Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After all the emotional revelations of the afternoon, Monty doesn’t actually expect the new arrival to be of great interest to him. She’s a means to an end, a stepping stone to let him out of the systems he hates and into ones he can actually handle. The tool of his compromise. 

He never expects Niko Sasaki. 

She’s on the couch in the living room when he gets home the next morning, having raced through the various tasks Mick had given him to do at school. Freed from all of that particular bullshit, Monty is almost skipping on his way home, and trips over the door-jamb into the house with a snort of amusement at his own eagerness. 

“Are you okay?” he hears a voice call, and then the couch creaks as someone gets up. Monty blinks as an Asian-looking girl peers around the living room door, a beanie on her head. She has that typical long, straight brown hair, and it looks shiny and soft. He’s a little jealous actually. His is always sticking up weird these days, or too flat from wearing various hats. It’s been cut wrong but he’d had to keep it the right length so Esther wouldn’t— 

He stops himself there, rubbing his arm and offering the girl an easy smile.

“I’m fine. Are you the new girl?”

She nods. He nods and wanders past, eyeing her carefully on his way through to the kitchen. She follows him a minute or two later, as he’s filling a bowl with cereal and leaning on the counter to eat it dry. He shakes the box of cheerios at her while crunching on a mouthful, and pauses his illustrious brunch to pour her some too, pointing out the cupboards for the various cooking things and the food ones, with their labelled baskets for each occupant. “You aren’t staying long, right? So you can just use the stuff in any of the other cupboards but not these. This is our stuff.”

She nods again, smiling back at him gratefully. “Thanks. Mick said someone could help explain, but no one was around before.”

“When did you get here?” Monty asks, settling back into place against the kitchen cabinets with his bowl. The girl takes hers to the table nearby to sit down properly. She’d gone for milk and everything. 

They pass details back and forward like tentative gifts. Her name is Niko Sasaki, she’s a year older than he is, almost seventeen already, and she’d been going to the local boarding school while her dad worked all over the country for a while. Her mom is still in Japan, where they’re going to send her back to once things are figured out. She mentions her dad’s ‘accident’ and nothing more, and Monty doesn’t pry. 

In return he offers her his own name—sans surname of course—and explains he’s living here while he goes to school. He gets to boast about his impending move to community college, feeling a little bubbling burst of warmth in his chest, like a flower emerging from a bud, at the excitement he can share with her about it. He even shows her around the house, out into the garden where he’s surprised by her enthusiasm for… fucking everything actually. The sun is high and even though every now and then she gets quiet and sad, she’s pretty cool to hang around with. 

“Sorry,” she says, after she’s yawned again for the fifth time in under a minute. “I’m not sure why I’m tired.”

Monty shrugs. “We can go sit down if you want? Were you watching something?”

“Yeah, just let me get my laptop. I need to… I think it’s time I updated some of my friends about things.”

He waits by the door to her room for her to rummage through her things. She’s in the extension, a nice light room with two windows that only shares a wall with Mick. The opposite side of the house to his own room, as far away as she can get. He helps her find the wifi and they settle into the couches in the tv room, with some show playing. 

For a while there’s just silence, and the sounds of the show. Monty zones out to it, glancing over at Niko more than watching the screen, and every time he looks she’s either biting her lip and intently scanning her laptop screen; biting her fingernails and looking out the window; or carefully but quickly typing with a little frown. 

She sniffs, suddenly, and he turns quickly back to the TV. 

There isn’t a kid in the Shed that would want to be watched while they were crying. Tears aren’t weak, but they are embarrassing. They’re meant for private breakdowns, not for public consumption. They all have so little left to them that reputation and image are so sacrosanct that even inside the walls of the Shed the unspoken rule is to avert your eyes. To let people pretend. 

“Ugh, my friends are so nice…” she whispers, choked up. Monty figures that could be an invitation to say something, to look over, but that isn’t how it normally works, so he just darts his eyes over and away. “I wish they lived closer.”

“Where do they live?” Monty asks slowly. 

“London, actually,” Niko replies, and if it isn’t Monty’s imagination she sounds a bit relieved to talk about them. “I haven’t met them yet properly, but one day I will. We’re friends online. We met because we all liked that Sherlock show, remember it?”

Monty doesn’t, but he shrugs. 

“Well we all met talking about it on Tumblr and then—oh, do you have Tumblr?”

Monty doesn’t, and this time he shakes his head. Niko brightens, even with the damp visible under her eyes. “Oh I could set you one up! Then you can meet the others. They’re awesome, you’d really like them.”

“How does that work?”

“Do you have your phone?” Niko asks, instead of answering. At Monty’s nod she moves over to sit beside him, laptop displayed proudly. There’s some sort of program open that people his age probably know all about, messages pinging up from an ‘Edwin’, ‘Charlieboy’ and ‘xoxCrystalxox’. “Hey, they’re asking for a call. It's evening for them so now is the best time. Do you mind if I do that?”

Monty doesn’t, back to the shrugging. Niko clicks a button and her own face pops up, his just visible along the edge. He leans subtly away, pretending to watch the TV. His focus is entirely on the screen however, when three other faces pop up one by one. Two on camera and one just a smart headshot, probably a school picture, that lights up when a voice comes through. 

A very nice boy’s voice, with an accent that feels smooth as cool silk. Monty’s eyes flick over to the screen to eye the picture. Edwin. Old fashioned and British. Monty’s a little fascinated.

The other two, who Niko calls Crystal and Charles, are animated, waving and talking quickly. Charles is sniffling openly, wiping at his eyes every so often, with a different accent and a lower, warmer voice. Crystal is talking a mile a minute with a bizarre mix of US and UK pronunciation and slang, sharp and caustic even when she's trying to be caring, asking questions and recalling them, getting into sniping arguments with Edwin about what she can and can’t ask. Niko goes from smiling at them to hiding her face in her knees—but still on camera—to laughing wetly at some silliness Monty hadn’t caught.

Monty gets distracted listening to Edwin speak, thinking idly about how he could possibly sound so soft and so sharp at the same time, so precise and clipped and delicate, like a dancer placing each word perfectly and swiftly in sequence. 

When Niko shifts the laptop it catches Monty unexpectedly in frame, and instantly the voices are demanding to know more. 

“Oh, sorry. This is Monty, he’s my new friend. He lives here already, so he’s showing me around. He’s really nice!”

“Thanks for taking care of Niko mate, it’s good of you,” Charles tells him, blowing his nose and smiling. Monty glances at Niko and then shuffles into view, leaning into her shoulder so they can both be on frame. 

He smiles his best smile, and holds a thumbs up. “No problem. I’ve been here a while, so I can show her anything. You’ve got the best room, actually, Niko. For your art and stuff. And for reading after lights out.” 

Niko gasps. “That’s amazing! Monty is stopping school, so he can keep me company for a few days. Isn’t that perfect?”

“You’re stopping school?” Edwin asks, voice sharp. Monty blinks at the mona-lisa smile of Edwin’s profile picture, and shrugs. “To help with Niko, or for other reasons?”

“Uh, other reasons. I’m still going though, just to a different type of school. But until I get enrolled I’ll be around. Mick—that’s the guy that runs this place—he let me stop for now.”

“I simply can’t imagine stopping school, nor wanting to. Unless you were expelled?”

Charles sucks air through his teeth loudly as Monty hesitates and looks down at the keyboard. “Eds, remember what you said to Crystal yeah? Some things don’t need to be said out loud. People have feelings.”

“I know that, and I’m sorry, Monty, I just couldn’t possibly give up—”

“We aren’t all brainboxes like you are, Edwin, alright?” Crystal interjects with a roll of her eyes. Edwin splutters, and Monty’s small feeling disappears into a tiny kernel of affectionate amusement. 

Niko puts her arm around his shoulders and whispers, “Well I’m happy you don’t go to school right now,” and he has never felt so much like he belongs somewhere. 

They talk for a while longer, until Monty gets antsy sitting and listening to a thousand inside jokes and careful avoidances of The Elephant In The Room. He’s a people person, enough to know Niko desperately seems to want to talk about what’s happened to her, and her friends want to hear it. He gracefully—he hopes—retreats to his room to let her do it, and sure enough hears ragged breathing through the door when he’s only halfway up the stairs. 

He tells himself he isn’t hiding, when he ducks into his room and curls up on his bed to scroll through his new account on his phone. It’s just that she’s so different from what he’s used to, and it’s a lot. A good kind of a lot, but still… a lot. 

Mick arrives back from wherever he’d been not too much later after Monty’s retreat. He can hear their voices downstairs, and then Mick’s heavy boots clomping into the kitchen. He misses the same sound heading up the stairs towards his door, distracted by the appearance of three new notifications on his phone that he’s gained new followers. The knock on his door surprises him into almost dropping his phone, fumbling to quickly hit the follow back before calling for Mick to come in. 

Head appearing first, Mick steps past the door and tucks his thumbs into his pockets. “Heard you were helpin’ with Niko. Thanks for that.”

“Sure, I agreed to, right? It’s fine. She’s… nice.”

Mick nods slowly. “That she is. She’s got a good heart. Very complimentary of you, even with all the shit she’s got goin’ on.”

Monty shrugs, turning his phone round and round in his fingers. “What happened?”

“She can tell you if she wants, same as anyone here, Monty. You know the rules.”

He does. He just never wanted to know before, but with Niko he does. He wants to know, he wants her to tell him, and he wants… Well, he wants to be able to help, he thinks, but fuck if he knows how. So maybe it’s best it stays a mystery.

“Come down for lunch when you’re ready. I brought tortilla from Ms Asha. A special treat for our new guest. Best be quick about it though, Niko looked hungry.” 

Monty nods and watches him go. He rarely joins the others for meals, or for anything else for that matter. He barely knows them at all, and that’s because of him, not because the occupants change often. Far from it; the Shed has seven one-person rooms which tend to stay occupied for long years at a time, and it’s rare that all of them aren’t in use at the same time. Mick’s is a last resort for foster kids in the area who definitely won’t be finding a new family, but he’s also a dream placement to most of them. There’s no deadline for staying, no next stop, and he’s a decent guy. There’s no getting kicked out by Mick, not unless you’re literally on your way to jail. 

It’s only happened once, that Monty has vaguely heard about. He hadn’t asked any questions back then though, and even when Hope went apeshit and started breaking plant pots after a nightmare once, she had only been put on the couch in a bunch of blankets with a hot drink and instructions to cool down at her own pace. 

Sometimes, in his worst, latest night moments, Monty wonders what it would take. He’s a criminal, after all. He’s stolen, cheated, conned his way through some of the big cities in the area, and some of the smaller ones. If anyone caught Esther then it would only be a matter of time before there was a knock on Mick’s door asking about a pretty kid with sticky fingers who used to drive off in stolen cars and skip school to break the law. He’s an accomplice, not just an accessory. Juvie isn’t a million miles out of reach. 

But it hasn’t happened yet, and Mick doesn’t seem to be worried that it might, even though he does seem to have some awareness of what Esther had kept needing Monty for, for all those years. So until that day comes literally a-knocking, Monty will just… not think about it. 

The tortilla heating up downstairs makes his stomach growl, dragging him from his introspection. He looks down to see more notifications on his phone, messages and tags, and a link from Niko to the messaging site she’d been using to talk to her friends. His thumb hovers over it for a while. 

There’s another knock on his door, startling him. He pulls his thumb away and stands up to go open it, finding Niko there with a plate of tortilla and a hopeful smile. 

“Mick said you don’t eat downstairs much, so I thought it might help if I brought this to you here?”

Monty looks at the plate. He looks at Niko. He swallows, and pulls out his phone to hit the link. “Sorry, I just need to figure this out.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, I can show you how to set that up too if you want? If you have a laptop I can show you on that, it’s easier.”

“Yes, thanks. Actually, I was just coming down. Can you show me after lunch?”

Niko beams at him and nods, already turning to take his plate back downstairs. Monty closes the door behind him and follows her, ignoring Mick’s surprised look at seeing him walk into the kitchen with her. It’s much nicer to just focus on enjoying Asha’s cooking and the way Niko has so many nice and positive things to say about so many varied topics, from sport to school to books and shows and the world in general. 

It fills him up more than food ever could, in the end.