Title: Priorities
Author: Darkfireblade aka Hellsfirescythe
Characters: Hiro and his friend
Rating: PG
Challenge: The eclipse challengeWarnings: Spoilers for a bit of Hiro's personal life and the premiere show.
Notes: Post-premiere and I apologize if I got the name of Hiro's friend wrong. I just couldn't find it anywhere. EDIT Name found and fixed. Thanks technosage


"See! See! Ando, I got you this."

The taller man looked up from his cubical desk and stared quizzically towards the speaker and the package that had been shoved in front of his face.

Ando ignored the proffered item and unconsciously tapped the butt of his pen on the artificially roughed up vinyl of the desk. "Hiro, where were you this morning?"

A squeal of glee burst out, unrestrained by the smaller man. Ando closed his eyes, resigning to the fact that the sounds of plastic squeaking and the lessening of the sound of papers shuffling that half the office had stopped their work to see what had captured Nakamura Hiro's attention this time.

Hiro's body was practically quivering in glee. Quickly, the man leaned in and said in a delighted near whisper. "I was in New York City!"

"Ah yes, the 'Big Apple'," muttered Ando sarcastically. "I suppose you traveled there by bending space and time continuum, right?"

Glee practically radiated from Hiro's beaming face. "You believe me?"

Before Ando could get a word in edge-wise, the package was thrust forth again. "See, Ando. I brought this back with me from New York City," Hiro jabbered, stopping only to enunciate the syllables of the American metropolitan. Apparently, his excitement only further lessened his patience and the brown paper of the package was torn open, its contents spilling out into Ando's lap.

The words on the glossy cover were unfamiliar, but the pictures were painfully familiar, bringing up memories of earlier years, of the multiple times that the Hiro had dragged Ando over to the smaller man's apartment to spend 'quality time' pouring over these American manga...comics, Hiro had said. X-Men, Superman, Spiderman, the list just went on.

"What else did you bring back? American burgers and french fries?"

A rueful look spread over Hiro's visage before a smile crinkled the corner of his eyes. "No, pardon me! I forgot, but I did eat at McDonalds, see, they have Happy Meals." Hiro dug into his coat pocket and pulled out a cheap action-figure still in its plastic bag. "I got to keep the toy."

"Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Hiro, if you keep this up, everyone will think you've gone crazy. You'll be fired, you'll bring dishonor upon your name that won't be fixed by your comics and dreams."

"I'm not making this up!

"Look!"

Ando grabbed one of the comics off his lap and jabbed his finger roughly at its cover. "This is a story, Hiro. This isn't real, this doesn't matter." He dropped the book and brought up a manila folder. "This is reality. This matters. This is what we prepared for since high school, since college. This is life. Much more important than your stories."

It was as if a blow had been dealt on the other man. Excitement fled from Hiro's eyes only to be replaced by a wounded look of betrayal.

"You'll see, I'll prove it to you one day."

Refusing to look into the other's pain filled eyes, Ando returned back to his computer and resumed the daily routine of number-crunching and data-mining. Footsteps padded away and heated whispers seemed to spread like an infestation through the office and Ando felt his cheeks burn in embarrassment for both him and Hiro. A dull slap jolted him from an equation and Ando glared down to see the shiny new comics Hiro had brought to him.

With a vexed growl, the offending items were lifted up and jettisoned into his waste bin.

It didn't matter. Hiro would come to his senses sooner or later.

Work eclipsed anything in its importance. Hiro would see that soon.