#(filling up the queue sounds like the first step so yay?)

[heavensbee]

i need to stop sending posts to myself 🙃

[seasonsofeverlark]

$1 Smooches

Author: @alliswell21

Prompt: Everlark and a Kissing Booth [submitted by @mandelion82]

Rating: G

Author’s Note: Modern AU. ~1600 words _____________

“That game was rigged!” Katniss seethed.

“Lower your voice, Brainless! Do you want the carnies to curse you? I don’t, I’m standing right next to you!” Johanna hissed, slapping a hand over Katniss’ mouth. 

“I’m sure carnival workers consider that a derogatory term,” Prim sighed, done with her companions silliness.

“Anything is offensive nowadays,” said Johanna, winded, after Katniss shoved her away. 

Katniss scowled, giving another shove for good measure, “Cut it out, Johanna!”

Prim rolled her eyes. “You are aware, this is a charity event benefiting the hospital I work for, right? all booths are operated by volunteering hospital employees, which means the ring-the-bottle game wasn’t rigged,” Prim stared pointedly at her sister, “and nobody is getting cursed!” She glared at Johanna next, “Behave!”

There was nothing Katniss hated more than disappointing her baby sister. “I’m sorry, Prim, we’ll be better,” Katniss glared at her friend, “Right Jo?” 

“Fine! But I demand a greasy, deep fried treat, and a big sugary drink to go with it!” 

“Yay!” Primrose clapped, hooking her slender arms through her sister and friend’s elbows, “Lets have some fun!”

The trio came to a food booth, Prim piped in, “I’ll ordered us a funnel cake and two giant lemonades, you guys go find another game, I don’t mind waiting in line,” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah…and then we can go to the booth my department set up. My favorite nurse in the whole world is manning it!”

Katniss and Johanna walked past the inflatables and the bouncy castle, trying not to bump into families with rambunctious children, and then, they saw a ridiculously loud-excuse-of-an-eyesore-shack painted in pepto pink, decked to the gills with giant red and pink hearts sprouting from every corner of the stand, and a large, white sign crowning the top, announcing: “$1 Smooches”, spelled in blinking light bulbs, with a neon yellow arrow pointing downwards.

“A kissing booth?” Johanna arched her eyebrows, curiously. 

The queue to the booth was very long and to Katniss’ surprise, composed mostly by female patrons. 

“What. Is. that?!” Gasped Johanna, pointing to the booth while fanning herself with her free hand. Without further comment, Jo grabbed Katniss’ hand and marched straight for the kissing booth line.

“What—?”

“Come on Brainless, I have two singles in my wallet and a tube of chapstick ready for the hunk selling kisses!” 

Katniss was momentarily confused, until she saw a muscular man with a boyish, lopsided smile, taking a crisp dollar bill from a very enthusiastic woman; a second later, the man puckered up his pink lips, and leaned forward, just outside the big window of the booth, forearms flexing deliciously against the sleeves of his polo shirt; a wayward curl of his ashy blonde hair fell over his forehead in just the right way.

“Oh!” Katniss gulped, falling into step with her best friend. 

The line advanced impressively fast, for how long it was. In a matter of minutes, which was truly appreciated, since nobody particularly enjoyed being sandwiched between the baking sun and the suffocating blacktop of the lot. The girls were second to next line, but Johanna started sneezing uncontrollably, thanks to the cigarette smoke of a passerby. 

“Ugh! This is a hospital’s parking lot! A no smoke zone!” Jo rasped angrily, “Here!” She shoved a balled up wad of cash into Katniss’ hands, and before her friend could stop her, she went after the smoking a-hole, to rip him a new one. 

Katniss found herself at the front of line very suddenly, and the man beckoned her forward, lopsided grin, so inviting, she stepped up without consciously deciding to.

The man studied her quizzically for a moment, “Hello, there,” he greeted, “Are you an employee at Panem General, or are you a guest? You look familiar,” he said.

“Guest,” Katniss answered, a little too fast. She stepped backwards, rethinking her situation, the woman directly behind her, gave her a weak push forward, to keep her from stepping on her toes. 

The man looked at the ball of cash in Katniss’ hands and smiled brightly. “Would you like to make a donation to Panem General’s pediatric wing? Every dollar counts,” he said softly.

Katniss nodded bashfully, not really understanding his words, too preoccupied with how velvety soft the man’s voice was. She handed him the whole wad, which apparently was $5 in crinkled $1 bills. 

The guy took only one, and placed the rest of the money on the counter, next to Katniss’ hand, before leaning forward to brush his lips against Katniss’. 

There was no telling how long the kiss lasted, but judging by the aggravated buzzing of complaints coming from behind Katniss, it had been long enough to warrant an annoyed calling out.

“Hey! Stop holding up the smooches!” 

Katniss opened her eyes, shifting down to the ball of her feet. She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes and stretched on the tip of her toes during her kiss. She stared at the guy, who looked slightly dazed as he admired her back; his smile seemed even more crooked than before. 

“Oh my gosh, you found our booth!” Prim cried out, startling Katniss. “Oh, and you met nurse Mellark!” 

“What?!” The crowd behind Katniss grew restless and annoyed by the second. “I haven’t met any nurses—“

Katniss peered back at the booth suspiciously, expecting to see this nurse her sister spoke so much about, but the only person currently in the booth was the kissable blonde man, watching his sister with arched brows and surprise in his deep blue eyes. 

“Hi, Peeta!” Prim waved, the guy in the booth waved back, but the next person in line stood in front of him, blocking his view.

“Wait…” Katniss pulled Prim further out, before the mob of angry women throttled them, “That man is nurse Mellark?” She asked, pointing back as discreetly as she could; the man was looking at them with badly veiled concern, while still trying to do his job, as host of the smooching booth. “You mean to tell me, the handsome man kissing half the fair is the nurse Mellark you’re always gushing about, with the home baked cookies and the cute little drawings for the oncology patients?” Her gray eyes x-rayed her sister.

“Uh, yeah,” Prim sounded a bit too nonchalant. “He’s amazing, let me tell you,” she sort of mumbled, studying her cuticles. 

“Hey! What did I miss?” Johanna came back munching on a box of nachos, swimming in melted cheese. “Oooh! Elephant ear!” She said, snatching the funnel cake Prim was holding awkwardly. 

“Primrose forgot to mention that her most favorite nurse in the whole world is a HE!” Katniss snapped. 

“What?!”

“What’s so wrong about that? Men can be nurses,” Prim shrugged.

“But you didn’t tell me he was a man!”

“Well, you didn’t tell me you were a sexist pig, Katniss.”

“I am not!” 

Johanna giggled, stuffing her face with fair food. 

“Nurse Mellark is a great care provider who loves children and does his absolute best to bring joy during the worst time of our patients’ lives…What does it matter if he’s a guy? He’s great! What did you expect anyway?” Prim countered defensively, stubbornly.

“I don’t know! An elderly lady, with lots of motherly wisdom or something… I mean, every time you talked about nurse Mellark, you mentioned delicious homemade pastries, and finger paints, and sweet bedtime stories… I never pictured nurse Mellark to be so…”

“Manly,” Johanna finished, looking at the man in the booth, dreamily, finally having caught on. “He’s more of a tall tree trunk I’d like to climb like a koala bear in heat… now where’s my cash, brainless, my lips are ready for some smacking,”

“Johanna!” Katniss growled, but her friend waved her off. A thought occurred to her just then. “Prim…” Katniss whispered into her sister’s ear, “Are you…okay with this?” She said motioning to the 20 or so women in line. “Are you okay with all these people kissing nurse Mellark?” 

Primrose’s lips twitched, “Why wouldn’t I be? This booth was sort of my idea… it was actually more about  Doctor Odair selling the kisses, but nurse Mellark was very good sport, volunteering, ” She rolled her blue eyes. 

“Mmm… I just thought, maybe you had a thing for him?”

“For Peeta?!” Prim said loudly, before laughing hysterically. 

Katniss’ eyes shifted everywhere, and to her chagrin, the man in question— Peeta, apparently— looked up at his name.

“Not so loud!” Katniss hissed, but got interrupted by a booming voice. 

“Ladies, it is time for me to take a break.” Announced nurse Mellark— Peeta— A chorus of disgruntled patrons filled the air, but the man raised his hands placatingly, “Not to worry everyone, my pinch hitter, Doctor Odair, is ready to take over!”

As if by magic, the most attractive man Katniss had ever seen in her life— besides the beautiful male nurse, of course— popped from beside nurse Mellark and a collective swooning sigh rapped over the small crowd. 

Prim laughed. “Come on, I’ll introduce you guys properly. You’re going to love Peeta!”

“Hell no! I’m paying double for the new guy! You gals go ahead,” Johanna called, wolf whistling at the newcomer, waving two dollar bills in the air. 

A moment later, Prim had dragged Katniss to meet her most favorite nurse, secretly crossing her fingers as she made introductions…she thought Peeta and Katniss were perfect for each other, and she wholeheartedly hoped they would kick it off right away, so when she was wrinkly and white haired, she could tell her grand nephews and nieces the story of how their grandma paid a dollar to kiss their grandpa for the very first time. 

[jean-does-not-have-a-horseface]

Heaven in Hiding

Hello everyone, it's @sasageyowrites 's birthday today and this fic in my queue is dedicated to her and only her. This is my gift to you sweetheart, sweet 17 I love you dearly. On another note I used some line breakers here because I wanted to see how they worked don't mind me I might remove them later on

Pairing: Dabi/reader

Summary: Dabi finds himself unable to get out of your shadow and in despairate need to provide for your and your daughter's safety you confront him, forbidding him of ever being able to lay his eyes on you or your baby

Warnings: Stalking I guess, I mean typical Dabi stuff you know..

Dabi wasn’t a stalker. At least that was what he tried to tell himself in any case he’d come to believe that very statement.

The wind was chilling, blowing his hair anywhere on his face, much like the endless amount of tree leaves that swayed everywhere around him. He glanced around, noticing the first specs of snow had already started to fall down following the sudden harsh blow of air. 

He huddled inside the neckline of his black hoodie, his face mask shifting obnoxiously over the metal staples that held the skin of his cheeks together. His black windbreaker jacket did almost nothing to cover him from the excessive cold wind that blew; not that he was any close to freezing -it was more of the opposite- but he’d always feel that tingling sensation of the frozen metal bars on his burned skin. They scorched on his burn even further that he could ever want to admit, but by now he was used to the pain. 

Most of the trees around him were stripped off of their leaves, their thin boles put to display for him and any bystander. The clouds were covering most of the sky, only a few tiny specks of baby blue peaked form underneath them, yet they were quickly vanishing under the mellow snowy clouds. In that moment Dabi knew, the enormous sunglasses he wore to hide his undereyes only made him look more suspsicious.

Not that he didn’t look like a fly in a full glass of milk to begin with.

The glass doors before him opened automatically, the red motion monitor beeping in his eyes as the sound of a bell rang once he entered the convinience store. The medium height stalls laid neatly before him, the colors of the numerous products almost catching his attention. He shook his head as if wanting to come to his senses, his attention span traveling back to his person of interest, the person he followed all the way to this store.

Glancing around the store, his eyes quickly met with the security camera view screen. Teal orbs paced maniacally, traveling back and forth between the numerous small windows until they were met with what they were looking for. His feet marched before he could even think, mechanically even, pacing quickly towards the direction he had instantly memorised, much to his demise.

He had to stop himself from grunting just before his body movements came to an halt. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket he sank his face deeper into his hoodie, standing before the glass covered fridge isle, his eyes seemingly fixated on the multiple cartons of milk that lead before him.

When your hand went for the matte metallic handle of said door Dabi found himself mimicking your action, putting his best effort into trying not to raise any suspision. You didnt seem to pay him any mind; as your hand extended further you hesitantely grabbed onto a powder blue carton, carefully placing it into the wheeled basket that was standing down before you.

You probably didn’t care about anyone around you; Dabi figured out that much while noticing you hadn’t even threw a glance in his direction over all the time the had been watching you. Secretly he restented just how much you minded your own business, it came to the point you were naively ignoring your surroundings completely. He knew exactly what you were thinking about; no one cared to bother with a random bypasser like you, but at least he hoped that after your time with him you’d come to understand the way criminal minds worked.

He chuckled to himself as he thought about giving you the least some credit. This was a nice neighborhood, a very well lit part of the town, accentuated in beautiful cherry blossoms that bloomed in spring, filled with numerous families as well as residents of a few of the top ten heroes. This place seemed to be inaccessible to murderous, bloodlusty villains such as himself.

At first it had seemed unreal that you were alive, free of any mark. He had thought he'd gotten the wrong person, still stuck over the fact that he couldn't do much to save you, one of the few people he had cared about in this world, but he was soon convinced, as he witnessed your meeting with Midnight, that this was in fact you, alive and well.

Yet, here he was. Following you around for God knows how many days now, obsessed with the fact that it was you that lived a careless life before his very eyes. For the most part he had tried to deny it, to convince himself that he had gotten completely insane and delusional. And he had wanted for that assumption to be correct. Because he had, or rather, he had thought he had, watched you die a horrible death, engulfed in acid, screaming in agony as it burned through your skin and bones.

And as if that wasn't an earth shattering shocker, it had to be that you were always seeming to be carrying a child with you.

Dabi wasn't dense and he wasn't lucky either. The child was around a year or so, he had figured, adorned with a set of tealy baby blues and (h/c) hair, save for her front bangs and the hair above her ears and nape. As much as he'd like them to be any other color -because, truly, such fact could actually justify the disgusting and full of jealousy throbbing in his heart every time he laid his eyes on the two of you- they shone a bright fiery red.

(H/c) bangs curtained your face as you bowed your head down, giggling as you brought your forehead to bump into a smaller one. Dabi watched as your eyes creased and squinted as a big beam was plastered on your face, your nose coming to bump on the baby’s button one. He almost smiled, sincerely even, at the interaction, though a pinch inside his chest prevented him from doing so. He couldn’t help but stop and stare, unsure of whether he looked dumpfounded or not.

“We got your milk Saku, yay!” you cheered, receiving a small squeal in response from the infant.

His fingers idled with the carton that fell under his hand, a small pink and brown carton, marked with the enormous words of any irrelevant label. His eyes fixated on it, quivering as ever, his thoughts mocking him as to whether he could try and dare to take another glance in your direction. His gut though churned, burning his insides in what seemed like an endless torturous bloodlust. Taken aback, his gut chirped, his throat seemingly forming a loop, preventing him from being able to take another breath. And.if he were to be honest, in the moment he needed one.

The anxiety rushing through his veins worked its wonders on him, raging dangerously towards his face, burning everything in its way. That disgusting antic was back, the obnoxious nervous smile he couldn’t rid himself off formed on his face under his mask. He wanted to slap himself it, yet it was hard to do so before you, it could potentially blow his cover and cause a scene that he didn’t want to in the store. As much as he loved causing mayhem, this wasn’t the time for it.

As the baby chirped, fidgeting her small open fists through your hair, he came to officially convince himself on his involvement with her. Blue springles emitted from the tips of her fingers and immediatelly the discomforting odor of burnt hair filled the air. And damn, did Dabi hate that smell.

“Baby, don’t burn mommy’s hair.” you smiled, stealing a glance in Dabi’s direction as you spoke, taking him aback by the sudden action.

Why was his heart speeding up in such demonic pace though? You probably didn’t even do so on purpose. Thinking that you were actually aware of his presence around you shouldn't be as unsettling as it seemed in the moment, in the end you were bound to notice the black clothed figure following you everywhere like a second shadow, weren’t you? Did he really think you were that stupid?

Sighing to himself he turned on his feet, proceeding to walk in the opposite direction of the one which you walked towards. He couldn’t stand being in this store anymore, his blood boiled at the thought of what he was actually doing. It was safe to say that he really did despised what he had turned into, but there was no going back. Picking up his feet, he exited the store, the chocolate milk still in his hand, burried in the inside of his sleeve.

Damn, he needed to smoke a cigarette or ten.

Dabi didn't know how many hours he had spent in the park across your apartment building; frankly he had lost all track of time and albeit having witnessed the sun set, he was unable to pinpoint how long ago the phenomenon had take place.

Snow fell down in big white blotches, littering his black windbreaker before it melted down into the fabric, only to pushed back out of its surface in the form of steam. His body was churning, the burnt skin that was held by the staples in certain areas practically oozed in tiny specs of blue cremating fire, the fleece fabric of his hoodie protesting as it ceased to exist. At this point he knew he was going to burn his clothes down if he kept staring at your windows and this wasn't his fireproof villainous attire, nonetheless he didn't feel as if his legs could move according to what his brain commanded. Nor did he feel as if he could control his own self.

When he'd think about pushing a leg forward in order to take leaping step, you'd come to the window he had a good view on and stroll around the room, always accompanied by the silhouette of the infant in your embrace and all Dabi was left with consisted of his ability to hide inside his hood or rather, his inability to get himself out of the situation. He secretly liked the way you hadn't pulled the curtain all the way across the window, whether it was intentionally or not -he didn't care to know of- he just enjoyed that he could get that tiny glimpse of you and Saku -or at least, that was the only thing he'd ever hear you call her.

Dabi wished that it wasn't so quiet, he wished he hadn't been able to hear it, but now that he had, he couldn't help but feel a little swirling bulb of bitter jealousy forming in his lower stomach. Yet was what assuring for a second was terrifying in the next; he'd never seen him around your house, or rather, he'd never seen you and him interact in any way. The only thing he knew was that you probably had many gives and takes with the heroes, a thing that put his mind to work harder than it ever should have been.

For a fragment of a second teal eyes meet with obsidian ones, forrowed straight brows met taller thinner ones. Dabi felt belittled as he stared at the male across the street who seemingly stared right back at him but he held himself back from letting out a surprised whimper as a reaction to recognising the man.

Aizawa Shouta, Eraser Head, was standing underneath the main door of your apartment complex, his fingers lingering with what Dabi had memorized to be your doorbell. The ravenette watched as you perked up, your silhouette passing by the familiar window as you paced and only a few moments later the familiar buzz of your intercom rang through the air.

He was confused. Confused beyond a sane point. Maybe that's why he had decided to stick around. Maybe, as he told himself so, you were just a mystery he wanted to solve.

"Thanks for coming." You smiled as soon as you opened the door, your batting eyes falling into the ravenette's stoic ones.

"Don't bother thanking me," Aizawa raised his palm, closing his eyes as he softly signed you to stop "I saw him, you know."

"He hasn't left that spot in the park for hours actually." You confirmed.

A deep sigh left your chest, your brows furrowing as your face fell in a despairate and miserable expression. The corner of your lip twitched and your jaw quivered as your soft pieces of flesh pressed together, a series of actions that Aizawa didnt fail to notice, yet he idled in his spot, his feet bowing slightly as he proceeded to take his shoes off. Once done, his feet mechanically marched towards you, his hands hesitantly coming to cup the tops of your shoulders.

The anxiety in your stomach leaped, throwing hellish boulders in the walls of your intestines, trying to hurt you enough so that you could come to your senses. But your mind protested on what you had decided on, fighting back with every breath you took. Your heart throbbed inside your chest, begging to spill through your ribs in mushy gashes, your throat was dry was you stared at Aizawa with wide eyes.

"Don't worry. I'm here." He spoke, sternly and before you managed to utter a words, making you squint your eyes shut.

Your hands came to hug around your form, the intense cold from outside finally finding its way inside your apartment and setting you as a target. It was now or never, you thought. The last few months ahead taken an enormous toll on you, Dabi's presence always being in your shadow was driving you insanse, filling you with rage and remorse.

He had no right to come after you and intrude on your personal life, yet you didn't know if you could try and not do the same were you in his place. But perhaps that was just an excuse you were making because you resented yourself for ever being involved in the ways you had with him.

You looked up at Aizawa, the inches that separated you, giving you a good lower view of his face. His heavy eyebags resembled his in a way you couldn't explain, his obsidian eyes that stared into yours with assurance -that was the look of a hero who had come to your rescue- yet you couldn't help but compare it to Dabi's ominus, cold glare, damn even the long messy onyx hair screamed Dabi to you and you hated it.

You hated that you could see him anywhere. Whether it was your imagination, dreams or real life, Dabi was always there, hiding in the shadow in the most prominent, ironic way, mocking you for your past choices, staring at your daughter maniacally with eyes so wide that were raged with manic.

Every night you felt like pulling your hair off your scalp, you felt like clawing your face until you ripped your skin or screaming to the walls until they fell down and came apart; you could feel Dabi's eyes on you on whatever actively you were set to do, even sleeping and in occasional fear of being cremated on your sleep.

This was the time to take action and if anyone could help you not get burnt into ashed that was Aizawa Shouta.

"He probably won't try anything funny with you here Shouta. Sakura is asleep but you can have her relax in your arms if you fear that I'll take long." You said rushing to get your combat boots out of the shelf you had them stored.

"Out of all people, did you really have to have a child with Dabi, (y/n)?" Aizawa playfully remarked, yet you furrowed your eyebrows as his expression failed to match with his tone.

You simply sighed back to him, closing your eyes in embarrassing defeat, your chest was run by a sudden chill, causing your body to absurdly perk up and Aizawa huffed through his nose in determination.

"Maybe you should wear a coat." He suggested.

"It's fine," you spoke back playfully "I actually like being cold.

Your breath formed into fog as you exhaled and you watched it annihilate into thin freezing air, your eyes glimmering under the cold lights of the street lamps, your orbs quivering from the freezing cold. You unwrapped your hands from your form as you felt the cold take over you. It was absurdly refreshing, you thought, and immediately your brain protested over your irrational way of thinking, yet your gut was scorching and at least the snow falling on your hair and nose was providing you with some newfound comfort.

You wanted to pick up your pace, but your frozen legs ignored you, deciding to prolong your misery further, your toes going numb with each step you took closer to Dabi's direction. He didn't even flinch. Not even once. You wondered if you shall take another step towards him, the terror that run through you raged over the theory that Dabi was only trying to catch you off guard before he fried you alive.

Still, you focused your gaze on the small streak of smoke that bled out of his hoodie. Soon the smell of tobacco filled your almost too numb nostrils as the sound of Dabi's snarky breath filled your ears. It was criminally quiet tonight, though this street wasn't normally filled with people, many school kids would chose the park across your apartment to hang out after school or during the late hours of night, but seeing how bad the weather was tonight you could blame anyone for not chosing to freeze themselves to death.

Of course, Dabi and you were two of a kind.

"Care to share a cig with me?" You spoke with determination, managing to let out a small hint of teasing in your voice to mask your fear.

"You actually practiced that line or something?"

Dabi chuckled in your direction although you could listen to the dryness in his tone. His hood covered head didn't turn in your direction just yet but his hand reached for one of his pockets, then leaping into another, taking short anxious movements, perhaps, you though, to throw you off. You were though sure Dabi could practically smell fear and if that was true whatever he was doing, he was doing it to mess with you, you knew how he much loved corruption or how he enjoyed the reek of fear from a few of his victims.

"Don't twitch like that, I'm just looking for my pack."

There it was. Yeah. Of course he was messing with you. Great, he was going to kill you weren't he now?

Dabi shift uncomfortably in his eat on the snow drenched bench, his hip bones clashing with the hard wood beneath him but he pushed through the discomfort he was feeling because now he was facing you.

Your jaws were clashing furiously, the hoodie you were wearing was probably doing nothing to keep you warm and for a moment he seriously thought about removing his windbreaker and tossing it over your shoulders, but he knew you wouldn't accept it, so he set on saving himself from the embarrassment.

Picking a hand out of one pocket he presented you with the small carton that held a couple of cigarettes and you didn't miss a chance on grabbing one, not even giving it a second thought. Looking around, you realised there was no lighter in sight and you sighed as Dabi offered his pointer finger, the digit adorned with a sheer blue coowling crown and naively you bowed down, taking a drag as the fire touched the edge of the cigarette.

You didn't bother thanking him as a constipated expression masked your face, your hands coming to rest under your bust just in case you'd ever get tired of holding your cigarette with your lips.

"Care to sit down?" Dabi remarked and you absurdly turned your head in the opposite direction, taking a drag through the filter, the stinky taste of nicotine filling your tingling on your taste buds.

"No, Dabi. You know why I'm here. I can't deal this anymore."

"You can't deal living without me little mouse?" He snarled, his hands quickly working on replacing the smoked cigarette that hung from his lips with a fresh one.

"Dabi I'm serious." You said, squinting your eyes "This is driving me insane. Did you really think I wouldn't notice you?"

Despite your tone suggesting that your question wasn't rhetorical, Dabi made no effort to even part his mouth to reply.

"Care to tell me what you want from me?"

Silence. Dabi looked at you as if you were speaking in a language he couldn't recognise, as if your words fell deaf to his ears.

"Dabi, I'm not going to beg for my life if that's what you want, and I don't appreciate that you're trying to entertain your psychopathic kinks." You said, voice below your normal pitch, indicating the small hints of fear that came with your intuition.

"Is she mine?"

The question hit you like a truck. Shaking, you couldn't help but feel like a deer blinded by the headlights, your blood running cold in your veins. Could you truthfully answer that without setting yourself and your daughter in danger? Stealing a glimpse of your window you vaguely made out Aizawa's silhouette and your heart warmed at the soothing reassurance that came with the action.

"Would it matter for you to know? What would it change?"

"Wouldn't you want to know if you had a little bastard marching astray?" Dabi monotonously remarked, making your stomach growl with rage.

"Sakura isn't a dirty stray dog, you're in no place to talk about her like that, not when you don't know what I went through for her." You raged, your eyes glowing with anger as you burned holes in Dabi's teal orbs.

So that was the name you had given her- Sakura- a plain overused name with a beautiful meaning, Dabi could atone for the fact that he liked it. Nevertheless, he stared at you, his lips puckered together in a determined manner, his cigarette never leaving the right corner of his mouth.

"Hit a nerve, little mouse?"

"Stop calling me that Dabi." Upon snarling you stomped your foot to the ground.

"How should I call you? I don't think I caught your actual name."

Dabi was bitter and he had every right to be, or so he told himself, he felt enraged to look in your direction, yet so speak to you and to top it all his stupid, idiotic feet were shaking and he didn't feel like he could get up, he could only stand there and stare at you, but this was unlike any other time. This time you were staring right back at him (e/c) orbs burning holes into the back of his brain.

But he wasn't going to give in, despite whatever he felt, he wouldn't give in to how soft he viewed you as, he wasn't going to give in to how your familiar smell filled his nostrils or how his heart set at an orbit of its own due to your eyes in his. Anxiously, he took another drag of his cigarette before taking a look towards your window, making out Eraser Head's silhouette in the dim light.

"I won't try to kill you, by the way, you didn't have to bring your friend over."

Your expression hardened as Dabi mentioned Aizawa, your heart skipping a beat as your eyes immediately fell in his direction once again.

"You don't have to obsess over Shouta as well."

"Ah, already on first name basis? With a man that much older than you and here you are calling me Dabi?" He whined playfully, but still his feet wouldn't move.

"What I do in my life is none of your business, you don't have any right on me because you knocked me up-"

"So she is mine."

If you could, you'd wipe that smug look that was immediately plastered on his face, but you knew better and you hated that you did. You knew that he smiled like that when he was in discomfort, you knew that he couldn't move from the spot he was seated on, you could still see through him and it killed you, it killed you because on one hand you were utterly afraid of what he could do to you and on another you wanted to bring a palm to his face and call him by his name.

"Look Dabi," you sighed in defeat "to answer any of your questions, Sakura is your daughter and I brought Shouta here because I'm afraid you're here to kill us. How am I supposed to know you're not playing dumb with me because you want to kill me?"

Dabi quirked a brow at you, bringing his hand to the top of his hood and pulling it down, his hair tousling in the air. "Can't I just be amazed that you're living a careless life when you're supposed to be dead?"

You averted your eyes from his in shame, your body shivering slightly for a brief moment. "I was supposed to take down small nameless criminals Dabi. I fake my death so I could get out of there with my ass saved."

"I should kill you, you know, I've entrusted you with very significant information about me." Dabi growled, his fingers starting to springle in the tiniest specs of cobalt.

Despite watching them dance before you, your gut felt numb and you could thank the freezing cold for that, but you didn't feel the growling eruption of fearful anxiety grow inside you anymore.

"Well it was your fault that you trusted me enough to tell me your name and purpose, but I won't spill the beans on you. Unless..." You prompted, finally taking a seat next to Dabi, your thigh merely brushing against his own.

"Unless?" He inquired, intrigued as ever.

"Unless you leave us alone, Touya." You whispered the name below the sound of a breath, making sure no one around you could hear, yet Dabi quivered by the sound, his eyes glued on your lips. "The truth is, I don't want you associated with Sakura. How will the world treat her if they find out she's the daughter of a serial killer?"

"I... I just." He hesitated.

"You what? If your villain friends know about her they're going to come after us, being a single mother is fucking me up already, give a girl a fucking break Dabi."

You were dumbfounded by how bold you were getting and you only had yourself to blame, cornering the villain felt dangerous and endearing at the same time, his otherwise dominant behavior had crumbled in only a few tiny seconds and between them you had managed to call the shots and push all the right buttons, corrupting your way into the point you wanted to make.

It was true, during your time working undercover to take down small criminals you had indeed picked up on the way criminal minds worked. And in moments like these you used it to your advantage.

"Can I just see her once?"

His tone took you aback, sending your eyes to spread wide as a surprised expression masked your face. His voice was pleading and small, soft and intruding poking you to spare him with any pity you had in you. Shaking your head, you came to your senses, finally aware of the fact that your thigh was pushed against his.

With a shagged breath you made a move to get up but you were forced into the cold bench once again by Dabi's hand, the sound on shifting filling the air as you growled on your spot.

"You don't get to tell me what to do little mouse." He barked, his digits digging into the skin of your thigh almost painfully. "I want to see my daughter. How come that hobo of a man can see her when I can't."

"Dabi, I just explained why I don't want you around her."

"I have every right don't I?" He asked.

"Actually, you have no right, you're a serial killer Dabi, you shouldn't have any right, the only reason as to why I can't arrest you right now is because all I have are this stupid healing quirk and that I have no license to do anything to you. Now if you go in to my house, Shouta isn't going to go soft on you."

Dabi growled in his seat, his hand leaving your thigh as he maniacally went to light another cigarette, this time the small spec of fire dancing on his quivering finger.

"This is a warning, stop stalking us." You sighed and brought your palms over your knees with a slap before straightening them to stand up.

"Wait-" Dabi said as he watched you take a few steps away from him, his head extending to your direction. "If- if you heal me, will I be able to see her then?"

You didn't dare turn around to face him, instead you hugged your chest, taking in a deep breath as you lowered your head to stare at your shoes. The voice inside your head was hot and sweet and it bowed to your natural instinct as a healer, somewhere deep inside your chest you felt as if that in a way it could work. But even if you took away what made Touya Dabi then would he really ever atone for all his sins? You knew you wouldn't be able to sleep with both eyes closed if he were to be by your side, his ideals weren't just something he could give up just because he would leave his appearance behind.

"Look, Touya, I really like Shouta, please don't ruin this for me." you whispered, your voice raspy but you never managed to turn to him. Whether your statement was a lie or not was up to Dabi to decide.

"No wait."

You didn't respond to his call out. You simply hugged your chest tighter, pressing your breasts with your cubits as you took fast steps towards your apartment complex.

You chose to ignore the fittings that you heard behind you, the commotion he was causing coming second to the way your heartbeat annoyingly pulsed in your ears. When Dabi's palm hazed over you you heaped, your breath cutting short and consequentially being trapped inside your weary lungs.

"I'd never hurt a mother and a child." Dabi gulped, his fingers being moments away from brushing over your clothed skin.

But you didn't care, you simply lowered your shoulder, throwing your collarbone forward in an attempt to escape the upcoming contact of his body with yours. You set your feet to work, rapidly and uncarefuly sliding through the snow as you tried to get away.

And once again all Dabi could do was stop and stare. You didn't care about the churning in his gut, you didn't give a damn about the ashes of his heart either, there was no heaven in hiding for him, just this bitterweet taste of tobacco in the buds of his tongue, and the unbearable stinging in his eyes. All he was left with was his wish to see you and Sakura again.

And maybe he could do that. He just needed to become a silent shadow.

[poppibranchlover]

Bats What I Like About You - The Final Chapter: Part 10

The story: During a camping trip, Poppy tells a campfire story about a magic wish-granting tree which is believed to exist in the Troll world. However, Branch doesn’t believe in the story and says that magic wish-granting trees don’t exist. His disbelief gets the better of him when he finds the tree and before he knows what is going on with it, it casts a spell on Branch, causing him to transform into a vampire bat and believe that the tree does exist! Now stuck as a bat, he has to try to get himself back to normal with the help of a bat named Feng, who tags along with him for the rest of the adventure.

You already seen what had happened in Part 9. Now get ready for the final part of the story - Part 10!:

Branch grabbed the keys with his legs and glided his way to Feng’s cage. Setting the keys down before picking them up with his claws, he quickly unfastened the lock by twisting them back and forth.

CLICK! Feng pushed against the door! He was free! He wanted to hug Branch but he turned away from him, sighing.

“I can’t believe you are so brave just now!” he chirped. “You’re such a hero!”

“Yeah, I get it. I was,” Branch said, his voice faltering with sadness. “Listen, Feng. I just want to say sorry for what I did earlier. About living under a pile of sticks rather than being on trees. I thought that it was safe but I got carried away, leaving you to be caught!”

Feng was not offended by his words. So he patted his shoulder and told him “Why should you be sorry?! You saved my life! Just like how I saved you during the first time we met!”

Branch nodded. He knew he had come all the way to rescue his friend but he has to do something so he will turn himself back to normal as soon as possible. He took a deep breath and said “But let me tell you a secret. Do you want to hear about it?”

Feng got excited. “Ooh, sure! I love secrets!” he whooped, hopping up and down. “Tell me one!”

Branch sighed again. This time even harder. He glanced at Feng with a serious look in his face. “Okay, my secret was...I’m not a bat at all.”

“What?!”

“Feng, seriously! I’m not a bat!” Branch blurted. “I’m...just a Troll. Turned into one.” He said this while he pointed at his hair.

Feng couldn’t believe what his friend was really talking about! “How’s that possible? You’re a bat with nice-looking hair!”

“But it’s a Troll’s hair actually!” Branch explained. “You don’t know what being Troll looks like! You saw me use my hair to fight back with Stade so I can try to save you. This meant I am a Troll! And Trolls have shocked-up raised hair like mine. Bats don’t have this kind of special hair on their heads unlike Trolls, which is pretty cool, though.”

Feng was even more surprised hearing his explanation. “I don’t know what to say.” he said gently. “But I have no idea you grew up a Troll before I first met you!”

Branch raised his wing. “That’s because I am actually a Troll, Feng!” he said. “A magical tree cast a spell on me after I make a wish by accident! That’s why I became a bat!”

Feng quivered his lip. But Branch tried to explain again. “No, no, no. Feng, it’s okay!”

“So a magical tree turned you into a bat and then that’s how you met me?”

“Yeah, but it looks crazy. But you know I have to turn myself back into a Troll. I just can’t stay like this forever!”

“As a Troll, where do you stay?” Feng asked. “On a tree branch?”

“NO!” Branch said harshly. “As a Troll, I live in a bunker. An underground bunker! That’s where I live!”

He put a claw to his shoulder and turned away from his friend, hoping if he got angry with him again. “Look, Feng. I’m very sorry. It’s my fault I forgotten about you. But you have to be forgiving me about what I’m saying to you and just because you saved my life, now I have to save yours. That’s like an act of friendship if it’s what Trolls do best!”

Then he opened his wings wide and brought Feng into a warm big hug. The bat smiled at him as he hugged him even more warmly.

“I’m so touched by your secret!” he said in awe.

“Yeah, I know,” Branch said. “I’m sure you know what I’m saying, Feng. Can you forgive me?”

“I can’t forgive anybat like you! So, forgiveness accepted!” Feng opened his wings and threw Branch into an even warmer hug! This time Branch giggled as he hugged him. Poppy, Biggie, Smidge and Guy Diamond arrived at the disaster happening in Professor Stade’s place and they all glanced at the two bats, hugging together.

“Awwww,” Poppy cooed. “You made a new friend?”

“Feng, this is Poppy,” Branch told him.

Feng stared up at Poppy and said cockingly “Well, aren’t you the ‘Poppy’ Branch was talking about?”

But Poppy instead heard him squeak at her. She laughed.

“Can someone give me a hand here, please?” Stade whined, still lying on the floor, his leg bleeding.

Poppy, Branch, Feng and the Trolls stared at one another at him and his unconscious assistant.

Minutes later, Dr. Moonbloom has sent Stade and his assistant to the hospital to be treated. Poppy, Branch, Feng, Frisky, Whisky, Nipper and the Trolls have made their way to the Great Wishing Tree.

Branch fluttered to the tree. He was ready to change himself back into a Troll. Feng looked at Branch with a tear in his cheek. He blew with a handkerchief to stop himself from crying. He was getting a little sad at seeing his new friend going to live like a Troll like Poppy and the rest of her people. But his three bat buddies comforted him.

“Good luck, kid,” he muttered through tears. “Glad you can live like a Troll!”

As Branch flew closer to the tree, Poppy walked next to him and told the magic tree as it awakened. She looked at Branch in his bat form and asked “How can I help you, darlings?”

“Great Wishing Tree,” Poppy said with a deep breath and a determined look on her face, she said out loud:

“I wish for Branch the bat to be a Troll again!”

PRILING!!! PRING!!

The tree suddenly blew out magical sparkles at Branch again. He used his wings to shield himself from the showering stars as he started transforming.

And this time, he was growing bigger!

And bigger!

His eyes popped open as the transformation is nearly finished.

Eeeeeeeep!

A sound came squeaking out of his mouth!

And soon...

“Branch, look!”

Branch looked around as this sparkles finished glowing at him. The tree grinned and fell asleep again.

It was when he looked at his claws again, he realized they were no longer sharp and pointed like a bat’s!

Then he felt his green vest and brown shorts. And finally, he felt his legs!

Branch is finally back into a Troll again! Everybody celebrated!

“Yay! Branch!” Poppy cried happily, throwing him into a big hug. “You’re back to normal! I’m so happy you’re back into a Troll again!”

Branch rubbed his eyes and spoke in front of Poppy, this time no longer making his words as squeaks, “Yeah! I am! I really am! Thank you, Poppy, for making a wish for me!” Then he hugged his girlfriend back, glad to have himself back again. The two Trolls smiled at each other. Then Branch looked at Feng, who smiled back at him with tears in his eyes.

“Ohhh! I’m so happy!” he sobbed, blowing his handkerchief even harder. He can’t believe his new friend has moved on and was happy to be a Troll! One cute blue happy Troll!

Biggie, Smidge and Guy joined in hugging Poppy and Branch, celebrating with thankful remarks and congratulations.

Moments later, Branch has made a sign beside the tree and laid out safety red queue lines. He hammered down the sign, which meant no entry for the Trolls. It also meant that no Trolls are allowed to enter the Great Wishing Tree because it is dangerous. He knew he wanted everyone to be careful about this. But Poppy and her friends didn’t mind getting the tree to be prohibited to enter. The tree looked at the Trolls, Feng and his three bat friends with a smile before going on to sleep again.

The next morning, everytroll, including Feng, was warming up outside Branch’s bunker.

“Wow, Branch!” Poppy said to him. “I can’t believe you made the Great Wishing Tree as a tourist attraction for everyone and you added a sign that denies entry for them!”

“Thanks, Poppy. It’s to ensure that no Troll has to go near it.” Branch replied. “Otherwise, it will cause a lot of disastrous effects on them like it did with me.” 

“How cautious this felt for the tree!” Biggie said with a whistle.

“Yep,” Smidge said. “Next time we won’t be able to go near it again, like what Branch has mentioned.”

Guy was not happy about this. “Aw, but next time, can I wish for a glittery sequin vest?”

Branch glared at him. “Guy! I thought you hated clothes!” he corrected him.

“Yeah, you heard my best friend, naked fella?” Feng asked with a cocky grin, putting a claw to Branch’s ear.

Guy was taken aback. “Okay, I guess you’re right,” he said, looking around at his body filled with glitter. Of course, he was always naked and that’s why he would always go naked around Troll Village because most Trolls covered with glitter doesn’t need any clothes unlike other Trolls. “Maybe I don’t need that tree. Sorry.” He finally turned away sadly.

Feng smiled. Then he pulled out an apple from his sleeve and showed it to Branch. “How’s about we celebrate with this nice juicy fruit?”

“Huh?!” Branch stepped back, looking shocked.

“OOOOHH!!” Guy sang in his auto-tune tone, pointing at Branch and the apple Feng is holding. “Eat it, Branch!”

“B-but I’m not a bat anymore!” he protested. Because, to this very day, he will never eat apples again. He thought about the other night he had eaten a rotten apple while as a bat and looked away, holding his nose.

Feng started to grow disappointed but then a voice cried out “Stand back, everyone!”

It was Cooper! The Trolls were so surprised that he has bat fangs in his mouth! He snatched the apple from Feng and said in a fake vampire-like accent “I vant to suck its juice!”

Then he took a bite on the apple. CRUNCH!

Branch cried out in disgust. “Yuk!”

But when Cooper let go of the apple in his mouth, he grinned. Now he has no  fangs in his teeth! What is going on?

Cooper turned the apple around and showed it to everyone. Perched in the yummy red skin was a decoy of bat fangs! “Just kidding!” he said.

Soon everyone began to laugh! “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

“Oh, Cooper!” Poppy laughed.

While everyone was laughing at Cooper’s fancy apple biting trick, Feng noticed something in Branch’s mouth and tried to warn him “Hey, kid. There might be something in your mouth, though!”

He was right. From the upper edges of Branch’s mouth were two bat fangs still present! It seemed like his transformation is not nearly complete yet!

As for Branch, maybe he dared not to tell anybody, but every night at midnight he creep into Satin and Chenille’s bathroom...

And get their razor...

And scrape away at the little grey hairs that keep growing on top of his feet.

                                                      THE END!

                                        Hope you enjoy this fanfiction!

                        The Great Wishing Tree belongs to @gemennair.

[jamesandanna12]

Tatacoa Desert (Colombia) to Bogota (Colombia) - 2 June - 1 July 2017

We left Villavieja and the Tatacoa Desert in sweltering heat. We knew the road wouldn't be great but it was actually way worse than we expected. We were going to Giradot in a VERY cross-country way. The surface was all loose gravel which made us ride much slower than we'd have wanted. Progress was slow and it was unbelievably hot!

Good road, eh?! 😉

The worst thing about our journey were two horrible tunnels we had to ride through... After a particularly bad gravel stretch of road we got to the first tunnel. There was no warning - one minute you ride through a "tunnel" of shrubs, which is lovely...

the next minute you ride onto a real tunnel that's unsurfaced and pitch dark! 😱😱😱 James was ahead of me and screaming in my ear to stop!!! There were huge, uneven 2-3 feet deep mud ruts everywhere on the surface! As the tunnel was not lit, we couldn't see the ruts or the huge potholes or even the uneven ground. If there were vehicles coming, we wouldn't have been able to see them. We COULDN'T SEE ANYTHING! 😱😱😱

I hate unlit tunnels and get very scared... Unfortunately South America is full of them but this one was particularly slippery and dangerous. The tunnel was maybe 500 metres long, with 2 bends and so dark I struggled to see James's rear lights! Riding in pitch darkness "by feel only" is no fun! Needless to say, my helmet was full of tears 😢

We encountered another similar tunnel but luckily we saw a big truck approaching it ahead of us so we accelerated, caught up with it and stayed at the back of the truck - at least we were able to see a little! Phew! 

The scenery was stunning in the Magdalena river valley 😊

We eventually reached Giradot and we got a great deal in a lovely modern hotel with a pool - happy days! 

Giradot is a very busy town full of people from Bogota escaping the cold. It was a bit chavvy - we didn't like it. 

After a night's sleep, we set off for Bogota. The weather was bad! It was cold and wet and the visibility was terrible. It took us a while to get to Bogota. 

After a horrible ride in fog and cloud, we finally reached Bogota - the Colombian capital of 8 million people. We hit traffic and it took us nearly two hours to get to our hotel. When we finally arrived, we parked the bikes, showered, went across the road for a Domino's pizza and collapsed in bed 😉

Our hotel room was lovely, quiet and comfortable. We slept like logs! In the morning we went exploring. 

We went to the museum of gold - Museo del Oro. Hands down the most beautiful museum I've been to (Anna). We learnt a lot about the history of Colombia. 

Walk back to our hotel was chaotic but great people watching opportunity. 

The following morning we found an unbelievably nice French patisserie - fantastic coffee and proper croissants (not the Colombian version filled with horrible quesito - cheese kept in room temperature. Yuk!). We're not fans 😂

Walking around old Bogota was lovely!

Knowing that we would be back in Bogota before too long, we decided to leave the following morning and ride to Salento - a small town in the hills known for its coffee growing plantations. The ride was nice but big sections of bad surface made our journey slow and a bit tiring.

We pulled in for lunch in a little restaurant beside a petrol station. It was the usual feast but actually quite nice.

It was a beautiful day and riding was fantastic. It was getting hillier and hillier and we were loving the scenery. 

We were getting nearer Salento when the sun started setting. We were tired as we rode all day. It was time to stop............ however...

Our sat nav decided to play a cruel trick on us and send us completely cross-country to Salento! 

We ended up on, what can only be described as, a goat track! Huge potholes we could lose our bikes in, horribly steep uphills, big mud only sections and... darkness! We arrived in pitch darkness. Yuk! 

We found a little simple hostel for the night and went out to get a bite to eat. As we walked around the tiny center of Salanto, we heard a very loud "hello". It was Axel, the Austrian guy we met in MotoCamp in Chile! We joined him and his girlfriend Gabi for drink and a catch up. And then... we saw our other friends, Kevin and Celia. South America is a small place! 😁

Axel told us about this great hotel they were staying in so I (Anna) decided to investigate 😁 It was indeed lovely! We checked in for four nights! 

Gustavo, the owner, was incredibly friendly and helpful. We liked him a lot. He made sure our bikes were safe and sound.

The weather was a bit patchy but for once we had a lovely place to hang out - just outside our room on the veranda. We were to be found there every time there was a torrential downpour. 

Walking around Salento was lovely and low-key. 

We even found a fresh mango juice cart - happy days! 🙆🙆

There was one huge hill in Salento - many, many steps (600 something) but the view was worth it!

In the evening we met up with the other four for dinner and some drinks. It was a lovely evening ☺We shared stories from our journeys - some really incredible ones! I (Anna) was a happy bunny when between all six of us, I realised that I fell off my bike the least amount of times (I.e. once). Yay! 😉

The following day we went on a coffee plantation tour. It was very interesting.

The farm was in a lovely setting. 

There was an unbelievably pungent smell from the coffee cherries!

Our guide was very good at explaining the whole coffee lifecycle process.

We were tasked with picking what we thought were ripe coffee cherries. It was more difficult than we expected. 

I found four 😉

James did much better!

We tasted the cherries and they were surprisingly sweet. The two perfectly formed coffee beans were just lovely 😊

The baskets suit us, don't they! 😂

This is the small version of the machine separating cherries from the valuable coffee beans.

And this is the difference between good coffee (left) that is exported out of Colombia and bad coffee (right) that tastes foul and is the only coffee widely available in Colombia. No surprise then that most Colombians drink hot chocolate instead! 

At the end of the tour it was time for tasting. It was better than the usual coffee in Colombia but still a far cry from the "good stuff" we can get back home. 

So have a nice up of coffee for us 😊 Cheers!

The following morning Gustavo served the most amazing breakfast. We loved having breakfast in the garden - such a treat! 

We wanted to see the Cocora Valley and wax palm trees, the tallest variety in the world, so we booked a ride in a shared Jeep. 

The valley was stunning!

We went on a little 10km hike - beautiful scenery!

It was an incredibly beautiful hike! 

The clouds started coming down but they only added to the atmospheric ambiance! 

It was cold and getting cloudier and cloudier but it only added to the beauty of the place! 

We walked back to the point where we could take the Jeep back to town just in time... The heavens opened! We timed our walk pretty well! 

Back in Salento we went for a coffee (still bitter but the best one we could get in town) 😉

We walked around the town for hours - lovely and peaceful. 

All the restaurants close very early so we pulled in for dinner in daylight. 

After supper we sat on the square drinking beer and observing the local life. Great fun! 

The following morning it was time to check out... We didn't really want to - Salento and our hotel have been a bit of an oasis. Salento and that area of the coffee country would definitely be on our list to visit if we were back in Colombia again.  

We were going to Medellin. I (Anna) have an Italian friend Maurizio who lives there with his Colombian girlfriend Elena. Maurizio and I worked together years ago so I was looking forward to seeing him again 😊

The first bit of the journey was very straightforward.

We encountered several diversions - very slow and on awful surface. We hoped the road to Medellin would be a good one but it was actually in dreadful condition. Huge potholes, bad surface and very windy and twisty with no passing lanes and full of impatient macho drivers. 

And then we happened upon this queue... We waited for ten minutes or so but nothing was moving. Several motorbikes weaved their way through all the cars so we followed them. 

After 10km we were still negotiating our way through all the parked cars! The queue was huge! Eventually we got to the front. All the motorcycles were waiting there. We stopped beside a truck and the driver told us what happened. It was a particularly tight bend and one truck didn't make the turn and fell into the ravine. The driver had died. Horribly sad! 

We waited for nearly three hours for the road to be reopened. We were nervous at the prospect of riding on these roads in darkness. Thankfully we got off the mountain in daylight or just about. We arrived at Maurizio's in pitch darkness. They were waiting for us and I think were quite relieved that we arrived in one piece 😉 We had a great evening of catching up! 

The view from the apartment was gorgeous!

We walked around for ages! 

And then we stopped at the nicest Italian cafe ever! It was Maurizio's and Elena's favourite. Ohhhh the tiramisu!! 😍😍

We were having a great time in Medellin with our friends. We intended staying for a couple of nights... But Maurizio and Elena were making us feel like home and way too comfortable! 😉 They are real foodies and were spoiling us all the time with amazing dinners! 

After an incredible supper we went out for a glass of wine 😀

After a glass of wine we moved onto the local drink, Aguardiente, typical Colombian firewater. It tasted great with pieces of orange and lime. 

We all had a fantastic evening! 

The guys told us many stories about Colombia, drugs, Escobar, guerilla wars and how all that affected local people... Scary. Things are definitely on the up and are much better than even ten years ago but you can still get someone killed for $100 😱 Life is cheap in Colombia. James and I are very cautious when out  and about and we're not the only ones -  All of us stay alert with our eyes open, never flaunt wealth (phone, camera, jewellery) and never are out late at night. Elena holds her breath when walking past people - 'The Devil's Breath' drug (scopolamine) is often thrown in people's faces. It eliminates free will and can wipe the memory of its victims! Life is cheap in all South America.

The following day we had a very lazy day 😉

The guys told us about a couple of places worth visiting  so we decided to ride there for a day trip. We decided to ride to Guatape without realising how bad and slow the road would be! 

The scenery was great.

The view from the top of the Guatape rock was supposed to be lovely but given that it took us several hours to get there, if we had climbed it, we would have run out of daylight to get back to Medellin. So we admired the view from the ground. 

Coming back, the traffic was even worse and it took us ages to get back. The roads in Colombia really are bad. 

We had another lazy day of booking flights to Europe, walking around and having lunch with our friends.

We stayed in Medellin for a whole week! Maurizio and Elena made us feel so welcome! We loved staying with them in their gorgeous apartment, chatting to early hours, practicing our Spanish (sorry Elena), hearing the (scary) stories about Colombia, watching great movies together and being entertained by the amazing cooking shows (God they can cook!). Maurizio and Elena - thank you so much for having us! 😘 😘 

We set off very early on Sunday morning. We were packed and ready to go at 6.15am! 😵 We had to go so early because all the main roads in big cities in Colombia close for bicycles only on Sundays from 7am until 2pm. 

One last look at the lovely view from the balcony 😊

The traffic was light and it was relatively easy to get out of Medellin. We were on our way to Cartagena but needed to break the journey somewhere. Our plan was to ride and stop when when we get tired. It was a long journey to the coast and we had no idea about the state of the roads - Colombians still don't drive. It's the legacy of the past where roads were too dangerous to drive on. People simply fly, even what we consider to be tiny distances.  

But before we got out of Medellin we remembered what Maurizio told us... He said that when we get to a particular place where the road splits to stay LEFT! If we stayed on the road and veered right we would end up in Moravia -  a notoriously dangerous area of Medellin. We got to a place where the road split... And had no idea if that was the correct spot or not... Our sat nav was of no help! We stopped on the central reservation in the middle of quite a busy motorway at that stage and discussed whether or not this was our left turn 😉 We decided to go left... And thank God we did! Very shortly we noticed Moravia on our right... It looked a very deprived area. Thanks Maurizio!

The roads were OK, mostly paved. We rode for hours in clouds...

And then in fog...

And then the weather improved and it was beautiful ☺

We rode all day and progress was quite slow despite the seemingly OK roads. We got to a town called Planeta Rica. We saw a modern looking hotel several kilometres out of town but thought that it would be easier to stay in town... We rode around Planeta Rica - it was a dump! Everyone seemed to be either drunk or drinking and when one guy started running towards me and shouting, we did a very quick U-turn towards the out of town hotel! 

The sunset was gorgeous!

We slept well but were looking forward to leaving the unpleasant town so packed up and left early.. 

It was a lovely fresh morning but the temperature was rising rapidly. 

We rode through some poor towns and villages - there was very little in these places. 

The scenery was beautiful. It was hot as hell though! 😉

Approaching Cartagena was interesting. We thought it would be like riding into Medellin, fast and modern, but instead we rode on dirt roads and passed several horse and carts! 

We really wanted to stay in the old walled city of Cartagena but as parking our bikes was going to be virtually impossible, we had to stay outside the walls. We decided to stay on the seafront but the area felt very dodgy. At least our hotel was secure and the bikes were safe. 

The waterfront was nice but there were a lot of people lurking. There were no tourists around. 

We walked to the walled city - it was beautifully lit. 

The following morning we enjoyed our breakfast on the hotel terrace. It was 10am and already baking!  

The old city of Cartagena was gorgeous! 

After walking around for a few hours, we were melting! 

We went to our favourite chain restaurant for dinner - Crepe & Waffle - the best salads ever!!!! 

I loved walking within the walled city at night - so pretty! 

But once outside the walls, it was point-and-go for us. Pavements weren't lit and there were a lot of people lurking around. As we walked to our hotel, all we could see was cigarettes lighting in the bushes across the street - and many of them. Not the nicest of walks. 

The following day was a day of chores. We needed to finally put new tyres on our bikes - the tyres that we carried since Lima! But first, coffee and a walk to see the fort. 

A very friendly chap working in our hotel showed us the way to a local mechanic that we would never have found ourselves. The rear rack on James's bike was broken and we needed it welded back together. 

Then we got the tyres changed. The tyre man had very primitive tools but had great attitude and was very friendly. He was delighted that we left the old tyres with him - there was still life in them and he was able to resell them. 

After a few hours the bikes were done. Our next chore was to try and find someone to wash our bike gear. I found this place called "Beer and laundry" and since it had great reviews, we decided to give it a go. We were greeted by Ana Maria and her brother Juan. It was a cute little place with a dozen or so washers and dryers, ice cold beer and homemade pizzas. The guys said they would try to wash our gear so we were delighted. When we came back to collect our trousers and jackets, we couldn't believe the transformation! Poor Juan scrubbed our gear by hand! Everything looked brand new!  Thank you Juan and Ana Maria! ☺We also met an incredibly friendly couple sitting there, Neil and Cat - we had a lovely chat. A big hello from us 👋😀👋

It was really nice to meet these four! Always such a treat to meet lovely people 😊

Our next destination was going to be a nice beach 😀 We have heard a lot about the Caribbean coast of Colombia so we wanted to see it.  We decided to go to El Rododero near Santa Marta which was supposed to be a lovely place to visit. 

We left the following morning after another lovely brekkie on the terrace. 

It was hot as hell! Nearly 40 degrees Celsius! And that's before midday! 😵

We were baking! When you are by the pool with cocktails in hand, this heat is one thing... When you are riding in full motorcycle gear, that's ANOTHER story! 

We eventually found a hotel - it wasn't great but the bikes were safe. We wanted to see if we liked El Rododero before we looked for a better place to stay. By the time we checked in, unpacked and showered, it was late in the evening so we just went out for a bite to eat. There were so many people around!!  

We felt a bit better after a night's sleep - we must have overheated on the bikes. We went to the beach - my main objective was to go for a swim!   😉

But... 

The beach was absolutely crowded and the amount of hawkers was unreal! We were approached every few seconds! Not exaggerating! Ignoring them didn't work and there was nowhere to hide - they would just stand there surrounding you. Not nice.

But the worst thing was the smell of sewage! Oh my God! The water didn't look clean in places so it put us off swimming for sure 😕 😲

So we just took some photos. Disappointing. 

The later it got, the more people appeared on the beach. The smell was as bad as earlier so safe to say, I didn't get to have a swim 😢

The sunset was lovely. 

We found amazing dinner! The food was spectacular! Oh the seafood stew... 😍

We were disappointed with El Rododero - sewage in the sea is just unacceptable! I still can't believe that so many people were swimming there! 😱

We decided to leave the following morning and ride up the coast for a while and see if we found somewhere we liked...

We were in no rush so we went to have one last look at the beach and get coffee. 

It was was unbelievably crowded and unfortunately, smelly as ever. 

We set off in baking heat. We rode a good bit of the coast and it seemed even more crowded. I suppose Colombians have only that small stretch of the coast to go on holidays as the whole Pacific side is largely controlled by the guerillas. We like low-key and quiet beaches - the coast of Colombia wasn't for us. 

We decided to go to a little town called Minca. It was 700m high in the hills. We hoped it would give us a little respite from the heat. We found a very simple room in a house in the jungle. The road to it was rutted with horrible deep gravel. 

Turning into the house wasn't very nice - steep and on loose gravel... James dropped the bike. It was so hot and we were overheated. It could have easily happened to me. 

With only a small fan in our room, we hoped that would be enough. The house looked really cool! 

We were in a real wildermess. 

The village was tiny! 

We sat around the terrace with the other people staying in the house - lovely bunch of backpackers. It was really hot and the bugs were biting...

A few little kittens kept us entertained.

After a couple of hours of being outside, my legs had 70 bites on them despite highly concentrated DEET. 

We had to fnd a different place to stay for the following day as our guesthouse was full. We found what on the face of it, looked like a better place. It had a nicer, cleaner room and lovely gardens. 

And on their terrace we could watch dozens of hummingbirds!! What a treat! 😍

The view from the terrace was something else!

The hummingbirds were absolutely beautiful! I was wishing I had a better camera. 

We watched the cute little creatures for a good couple of hours. We wanted coffee so we went to the only place that served it. It was ok but there was a nice surprise for us - yummy muffins 😋

We watched the local life around us. 

We were told that there was a lovely spot with a waterfall with hot springs so we hiked an hour up the hill to get there. The views were lovely.

Eventually we reached the access point..... Need I say more?

Neither James nor I fancied negotiating our way through the hordes of people so we turned around. At least the walk back was mostly downhill.

Minca was nothing special - again, we heard a lot about it but it wasn't our cup of tea. The worst thing however was that James became ill after having breakfast in our hotel. Timing was terrible as we had a huge shlep back to Bogota and we had to do it in three days - we had our flight to Europe booked. Poor James had a miserable day 😟 

The following day was better - the scenery was nicer and more importantly, James felt much better.

We were riding against the clock which we didn't enjoy. We had to get back to Bogota in the early afternoon on Thursday in order to get our bikes properly washed in preparation of shipping to Miami. We had an appointment with our shipping agent the following morning. We rushed a bit. 

We stopped for some water and I played with a very cuddly cat 😀

We arrived back in Bogota wrecked. We overheated quite a bit but still needed to ride through the absolute centre of Bogota to get the bikes cleaned. Argh! 😬😬

We identified a proper vehicle vehicle cleaning garage in advance and rode straight there. After unloading all our luggage, the bikes were on lifts and getting washed...

And washed...

And washed some more...

An hour and a half later we were still waiting...

The guys were doing an amazing job!

Two and a half hours later we were still waiting...

The people running the garage were incredibly friendly. All they wanted was to put our "business card" on their wall 😁

As we put our card on the glass window, we saw our friend's, Dave, card! We had met him in Santiago Chile.  He was in Bogota only a couple of months earlier. Incredible! 

Finally, after nearly three and a half hours we were free to go! 

We got to our hotel very tired. We slept like logs. The following morning we had to get up early and ride to our shipping agent's office. We rode for an hour and a quarter through heavy traffic. We eventually got to the office, sorted out all the paperwork for shipping our bikes to Miami and rode to a storage place our agent organised for us to store the bikes whilst we flew to Europe. 

I was very sad to leave our bikes behind! 😢

It felt like the end of an era... We were flying to Europe to see our families and were very happy about that! But we were also a little sad because we knew our time in South America was nearly over... 😟

[canaryatlaw]

Well, today wound up being pretty good, despite a slightly rough start. It took me a full 4 minutes to convince myself to get out of bed after my alarm went off at 7, but I managed to do it and not end up being late, although my bus was then late and I ended up being 15 minutes late to work anyway >_>. I managed to catch my boss just as she was walking out and caught her up quickly on the research I was doing trying to find that mom and girl and she said to file a criminal investigation unit request, so I spent most of the morning looking up information for that and filling it out. I was then out of work and learned that every single attorney on my calendar wasn't currently in the office. Oh, lol. Well I guess I get to fuck around for a while, so I did. After lunch I eventually got some more work in the form of more prison phone calls (yay my favorite! Not...) from yet another case, same lawyer. She did tell me that she got the judge to listen to the last ones I went through and identified the problematic content in and it resulted in a goal change, so that felt like a major victory for all the hours I spent listening to them (I hate 26 pages of notes, if that gives you any idea). I don't know too many of the details on this case but the calls were between a husband and wife with the wife incarcerated on like, 8 criminal trespassing charges. Like 2 minutes into the first call she drops that she's pregnant, so I immediately ask the lawyer if she knew this, and she was just like "oh no, she just thinks she's pregnant, she's actually out of her mind crazy and thinks she has 10 invisible children and 5 different lovers." OH. And as I kept listening, I found that was not an exaggeration at all. Like, this woman was out of her fucking mind, all the while insisting she was perfectly mentally healthy while then launching into a rant about how she believes in her invisible children she gave birth to at home and thinks they became visible and they saw them playing on a walk once and she just knew they were actually her children. Right.....the dad just seemed done with everything she was saying (I don't really blame him) but would then rant at her and say things like "we don't have our kids back because you keep doing stupid things and getting in trouble" and then they had a big fight because she wanted to call the caseworker because she likes her and thinks she's trying to help, while he vehemently disagrees and thinks the caseworker is trying to get their kids taken away. *sigh* never a dull movement. I was gonna go over my stuff with my boss once she got back but we decided to push it to tomorrow because she was busy, and then she asked me if I could step up for a status hearing on the case I did my first interview on with the adorable 5 year old girl I showed the Wonder Woman trailer, and since I know the case backwards and forwards at this point (the file has been living on my desk for over a month now) I of course said yes and went back to review it. I'm excited to do it because there's no real set format and I don't really know what to expect, so it'll be exciting for sure and I get to think on my feet. Plus I haven't gone up on a case against a public defender since the child death case so that'll be exciting. Happy with that. The day was over shortly after and I headed home, arriving around 6:25 so I started to get ready to go to PT immediately and ate some blueberries quickly before heading out for my 7 pm appointment. It did feel good to be back. The later time slots are always double booked it seems, so I ended up doing my exercises first (some of which hurt like a bitch because I hadn't done them in two weeks) then did the table session with my PT guy and some dry needling, and I felt like it was a good session. Came home, grabbed dinner, and turned on the justice league cartoon while on my computer doing various things like finally updating the company blog that had actually ran through its queue for the first time in like 2 years because of my neglect (whoops). There were actually some really good justice league episodes, including one where superman gets sent into the future where Vandal Savage took over the earth and consequently wound up killing off every other human being so he was all alone, so he ends up working with superman to send superman back in time to stop him from taking over the world. And I'm just like damn, why couldn't they have adapted that plot for Vandal on legends season 1??? It sounds like an infinitely more interesting villain plot than what we got (and we can still tie in Rip's family of course). So that was cool to see. And yeah, after a while I got ready for bed, and shortly before writing this post I got a Facebook message from a girl I had one class with in college a million years ago and haven't talked to in ages, because she posted a status the other day asking opinions on whether she should ask a homeless couple to move in with her and I was shocked to see all the horribly negative things people were saying, so I just commented "do it" and she wanted to let me know that she had and it had worked out wonderfully, and I was so happy to hear that because as I've said on here on many occasions it's an issue that's so close to my heart and stories like this can really help fight against the stigma against helping the homeless because people are scared or selfish. I won't go on about my feelings on the matter any more though, because I've already documented them in great length on here in past posts. But yeah, that was my day. Looking forward to court tomorrow and we'll see what else the day brings. Hopefully I'll get some good sleep, because I was noticeably tired throughout the morning unfortunately, though it did dissipate throughout the day. And yeah, that's it. Goodnight sweet things. Hope you had a lovely Tuesday.

[eurolinguiste]

Welcome to this year’s 5th (jeez!) #clearthelist. 

If you’re new around these parts, #clearthelist is a linkup where we share our monthly goals, and by we, I mean myself, Lindsay of Lindsay Does Languages, Kris Broholm of Actual Fluency, and Angel Pretot of French Lover.

We’d absolutely love for you to a part of our community. You can join us by adding a link to your own goal post below.

So let’s get started, sharing our goals and motivating one another to #clearthelist!

Please feel free to tag your posts or photos with either #clearthelist on your favorite social media channels!

Last Month’s Highlights on Instagram

A post shared by Shannon Kennedy (@eurolinguiste) on Apr 21, 2017 at 11:43am PDT

Last Month’s Blog Highlights

Travel

A Tour of the Jameson Whiskey Distillery in Dublin, Ireland // I absolutely love doing this tours and learning about the history and process that goes into creating different products. Plus, when you do the tour in your target language, it’s a great learning hack!

The Royal Saltworks in France // This was a fascinating museum I had the chance to visit while in East France.

  Language Learning

10 French Books, Songs, TV Shows & Films to Help You Learn the Language // An excellent guest post from French Affliction.

A Review of LingQ // One of my (now) favourite language learning resources.

Why Games are an Important Language Learning Tool // I teamed up with Clozemaster to share just how you can use games to learn a language.

Last Month’s Goals

Continue filling the gaps in my Mandarin vocabulary I’ve noticed since Little Linguist’s arrival. // I found a really cool way to do this using LingQ and Memrise. I shared how to do it in a video as a part of my review.

Read one more language related book. // I finished that Spanish Grammar book – yay! Getting through all the rules about the subjunctive, the difference between para and por, the differences between ser and estar, and verb use exceptions was brain melting.

Keep playing Zelda Ocarina of Time in Mandarin Chinese. // Nope.

Stay ahead reading my language reading challenge books. // Sort of. I kind of did that thing again where I am in the middle of 20+ books because I’m weird like that. 

Keep working through my YouTube Queue.  // Yes! For the record, since someone asked last month, my YouTube Queue are all the ‘watch later’ videos that I saved. They range from Steve Kaufman’s updates on his 90 day Korean challenge to lessons from RussianPod101 to the Easy Languages series for Spanish, Croatian, and Russian. I currently have more than 700 videos in this queue. At one point I had it down to 400, but everyone just keeps putting out such great language learning content!

Keep reading my other Pooh Bear book in Chinese // I did, but my pace slowed down quite a bit. I only got through a few pages per week. 

Add words from Chinese readings into my Memrise Chinese deck. // Yes! Now I just need to start studying the deck. Ha.

Have something I’m reading that’s in French or Spanish. // I am still working through the books from last month, so as long as I make sure I spend time reading, this is an easy one.

Do the last 15 Pimsleur Chinese V Lessons. // Yes! I’ve officially finished all five Pimsleur Chinese courses.

This Month’s Goals

Continue filling the gaps in my Mandarin vocabulary I’ve noticed since Little Linguist’s arrival. // As long as I’m still speaking to Little Linguist in Chinese, this one is here to stay. And it will always be a priority.

Read one more language related book. // I have some ideas what this might be, but haven’t firmly decided yet.

Transcribe the dialogues from Zelda Ocarina of Time in Mandarin Chinese that I currently have saved. // Since I probably won’t play this game this month, I can, at the very least, transcribe what I’ve already saved.

Once again get ahead reading my language reading challenge books. // Because I like being on top of things.

Keep working through my YouTube Queue.  // At least one video for every day of the month. Some are as short as 30 seconds. I can manage this.

Keep reading my other Pooh Bear book in Chinese // As much as I love Pooh Bear, I’m kind of tired of it and want to work on something different. I started reading Hunger Games in Chinese with LingQ and I’d like to focus my attention on this, but I can’t when I feel guilty for not having finished this book.

Keep adding words from Chinese readings into my Memrise Chinese deck AND THEN STUDY THEM. // It’s great that I’ve been making all these lovely flashcards in Memrise, but it’s kind of silly that I haven’t started studying them. So, there’s an obvious next step for me.

Have something I’m reading that’s in French or Spanish. // I am still working through the books from last month, so as long as I make sure I spend time reading, this is an easy one. For the record, The Name of the Wind is really long, so I hope you don’t get bored with the fact I’m probably going to take months to read it.

Start to work through all those podcasts taking space on my phone. // This includes Melnyk’s, ChineseClass101, Slow Chinese, and a few other podcasts that I’ve been waiting to get to while I work through Pimsleur.

Resources I Used This Month

A quick recap on the materials I am using.

What I Am Using to Learn Chinese

LingQ – my new favourite tool, I kid you not

iTalki Lessons – I have weekly Chinese lessons

Pimsleur V 

Memrise – I do 12,000 points minimum per day (this will shift to 18,000 when I start studying my personalized Chinese deck)

ChineseClass101

Melnyk’s

Antosch & Lin email newsletters

FluentU 

DramaFever

Chinese version of the Nintendo 64

What I’m Using to Brush Up/Improve My French:

LingQ

Immersion (we speak franglais at home)

Reading books written by French authors

Listening to French radio/podcasts

Chatting with family

Watching movies and other videos in French

What I am Using to Learn Russian:

LingQ

Perfectionnement Russe

RussianPod101

iTalki Lessons

The penmanship practice books from Russian Step-by-Step (a lot of you have been asking me about these)

Memrise

Pimsleur

What I am Using to Learn Korean:

LingQ

Memrise

Assimil’s Korean Phrasebook

Pimsleur

Trial of 90 Day Korean

What I am Using to Learn Spanish:

LingQ

Lingoda (use code FM2J6Y )

Coffee Break Spanish

Schaum’s Spanish Grammar

What I’m Using for Little Linguist

Pooh Bear and Baby Bear

Little Pim

Finding Dory

YouTube

Day-to-day interaction

His Chinese lullaby is from Mantou Riji, I also sing him “You are my Sunshine” in Chinese, and his French is Une Souris Verte

Flashcards from Tuttle

The Biggest Lesson I Am Taking Away from This Month

  Studying with a baby can be fun. I get to practice speaking by reading to him out loud in the different languages I’m learning. It’s interesting to see which languages he doesn’t like the sound of (or maybe just my accent) and which he does. 

The performance aspect of it also adds an interesting dynamic to when I just read aloud on my own. Finding the time to learn a language with a little one can be tough – they need attention (and deserve it!) so finding the time to focus for long periods has been pushed back to after bedtime (if I still have the energy for it). It’s forced me to be pretty creative with how I study and try out things that I wouldn’t have before he joined us. 

There are some things I miss about how I learnt before, but I wouldn’t change any of it. Honestly. 

Don’t forget that I would love to hear all about your goals for this month! Please join us by adding your post to the linkup below! 

Clear The List Linkup Rules:

1. Share your goal post whether it includes your aspirations for the month or year. Submissions unrelated to the theme or links to your homepage will be deleted.

2. Link back to this post. You can use our button if you wish.

3. Follow the hosts: Lindsay from Lindsay Does Languages, Shannon from Eurolinguiste, Kris from Actual Fluency, and Angel from French Lover.

4. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: Please visit the site of the person who linked up immediately before you and leave them an encouraging comment! By hosting this linkup, we’re hoping to create a positive community where we can all share our goals. If you do not do this, you will be removed from the linkup.

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