Hi just letting y'all know that there won't be updates for a while. Things are pretty hectic, so I'll just see how it goes and get a new chapter out when I can. Thanks for reading xx
"Just a wee taste," Maeve needled, watching Dr Shinso with a hungry expression from her REM sleep cycle pattern pillowcase. That and the stained periodic table hoodie/sweatpants combo she wore instead of pyjamas were the only possessions they'd let her keep. Indigo eyes flashed the girl a baleful look over his steaming cup, before returning to what looked like the dreariest psychological text in existence.
"Go to sleep."
"Coffee helps me sleep."
"Then the addiction is so bad you should be weaning yourself off anyway," he reasoned, taking a small sip which triggered Maeve's eye to twitch. She rolled onto her side away from him and continued with her silent pleading.
"I am. Only had two today, I deserve a reward. How do you expect me to sleep when all I can smell is fine Jamaican coffee grounds?"
"Do you want me to take it outside?"
"Nah, it'd stay on your breath anyway."
Shinso accepted that with a sigh, and they continued with a mental silence which for him was welcomed with open arms. Maeve was conducting her side of the conversation entirely with thoughts. To anyone watching behind the one-way mirror, it merely looked like he was talking at an exhausted trauma victim who wanted sleep.
"From one medical professional to another, I'm deeply disappointed. Where's your caffeine code of conduct? I even brought you the good stuff from Kenya after my tour three years ago. You owe me."
"I'd say tonight makes us even. Without coffee."
"I love coffee, I love tea
I love the java jive and it loves me
Coffee and tea and the java and me
A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup"
Maeve couldn't see Shinso, but from the rustle of paper and silence, he'd resorted to ignoring her. The girl gradually dialled up the volume of her mental singing, a skill honed through years of practice being insufferable.
"I love java, sweet and hot
Whoops, Mr. Moto, I'm a coffee pot
Shoot me the pot and I'll pour me a shot
A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup"
Her thin shoulders shook trying to contain silent laughter as Shinso's breathing became rather forced. She could tell by the way the paper sounded that he'd begun massaging a temple. The poor guy could usually only handle Maeve in hour-long doses once a week and they'd already spent the larger part of the day together. At least when she made an effort to shut her physical trap, he only needed to deal with mental barrages.
"Oh, slip me a slug from the wonderful mug
And I cut a rug till I'm snug in a jug
A slice of onion and a raw one, draw one
Waiter, waiter, percolator-"
"At least play the recording, don't sing it yourself. How is possible to get songs out of tune inside your own head?" Dr Shinso complained, finally cracking. Maeve let out an accidental snort holding in her mirth, which triggered floods of laughing to rack through her body.
"Wait, the next verse is the best one," She managed out loud between cackles, toes wriggling with glee.
"Boston bean, soy bean
Lima bean, string bean
You know that I'm not keen for a bean
Unless it is a cheery coffee bean"
"I always thought that was a bit beanist. We don't need to have all or nothing odds when it comes to vegetation preferences," she wheezed, gasping for air. Maeve heard the sound of Shinso closing his book and setting it on the ground.
"Okay, you know what? Fine. If I give you what's left in my cup, will you leave me in peace for the rest of the night?"
"Sure," she replied, immediately twisting around and sitting up on the bed. Shinso had organised himself in an armchair as far away from Maeve as possible while still on the same side of the glass. To the best of their knowledge, Dabi materialised into the nearest empty piece of furniture to the girl. In that regard, the scarred villain had been impressively accurate with his hypothesis. By sleeping in a queen size the previous night, it opened up a furniture 'slot' for him to slide into that a child-size single didn't provide.
Following that same logic, either he'd come through on a single rickety seat separated from Maeve by the strongest military heatproof glass they could find under such short notice, or he'd replace Shinso in the armchair.
They'd arranged everything catering to all possible options. If Dabi materialised on the other side Maeve could pull the door between sides closed without even getting up. Assuming Shinso didn't come through and the villain took up his place, the girl was able to leap straight out of bed to the other side of the panel and slam the opening shut. Either way, the door locked automatically.
When Maeve first heard plans for the system, she'd just laughed her head off. The engineers were unintentionally creating a walk-in oven for the guy to roast her. Even when they assured Maeve Endeavor couldn't get through the five-inch thick sheet in safety tests, she just cackled harder. Nobody seemed able to comprehend that a thug who came out of nowhere could possibly have a quirk more destructive than the number one hero. Yet working away on it seemed to make them happy, and it gave the people close to her a sense of security, so the surgeon just shrugged her shoulders, letting them continue. The only downside was that it was essentially goading the villain to use his cremation and see what happened. Ah well.
Anyway.
"Haha, very funny. You should ditch child psychiatry to do stand up," Maeve snorted, eyeing the empty mug with an amusedly disappointed expression.
"You agreed. Now leave me alone."
"You and my dad would get on far too well."
He didn't say anything, returning to his armchair and picking up the same god awful book from his neat pile. Apparently, the man could get through four scientific texts and a novel per night given he lived off three hours of sleep. The way he confessed the 'and a novel' quietly at the end like it was some kind of guilty pleasure had Maeve's facial muscle aching from suppressed laughter. Critically acclaimed fiction for him was akin to crappy reality TV for mere mortals.
"I'm not going to leave this room until we've got the situation under control. No matter how unpleasant you are," he eventually sighed after a silence. Maeve glanced at him across the cell in mock surprise.
"What're you talking about?"
He tilted his head at her, scratching dark violet stubble that in the darkness could be mistaken for bruises.
"Playing dumb is a waste of both of our time, Maeve. You've been trying to drive me out ever since I decided to accompany you."
"I blocked off that part of my mind, how did-"
"A PhD in psychiatry comes in handy, occasionally. Especially when I've known the person since before they could even do calculus."
"I was using differentiation to ration out my diapers, thank you very much."
"Because you were still wetting the bed at-"
"OKAY! Fine. I've been tuning up my obnoxiousness a hair to encourage you to reconsider. You shouldn't be doing this; it's putting your entire family at risk."
"Hitoshi's made it abundantly clear he wants me to do what it takes to keep you safe. As long as we don't mention my name, the villain won't know who I am and how to get to us."
"You haven't met him yet; Dabi's full of surprises. What about Hitoshi's mother?"
Shinso hesitated at that.
"Caroline's in America. We divorced a while ago, so she'll be fine regardless of what happens here."
Maeve had no idea. Hitoshi never mentioned anything about it and Dr Shinso was more likely to smother her under a pillow than bring it up himself.
"Oh. I'm sorry," she replied awkwardly, unsure what to do with that information. Their conversations were never about him and his private life, not once. For someone who had other's personal business shoved in his face all day, every day, he had unbelievably tight boundaries when it came to mixing home life with his profession.
"Don't be, you didn't know."
They sat in silence for a while, broken only by the faint rustling of paper. Maeve was left to her thoughts, which shot off in so many directions Shinso had learned from experience not to chase any of them. She gave him enough of a migraine as it was.
"Thank you. For everything. I know I haven't been easy as a client, which I'm sorry for. I suppose I never bother to mention it because you can tell anyway."
"Again, you have nothing to apologise for. I'm here to help you."
Saying she wasn't an easy client was up there for understatement of the century. The amount of times he'd nearly fainted while they grappled with intense trauma, or needed to rush across the hospital at disgusting hours to stop her hurting herself was ridiculous. Often self-hatred pored out of the adolescent so strongly the psychiatric unit felt pleasant in comparison. Dr Shinso was now risking his own life to protect her from villains. The only reason she hadn't kicked him out was that Hitoshi was now safe in the UA dorms and she didn't want to be alone. God, she couldn't be alone for this.
"Why aren't you a hero?"
Shinso took too long gathering his thoughts, so she assumed he'd been offended. Maeve tried to explain.
"I've always just assumed it's because people treated you the same way they act around Hitoshi. Yet your quirk is less confrontational, which I'd imagine made people see it as heroic instead of 'villainous.' It's so powerful I can't imagine they didn't notice you."
"Oh, they did. The commission were quite persistent actually. It took years for them to give up on me."
"You were never interested in hero work?"
"I'd prefer to help people before they descend into criminal activity than wait for them to slip through the cracks."
"Mmm. Society doesn't really share the same sentiments."
"No, it doesn't."
"Psychiatry would have to be one of the most unpleasant careers you could pick for yourself."
"Possibly. But also very rewarding. I think you can relate to that."
"You don't mind that Hitoshi wants to become a hero?"
"Just because I thought I could make a bigger difference elsewhere doesn't mean I think Hitoshi wouldn't make a superb pro. I do worry sometimes, of course."
"About the risks?"
"Mm. That and the impact it will have on his state of mind."
"There's always people available to help him if things become overwhelming, or traumatic."
"I know. It isn't just that. How to explain... My quirk finds it difficult to associate people with their thoughts in crowds. They become quite disembodied. Which isn't usually a reason for concern, it makes them easier to ignore, actually, except for when I witness fights between heroes and villains. They disturb me."
"Why?" Maeve asked quietly. The girl noticed that while his eyes remained empty, they possessed a rare haunted quality.
"Because for the life of me, I can almost never tell which thoughts are from the hero and which are from the villain. Swaddling bloodlust in a cape doesn't change its nature."
***
Dabi blearily cracked his eyes open to a perfect view of Maeve diving headfirst into solid air.
"Oh, FUCK. Ow," the girl moaned, clutching a forehead she'd just smacked so hard the 'thunk' resonated around their whole room. He surveyed her setup, immediately read what Maeve's plan had been, and openly laughed at her. Staples nearly tore his face apart, serving as a reminder Dabi hadn't expressed so much emotion in years, but it was too fucking funny.
"Shut up," she groaned, rubbing an already pink area of skin with one hand and reaching up to perform an apparent mime show in an empty doorway with the other. The glass door providing passage between an impenetrable transparent panel hung open, and yet her delicate fingers splayed out against an invisible barrier. The surgeon was stuck with him on her side of the glass.
Nothing was more satisfying than watching genii's intricate plans backfiring on them.
"Can I ask how many world-class experts collaborated on this?" He chuckled, taking in every detail of their new living space. The thing that caught him most off guard, far more than the fact they were going to spend the rest of the night in a concrete cube, was her appearance. Maeve's normally wild hair had been arranged into dozens of tiny braids that ran all the way down her scalp. It completely changed how she came across. Before, untamable curls had been a way of softening reasonably hollowed, sharp features. Now they were accentuated and gentle aspects removed. Her face was drained, pale, and haggard.
She was closing off as much of her identity from him as she could, from the cold prison cell to the hairstyle and stained, impersonal clothing. Dabi had already stepped over invisible bounds by sniffing around in cardboard boxes stuffed with childhood memories and poetry she'd scrawled in pockets of blackboard. He appreciated Maeve's determination to hate him. Better to keep each other two dimensional, if this was for the long haul.
"23," Maeve snorted, flopping sideways onto the bed. It bounced with obnoxious squeaks Dabi knew would drive him even more insane than he already was.
"For two of them their job was entirely to decide what constituted a room. Had one job. Fucking hell."
Dabi chuckled softly in response, and asked, "They do understand basic thermodynamics principles, right?"
The scarred man climbed out of Shinso's armchair and inspecting the seal between glass panel and concrete. Maeve raised an eyebrow at him. Dabi met her gaze in silent challenge, almost daring her to make a comment.
Go on, congratulate the uneducated thug for using big boy words. Be the pretentious asshole so it's easier to despise you back.
She instead rolled on her side away from the man, apparently finding bare concrete more pleasant to look at than his face. The girl curled up into a tight ball, tucking her knees to her chin with practised ease.
"A touch of heat expansion and..." He pressed his palm to the floor right up against the panel. As soon as his hand began to glow, hairline cracks appeared in the transparent material from white-hot concrete pressing up against the glass.
"Groundbreaking. Are you a physicist on the side?" Maeve commented sarcastically to the wall. She hadn't bothered to look but knew exactly what was happening.
"Apparently more so than the idiots who made this thing. I'm also able to work out that if you separate two spaces by a wall, they're no longer the same room. I'm clever like that," he explained condescendingly, voice dripping with wry amusement.
"I was actually asking because physicists look, act and smell like they crawled out of holes, which fits the bill for you," Maeve replied, and Dabi could imagine the arch of her eyebrow perfectly. He found his gaze drifting along the line of her form absent-mindedly, before dragging away cerulean eyes to a window into pitch darkness. It extended to both sides and Dabi imagined in a normal interrogation cell would be the one-way mirror.
"That's because we're all part-time villains. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to extract myself from the organisation and go full time into dastardly deeds."
"The hardest thing to believe is scientists having enough cooperative skills to form their own secret group. What's this organisation called?" Maeve asked.
"The DVT."
"Department of Villainous Theorists?"
"Depressed Virgin Trash."
"Sounds about right," Maeve replied, and from the curve of her shoulder, Dabi could tell she wasn't quite as tense as when they first began talking. He extricated himself from the armchair, examining the window opposite the girl's bed more closely. Something about it was inexplicably offputting.
"Where are we?" Dabi asked, cupping long fingers around his eyes as he peered out into darkness. Maeve chuckled softly into her pillow.
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Seriously."
"A police station," she replied, somehow rolling her eyes with tone of voice alone.
"Then why is there a fucking mangrove swamp?"
"What?"
"See for yourself," Dabi replied, not budging from the window. He heard muffled grumbling behind him and the squeak of bedsprings, before Maeve stood beside him, squinting behind wire-rimmed frames.
"Interesting."
Electric blue eyes flicked between minuscule details in the landscape seemingly invisible to Dabi. The surgeon didn't appear surprised at all, even though the scene was creepy as hell. Sitting about 10 metres away from them in a solid black plane was the treeline of a dense forest. The only thing that betrayed roots of stark white trees sank into an ink-like fluid was tiny ripples forming around their edges. Everything looked very still, very stifled, very dead.
"What is it?" he asked, glancing down at Maeve. He noticed her face was a similar colour to the trees.
"Just a mental construction of mine. Hope it hasn't driven any of them insane."
"Driven who insane? I need more information, Sweet-"
He cut himself off, head snapping to a particular point in the treeline.
"There's something coming toward us," Dabi hissed, and when Maeve didn't react, he ordered, "Get behind me," instinctively stepping between the girl and the glass.