and was gone in an instant, the lab door slamming behind him.

—

Viktor’s next hospital visit was less shocking than the first. And the doctor’s advice was the same. Rest, rest, rest, he told Viktor. So your inevitable death will come a little later, was the bit he forgot to add.

By the time a disheveled Jayce walked through the door to the hospital room, Y/N had fallen asleep, curled awkwardly in a chair, her head resting on the foot of the bed. The lamb-skin gloves were on her hands—as they had been for the last two weeks except for when she was curing canaries and mice and mint plants. In her foggy, half-conscious haze, she heard the tail-end of a whispered conversation, voices floating above her like light from the core, reaching desperately through the space in between.

“You have to try,” said Jayce, his voice kinder than she’d heard it in weeks. “What is there to lose?”

“Without thinking about the potential consequences for me, we don’t know what the consequences for Y/N will be,” said Viktor, her first name feeling so out of place, like a confession she wasn’t meant to hear.

“Viktor—”

“She’s been curing plants and small animals, not human beings.”

“The Hexcore never gets any weaker,” Jayce countered. “It never dims, and that same power is in Y/N. You have to trust it.”

“I don’t. Not with her life,” came Viktor’s defeated voice.

She heard shuffling as Jayce stood and felt his warm hand on her back.

“She’d never try something if you didn’t approve,” he said. “Why don’t you give her a chance to choose for herself?” He paused. “Your life matters too, Viktor.”

She fell back asleep to images of yellow eyes closing for good, hands reaching out too late, and a cough somewhere in the distance.

—

A week in the lab until his next episode. A week during which Y/N cured a cat of pneumonia, developed a minor cough which had Viktor—for lack of better terms—flipping his shit, recovered quickly, and tried to convince him to get at least five hours of sleep every night (which he didn’t).

A week until the doctor came into Viktor’s hospital room with a frown and no longer told her he should rest more. There is no more delaying it, he said with just the defeated look in his eyes.

A week until Jayce had the same argument again—only this time with her.

“He’s dying, Y/N,” said Jayce, eyes flitting to Viktor’s sleeping form. “I’m begging you to at least try.”

She watched the way Viktor’s chest rose and fell beneath the blankets—each breath a monumental effort he might not have the strength to make again. She looked back at Jayce.

“It’s his life,” she said. “And he’s right. We don’t know what will happen.”

“I know you won’t just let him die,” Jayce said. “You care for him. Much more than you care for me.” She opened her mouth to counter, but he lifted his hand. “I’m not offended, Y/N. I only ask you to do what you’ve been wanting to do since the moment you made that rose bloom.”

He departed soon after that, muttering something about council business and leaving a kiss on her hairline, as if he was trying to transfer the will to cure him into her.

Viktor was right. Every test they had done had been successful, but they still didn’t know the long-term side effects—on her patients and on her. Viktor understood the ethics of research and nothing would make him flinch from that, not in a way that might hurt someone else. She understood that, truly she did.

But Jayce was right in a more pressing way. They didn’t have years to understand this ability. They had another month, if they were lucky. Viktor was dying anyway, and he would undoubtedly die if she sat here and did nothing. He deserved a chance, no matter how much he said he didn’t want it. And she was the only one who could give it to him.

She scooted her chair towards Viktor until there was no room left between it and the bed. She peeled off the lamb-skin gloves slowly, setting them on the bedside table. She stayed like that for a while, hands suspended in the air above his sleeping form, taking slow breaths in and out. She only shifted to wipe the tears that had started to trickle down her face.

“Viktor,” she breathed. His eyelids shifted, but he made no other movement. She started reaching for the gloves again, picturing his anger when he woke up, anger she never wanted directed at her. She stalled when she thought about him not waking up at all. The anger was preferable, she decided, fingers reaching for his face.

She felt static shock run through her body as her fingertips grazed his cheek. His eyelashes fluttered, and he leaned into her touch. Her other hand reached for his, twining their fingers together until her knuckles were colorless. When his eyes stilled again, she brought her other hand to his, pressing his hand between her palms and bringing it up to her face, planting kisses along his knuckles.

“I’m sorry,” she said into his skin. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

She fell asleep with her head against their tangle of hands.

—

She woke to an empty hospital bed, her cheek resting against the mussed-up blankets.

In her half-consciousness, she thought Viktor must have died in the night, and they’d already hauled away his body. She stood quickly, blood-rushing to her head and sending her on a quick trip to the floor, knees colliding with the cool stone. She cursed, suddenly conscious enough to realize they would have woken her if her dearest friend had passed on in his sleep. But the question remained: where was he? She stood, the action taking much more effort than usual, and stepped into the hall.

“Excuse me,” she said, stopping a nurse as she passed by. “Do you know where Viktor went?” she asked, gesturing to the empty bed behind her.

“He was discharged early this morning,” she said.

“Discharged? He was the sickest he’s ever been. How was he discharged?”

“The doctors are still trying to puzzle it out,” she shrugged. “But he was perfectly fine when he woke up. Left in a rush.”

Y/N stared open-mouthed and dumbfounded at the nurse as the truth dawned on her. The nurse lingered for a moment—most likely concerned by her notable absence of reaction—before continuing on her way. She stood in the doorway, completely motionless, as she realized what she’d done.

She cured him.

It worked.

Jayce was right.

She grabbed the gloves from the table and left, going to the one place she knew he’d be.

The lab was a mess when she got there, notes ripped from journals and scattered along table tops, pieces of hextech dangerously littered about the room. He looked like a mad scientist sitting in the middle of all of it—the mad scientist she had first met, with color in his cheeks and a light in his eyes she couldn’t believe had ever been gone.

But then those eyes turned on her, and the light became fire.

“What have you done?” He said, standing up on his cane and closing the distance between them.

“I don’t know.” Her voice was small, much smaller than she wished it to be.

“You don’t know?” He said, throwing his arms in the air. “Of course you do not! How can you? But luckily for you, I can enlighten you.” He paused, turning away from her. He ran a hand down his face as he considered how to continue. “You have cured me, Y/N,” he said eventually, barely looking over his shoulder at her. “I can breathe, I can walk about without nearly fainting, I can live.” He looked at her, and she found no gratitude in his eyes. “What did Jayce say to you? You said you would do nothing without my wish for you to do so. And I did not wish this.”

“Why?” she said, taking a step towards him. When he turned his face and refused to meet her eyes, she shook her head. “Maybe you had accepted your death, but I hadn’t. You were living on borrowed time, Viktor. Every trip to the hospital was one trip closer to your last, and I couldn’t watch you die. I couldn’t watch you let yourself not die, not when I have this.” She lifted her hands, and he finally looked at her, grimacing. “You said our work could help people, and I have just proven that it can, we—we should be celebrating, you bastard,” she said, her voice growing thinner. She took in a shaky breath. “You should be thanking me, you should—” She groaned, clenching her fists in an effort to slow the painful race of her heart. She sighed. “I don’t know why you were so happy to die, Viktor. But you deserve a chance. And I was the only one who could give it to you.”

“It was not your right,” he said slowly.

“I don’t care!” she said, throwing her arms up in the air. “You’re alive, Viktor! You’ll live for years and years to come; who gives a fuck who has the right? I wasn’t going to give you the right to die.”

He grunted and turned  away from her, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I just–I need a moment,” he said. She scoffed.

“Take a lifetime, Viktor,” she said, the door slamming shut behind her.

—

When Jayce heard the news, he was knocking on her apartment door (after visiting a moody Viktor, of course). He crushed her in a hug before she could say hello, lifting her off the ground and twirling her through the air like a ragdoll.

“It worked!” He said, setting her back down with his hands on the tops of her arms. “I told you it would!”

She stepped out of his grasp, walking further into her apartment. “But Viktor—”

“He’ll come around,” Jayce said, following her. “I know he will; he’s just mad he can’t be so morbid all the time now.”

She nodded, grabbing a mug from the cupboard. “Tea?”

Jayce smiled, pulling out a chair at her breakfast table. “You know me so well, Doctor.”

She sat down across from him a minute later, two cups of chamomile between them.

“I’m just—” Jayce started, his eyes fixated on something outside the window. “I’m just so relieved. For so long, we couldn’t do what we love. Everything was about Viktor getting better, as it should have been, and now—” He smiled. “—Now we go back to how it always was.”

She nodded, taking another sip of her tea. She nearly spilled it when a cough immediately ripped through her throat, followed by another cough, and another.

“You alright?” Jayce asked, setting down his cup and reaching a hesitant hand towards her.

“Wrong pipe,” she wheezed, standing up from her seat and clutching a hand to her chest. Jayce stood as well, hands hovering in front of him as if he didn’t know what to do.

“Doctor—”

“I’m fine,” she managed, walking to the sink and cupping her hands beneath the faucet, drinking mouthfuls of cold water.

“I don’t know if that’s going to—”

The water came back up immediately, followed by her breakfast as she emptied her stomach into the sink. Jayce was there, hands on her back as she continued to heave. “I’m fine,” she said again, although she didn’t think either of them believed it.

“You’re fine,” Jayce repeated, his hands going still on her back. “You just need to lay down, okay?” She nodded, following Jayce as he opened the door to her bedroom, peeling back the covers on her bed. He covered her up as soon as she crawled onto the mattress, closing the door and speaking a quiet feel better over her faint coughs.

—

“She needs a hospital,” said a hazy voice as she woke.

“I’m certain it’s just a minor cold or something,” replied a voice she recognized, Jayce’s face coming into view above her as she flitted my eyes open.

“Minor colds don’t have people vomiting and losing consciousness, Councilor.”

“She didn’t—”

She coughed as she woke, and both Jayce and—as she now recognized him—Dr. Haymin, Viktor’s physician, turned their focus on her.

“Dr. Cole, how are you feeling?”

“Fine,” she croaked out, clearing her throat at the sound of her voice and pushing her covers off. It was too hot. She was too hot. “Where’s Viktor?” she asked in her half-consciousness, knowing the last time she’d seen these two men in a room, there had been a third.

“At the lab,” Jayce said after a beat of silence. “I didn’t—he doesn’t need to worry. Right, Doctor?”

Dr. Haymin ignored him, speaking to Y/N instead. “I was just telling Councilor Talis how it might be safest for you in a hospital right now, just while we figure out what’s going on.”

She shook her head. “I’m fine.”

“Dr. Cole—”

“I just needed a bit of rest,” she said, standing and pushing past them into her kitchen. They followed her as she pulled a glass from her cupboard and filled it with water, taking slow, steady sips.

“I’ll stay with her for now, Dr. Haymin,” Jayce said. “If there are any further complications, I’ll take her to the hospital, alright?”

Dr. Haymin looked hesitantly between them before letting out a long sigh. “I want you both to know that in my professional opinion, she should be in a hospital right this minute.”

“I understand,” said Jayce.

Dr. Haymin left with a laundry list of symptoms to look out for, mentioning something about Y/N’s fingers turning blue as Jayce closed the door in his face.

“Alright,” said Jayce, walking back into the kitchen. “So, you’re fine?”

She nodded.

“Great. I’m late for official council business. I’ll come back around dinner time to check back on you. Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” she said, lifting her glass in his direction as he quickly followed in Dr. Haymin’s steps.

—

“I just wanted to apologize, even though my reaction was completely warranted and your behavior was—no, no,” Viktor mumbled to himself, hovering in the hallway outside her apartment. “The way I spoke to you was unacceptable, and I just wanted to apologize. I am obviously still infuriated at you, but I respect you, and I should have shown that, despite your complete dismissal of my autonomy and—no, no, no, no, shit.” He let out a deep breath. “Y/N, I want to be alive, I am happy I am alive, and I am sorry. I know you did what you did out of the goodness of your heart, and I am not mad at you, only at your recklessness—the recklessness Jayce inspired. I’m sorry for yelling, and I hope you can forgive me.”

He nodded sharply to himself before taking the final step to her door and knocking twice. When the seconds ticked by with no answer, he knocked again. “Dr. Cole?” He called. “It’s me, uh, Viktor. I understand if you do not wish to speak with me, but I promise I am not here to fight.” He paused, waiting for her to yell back from the other side telling him to go fuck himself. But there was nothing. “Dr. Cole?”

He tried the handle, and to his surprise, it gave, the door swinging open before him. “Dr. Cole?” He called again, stepping into her sunlit apartment. “Are you here?” Once he passed the threshold, he saw her, collapsed in a heap in front of her kitchen counter.

“Y/N!” He rushed towards her, leaning his cane against the counter and crouching down beside her body, his hand on her back rising with a shaky breath that had him sighing in relief. “Y/N, wake up,” he said softly, turning her over onto her back. His hands stilled at the sight of blood dried along her upper lip, one stream still tacky from her right nostril. “Y/N.” He shook her shoulder, perhaps a little rougher than he’d intended, and she coughed, her eyes flitting open and then squinting shut again at the brightness in the room. “Y/N, what happened?” He asked, the quiver in his voice telling them both that he already had a hypothesis.

“Viktor?” She said, opening her eyes halfway, and he opened his mouth to respond before she was overtaken with a fit of coughs, curling into herself and pressing her mouth into her elbow. “I’m–” cough “fine—” cough “I promise.”

He didn’t respond, he simply took a hold of her hand, straightening out the arm she had been coughing into and peering down at her elbow.

The white fabric was bright red—red like roses, like the roses still blooming in the lab window.

He didn’t even have the strength for another what have you done. He just squeezed his hand tightly around hers and closed his eyes.

“Viktor?”

He was silent for a long while before he responded with a broken sob, his other hand coming up to cover his face as he cried openly. Y/N sat up, wrapping her arm around his back and pulling him into her, their hands still locked together between them.

“I’ll be fine,” she whispered into his shoulder, which only made him cry harder.

“This was not your disease to live with,” he said, pulling back to look at her and speaking aloud what they had both realized by now. “To—to die—”

“Hey,” she said, hand coming up to cradle the side of his face. “It wasn’t yours either. No one deserves this, but I–I am carrying it now, so, just—let it be, okay?”

“I–I should have seen this. You were dehydrated all the time from the plants, and your cough from the-the cat—”

She dipped her head, forcing him to meet her eyes.

“Viktor,” she breathed. “I wouldn’t take it back.”

“I wouldn’t have let you do it,” he said, not in anger, but in a remorse so heavy she didn’t know how he carried it on his own.

She turned away to cough again, and Viktor couldn’t find the strength to yell at her for this. Jayce, he would obliterate the next time he saw him, but not her.

“We should probably get you to a hospital,” he said instead, and she sighed once the coughing fit subsided.

“They can’t–they can’t do anything,” she said softly. “I think I’d just prefer to be here.”

He frowned, but said nothing. Instead, he helped her up and guided her to her bedroom, peeling back the covers much like Jayce had earlier that morning. Except Viktor stayed, pulling an armchair to the side of her bed and sinking into it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” she said through a yawn, pulling the covers up to her chin.

“Don’t apologize, Y/N,” he replied, and she closed her eyes. “I’ll find a way to fix this,” he added, but she had already drifted off.

—

He brought Y/N back to the lab as soon as she was rested enough, and she sat on the bench by the window as he worked, resting her head against the glass. When Jayce arrived a few hours later, he was surprised to see them both there, and at the way Viktor tensed at his friend’s cheery hello, she stood and decided to use this opportune moment to use the bathroom. When she came back there was still muffled yelling through the door and she waited outside, wanting nothing to do with this conflict—even if, in a way, she had caused it. Jayce burst into the hallway a few moments later his eyes wide and red-rimmed.

“Y/N, I’m so sorry. If I had known, I would never—”

“It’s okay, Jayce,” she said, resting her hands on his arms. “We both wanted what was best for him.”

“But, I-I left you,” he choked out in a whisper that made her realize he had definitely not told Viktor that part. “I really believed you were fine, or maybe I was just in denial, I—”

“Hey,” she cut him off. “It’s happened and we can’t take it back. I’m at peace with it, okay? Anything you think you’ve done wrong, I forgive you for.”

Jayce pulled her into him, crushing her in a hug, his chin resting on the top of her head. “I’m still sorry,” he said. She pulled back and smiled at him, before taking a step back towards the door. Jayce took a step in the other direction, faltering for a second as he watched her disappear into the lab.

—

For four hours—maybe five—Viktor tossed theories and possible cures at her, most of which she had already researched herself when Viktor was sick. She explained the downsides, the impossibilities, the potential of rumfish oil, if strained properly. But Viktor had more and more ideas. For every hypothesis she countered, he had another one ready, each more desperate and mad than the last.

“Viktor,” she finally said, cutting off his long-winded explanation of an incident involving tempar eels and a woman cured of heart palpitations. “Can we—save this for tomorrow? I’m tired. I don’t know how you were working all the time, because I’m just—drained. I’d like to have dinner and go to bed, if that’s okay.”

Viktor paused, before nodding slowly. “Of course. I’ll walk you to your room.”

She pulled a jar of soup out of her cabinet once they got back to her apartment, Viktor grabbing a pot and placing it on the stove without a thought. She tried to open the jar, her fingers straining against the lid, but she couldn’t get it to budge. Viktor noticed and quietly came up behind her, reaching out his hands.

“I got it,” she insisted, trying again. And again. Why was this happening? She was young and strong, and she’d never had trouble opening a goddamn jar of soup.

“Y/N, let me—”

“I got it,” she said, sharper than she intended. The shock of her outburst made all anger and spite and will drain out of her quickly, and she slumped, placing the jar in Viktor’s outstretched hands. He turned away towards the stove, and she didn’t even see him open it, but she heard the sound of the liquid filling the pot.

“Sorry.”

“No need for apologies, Dr. Cole,” he said.

Dr. Cole. What happened that he couldn’t call her by her first name, the name she’d grown accustomed to hearing from him? What sort of distance did he need? What sort of space was he trying to restore? Maybe before he had distanced himself because he knew any connection wouldn’t last, that soon enough he’d be dead. And now he knew that soon enough she’d be dead in his place. Dr. Cole, Dr. Cole, Dr. Cole. Both a cruelty and a mercy.

“Where are your bowls?”

She pulled two bowls from the cabinet beside her and walked over to the stove, ignoring his raised eyebrows at the second one. He didn’t protest though, pouring soup into both bowls until the pot was empty.

“Tell me what you’ll do,” she said as he washed their bowls in the sink a little later, the soup resting heavy in their stomachs.

“What?”

“With all this time, this life—what will you do?”

For a moment, she thought he hadn’t heard her, but eventually he turned off the sink, placing the bowls on a towel to dry and turned back towards her.

“I’d had a lot of time to think about how I wanted to die, Dr. Cole,” he said softly. “I didn’t ever consider how I wanted to live.”

“Well consider it now,” she said. “Consider Viktor at forty, at fifty, at seventy-five. What are you doing?”

“Sailing west,” he said almost instantly. “Buying a house on some island in the Morian sea.”

“So you have thought about it.”

He hummed, crossing the kitchen to sit down at the table.

“Would you stay there all year? Or just in the summers?” she asked, sitting down opposite him.

“All year,” he said. “Jayce could send me his theories, and I could send him mine, but I’d never have to hear about the political plights of Piltover. Because this is of course after I have provided plentiful resources to the undercity, and worked tirelessly to erase the stigma surrounding its residents.”

“Of course,” she said. “Any children?”

“Three daughters,” he said, and she chuckled at his certainty. “Alexandra is the oldest, named for her grandmother. And then there’s Danika in the middle, and the youngest, Y/N, named after her—”

Silence swallowed everything around us, enough for the sound of children laughing and beach waves hitting the shore to rise in my mind. A small, curly-haired girl, named for her mother, smiling in my direction. Three children clinging to their father’s arms.

“After her father’s most stubborn employee?”

After another beat of silence, she reached for his hand across the table.

“It was never meant for us, either way,” she said, and he met her eyes. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” he said. “Not when I’m the one living to grieve it.”

“Thought you had secured the easy way out, huh?” At her words, he met her eyes with alarm, his gaze quickly softening at the mischief he found there.

“I was counting on it,” he said.

“Well, that’s awfully rude of you,” she said. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you ladies first?”

He smiled, but something flickered out in his eyes. “Let’s not joke about this.” She nodded, and he stood, offering her his hand. “Bed?”

“Bed,” she confirmed, following him to her bedroom and climbing under the covers. He turned to leave and something clenched in her chest. “Viktor?”

He paused. She considered the distance, the Dr. Coles he had given her when he knew he was dying, when he knew any affection he offered would ultimately be ripped away. She thought of his admission, of the future he saw, and the present he had sacrificed selflessly. She thought of how truly good he was, and how she needed to be good too, how she couldn’t ask anything of him, not now. But she didn’t need to, apparently.

He had kicked off his shoes and propped his cane against the nightstand before she asked the question, slipping under the covers without a word.

“You don’t have to—”

“Have me, if you will,” he said, his eyes already closing. As if sightlessly sensing the guilt wracking her face, he continued, “It isn’t selfish, Y/N.” He opened his eyes. “I’ll take any time you’ll give me.”

And so she rolled over and went to sleep.

—

The time she could give him was a month, probably less, according to Dr. Haymin. Viktor had forced her to go to the hospital the next morning—just to see where we stand—and she felt better, oddly, knowing exactly what she had left.

They spent the day at the harbor, and she bought Viktor his first street kebab, laughing at the way he gingerly plucked half-cooked meat from the stick and eyed it with distrust. Y/N spent the night in bed, Viktor spent it in the lab. Jayce and Mel visited her the next day, and Mel brought a bouquet of tulips this time, leaving them on the kitchen table for Viktor to find when he reappeared in her apartment around lunchtime. The circles beneath his eyes and the tired lift of his smile told her he hadn’t found the miracle he’d been looking for. He took her to the art museum, and sat on a bench in the main gallery with her for an hour when she was too tired to keep walking. She invented backstories for all the characters in the portraits, spun creation myths for the landscapes, and Viktor listened. When she fell asleep on his shoulder, he asked an employee if they had a wheelchair available, and then he took her back home. When she crawled into bed, she told him she couldn’t remember where they had been, and he regaled to her her own story of how a fairy grew tired of the nightime and smashed together a thousand stars to make the sun, and that’s why Dialucci could paint the sunrise. She went to sleep, and Viktor stayed with her.

The next morning, she couldn’t get out of bed.

Two mornings after that, she couldn’t keep down any food he tried to give her, and he asked Dr. Haymin to come see her again.

“You have days,” he told Viktor outside her room. “In truth, she could go at any moment.”

“Will you smash some more stars together to make another sun?” She asked when Viktor came back inside her bedroom, the sound of Dr. Haymin closing the front door barely audible. “So it’s daytime for the rest of my life?”

“I’ll do my best.”

She sat up, leaning back against the pillows at the headboard and patted the space before her, beckoning him to sit. He did. “Even if it will dry up the atmosphere and slowly burn the earth to a crisp?”

“Even then.”

She smiled, closing her eyes. “What did he say?”

He scooted back until he was leaning against the pillows as well, opening his arms for her to fall into.

“I’ll name the second sun after you,” he said.

“Okay,” she breathed. “But if it starts killing everybody, rename it.”

He laughed, squeezing his arms tighter around her, letting the silence envelop them both, peaceful and kind for once. “I know you won’t accept an apology,” he said eventually, “But I want to give it nonetheless.”

“Who said I wouldn’t accept an apology?” She pulled back to look at him and he raised his brows. “It all depends on the delivery.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Won’t cut it,” she said, shaking her head.

“You deserved better?”

“Not it.”

“I’ll miss you?”

“Not quite.”

“I love you?”

She paused. “Getting close.”

He lifted his hand, using his finger to brush her hair out of her eyes. When she closed them, he leaned down, the tips of their noses brushing, their breaths meeting in the middle. She was the one to close the distance, but he was the one to kiss her, to press every unspoken thing into her mouth for safekeeping, to take with her wherever she’d go. When she pulled away, there were tears in both their eyes, and her voice cracked when she quietly said, “Apology accepted.”

“Aaaaaaand that’s 18 damage,” I said, my friends cheering, a proud smile forming on Eddie’s face.

“Alright, Waters, how do you want to do this?”

More cheers, and I explained in heart-racing detail how I released my rune-etched arrow at the banshee mid-leap, shooting it straight through her forehead. Eddie’s smile widened, and he opened his mouth to respond when the doors to the classroom slammed open.

“Mitchie! Oh, thank God.”

We all turned towards the open doors at the same time, and my hand clenched around my dice. Shit.

Pete Caulder, my boyfriend of nearly a year, stood in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes darting about the room as if he was taking in a crime scene.

“P-Pete, what are you doing—” I looked back at my friends, who were glancing between me and him, wide-eyed. “What are you doing here? I told you I was playing D&D today.”

He stepped into the room, and I froze. He didn’t care that he was throwing off the flow of the game, and I winced at my friends, silently apologizing. 

“Babe, I did some reading into this Dungeons and Dragons stuff, and I don’t think I want you playing, okay?” His voice was soft, gentle, but I felt my chest tighten with every syllable. He was looking straight at me, only at me, as if there weren’t five other people in the room, witnessing how strange he was acting.

“Okay, that’s—” I looked back at my friends, back at Eddie, who was watching me and Pete with an expression I couldn’t quite place. “Let’s talk outside,” I said, pushing Pete back towards the door, letting him pull me forward. “Sorry, guys,” I said, looking back at my party, at Eddie who’s expression had morphed into something I could read. He felt sorry for me. I looked away quickly, managing a smile. “Keep playing, okay? I’ll talk to you in a—” 

And then the door closed. On more than just Hellfire.

—

“Any updates?” I speak into the walkie talkie Dustin had left behind at the boathouse. There was a pause before I heard the speaker start to crackle and Dustin’s voice break through.

“Nancy and Robin are still MIA. We’re heading to Max’s house now.” I consider asking about Max, but I stop myself, knowing she’s probably in hearing distance. She doesn’t seem like the kind who likes people fussing over her. “How’s Eddie?”

The boy in question looks up at Dustin’s words, meeting my eyes from his seat in the rowboat. He looks slightly offended, but something tells me that Eddie Munson is the kind that likes being fussed over. “Still Eddie,” I say.

“Tragic,” comes Dustin’s response, and Eddie shakes his head. Little shit, I hear him mutter under his breath, despite the fond smile fighting to make an appearance on his face. “We’ll probably make a food run soon. Just hang in there.”

“Copy that.”

“Someone’s gotta get that kid’s attitude in check,” says Eddie as soon as I retract the antenna on the walkie. I smile as I set it down, crossing my arms over my chest.

“You can thank Steve for that,” I say. “But I kinda like it. It’s endearing.”

“Endearingly annoying,” Eddie replies, and I smile. We lull back into the awkward tension that’s been eating up the time since the rest of the gang left, the only sounds that of wind-wracked branches bouncing against the tin roof and tiny waves lapping at the edges of the row boat.

As endearing as his attitude is, I want to strangle Dustin for sticking me with Watch Eddie Duty. But I am the least experienced of the party, and therefore the best equipped to sit in a boathouse with a fugitive and do absolutely nothing. And plus, he doesn’t know I was in Hellfire in high school. And that I dropped out in the middle of a campaign. And I hadn’t been great to Eddie about it.

And truly, this situation isn’t anyone’s fault but my own.

Eddie toys with the ends of his hair, and I’m suddenly hit with the teenage girl at a slumber party urge to pull into a french braid. I swallow that urge, and instead dart my eyes about the room. There’s a tangled clump of nets in the corner, fishing rods hanging along the walls, tarps folded on tables, and bait lining shelves. He must notice me looking at everything other than him because he clears his throat.

One of the things that makes him such a good Dungeon Master is his ability to predict what his players are thinking. It means he knows which details to offer to lead (or mislead) them in any direction he’d like. And it meant not being completely honest with him was essentially pointless.

I meet his eyes, and he raises his brows.

I sigh. “I have a question.”

—

“Mitch, we’re in the middle of a campaign,” Eddie frowned. I stood in front of him, lunch tray in hand, as he sat with the rest of Hellfire, all awkwardly taking the news that I was dropping out. But I could feel Pete’s eyes on my back and that was enough to make me ignore the disappointed looks from my friends.

“I know, and I’m sorry, but I just don’t have the time anymore,” I lied. “You can just kill my character off. I have a friend who's interested in joining, he can take my place in the party.” Eddie’s eyes shifted past me, no doubt finding my boyfriend in the crowd of teenagers filling the cafeteria. His frown deepened.

“I’m really sorry, guys,” I said to my friends, who offered what ranged from understanding smiles to huffs of annoyance. Eddie was still looking past me and I turned just as Pete stood up from the table he was sitting at, starting towards me. “Anyway, sorry again, good luck,” I said, scuttling back towards my boyfriend and meeting him halfway between our tables.

“They giving you trouble?” He asked, his eyes locked on only one of the they he was talking about. I chanced a look back, and Eddie was staring him down just as hard.

“Nope,” I assured, tugging slightly on Pete’s sleeve when he didn’t immediately follow me back to our table. “They were just sad to lose a member, that’s all,” I said when he continued to stare down Eddie. “C’mon, Pete,” I laughed slightly. “You’re being ridiculous.”

His head snapped back towards me in an instant, and I wiped the smile off my face. “I’m just looking out for you,” he said, loud enough for most of the students milling about around us to hear, and harsh enough for them to take note. Some looked, others ducked their heads in the other direction. Eddie Munson stood from his chair. My chest clenched and my breath quickened. Not here, not right now.

“I’m sorry, you’re right,” I said, rushed and quiet. “Let’s just go, okay?” He was stiff as a statue against my insistent tugging. As if I wasn’t even there.

“You got something to say, freak?”

I winced at my boyfriend’s words, curling further in on myself when Eddie responded.

“Oh, no, no, of course not. I have nothing to say to you,” he said, a comedic lilt in his tone, but he remained standing.

“Then why don’t you sit your ass back down and leave my girlfriend alone?”

The air seemed to still, every head previously turned away was suddenly looking wide-eyed between Pete and Eddie. I wanted to disappear.

“Why don’t you let your girlfriend make her own decisions?” Eddie prodded. “What are you so scared of, hm? Scared she’ll dump your vanilla ass if she finds out not everyone is as straight-laced and overbearing as you?”

“Come on, Pete, let’s just sit down, okay?” I pleaded, tugging him with a bit more force. He yanked his arm out of my grip, making me stumble a bit at the loss of balance. 

“Am I scared that my beautiful girlfriend will dump me for Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson?” Eddie frowned slightly, as if that wasn’t quite what he meant, but Pete was speaking again before he could retort. “Why don’t we ask her, huh?”

Pete grabbed my arm, putting a quick end to my attempt to scuttle away. Instead, he pulled me forward so I was standing in front of him, looking straight at Eddie. I looked away. “Pete, stop,” I said, just loud enough for him to hear. He ignored me.

“What do you say, Mitchie? You gonna leave your point guard boyfriend for some ass-faced loser in need of a haircut?”

“Okay, fine, you win, that’s enough,” Eddie said, lowering his voice and sitting back down so the rest of the ogling students could tell he was done making a spectacle of this. I met his eyes, and gave him a tight smile that I hope conveyed both gratitude and a thousand apologies. 

But while Eddie may have been done, Pete wasn’t.

“No, I think everybody wants to hear this,” Pete laughed. “Would you ever even consider a doped-up freak like Eddie Munson? Hm, would you?”

“Pete—”

“You wouldn’t even dream of letting some ugly, bug-eyed deadbeat anywhere near you, would you?” He shoved me forward just a bit. “Would you?” When I still didn’t respond, he let out a sharp laugh that made a shudder race down my spine. “Would you ever let a worthless creep like Eddie fucking Munson in your pants? Would you ever even—”

“No! I—” I flinched at my own voice, instinctually finding Eddie’s gaze. He looked away quickly, ducking his head to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes, especially mine. “I wouldn’t—”

“That’s what I thought,” said Pete, relaxing his hold on me and finally following me as I made a beeline out of the cafeteria, abandoning my lunch tray on an empty table. “No one would ever want a fucking animal like you, Munson, you got that? Do you got that!?”

The door to the cafeteria slammed shut, and I was walking away with Pete hot on my heels. Nowhere in particular, just away, and not long after I’d be walking away across the stage at graduation, and walking away from my family’s concerns at Pete got angrier and more controlling, demanding I stay in Hawkins with him instead of going to my dream school out-of-state, and walking away from my own misery for as long as I could, until I had no option but to run, and everyone else had no option but to watch me disappear over the horizon.

—

Eddie smiles slightly, but shows no other sign of surprise. “Ask away.”

“How’d you kill me?”

He blanches. “What?”

“Sorry, poor phrasing,” I laugh. “I, uh, never heard how you killed off my character.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, smiling a bit. “I didn’t. I said your character had been kidnapped by a vengeful genasi, and you’d been lost to the mortal realm forever.”

“I see. Absolutely no parallels to real life.”

“Of course not,” says Eddie, faux solemnity on his face. Silence washes over us, and I can't decide if it's the good kind or the bad kind. He's watching me, and his attention wraps around me in an uncomfortably thorough way. Like he can see my thoughts playing like film reels in my eyes. I look away.

"Speaking of the devil, what's Pete up to these days?"

My eyes flick around the room, finding everything but his face. "Not sure. I, uh, think he's living in Cincinnati. I haven't spoken to him since, uh… you know." Eddie nods, and silence washes over us again. Definitely the bad kind this time. I stand. "I'm gonna go grab some food from the house. Any requests?" He shakes his head, and I walk out of the boathouse to the sound of Eddie Munson not knowing what to say.

I figure I'd be used to it by now. The awkward pity that comes with any conversation about my ex. Pete Caulder is a psycopath, and he'd advertised that fact to everyone in Hawkins, along with the fact that I was the stupid little girl desperate and lonely enough to be with him. 

I pull a bag of Cheetos out of the cabinet, and dig through the freezer for an unopened pint of chocolate ice cream. I open the fridge for a third time that night, hoping that some kind of fruit or vegetable magically appeared since the last time. I frown. Just beer and soda and styrofoam take out boxes whose contents have started to stink up the fridge. Fucking stoners.

A car drives by, a pair of headlights lighting up the closed blinds in a flash. It's gone just as quickly and I let out a breath. I start towards the back door and towards Eddie, dreading another few hours of unbearable tension.

“Can I ask you a question?” Eddie asks, popping a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth. I nod, equally as focused on the pint of chocolate. I wait for him to speak, looking up and meeting his eyes when he still doesn’t ask anything.

“Eddie?”

He considers me, looking back down at the ice cream before speaking. “Did you mean what you said?”

I don’t need to ask him to clarify. Did I mean it when I agreed with Pete, when I affirmed his claims that Eddie was a freak, a loser, a worthless creep. I stick the spoon back in the pint of ice cream and cross my arms over my chest. 

“You know, he talked about you all the time.”

“Pete?”

I nod. “If he passed your van while driving or saw something D&D related in a bookstore, he wouldn’t shut up about you.” I swallowed. “He’d talk about your taste in music, and how you were repeating your senior year, and talk shit about your uncle and your living situation, and just everything about you. But what it always came back to was how he had saved me from you. He’d never shut up about how he’d saved me from you. And then as our relationship started going even farther south, I’d think back to that day in the cafeteria and how you—” I cough, clearing the lump that formed in my throat. “And how you tried to save me from him.” I look up at him. “And I wish I would’ve seen it then. I knew you were a good person, and I could never agree with what he said about you, even if I didn’t have the backbone to disagree out loud.”

“Hey, no, that’s not—”

“No, no, let me finish,” I say, letting out a breath. Eddie nods for me to continue. “I saw the facts. I saw that you were kind. I saw that you were caring, and I could infer that you cared about me. And so, it didn’t… compute when you made it clear you didn’t approve of someone who I thought cared about me too. And in that moment, I had to choose between two different realities, two different truths, and I chose the one that hurt less. I chose the reality in which the person I chose to be with loved me and respected me, and in that delusion, I hurt you.” He looks down at his lap at that, and I duck my head so he meets my eyes. “And I’m sorry.”

Eddie is silent for a moment, before saying, “You know, you’re really emotionally mature for someone our age.”

“Having a shithole boyfriend will do that to you,” I say.

“Ugh, I’m so glad I can say that he’s a shithole now,” he says, sighing. “Pete Caulder is a piece of shit.”

“A piece of shit,” I affirm, smiling.

“A no-good, worthless creep,” he says, his lips tugging up at the corner.

“Pete Caulder is a psychotic asshole, and I don’t care who knows it!”

“Peter Bradely Caulder is a deadbeat, Ken-doll douche-wipe!” Eddie says, standing and yelling it across Lover’s Lake. “Fuck. Pete. Caulder.”

“Okay, okay, shhhh, we don’t want people to know we’re here,” I say, laughing and pulling him back down into his seat. “And I am sorry.”

Eddie shakes his head. “You have nothing to apologize for, and if you think that you do, then voila!” He spreads his hands in a grand flourish, nearly knocking a tackle box off a table. “This is me forgiving you.”

“God, I missed you,” I say.

“I missed you too, kid,” he says, his expression softening.

“I’m two months older than you, so you can’t call me kid.”

Eddie furrows his brows. “How do you know that? I’ve never told you when my birthday is.”

I cover my face with my hands and groan. “Well, I asked your uncle about it that one time I needed to pick up my Player’s Handbook from your house, because I wanted to know what your sign was. I wanted to know if our signs were, uh, compatible.”

Eddie crosses his arms over his chest. “And why would you need to know that, Miss Waters?”

“Let’s just say Pete Caulder is in fact a douche-wipe, but he was right about one thing.” Silence swallows any and all sound between us. “He definitely should have been worried about me being into Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson.”

---