#I was gonna write more but apparently I hit some sort of word limit or whatever????

[estbela]

@moonstone-vibe

Wellllll...I do have some thoughts about them(since I think that's what you're asking?) but theyre all very rambley and subject to change as I learn more etc etc etc (and this period of history is not one I'm very familiar with, I know a basic summary of stuff and some specific events, but not everything).

Alright, since we have gotten the (really long) disclaimer out of the way, I'm gonna ramble on a bit about these thoughts of mine.

(This took so much to write i stg)

anyway!

I think they met during the 14th century, the late 14th century to be precise, while the Ottoman Empire was expanding through Europe.

Apparently the first confrontation they had was during the rule of Vladislav I , a ruler of Wallachia, who was allied at the time with Ivan Shishman , the emperor of the Bulgaria in Tarnovo, who was not doing very well at the time btw, partly because of the Ottoman Empire lol.

Bulgaria is gonna be mentioned a lot during this, I fear, because I think he does play some role in their dynamic.

Ro, or well as he would have been called at the time, Wallachia, had been part of the Second Bulgarian Empire for a pretty long time, though eventually gaining more and more autonomy, and sort of becoming a vassal state of sorts for a time(basically still kinda being part of Bulgaria, but nominally really), still having to pay tribute to Bul tho. (Also for some time Hungary & Bul basically had a dispute over some part of Wallachia, but as Hungary was weakening due to Mongol attacks, it paved the way to Wallachia being established)

Although that's not important and Im kinda getting sidetracked. Anyway Wallachia does kinda get it's independence, altho it's more like Bul not being able to control it anymore due to the weakening of his empire (before becoming a vassal of the Otttoman Empire, which we'll get to shortly!)

I think they heard of eachoter before meeting, thought. Probably good and bad things, but mostly bad. For Wallachia, Ottoman was the guy that was going around conquering the lands of his friends, including Bulgaria & Serbia, and she...was not really happy about this, obviously. He was actually often allied with Bul, to fight him off(altho not always, relationships between Bul & Wallachia were not always good). For the Ottoman Empire, Wallachia was a thorn in his plans, Bulgaria's even more annoying other half.

Similar to the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire considered itself the successor to Ancient Rome, which really annoyed Wallachia, because he really didn't want to deal with another annoying guy who considered himself as great as the Roman Empire (Wallachia did not have a good relationship with the Eastern Roman Empire, but he would pick him over the Ottoman Empire surely).

And so, Ro did not see Ottoman as anything other than another empire trying to claim the glory of Rome, that would probably not last very long until the next one came. Simply a flicker in mankind's history. He had done and seen this before many times, just another nation that would try to claim her land and people. He was not scared of him, didn't feel much for him besides annoyance at first.

But I do think, over the years, they gained some respect for eachoter, for their skills in battle and outside of that.

Also annoyance eventually turned into anger at him, because how dare he take his friends away from him and hurt them! How dare he take Wallachia's independence away, too!

And so he became even more annoying. His plans were basically to not make it worthwhile to conquer his lands, to make the cost of a battle unjustifiable.

And they did fight, but Wallachia always somehow managed to keep being a vassal state, part of the reason because he was a buffer zone for a lot of european powers and stuff.

And like...I think this fighting of theirs became some sort of "dance" for them, something they were used to. Their own game of chess, if you will. Turk would make a move, then Ro, and it kept going, none of them ever truly changing the status quo, Wallachia remaining a vassal but never truly part of the Ottoman Empire, always slightly out of reach, never his.

It probably drove Turkey a little mad, but he also kinda liked it. I think when they weren't enemies they could get along pretty great, but both of them would rather eat knives than admit that (especially Ro :]]] )

I'll be honest, i think there were moments when Wallachia scared the crap out of Turkey, not that he'd admit it, of course, but little Ro could be really creepy.

The Ottoman Empire didn't scare Ro much, more like the reminder of what he could do to Ro and his loved ones(and what he already did) scared her, and his people also. Specifically that if Wallachia wasn't careful, the little freedom & independence he has could be taken away.

So Wallachia when he'd interact with him during times of peace ig, would always be careful to not actually get attached to the guy, constantly reminding herself of what he could be like. He always treaded lightly around him. Constantly telling herself that he's the enemy!!!

As time went on however, their relations got more...tense then they already were. Wallachia wanted independence and later a union with Moldavia and the Ottoman Empire did not want this to happen.

And of course, I ought to mention the Phanariots. God, save for maybe a few of them, Wallachia hated them so much! And sometimes it wasn't anything they did, it was more that they weren't his own people, and paying to get to rule over him and his people and lands. Definitely not happy about this was he.

Anyway eventually the whole thing happens when Moldavia & Wallachia elect the same guy (Alexandru Ioan Cuza) yada yada yada they unite and Turkey is probably not really happy (random, but apparently Austria was actually the main opposer of this while Prussia supported the union, and really not happy but was caught in the austro-prussian war do couldn't do much about it.)

And eventually Romania gains his independence, fighting alongside the Russian Empire, Bulgaria, and also Serbia & Montenegro I think? Anyway Romania gets her independence, and he & the Ottoman Empire are on pretty bad terms.

But after Romania became independent; things actually, slowly, started to improve between the two. They became...friends of a sort. Although they both wouldn't admit it obviously, they are fond od eachoter. They probably even look fondly back on some of their memories and shit.

But they don't have the best relationship either. That perhaps, there is still some resentment and hurt there, just a little, that neither is keen on adressing ever.

Anyway I don't particulary see them as romantic but I can imagine Ro getting probably mad at Bulgaria or something, feeling hurt and probably flirting with Turkey to piss him off.

I can see Ro kissing Turkey but like, to surprise him in order to fight him or something. Kiss him then surprise punch him while he's trying to process it haha.

Also I basically have my physical age headcanons written for Ro here but I basically see Turkey as being always a few years older than Ro historically, like 2, or 3 at most? (which is probably way younger than in canon, but then again, canon is dead and we do what we want.) I see Turkey as being in modern times in his mid to late 20s, at most, early 30s (I see him being called an "old man" but he doesn't look that old to me AT ALL so I'm really confused, plus it wouldn't make sense for him to be way older than the main cast for a lot of reasons etc etc. But maybe it's just me idk)

So yeah, I don't see turkro romantically, I guess? Nonetheless they have the potential of a very interesting and fun(and perhaps a little fucked up :] ) dynamic. Perhaps a little romance here and there, maybe in the current era, but they'd both have to go through a lot of character development for that :]]]

These days, they probably hang out sometimes, do stupid shit together, and actually have a really fun time. They probably recall some of their more fun memories, talk about the times they won in a conflict with the other, argue about something then get drunk and laugh with eachoter.

also a lot of these things also apply to my Moldavia OC and her relationship with Turkey, altho not all cause her personality is different from Romania's obviously.

[lemonlurkrr]

@aureateart​ ok. My favourite parts of twilight princess  (and some other random thoughts about TP sprinkled in there) taken from my monster TP word vomit google doc :

Link lmao

Ok but for real, I like this incarnation of Link :)

I love Ordon (it just seems like such a chill and cozy village)

ALSO love how easy it is to interpret Link as being a sort of older brother figure to the Ordon kiddos. It’s just,, super cute? AND GHHH nice nice good thanks nintendo for giving me characters to care about/characters that I can imagine Link caring about

He didn’t sign up for any of this (tbh, none of the Links really signed up for this jshdjsd). But I mean like, dude was just going to take a trip to castle town, drop a gift off for the royal family, and come back. But haHA oopsies he did get to castle town eventually but definitely not the way he expected hsjdhsd

He’s just a little dude?

AND FUCK. HE REALLY HAD NEVER BEEN OUTSIDE OF ORDON UNTIL ALL OF THAT

everything is new for the player AND Link

Midna

She’s cool :)

she really just

*teleports into your jail cell* hello whore.

I am no master at writing but AYYYY she do got a character arc!!!

She was actually pretty helpful sometimes, I ALWAYS checked in with her before turning to a game guide

Other NPCs

NICE

Love all of the TP character designs (ASHEI’S ARMOUR??? AOWOAOAOOAO)

Saving Zelda and all of Hyrule was important yea but thinking back maybe it was more like, the Ordonians and the kids were what was pushing Link to keep on going

I like the Resistance members :) Very video gamey of them to have one NPC assigned to each dungeon but hey!!! Kinda cool getting to see a little glimpse of each of em

Idk, it’s just fun to imagine Link popping into Telma’s bar after each dungeon and taking a little rest :) (or to celebrate? maybe just chat, idk, give this man some downtime!!)

Honestly it was just kind of nice that Link wasn’t entirely alone. I mean, I know Midna was there the whole time, but I am always for giving Link a big group of friends (see my love for hyrule warriors, age of calamity, and LU LMAO)

Hero’s shade, very very cool, kinda sad he died with regrets but HEY. He got to pass on his knowledge eventually

AND the connection to OoT?? AND assumed to be related by blood too????? GOOD SHIT

Ilia, I REALLY really wanted to like her (er, it’s not like I dislike her, she’s just,,, kinda there for me).

It definitely seems like Nintendo was pushing to make her the romantic interest, but GHHHHH they really threw that out of the window for me by having her lose her memories

I saw a text post a while ago that said it would have been interesting if Ilia was Link’s sister instead and YES!! That would have been cool too :0

Wish we got to know Zelda a little more

I feel like we barely know anything about her

Idk man, like I said earlier, I never really had any sort of drive to save Zelda during my playthroughs

She obviously knows Midna, so maybe if they gave us just a little bit more of that relationship I’d be more interested in her?

TP WORLD BUILDINGGGG

Botw has good world building too, but each race felt kinda,,, isolated? I absolutely love the different architecture and vibe each town has (and all the the weapons too) but ghhh yea everyone felt so separated. As far as I can remember, we don’t see tooo much of the races interacting with each other? Now that I’m typing that out maybe that’s to be expected because of the calamity but KLSJDKJFD ANYWAYS THIS IS ABOUT TP

The world feels nice and alive, love how populated everything is

Castle town I like castle town a lot, it feels dense and busy and I really like how you can’t talk to every NPC you see

Very cool very fun that we got to see the Gorons hanging out in multiple spots

kinda wish we got to see the Zoras a little more (I guess they are a bit limited since they need water but GHHHH the tp zoras are so prebby,,)

BUT HEY, I do remember seeing a zora or two hanging out in the hot springs around death mountain after beating the lakebed temple (I think, might have been a different dungeon) 

but aaaa would have been nice to see them in at least a couple of other places. I think it would have really added to the “congrats Link!! You’re restoring peace to Hyrule” feeling you get from seeing the Gorons hanging out in Kakariko and Castle Town

ORDON

Love how chill it is and how it’s kind of separate from Hyrule proper

They really do seem to be doing their own thing apart from the rest of Hyrule

Just kinda adds onto the “he’s just a regular dude minding his own business” kind of vibes I get from TP Link

Also I like Ordona :)

THE LIGHT SPIRITS,,

Love their design

And love how they’re not exactly like a pure white?

Different spirit representing each aspect of the triforce my beloved

But yes hi I think Ordona is very cool

Who are you, how did you get here, which goddess do you represent? Do you even represent one of the three golden goddesses? Do the Ordonians know about you? Have any of them ever SEEN you??? Do they worship you? Does anybody even know about the existence of the light spirits?? FUCK so many questions but ghhh I like how they broke the status quo a bit by throwing in a fourth spirit :)

I feel like this one is kinda weird but I like that voice sample they used in the light spirit music. It’s spooky and pretty at the same time :)  

cutscenes mmmmm

Ok ok, the spooky lanayru cutscene is very good

BUT THE “Link, Chosen Hero! Lend us the last of your power!” CUTSCENE MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM LOVE IT SO MUCH

IT just

Idk man

It just hit different

I like the music

And seeing the light spirits swimming around in the light juice water whatever it is

Summoning the light arrows?

AND HHHHH “Lend us the last of your power!” THIS IS IT. This is the final battle.

Seeing Zelda bow down, and then Link putting his hand out 👌👌👌

Link: ok bud, let’s do this together :)

Connection to OoT (did I already mention this? Maybe., Whatever)

Very cool nintendo :)

I love seeing connections between all the diff zelda games.

Because like, on one hand, they’re all separate from each other because of yknow, individual hero stuff. BUT ALSO, they’re all connected because of the reincarnation stuff

Grrrr walking through the sacred grove and going “The Hero of Time walked around here a long time ago” FUCK THATS SO COOL

Is the Hero’s Shade watching me? What does he think of me? DIsappointed? Proud? The Hero of Time went through HELL so this timeline didn’t have to deal with any of the shit Ganon was gonna pull with the triforce, better not fuck this UP Link!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Midlink is cute

Kinda hurts that she smashed the mirror but that was probably so Nintendo didn’t have to worry about people going “but what about the twili??????” for any of the other games LMAO

BUT ALSO LIKE SKJDKLJFJ There are some pretty massive plot holes in TP anyway so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ whatever it’s fine we’ll just use this for angst because GOD do y’all like angst

So is Shadlink

Honestly don’t know where this ship came from but it’s cute so whatever

THE MUSIC??

Love Midna’s theme and how they referenced the dark world theme from ALttP (I remember trying to learn the dark world theme on the piano and doing the Leonardo DiCaprio point meme at the little jingle I recognized from Midna’s theme)

Hyrule field theme SLAPS.

Apparently references a couple of the other over-world themes from the previous zelda games (I got this from 8-bit Music theory’s video on the over-world zelda themes, he talks about TP at around 11:40 but def recommend watching the whole video if you’re into music analysis stuff)

So there’s this bit of the Hyrule Field theme, I don’t know the official name for it but I remember seeing somewhere it being called the “at an advantage theme” since yeah, you hear it during the boss music whenever you expose their weak points. FUCKINGGG LOVE THAT. Didn’t notice it during my first playthrough, but hearing it during my second was like a little easter egg for my ears every time :)

Midna’s lament is very pretty (and fun to play on the piano)

COURAGE THEME.

I didn’t care for it too much when I started playing the game but hearing it in ZREO’s arrangement of the Hyrule Field theme literally makes me turn into a puddle of emotions. Also hearing it around and of the Ordon kids (I think it plays after Link saves Colin) AAAAAAAAAAAAA

Orchestra piece #1 and #2 HOLY SHIT???????????????? 

Literally, the first time I listened to those I just,,,, plugged in my headphones, volume 100, layed on the floor/against my desk and silently vibed. I don’t know what the hell it is, but those two just fit so well with TP?? I still avoid listening to them nowadays cause if I DO I definitely will get overwhelmed with the “god I love this game so FUCKING MUCH” kind of feels.

Wolf link sucks at singing

the first time I heard him howling Zelda’s Lullaby I lost my shit because LKSJLDKSGLKJFSKG god that was.,, Bad. Anyways, hearing him howl some of the songs from OoT was cute :)

TP STAFF ROLL??? 

VERY GOOD. IT’s like 10 minutes long and GOD do I love every single second of it. It doesn’t have the same energy as the skyward sword staff roll or the orchestra pieces but GOD does it hit good??

Nice and calm after that big exciting adventure. Maybe it would have been more fun or emotional to have a higher energy piece but it was really nice getting to sit back and watch the camera fly around Hyrule. Seeing like, the Gorons and the Zoras having a good time, the kids returning to Ordon? GOOD SHIT.

and AAAAA that end, when you hear the main Zelda theme and see Link riding off out of Faron woods on Epona… good shit. It gets you thinking, where the hell is he going? What is he doing? Off ot do more adventuring? Going to help out the resistance or something? Going to help Zelda? Or maybe he’s trying to figure out a way to restore the mirror of twilight? Whoooo knows.

hhHHHHhhh it’s just that final reminder that YES!!! YOU JUST PLAYED A ZELDA GAME. JUST ANOTHER STORY APART OF THE WHOLE EPIC OF THE ZELDA SERIES AS A WHOLE

I also want to acknowledge the instrument/samples they used for all the twili stuff.

They’re all just so unique and contrast SO well with the rest of the TP OST. LIKE FUCK!! Anytime I hear the screech from the Twilit Kargarok? Sends a shiver down my spine. I associate those sounds SO strongly with the twili realm. (Like, the same way you associate the BSHEWW VVWWMMM sounds with light sabers)

I love it so god damn much

literally any time there’s a certain sound or motif associated with something I lose my shit

Sacred grove sacred grove sacred gro-

lovely lovely lovely so much fun playing that on the piano. AND again, I did the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme when I heard the theme from the lost woods come in GHHHHHHHH

shoutout to TP Faron Woods for helping me study and get through all of my schoolwork

BLEGUUHHH can you tell that I really love music?

and also yea I guess TP is kinda cool too :\

IF YOU READ ALL OF THAT THANKS I GUESS

[mittensmorgul]

So, Signs that 15x20 isn't real: El Sol beer; warm, saturated lighting; Dean's choice of clothes. Signs the writers were silenced: cut-out-tongue-vampire-thing. Sign it's about sexual repression: Vampires! Sign it's all about the gay: Dean was nailed from behind. Anything else to add to that list of symbols? Because this looks like the writers winking SOS at us in a kidnapper's video.

oh gosh... I keep meaning to rewatch the finale and make a full list of it all, because this is tip of the iceberg stuff. But I just... heck I just don’t want to watch it again :’D

That rewatch is on the agenda, and I’m currently watching 15.09 on the eternal loop. According to the TNT schedule, they’re showing 15.20 on Tuesday, looping directly back to the pilot immediately afterward. So... if I do decide to watch that (and I haven’t decided yet), that’s... gonna be some wild whiplash...

But anyway, back to the question!

You have a pretty good list going there...

I’ll add these things that made the episode feel like not-a-finale:

-no Road So Far segment, or even any sort of “important moments from the last 15 years that brought us to this point” sort of montage/retrospective of their lives

-no Carry On Wayward Son at the beginning, but TWO versions of it back to back at the end

And these things that were just general wtf moments for me:

-Sam? cooking breakfast? since when does Sam make breakfast, ever? that’s Dean’s thing

-Dean, with a dog? since when has Dean ever wanted a dog? That’s Sam’s thing

-Dean makes his bed, and it looks messier when he’s done than before he started (this is... not Dean-like... I actually went back and checked previous shots of his room)

-they never, not once in the episode, act like they have even one (1) single friend or any sort of goal or direction in life, which is weird...

-apparently they’d been unable to find a hunt, making it seem like the supernatural world had been quiet (for a moment I thought maybe monsters were no longer a problem in a post-Chuck world), until they stumbled on a hunt out of nowhere after choosing to go to a pie festival... as if the moment they chose to do something to move on and just have fun, suddenly there was work for them to do and they immediately abandoned everything to hunt these mystery monsters from John’s journal, which turned out to be a trap for them (specifically for them? considering the rando s1 vampire seemed to have lured them there?)

-The fact Dean recognized this vampire he never even interacted with and somehow magically knew her name, despite it never having been stated in canon and, again, Dean never having interacted with her outside of watching her escape with the vampire who actually DID bear them a grudge from 1.20...

-the weird lingering close up shot of the rebar during the fight scene

-the invocation of “destiny” and “don’t have a choice” as they went into a freaking pie festival... this hits bad right now because I’m rewatching 15.09 in the background as I type this, and it was almost word for word what the Dean in Chuck’s vision of the future said to Sam as they resigned themselves to go off on their final hunt (which was vampires btw), which they lost because in the next scene Sam and Dean have become vampires and are both killed... so like... this was Chuck’s story. The trappings might’ve been different, but it was still fundamentally the same... Cas locked away in a terrible place (ma’lak box in Chuck’s story, Empty in Dabb’s), Dean resigned to his fate because of a vampire hunt gone bad.

-then the pie festival itself... Dean’s got a huge tray with half a dozen different varieties he’s excited to try (purchased from Dabb’s Pies...), is eager to taste them all (like... metaphorically trying out different “apple pie life” ending scenarios, because he’s finally free to explore and maybe he actually wants the pecan pie life...), but before he can even taste the first bite, Sam... chooses one and smashes it in Dean’s face.

-even weirder, Dean never once in the episode says Cas’s name, or seemed even once to give a dang about Cas at all... and handwaved it when Sam mentioned Cas and Jack. It had been like... days, on screen (if they’d intended for more time to have passed, they would’ve indicated that on screen, and they did not... they showed us MAYBE three days passing since the events of 15.19). So like... did Dean have a personality transplant or what. Sam says Cas’s name in the ep, Bobby says it in Heaven. Dean... never does. Which is weird, considering how many times he’s said Cas in canon over the years, to the point it’s literally become memes...

-jumping around a bit here, but why Masked Vampires? Why had John failed to figure out they were vampires originally? Because he believed vampires were extinct? because he hadn’t been told they existed at all yet when he’d confronted them in 1986? Was John suddenly just A Bad Hunter after years of canon reinforcing that he was actually a really good hunter?

-and why THIS WEIRD CONGLOMORATION OF JOHN-RELATED CASE NONSENSE? From his journal to the murder clowns to rando vampire from their first vamp hunt? It’s like the perfect storm of erasing the last 15 years just to “bring it back to the start” to end it all like it could’ve had this been s1 still.

-speaking of John, and the El Sol in Heaven... WHY would Bobby hand Dean “John’s Beer” in Heaven? Especially since Dean expressed the fact that he didn’t even like it? Like... why wouldn’t he have been handed a beer he actually ENJOYED in Paradise? Why force a John Beer on him when he could literally have anything he wanted?

-and why was Heaven for Dean, in a place where he could literally have anything he wanted, go anywhere and do anything, why was he just driving through the woods along back roads? After years of talking about how he wanted to go “toes in the sand,” take a vacation, go fishing, or even finally get to eat a piece of pie? Or like ANYTHING he’d talked about wanting to do over the years that he never had a chance to... but apparently the thing he’d arguably spent the most time during his life doing is the only thing he wanted to do now that every possibility was open to him? Yeah, no that’s stupid...

-Tree (the final shot of 15.04 with bobblehead Sam and Dean by the tree like they didn’t have a thought of their own, Chuck’s plastic figurines dancing on his orders, very much like where they randomly parked and had the “vamp mime” conversation)

-Dean casually resorting to the threat of torture after YEARS of the show condemning this choice. Dean gratuitously being “a killer” when his acceptance of the fact that that’s not who he was in the previous episode was literally the thing that defeated Chuck... like... this was entirely stupid...

-just... the pacing of the episode was so weirdly wonky, with random cuts and no sense of time passing anywhere, nor interconnectedness between scenes, and the weirdly uncomfortable interminable death scene. Like, it looked like the death scene of a soap opera heroine. It was upsetting when Dean hit the spike and realized what had happened, but then he just... lingered... dangling on the hook for Sam’s benefit. Like Dean was nothing more than set decoration like a framed portrait for Sam to hang up and walk away from. Which is weird... and stupid... Dabb knows how to do pacing, and it’s like he forgot everything he ever knew about writing to force this “good way to die” trope, as if the previous 15 years of the show hadn’t been spent denouncing (and Dean finally overcoming) this mindset of “I always knew I’d go down swinging” or whatever. WHY. IT WAS STUPID.

-Wig

there’s probably more, but I’m tired and have reached my daily limit for the wtf of this episode >.>

Anyone else, please feel free to add more.

[cosmicgoddesswrites]

Punch Drunk

Boxer!Kuroo x F!Reader

Summary: Kuroo Tetsuro dreams of making a name for himself in the city as one of the best boxers out there. But he can’t do that without a a gym to train at. Luckily for him, his best friend happens to know a hardass gym owner with a soft spot for dummies.

Word Count: 7,278

Warnings: Some violence (descriptions of boxing matches), bl00d, swearing. Slightly N*FW

Author’s Note: This won’t necessarily be a series, but I will be revisiting this AU in future one-shots. View this as sort of an introductory to the characters and the setting, as well as the romance between Kuroo and (Y/n).

Kuroo stared out the window of the cab he had called to get him to the address Bokuto had sent him.

The gym was deep in the city, thankfully not too far from Kuroo’s apartment. At least, that was Bokuto’s main selling point to get him to go.

Kuroo would have happily stayed at the gym a block away from his apartment… if he hadn’t been kicked out for ‘starting a fight.’ Kuroo didn’t necessarily start the fight… he didn’t end it either.

His mom always told him that mouth of his would get him into trouble. She of course was right.

The cab pulled to a sudden stop, causing Kuroo to lurch forward in his seat and the seatbelt to dig into his stomach. He narrowed his eyes at the cab driver before paying the fare and getting out of the vehicle.

He scanned the busy sidewalk, smiling once he caught sight of Bokuto waiting for him at the doors of the gym. The two greeted each other, exchanging a quick bro hug before parting and turning in unison towards the gym.

“So, this is (L/n) and Son’s, huh?” Kuroo asked, taking in the sight of the worn out sign above their heads. “I did some reading up on this place, apparently it’s famous.”

“That’s cuz (L/n) was a boxing legend! This place is pretty exclusive, you’re lucky you have a friend on the inside who could get you in with the owner!” Bokuto boasted, leading his friend inside the dimly lit gym.

Kuroo looked around, noticing the limited amount of people taking up the space. He expected it to be a lot more busy, given its reputation.

Rap music played over the speakers, barely audible due to the grunts and shouts coming from the people sparring in the boxing ring to the right of the door.

Kuroo spotted a man sitting in an office situated in the far corner of the gym. He began making his way there, only for Bokuto to grab his arm and stop him mid-stride.

“Where are you going?” he asked, tilting his head.

“To talk to (L/n) and or his son.” Kuroo responded, motioning towards the man who was now leaving his office.

Bokuto laughed awkwardly, “R-right, about that… there is no son in (L/n) and Son’s… That’s one of the trainers. Our girl’s over there.” He pointed towards a woman currently facing off against a stand-up punching bag.

Kuroo looked around, hoping no one had noticed his blunder as he adjusted his gym bag over his shoulder. He followed Bokuto to the section of the gym the woman was in, noting her impressive form as she continued training.

“(Y/n)~~~” Bokuto sang, catching her attention. She turned away from the bag, panting hard as she clenched and unclenched her fists.

“You’re late… None of my other trainers are ever late…”

Bokuto gave her a bashful smile, “Yeahhh well I had to wait for my friend to get here! He wants to enroll!” He motioned towards Kuroo, who smiled and waved at her.

(Y/n) sighed, glancing between the two men as she began unwrapping her hands. “Fine. Go get ready for your 11o’clock. I’ll take care of him.”

Bokuto saluted her before retreating into the men’s locker room.

“Well, let’s get this taken care of, newbie.” (Y/n) said, motioning for Kuroo to follow her to her office.

She took off her tank top as they entered, tossing it aside shamelessly and leaving her in a sport bra and sweatpants. (Y/n) flopped into the desk chair, grabbing a towel from nearby and wiping the sweat off her body.

Kuroo didn’t realize he was staring until she looked up at him and motioned for him to sit down.

“So, what kind of experience do you have?” she asked, pulling out a clipboard with a couple forms on it.

“Well, I did some boxing in high school. Nothing really serious though, it was more just for fun.” he said, looking around at all the photos in the room. He saw one of a man flexing his muscles with a toddler holding onto his bicep and being lifted off the ground. After staring at it for a good minute, he realized it was (Y/n) and her father.

“And is this for recreation? Or are we looking at a future boxing champion?” (Y/n) teased, sliding the clipboard across the messy desk and towards him.

Kuroo smirked slightly as he began writing down his information. “Best case scenario, boxing champion. Worse case scenario, just a punching bag that bets against myself in fights.”

He felt something within himself flutter as (Y/n) cracked a smile at his joke. “Well, we’ll see what we can do to help that. Is Kou gonna train you?”

Kuroo finished up the paperwork and handed her the clipboard. “Could you?”

She snorted as she took the clipboard from him and began looking over his information. “Honey, you couldn’t afford me. License and credit card, please.”

Kuroo laughed loudly, handing her the cards and ignoring the looks they received from the people outside the office.

She wrote down the information then handed him his cards back. “Alright, gym is all yours. No breaking the equipment, and don’t go starting fights. If you have a problem with someone you take it outside. You already know where the locker room is, if you need anything ask Kou.”

Kuroo gave her a small smirk, “Can’t I ask you?”

(Y/n) narrowed her eyes at him slightly, a smirk of her own painting her features. “No. Now go on.”

Kuroo hurried out of the office, giving her one last glance before making his way to the locker room. He ran into Bokuto on his way there.

“Sooo… she’s cute huh?” Bokuto asked, wiggling his eyebrows at his friend.

Kuroo gave him a small shove. “You should’ve told me the owner was an attractive woman. I would have brought more appealing gym clothes.”

“Hey hey! Don’t get mad at me… just show off extra hard for her then.”

Bokuto whined, waving him off as he left to grab some bottled waters for the person he was training.

Kuroo changed into his gym clothes and began wandering around the gym, settling on doing simple combos on one of the many punching bags in the gym. It wasn’t until (Y/n) left her office that Kuroo began getting into his workout, throwing harder and more frequent punches.

She walked right past him and into the women’s locker room, presumably to shower.

Well, now he had to keep working out that hard or the other patrons would catch on to his peacocking. He figured he’d train a couple more minutes like that on the bag before he was in the clear, then he’d take a water break and find something else to do.

“Kuroo!”

He jumped at the mention of his name, turning to glare at his spiky haired friend who had just barked his name. Bokuto was currently standing in the ring, the biggest man Kuroo had ever seen standing beside him.

Bokuto sent him a bright smile as he waved him over, “Come on into the ring, bud! There’s someone I wanna introduce you to!”

Kuroo huffed, leaving the bag and climbing into the ring.

“Kuroo, this is my trainee, Ushijima!” Bokuto announced, wrapping an arm around Kuroo as he motioned towards the larger man. “He has a fight coming up in a couple weeks and I need someone to spar with him so I can critique his technique!”

Kuroo was half processing the words coming out of his mouth, too busy taking in the wall of muscle standing before him. They had to be about the same height, but Jesus. This guy was a monster…

“So? Think you can help us out?” Bokuto said, raising an eyebrow at his friend.

“Sure… yeah, I can do that…” Kuroo gulped, trying his best not to stutter and give away his anxiety. He quickly turned, picking up and putting on the spare protective gear his friend had left in the corner of the ring.

Once he turned to Ushijima, he swallowed his anxiety and put his gloves up. One of the trainers out of the ring rang a bell, signaling them to begin sparring.

Ushijima was on him in an instant, throwing the first punch as Kuroo kept his gloves up, blocking the hit but still being rocked by the heavy blow. He was sure he heard Bokuto barking instructions, but Kuroo was too busy trying not to die to listen to the trainer’s words.

He finally took a hit to the jaw after his opponent faked him out. Kuroo dropped to his knee, grunting as he struggled to cup his face with his gloved hand.

“Kuroo! You okay?!” Bokuto asked.

Kuroo moved back onto his feet, “Just a little tickle…” he said through his mouth-guard. Once he seemed to maintain his balance the bell rang, and Kuroo was once again dodging the first hit from Ushijima.

He decided to stay lighter on his feet, dancing around the ring in an attempt to tire out the other boxer. His tactic seemed to be working. As Ushijima struggled to keep up with him, Kuroo moved in close and landed a hit on his jaw.

Without warning, Ushijima quickly recovered and sent a harsh blow to Kuroo’s gut, sending him back to the floor.

Kuroo gasped for air as he laid in a heap, crumbled over himself. He blocked out Bokuto’s voice, trying to focus his breathing to recover.

“Did that tickle too?”

It was Kuroo’s first time ever hearing his opponent’s voice, but it was Ushijima without a doubt who had sent the taunt his way.

Kuroo slowly stood up, ignoring the ache in his stomach as he glared daggers at the other trainee. He didn’t even wait for the bell to signal the start of the next round. He just stalked towards Ushijima, arms at his sides and fire in his eyes.

No surprise, Ushijima took the first swing. But Kuroo ducked out of the way before hitting him with a two-hit combo. They were light hits, something to throw the more muscular boxer off rather than cause damage.

Bokuto was yelling for Kuroo to put his gloves up, his orders falling on deaf ears.

Kuroo didn’t bother keeping his distance this round, giving Ushijima no room to breath as he bobbed and weaved away from his hits while delivering some of his own.

“Keep your defense up, Ushijima! You’re letting him get to you! Just cuz his defense is sloppy doesn’t mean yours has to be too!” Bokuto said, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched the two.

Sure enough, Ushijima raised his gloves, giving Kuroo adequate access to his stomach. He took a hard swing at him, knocking the air out of him and sending him onto one knee.

Kuroo smiled victoriously as the bell signaled the end of the round.

In a blur, Ushijima jumped up onto his feet and swung at Kuroo, hitting him square in the nose.

His vision went black the second he hit the mat. He wasn’t sure how many seconds passed until he regained his vision. The first thing he heard was Bokuto scolding Ushijima for throwing a punch after the round had ended.

Then he heard heavy footsteps move past him and out of the ring.

Somebody then hoisted Kuroo onto his feet. He turned his head to see Bokuto looking over his nose. Kuroo’s head lulled as he watched Ushijima walk towards the men’s locker room.

“Yeah, that how you fight? Take cheap shots and hope they stick?” he slurred, the feeling of warm liquid dripping from his nose and down his face fueling his words.

Ushijima whipped around to face him, looking like he was ready to pounce into the ring and rip Kuroo apart.

“The hell did you just say?” He asked, the threatening tone of voice doing little to get Kuroo to back down.

As Ushijima prepared to climb back in the ring, (Y/n) rushed out of the bathroom with one of the trainers hot on her heels.

“The fuck is going on here? Why’s the newbie bleeding all over my mat?!” she shouted, making her way to the edge of the ring.

“They were sparring and-”

“Your boy here takes cheap fucking shots!” Kuroo shouted, interrupting Bokuto as he made a move towards Ushijima, only for Bokuto to hold him back.

“Say that one more time, I swear to God-” (Y/n) stepped in front of Ushijima, pressing her hands to his chest to hold the larger man back.

“And you’ll fucking what?” she growled, not faltering as he shifted his deadly gaze onto her.

The gym went deathly quiet, everyone seeming to wait for Ushijima’s response.

(Y/n) slowly removed her hands from his chest. “That’s what I thought…” she scoffed. “You both know the rules. You can’t keep it civil in the ring, you get out. I see either of you start more shit and I’ll make sure no other gym in the city lets you so much as spit in their direction…”

She looked between the two men, her expression sending a chill down Kuroo’s spine.

“You,” she said, her voice low and tone steely, “hit the showers…”

He stared down at her for a moment before turning on his heel and retreating to the locker room.

Kuroo’s shoulders went lax as he breathed a sigh of relief, only to tense once again when (Y/n) addressed him.

“And you… get in my office.”

Without another word, she went to her office, leaving Kuroo and Bokuto standing there in shock.

“Is she gonna kill me…?” He asked, looking at his friend.

“Maybe… Go…” Bokuto said, helping his friend out of the ring.

Kuroo hesitantly closed the office door behind him and took a seat in front of (Y/n)’s desk, her eyes on him the whole time. He nearly jumped out of his skin when she suddenly got up and moved around her desk.

She sat at the edge of the desk, glancing at the large window that offered her a view of the gym to make sure the blinds were shut. She took a tissue box from the corner of her desk and handed it to him once she was sure they had privacy. “How bad does it hurt?”

Kuroo shrugged, wiping the blood off his face and quickly plugging his nostrils with tissues. “Not too bad…”

(Y/n) leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees as she studied his nose. “Doesn’t look broken, so that’s good. You might just need to ice it.”

“You didn’t just bring me in here to play nurse, did you?” he asked, leaning back in his chair.

(Y/n)’s lips tugged into a slight smirk, “You don’t like it when I play nurse?”

He felt his cheeks warm. “You were ready to rip my head off earlier… so I’m a bit suspicious of it if I’m being honest.”

Her expression softened, for a moment Kuroo swore he saw some deep, foreign emotion swirl within her eyes. “You’re pretty good, y’know…”

Kuroo’s tough guy façade dropped as he looked up at her, eyes wide and full of hope, hope that she wasn’t toying with him.

She continued, “You’re kind of a jackass, and smack talking the competition like that will get you killed… but you still got talent…”

“Thank you…” he breathed, suddenly aware of how nasally his voice had become with the tissues stuffed up his nose.

“How would you feel about getting set up with one of our trainers, officially? They’d have weekly appointments with you three times a week and monitor your progress, get you on a fast track to your first match.”

Kuroo practically jumped up from his seat, “Yes! That sounds awesome! Yeah, I want that!”

(Y/n) chuckled at his eagerness as she raised her hands up in mock surrender, “Alright, take it easy, newbie. I still gotta find a trainer who has a clear schedule for you.”

“I meaaaan… you could always do it…?” Kuroo trailed off, raising his eyebrows at her. His heart stopped when she looked like she was thinking it over, weighing the pros and cons of actually training him.

“Once you make mama some money, I’ll consider training you… For now, I’ll see who I have available…” She said, hopping off her desk and returning to her chair.

“Thank you,” he said, his soft tone surprising himself, “Really… this means so much.”

(Y/n) smiled and looked him over before hastily looking away to retrieve a binder from her desk. Kuroo coulda sworn she was checking him out. “Go home and rest up… can’t have a future star like you bleeding all over my gym… I’ll call you once I got a trainer for you.”

“Thanks…” time to turn on the charm, “you can call me even if you don’t have a trainer for me, y’know… just throwing that out there.”

(Y/n) looked up from her binder, grabbed the box of tissues and threw it at him, laughing as he smacked it away. “Goooo!” she whined, ducking her head out of his view.

He quickly left the office, shutting the door behind him. He couldn’t stop the big, cheesy grin on his features, even when he passed Ushijima on his way to the locker room.

Once he had showered and changed, he couldn’t help but try and look into (Y/n)’s office through her window. He only caught a small glimpse of her on his way out, noting her small smile and soft eyes, the same emotion he noticed earlier present in her (E/c) orbs.

—————————————

(Y/n) called Kuroo the next day with news about the trainer she had assigned to him. Much to his disappointment, she wouldn’t be training him.

He came into the gym to meet his trainer, trying to mask his intimidation once he caught sight of the dude’s arms. If he ever put me in a chokehold, I’d be dead…

Iwaizumi seemed nice enough, he started off slow with Kuroo, getting to know his strengths and weaknesses. But Kuroo could tell his constant comments and quips were getting on his new trainer’s nerves.

Kuroo didn’t see much of (Y/n) in the upcoming weeks, only seeing her when she’d walk around the gym or check in on his progress with Iwaizumi.

He couldn’t text the number she called him from, based on the call quality he was sure it was connected to the ancient phone in her office. Asking Bokuto or Iwaizumi for her personal number would be too creepy. He was stuck and he was upset.

He was in the middle of taking his frustrations out on a punching bag when a familiar whistle prompted him to take a break. He turned to see Iwaizumi approaching him with a medium sized box under his arm.

“Got something for ya, newbie.” He said, handing the taller man the box.

Kuroo raised an eyebrow at him, not taking him for the ‘bro-gift’ type, before opening the box. His jaw practically dropped as he took out a bright red jacket and tossed the box aside. His name adorned the back of the jacket in black lettering, popping against the shiny, red material.

“Holy shit…” he looked up at Iwa, ready to thank him, only for the trainer to hold up a hand to stop him.

“Don’t look at me. It’s from the boss.” He said, jabbing his thumb in the direction of her office.

Kuroo could see her through her office window watching the two as she talked on the phone. He had a suspicion she was faking the phone-call just to look busy while she watched him open the gift.

“You can thank her once you’re done for the day… and pick up that damn box, she’ll take the jacket back if you leave your trash laying around.” Iwa scolded him, lightly kicking the box at Kuroo’s feet.

Kuroo did exactly that, peeking into her office once he had finished his shower. She waved him in, smiling once she noticed he was wearing the jacket.

“I take it you like your gift?” she asked, fiddling with one of the many pens that littered her desk.

“I love it,” he said, smirking as he leaned back comfortably in his chair. “Though I gotta say, it’s insanely red.”

(Y/n) smiled, lightly shrugging her shoulders. “Makes it so they can’t see you bleed.”

“You think I’ll get hit that much?” Kuroo pouted.

“I would hope not. Iwaizumi says you’ve made a lot of progress, he’d probably kick your ass if you got sloppy and got the shit kicked out of you in the ring-” (Y/n) was cut off by the office phone’s high pitched ring.

She picked it up only to hang it up not a second later. Kuroo raised an eyebrow at her curiously, to which she shrugged. “At least I can keep one of my trainees happy…” Her eyes wandered to the papers on her desk, Kuroo hadn’t even noticed the posters stacked messily underneath her crossed arms.

“My ESP is telling meeee… Ushijima’s fight got cancelled?” he asked, frowning as (Y/n) nodded.

“The twerp he was supposed to fight chickened out. I got the call this morning.” she sighed, leaning back into her chair and brushing a hand through her hair. “And Ushijima’s pissed. I told him I’d call him if I had good news and now he won’t stop calling me.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Not unless you have a boxer friend, who isn’t Bokuto, that can be ready for the match last minute.” she replied.

Kuroo sat up straight, a cocky smile gracing his features. “Lucky for you, I happen to be a boxer! Aaaand I won’t flake on you.”

(Y/n) scoffed, shaking her head at him. “The fight is in a week and you are nowhere near ready to have an actual match against Ushijima.”

HIs smile faltered, “Excuse you, you said I had talent!”

“Yeah, when you were sparring!” she groaned. “You’ve gotten better, I’ll give you that. But he’s too good and I won’t have you dying in my gym… for insurance reasons.”

“I signed a waiver! Iwa says I can have my first match soon, why not break the ice and start next week?”

“Because he’ll break your face!” (Y/n) shouted, catching Kuroo off guard as he flinched away.

(Y/n) closed her eyes, placing her hand on her chest as she took a deep breath to calm herself. “If Iwa can say without hesitation that you’re ready… We can put you on the roster. But if anything, and I mean anything, happens that shows me you weren’t ready, I’ll make sure you never get another match in this city.”

He couldn’t help the smile that crept on his features. “I’ll go talk to Iwa then…”

Two minutes later and Iwa was in (Y/n)’s office, clearly having an unpleasant chat with her about the upcoming match. She must have felt Kuroo’s eyes on her as he watched the scene unfold before him, because she eventually turned to the window of her office and closed the blinds.

A couple minutes later, Iwa had opened the door to the office, unshaken by the encounter with (Y/n). He motioned for Kuroo to enter, shutting the door behind the taller man and leaning against it.

Kuroo reluctantly took a seat in his usual spot, eyeing (Y/n) cautiously as she looked him up and down.

“If you can sign all this paperwork for me,” she began, sliding a packet of papers towards Kuroo, “and promise you won’t get that nice face of yours broken… you can fight in the match…”

Kuroo grabbed a pen and began filling out the packet immediately. (Y/n) bit back a smile, grateful he didn’t poke at her comment about his looks. She shifted her gaze back to Iwa, “Go tell Bokuto what’s goin on. We’re gonna need a second trainer on Kuroo for what little time we have left before the match.”

Iwa nodded and promptly left the room.

“Yknow, he made a good case for you. You should buy him a beer or something.” (Y/n) suggested, tapping a pen against her desk as she watched Kuroo work.

“I might,” he chuckled, signing his name on the last page of the packet before handing it off to her. “Maybe I’ll buy you one too…”

(Y/n) couldn’t help but snort. “Maybe if you win…now go on, I have a lot of work to do now.”

Kuroo practically jumped out of his seat, eager to talk to Bokuto about the good news, but stopped in the doorway of the office to look at (Y/n) one last time. “Hey… thanks.”

(Y/n) looked up from the paperwork he had just handed her, a small smile tugging at her lips. “You’re welcome…newbie.”

—————————————

Kuroo figured he’d be nervous before the match, but he felt like he was about to shit his pants as he waited in the locker room. Fuck, would he shit his pants if Ushijima hit him in the stomach? God, that would be so embarrassing. He should have bought brown gym pants. Well, hindsight was 20/20-

“Kuroo! You’re on!” Iwa barked into the locker room.

Kuroo took a deep breath before making his way out of the women’s locker room. He felt a stabby feeling in his chest when he saw Ushijima exit the adjacent locker room in unison with him.

They both walked through the crowd of people and approached the ring. Kuroo felt a tiny wave of relief wash over him when he saw (Y/n) standing in the ring. She looked almost as nervous as he did.

“Here are your fighters! Place your final bets while you can, folks!” (Y/n) announced over the chatter of the crowd, directing them towards one of the trainers who stood beside a chalkboard to keep track of the bets.

Kuroo entered his corner of the ring, shedding his jacket onto a chair before putting on his gear. (Y/n)’s bare feet padded against the mat as she made her way towards him. She leaned against the ropes, offering him a slight smile. “Still wanna do this?”

Kuroo only nodded, knowing his mouthguard would muffle his speech.

“Good! Cuz there’s no turning back now!” she shouted over the crowd’s chatter. (Y/n) left to the opposite corner of the ring, probably to check up on Ushijima before the match.

Iwa snapped his fingers in Kuroo’s face, forcing his eyes off (Y/n)’s back and towards him. “Keep your head in the ring, Kuroo. Don’t get caught up on me, or the crowd, or even (Y/n). It’s best 3 out of 5, so let’s make these rounds count, okay?”

Kuroo nodded, only for his focus to shift back to (Y/n) as she stepped into the middle of the ring once more. “Alright boys! Let’s roll!”

Kuroo hoisted himself into the ring, the feeling of the crowd’s eyes on him made him feel naked as the day he was born. He almost double-checked to make sure he had his shorts on.

“You know him, you love him! In the left corner, Ushijima Wakatoshi!” (Y/n) shouted, motioning to Ushijima as the crowd went wild. Ushijima seemed unfazed by the crowd’s support.

“In the right corner, newcomer, Kuroo Tetsuro!” (Y/n) yelled, motioning towards Kuroo and queueing some cheers, some boos, and lots of wolf whistles. If Kuroo didn’t feel naked before, he certainly did now.

The two met (Y/n) in the middle of the ring, where she laid out the rules for the match. Kuroo almost didn’t hear her, too caught up in the death glare Ushijima was sending him. They wordlessly went to their corners, waiting for (Y/n) to get out of the ring and start the match.

Once she was at the ropes, the bell was rung to begin the match. To no one’s surprise, Ushijima lunged for the first hit, just as he’d done during their sparring.

Kuroo narrowly dodged the hit, but it was quickly followed by a second jab to his stomach. He was grateful it wasn’t a full-force hit, because he’d already be on the ground if it was.

Kuroo delivered a few quick combos his opponent’s way, doing no real damage with the hits that did land. Before he knew it, he was getting fatigued from dancing around to keep out of Ushijima’s reach. Just as someone in the crowd sent a profanity Kuroo’s way, Ushijima punched him square in the face, pushing past his gloves for a brutal blow that sent Kuroo to the floor.

The bell rang, Kuroo didn’t even realize how long he had been on the ground, it felt like a millisecond. He forced himself to get up, growling as Ushijima stepped back into his corner.

“You move around too much and you’re gonna be walking into his fist,” Iwaizumi scolded, helping Kuroo take a much needed drink of water. “Keep letting him go for the first hit, let him come to you. Make your hits count, don’t be afraid to get close.”

The next round went by too quick for Kuroo’s comfort, he followed Iwa’s instructions, but Ushijima’s hits were merciless, like every bit of his weight was put into each punch.

Iwa’s second pep talk was blocked out by the slight ringing in Kuroo’s ears. His eyes were focused on Ushijima, basically lounging in his corner. Then he looked (Y/n)’s way, and to his surprise, she was looking back at him. She didn’t look sad, or disappointed, or even angry. But there was a fire in her eyes, one he saw in his own the weeks prior to the match.

He didn’t know how long he had been staring into her eyes, he didn’t even realize he had been doing it until (Y/n) gave him a curt nod and mouthed something out to him.

Go get him.

Kuroo ignored the jeers and insults from the crowd, only focusing on the feeling of (Y/n) watching him as he made his way to the middle of the ring once more.

Ushijima went for the first hit, as always, only this time Kuroo sidestepped towards him and sent a hard blow to his face. Ushijima seemed surprised by this, and honestly, so was Kuroo. He felt like he needed to be on the defensive with an opponent like Ushijima, but that obviously wasn’t working.

I’m small, I’m fast, I can use that.

Kuroo allowed himself to get closer to his opponent during the rest of the round. He took some hard hits, but he delivered his fair share of them as well.

Ushijima moved backwards, attempting to get some breathing room, but Kuroo only followed. He hit Ushijima with an uppercut to his jaw. It was nasty, but not against the rules.

The hit sent Ushijima to the mat, where he stayed until the bell signaled the end of the round. The crowd was now on Kuroo’s side, but it was (Y/n)’s cheers that stood out to him the most.

He went to his corner with pep in his step, unaware that he was being followed. Before Iwa could start up another pep talk, (Y/n) leaned over Kuroo in his seat, forcing him to make eye contact with her.

“You just need to take him out one more time, okay?”

Kuroo sent her a questioning glance, only for her to lean in closer to him. “I bet a lot of money that you’d win two rounds of this. So even if you lose, I’ll make sure you get paid tonight… You already got him looking scared, just finish him off…”

“Ifm I dimdt hamf tihs moumthguard im righmt mow, I’d toadally kith you.” he said, watching as (Y/n) stood straight and crossed her arms.

“I hate that I understood exactly what you said,” (Y/n) mumbled, earning a blush from Kuroo, “Now get back in there.”

Kuroo made his way into the ring with a goofy smile on his face. He tried his best to hide it when he faced Ushijima, but he knew the giant had caught a glimpse of it. And he was not very happy about that.

Kuroo took some hard hits during that round he figured it was punishment for getting too cocky after winning a single round. After a minute or two, he was on the mat, breathing hard as he felt one of his eyes Ushijima landed a hit on already swelling.

Kuroo could see (Y/n) through his blurry vision, she was hollering for him to get back up, screaming like a madwoman. With a grunt he forced himself to get up just before the bell could ring. His movements were sluggish, but he knew if he could crowd the giant again, he could knock him down and end the round.

It took some hard work, but Kuroo had eventually wrangled Ushijima into a corner. He began landing merciless blows to his gut, hitting him with combos while ignoring Ushijima’s defensive hits to Kuroo’s back and face. Eventually, Kuroo hit Ushijima with another uppercut that floored him and ended the round.

Kuroo didn’t waste a lot of time in his corner, he knew Iwa would try to tell him to take it easy or take the L with grace, but Kuroo was riding this high to victory. He drank his water and ran back to the center of the ring, where Ushijima was waiting for him.

He quickly regretted not taking a moment to rest, he felt like cinder blocks were tied to his feet, this was the most exhausting thing he’d ever done. One hit and he would be out.

Kuroo spared a quick look at (Y/n), hoping she could fuel his fire again.

Then Ushijima swung at him with what felt like the gusts of a thousand winds.

Kuroo spun in place, the force of the punch making him do a 180 turn in place. Shit, his mouthguard even flew out from between his lips.

His vision went black once he smacked against the mat.

—————————————

Kuroo woke up to a stinging feeling on his cheek. His whole face felt like it was on fire, Jesus his whole body felt like it was burning. He forced his eyes open, only to be met with the sight of (Y/n) practically in his lap as she pressed an alcohol pad to his face.

“Sleeping Beauty’s finally up,” she said, keeping her tone light as she tossed the pad in a nearby trashcan.

Kuroo looked around unfamiliar surroundings only for (Y/n) to hold his chin and still him. “Don’t move so much, hot shot. You’re in my apartment above the gym.”

She took a small, open container out of the first-aid kit resting on the nearby coffee table and began gingerly rubbing the wounds on his face with what he guessed was ointment.

“I didn’t win, did I?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

(Y/n) gave him a sad smile. “No… but you still made some good money tonight. And now you got a nice ice bath with your name written all over it.”

She wiped the remnants of the ointment off her fingers and onto his shorts. (Y/n) tossed the container into the first-aid kit, making a move to leave, “Iwa will be back soon with some food for us, so we should get you in the bath now.”

(Y/n) struggled for a moment to hoist Kuroo onto his feet. If he had to guess, Iwa helped (Y/n) get him up the stairs and onto her couch after the match.

She led him to her tiny bathroom, motioning towards the tub already filled with ice cold water. “Just sit in there and relax your muscles, I need to go downstairs and wash your stink off of me.”

“You don’t wanna join me?” Kuroo asked, wiggling his eyebrows at her despite the pain.

“You look half dead and that’s all you can think about?” (Y/n) asked, trying to bite back her smile.

Kuroo shrugged, “I feel half dead, but I think you could help with that.”

(Y/n) rolled her eyes before lightly pushing him towards the tub, “I am helping. Now get in the tub.”

Kuroo snickered and began tugging down his shorts, not even waiting for (Y/n) to leave the restroom. She practically sprinted out of the bathroom once she caught sight of his v-cut, causing him to laugh heartily before getting in the tub.

Once he was settled, he noticed some clothing in his size on the toilet seat beside him. She had probably set it aside earlier for him. He smiled to himself before sinking further into the water.

He left the tub after about 15 minutes, knowing he would get sick if he stayed longer. Kuroo dried off and dressed himself before making his way back to the couch.

He took note of the clothing (Y/n) had given him, grey joggers and a black and white flannel shirt. They were comfortable, and somehow the perfect size for him. He would have to ask her about that once she was back from her shower.

Kuroo had to keep his jaw from dropping when she came back. She wore a pair of tiny sleep shorts and a loose tank top, her moist hair dripping onto the material and causing it to cling to her skin. Kuroo couldn’t help but feel like she had given him those grey joggers out of more than just the kindness of her heart.

(Y/n) locked the door behind her and approached the couch, sitting on the far end of it, much to Kuroo’s dismay. “How’re you feeling?”

“Better. Much less dead.” he replied.

“You’re bleeding. I think from one of your stitches” she sighed, reaching back into the first-aid kit for an alcohol pad. Kuroo hadn’t even noticed the stitches, probably because they were on his forehead and under his bangs where Ushijima landed a particularly nasty hit.

“Think it’ll scar?” he asked, shivering as (Y/n) sat closer to him and brushed his bangs back.

“Definitely, but it wont be too bad.” She said, brushing the pad over the wound and drawing a hiss from between Kuroo’s gritted teeth. “I think the ladies will like it.”

Kuroo chuckled, shivering as (Y/n) used the cool pad to clean the blood that had dripped down his face. “There’s only one lady that I want to like it…”

(Y/n) pulled back, rolling her eyes at Kuroo’s words. “Me?”

“No! God, so full of yourself!” Kuroo smirked, laughing as (Y/n)’s jaw dropped in shock.

“Okay, ass. Get a new nurse, then.” she pouted, moving to get out of his lap only for Kuroo to pull her to straddle him. She made no move to get out of his hold, signaling him to continue.

“You know you’re my favorite nurse…” he cooed, watching (Y/n) intently as she nervously bit her lip. “But I still have some pains I need treated…”

“Yeah?” she asked, her body slowly relaxing against his as he gently rubbed her forearms. Kuroo playfully pouted at her, adjusting his body under her so he was sitting up against the arm of the couch.

“Here,” he said, pointing to one of his bruised cheeks. It looked like (Y/n) was in the middle of an internal debate when she leaned in and gently kissed the spot. Kuroo smiled as he watched her sit up and bat her eyes at him.

“Here,” he said, this time pointing at a spot on his chest covered by his shirt. (Y/n) narrowed her eyes at him before slowly unbuttoning the shirt and running her fingertips down his toned stomach. She pressed another gentle kiss to the spot he had pointed out, this time allowing her lips to linger on his flesh before parting from him.

Kuroo could feel the warmth between her thighs intensifying. He experimentally shifted his hips against hers, drawing a shaky gasp from her. He licked his lips before pointing at his bottom lip. “Here…”

(Y/n) leaned in close to him, brushing her lips over his teasingly. They both lingered, breathing each other in before finally allowing their lips to meet. Kuroo moaned at the taste of her, his hips stuttering against (Y/n)’s as his body responded to their kiss.

(Y/n) instinctively ground her hips against his, throwing caution to the wind as she deepened the kiss and wound her fingers through Kuroo’s messy hair. The kiss was wild and desperate, the needs of the two shining through as they gripped and ground against one another.

Kuroo suddenly hisses in pain, causing (Y/n) to hastily pull back and look him over. “Oh god, what happened?”

“J-just aching… I’m fine.” Kuroo reassured, adjusting his body under her.

(Y/n) bit her lip, “You’re too hurt, now's not the time…”

Kuroo cupped her cheeks and pulled her into another kiss, just as sloppy as the last. “Nuh-uh, I’ve been waiting for this for weeks,” he moaned against her lips, dragging his hands down her body to cling to her flimsy tank top, “I can handle a little pain…”

(Y/n) shivered at his words. She sighed shakily as she took his hands and slid them under her shirt, giving him permission to touch her bare skin. (Y/n) moaned louder as Kuroo nipped at her lips and tugged at her nipples, all while his hips worked at her core.

“Fuck- please,” (Y/n) begged into the kiss, struggling to tug the joggers past his sculpted thighs. The lack of boxers she provided him meant he was ready to go the second his cock was exposed.

Kuroo was in the process of tugging (Y/n)’s shorts off when they heard a knock at the door. (Y/n) groaned in frustration against Kuroo’s lips before adjusting her shorts and climbing off him.

“No-no-no, please, c'mon just send him away,” Kuroo whined, reluctantly pulling up his pants.

“I’m horny but I’m hungry.” (Y/n) sighed, fanning herself as she approached the door.

Kuroo grabbed the first-aid kit and placed it over his boner just as Iwaizumi and Bokuto entered the apartment.

“Hey hey hey! There’s our champ!” Bokuto cheered, holding up two packs of beer.

“I lost, Bo.” Kuroo smiled, hoping his friend wouldn’t press him for a hug.

“Well we got a nice consolation prize, 4 pizzas and plenty of beer to make you forget about how fucked up your face is.” Iwaizumi announced, earning an elbow to his ribs from (Y/n).

“No more playing around, let’s eat.” (Y/n) said, grabbing a box of pizza from Iwa’s stack and sitting beside Kuroo.

“Yes, m’am….” Kuroo teased, winking at (Y/n) as he took a slice from the box.

(Y/n) answered with a signature eyeroll before biting into her own slice of pizza.

Kuroo would have to continue their make-out session later. For now, he would celebrate his first match with his friends, and hope that he would win the next one.

If he got to kiss the girl of his dreams after a loss, he wondered what he’d get after a win.

[the-moon-prince]

The Last Of us~Kurapika x Reader ~Chapter I

AN: Hi my lovely fellows! I’m making a Kurapika x reader! This will be the first chapter. Overall I’m trying my best for you to insert yourself in the story as good as you can. However, some point who are going to be relevant in the plot a little further, like (Y/n)’s age, Profession and first language have been modified.This is my debut as a fanfiction writer here on tumblr! 

As now, I wish you a pleasant read, and I hope you’ll enjoy the first chapter of my story. (Second coming soon!)

Paring: Kurapika Kurta x GN! Reader

Word count: 2 783

TW: None!

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5 am The buzzing sound of the alarm loaded Kurapika's ears. The same noise as every morning. Another day to go on. He woke up with this peculiar feeling, but so familiar to him. That unnamed pain hit him again as his senses started to stir. The bed beneath him felt cold and foreign. The morning was dull to him. Seeking to shake the feeling away, he sat up and stretched. His limbs felt heavy, his eyes burned. Just another morn after a terrible night with limited sleep and disagreeable dreams. That tiredness was omnipresent in his life for the last months.  He immediately saw the space that wrapped him. Empty, just the drawer, nightstand, a lamp, and blank white walls. Finally, getting up from the bed and arranging the also white sheets. Going to the drawer and pulling out his work uniform; a white shirt, black trousers, black tie, and a black jacket. Taking his loose pajama pants and shirt off and starting to button the white shirt. Thinking annoyed at how he had to abide another day Neon dramatically said how sad, miserable, and lonely she felt. The fairly frustrating attitude she had been insisting on the last weeks. What did she know about misery and solitude? Once dressed, he left his bedroom to the tiny hall of his apartment. Leading to the small room alongside his. The big black door remained in front of him. He stared at it for a moment. A certain doubt in his mind made its presence. Lastly, he opened the door, glancing at the scarlet eyes floating on the jars displayed in the room, and closed the door. The emptiness seemed greater than the last morning. He wondered one more time while putting his shoes on, what did he yearn? What did he lack to feel once more this abyss? He stepped outside his home and took a deep breath, the swampy air feeling his lungs. And head straight to the Nostrade mansion. He passed the big entrance gate, the security of the Nostrade's residence, and arrived at the main room. Unlike what Kurapika might have thought moments ago, there was something new that morning. An unknown person was sitting on one of the multiple couches, apparently waiting. Wich piqued his curiosity. Their guise was quite formal and unique, white cigarette bottoms and a moss-green long-sleeved sweater with a white dress shirt underneath. However, the shirt's collar was embroidered with a peculiar decoration. A botanic motif of tiny red, yellow and blue flowers plus green leaves was along the tip of the collar. Naturally, Kurapika carefully observed the intruder to determine if it was a possible menace. The individual had (long/short/medium/ with bangs) (curly/straight/wavy)(hair color) hair; it was loose and a bit messy. Some strands were framing their face. Their body had a juvenile apparent, around one or two years younger than him however their face looked more childlike. Their gaze was lowered into the book, so Kurapika was unable to see the eyes. He just saw the (long/short) eyelashes moving with the occasional blinks the person gave and some eye bags from fatigue.��  They were sitting with their legs crossed, one hand was holding the book, and the other was rubbing the green fabric of the sweater between the index and the thumb. They gave an overall serene aura. It wasn't long before a butler came near Kurapika. -"Mr.Kurapika, Sir. Nostrade requested to have the young guest to his office. For security reasons Sir. Nostrade wants one of the bodyguards to watch over the guest. Please take them there." Kurapika agreed with a quick "understood" and made his way towards the outsider. Kurapika stopped in front of the sitting figure. "Excuse me, Mx"- The person reading gave a slight quiver in surprise to immediately put the book down and look up at him with a subtle and soft smile. Despite looking up at him, they didn't look directly into his eyes, fixing more in his mouth.- "Mr.Nostrade charged me to take you to his office, please accompany me." he addressed the outsider with a secure tone. "Hello, and thank you" was the quiet response the stranger gave him. Getting up and ranging the book in a black side bag. "This way." The person quietly followed behind him through the hallway, examining the distinct decorations and pieces of furniture all over the mansion. Once the both of them arrived at the office's door, Kurapika gave a knock, letting their attendance be known, followed by a grave "Come in" from Light Nostrade. Kurapika rapidly opened the door and entered the room. At the center of the room was Light Nostrade, sitting at his big wooden desk. Accompanying the desk, a coffee table and matching sofas were placed over a luxurious carpet. In one of the sofas, Neon was sitting playing with one of her stuffed toys. Mr. Nostrade without a word gave the guest sign with his hand to sit down in one of the chairs in front of his desk, as the foreigner obliged. "Neon, this is (Y/n), they're your new companion and therapist. As you have let me know lately, you've been feeling bored and alone. As your dad, your welfare concerns me. So I searched for one of the best professionals to improve your state." -The man addressed the young girl next to him, to take the phone to his desk right away and address it to someone on the other line-"Let the rest of Neon's bodyguards in" -In an instant, the rest of the bodyguards entered the room- "Mx. (Y/n) present yourself to the rest" Mr.Nostrade finally ordered. (Y/n) got up in a unique move from the chair, and facing the rest of the company in the chamber, with their hands clasped in front of their body, they declared "Hello, I'm (Y/n) it's a pleasure to meet and work along with you."-(Y/n) presented themselves with a small politeness reverence, then they turned to faced Neon-"Neon, I am a Doctor with a specialization in psychiatry medicine. I, moreover, am a certified Hunter and I'm here to take care of your psychological and physical integrity. If required I can protect you in case of aggression. Besides I'm here to treat your loneliness and improve your mental health. I honestly hope my faculties will help develop several health skills!" they finally finished, all the discourse was made with the same quiet and kind voice tone, with the subtitle smile never leaving their face.  After the quick initiation, Neon's face went from attentive to a worried grimace to shout "DAD!!! AM I SICK?!?" (Y/n) tilted their head and stepped to Neon softly reassuring her "No Neon, don't worry, you're not sick. I am here just to prevent you from being sick. I'll take good care of your mental and physical state and keep you amity so you remain as happy and healthy as always! In other words, I'm your private psychotherapist." Following those words of reassurance Neon's face lights up in a smile "YAY, So you're my new companion! Finally, I won't be so bored around here! I'm Neon, but you seem to already know my name. You look strangely young, you know? Plus you have a weird accent when you talk!" Of course, Neon added lacking discretion as always. (Y/n) just tilted their head once more, without changing their friendly air they responded "Of course I have an accent, Neon, all chic and elegant people have one, like David Bowie or Kate Bush. And regarding my age, It's judged preferable to have someone closer to your age to establish a more organic cooperative relationship." -The response to the rude observations of Neon was devoid of any malice, it was rather merry and kind, giving Neon the sensation of friendship and calm -"If you'd prefer to consider me your "companion" is fine. As planned with your father, I will be with you every Tuesday, Thursday from 11:00 am to 8:00 pm and Saturdays from 2:30 pm to 7:30 pm. But today as being our first day, I'll be entire with you!" The grin on Neon's face just became wider "YOU'LL SEE, I AM GONNA HAVE SO MUCH FUN FROM NOW ON!''-Neon called once more, grabbing (Y/n) from their arm and dragging them somewhere. The (hair colored) didn't protest, just flinched to the sudden touche-"COME TO MY ROOM, WE HAVE SO MUCH TO DO!" The stranger's identity and intentions finally became clear for Kurapika, letting him discard (Y/n) as a hazard. We followed them into Neon's room to guard the Nostrade's teenager. Hours passed by. Neon talked about all the nonsense she could think of, as (Y/n) seemed to pay special attention to every word the girl spitted out. Sometimes making some comments and writing down in a little (fav color) notebook with a little cat they took off their said bag. Kurapika was just sitting on one of the couches, some sort of relieved to have someone else to take care of Neon's heavy personality and tantrums. "She even seems calmer today, having some entertainment will be profitable to her. " he thought. Even if Neon was, in fact, calmer that day, you could still hear her from across the room. "Your notebook is really cute, you know? Where did you get it? Cats are SOOOOO cute! I want one like that!" "Thank you Neon! I got it at the novelty store in the Mall that's in the center of the town. I go near there quite often, I can get you one if you'll like. Also, I think I'm going to take my break now if you don't mind. I will go make some tea, would you wish some, Neon?" (Y/n) actively added to the chat, even if it's their first day, they seemed to fuse nicely with Neon, rather odd due to Neon's personality. "Nah, I don't like tea" the teen finally responded, getting a soft nod in agreement as an answer. (Y/n) got up from the chair they were sitting on and headed to the employee's kitchen. Not much time later, they came back with a cup of tea and a bottle full of tea. To Kurapika's surprise, (Y/n) handed him the cup of tea with the soft smile of always.  They simply added an "I made you some tea, you appeared a touch worn, I hope it's okay".  That was the first of many little acts of kindness (Y/n) had with him. They would make him some tea regularly in the day or ask about his day during the breaks. During the following weeks in which (Y/n) was going to give therapy to Neon, a lot of things could be perceived. The first was the improvement in Neon's attitude. Being gradually more used to friendly human interaction, and having a better understanding of her frustrations. The second was about (Y/n), they were a rather nice person, gaining some sort of  (or what was the most resembled) sympathy from Neon, which was a feat considering the lack of empathy of Neon. They were polite to everyone in the Nostrade's mansion, and their job as Neon's special doctor was their 4th job. Melody, during a casual chat, learned that (Y/n) worked Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturday mornings as a Psychoanalyst between a Psychiatric ward and a Private Doctor's Cabinet, and the mornings of the days she came to assist the Nostrade's daughter as an intermediary liaison psychiatrist (basically someone who gives psychiatric supportive treatment in non-specialized unities) in the YorkNew General Hospital Center. This explains largely the eyebags and exhaustion for which (Y/n) has earned comments from Neon such as "You know you have eyebags?". Also, that (Y/n) has 18 years of age (sorry dear readers if it's not your age, but this will be relevant for the plot, so please let me this one pass), remarkably young to be an accredited doctor. And they were "precocious" on their own words- as Melody said- And the third and last thing, noticed essentially by Kurapika was about (Y/n) comportment and personality. Even if (Y/n) was kind and polite to everyone, they were incredibly discreet. They acted with prudence in virtually all aspects, from their appearance to their very presence. Like if (Y/n) was hiding and acting from the shadow (Melody also commented about this borderline anxiety). Additionally, all the movements (Y/n) made were prudent and meticulously planned, which made Kurapika realize the intelligence (Y/n) had. He also could tell English was not (Y/n)'s first language. They had a peculiar pronunciation and spoke with a large and fancy vocabulary. Those things greatly aroused Kurapika's curiosity, but the part of (Y/n) that triggered that curiosity the most was related to (Y/n)'s eyes. They were very careful with the subject. So careful indeed that they were even subtle with the care they treated the subject. Were tiny and nearly unimportant actions from (Y/n) that made Kurapika realize the importance of their eyes. (Y/n) never looked anyone in the eyes. Sometimes, during the break, when feeling exhausted or overwhelmed, (Y/n) would close their eyes and cover them with one hand. The biggest event of all was one time he listened to Neon through the door curiously ask  "Hey (Y/n), what happens with your eyes?" and, when he opened the door to see if everything was correct, (Y/n)'s eyes were normal. As if nothing had happened. Kurapika had for sure some inquiries regarding (Y/n). However, all of his suspicions became more prominent with a precise action from (Y/n). One day, Neon decided to show (Y/n) her body part collection. "(Y/n) You're a doctor, I'm sure you're going to love this! You know about these things, You'll be able to appreciate my glorious collection!" Neon was bragging about how happy she was with her various articles. "I have hearts, livers, fetuses, all the parts of the brain, some left and right lungs, and a pancreas. And my favorite of them all! A pair of beautiful scarlet eyes!" Neon made a special address on how rare the scarlet orbs were and how proud she was of them, she even played with them a little. And for the first time, (Y/n) didn't say a thing. Their perpetual smile even faded a little. During the whole episode, Kurapika remained sitting on a chair. Hearing that kind of discourse about his clan's eyes was hurtful and infuriating. How could she talk in such a manner of his fellow Kurtas? With no compassion, like if they were a mear object. It was sickening. A dull and hurt expression plastered on Kurapika's face. He was so immersed in his thoughts, he didn't notice it already was break time. If it wasn't for (Y/n) who came to sit beside him in an attempt to comfort his sorrow. (Y/n) had their gaze lowered and, for the first time, wasn't smiling. It wasn't a gloomy face, more like a flat expression. They didn't say a word and just stayed near him. Similar as if they seemed to comprehend. It wasn't until Kurapika looked at (Y/n) that they gave him a tiny smile. Nevertheless, this smile wasn't like the usual one. It was more caring, full of empathy and kindness, but also pain. None of them said a single word. And even if he never stated a thing about the subject, Kurapika felt a little comforted. At the end of that day, where everyone was heading to their own houses after such a hard working-day, (Y/n) came to Kurapika. He deduced they would just wish him a nice night. Except it wasn't the case. "Kurapika, pardon me, may I speak to you for a bit, pretty please?" (Y/n) mumbled to him, with the identical smile as always. A bit confused by their request, Kurapika responded, "Sure (Y/n), how may I help you?"  forthwith to its answer (Y/n) made him follow them to a more private place behind the Nostrade's mansion. (Y/n) looked down as they had their hands in front of their chest, similar to the pose of a meerkat, and was fidgeting with their fingers. "Kurapika"- then they looked up to him-"I know I'm putting my life on the line. Yet, what I'm about to do is an act of desperation wholly motivated by my conclusion. Are you somehow related to the scarlet eyes?" 

[bakugou-jpg]

Amnesia|| Bokuto x reader [Haikyuu hq server collab]

Hello ! This is my part for the Haikyuu headquarters server collab. The prompt for the stories is Amnesia and Bokuto’s the character i will be writing for. The rest of the wonderful writers that participated in this collab can be found here

Summary: Bokuto has to deal with a s/o that suffers from amnesia after a car accident

Warnings: Amnesia

Theme: Angst

Words: 3080

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It hurt.

It hurt so much.

From waking up before you, waiting for you to wake up while he was staring at your extremely adorable and gorgeous sleeping face even if there was a little bit of drool on the side of your lips. How your eyes would slightly squint open and your hands immediately reaching out for him only for him to engulf you into a hug while attacking you with kisses on your neck,cheeks, shoulders, nose and lastly a soft sensual kiss pressed against your lips.

It was his drug, you were his drug. The way your kiss could drag his mind away from soberness to get drunk on the soft feeling of your lips moving against his. The way your arms felt around his waist whenever you gave him his 'goodluck-charm' hug before an important game.

Bokuto was oh so sure you were forever gonna be his and how he'd spend the rest of his life together with the thing he had gotten oh so addicted to. How you'd be standing in the bleachers cheering him in until his very last game, how he'd always be able to sulk into your shoulder whenever he felt down, how you'd always giggle at his sometimes purposely stupid dumb antics because he wanted to hear you laugh.

He wanted to take you all over the world, show you the beauty of all the different cultures and go on a fun taste-testing city trip to try out all the unfamiliar new foods.

It was all his fault. All of it.

His memory was still fuzzy, after all the hit his head had gotten wasn't nothing. He remembered seeing the headlights of the car that was approaching his at a speed that was way over the limit, the feeling of his heart dropping still present in a way.

The seconds after this, of you screaming and him trying to keep you safe in a failed attempt by holding his arm in front of you went by quickly. Bokuto couldn't even remember what happened after this, in all honesty he couldn't even remember when his head crashes into the side of the door or when he passed our. Just the headlights that were now forever burned into his eyes.

The throbbing in his head was unbearable, but in that moment all he could care about was the sight of you passed out with your head hanging forward as blood dripped out of your nose onto the airbag and your white cardigan one he had given to you.

Bokuto couldn't remember when the ambulance arrived and got both you and h out of the car. He couldn't remember the trip to the hospital nor being moved to the room he had woken up in several hours later.

A heavy concussion, 24 stitches and a broken leg is all he had. Nothing too dangerous, nor life changing. After all, the airbag had caught most of the crash's impact luckily. To him, it was nothing he couldn't get over.

It should've been him, really. After all he was the one that came up with a surprise trip at 11 pm to McDonald's because he wanted a mcflurry. That 4 dollar piece of shitty vanilla ice cream mixed together with whatever sweet bullshit wasn't worth it in any way.

All he wanted to hear when he entered your hospital room was you calling out for his name, relieved that he was okay and then the two of you would cry together because you were scared and he cries whenever you cry because his baby owl shouldn't ever cry because then he'll cry and fuck.

He didn't want to be greeted by dull looking eyes, ones that didn't seem to realize they were currently looking at someone they had been looking at oh so lovingly for the last 5 years. You weren't aware of the fact you had spend your most cherished memories with the build man currently standing in front of you. That he was the one you had spend nights with of just cuddling together and enjoying each other's presence.

When the doctor had hit him with the news, he felt all the life he had in him deflate. Bokuto felt sick, the bitter taste in his mouth making him want to throw up all the contents in his stomach. It felt like a nightmare who's plot just got dropped at his shoes that he couldn't wake up from.

The hit you had gotten on your head wasn't one like Bokuto had gotten. You didn't get to shrug it off with a heavy concussion like he did. It was so strange and unfair, the two of you had been in the same accident and you of all people had been the one who's world fell apart and you weren't even aware of it.

Amnesia.

Amnesia is a form of memory loss. Some people with amnesia have difficulty forming new memories. Others can't recall facts or past experiences. People with amnesia usually retain knowledge of their own identity, as well as motor skills.

You knew your name, your age. You knew who your parents were and where you lived. You could very vaguely remember what you did for a living, atleast somewhere in that direction.

Bokuto?

...

"Bokuto-san?"

Lost in thought, Bokuto's eyes quickly snapped up from the dining table to lock with yours. It didn't take long before his eyes lit up and a bright smile beamed on his face, feeling so much to what you felt whenever your blankets would hug you at night whenever you were cold it was something that always confused you for you couldn't remember anything about him or him and you in general.

"What's troubling you, pretty lady~?"

His voice was like sinking into a warm bath, slowly engulfing you into a warm trance that made you feel like you were floating on nothing but warm air. Whenever he started slowly picking up his old nicknames for you again, it made heat creep to the tips of your ears.

When you woke up the first thing you had noticed was the throbbing in your head. It didn't take long until you had opened your eyes,immediately being blinded by the brightness of the bright white walls. Honestly, making the walls of the hospital white was for sure the most uncomfortable thing that had ever been done it wasn't exactly comforting.

Everything was..weird. Your mind was like a blank canvas, only very small smudged out lines of a sketch that had recently been erased with an eraser present for those lines were too thick to erase. That canvas had stayed blank for as long as you could remember.

When the doctors came inside to talk to you and started asking you questions, to which you could only answer a few of. Apparently you had amnesia, something which you didn't even know what it was at first until they explained.

Before the incident you had always thought during your common shower thoughts that were you to ever have amnesia that you'd panic immediately, wondering about what your life was like who you were where you were etc..but right now you were calm. Still that blank canvas only now there were very thin lines of a sketch visible but there was still so much missing.

The build man that had entered your room shortly after was something you'd never forget. He was strolled in in a wheelchair, perhaps he too had an accident? Did he know you, after all why else would he visit you? You didn't question it too much, simply too tired to stress over such things.

He introduced himself as Bokuto, a name that held a weird sort of nostalgic feeling for you yet you couldn't point out why exactly.

The first thing you noticed about him was the fact there were tears in his eyes the whole entire time he was there, desperately trying to hold them in and sometimes he'd quickly wipe them away with his sleeve hoping you wouldn't notice.

Bokuto had been incredibly kind, funny too. He'd come by everyday to talk to you and you didn't even question it too much for it felt so normal to spend your time with him.

You knew the two of you shared some kind of bond before all of this, there was no doubt in it he had probably been in the same accident that took your memory from you.

So when the news of the two of you having been in a relationship had been broken to you, you weren't surprised. The tears that had welled up in his eyes when he told you broke your heart for the man's whole body sulked and his eyes held nothing but sorrow.

He tried putting up a smile all the time for you, trying to brush the guilt and sorrow off hos shoulders like it wasn't as bad as he thought it was. It felt only natural to move your hand towards his and give it a squeeze, after all he had been kind to you and you didn't want him to go through this by himself.

There had to be a reason why you had fallen for him, so it couldn't be too bad to comfort him at this moment.

Bokuto broke. The moment your hands engulfed his and you started talking to him in that soft voice you always used whenever he went into his emo mode or felt insecure about anything he couldn't take it anymore.

He wanted you back, it wasn't fair. This wasn't fair this wasn't what was supposed to happen, he didn't want this. He wanted you to smile at him like you did when you woke up next to him every morning before kissing him with those lips he loved so much.He wanted you to hold him close while running your fingers through his hair while whispering sweet nothings into his ear. He wanted to feel you, to touch you and love you with all he had but he couldn't.

At this point he wasn't even sure if he would ever be able to again, he didn't like it at all he hated it truly hated it. He wanted more than just a hand squeeze, he wanted to dive into your arms while sobbing into your chest while you shushed him. To look back at this as an obstacle the two of you had gone past, being able to live the life full of surprises he wanted with you. Bokuto wanted to kiss your lips, to feel them move against his while you would gently hold his face and wipe away his tears with your thumb before engulfing him into your arms again and run your fingers through his hair.

He couldn't

To you, he was nothing but a stranger anymore. All those days he spent with you in his arms, safe and secure with your face smushed into his broad chest while dozing off on the couch while he was watching you fight against your sleep with a small smile on his face. All those days where you were chasing him around the house with a nerf gun while laughing whenever he'd trip over the carpet in the hallway hitting his head against the wall. Days where you and him would talk about insecurities, doubts and fears you had for you felt safe with each other. Night where you were his and he was yours, needing nothing but each other.

It was a dream, a bad one it had to be. This couldn't happen to you two, right? Those things only happened in movies. Well atleast in movies they'd atleast eventually remember everything again,but you.. It was a nightmare he was trapped in, he had to get out, wanted to wake up. He had to wake up, to open his eyes dammit why couldn't he wake up.

You were robbed of basically everything, all the things that had formed you into the person you had become.

"Why are you doing this?"

The question took Bokuto off guard. His eyes widened slightly before squinting together on confusion. "Doing..what?" He muttered. In all honesty, he knew exactly what you meant. It had been a question he had been avoiding answering for the longest time, never wanting to be confronted and be put on the spot like he currently was.

Your arms moved around a little, signaling to a non-existing object,space, person who knew. "I-..This. Why are you still here, if to me you are nothing more than a stranger who apparently was my boyfriend in a life I don't even remember nor do i know if i ever will?"

The words felt like daggers being stabbed several times into his chest before being twisted around, making the pain even worse than it already was. He could fee his throat close up slightly, a lump building itself up in the bottom of it. All the things you were saying had been things he already knew but hearing you say them out loud hurt even more.

Bokuto laughed it off, slapping the table lightly before clearing his throat in a failed attempt to get rid of that horrible lump. "Woah, didn't expect that to go so deep! Give me a break~" He said with a sigh, a forced grin present on his face to once again hide his fragile side.

Your face had fallen upon hearing his words and seeing his reaction. It was obvious that he was hurting himself constantly, trying to patch something together that had a possibility of being beyond broken. Bokuto was trying to give himself, constantly telling himself that everything would turn back to normal while running away from the truth.

"Bokuto-san"

That wasn't right. It wasn't right. You were supposed to say Kou, a nickname you've been using ever since the two of you became close friends. He longed to hear you whisper his name into his ear whenever you wrapped your arms around his shoulder, for you to use pet names whenever you'd cuddle him in your arms and squish his cheeks.

He had been to preoccupied with his thoughts to notice your hands reaching out for his, only snapping back to his thoughts when you gave them a gentle squeeze. His eyes locked onto yours and saw how yours had softened upon the eye contact yet there was a layer of sadness they held. It hurt to see, knowing that if he hadn't pushed certain buttons maybe this wouldn't be the case.

As your thumb gently traced his knuckles, something you did before everything that happened. You didn't have to remember it, Bokuto knew it was because of your caring nature that you'd always figure out rather quickly how to comfort different people. You knew how to comfort him, yet all he really wanted was to be wrapped up in your arms and the memory of it made his chest hurt again.

Bokuto deflated again, his shoulders slumping and his eyes falling down onto the table.

"What happened, wasn't your fault. There will never be a day that i will put the blame on you and i'm sorry for what happened. I truly wish i could remember all the memories we've shared together over the years, that i could remember what it felt like to fall in love with you."

Now it was you who was getting teary eyed, something Bokuto hadn't seen ever since you had woken up. All this time you were lost in your own mind, surely you had questions about your life..not a lot though. You must've been trying to avoid thinking about it too much, making feeling Bokuto even more guilty for it seemed you had to force yourself to talk about something you wanted to avoid for the sake of comforting him. He felt like a horrible excuse of a boyfriend, hell he wasn't even sure if he was still allowed to call himself that.

"I wish, i could give it back to you. I really do and i am in every possible way open to the idea of making new memories with you but i really need you to understand that the person i was, before all this happened, the person you loved..isn't gonna be the person you're currently looking at."

The way your voice was breaking, the way you tried oh so hard to keep the tears from flowing and the way your hands were trembling above his own. Bokuto turned his hands upwards and cupped yours in his own. The feeling felt like nostalgia, like a deja vu you wanted to bask in forever.

Having to let go of the image he had of you felt impossible. Every morning Bokuto woke up, he had this underlying spark of hope that you'd be standing in the kitchen waiting for him while calling out his name with tears in your eyes before he ran towards you and taking you in his arms while spinning you around. How the two of you would talk about your most chesired memories you shared together. It still felt like a nightmare, waking up to an empty bed with nothing but him-well couch since he gave you the bed.

The feeling of your hands leaving his felt faint yet he was very aware of the very last touch he had of your skin on his.

"I..think i should go" the words hurt but he knew it was for the best. For he knew that if he kept living in his own fantasy world that you would keep on hurting and so would he.

It was for the best, he thought as he kept looking down at where you once stood.

It was for the best, he thought as he heard the front door shut not even having heard you leave.

It was for the best, he thought as he felt himself starting to break down while crawling into a little ball on the couch clutching onto the pillow that faintly smelled like your perfume.

Images of your smile, your voice and the feeling of your skin were replaying in his head. Your hand in his, your lips leaving small patterns on his shoulders making him giggle and your hands running through his hair while cuddling in bed. How you'd tell him you loved him and told him about how you'd picture your future together.

It was for the best, he thought.

It was for the best

[shadow--writer]

Please Don't go Walking Out That Door

(title) After a heavy depressive episode with writing I have returned! \o/ (fuck u helen). Are we gonna mention my word count? Absolutely not. 

Maeve x Lucas. Late nights, bloody days. 4.1k (don’t fuckin look at me)

TW (most of these are squicks): injuries, blood, scars, non sexual upper body nudity (briefly) 

@dela-png

The night stretched on and she felt woozy. 

Sometimes she wondered why she didn’t get help and why she was running this shitshow by herself. At least with extra hands she wouldn’t have to deal with her regulars alone.

The bell rang into the silence, she pressed a hand to her forehead. 

Oh great.

“T-Thumbelina?”

Her head snapped up at the voice.

It was Lucas. 

And he was carrying an injured woman. 

Maeve could just barely see the knife sticking out of her back, and the blood leaking down. The woman was slurring her words, squeezing her eyes shut. 

Maeve rubbed her temples, walking over to the two of them. Her heels clicked on the worn hardwood with her steps. She shut the clinic’s door behind them, closing the blinds around the windows. 

“Good Goddess above, do you get everyone into trouble?” she muttered, taking the injured side arm of the woman. They shifted her to one of the nearest tables. She was complaining the entire time, shaking her arm to get it out of Maeve’s grip.

“Well...no. This one was all her fault.”

“And I can fucking take care of it myself,” she said as Maeve and Lucas shifted her up onto the table. Well those words sounded vaguely familiar. 

“Her fault hm? Let me guess, picked a fight and didn’t realize they were sleazy?”

“...you got it.”

She chuckled, pulling her hair up. “Oh I’ve been there.” She yanked the ribbon closed around her hair, looking at the woman on her clinic table. 

“I need to take your shirt off so I can get a good look at your wounds,” she said, shifting over to look for her pain medicines and needles. A knife in the back could hit a multitude of organs. Stomach, kidney, pancreas, an intestine. 

Sometimes you learn things from experience as well as being taught. 

Lucas looked at the woman as Maeve sterilized her scalpel. “Hey Amani, she’s gonna help you.”

Amani bit at his hand. He shifted away from her, muttering something in a bitter tone. 

“I’m fine! I can fix myself up!” Her voice was a snarl.

Something about the notion of taking her shirt off was bothering her.

Maeve guessed it had to do with something on her back. 

Like a scar.

She set her tools down on the table with a light thump. She was tired and could feel a headache coming on. 

“If I show you the scars on my back, will you let me help you before you bleed out?” She rubbed her temples. 

“I can fix myself.” There was an edge and some very creative swears following it as Maeve tapped the knife. 

“A healing spell isn’t going to do much unless you have very flexible bones and can reach around your back to give yourself stitches. It’ll work wonders for some damage, but can you fix internal? What about stop the bleeding?”

The woman turned away. 

“Amani please. I can’t help you,” Lucas whispered. “I’m useless.”

“You’re aren’t useless,” Amani muttered. “A fucking dumbass for bringing me here instead of helping me home, but not useless.”

“Sorry to say most of my medicine and herbs are locked up as well,” Maeve said, looking at the knife. She would need to get the woman’s shirt off her back to see the wound. 

But maybe not take it of all the way...it was already torn up...and if she didn’t mind the loss Maeve would only need to tear it further instead of taking it off entirely. “You won’t be getting anything.”

She bent over to be eye to eye with Amani. “So you’re stuck with me helping you.”

“Sorry short stack, but the shirt stays on.”

“I will only need to tear it to see the wound.”

“On.”

Maeve huffed. “I will show you my back if you let me tear your shirt. But this is a timed offer as I do not want you to bleed out on me. Do you know how messy that would be? A pain to clean!”

Amani turned to look over at Lucas. He slapped a hand to his forehead. “So this is the Thumbelina you’ve been raving about? She’s a total bitch!”

She flicked her scalpel. “A bitch with a sharp object. Pick your battles wisely.” Her eyes darted down to the knife in Amani’s back. “If you can be wise at all.”

“Maeve!” Lucas wheezed. 

Amani snorted. “Fiery.”

Maeve stood upright, resting a hand on her hip as she sighed. “I’m used to dealing with people like you. Now, the shirt is going to come off one way or another. Question is; do you want me to knock you out or are you going to comply?”

Amani mouthed the word ‘bitch’ at Lucas. He shot her a glare. “Amani, I love you, but please.”

“Yeah yeah. And you still brought me to the bitchy mean doctor.”

“For a knife lodged in your back!”

“That I can take care of!”

“It’s in your back!”

Amani huffed, turning back to Maeve. “So, if you help me, you’ll leave me alone? The both of you?”

“If you don’t decide to bite me first, yes. You’ll have to stay a little bit when the pain meds kick in since depending on the wound, they can be pretty powerful.”

Amani sighed. “Ugh.”

“This is no fun for me either.”

“So...you’ll show me your scars first, right?”

“We are on a time limit.”

“Your back first.”

She threw her hands in the air, Lucas backing away from the hand holding the scalpel. “Fine! Fine!” She set the scalpel down. “We are on a tight schedule but fine!”

She turned to Lucas, the heels of her shoes the only sound for a moment. “Help me with my dress please,” she said, moving her hair off one shoulder to reveal the laces down her back. 

“You want me to what?”

She huffed, frustrated with the two of them. Her headache throbbed between her eyes. She wanted to rub her temples again. “Just...unlace me.”

“But-”

“Do you want her to bleed out?”

He shook his head, hands trembling a little as he untied the bow just under the collar of her dress. His touch was soft against her skin, moving quickly with the time crunch. 

Even so, she couldn’t deny the hitch in her breath as he brushed her skin. 

He grazed a jagged scar between her shoulder blades as he finished unlacing her. 

“So what are you…”

“Showing her my scars as I’ve promised. Then I’ll pull that knife out and hopefully she’ll still be alive in time for me to give her stitches. But of course, she insists on this.”

Maeve rubbed her eyes, walking back to the woman on the table. She watched Lucas with an almost...amused glint in her eye. 

Maeve shrugged the dress off her shoulders. 

“Whoa hold on-”

She shot a glare at Lucas. Apparently even he caught on to the scene before him. “Oh relax, it’ll be quick. And I’m wearing something under this.”

“But…”

“Lucas, we don’t have time to ‘preserve my modesty.’ You may look away if you wish, but this sort of thing is nothing new to me. If she wants to see my scars to be more comfortable with me seeing hers, fine.”

“But you’re-”

“You are abnormally stubborn for someone in your position. It isn’t hard to catch on. If you do not wish to see me undress ever so slightly, then you may look away. But please remember she is bleeding out on my clinic table with a knife in her back. I do not believe we have the kind of time to discuss this.”

“Lucas just admit you like what you see and move on!” Amani called. 

Maeve shot her a withering glare. “And you, you have no place to talk! Making me jump through hoops to take a knife out of your back.”

She held the bodice of her dress to her chest as she looked at Amani. “And here are my scars, are you happy?”

Amani stared at the mess of flesh on Maeve’s back. She knew it was a mess of old wounds. From axes. Arrows. Some burn scars. Bite marks. Knife and sword wounds. She was glad she was related to one of the best healers on her island. 

“Damn.”

“Are we good now? Can I just tear your shirt a little to get the knife out?” Maeve huffed, pushing her dress back over her shoulders. She didn’t have time to lace it so she’d have to make due with showing a little bit of skin. 

All she needed to do was just...heal, stitches, medicine, rest. Then she could get them out of her hair and pass out for a million moon cycles. 

“You can tear it a little…” Amani muttered. 

Maeve let out a tired sigh, picking up her scalpel and needles (with sutures already tied neatly, she anticipated someone coming in. But not this).

She tore Amani’s shirt, revealing a bit of marred skin. Gold paint was flaking off and onto the table. Amani twitched under her as she looked at the skin puckering around the knife. 

“Fucking hell doc, your hands are so cold.”

“Oh yeah I know. Would you rather Giant manhandle you?”

“Gods he’d crush me!” “Hey!”

Maeve chuckled, giving the knife a good tug. Amani spewed curses as Maeve muttered something to herself. It was lodged in there pretty good. She suspected it hit an organ as well. She’d have to be quick with healing and stopping the blood. 

“Well Miss. Amani, you might have another scar to add to your collection,” Maeve said, cleaning her hands on her apron. “And I do warn you, this might hurt a little.”

“Do your worst.”

“Oh I will.”

“Wait-”

She pulled on the knife. It came out with a spurt of blood. She was right about the organ thing, but thankfully it was only the small intestine. Any higher might’ve been stomach or even a lung. 

Healing spells didn’t work with organs surrounded by bone. 

Amani screamed, swearing in another language. 

Maeve tossed the knife to the side, pressing her apron (her poor apron) to the wound. “Calma síos, ba é sin an chuid éasca,” she muttered, her native language a comfort to her. She breathed through her nose, gearing up for the healing spell. 

There was a spark in her palms

And it faded. 

Cursing, she fought for it back, but each attempt fell flat. 

“Thumbelina?” Lucas asked. 

“I don’t have enough fucking energy for this fucking goddamn spell. Shit.”

“Hey! Watch your fucking language in front of a patient!” Amani said.

“I shall do no such thing you fucking nitwit!” Maeve huffed, sweat dripping from her brow. Her hands were stained red. 

“Can you...draw on energy from someone else?” Lucas asked. 

“I could in theory, but I don’t know what it would do to the other person.”

“Could you use me?”

She turned to look at him, her dress fell off of one shoulder. “Could I what?”

“Use me. My energy.”

“He does have a lot of that- OW!” Maeve pressed the wound a little roughly to shut Amani up.

“I don’t know what it would do.”

“I know you can help.”

“Ugh,” Amani moaned. “Stop flirting and help me.”

“We aren’t flirting,” Maeve said firmly. “Lucas come here.”

He shuffled forward. 

“Touch me.”

“Huh?”

“God- just...touch my back.”

He jolted, placing a hand on her bare skin. She sucked in a breath, his hand splayed along her scars. His hand was almost as big as her back was. 

“N-Now,” she breathed. “Visualize.”

“Like what I do to channel my magic?”

He had magic? She wasn’t surprised he had it but surprised he’d use it. 

Nonetheless it lent well. 

“Yes. But channel it into me.”

“Are you sure...it gets kind of...powerful.”

“Just...do it. Giant, she is bleeding out as we speak.”

“Yeah! Help me, then flirt- HEY! Stop that!” 

She pressed the wound again. “Save your breath, you will need it.”

Amani muttered something under said breath as Maeve counted down. 

She was hit with a surge. She gritted her teeth, her hands going numb with the amount of energy. 

Holy fuck. 

“I cannot believe this is just...your magic,” she muttered as Amani writhed under her. Lucas was jumpy, flinching every time Amani slurred out a curse. 

“I’m knitting the wound back together. It hurts like a son of a bitch, but I always stop before they black out. Not healthy to keep going otherwise.”

“Why does it hurt so much?” he asked, his breaths coming out in slight heaves. 

“All magic has its price and drawbacks.” 

She pulled back with a gasp. Lucas leaned against her. Amani stopped squirming. 

“That fucking hurt,” she gasped. 

“Well yeah. You got stabbed in the small intestine. And we still have stitches!” She massaged her temples. She smeared blood along her skin. Mm she’d have to bathe as well. Great.

“You okay there Thumbelina?”

“Mm fine. Just tired. Like you. I’ll be okay. Just gotta fix her up and get you guys some water.” Ugh she was woozy again. Her dress kept slipping down. She kept pushing it up. He watched her.

“You have tattoos on your back.”

“...I do indeed.”

“They’re lovely.”

She stiffened. “T-Thank you.” Amani rolled her eyes. His hand brushed one of her scars, making  her let out a tiny squeak.

“What’s this from?”

“A...brawl with my family.”

“A brawl?” 

“Mmhmm. Hate to brag, but I won. I’m a bit of a feral fighter. I’m sure I can beat you.”

She started Amani’s stitches. Her bodice slipped down her arms. She cursed, pushing it back up. 

“I’d like to see you try and beat me,” he said with a chuckle, holding her dress up and slowly lacing up the back. She went rigid at his touch. His hands were so much warmer than she expected. 

She calmed her erratic breathing, focusing on her needlework. Amani was blessedly silent. 

“I could and I would,” she said, tugging the wound closed.

“I’m like four times your size.”

“Yes but I’m fast. And I have military training. I don’t think you’ve ever seen me in action before.”

“Well no...but neither have you.”

“Ugh can you stop flirting!”

And then the silence was ended. 

“It isn’t flirting, only a conversation while I help stitch you up.”

“Yeah but his hands are all over you.” His hands froze. 

“He’s pulling up my dress.” She knotted the thread, snipping it with scissors she kept nearby. “A mer conversation about me whooping his ass is not flirting.”

“You whooping my ass?” he asked. 

“Now this is flirting.” She turned to look at him. “I would, but I must say, it is a nice ass.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and then closed it.

He looked like a fish. 

She giggled, turning back to Amani. She changed the conversation to ignore the heat in the tips of her ears. Even brazen flirting didn’t save her from the effects of the new found feelings she had for him. 

“So I have some pain meds, but they’ll knock you out pretty good if you aren’t careful. I can also fetch you a new shirt if you’d like. This one is kind of a mess.”

She helped Amani to sit up. She ran her hands down the front of her shirt. “No thanks. Rather attached to this one.”

“Of course.”

“Damn, what’s with the way she speaks?” Amani looked at Lucas. 

Like Maeve wasn’t right there.

This headache might turn into a migraine. 

“It’s so proper!”

“Well she normally speaks...differently I suppose.”

“I only get very proper when I have a headache, and the two of you are the root issue,” Maeve groused, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “It was already a long day and now an even longer night.” She always fell back into her aunt's lessons when she was sick.

That or she lost her filter.

She preferred to sound like a lady. She hurt feelings when she didn’t have what little filter on. 

“Ah so this is Maeve? She’s a treasure,” Amani snorted.

Maeve cracked an eye open. “Well a warning about you would’ve been nice as well.”

“He never mentioned me?” She looked at Lucas, jutting a finger at him. “You whore!” 

“Amani!”

Maeve threw her hands into the air. “I’m going to get water both for myself and the two of you knuckleheads.”

“Hey!” they yelled at the same time as she walked away. 

“What and you want to spend the night too?” she snapped, grabbing a few glasses and filling them with water from her bucket. She left bloody handprints but she couldn’t find it in her to care. “You need the water for the medicine anyways. I need it for my headache. And Lucas…”

“...we’ll just go with I’m thirsty.”

“Oh yeah you’re thirsty alright,” Amani huffed. “But not for the water.”

Lucas’ face flushed pink. “Amani!”

“Mmm I’m sure,” Maeve hummed, placing a glass in each of their hands. “And tell me, what on Earth would he be thirsty for?”

“...you know, sometimes I wonder if I can find someone as dense as Lucas and it appears that I have.”

Maeve chuckled. “Oh I’m fully aware of what your comment implies. I get enough of it from my little sister.”

...ah so that’s who Amani reminded her of. 

No wonder she wanted to strangle her. 

She just felt like her younger sister. Had the air of her. 

Gods help her if they ever meet. 

“But it’s more fun to watch him squirm.”

Amani’s eyes lit up. “Oh you. I’m starting to like you.”

“Mmm oh...wonderful,” she replied, moving over to look for the pain meds. “More people to bother me.”

“I thought you liked me!” Lucas protested, making her crack a smile. Her headache was slightly dulled by the water, but judging by how much her head throbbed not even sleep would help. 

“On occasion,” she hummed, standing on her tiptoes to try and reach her lactucarium bottle. This tasted vile, but it was effective. 

She swayed a little, being hit with a wave of dizziness. She stumbled backwards, hand coming down to rest on her forehead as she spat out curses. She most likely hadn’t been drinking water. 

...now that she thought about it she didn’t even eat either. The meal Lucas brought sat untouched in her backroom. 

He would kill her if he found that one out. 

Speaking of…

She looked up at Lucas, who had caught her. She stumbled a little, trying to worm her way out of his arms. Amani was chuckling (and then yelping at the pull on her stitches). 

“You okay there, Thumbelina?” The testing offense gone from his voice. 

“Just a dizzy spell.”

“You’ve had a lot of those.”

“This time it’s from a headache. I’ll be okay once you two go home and I can sleep.”

He didn’t crack a smile like she hoped he would. Hers fell. 

“Did you eat today?”

“Did you?” Amani called. 

“Amani this isn’t about me-”

“Don’t make me come over there.”

“...fine. I didn’t eat. Maeve?”

She chewed her lower lip as he helped her upright. He reached over her to grab the lactucarium bottle. He handed it to her as she let go of her lip. “Well, no. I haven’t had the time and it...slipped my mind.”

“...like I said, you’re tiny enough as it is.”

“Like you can talk.”

“Tell him!”

“Shut up!” they both yelled. 

All three of them stared at one another before laughing. The topic of eating all but forgotten. 

“Okay Amani, this stuff is fucking nasty as hell, but it helps. I don’t have it in pill form so we’ll make due.” She poured a little of the lactucarium onto a spoon, and held it up to Amani. 

“What you’re gonna feed it to- ACK!” She shoved the spoon in Amani’s mouth, watching her grumble and swallow the medicine. 

Amani gagged. “Oh fucking shit yuck.”

“Oh yes. And the aftertaste is worse.” She set the spoon down, untying her bloodied apron and using it to pick up her bloody tools and the knife. She watched the woman guzzle down the water she brought with a chuckle. “See?”

“Lucas you chose to be friends with a sadist,” Amani moaned, pretending to swoon. “She’s gonna kill me!”

“Keep up the dramatics and I just might.”

“I really hope this means you two are getting along.”

“Hmm I dunno. Check in tomorrow.”

Amani snorted. “So maybe she isn’t as big of a bitch as I thought.”

“That’s sweet of you.” She dumped the bloodied tools onto a tray to be cleaned later. She folded the stick apron over one arm. She had blood on her cheek. Wonderful. “But I wouldn’t say that assessment was wrong.”

“You two are the worst,” Lucas groaned. 

“Says the person who didn’t eat,” Amani replied. 

“Neither did Maeve!”

“Well I’m not close enough to her to lecture her!”

He glared at Maeve who was looking very smug. “She’s not wrong Lucas dear. You also have a harder job than I do in terms of physical labor.”

“...you had to hold down Amani.”

“Who was being a pain.”

“Hey! I am right here!”

He snorted. “Okay that is fair. Is there anything I need to do with her stitches?”

“I’d give you aloe to put over it but a certain someone.” A man named Sam. One of her...infamous regulars. “Used up the rest of my fucking aloe.”

He shifted at her tone. “...and you...?”

“Well other than chasing him out of my clinic with a bone saw due to being a pain in my ass, using up the rest of the aloe plant I had. Which was a lot. And then taking candy I save for kids? Nothing.”

“...you chased him out with a bone saw?”

“Why yes I did.” She fluffed her ponytail. “So with Amani, you should keep her in bed for a little bit while she heals. Thanks to the healing spell it shouldn’t be too long. Reopening the stitches means coming back to me though and we certainly don’t want that.”

“Uh Doc.”

“...yes?”

“I think Lucas is still hung up on the fact you chased someone out with a saw.”

“Well he’d better bring his head back down to Earth or you two will be next. Do you have aloe, or can you get any?”

“Oh yeah! I grow it.”

“Oh wonderful! Just put that on your stitches to help with your skin. Honey is a wonderful antibiotic, to keep your wound from being infected. I’d say no heavy drinking or going out for at least a few days. Four at most.”

“Four days?”

“I’m sure you’ll survive.”

“...barely.”

“Come back here in a few days and if I give you the okay, go wild.”

“No more nasty pain medicine?”

“Unless the pain gets bad, no.” She looked at Lucas, who looked like he was trying to do a difficult math problem. It made her laugh. “You should take her home to get some sleep.”

He snapped out of his stupor. “And what about you?”

“Well currently, closed.”

“You should eat something.”

“I will.”

“Good.”

“...god that was so fucking awkward. Can I go home to die in peace?”

“You aren’t dying.”

“I dunno that stuff your little fairy, as you’ve called her, might just do me in.”

She felt her cheeks warm. He talked about her? She knew Amani mentioned it before but not it was really sinking in. “Oh don’t be dramatic. It was only pain medicine.”

She helped him get Amani up off the table, the woman muttering about how she was fine and that she could walk fine. 

“Thank you, Maeve,” he whispered when they got to the door. 

“It was no trouble.”

“Sorry we came so late.”

“I’m used to it.”

“You should get some sleep for that headache.”

“I think I can handle it,” she said with a smile. “You take care of Amani now. Oh and Lucas!” He turned around. “Eat something. Please. It’s not healthy to do the amount of labor you do on an empty stomach.”

“I...okay.”

“...bootlicker,” Amani muttered. He shoved her. “Hey! I’m injured!”

“When you’re better you can’t use that and then you’ll get it,” he muttered, making Maeve smile. 

She waved them off, leaning against the clinic doorframe. 

Lucas turned around to look at her, shooting her a small and a two fingered salute. 

‘See you later, Thumbelina.’ he mouthed, making something...spark at her skin as she blushed. 

Oh no. 

[emelywrites]

Could you make a Diego Hargreeves x reader her power is elemental? Where she is part of the Sparrow Academy and she is the caretaker of the greenhouse there. When she meets Diego she falls for him and him for her, but he is still kinda in love with Lila.

I really liked writing that, my plants are my biggest love right now. And can I just say I got genuinely pissed when I wrote that Diego hurt the waterlily? She’s my favorite child right now :)

Warnings: Language, mentions of minor injury, mentions of past child neglect (they’re grown ups now)

The plant lady

For some reason Reginald let the Umbrella Academy stick around the Sparrow Academy as long as they wouldn’t disrupt training. They didn’t get their old rooms but others that were all about the size of Vanya’s childhood bedroom. Grace wasn’t here so Diego already hated this place. Additionally to not having his mom around anymore at all he had also just lost Lila and didn’t know where in the timeline she was hiding. So, one day he just got tired of lying around in his bedroom and started exploring this new place. The general style of the place was different but every room was where it used to be. He arrived in the courtyard. Ben’s statue was gone, obviously, he wasn’t dead in this timeline.

Another thing that was new, right in the middle of the courtyard, was a circular greenhouse that seemed like there wouldn’t even be space for people to go inside with how packed full of plants it looked from the outside. He entered anyway and realized that he was right. There was a beautiful chaos of plants but it looked someone had made themselves almost a living space inside. There was an armchair and a desk with a little stool in the corner and Diego decided to slump down in the armchair. He took in his environment. There were butterflies, spiders and flies hanging around and water spraying from the sprinkler system above. For the first time in a long while Diego felt at peace. The sound of the plants rubbing against one another and the water flowing and spraying, the smell of soil, plants and just freshness, and the high content of oxygen in the air thanks to the plants around made him sink further into his chair as he started to play with a knife. He felt so calm he accidentally hit one of the plants.

„Ow, what the fuck?“, someone said from behind a large Monstera plant, „Who’s here and what the hell did you do to my waterlily mother plant?“

She came around from behind the plant and spotted him quickly. Diego was starstruck. In front of him was a beautiful woman his age (obviously), wearing the Sparrow Academy uniform, minus the tie and blazer but with long pants instead of a skirt so technically it was just a white blouse and dark blue pants with some red detail, and her (y/h/c) hair tied up haphazardly. She had her hand stretched to her side, a water ball floating over it.

„Sorry“, he mumbled, „Wait, were you gonna attack me with a water ball?“

„No, I’m using it to care for the plants, it’s easier than carrying around a big watering can or a bucket or whatever“, she dropped her hand, the water falling into a puddle next to her, „Besides, I’m not going to attack anyone in here, my plants have already suffered enough thanks to you.“

„It’s just a little cut, it’ll be fine“, he rubbed his neck, „And I said I was sorry.“

„My plants have been cared for by me since I was a little girl, dad had this built when I was four. That waterlily was the first plant that has ever entered this greenhouse“, she narrowed her eyes at him, „I’m emotionally connected to my plants, I feel what they feel.“

Diego widened his eyes at her when she said that and only then realized that she did have a little scratch on her ear.

„That’s not from the cut, I don’t actually get their wounds, I just feel their pain and needs. This one’s from our recent mission, bullet grazed me and I had the shooter sink into the floor for it“, she rubbed her ear when she noticed him staring, „I’m (Y/N), number two, I control the four elements.“

She waved her hand and he felt himself being pulled up from his seating position and hurled through the air until he was standing in front of her.

„Diego, I’m- wait, you’re number two? I’m number two“, he crunched his face into a look of confusion.

„Sorry, this is my timeline, so I’m number two, guess you’re number nine now. We’re seven and you’ll be added on top“, she created a new water ball and went back to tending to her plants, „So, what do you do?“

„I control things when they fly. Normally I throw knives, always hit the target“, he grew a bit talking about his powers, he was rather proud of them.

„Oh, so you wanted to hurt my waterlily?“, she threw the water ball at him.

„Hey! I lost control, I was just… distracted“, he admitted fondling with his wet shirt.

„Distracted?“, he nodded, „By my plants?“, he nodded again, she smiled, „Yeah, they’re great.“

„Can I stick around? My bedroom doesn’t even have a window. I’ve never felt as good as I do here for some reason.“ He trusted her somehow, she just had this thing to her that made him like her. Maybe it was just that she was the creator of this safe haven.

„I understand. I do, too. And I have a really nice bedroom“, she smiled, „Maybe you can help out.“

„I could try to improve the sprinkler system, it’s not hitting everything, you see?“, he pointed toward the back section where no water was sprinkling at all.

„There is no sprinkler system, I’m doing that. And those plants don’t need it right now. I was talking more like inventory and making sure I don’t starve. I forget time in here.“ She looked at her wristwatch, he did the same.

„So do I, apparently.“

They spent the rest of the day in the greenhouse together. Diego came back every single day and she was always there. She explained the plants to him. What they were, what they needed, where she got them. She showed him all the little details about them and explained them. Things Diego wouldn’t have given a flying shit about if anyone else had told him. But this woman, showing him her passion and looking so beautiful and content doing so, had intrigued him. She could be explaining law structures to him and he’d hang onto every word she said.

(Y/N) was so happy to have someone in her greenhouse who genuinely wanted to know things about her plants. Whenever she tried to tell her siblings about her plants they’d dismiss her ramblings and instead talk about some great thing that had happened in their training. In the thirty years of her existence it seemed like the only constant was her plants. (Y/N) rarely built relationships with people, maybe that was due to the fact that all the people she ever met and saw were those dismissive siblings and the distant father she lived under the same roof with. Diego made her feel noticed and important and she wanted to savor that feeling so whenever the other number two entered her green house, a warmth and excitement filled her.

After about a month of seeing each other in the greenhouse every day, Diego having taken to getting them snacks whenever they had wordlessly agreed it was time for food and writing down everything she told him to write down into her notebook on her desk, they had gotten very much used to one another. The notebook was all over the place but Diego had come to understand even her little scribbles. It had become so natural to hang out like that everyday that one day when he handed her half of a sandwich while she was inspecting a browning Philodendron leaf she mumbled „Thanks, babe“ with her mouth full.

They both paused at that and stared at each other. „I- I’m sorry, it just slipped out. I- It’s not like we’re dating or anything, we’re just friends, right?“

„Yeah, we’re good, I- I have a girlfriend. I mean- sort of. We just slept with each other and she introduced me to her mom and then I let her escape with a briefcase but I don’t think we- Is there like a time limit on when you’re not together anymore after parting ways? Like- It was just- just a few days.“

„Diego, it’s- it’s fine. I don’t mean to intrude on anything. If you say you have a girlfriend, I’ll accept that. And if you don’t that’s- that’s fine, too, whatever.“

They sat in awkward silence for a bit and for the first time ever she was relieved to see one of her siblings rushing into her greenhouse.

„(Y/N), get the fuck ready, we gotta go, Dad says we need all forces. So you, too, Raincoat Academy“, he said, rushing back out.

„It’s Umbrella Academy, actually“, Diego murmured but started walking out.

„I know. And he can’t hear you anymore, get dressed“, she rushed past him.

„Feels good to be getting back out“, he smiled.

He collected his knives that he always left in his bedroom now when he came to the greenhouse because (Y/N) had asked him to and he accepted that. Because he did like her quite a lot.

[horansqueen]

You & Me : chapter 38

A Niall Horan fanfiction ; rated MA

Sequel to AM CONVERSATIONS

CHAPTER 1 || CHAPTER 2 || CHAPTER 3 || CHAPTER 4 || CHAPTER 5 || CHAPTER 6 || CHAPTER 7 || CHAPTER 8 || CHAPTER 9 || CHAPTER 10 || CHAPTER 11 || CHAPTER 12 || CHAPTER 13 || CHAPTER 14 || CHAPTER 15 || CHAPTER 16 || CHAPTER 17 || CHAPTER 18 || CHAPTER 19 || CHAPTER 20 || CHAPTER 21 || CHAPTER 22 || CHAPTER 23 || CHAPTER 24 || CHAPTER 25 || CHAPTER 26 || CHAPTER 27 || CHAPTER 28 || CHAPTER 29 || CHAPTER 30 || CHAPTER 31 || CHAPTER 32 || CHAPTER 33 || CHAPTER 34|| CHAPTER 35 || CHAPTER 36 || CHAPTER 37

NOTES:

-one chapter is her pov, the next is his -4.3k - 4.9k -im sorry, i never proofread, i hate it. -there WILL be smut. but not only smut. -this is a romance, comedy, smut story. -for the summary, check my MASTERLIST.

READ AM CONVERSATIONS AGAIN ON WATTPAD HERE

- notes: nothing happened yet things happened? idk how i feel about this, i just hope you enjoy it, thank you guys for sticking up to this story ilysm!! oh and i chose this gif just because hes sweating lmao youre welcome! i hope this chapter gets more notes than the last haha

if you want to be on the list of blogs i notify when this is updated, just message me :)

requests! : i added as many as possible lol i even got one WHILE i was writing and added it lmao!

TAKE A LOOK AT THE CHARACTERS HERE

Chapter 38 : Her chapter

OLIVIA

April 17th, 2018

"You know what people say when they see a fat girl run." I just let out, raising my nose in a grimace as I tied up my shoes.

"I'm not really the type to listen to stupid people's opinion." Niall replied, making me roll my eyes and sigh before getting up. "And you shouldn't either."

He had convinced me to go run with him and I regretted my 'yes' half a second after agreeing but the way his face illuminated told me that it was too late to go back. I hated running and he knew it, and I was pretty sure he was aware of the sacrifice it was for me. I normally always quote the movie "The Faculty" when he mentions running, because i believe there's no truer words than Casey's line at the beginning of the movie when he says 'I don't think that a person should run unless he's being chased.", even if it's sort of ironic since the characters end up running away from an alien who wants to infect them the whole movie. Well, I would probably run if an alien was trying to infect me, too. And apparently, I would also run if it made Niall happy.

"It's easy for you. You've always been popular and cute and all the girls were in love with you."

"That is a big load of bullshit." he chuckled, shaking his head. "I've been told 'no' many, many times."

"I would like to see the statistics of the number of girls telling you 'no' versus the number of girls telling you 'yes."

This time, he's the one who rolled his eyes but he still had a cute smile gracing his lips and it made mine curl, too.

My parents were spending the whole day at friends' house. It was planned before I told them I'd come and visit them and even if they told me they'd cancel, I insisted that they'd just go. I didn't want to ruin their plans, I knew it was some anniversary or something similar and I could spend one day alone with Niall. Easily. Hell, I wanted to spend way more than one day with him.

"The only statistic I care about is this one." he started, clearing his throat. "How much do you love me, on a scale of 1-10."

I let out a genuine laughter and it made his lips curl. "That scale reaches the sky and it's too far away for me to see any number but there's like, 10 digits."

He took a step closer and I moved my chin up as he bent down to press his lips against mine. It felt so good to be back into this, to have a routine together, and to be happy without stress. I wouldn't go as far as saying it was exactly how it used to be but If I took the time to really think about it, it was even better. Back then, he was a bit immature and I was extremely insecure. Those two flaws sort of clashed together and made our relationship so much harder to handle. Now, I was not as insecure, and he didn't seem immature anymore, and I really felt like it could work between us.

We walked out but started running as soon as we were down the stairs. I let out a short groan of annoyance and it made him laugh. I knew he was going slowly just for me and it made me feel a bit guilty. At the same time, I was doing this for him and because he insisted, so the least he could do was wait for me, right? I don't know how long we ran but I hated it. I hated the burning sensation and the dry feeling in my throat, i hated the sweat on my back, and i hated the pain in my legs. God, I hate running. But then I turned to look at him and something twisted in my stomach and I bit my bottom lip. I loved watching him sweat. There was something sexy in watching him like that but it was not really the time and place to jump on him, unfortunately.

"How's your asthma?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Tolerable." I said, glancing at him again. "How's your grandpa knee?"

He chuckled and shook his head, making me smile more. "Could be worse."

After a while, I just stopped, feeling a cramp hurting like hell on my side, and held myself on my knees. He stopped next to me and bent down to look at me. He looked amazing, how did he fucking look so good all the damn time?

"You okay? Enough for today?"

I nodded and he smiled but I held my breath when I felt his hand on my back. I was in it so deep but I secretly hoped that I would never have to hurt again. I had new limits that I wanted to respect but I wouldn't ask him about every single girl gravitating around him, or cry myself to sleep because of a comment online. However, I would still get pissed if he let an other woman who clearly wants in his pants put her number in his phone, and I wouldn't accept him flirting with random girls at bars. The first time we dated, everything seemed to get to me but this time, It would be different. I would choose my battles and not get insecure about every little thing I see. I believed in myself more and I was convinced it helped me believe in him more, too.

We walked back home quickly and from time to time, I could feel his fingers brush against mine. It's in times like these that I really just wished we could be a normal couple. I knew he would be unhappy if he didn't do music for a living, and it would be a shame if his talent and songs weren't heard by millions of people, but selfishly, sometimes, I wished we could just walk around hand in hand without being scared of the comments, the articles and the hate.

I unlocked the door and when I took my shoes off, I grimaced and groaned low, moving my toes and quickly pulling on my socks., leaving them by the door.

"Petal, you reek." he let out before I turned around, raising my eyebrows. He chuckled and shrugged. "It's true, you smell so bad right now."

"I know!" I finally admitted in a laugh.

"But hey, you don't smell as bad as I do." he added, making me laugh more.

"That's practically impossible." I joked as he stuck his tongue out at me.

I watched him bend down and rub his knees and I bit my bottom lip as I felt a wave of intense love for him wash through me. I took a step closer and he moved his body up before looking in my eyes. I tilted my head, nibbling on my lip again and reached for the bottom of his shirt, finally pulling it up. He moved his arms up to help me as we kept staring at each other. A small smile draw itself on my lips and I just licked them, letting his shirt fall in the floor. Slowly, I let my hands run on his chest, my fingertips brushing against his nipples and moving down to his stomach. I felt my heart hit so hard against my rib cage that I thought it was going to escape. I could feel the sweat on my fingers and for some odd reason, it turned me on even more. My hands stopped at the top of his shorts and he raised his eyebrows.

"Are you gonna take them off, too?" he asked in a low tone.

"You know what I really want?" I asked in a low tone, ignoring his question as my forefingers hooked in the sides of his shorts, pulling them down slowly. He raised his eyebrows to incite me to talk and I smiled more. "Your dick in my mouth."

He didn't answer anything but his lips parted slightly and I slowly got down on my knees, bringing his shorts and boxers with me. I took his cock in my hand and when I got closer, he quickly stopped me.

"Wait!" he let out. I frowned and looked up but he just sighed. "We really need to get in the shower, first."

I stared at him for a few seconds and finally let out an amused chuckle before finally getting back up. He smirked and moved his upper body closer, his lips dangerously close to mine, before reaching for the bottom of my shirt.

"I honestly don't want you to be disgusted by my dick forever." he let out, making me chuckle again.

"Can't happen. But you're right, we should get clean first. Then fuck. And then get clean again." I proposed, making him raise his eyebrows up and down.

"And then maybe fuck again, yea?"

I smiled more at his words and nodded. "Yes."

He moved closer and kissed me, taking a few steps my way and forcing me to move back. He took my shirt off, throwing it on the floor, and I started laughing against his mouth when I accidentally stepped on something and ended hitting my back on the wall.

"Fuck, I love your clumsy ass." he whispered, slithering one of his arms around my waist as the other reached for my breasts. "And your tits, too." His hand moved down and slipped in my panties, making my eyes roll back as I leaned my head against the wall. "And your perfect little fanny, too."

He crashed his mouth against mine too as he flicked his fingertip on my clit a few times, making me whimper before he just took his hand away to pull on one side of my pants. I helped him with the other and stepped out of them. We were both just making out naked against the wall at my parents' house and I couldn't remember the last time I felt this horny. Was that adrenaline or something?

"Mm, your parents aren't coming back soon, right pet?" he asked in-between kisses as he pressed his body against mine. "Because they probably wouldn't enjoy the trail of our clothes on the floor that leads to the bathroom."

I laughed and shook my head as he pulled away. My eyes roamed on his face and It just hit me again how much I loved him.

"No, they'll be gone until very late tonight."

"Good."

He kissed me again and after a while, he pulled me to the bathroom and I tried to keep my mouth against his in a failed attempt as he bent down to start the shower. We laughed against each other's lips and ended up under the stream. I shivered as he grabbed the soap and poured some in my hands before doing the same in his. I washed myself quickly, staring at his hands moving on his body and when he reached his half-hard cock, I felt my heart jump in my chest.

"Sit on the side of the bath." he told me, making me obey immediately.

I was grateful that he didn't ask me to get on my knees because there's honestly nothing more uncomfortable for the knees than a bath. He moved closer and I smiled more when I realized his cock was at the perfect height. I felt like I hadn't had his cock in my mouth for so long and I took it as deeply as I could, making him groan low. I felt him swell on my tongue and spread my knees apart, bringing one of my hands between my legs.

"Mm, don't stop darling, do that thing you always do."

I chuckled low and pushed on the skin of his cock just to run the tip of my tongue between it and his tip, making one of his legs shake slightly. I used my fingers too, touching exactly the same spot and his head moved again to look down at me.

"That feels like I'm just cumming over and over again, fuck!"

I kept going for a while and finally ran my tongue on his length until his balls. He grabbed his cock in one of his hands and started stroking himself. I stuck my tongue out and felt his balls rub and bounce on my tongue with every jerk of his hand. I moved closer and sucked on one of until he grabbed my hair and pulled my head away gently.

"Open your mouth."

I did as asked and gently, he pushed his had cock in my mouth until I choked and pulled slightly away. I could feel him throb on my tongue and I let two of my fingers rub my clit gently as I sucking him harder.

"Stick your tongue out."

I looked up at him a bit innocently and opened my mouth, sticking my tongue out for him. He kept jerking himself hard, brushing his tip on my tongue as he did, and after about a minute, he let out a low groan.

"Fuck, I missed cumming on that tongue."

My eyes closed for a few seconds when his cum spurted on my cheeks, lips and tongue but I moved closer to suck on his tip again, my hands reaching for his balls as he kept stroking himself until he got down from his high. I never really enjoyed the taste but Niall’s orgasms were different, and I knew it probably only had to do with the love I felt for him, but it didn’t matter. He tasted good and I loved pleasing him. He panted for half a minute and finally grabbed my arms to pull me up gently.

"Even if you look really good like that..." he started, bringing me under the stream. "Let me help you."

Slowly, he ran his fingers on my cheeks before moving down to my lips, taking the vestige of his orgasm off. My heart jumped in my chest when he kissed me deeply and I moaned in his mouth as his hands ran on my breasts.

"You need an orgasm too." he pointed out as I nodded. "Sit back down."

I did what he told me to and frowned a bit when he got on one knee, knowing how much it hurts. We could both feel the water falling on us but when he moved his lips to my neck, I let my head fall back and closed my eyes. Two of his fingers slipped inside me as he nibbled on the skin of my neck and he started fucking me slowly. His mouth moved down to my breast and the way he sucked and licked my nipples made my fingers rub against the bath in a weird and annoying sound.

"You're gonna let me fuck you hard later today, won't you princess?"

I shivered, realizing I hadn't heard that nickname in a while, and finally nodded. "Mmhm, whenever you want, wherever you want, for as long as you want. You know I'm all yours."

"Fuck, say it again."

He started finger fucking me harder and I felt my breasts press against his chest as he bit my neck harder.

"I'm yours, Niall, I'm all yours." I let out in a mix of a whimper and a whisper.

"Get up."

I felt a bit too weak to do it but I still managed and when I felt his mouth crush on my pussy, I leaned my head against the cold and hard shower wall. I brought on of my legs up on the side of the bath and focused on the way his tongue skillfully sucked and licked my pussy until I felt an orgasm hit me without warning.

"Oh fuck! Niall!"

I reached for his hair and pulled on it hard, making sure his face stayed between my legs and It took me all my strength not to literally let myself fall at the bottom of the bath. When he got back up, he wrapped his arms around me and I allowed myself to get weak close to him, making him laugh.

"Good?" he asked. I nodded, brushing my nose against his wet neck and whimpered low. "Hungry?"

                                                   ----

The park was not too crowded and the sun was slowly setting. We started eating the lunch we had prepared together and I surprised myself wishing every day would be like that. It was ridiculous and impossible, but a girl could dream, right?

"What do you think would have happened if we never broke up?" I asked, staring at my water bottle before looking up in his eyes.

He was staring at me, his eyebrows raised and his lips curled into a pensive expression. He looked adorable and I smiled fondly at him. He shook his head slightly and grabbed his fork, playing with his food for a few more seconds.

"I don't know. I like to think I would have matured anyway and wouldn't be a prick but you never know." he explained with a shrug.

"You think you would have cheated on me?"

His head snapped up to look at me and he shook his head harder this time. "No. I was a flirt, but I was not a cheater, I promise."

Obviously, we would never know, and from what I had seen of Niall, he normally broke up with the girl before giving in to anyone else... well, except with me. It made me realize he had cheated on two girls with me and I tried to push away the guilt invading me. After all, I had cheated on Dylan too. The fact that he knew and had decided to ignore it didn't make my action less painful, or okay. We both had cheated and there was no excuse for it.

"You cheated with me. I did too. We both cheated. On Heidi and Dylan, and that was so wrong."

"I know." he sighed. "We can't go back. I mean I wish I could say I regret it, but I don't. It lead us here."

I sent him a sad smile and nodded. I wanted so much for us and even if I still had a few doubts, I wanted us to work. I wanted us to make efforts into this, but I couldn't make them for him. All I knew was that I was going to do everything I could to make this work, and from the way he had been acting with me lately, I was pretty sure he would do the same.

"So what's gonna happen to us now, Niall?" I asked softly. "What's our future together?"

He looked down immediately and it made me frown. Did he have something to hide? I couldn't start thinking like that again, I couldn't start analyzing his every move. I breathed it and let it go, simply tilting my head.

"We'll love each other, become official whenever you're ready, maybe even start attending galas and shit together, perhaps." he proposed, shrugging a shoulder and making me laugh.

"Yea, that's not really your type of things." I pointed out.

"Well it's different with you. Everything is different with you. In a good way. In the best way."

Without thinking, I held myself on the grass between us and leaned my upper body his way to reach his lips with mine. He kissed me back and after a while, he deepened the kiss. I didn't feel nervous, or stressed, and I didn't give a fuck about who could see us.

"I love you. I want to spend my life with you." I whispered. "I know these words used to scare you... how do they make you feel, now?"

I pulled away enough to be able to look in his eyes and his lips curl into a genuine smile.

"Like the happiest man in the world."

My lips curled into a happy smile as something stirred in my stomach. "You're so full of shit, Horan."

He brought one of his hands to my cheek and I leaned against it without thinking.

"I mean it Liv. Trust me." he murmured as I felt his breath hit my chin.

I breathed in deeply and pressed my lips together before whispering too. "I do. I trust you."

                                                        ---

We ended up watching tv together in the living room after the sun was set and I knew my parents could be back any minute, making me wonder if we had time to fuck or if we should just wait until they would be in bed.

"I wish you'd come with me in Germany." he let out randomly, taking me out of my thoughts.

"You... you know I have to go back in California soon." I explained, feeling my heart sink in my chest. "I mean, we can survive a few weeks away, yea?"

He turned his head my way and sighed. "Of course we can. But we shouldn't have to. And.. I don't really want to."

"I know." I said in a low tone, trying not to cry and looking down at my hands playing with the fabric of my shirt. "I mean, I don't know what else we can do. I'll try to get more weeks off but I don't know when that will be. When's your next week off?"

"Uhm, mid may, I think, but then I have to go back to the UK for that radio show thing."

"Oh." I brushed my palms on my face, suddenly tired and a bit scared, not knowing when I could be with him again. "Tell me the exact date and I'll try to fly there for a few days."

"That's in like... a month, Olivia." he let out a bit annoyed or disappointed... or both.

"I know." I whispered, swallowing hard, trying not to cry.

He sighed again and made a quick head movement. "Come here."

He didn't have to ask me twice : I threw myself against him as he wrapped his arms around me and I buried my face in his shirt, letting out a sob that I desperately tried to suppress without success.

"Hey, it'll be okay." he whispered, kissing the top of my head. "We can do this. We're stronger than ever together. Distance is alright. A month is nothing. Remember my trip to Asia?"

It's not that it was a bad example but it was a rough memory and I sniffed, shutting my eyes tighter as I tried to move closer to him. I didn't want to be a month away from him but I knew it was probably going to happen and I didn't know how to handle it. I was about to answer something when both our phones beeped and I groaned. It couldn't be a good thing and we both knew it.

"I don't want to look." I admitted low as he rubbed my back gently.

"We have to. Let's do it and then go to bed."

I sighed again and nodded as we both grabbed our phones. The problem was apparently Heidi, who had posted a bunch of song lyrics on her instagram stories, and people started speculating about who it was about. After checking, though, I knew it was about Niall. And about me a bit, too.

SHAKIRA - DONT BOTHER She's been to private school And she speaks perfect French She's got the perfect friends Oh isn't she cool? Hey, hey So don't bother I won't die of deception I promise you won't ever see me cry Don't feel sorry And don't bother I'll be fine But she's waiting The ring you gave to her will lose its shine So don't bother, be unkind

THE WEEKEND - CALL OUT MY NAME We found each other I helped you out of a broken place You gave me comfort But falling for you was my mistake I put you on top, I put you on top I claimed you so proud and openly And when times were rough, when times were rough I made sure I held you close to me

JUSTINE TIMBERLAKE - CRY ME A RIVER You don't have to say, what you did I already know, I found out from him Now there's just no chance With you and me There'll never be Don't it make you sad about it?

SAM SMITH - IM NOT THE ONLY ONE I have loved you for many years Maybe I am just not enough You've made me realize my deepest fear By lying and tearing us up You say I'm crazy 'Cause you don't think I know what you've done But when you call me baby I know I'm not the only one

DRAKE - MARVINS ROOM I'm just sayin' you could do better Tell me, have you heard that lately? I'm just sayin' you could do better And I'll start hatin' only if you make me

KATY PERRY - PART OF ME I just wanna throw my phone away Find out who is really there for me You ripped me off your love was cheap Was always tearing at the seams I fell deep, you let me down But that was then and this is now, now look at me

LITTLE MIX - SHOUT OUT TO MY EX This is a shout out to my ex Heard he in love with some other chick Yeah yeah, that hurt me, I'll admit Forget that boy, I'm over it I hope she gettin' better sex Hope she ain't fakin' it like I did, babe Took four long years to call it quits Forget that boy, I'm over it

TAYLOR SWIFT - SHOULVE SAID NO You should've said no, you should've gone home You should've thought twice before you let it all go You should've know that word, bout what you did with her Would get back to me And I should've been there, in the back of your mind I shouldn't be asking myself why You shouldn't be begging for forgiveness at my feet You should've said no, baby and you might still have me I can't resist, before you go, tell me this Was it worth it Was she worth this

SUGARLAND - BABE What a waste Taking down the pictures and the plans we made, yeah And it's strange how your face doesn't look so innocent Your secret has its consequence and that's on you, babe Since you admitted it, I keep picturing Her lips on your neck, I can't unsee it I hate that because of you, I can't love you Babe What a shame, didn't want to be the one that got away How could you do this, babe?

BRITNEY SPEARS - PERFUME Do I imagine it, or do I see your stare Is there still longing there? Oh I hate myself, and I feel crazy Such a classic tale Current girl friend, ex girlfriend, I'm trying to be cool Am I being paranoid, am I seeing things? Am I just insecure?

I read her stories twice, three times, and I swallowed hard until I heard Niall curse under his breath next to me. It caught my attention and I sighed, licking my lips.

"She's right, you know. I don't know how she found out but, we talked about it earlier. We did cheat on them, Niall."

"Alright, but did she need to expose that on instagram?" He closed his eyes and groaned, throwing his phone on the couch and rubbing his eyes roughly. "Are you ready for the storm? You know our social medias are gonna fucking explode."

"It doesn't matter. As usual, we're just gonna stay quiet." I replied, shrugging and sighing an other time. "You should have never dated that girl."

"I know. I didn't know back then but now, I know." he confessed, shaking his head. "I didn't think she was that kind of girl."

I started laughing next to him and his eyes met mine. He raised his eyebrows an I pressed my lips together because chuckling more.

"I mean, seriously, Niall? She was always like that."

He remained quiet and moved his arm on the back of the couch before I leaned my head against it.

"I should have dated you when I was 13 and I tried to match you with Rian for no reason. I should have dated you when I was 16 and horny. I should have dated you when I joined One Direction and you messaged me all the time. I should have dated you after the Take Me Home tour, when I came back home and noticed how much you had changed. I should have dated you during our last tour, before you got attached to Harry. I should have dated you last year, when we were both miserable. I realize it's you I should have dated all those times. Whenever I dated an other girl, it should have been you."

I teared up but tried to swallow the emotions inside me but they were drowning me instead, making me dizzy and happy at the same time.

"Yea, you should have." I whispered, scared that my voice would crack. "What about now, Niall?"

"Now?" he asked gently, raising his eyebrows but his gaze never leaving mine. I felt his fingertips play with a lock of my hair and it made my heart twist in my chest. "Well now I'm here. I'm with you. And I don't intend or want to be with anyone else. Ever again."

[eryiss]

Chapter Four - The Voicemail

Summary: Freed and Laxus live incredibly different lives. Freed is a corporate lawyer in the capital city, and Laxus works as a handyman in a countryside hotel. Despite their differences, their lives collide when Freed inherits a house in Laxus’ village, and hires him to make the derelict building liveable. But the closer they get, the more they seem to offer each other. [Fraxus Multi-Chapter]

This was written as my admission for Fraxus Day 2020, hosted by @fuckyeahfraxus​. Hope you enjoy it.

You can read this under the cut, on Fanfiction, or on Archive of Our Own. You can find the chapter masterpost here.

Chapter Four – The Voicemail

It hadn't occurred to Laxus how much he liked having a daily routine until he got one again. The last time he had every day of the week planned out was when he was in high school, as his university schedule was fluid to say the least. The lack of a routine had been a gradual thing, slowly allowing his days merge into a mess of passing the time and occasionally working on things around the hotel. He had been bored for a while now, but hadn't allowed himself to admit it.

Though now, with a day of work always available, Laxus didn't know how he had managed to pass so much time. Although Freed hadn't given him a strict schedule of when he should be working on the house and when he shouldn't – he claimed he knew a man like Laxus wouldn't waste his time, and Laxus was glad of the observation – Laxus had decided on dedicated work hours, planning out his whole day.

At seven, he woke up. At seven thirty, he'd do his daily workout at the gym. At nine, he'd make his rounds around the hotel to see if anything needed fixing or work. At ten, he'd go to the house and do whatever he had planned for the day.

He felt like an adult. It was a good feeling.

Climbing off the leg press and reaching for his towel, Laxus let out a satisfied groan. Morning workouts were new to him, having previously entered the gym in the afternoon for something, anything, to fill the time. He liked it, it was a good start to the day, got his blood pumping, and the cool morning air was refreshing on his still sweating skin on the walk back home.

He patted down the sweat from his face and stood up, walking to a matted area to do his warm-down stretches. He grinned a little at the feeling of burning on his legs, having upped the weights recently. As he walked, he pulled out his phone and flicked it on to see the time. He frowned at his lock screen.

One Missed Call – Freed Justine.

One Voicemail – Freed Justine.

Freed was back in Era now, as they had planned. He would spend the weekdays in the city, working in his office and meeting with his friends, while he would return for the weekend to oversee Laxus' work, offer his suggestions on what he was doing, and help out whenever he could; something that was happening more often now that Laxus had taught him a skill or two. This had been working for a few weeks, and they'd gotten it down to a fine art.

Laxus could understand what Freed wanted without much difficulty. Sometimes there was a few issues – where Freed might not know the technical terminology for something and couldn't articulate his wants immediately – but they always quickly got over them. They were a good team, and work on the house was happening fast.

Though, Laxus did miss Freed sometimes. Plumbing was better with company.

Freed was good company.

They had fun.

At least Laxus did, anyway. Freed was somewhat enigmatic at times, but seemed to be enjoying himself. He was private with his emotions, and only smiled – really smiled – when he thought Laxus wasn't looking. Laxus had caught it a few times, and seeing the uncynical expression on the mans usually slightly stifled face was something Laxus was quickly coming to desire more often. He looked good like that.

As he said, they had fun…

Throughout their time working together only on the weekends, Freed had rarely called him. It had only been for specific things, like when a member of the preservation society visited to see their work wasn't destructive. So to see not only a missed call, but a voicemail, was unusual. Freed was a texter more than a caller, in Laxus' admittedly limited experience.

Laxus slightly rushed through his stretches, and once he was done, he walked towards the changing room and lifted his phone to his ear.

"Sorry if I've woken you," Freed began. "But could you perhaps see if I've left something in my room from Sunday."

As he listened and walked towards his locker, Laxus frowned. There was a sort of clipped attitude to Freed's words, and it confused Laxus. He'd always seen Freed as a relaxed man, even though it wasn't obvious. Freed was clearly smart, Laxus wouldn't be shocked if he was a literal genius, and with that there was a level of comfort in his skin. He never second guessed himself because he always thought he was right.

Maybe that was Laxus overthinking things, but that was what he'd concluded. But in his words, Laxus had heard just a hint of panic. It was unlike the man he had known while giving swift demands about what was to happen with his house.

"I brought some of my work over the weekend, you see," Freed continued. "And part of that was a contract that I've been working on. I seem to have left it in my hotel room, and I need to be sure that it's safe. It's confidential, as you can imagine, and I've made a rather large amounts of notes. So if you could call me back, please do."

Laxus ran his towel over his body, blasted himself with a thick layer of deodorant, and picked up his bag. Normally he'd shower and change into something other than his exercise clothes, but the fact that Freed had left a voicemail rather than just requesting a return call via a text meant this was something urgent. Laxus didn't know anything about the law – well, no more than anyone else – but leaving a confidential contract wasn't good. He trusted the people in Fairy Tail not to look at things that weren't for them, but Freed didn't.

As he rushed out of the gym, bag slung over his shoulder, he dialled Freed's number and listened to it ring. After a few moments, Freed answered.

"Laxus," He said in greeting.

"Hey," Laxus replied. "Sorry I missed your call, was at the gym and wasn't paying attention to my phone."

"Oh, that's a coincidence," Freed said with a small, forced laugh. "I just finished my PT session today."

Laxus didn't know Freed went to a personal trainer.

It made sense, he supposed. He was clearly fit, if the contract in width between his shoulders and his waist was telling. And when, two weeks ago, he rolled up his sleeves and showed off his veiny, strong forearms, Laxus might have been distracted to the point of nearly dropping a plank of wood onto his toes. He'd also gotten a glimpse of his biceps, and the plank had nearly splintered in Laxus' grasp.

Well, that was an exaggeration, but it was certainly a distraction.

"Small world," Laxus shrugged, then spoke again in a light, joking tone. Hopefully, he could lighten Freed's mood. "But you know they're a scam right, personal trainers. If you're trying to change your body type they're fine, but if you wanna keep yourself as you are then you don't need one."

"I suppose not," Freed mused, and Laxus grinned a little. When stressed, Freed could be distracted easily, apparently. "I work with him for status, honestly. He's the trainer for the elite, I like that."

"Makes sense, rich boy," Laxus teased with a grin. "I can write you up an exercise list if you want, it'll save you a couple grand."

"That'd be good, thank you," Freed agreed. "Wait, no. Stop distracting me. Have you found it?"

"Saw through that, huh?" Laxus grinned, but continued. "I'm a minute away from the hotel. But, if you did leave it here, the staff ain't gonna do anything with it. They would've handed it in to gramps," Freed made a placating noise. He didn't believe Laxus, clearly. "They're not gonna risk pissing you off Freed, you're basically keeping the place open being here every weekend. We lose you; they lose their jobs."

Freed did let out a laugh, and Laxus grinned at that. "You shouldn't give me that much power, Laxus. I'll misuse it."

"Don't doubt it," Laxus smirked, entering the warmth of Fairy Tail's lobby. He ignored the slight stiffness in Freed's joke, wondering if he had done it just for Laxus' sake. He nodded to Mirajane, who was at the front desk, still speaking into the phone. "Give me a second."

"Of course."

Lowering his phone slightly, Laxus walked to the front desk and leant on it. Mirajane looked the dishevelled man up and down, and her nose twitched at the smell of sweat and deodorant that hit her. She opened her mouth to speak, but Laxus put a hand up to interrupt her. Hopefully, she's understood by the state he was in that he was in a rush.

"You know if Freed left anything in his room? Some paperwork or something?" He asked. "Lisanna cleaned it, right?"

"She mentioned something being left, I think," Mirajane said after a moment thought. "Brown folder, she handed it to Makarov for safety. I think he wanted to let Freed know, but didn't know his number so was waiting for you to come in."

"It'll be in his office, right?" He asked, pushing himself from the desk.

"Yeah, but it's locked. He'll be here in an hour I think."

"Don't worry, I cut a key when I was sixteen," Laxus shrugged, grinning at Mirajane as he walked away, ignoring her when she said that he definitely shouldn't have a key. He brought his phone to his ear as he walked towards his grandfather's office. "They found it. It's locked in Gramp's office. I can look after it if you'd like."

"Well, I suppose I should have mentioned, that I need a copy of it here. Ideally with the notes I've made," Freed explained with a resigned sigh. Laxus bit his lip absently as he rummaged through his grandfather's desk draw, finding a brown folder.

"I could take a picture of each page, if you want," Laxus suggested, flicking open the folder. "'The Merging of Lamia Scale Designs and Mermaid Heel.' That the right contract?"

"That's it, thank you," Freed agreed, still sounding worried. "And you won't be able to send pictures, it's under data protection. If I get found out I'll be taken off the case at least, perhaps demoted for it. And our side will be immediately lose the case because of it."

"Best to avoid that then," Laxus nodded to himself. "I could scan it and email it to you, or is that the same issue? Or I could send it through the post if you can wait that long."

"I need it today," Freed sighed. "And yes, the email is the same issue."

Laxus sighed, running a hand through his hair. He knew that it wasn't really his place to be worried about the situation, but the fact that Freed wasn't as composed as he normally was had a disconcerting effect on Laxus. And, the two men were friends, and nobody would want their friend to feel stressed about potentially losing their job. Especially for something anybody could do; forgetting something at a hotel room was something most people did at some point. Any good friend would try to help.

"Well," Laxus said, clicking his tongue. "What time d'you need it? I can get the train and go to your office. If you don't mind me taking the day off from the house."

Maybe most friends wouldn't go that far. Maybe they would.

"Don't be absurd," Freed almost definitely shook his head as he spoke. "It's a long journey, it would be evening by the time you got home. I couldn't ask you to do that."

"If you need it, then you need it. And I ain't been to Era, so it'll give me an excuse…" Laxus' words trailed off. "What about fax? My grandad is one of like five people to actually have a fax machine for some reason."

"That actually might work," Freed said hesitantly. "The law states we can't replicate documents in a digital format, technically we wouldn't be doing that. So it should be fine."

"Great," Laxus grinned. "You have any idea on how to use the thing, 'cause I don't."

"They're quite simple, really," Freed said, a genuine chuckle entering his voice. Laxus grinned at it. "A child could use it without much explanation."

"You can drop that patronising tone, asshole," Laxus smirked as he spoke, switching on the machine. "And the only kind of child that'd know how to use this piece of shit is a kid from the Victorian years or some crap."

"Implying I'm from the Victorian era?" Freed questioned.

"You'd fit in there, I can imagine you with a stupid top hat and one of those big coats, walking with a cane," Laxus shrugged, squinting at the instructions on the machine's faded screen, absently thinking about just how good Freed would look in period specific clothing. "Think it might suit ya, actually. You'd look pretty s-swish."

Laxus paused. Swish. Swish!

Admittedly there wasn't many words to describe someone appearance that began with the letter 'S', but where the hell had 'swish' come from. Laxus had never said swish in his life, nobody this side of the damn millennium had said the word swish. Sure, he'd gotten away from his immediate reaction to thinking about his boss in old fashioned clothing, but why the hell had he covered it with the word swish. Swish!

At least he was distracted from the fact he almost readily admitted he thought Freed was sexy.

It was both a good and a bad thing, really. It was good, because the fact that Laxus wasn't worried about finding men attractive meant his time in therapy years prior was still hadn't left him, and he hadn't been kidding himself about the comfort he felt for his own sexuality. However, the fact he so nearly blurted out his attraction for Freed – his boss – was something he would have to be careful about.

"Of course I would," Freed said after a moment, voice a little distracted now. He didn't know what Laxus had meant to say, did he? He couldn't. "How are you doing with the fax machine."

"Yeah, you're gonna need to patronise me again, because this fucker ain't easy."

So, with a minimal amount of patronising, Freed walked Laxus through what he needed to do with the machine. It was a relatively easy process, made harder by the fact the screen showing the different options was almost impossible to see. But they'd made it through, and Freed had managed to get a copy of the contract into his office's fax machine without much trouble.

Laxus turned from the machine, only to see his grandfather looking at him, leaning on the doorframe. He hadn't heard the other man, too busy having been focused on the machine and Freed's instructions. How long his grandfather had been there, Laxus didn't know. Nor did he know exactly why the old man was looking at him with a raised eyebrow and an expression that was almost smug. Just as Laxus was about to make a motion to voice his confusion, Freed spoke though his speakers again.

"Thank you for this, Laxus," The mans voice echoed through the room, as Laxus had put him on speaker. It took Laxus a second to realise he had to reply.

"Ain't a problem," Laxus responded, a little self-conscious now. Makarov didn't change his expression. "So, you're fine now, right?"

"For today anyway," Freed sounded tired as he spoke, and the slight shuffling might have been Freed rubbing his eye with the palm of his hand; he'd done that a few times since they'd met. "I'm sure tomorrow will bring a further onslaught of problems."

"Guess that's what it's like being a lawyer," Laxus said with a forced chuckle, glaring at his unmoving grandfather to tell him to leave.

"I suppose so. I'm looking forward to seeing you when I get back at the weekend," Freed sighed tiredly again, and Laxus' gaze flickered over to his phone. "I should go, I have a meeting in fifteen minutes, and I should do at least some preparation for it. I'll talk to you later, I'm sure."

"Yeah, talk later," Laxus parroted, and the line went dead.

For a moment, Laxus and Makarov looked at one another. Laxus still couldn't identify exactly what the expression on his grandfather's face was, and he also couldn't help but feel angry that the older man hadn't left when he saw that Laxus was on a call that was private. But he knew that if he voiced this anger, his grandfather would annoyingly explain that Laxus was in his office, and that he had more a right to be there than Laxus did.

"So," Makarov eventually spoke. "Mirajane said that you came in early."

"You shouldn't have listened into my conversation," Laxus spoke in an annoyingly petulant tone.

"You shouldn't be in my office without my permission," Makarov retorted predicably, and Laxus rolled his eyes. "But I'll forgive you since you clearly needed to use my fax machine for your little phone date."

Laxus stood up – he needed to sit because the machine was tucked under Makarov's desk – and started to walk out of the office. The two of them had a good grandfather and grandson relationship, but Laxus often found the older man to be obnoxious. He made jokes about things that Laxus didn't find funny, with the intent of getting a rise out of Laxus, and the blonde knew that it was best not to give into it. Fucker.

He went to walk past the old man, but Makarov grabbed hold of Laxus' clothing and stopped him from leaving. He stopped, even though he could easily overpower Makarov, and looked down at his grandfather with an expression that clearly stated he didn't want to joke about his relationship with Freed.

"Don't get huffy," Makarov said, no longer teasing. "It just sounded like you were getting on. It was nice to hear you laughing."

"Great," Laxus said, again in a slightly petulant tone.

"You don't need to get defensive," Makarov said, walking into his office. "I was just happy. Most of the people you know live here and have lived here all their lives. And most of your friends are women. It's just nice to see you talking with another man and having fun with him."

"I can know a guy and not want to fuck him," Laxus grunted.

"You can. I was just a little shocked to see you like that. Laughing and joking with him. Especially since he was telling you what to do, you'd get pissy if it were me," Makarov grinned. "But if you say it's platonic, I believe you. I just enjoyed seeing you like that. Give an old man his fancies."

"Can I go?" Laxus muttered.

"If you want," Makarov smiled. "I like him though."

Laxus let out a small huff as Makarov removed his clutch on his clothing. The blonde found himself riled by Makarov's words. Not only had he intentionally tried to make Laxus feel self-conscious about his call with Freed, but he had also given some weird kind of blessing for a relationship between him and Freed. A blessing that Laxus neither wanted, nor needed. Laxus was an adult, not a kid who needed to be told what to do.

And Makarov didn't even know Freed! He was more complex than a call dammit.

But, as he walked away, his mind wondered to the end of his conversation with Freed. He hadn't fully registered it when Freed had said it, but now he thought back Freed's parting words were… interesting.

'I'm looking forward to seeing you.'

Not 'I'm looking forward to getting back to Magnolia.' Not 'I'm looking forward to getting to the weekend, so I don't have to worry about work.' Not even 'I'm looking forward to seeing what you've done on the house.' He had very clearly stated that he was looking forward to seeing Laxus. Which was certainly interesting.

And if Laxus found his annoyance at his grandfather dissipating slightly, replaced by a weird fizzy feeling in his stomach, then that was his business and nobody else's.

[tb5-heavenward]

You just know I'm going to ask about Covenant now, right?

well since you two are two of the only people who know about covenant (and i’m sorry bud, your editorial sensibilities are going to have to put up with my stylistic lower caps) and since I’ve finally watched that shitshow of a most recent episode, I am totally down to talk about covenant.

but first let’s talk a little bit about TAG

TAG is terrible.

Visually the show is gorgeous. It has improved by leaps and bounds and it was charming when it started and it is awesome now. WETA are absolutely the bedrock of what makes this show worth watching, and I love the visuals more and more as they continue to push those boundaries. The cinnamontography, etc.

The Thunderbirds are amazing. They are beautiful, intricate, wonderfully clever machines. Their pilots ain’t half bad either. If you know and truly love the show and think about them all as well and deeply as they deserve, I think it’s impossible to honestly pick a favourite. International Rescue is a fantastic premise. The Tracys and their associates are all strong, compelling characters who have been iterated into an updated retro-future and made universally deeper and more interesting.

The bread and butter conceit of the show is awesome, the tension and conflict and creativity around solving complex problems that they manage to demonstrate in the course of a twenty-two minute episode sometimes just boggles the mind. When IR gets put up against the forces of nature and straight bad luck and pure, audacious dumbassery, we have gotten some of the best moments this show has to offer.

And those first season episodes were ugly as shit and everybody sounded the same and there were maybe three spare models between the entire NPC cast, but my GOD did S1 ever have heart. The soul of the show belongs to S1 and no one will change my mind about that. Try it. EOS was incredible. Skyhook was the definition of a balanced ensemble episode. Fireflash. Tunnels of Time. Relic. Recharge. Extraction. S2 came back swinging out of the gate with Ghost Ship. Up from the Depths was an absolute masterclass and actually changed the stakes in the show for the first time. Bolt from the Blue. Power Play. Hyperspeed. We all know which episodes were fucking good as hell. S3 comes out and the visuals have improved yet further. They have firmly found their feet as animators and as actors and as characters. We are finally actually starting to learn about these boys and their father, the most glaringly obvious hole in the show at large. Night and Day. Life Signs. And then SOS 1/2 and a complete and total paradigm shift. There is a sense of mortality to TAG now and it is an edge of realism that SHOULD be able to elevate it beyond what it’s been so far.

And yet.

TAG is fucking terrible.

Five years on, I am entitled to say, TAG is absolutely the goddamn worst sometimes, holy fucking shit. And what makes that terribleness terrible in and of itself—is that it’s because this show fails to recognize its most fundamental strengths. It fails to know what its audience will really connect to. And it’s because the writers’ room must be the goddamn wild west at this point, with the sort of nonsense these fucks are throwing at the wall and hoping to see it stick. It’s because whoever is in charge of the overall narrative arc of these seventy-odd episodes has not done what’s necessary to ensure TAG’s cohesion as a unified work.

(y’all hang onto your butts, i’m gonna do another brick wall metaphor.)

So what we have, five years on and seventy-odd episodes later, is a heap of bricks that WANT to be a wall, and we’re led to the impression that they’re SUPPOSED to be a wall, but they haven’t been put together by any single person. They have been put together by a rotating cast of a few dozen people who orient the bricks they’re given in slightly different ways sometimes, or who lay them at odd angles or who brought their own bricks from home for some reason. David Tennant is there. He must have cost at least half the budget for all of S2. All in all, he’s just another brick in the wall.

We know by this point that there is some asshole vaguely in charge of the idea of the wall. You can kind of tell that he’s at least heard of walls and he would definitely like to build one, but he isn’t exactly making it happen. There is an edifice here. It is wall-like, in some regions. At the end of the day though, most people who come across it also step over it, no problem. Or they chisel out the bricks that look to be worth saving and kick the rest of the wall over. That’s just fandom. That’s what fandom does.

Now, it is necessary at any point when talking about children’s media to talk about another series that ran three seasons over sixty-one episodes, and covered a level of geopolitical conflict over the course of a single year from the perspective of five incredibly gifted young people, all of whom were complex and flawed and sympathetic, and who knew they were responsible with putting the world to right with their own hands and set about doing that in the face of incredible odds, against villains who were no less than ruthlessly sociopathic.

ATLA sets a high bar. TAG was never going to be ATLA.

But fuck, I wish it had tried.

I wish the people who had set out to remake this story had sat down together and said, “Over the course of the next three seasons, we will tell the story of what International Rescue is. We will explain how it came to be. We will have strong themes that persist through the show and repeat themselves for emphasis: One Problem At A Time, You Can’t Save Everyone, Someone Has To Try. We will explain who these boys are and how they came to be this way. We will make it deeply and obviously clear what they do, how they do it, and why. We will give them limits. We will let them fail. We will give them flaws, we will let them clash with each other. We will let them grow and change. We will give them one deep, powerful loss that is the bedrock of what they became. We will put a powerful force in the world that loathes and opposes them at all costs. We will give them a tiny fragment of hope to chase and chase and chase and let them catch it only at the moment when they’v’e finally learned that they can let it go.”

I wish there had been rules. I wish there hadn’t been a new villain crammed into every season, in a show where the villains are objectively the weakest part. To add four villains to a show that barely has room for one and then to expect to make them ALL have a sympathetic edge somehow—it’s absolute fucking idiocy. I don’t care that The Hood is Kayo’s Uncle and Smiled In a Picture One Time. I don’t care that The Mechanic Is Apparently Being Mind Controlled Though No Indication Of That Was Given At Any Point in His History Until We Were Told So Explicitly. I don’t fucking CARE that Havoc Gets Yelled At By Her Boss Who Is Mean. I don’t give a shit that Fuse Is Apparently Too Stupid To Have Recognized The Moral Component Of Any Of His Criminal Acts Up Until He Inflicts Them On The Tracys.

You know which villains are objectively incredible in this show? Langstrom Fischler. Professor Harold. Francois Lemaire. Ned Fucking Tedford, who is a villain on the grounds that he is an obstacle, a problem to be solved, a concept of a person so hapless that they have multiple times strayed in the most incredible kind of peril. The strongest villains in this show are the ones who are just PEOPLE. People who are being careless. Or who are being greedy. Or who are being self-aggrandizing. People who exhibit traits equal and opposite to what our boys in blue exemplify.

I don’t know. We’re coming to the end of S3, we’re nearing their grand, incredible climax, this promised moment of potential reunion—and I wish I cared. I really wish I could. But there’s so much clutter. There’s so much their pulling DIRECTLY out of their asses in the home stretch. There are so many loose threads, there are so many concepts that were introduced and then never explored, or which were introduced in the end game and then never reinforced. There is so much information that we should have had from the start, so many mysteries that went unsolved and uncared about because they were unmentioned. There is not enough room for them to resolve anything in a meanignful way. There it so much that it seems like THEY didn’t know, and they SHOULD HAVE. They had time. Five fucking years, they had so much time to figure this out. And yet.

anyway.

So, covenant. Covenant basically a codeword for what I would’ve done differently, the last time I got mad about this whole endemic problem with the writing in this show, round about two years ago now.

Covenant is just a good word, really, and while it means something as a title, that relevance has kind of degraded a bit. It was going to be a rewrite of the end of Season 2, and sort of a retrofitting of Season 2 as a whole. It was going to explore the ideas that they put down and then never picked up, it was going to seriously address a lot of the core conflicts in the show and set things in motion to resolve those problems. I have it started. I have a good couple thousand words of the beginning, but it’s a good enough beginning that it could potentially begin something else, and so I won’t publish it here, in case I end up using it somewhere else. As is, it’s a priveleged-eyes-only sort of work, it’s only really been passed around my inner circle. If anyone is interested in hearing more about that, hit me up and I’ll elabourate. But for now, it is quarter past eleven, and I have ranted for long enough.

[blakescoven]

You Decided That I Was Worth Saving | 1 |

Pairing: Sojourn!Michael Langdon x fem!Reader

Chapter One (1): “As I Lay Dying”

Summary: You were driving home from work, when something – or rather someone – literally got in the way.  Against any reason, you let him into your life. Michael would make you question your entire worldview. Were your paths meant to cross? Did you two meet by accident? By fate? Or there’s an evil force behind it, scheming and plotting with a devilish purpose?  

Warnings: car crash(!), mention of injuries, different POVs, some swearing

Word count: 4.7K

A/N: Hey lovely friends! Here’s a sort of Sojourn AU-ish, since the plot starts in that particular moment of Michael’s life. Still don’t know if I’ll include witches and satanists…we’ll see. It’s gonna be a series so I guess I’ll divide it into a few chapters. I loooove angst and slow burn, so I’m sorry but there’s no smut. Yet. Also, for this chapter, I took inspiration from: the scene of Elena’s car crash from 1x11 of TVD and a song, my fav of all times, that I listened to while I was writing this chapter and that is also the song playing in Y/N’s car; Apocalypse by Cigarettes After Sex. Okay, that’s it. Enjoy and thank you so much for reading it, despite the grammar mistakes (my apologies) and the fact that probably it really sucks. (‘WHAT AM I DOING?’ was the mood while I was writing it tho.) Anyway, love you and please, let me know what do you think and what I can improve!! I’d really appreciate any FEEDBACK!! I kinda need it, because I’m not sure I’m doing this right. THANK YOU xxx ♥  

You've always thought you could describe your whole existence with a wide range of adjectives, but 'adventurous' wasn't one of them for sure. At least, that's what you thought 30 minutes before the event that would have changed your life forever. Nothing would ever be the same again; just like a hurricane comes and goes, so that day, and the following ones, would have drastically rocked your world. And mostly your beliefs.

It was late. But you were used to it. You had recently got a new job, which allowed you to move out and finally get your own place, the smallest rentable apartment on Earth. Or in Los Angeles, no doubt. This was the most stressful moment since you were born, it was up to you taking care of your own now. Mommy and daddy no more.

Shifts were endless and you often found yourself staying late at the office, to finish what you've started. This new routine was already messing with your biological clock. Every single night, you looked forward to going back home, eat and fall apart on your bed. Even today, you were already savoring the anticipation of your sadly-glorious homecoming; you were dying for a relaxing hot bath and a slice of pizza. But who are we kidding, right? A whole pizza. Then, sleepiness permitting, you would have watched your favorite TV show petting your cat. A real party girl, uh? Well, that was your life now.

You have just finished college and this was the first experience as an independent person. At the very beginning, it has been hard leaving your parents' house, but soon you realized it was time for you to go on your own way. You were so full of dreams and expectations. You hoped to achieve great goals. Of course, what you haven't taken into account was that your future weekends wouldn't have been under the banner of fun, alcohol, and friends. But instead, your crazy Saturday nights consisted of you kneeled in front of the washing machine, hands in your head and a YouTube DIY video for dummies playing on your phone, which explained all the ways to get the laundry started and what products must have been used. All your life has become a huge dumb Netflix comedy. More like a parody, perhaps. You hung out with your friends less and less; you felt deeply guilty about that, but you were way too tired to make up for it.

As mentioned before, it was a late Friday night. It was raining, pretty hard. You were driving your beloved brand-new car (THE much-demanded graduation gift) and 'surprisingly' you hit traffic. At 9 fucking p.m. TGIF, they said. Sure. Your friends were definitely having fun and drinking in some random club by then.

You, on the contrary, were running out of patience; your shiny Lexus had not moved an inch in 10 minutes, so as soon as you could, you took a highway exit. That was supposed to be a kind of shortcut, according to the navigator. The pouring rain and the cadenced motion of the windscreen wipers sounded like a lullaby. A slow-core song started playing in the background. It was quite soothing and maybe, on second thought, you should have to turn it off…or had coffee before leaving.

You could feel your eyelids getting heavier and heavier, the exhaustion slowly prevailing. Trying so hard to keep your eyes open, that they've started burning; and not to miss anything, you got a bit of a headache accompanied by a soon-to-be-wrinkle frown.

Meanwhile, you were driving down a deserted one-lane road, going a little over the speed limit in your rush, in order to make it home as soon as possible. The wheels were slipping a little on the wet pavement, but you kept the car steady. ­ You peered through the front window trying to see what was ahead of you; it was pitch black outside, with not even one dammit lamppost; only the moon's pale light absorbed by the dark green leaves of the forest beside the road. You had no idea where you actually were.

Suddenly, the annoying metallic voice of the GPS started bullshitting about recalculating a new route. "Wait what? Fuck NO NO NO…come on! You stupid thing, why are you changing direction???" you maddeningly screamed, looking at the display and trying to change the settings with your right hand. You weren't exactly paying particular attention to the road ahead. Huge mistake.

Outside the windshield, the rain was coming down in torrents, blurring your vision even more. The wipers went back and forth, attempting to clear away the large droplets clinging to the glass, but it seemed they weren't moving fast enough.

As if the universe had something big in store for you, right at that moment, something – or rather someone – came out of the dense vegetation, slowly limping while crossing the street, no concern for surroundings.

Your eyes were still glued to the GPS tracking your position; but all of a sudden, your distraction was abruptly erased when you caught a glimpse of a human shape in the middle of the road, illuminated by the car's headlights.

A goddamn person.

You had perhaps three-quarters of a second to register this.

You didn't realize it until it was too late. You couldn't have stopped all this now. The blood drained from your face. It all happened in a few seconds, but the moment seemed to last forever. The shock made you tense your muscles; your heart skipped a beat and your eyes suddenly widened. There was a scream coming from within that forced its way from your mouth as if your terrified soul has set a demon free. It was the kind of scream that makes the blood run cold.

With adrenaline flowing through your system, you slammed on the brakes. Your fists clenched with white knuckles around the steering wheel, immediately swerving to avoid the crash. Somehow you managed to not run over him, but you were going too fast to stop.

Your car rolled over and over, while clips of your life flashing like a slideshow. The vehicle has flipped so many times that you started drifting in and out of consciousness. The noise of the metal being bashed over the asphalt was deafening. When it finally stopped, you were stuck in your seat upside-down, coughing up pieces of the broken glass coming from the shattered windshield.

Then everything became still.

You could only hear the sound of rain on metal. Aware of the bloody taste in your mouth, you still weren't able to figure out if you were injured, because the seatbelt tugged on your chest was too painful. Heart pounding in your ears, you tried to scream for help, but it came out more like a gasp.

Meanwhile, the young man was still paralyzed to the spot in the middle of the road, like an unfamiliar force was holding him in a tightening grip, keeping him from leaving. For a moment he believed that that must have been another hallucinated vision. Then he slowly turned his head toward the wrecked car. An odd thought came across his mind: the driver crashed in order to not run over him. But why? Humanity had failed him so many times. He had lost the only one that truly cared about him. His Father had abandoned him and he wasn't able to understand what was his purpose, not anymore. He actually knew that a car was coming that way, but now he honestly didn't give a damn about his life. He had failed. He was utterly lost. This was the best coincidence possible to put an end to his suffering. But now, he felt something he couldn't explain, almost a need, the need to go and check if the driver was okay. Still confused about this new foreign impulse, he started to walk towards your car.

Once there, he kneeled and took a look inside, from the broken side window.

"You look stuck." he commented with an apparent childish but plain voice.

If you weren't, like literally, in that position, you'd have certainly sassed back to that dumb obvious statement. But your conditions weren't the best at all, you might have some broken bones, actually.

What, instead, came out from your mouth was stammering confused words.

"I-I-It… m-my… my s-s-sea..b-be..t" you tried to speak, holding and shaking the restraining belt tightly in your hands, while tears gathering in your eyes.

He hummed and shushed you. "Let me get you out of here." he whispered, thinking again about why he was actually doing this, it was none of his business. And yet, he stayed on.

"I want you to put your hands on the roof." You were about to obey his calming demand, but in that moment, you realized your left arm had to be broken and it hurt like hell. So somehow you managed to raise only the other one and take also your phone.

Then he closed his eyes for a couple of seconds and all of a sudden, the seatbelt mysteriously unhooked, as if by magic or an invisible force. But you were too rattled to think about it.

You fell and he gently grabbed and lifted you from the car.

"I got you." he smiled, holding you in his arms while standing up. "Are you okay? Can you stand? Is anything broken?" he questioned with a caring honeyed tone.

You nodded pointing your arm and moaning, still dizzy from the car flipping over. The stranger carefully set you on your feet, yet not letting you completely. Good, because immediately after you slipped, too weak to stand, but he caught you by the waist. Your head was spinning so fast.

"Hey hey, easy, don't force yourself, you're clearly not okay." he observed "Look at me." and he placed his thumb on your lower lip and chin to hold your head steady as he spoke. What was he feeling right now? Pity? Concern maybe? He thought he had already turned off those pointless human emotions.

You tiredly opened your eyes to meet the most beautiful pair of ocean eyes you've ever seen. Unfortunately, you couldn't focus on him any longer, neither when he run his hand down your water-stained cheek.

"Hey stay with me, don't close your eyes." he urged, just as your vision went fuzzy and your eyes rolled back. Within seconds everything went black.

You passed out into complete and utter darkness.

He caught you before you hit the concrete, gathering your limp body into his arms and walking away from the car. He abruptly stopped. What he was supposed to do now? He had literally come from the woods, after days of fasting and sleeplessness. He was covered in damn dirt. Not to mention that he had no place to go. He was too exhausted to reason. So he chose to gently lower you to the ground, kneeling, so half of your body was on his lap. He stroked your wet hair, wondering what to do with you. Just right now, looking at your face, he noticed how beautiful you were, how innocent and angelic. He swallowed and smiled. A soft side? In his evil and corrupted soul? Impossible.

It was still raining. You were both soaked and there was no shelter in the proximities. He thought he couldn't do anything more. That's when he remembered about your broken arm. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, placing his hands above your head. Nothing. Maybe he wasn't focused enough. He took your hands in his own and tried again. This time his eyes rolled black until they showed only a white surface; then he started to mutter Latin words. He lifted his head up speaking louder, but his nose began to bleed, until his vision blurred and the car suddenly exploded. He lost consciousness right next to you, nevertheless his hand still on yours.

The next thing you knew, you were on your back on the ground and very disoriented. Also completely drenched. Making indistinguishable noises because of the pain, you turned your head resting on the asphalt. The rain in your eyes didn't let you have a clear view of the surroundings, but you immediately felt an extremely warm presence at your side. You blinked twice and finally saw the boy that had helped you, laying there unconscious. Hell, maybe you had hit him with your car after all. The plot thickens.

Saying that you were confused about the whole situation was an euphemism. There was nothing for it but to try to reach your phone, almost five feet apart from your leg, hoping that it didn't break in the crash. Despite the acute ache in your arm and the burning cuts and wounds, you were able to crawl back to it, so you dialed the number and called 911. You explained everything and asked for help with a wisp of voice. You probably had a concussion.

The rain eventually stopped. You were starting to feel cold, so you found your way back to the stranger. Little droplets of water drenched his hair, covering his features, and you couldn't help yourself, you brushed a few strands from his face, caressing his sharp cheekbone. Right after your head started spinning and your vision filled with white spots, until you fainted again, against the stranger's chest.

-

You woke up in a hospital bed. It was early in the morning; the sunlight was peeking through the blinds, the constant beeping of monitors echoing throughout the room. You sighed loudly and squinted with a grimace. Luckily you were just a little sore, nothing too serious. You took a look at your arm: you had a pretty unaesthetic cast. The universe's way of telling you, "Here, take this you little bitch." Amazing.

You got up very slowly and entered the bathroom, looking for a mirror to better check out your wounds.

"Wow, nice Halloween make-up though." you muttered rolling your eyes. You had a stitched cut on your left upper forehead, a split lip and dark circles under your puffy eyes. A Miss Universe at her peak. Not to mention a great number of bruises all over your body.

You called your parents shortly afterward. Downplaying the details of the accident wasn't enough, they completely lost their minds at the phone. They were shocked and worried about your conditions, so they insisted to get on the first flight to LA, to help you. You reassured them you were fine and ready to go home. It wasn't necessary for them to come. They even offered to pay for a new car, since yours was, sadly, destroyed. You refused though; you would have dealt with the car-issue later. Even though you couldn't still get over the fact that your precious SUV has gone for good.

A truly kind doctor got to your room and, after having checked out vitals and injuries, refreshed your memory about what happened last night. Shoot! In that moment you realized you had totally forgot about the boy. You immediately asked the doc if you could go visit him. He nodded but not without first warning you. John Doe here had to be sedated because, when he regained consciousness in the ambulance, he had refused to go to the hospital and started thrashing around. Luckily, he was too weak to harm anyone.

The doctor kept saying that they had found no ID, nothing that could tell them where he came from. He was completely dehydrated in addition to previous wounds. He probably hadn't eaten for days either. For these reasons, the cheap version of Derek Shepherd wasn't sure whether he should call the police.

You were listening to his words with much more concern you thought you could feel. Well, maybe because you had almost run over him. But you felt you had to go check on him. He helped you out of the car after all. He…saved you someway? What you couldn't understand was why he had stopped in the middle of the road; he hadn't even tried to get out of the way…Oh shit. Was there any chance he wanted to, like, get killed? No, c'mon, there are way too many other – and less-painful – "methods" to do it…It couldn't be.

When you arrived in his room, you immediately noticed he was tied to the bed and carefully, you set his wrists free. After a few seconds, he woke up. You tried not to pay attention, but he was undoubtedly attractive. To be honest he was much more than that. Handsome to say the least. He seemed almost angelic. Baby blue eyes piercing your soul with a magnetic gaze, golden messy curls spread around his head on the pillow like a halo and God-given sharp features. Despite that, he was still covered in filth and wounds. But even in such a miserable state, he was hypnotizing. You wondered why no nurse took care of him yet.

"Hi!" you whispered, sitting down on the nearest chair.

"Hi." he said back, almost imperceptibly. "Thank you" he added, pointing at his bruised wrists.

"I should be the one saying 'thank you'..." you stated; he gave you a half-smile, "…you literally saved my life."

"No need to thank me, I caused your crash so.." he stopped for a second "…we can say you saved me instead." he admitted heavy-heartedly, with his eyes down. He seemed so sad and so lost, and you really felt for him.

"Well, thank God we're both still alive!" you didn't know what to say anymore. And this cringy comment wasn't helping.

" Sure " he scoffed.

What were those, tear-stains? Has he been crying?

Then an awkward silence filled the room. You were starting to feel a bit uneasy, and the continuous biting your lower lip – despite the cut on the upper one – made it absolutely obvious. You could feel something was off about him. The sadness and despair in his eyes were pretty noticeable, and you were the kind of person that can't look away.

"Uhm, are you okay?"

"Yes" he was still staring at the void. No emotion showed.

"Sorry, I don't want to be pushy…but it's clear you're not."

"Why do you care? What do you want from me?" he snapped turning his head, but his face softened instantly, as if he regretted the outburst.

You honestly didn't know why you cared that much either. It was an odd sensation coming from your guts, it was pulling you so deeply into him. He needed help, and you wanted to give it to him.

"You got anybody I could call? Your relatives or a friend?" was the only answer you could articulate.

" No.. " he mumbled, "..I have no one."

Suddenly, you felt the urge to ask him if he wanted to go home with you, to recover. You would have never done – or even thought – anything like that before. This was against all the good bits of advice your mum ever gave you. Like, don't invite in strangers that could easily kill you in your sleep?! But it was as if, deep down, you knew you could trust him. You took the risk.

"Listen.. ahem.. y-you could come home with me. I have enough space in my apartment and we could help each other until you'll feel better" you paused.

He was staring at you now, with glistening eyes. He was speechless. No one has ever shown him selfless kindness. He was in disbelief.

"I don't want your pity."

"No, wait. This isn't pity. In case you haven't notice, I have this lil problem here" you chuckled, swaying your cast in the air "I wouldn't mind a hand" you said to release the tension.

"I-I can't. Please, go. Just leave me alone." he shook his head. The fear of being abandoned or rejected again was too overwhelming for him to open up and accept some help.

"Oh," you whispered, a bit down in the dumps, "got it."

You headed for the door, but before leaving, you turned one more time "I'll leave my number to the receptionist in the hallway, in case you change your mind." you winked and smiled, leaving him alone.

He sighed and slammed his head against the pillow; he didn't even have a phone, also because, come on, what good it would do? But above all, what kind of paradox was that? Him, the motherfucking Devil's spawn, needing help? From an innocent little soul like you? No kidding. He had performed a human sacrifice and eaten raw hearts for fuck's sake. Yes, he may not know what to do, and probably he had made mistakes, but it wasn't over yet; his satanic plan needed to be adjusted. This way, he would eventually recreate the world in his Father's image and earn his trust again.

He needed to leave as soon as possible, before some stupid human being started asking him though questions.

-

You were finally home. The entire Uber ride had been silent and for that you mentally thanked the driver, because you weren't in the mood to talk at all.

As soon as you turned the doorknob, your little friend immediately greeted you purring, making you jump. He really missed you…or at least that's what he wanted you to believe. You locked the door behind you.

"His Majesty is hungry, uh?!" you said mocking your furball "Yeah, me too dude...but hold on a little longer, I need to take a shower I smell like hospital, jeez."

Only now you noticed. There was a rather unusual atmosphere when you walked in, an unsettling silence sending shivers down your spine. An inexplicable heat radiating from the house itself. It was too hot in there and you're positive it wasn't normal in the middle of November. The room seemed saturated with unfamiliar vibes.

You went to your bedroom and started to undress. Then you entered the bathroom, ready to finally wash the last night events off you.

Odd. It was like you could feel eyes on you, all the time.

Whatever. You were too worn-out to indulge your paranoid thoughts.

But the same feelings still followed you, even later when you were eating your delivered dinner, half-dead on the couch with the fluffy monster curled up on your lap.

"Maybe it's a sort of twisted PTSD." you told yourself. Yet your heart wouldn't settle. Something wasn't right there.

Anyway, you chose to ignore your instinct; it was time to get ready for bed. You reached your closet as you slowly took off hoodie and sweatpants, changing into even more comfortable clothes, just a t-shirt actually. Since it was that hot, no pants. The loose garment barely covered your bare thighs though.

You were half asleep when your cat jumped up and suddenly rushed out of your bedroom like he was possessed. You stretched and changed position, that enormous cast wouldn't let you fall fully asleep. After 5 minutes of turning and tossing you heard what sounded like footsteps. Your pulse started racing.

"It's nothing," you told yourself, "I'm imagining things."

But then the typical creaking of your fridge being opened reached up to your room. Twice.

You froze, heart in your throat. You were most definitely not alone. Someone was in the house.

But right after you shook your head, "Ugh, probably it's just that furry devil."

Being as quiet as possible, you got up and made your way to the door, straining to hear, but your heart pounded too loudly and your breathing was harsh. Moving towards the switch, but on second thought you decided against it.

Nothing. Complete silence.

It was when you were finding your way back to the mattress that you heard a white noise, a loud thud and the clear scraping of a chair against the floor. You froze again with wide eyes. You swallowed breaking out in cold sweat.

The squeaking of the cupboard followed by the tinkling and banging of glasses and dishes. You almost had a stroke.

You internally cursed yourself. You had left your phone on the couch. Fuck fuck fuck. The only option left was trying to reach the door and ask for help from the next-door neighbor. But you couldn't do it, the kitchen had a space divider, but it wasn't long enough to avoid being seen.

Weapon, your mind screamed. You needed a weapon.

A relieved smile appeared unexpectedly on your features. You recalled about keeping a knife hidden in the drawer. 'Never say never' when you live alone. Well, it seemed it had been a good idea after all.

You slid your fingers around the rubber grip, dismayed by how much your hand was shaking.

Heading down the hallway barefoot, you hold your breath and slowly approached the living room. With one motion you sneaked into the kitchen, with the blade facing the intruder, and screaming,

"I'm calling the police!"

But what you saw made your jaw drop in shock.

It was Him, the guy from the car crash.

In your kitchen.

Eating your motherfucking chocolate chip cookies.

At 01:00 am.

"Uh, sorry..." he spoke while chewing the leftovers and then swallowing loudly, "..you wanted some?". As if he felt guilty for real, with that childish expression.

You couldn't keep quiet any longer. The situation was too far-fetched.

"WHAT THE HELL?" you snapped. He chuckled at the reference.

"I can't cook. I was starving and I found these. I didn't want to wake you, but this monster here won't get off me..."

"What are you doing in my apartment?"

He tilted his head, pretty confused. "You invited me to stay here..." he remarked, with a hint of displeasure in his voice.

"Yes, I did. But it doesn't mean you can break in without me knowing." You were still a bit scared; he could be dangerous as far as you knew, and his actions had already proved it.

He didn't say anything. He stood up from the island counter, making his way to you. You were slack-jawed in astonishment, still holding and pointing the sharp surface toward him.

"Put that knife down."

"No."

"Why?" he frowned.

"I don't trust you. Don't come any closer!" you ordered.

"I can't take you seriously looking like this" he smirked pointing at your 'night attire'.

He took another step and you run to reach the handle; it turned but the door wouldn't budge.

"It's locked." you turned to look at him "Don't you remember? You did that yourself." he observed, like it was obvious.

"Then how did you get in here?"

"Transmutation."

"Tra-what?" you supposed he must have been out of his mind.

The circumstances themselves were unbelievable. But he was right, you offered him help.

Now he was leaning against the wall a few feet apart from you, locking his eyes with yours, his beautiful features veiled by a shade of dejection and misery. Suddenly, the feeling you had at the hospital came back. Trust.

"I know I'll regret this, but yes, you can stay."

A thankful smile crept across his face and if it weren't for the dark, you could swear that he was also crying.

"But if you don't behave I'll kill you." you threatened in a playful tone, but you needed to scare him a little.

In that moment he understood that he had done the right thing, deciding to take your offer. He had to pick up the pieces and get back on his feet. He couldn't have done it alone.

And mostly, he liked you. You were a warrior. There was something special in you, he could feel it. He could trust you.

"You scared the hell out of me by the way…do not do that again." you spoke as your eyes narrowed.

"I promise" he whispered.

He was kind of a weirdo, but you imagined he'd been through a lot. For this reason, you decided to place the knife on the table and get closer to him.

"But anyway, sooner or later you're going to tell me how you did it." you chuckled showing him the door. You were standing right in front of him now. He was taller than you thought.

"We haven't officially met, I'm Y/N."

In that moment – a moment you'll never forget – he vanished right before your eyes.

Then a sudden voice – that didn't hide insecurity and expectancy – coming from behind, made you turn around and left you in absolute shock.

"I'm Michael. Michael Langdon."

___________________________________________

Tagging (hope you don’t mind, in any case just tell me!) @michael-langdon-appreciation @hecohansen31 @so-langdon @emmyrosee @ladynuwanda @sammythankyou @sojournmichael @hplotrfan

[tottwritesfanfic]

Fanfic Authors Tag Game

Thankee for tagging @moramewhq​

AO3 name(s): Tottwriter, [REDACTED] Fandoms: Haikyuu!!, Digimon (a little lapsed, but I still tinker with my WIPs!), sliiiightly BNHA, and I have a TUA wip which I will someday resume. I try not to venture into new fandoms but, you know...I fail. Number of fics: I have 56 posted works, but also, uh... a few which I haven’t gotten to posting yet.

1. Fic I spent the most time on:

Um. Oh jeez. I mean, I guess nothing has overtaken Hope’s Fire just yet, because that’s the monster. Hopefully nothing else will? XD

2. Fic I spent the least time on:

Well this is genuinely a toss-up, because I have a few which I wrote for 20 minute prompt game fills, and then hardly even bothered to edit before they were thrown up on Ao3 without a backward glance.

Annoyingly, some of them are among my most popular works.

3. Longest fic:

Hope’s Fire! As I said, it’s the monster, currently clocking in at ~144k. My longest completed fic is The Ocean’s Curse though, which is 62.4k!

4. Shortest fic:

Okay so my shortest fic is actually a bit of weird experimental stuff I wrote for Starbound, which you will note I did not list in the fandoms above, lol. It’s old and weird and 351 words long... I don’t think anyone wants to read it. You don’t want to read it.

5. Most hits:

Hope’s Fire! It’s not really surprising tbh, given how long ago I started it and how many chapters it has. 

6. Most kudos:

Hope’s Fire wins this one too! I bet you’re all really shocked to learn this.

7. Most comment threads:

...imma give you lot one guess. 

8. Favorite fic I wrote:

fuck. Er. I dunno? I mean I write because I like writing them, you know? But honestly if I have to narrow it down... Parallel for the ‘serious’ fics, and either Press Play or (Not) Moving On for my more lighthearted stuff. It’s hard to pick when I swing between such tone extremes!

9. Fic you want to re-write:

I mean this is probably gonna sound really dumb but...kinda also Hope’s Fire??

Hear me out tho, because it’s complicated (and also I sorta already am). This fic started in 2015. I love it wholeheartedly, and I keep coming back to tinker and I wish life would stop throwing so much shit in my way and let me devote a bit more time to fic-writing so I continue it properly. 

But the periodic and spaced-out returns have meant that every time I knuckle down I end up re-reading the whole fic for continuity and tone reasons. You can probably see where this is going. Each time I read my old opening I cringe. It’s just not up to the standards of my writing today and it bugs me.

If I’m being brutally honest, part of the reason I haven’t updated it in so long is that I keep getting distracted going back and tweaking/fixing old chapters rather than focusing on new ones. It’s a bad habit but one I just can’t seem to kick.

10. Share bit of a WIP or a story idea you’re planning on:

You know, I’m actually gonna give two. I’ll drop them below a cut because this got long, but I know I have both Digimon and HQ peeps here and it’s sucky to be in the fandom that doesn’t get the love. I can’t promise when I’ll manage to get either of these posted (I’m trying to avoid adding more works to my Ao3 until they’re actually, you know, finished) but...they exist!

First up, we have Fun and Games at the Adventure Cafe

Yes, this is exactly what you think it is:

The notice on the door said “HELP WANTED” in large, sensible font.

The addendum “Enquire Within” sat below it, equally formal.

Scribbled underneath in scruffy handwriting was just one more addition:

     ‘as in we’re hiring. dw we know what we’re doing.’

   The notice on the door the following morning was back to plain old:

     HELP WANTED      Enquire Within

…It lasted half a day or so, at least.

As Sora remarked later, it was a wonder they got any applicants at all. Then again, as Taichi remarked, it wasn’t as though a lot of places were taking on extra staff—which was something of an oddity as the summer approached.

“It’s that swanky place round the corner,” he said with disgust, peering out of the window. “Bastards are driving everyone out of business.”

“But not you guys, right!” piped up their current interviewee. “You’re doing great! Honestly, as soon as I saw the sign I knew I had to apply. I’ve always wanted to start my own ramen business, and I figure I ought to start out with a popular place like this and get some real experience in the industry, you know?”

“Er, yes. Right,” Sora remarked, looking over his application. “Well, Daisuke, I will have to warn you that as a new hire you’d be working front-of-house rather in the kitchen, but if you’re okay with that—”

“Eh, just tell him he’s hired already,” Taichi replied, turning back to face them with a grin. “Yamato could definitely use a hand in the kitchen sometimes, so taking on a future all-rounder makes total sense.”

From the look Sora shot him, it perhaps didn’t, but Daisuke was already practically leaping to his feet with a grin, exclaiming that they could totally rely on him, and he absolutely would not let them down and could start the next day if they needed him to.

Next up, for my HQ peeps, here’s a little snippet from Connection Problems, my longtime langushing halfway chatfic. I’m not sharing the chatfic stuff because formatting tumblr is hell, though. 

Kenma always suspected that being a third year would turn out to be a pain, but he’d rather hoped his fears wouldn’t be realised within the first few weeks of the school year. Really, it’s bad enough that Kuro, Yaku and Kai have left, and that everyone else nominated him for the role of Captain (he’d talked them down to being Vice Captain instead, but that, apparently, was as low as they were prepared to go). He does not need Taketora constantly pestering him about—of all things—a chat group as well.

“Come on, I thought you and Kuroo were like, joined at the hip or something! Don’t try and act like you don’t miss him now he’s at university.”

He shrugs. “I have a phone. We’re keeping in touch.” Because, really. That’s all that matters, isn’t it? Why does everyone have to complicate things so much?

“Yeah, but, it’s not the same, right? Besides, what the hell! You spend all that time on your phone as it is. And even Fukunaga joined, right?”

Kenma glances over at Shouhei, who nods, grinning sheepishly. Drat.

“Still, I don’t have that chat app you all use,” he says. “It’s too much trouble setting it up, when I can message Kuro just fine.”

That should have been the end of it. Any rational person would have seen that it was no good, and left him in peace. Kuro would have, certainly. Not pushing—never pushing, actually. Just nudging him along a little, and even then, only when it comes to volleyball. He’s learnt all of Kenma’s limits over the years.

But the thing is, Kuro isn’t there any more. It’s just himself, Taketora and Shouhei, and okay, Shouhei never pushes—he hardly ever says anything, for that matter. But Taketora is clearly some sort of demon and he, Kenma, is being punished. Maybe he really pissed someone off in a previous life. Maybe this is a penance so he can piss someone off in his next life with a free pass. Either way, the badgering doesn’t let up.

Kenma holds out until the 27th of May. Seven weeks of hassling is more than enough for anyone.

Aaaand for tagging how about: @ahiddenpath, @humandisasterbuckybarnes, @mooifyourecows

[artbymintcookies]

Fic or treat! So I am eggnon from a few weeks ago, and went to a Holloween murder mystery party, and egg girl was there! She didn't recognize me (I think) but there was music playing and I managed to swing dance with her a little. Dunno if you want to continue what you wrote or create a new fic, but I would enjoy either

I hadn’t meant to write so much because I wanted this to be funny but i wrote 1.5k words.

—

Frank finds himself at a party. Something he hadn’t really done since he was 16 and his buddy had just gotten a used pick-up for dirt cheap and they could bribe all the seniors at school by sneaking in his dad’s stash of liquid goodies.

He wouldn’t usually indulge, be he’s going to be out training in a month’s time, so he figures he owes himself this one. Get some good memories in to remind himself what he’ll be fighting for. Good food, good drink, good company.

He hadn’t expected to really know anyone there. He didn’t branch out much at work and his huge Italian family back home was enough of a handful even through mostly texts and calls. He socializes enough. He just isn’t that social.

Frank is keen, though. His eyes detail his surroundings with a particular acuity, and he makes judgements before he can process them. He scans faces, not one by one, but as a whole.

At the party, he recognizes pockets of friend groups he had encountered on campus. He knows the cilantro preferences of half of the people in the room. He knows who the good tippers are. He knows who aren’t.

He knows which steal eggs.

But he keeps it to himself because he doesn’t know how much of it is a normal amount of information to store. He drinks his piss dirt beer. He enjoys the shitty little coloured lighting set-up, no doubt macgyvered by some college kids who don’t study tech.

He participates in a whodunit sort of game with a bunch or argumentative pre-laws, and he finds himself wedged between the the arm of the sofa and some blind kid with too many opinions and not enough charm to back it up. Next to that guy is the egg boy, whose name is, apparently, Nelson.

The rest of the group has a lot of strong opinions as to the identity of the murderer and the accusations fly wildly in all directions. Everyone has at least a few fingers pointed at them, Frank included. Well, it would seem that way to someone who doesn’t keep track. Nelson seems as innocent as they come and there’s no reason to suspect him.

Frank knows better. Nelson has his tells. His smile being a little too wide, the charming deflection onto some other poor schmuck. He taps his fingers excitedly when the suspicion slides off of him and he sits on his hands when it gets too obvious, but no one’s looking at him anyways.

In the spirit of the game, Frank should probably say something, but he’s curious to see where it would go. And Nelson isn’t dumb. He figures out pretty soon that Frank knows, and as soon as he figured out that Frank knows, he starts winking at him between the heated debates from their compatriots.

It only takes another round for the blind kid, Murdock, to be killed off, pouting profusely at Nelson before heading towards the rest of the party in the kitchen. Frank could swear he sees him smack Nelson on the back of the head with the handle of his cane, but he goes willingly.

And then Nelson is whispering into Frank’s ear and it sends a shiver down his spine. “Wanna see how far I can go?” the man asks. Frank looks at him in amusement for a second and Frank almost smiles, but an accusatory finger lands right at them. A girl frowns heatedly at the pair.

“What are you talking about? Is one of you the murderer? Are there cahoots afoot?” she says.

Frank just wraps an arm around the guy, and his other hand reaches over to fondle a supple thigh. “That’s not for you to know, little lady. We were just making plans for later,” he lies to cover for the kid. Nelson smiles up at him, and it feels a little like getting hit with the entire force of the sun. Frank also can’t look away. Unbidden, his hand moves up Nelson’s thigh.

“Okay, gross. Do that on your own time,” she dismisses. “It’s either McGill or Uppal, right? It’s got to be. McGill was downright belligerent last round and now Murdock’s out.”

And the game wears on.

Nelson wins. They do tell you to watch out for the unassuming ones.

Nelson finds Frank a while later by the snacks table, reaching for a sausage roll.

“Castle, right? I don’t know if I recognize you,” he greets, unshyly popping an entire donut hole in his mouth. “You’re not in the program are you?” He chews while he talks and Frank finds it oddly comforting because it means he doesn’t have to put on a face. He takes an indelicate bite of the roll.

“Nah,” Frank confirms.

“I’m sure I’ve seen your face before, though.”

“You have.”

Nelson’s face scrunches up with the effort of thinking and Frank’s mouth tugs upward at the way his nose upturns. “Where?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Frank says. It doesn’t matter because he’s not a student at the school. It doesn’t matter because it was a thirty second interaction. It doesn’t matter because in a month, he’ll be in South Carolina.

“No,” Nelson frowns, leaning in closer to study Frank’s face. “Can I have a hint at least?”

Frank let out a single laugh, shaking his head. “No.”

“Was it something illegal?”

“Yeah,” Frank says, leaning his hip on the table and watching Nelson try to piece it all together.

“Was I high? Did I do something stupid?”

Frank shrugs and leans over to get a couple of beers from behind the other man. 

“No, let me think for a second before you start buttering me up,” he pouts, cracking open his can and drinking generously from it anyway.

“I’ll consider it, counselor.”

“Not a lawyer, yet,” the man corrects, shifting their bodies so that they’re touching shoulder to wrist.

“No, you’re a murderer apparently,” Frank agrees. “Killed everyone at this party.”

“Not you. You survived because I like you.” Nelson chuckles into his drink and Frank watches the liquid bob of his throat.

Frank laughs some more. It feels good. “Keeping the dangerous ones close gets you far.”

“I like that. Keep me close,” Nelson says, making something like melancholy regret pool in Frank’s stomach.

“Why don’t we dance, Nelson?” Frank offers instead, reaching a hand out and waiting for the other boy to follow him. Nelson frowns but takes the hand anyway.

The song is foreign. Some electronic German number with heavy bass. Nelson brings him in to sway slowly, tenderly.

At one point, Nelson leans up to kiss him, and they mesh together in the moving lights and shifting darkness. They taste like everything between them. Sugar, salt, excitement, anticipation.

“What did you do with the eggs?” Frank asks nonsensically once they part.

“What?”

“Eggs. I work at the eggs place you stole from three weeks ago,” Frank unveils.

Like a discovery, Nelson marvels. “No shit?”

Frank shakes his head and shrugs gruffly. “I look different out of the apron, I guess.”

“No shit!” Nelson exclaims excitedly, finally placing Frank’s face and demeanour.

“So…?” Frank prompts.

“So?”

“What did you do with the eggs?”

Nelson let out a joyous sound. A bright and ringing laughter. “Would you believe I made myself an omelet?”

They both bend out of their embrace to laugh.

“I coulda done that for you,” Frank says, warm and too affectionate.

“But then I would ever know egg-stealing is an option,” Nelson howled. “I could be a criminal mastermind!”

Frank nods along. “Yeah, egg theft is a federal offense, actually. You oughtta be arrested.”

“You’re not a cop, are you?”

“Military, actually. But military is authorized to make arrests,” Frank says, a smidge prideful, but mostly melancholy.

“Wait, actually? Are you actually a cop?”

“Sorta.”

“Okay, then. I’ve never done anything illegal in my life, sir.“

Frank nods firmly. “Clearly. Neither have I, counselor.”

“I’m not a lawyer yet,” Foggy reminds him, leaning in even closer, as if to tell him a secret.

“And I start training in a month. We can think ahead a little,” Frank says.

“Yeah, but citizens have limited policing powers, so you may as well. I won’t be practicing law until I finish school.”

Frank frowns spectacularly. “You telling me you can’t get me off for all my illegal activities?

"Oh, I’ll get you off,” Nelson promises. Frank kisses him again.

“I’ll let you know if I ever murder someone.”

Nelson pulls Frank closer by the belt loop and, God help him, Frank feels dizzy.

“I should let you know I’m moving to South Carolina next month. If we do this, it’s not gonna get very far,” Frank tells him, ruefully.

For a second, Nelson looks disappointed, but he doesn’t let go. When he looks back up to Frank again, Nelson is dimples and teeth.

“What I’m hearing is that we have a whole month to have fun. We’re both here for now. Let’s enjoy it, right?”

Frank smirks in agreement and gives the other boy a delicate twirl to a heavy bass drop.

The situation is misaligned to them. They’re from different parts of society. The timing is wrong. Their personalities don’t harmonize. Frank shouldn’t like this boy, but he does.

So they dance on, mismatched to the music, slow despite the tempo. They hold onto each other, they kiss each other.

“One month,” Foggy breathes into Frank. “Then you can forget I exist. Get married. Go have kids. Whatever you want.”

Frank grins into their hazy and intimate space. The music blares on. “I’ll make you eggs in the mornings,” he promises. “I’ll be good for you.”

[jebentnietalleen]

By now most people have read and seen a lot about the convention already, but since I said I would write about it (and because I like to be able to look back on my own experiences later), I'll ramble on for a bit...

First and foremost, it was a pleasure to meet and see other Tumblr users and fans of skam in general, I loved being in a room with so many like minded people 💖🙏🥰 . I've never been to a convention before so it was truly special. I wanna give a special mention to

@chelouelou

​, meeting her was one of my personal highlights and I am so glad we hit it off just as well as we did online. She is the sweetest person and a ray of sunshine, and we had multiple laughing fits for no good reason. All lovely things imo 🧡😍🙌✨

Some random facts:

I almost drew a braincell at La Petite Ceinture so I could write 'the skam france galaxy braincell' but I chickened out last moment because it felt like sacrilege

Every time we saw one of those step scooters we felt triggered

Every time we saw someone carrying a baguette we laughed

Elise brought everybody clown noses

La Petite Ceinture is absolutely calming and just a great experience to visit 

About the convention:

We arrived around 9:00, and because we already got our passes the night before (the organization for that was also shitty, we arrived at 17:30, which was suppose to be the time that they would open up for the passes, and left at 21:00. They were not prepared, everything arrived in boxes through out the night, we had to wait a long long time) we didn't have to wait in line and sat on the floor for a bit while we waited for everything to start. We sat next to a large glass window, and suddenly we heard some fans shrieking in excitement. We looked up and saw Maxence walk past us, and let me tell you, that alone was quite an experience. Mannequin elite, indeed. There is just something so alluring about him, it's even more apparent in real life. We were all very nervous and also excited about the whole day, and this hyped us up even more ngl. We saw more cast members come in, Coline, Paul, Robin, Leo, and probably more that I can't remember. We got called into the big room where the panels were held, at around 10:00.

After a short speech by the host, and a video introduction of all the casts (which was lovely and I might post later, I don't know if anybody posted it yet? I haven't seen it) the cast of skam france came on stage. The crowd went wild, naturally. They got a standing ovation. The energy was buzzing. Axel was joking around from the first second, he was talking with Maxence and with the boys and with Zoe, making jokes the whole time, even gave the host what looked like a slap on the ass hahah. He looked very hyped up. The whole cast looked very happy to be there.

The duo photoshoot was suppose to start 10:15 but started around 10:45 instead. So the day already started with a delay, and because a lot of events had some overlap (for example they couldn't start the group photo shoot if a few cast members were still busy with their duo's) it had a sort of domino effect throughout the whole day. There was a lot of waiting and a lot of standing around. When I was in line for the duo photoshoot, Axel and Maxence were both hugging fans they met before (even though it wasn’t allowed, which I still don’t understand tbh) and one girl wanted to do the Polaris hand holding bit with Axel and he went with it and looked at her so softly it was a lot okay, I hope that girl is still alive. I saw Maxence do the same thing with another girl during the same shoot, so they stood back to back with the girls in question (the picture later became famous because of the manip smh) And just before it was my turn, Maxence draped himself over Axel and they hugged with Maxence standing behind Axel and Axel reached up to touch Maxence's arm. This wasn't for a photo they weren't even facing a camera, this was just them being their caring selves. They were really sweet together the whole day, as everyone has seen by now.

We had to wait a long time for the panel to start, and they started way later than planned. Maxence was still busy with his duo with Rocco and Assa and Lais also came in later. Everything was in French and the host translated. I considered going up to ask a question (tell us more about the 90% social media content that Axel wanted to do that went too far lmao) but the queue filled up so quickly and I knew there was a limited time for the cast, so I didn't. In the end it's probably for the best seeing as they went on for a half hour longer because Axel is the literal best and I will not hear anyone say anything different. I thought the host did a good job, but I still think a lot of details got lost in translation because he obviously couldn't translate every single thing word for word. I cackled because when he talked in English he pronounced Axel and Maxence's names very Englishy. I thought it was cute that Axel kept shouting for Maxence to come join them when they started, and that when Maxence came in he sat in front of him. I sat pretty close to the stage at that point and saw that Axel explained to Maxence that he yelled his name hahah. That whole panel was golden, loved hearing about their fave lines and upcoming projects, plus they were all so sweet to each other, ugh, name me a better cast istg. Some of the other highlights for me were how adorable Axel and Leo were together and how Moussa and Lais are integrated into the whole cast and got along with everyone. Seeing Lais and Maxence interact got me thinking about seeing Sofiane and Eliott together on screen and now I want it even more tbh. Of course everyone knows that Axel ignored the rules and insisted on talking to everyone who had a question, went off stage and talked to the people who were left, tried to include everyone, in general he had a really big role yesterday. I got an ask saying he is a true born entertainer and that's true, he really is (I will answer that ask later I promise, I am just way behind tbh sorryyy).

After the panel was the group photo with the skam france cast. The chaotic energy was off the chart. Especially Axel and Maxence, I saw Maxence bite some girls tag that was around her neck for the picture lmao. They kept cheering the people on who came for their picture, it was adorable. When it was my turn I stood between Axel and Maxence and ugh, just, it was great okay. I said thank you when I got my picture, and Maxence went: nooo, thank yOuUuU (you know the voice he sometimes uses? Yeah) what a sweetheart tbh.

After this there was a looooot of waiting for me. The only thing I had left was the autographs and selfies (this was one event) and that could not start before all the group photos were done, and they went on for way too long. That just means the organization sold too many or didn't calculate the right amount of time it would take. I managed to catch some of the skam og panel and italia, but not all of it, and tbh it's all a blurr because I was busy with processing everything haha.

Finally it was time for the autographs, and the line was looong. I had the pleasure of seeing Axel carry Lais to the tables up close and personal, what a legend. The times I fondly shook my head with a grin on my face yesterday because of that chaotic king are countless. Just before I was almost at the end of the line, they cut us off because they needed to start the closing ceremony (for lack of a better description). Luckily they wrote numbers on our hands so we didn't have to wait all the way back in line again, because after the ceremony they would get back to it. This wasn't in the schedule, it was suppose to be over, hence closing ceremony, so the skam france cast stayed behind way longer than planned. The closing ceremony was very emotional, most of the cast got tears in their eyes as people shared their stories. Not everything was translated but you could still tell it meant a lot to them. Not to mention the amount of money they managed to raise with the convention. Truly amazing. Of course we all saw the cast go absolutely nuts to one direction lmao, that was a treat to see after such a long day. Idk how they kept up their energy, especially Axel who seems to be inhuman tbh. He never seemed very tired, you could see it a bit in his face but he powered on and I love him for that. The rest of the cast was definitely more visibly tired, some more than others of course.  Finally we got back to the autographs, and still it was a long wait. I think we were there for nearly 2 hours and I only got to Marilyn, Lais, Axel and Maxence. By then it was 21:00 and I could barely stand. I only ate two mini croissants for breakfast and had a few handful of nuts during the day. I wasn't hungry but that still probably wasn't very smart of me. I kind of regret not staying to get the other autographs as well, but I was truly spend. Lais is as much a ray of sunshine as he is on TV, he is super nice and thankful, as is Marilyn. They were kind to everyone. That's something that I can say about the whole cast: everywhere I looked, I saw happy cast members who were touched by every single person who come up to them. Amazing really.

I'm not gonna lie, I was looking forward to getting to Axel the most. Anybody who follows me will not be surprised by this. So let me tell you a little bit about it. Axel gives the best hugs, is kind, is soft, calls you by your name, explains to you that he will read your letter later and carefully because he reads every one of them (I assured him that I am aware of that and very thankful) and that he wants to take his time with it to be able respond to it (which is not something I expect or even want, I just wanted to thank him and tell him how great he is, no response necessary). When I said it's been a long day he said no no no no, it's been a cool day, and I think he really means it. He was so full of energy after that long a day. He is so happy whenever he sees someone he remembers. And when I asked for a hug he said pffff of course!!! Did I mention he winked at me? Yeah. I really thought I could not love him more than I did but I do. I'm so grateful to have been able to meet him and talk to him and ugh ugh just, I can die happy now.

Maxence was really tired and stressed by the time I got to him and he took a smoke break just before. They warned us to keep it short because it was taking too long, so I did. I gave him the letter I wrote and he thanked me and we took some selfies. He was very nice but you could tell it was a lot for him, and that's very understandable.

After that we went back to the hotel and I literally could not even form proper sentences anymore. We didn't get any dinner, we just talked for a bit to let it all sink in and then we went to bed.

Tbh, it's still a bit like a dream when I think back on it. It's a good thing I have pictures because otherwise I wouldn't believe it myself. I love this cast and this show and the crew too of course, I am so happy I went and the next time I get the slightest change to see them again I will take it without a doubt. They are all amazing. 10/10 would recommend.

PS: if anybody has any questions don’t hesitate to ask, although I might not know the answer or remember haha.

[hollenka99]

Okay, here it is. I started writing this on the 1st or 2nd but a bunch of stuff happened that delayed me finishing. Basically, I saw all the #2019 kingdom stuff on @beerecordings‘ blog and it sounded like people had fun that night. I was unfortunately unable to really join in because it was after 11pm for me when it got going. However, I did send a picture of my cockapoo Honey as a sort of ‘peace offering from the future’. And when I woke the next morning to discover the Queen was dead and Tardus was about to vanish, So I realised I had to race to pick her up before I lost her for the rest of 2020. And then this fic somehow came out of that. Look, idk, don’t ask me. All I know is that writing in my dog’s POV is so funny to do and maybe I should write more stuff from odd Points of View this year.

Anyway, here’s Honey doing her own thing while visiting royalty.

Honey hated this. This was far too much. The threatening noise, the bursts of colour she could sense in the sky, just everything about tonight. Holly talking nonsense at her wasn't really helping the situation either, if she was going to be honest. She would admit she had been warned but now was not the time to debate whether she should have listened. "Are you going to behave yourself? You're going to Tardus for uh, diplomatic reasons." Another intrusive noise boomed. She gristles in retaliation. The movement of Holly's hand on her back increases. "Shh, shh. It's okay, baby. Just some fireworks. There shouldn't be any of them in Tardus." "Is she ready to go?" An unfamiliar human asks upon appearing in her peripheral. "Just a second. Honey. Hey, look at me for a minute." The clicking of a tongue captures her attention. "Hi. Listen, you need to be on your best behaviour. You'll be a guest there, after all. I'm guessing there's gonna be a bunch of people walking around the castle so don't get underneath anyone's feet. And no jumping on beds, sofas or whatever. You can get away with it here because we give you permission. But, over there, you won't have explicit permission. So don't go jumping onto anything you're not supposed to. Comprende?" Another explosion. Strokes are accompanied by a sigh. "I'm sure you'll be fine. I'll come for you when it's morning there, okay?" She doesn't recognise the smell of the person who takes her from Holly. Nor are the scents in Tardus particularly familiar once they arrive. The journey across the world had been stressful. Like pretty much everything in the past several hours. The eyes of a human dressed in extravagant regalia light up at the sight of her. This must be Bee, the queen Holly had spoken of. "A gift from Holly of Medwich, ma'am. To help with the celebrations." "Oh, hello there." Hands interrupt Honey's inspection. Okay, she enjoyed strokes and scratches as much as the next dog but there was a process to this. Oh wait, no, this human has got their hands underneath her ears, making them flop slightly from the motion of scratching the back of her head. Honey takes this opportunity gets a good whiff. Alright, this Bee smelled trustworthy. She leans in when a hand cups her face. Now for the true test of faith. She is in the perfect position to flop. "Oh! Careful there. What would Holly think if you hit your head on the floor?" The queen giggles. Probably roll her eyes then give her a cuddle, Honey thinks. Her belly is seconds away from being rubbed when a servant has the audacity to interrupt. "Your majesty, there are urgent matters that require your attention concerning tonight." "Well, you heard him. I'll be back later, okay? This is a big place so if you wander off, it would be easy to get lost. Be careful. I know Holly wouldn't want you get hurt or go missing. Actually, can we get someone to keep an eye on her while I'm gone?" "Of course, ma'am." The messenger nods and departs. Unsupervised, Honey immediately sets off to explore the various surrounding halls. She enters a chamber. There, situated on a table, partially hanging off the edge, were papers. She pays them no notice as her tail absentmindedly thumps against the wood. It is only as the paper falls that she becomes attentive to them. They suffer the fate of being ripped without a moment's hesitation. Shreds of varying sizes are the end result. Bee's ever trustworthy advisor discovered the scene. "What did you do?! Those were my-" The person scrabbles at the pieces of parchment. "Wait, these were the... important notes I thought I hid before heading out." Their body jerks, slightly and silently, in a way she thinks is related to happiness in humans. Yes, that beahviour was a good one. She had done something positive. Fingers find themselves gently pressing behind her ear. Yeah, keep doing that but maybe go up just a fraction. "I suppose I should thank you. Won't tell if you don't." A wink is directed at her. Despite apparently doing something right by shredding paper, Honey is ushered away from the area. Oh well, there was always something else to check out, something to sniff or somewhere to laze about. And just her luck that her senses detected a hub of activity and delicious scents. A kitchen? Brilliant! A young cook spots her. "I heard about you. You're our little guest, aren't you? I don't blame you for coming straight to this part of the palace." He gives a smile reminiscent of when Holly stole one of her balls before hurling it across the living room. "You like chicken?" She knows how this goes. She is usually made to sit before being granted food. "Aren't you polite. Here you go." Something else emitted an amazing scent. So sweet. Undoubtedly tasty. If only she could have a bite. Honey follows the food all the way back to the throne room. Ah, she understands. Well, Bee was nice to her before so surely she wouldn't be heartless enough to ignore her sad eyes tactic. She lays her head on the queen's lap. Bee laughs, obscuring her face. Their eyes meet a moment later. There is a great deal of hesitation. Oh, forget her. Mummy was usually the only one who shared her dinner and sandwiches anyway. But she'll tell Holly about this injustice, don't think she won't. Wait, never mind. Tardus' sovereign is kind enough bestow her a morsel. Sugar! She is sure she's had something like this before. Sweet bun, was that what humans called it? She is given a few more pieces before the bun is gone. It doesn't matter. Honey had a new focus now. A servant arrives with chocolate pancakes. She administered her persuasive ways again but it proves unsuccessful this time. Bee uses the old excuse of 'chocolate is poisonous to dogs'. Please, at least think of something more creative. She's sick of that poison line. 'Dangerous' was another one of the same vein. Besides, that excuse was probably human propaganda so they could hoard all the chocolate for themselves. Honestly, she's been eating chocolate as a treat for years and has experienced no health problems as a result. So there. Stop lying about chocolate because it's not nice. Also please let her have some of those pancakes. There is speak of a pond creature who is leaving soon. The queen orders more chocolate pancakes to be delivered to the creature's aquatic dwelling. A pond sounded great. The beaches back home sucked during winter, always forbidding dogs like her to have fun and splash around. Maybe she could earn permission to swim for a while. Once more, Honey leaves Bee to her royal duties. The sky is dark now, an expanse of stars blanketing it. The night causes her further problems with navigating a landscape which was already unfamiliar. She swears she returns to a path she was travelling minutes earlier. No matter how long she searches for this elusive pond, her efforts bear no fruit. She should probably return inside. The explosions she thought she'd be escaping by coming here are sounding again. Yeah, she definitely needs to find someone. She'd prefer Mummy or Holly but they're far away. Okay. Perhaps if she retraced her steps... There is chaos as she nears her destination. It is too much noise and panicked hurry for her. She thinks she hears several shrieks regarding Bee's demise. Dodging people's feet is tricky with their volume in consideration. They weren't paying attention to her. Something big had obviously gone down. She lets the crowds lead her to the square where they seemed to be gathering. "Anyone wanting to leave Tardus for Medwich, over here!" Medwich? And what she swears sounds like Holly's voice? Yes! She wants to leave Tardus for Medwich! Please. The second Holly spots her, she flings herself off the back of the beast on which she had been perched. "Honey! Oh my god. It's okay. Hey, it's going to be alright. I'm here. I'm here." Holly comforts with both her words and actions. "What happened?" "The Queen's been assassinated." Someone answers. Holly goes quiet for a second. "I'd heard rumours but I was hoping they weren't true. Is it really true this place will return to the earth when the last timezone reaches their midnight?" There is a murmur of general agreement. A second person speaks. "There's about an hour or two left before Tardus falls for another year." "So come to Medwich. It was early morning when I left so it will probably be about 11 by the time we return." Her owner pats the cherry coloured dragon. "This guy's pretty fast." A third voice. "There's no point. We'll all be home before this kingdom is truly lost." "Are you sure?" Again, a consensus of assurance. "Well, in that case... Come on, Honey, let's go home." Holly rambles as they mount the dragon. "What do you think of my ride? I know what you're thinking. 'What are you doing with something that can fly when you hate heights?' But don't you think a dragon's a cooler mode of transport than a unicorn or lion? Plus, the Welsh have the best method of mythical transportation so why wouldn't I call in a favour to pick you up in style? Although, I had hoped it would be in a few hours. Sorry, I had no idea this place was a limited time deal. Whatever. Mum probably needs my help with today's belated Christmas dinner. I'll give you an extra pig in blanket as compensation. How's that sound?" "Make it two." "Yeah, I missed you too." Her owner tightens her hold as the dragon is signalled to depart. With a cry of "Happy New Year!" during launch, Tardus gradually fades into the horizon, leaving it doomed to be crumbling by the time they set foot in Medwich.