Choices September Fic Challenge- Day 13: What If
A/N: This is a delayed entry for the Choices September fic Challenge- Day 13: What If
It also kinda pokes fun at the book a bit 🙂
As always, if you’d like to be tagged in my fics, let me know!
Summary: What if Eros never existed and therefore had never crossed paths with the Park cousins and our favorite P.I.?
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything. Characters/canon belong to Pixelberry.
It was just another peaceful night in New York City. The sounds of vehicles dashing by buildings – with the occasional angry driver blaring their horn when they felt someone stopping at a red light was making them late – and the city itself alit as people enjoyed the nightlife.
In one particular apartment, a married couple lay in bed, sleeping. Damien Nazario lay facedown, his head buried in his pillow as he snored softly. He hugged the pillow with one hand while the other was draped over his wife, his expression content.
Maya was curled up on her side next to him. However, unlike her husband, she was not sleeping so peacefully. Her brows were furrowed in worry and her knees drew up as far as her pregnant belly would allow them.
Suddenly she gasped and was jolted awake by whatever fearful image had last played in her mind. “Damien …? Damien!” She propped herself up and began shaking him awake.
“Huh… ?” Damien mumbled. “What’s going on?” He stirred, opening one eye.
She yanked his shirt down, exposing his shoulder. “Wait wha…? What the hell- Maya?!” He moved to sit up, much more awake now, as she examined his shoulder. She was pressing down on a very specific area, moving her fingers along it as if checking for something.
He watched her, slightly weirded out. “If you’re trying to make a move on me, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
Maya finally sighed and lay back, relieved. “Thank god,” she murmured. Damien was completely bewildered now. “I was checking to make sure there wasn’t a control panel.”
“Um …” He scrubbed a hand over his face, and blinked rapidly to keep himself awake. “Okay …? Thanks?”
“Damien, when’s your next stakeout?”
“I don’t know … tomorrow night?”
“At your usual spot?”
“Maya, it’s three in the morning. You gonna tell me what this is about?
“Do you know where 214 Park is?”
“Um, somewhere up town, I guess.” He replied. “A new restaurant is opening there.”
“Really?” she frowned suspiciously. “A restaurant?”
“Yeah, apparently some dating service used to use it before they went out of business.”
“What’s this restaurant called?”
“I don’t know … Eros something? Or was it Aphrodite …? It was named after some greek god.”
Maya was chewing her lip as she took this in. Then she gazed at him intently. “Promise me you won’t ever go there. Not even for a case.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Okay … what’s going on, Maya?”
“Promise me, first.”
He sighed, hanging his head. “Okay, I promise. Now tell me.”
“I had a dream that Nadia and I signed up for a matchmaking service that guaranteed true love-”
Damien held up a hand to stop her. “First off, why would you be signing up for matchmaking when we’re already married?”
“We weren’t even dating then. We were still just friends and you hadn’t told me how you felt yet.”
“Okay fine, continue.”
“Anyways, then it actually turned out to be a company building androids and that the dating service was an experiment to see if they can pass off as real people-”
Damien interrupted her again. “So … you were set up on a date with a robot.”
“Yeah?”
“Which would mean you … kissed a robot.”
“We never kissed actually. And if it helps, it didn’t work out with him because I was in love with you all along.” She said, smiling sweetly.
Damien grinned sheepishly. “Really? That was your reason? Not because he was a robot?”
“To be honest, I didn’t really seem to care about that part.”
“How would that even work though? Long-term wise?” he asked, with interest. “I mean, wouldn’t you have noticed his … reproductive machinery … at some point?” Damien noticed her giving him ‘the look’, while simultaneously trying to hold back her laughter and then cleared his throat. “You know what? Forget I asked.”
She rolled her eyes. “Moving on, so when we found out the truth, we were on the run, which is when you and I got together, and the CEO of this company captured and imprisoned us all in the North Pole. And then they created robot clones of all of us and used them to try to perform these twisted psychological experiments on us because their goal is to map the human soul.”
“I …” He blinked several times. “… What?”
“We managed to escape, but had to fight off an army of robots, many of which were guards that worked for the company.” She shuddered as she remembered the events that occurred after that.
Damien noticed and caressed her cheek tenderly. “So … mind experiments? Killer robots? ‘That what got you so scared?”
This time, she looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “They captured you and sent an exact clone of you to escape with us and we didn’t even realize it until we’d escaped to Paris.”
“Oh Maya …” He wrapped his arms around her. “No wonder you were so freaked out. Is that why you checked my shoulder for a ‘control panel’?”
She nodded. “They did more experiments on you, using clones of me, Nadia and Alana – your ex – to torture you. They even killed the fake me in front of you, before you even knew she wasn’t real. Then they showed you a video of me walking around in Paris, not knowing you were missing.”
Well damn, that escalated quickly. Damien sighed, not knowing what to say as he pulled her closer. “It’s just a dream, baby. I’m fine.”
“I know, it just felt so real.”
“It’s the hormones,” he said simply. “Remember when the doctor told us about pregnancy dreams?”
“He did mention they could be super vivid, intense or anxiety-driven.”
“Exactly.” Damien kissed her forehead. “Now, you ready to go back to sleep?”
She nodded and they settled back into bed. They were asleep for a few more minutes. Soon, Maya was nudging Damien again.
“Hmm?” He murmured, having nearly entered a deep sleep again.
“Have you been in contact with Alana, lately?”
“Ran into her at the station once, when I was collaborating with the police for a case. Why?”
“She’s the one who got us captured in the first place.”
“And why is that?” His voice was muffled by his pillow.
“Alana sold us out to the evil company.”
“Of course she did.”
“Although to be fair she realized her mistake and helped us out later. Then she kind of apologized and we went out for drinks. She also helped us rescue you when you were captured.”
“I … um … okay.” Damien didn’t quite know what to think of that, but at least it ended well right?
“She also flirted with me. A lot.”
“All right, Maya …” He pulled back to look directly at her. “I love you, but I’m gonna stop you right there.”
“Okay, fair enough.” She huffed. They remained in silence for a few more minutes. “Did you know that your clone sacrificed himself for us?
“I thought he replaced me?”
“Yeah, but not on purpose.”
“Ugh, fine. So how did that happen?”
“He has your personality, so he was really nice and helped us find you. Then the evil company turned him against us and you talked him down and made him defy his programming so that he would go rogue and do the right thing.”
Damien continued to stare at her for several moments, trying to navigate this extremely specific nightmare she’d told him about. Then he finally spoke.
“You binge-played Detroit Become Human again, didn’t you?”
“Hey, it’s an awesome game!”
“Not if it’s gonna end in you having nightmares about some cheesy Sci-Fi romance.”
“The clone looked, sounded and behaved exactly like you,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “I didn’t even notice the difference when I went on a date with him at the Eiffel Tower.”
His eyes, which had been fluttering closed, snapped open again. “Wait, you dated two of me?”
She nodded. “And kissed.”
“What?!”
“Yeah, I-” Maya saw his shocked expression and picked up on the added implication. “Oh god, ew ew ew! That’s as far as it went, I swear!”
“Okay, that’s it. I’m cancelling our subscription to Pixelberry.”
“Hey! That’s my favorite channel!”
Damien took a deep breath and buried his face in his pillow again. “Okay if I promise to keep the channel, can you promise to never ever bring that up again?”
She thought for a few moments. “Okay, but can I also add something else to the deal?”
He waited with a few bated breaths, before nodding.
“I want cheesecake. Can you drop by the Cheesecake Factory tomorrow?”
“Lemon Meringue?”
“Yep. The one and only.”
“Deal.”
And with that, Damien pulled her into a gentle kiss, resting his hand over her baby bump as she nuzzled into his chest. Once again, he began to drift off into a pleasant sleep.
“D?”
“Maya, go back to sleep,” he groaned. “I’m begging you. I’ll get on my knees if I have to.”
She barely managed to stifle a giggle and Damien opened his eyes to find her grinning at him devilishly. “What?”
“That reminded me of a very specific part of the dream.”
Damien’s eye twitched. “Go on.”