#and it's up to the reader to realise that wait a minute，this book is biased as fuck

[skilopsaros]

So, i've been reading lancer right?

The worldbuilding is… Weird

The union is presented as utopian paradise, rising from the ashes of the expansionist imperial SecondComm, who is evil for the sin of imperialism, but is nothing like them, because ThirdComm's goal is to

*checks notes*

Go to places where it's not ruling, and integrate those places into itself, by force if diplomacy fails

Huh.

[aprilsrant]

Lay all your love on me | Oliver Wood x Slytherin!Fem!Reader.

SUMMARY: (Y/N)’s been crushing on the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain for over three years. Now, in their seventh and last year of Hogwarts, her friends are determined to get them together.

WORD COUNT: 2,833.

WARNINGS: underage drinking. (If there are more and I didn’t put them, let me know).

NEXT PARTS:

Honey Honey! (part two)

When I kissed the teacher (part three).

A/N: so, this came out because of a random idea and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. For some reason, I like to imagine wizards dancing to ABBA, of course it’s the muggleborns and maybe halfbloods that know about them. This was written while I listened to Lay all your love on me, slowed down, on repeat. I algo gave the reader’s friends name because it was easier, and I may or mat not based their personality on my own close friends…

English is not my first language so if there are any mistakes, I’m sorry! Reblog if you can, and if you have any suggestions or requests just DM!

Masterlist.

tags: @peeves-a-legend​ (thank you for everything).

The Ravenclaw vs Hufflepuff Quidditch match had ended with a win for the eagle’s house, although the other team did not make it easy for them. The Hufflepuffs were known for their patience and hard working nature, giving up easily was not one of their traits and that’s exactly what everyone had seen on the match this afternoon. They knew their opponent’s Seeker, Cho Chang was getting better with each game  she played, so the Captain of the Hufflepuff Team decided their best chance was, if he wasn’t fast enough to catch the snitch that is, to lash out against the poor Keeper. 

And so they did. 

The Chasers, Preece, Macavoy and Applebee, were unstoppable. On the occasion the Quaffle landed in their hands, which had been like seventy percent of the time, they would use many different strategies to confuse the other players, including the Keeper, and score a goal.

Even after their brilliant performance, Ravenclaw still won by twenty points ahead when Cho Chang caught the snitch. A small distraction from the Hufflepuff Seeker and Captain had cost them the victory, but that didn’t discourage the badgers, hell, (Y/N) thought nothing could after how well they had played. She had never felt so much respect for the usually overlooked House. 

That was pretty much the reason why the Ravenclaws were so eager to celebrate their win and had invited the whole school, or at least everyone up to the age of fifteen, to their Common Room. Many people believed they weren’t capable of throwing a good party since they were supposed to be smart and have their head on a book every minute, but (Y/N) never doubted them. One of her best friends was a Ravenclaw and that girl sure knew how to have fun, school and good grades being the last thing on her mind whenever she got sight of the Firewhisky. 

If you had asked for (Y/N)’s opinion, she would tell you Ravenclaws were the seconds best at Hogwarts on the matter of hosting parties, Slytherins right up to them. Albeit that may have been biased, she herself was a Slytherin and, thinking about it, she never went to any Gryffindor parties because, well, no one except her other friend wanted a Slytherin there. Many of them thought they were some kind of saints just because they were brave and didn’t realise they were, instead, a bunch of reckless and prejudiced twats. The remaining house, Hufflepuff, took parties to a whole other level and sometimes it became all a little too much. She wasn’t much of a party person but she still enjoyed them from time to time, but they went insane any time alcohol was in the room and started to come up with crazy ideas that would, with no doubt, get them expelled. 

After waiting ten minutes for a member of the house to step out and answer the riddle for her, which (Y/N) knew you didn’t need to be part of the house to reply but even as a Slytherin and having, supposedly, a cunning and intelligent mind she sucked at those kind of questions; she, and twenty others,  finally entered the Ravenclaw Common Room, which was completely renovated since the last time she had visited it.

The circular and wide room was filled with students from all the four houses making it seem smaller than it actually was. The moon shone, filtering through the arched windows, barely illuminated but some flickering and colour changing lights on the ceiling made it work. The furniture was against the wall on the left side so people could dance freely in the middle, while the tables on the right bursted with food and bottles of alcohol. A muggle radio had been placed on one of the large table’s corner and to (Y/N)’s delight, it wasn’t playing any songs by the Weird Sisters. She loathed that band since last year when some students, presumably Gryffindors, enchanted the speakers on the hallways to repeatedly play one of the group’s songs. 

The girl started to move towards the left side of the room, avoiding the crowd growing larger and larger. Trying to catch some familiar faces, she stood on her tiptoes and observed the room, but the lack of light and her problem with seeing things from afar, made her search harder. A couple of minutes had passed when she recognized the trio she was friends with. They were waving and screaming her name, trying to catch her attention, right beside the door that led to the dormitories.  

(Y/N) grinned at them while walking in their direction. Once she settled on Isla’s side, her best friend since childhood, some of her nerves were washed away a little. It was easier for her to be in a place packed with people if she had her close friends as company. Dorian, the last one to join the group in their fifth year, offered her a black cup with, judging by the smell, Quintin Black, her favourite. The corners of her mouth quirking up as a way of saying thanks without having to shout at him to make herself be heard through the loud music.

The Multicolour Quartet — name they all despised but stood with it because it was one of Dorian’s drunk comments when he realised how they were all from different houses; (Y/N) was the Slytherin, he was the Gryffindor, and the other two, Isla and Ethan, were both Ravenclaws — easily fell in a conversation about Isla’s brilliant performance as Chaser for her House’s Team, the other three complimenting her whenever she started to list all the errors that almost allowed the Hufflepuffs to win.

Spacing out of her friend’s chat, (Y/N)’s eyes peer round the room looking, nearly in a desperate way, for someone in particular. Answering the comments the other three made with a simple nod of her head or a yes to seem like she was paying attention, her eyes fixated in a figure directly across from them, supporting it’s body’s weight on a wall. He was surrounded by some of his classmates and friends from the same house, but she could still see, albeit with great trouble, his short brown hair and his right hand holding a black cup, equal to the one she had. 

She failed to realise that her friends had noticed where her attention travelled to. Sharing knowing glances and smirks they knew it was time for (Y/N) to talk to the boy she’d been crushing on for three years now. Isla and Ethan left saying some people were starting to cause trouble, not that (Y/N) had actually listened to them, too lost in attempting to catch another glimpse of the boy. That ended on Dorian, the most chaotic of the four, finding the way to make them, at least, share two or three words.

Suddenly, she felt a hand on her left arm dragging her along the room and pushing people on the way. That belonged to Dorian and it didn’t take long for her to understand what he was doing, his mischievous smile betraying him. Her eyes widened and she shook her head while planting her feet on the floor, putting all her strength on them so he wouldn’t move her. She didn’t succeed. Obviously because of his friend’s stronger hands. 

A chant of pleas and several no exited from her mouth, but it was useless. If something got inside Dorian’s head, then nothing could stop him from doing it. A trait they both shared and the cause of a few of their arguments, neither of them knew when to back the hell down. Not even the promise of (Y/N) doing his Arithmancy homework for two weeks made him stop on his tracks. Dorian had really compromised to the cause because she knew how much he detested that subject, only taking it to please his father. 

Before she could raise the offer to a month, they were already in front of him and the group he was chatting with. 

Oliver Wood smiled at the two friends, recognizing only one of them but still being kind and inviting towards her, whose heart was about to jump out of her chest from how fast it was beating. 

“Hey, Wood, how’re you doing?,” Dorian greeted him first and then nodded at the others as if he was saying hi, “preparing for the Quidditch match next week?”

(Y/N) stood awkwardly by Dorian’s side, looking and smiling shyly at people she had never interacted with. She was going to cut this boy’s head of the minute everyone left.

“Yeah, the Hufflepuffs played like hell today.” She heard Oliver say. His words tumbling with each other. Was he already starting to get drunk? “I think I’ll need to book more practices if we want to win next week”.

Luckily, or not, Dorian noticed he hadn’t introduced his friend to the group yet. And even if she didn’t like to just stand there like a rigid stick, she hated the new attention.

“This is (Y/N) (Y/L/N), by the way,” he announced while placing his right hand on the upper side of her back and pushing her body to the front. And the shy smile made an appearance on her face once more. 

She whispered a small hello, looking at everyone but Oliver, and instantly felt the need to jump off the Astronomy Tower, not long after making Dorian the next designated Gryffindor Ghost. 

“What house are you in? I’ve never seen you before,” questioned one of the boys next to Oliver with his eyebrows furrowed in confusion and a lost look on his eyes, as if he was trying to place her and remember the colours of the tie she used daily.

“She’s not a Gryffindor, maybe that’s why you haven’t seen her much,” Dorian answered before she had the chance to, “she’s actually a Slytherin.” A new expression on his face now, intimidating the others to see if they dared to express some kind of negative or stupid comment to his friend about the house she belonged to. No one said anything. She saw Dorian smiling proudly from the corner of her eye, but in that moment (Y/N) had the weird sensation she was some kind of prey to starving lions.

The group began to talk to each again, like nothing happened, all except Oliver, who was looking at her with his eyebrows raised and an intriguing sparkle in his dark brown eyes.

Dorian spoked once more.

Does he ever shut up?

“Remember the other day you said you were falling behind in Potions and Transfiguration?” Oliver nodded at him, signalising her friend to keep talking. “Well, I have the perfect person to help you with that. (Y/N) tutors me from time to time in those subjects too.”

Forget the Astronomy Tower, she desperately needed some kind of magical earthquake that could crack the floor beneath her feet and swallow her whole.

It’s not like Dorian was lying, she had helped him, and still did sometimes, to study for an important test, not only in Potions and Transfiguration, but also in the rest of the subjects they shared. Merlin knew that boy was a disaster when talking about paying attention to classes. But that didn’t mean she was good enough to tutor Oliver freaking Wood. (Y/N) could treat Dorian how she wanted if he wasn’t trying to, at least, know what she was talking about, they were friends and most of their time together was spent hitting each other, but how was she supposed to act around the precious Gryffindor Quidditch Captain?

“Great!,” Oliver exclaimed quickly. A sudden blush crept all the way from below his turtle neck to his cheeks, but she couldn’t identify if it happened because of the alcohol or embarrassment from sounding “too enthusiastic”. He cleared his throat before speaking again. “I was about to start looking for one. McGonagall said that if I don’t get my grades up to an Exceeds Expectations, I won’t be able to play the rest of the matches.”

“That sucks, but you’d found one already so you two can start immediately with the tutoring sessions”, Dorian commented slily while looking at her with the smile of a champion adorning his face.

He was trying exceptionally hard, she had to give him that.

In a swift movement, she drank the whole content of her cup to see if the knot that had formed on her stomach would go away. The blonde girl, perhaps a member of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, beside (Y/N) noticed her drink was missing and offered her to reach out for one of the bottles of the table across. The Slytherin nodded and asked for the bottle of Quintin Black if there was still one.

“So you like Scottish things?” Oliver observed, with his eyes lighted up and his bottom lip stuck beneath his teeth, when he saw her grab the bottle of alcohol filled to the middle with onyx liquid. 

“She sure does.” She heard Dorian mumble, he had tried to hide the smirk burying his face on his cup but (Y/N) took notice of that too. After giving him a pointed look, she turned her head towards Oliver, who, hopefully, hadn’t heard her friend’s remark; if he had, he was good at concealing it.

Her response was interrupted by the starting melody of “Lay all your love on me”, one of her favourite songs, and a voice that could only belong to her best friend, screaming her name. Out of nowhere, Isla took her hand, said something to Oliver and Dorian about returning her to them later, and yanked (Y/N) to the direction of the made up dance floor, making her almost drop the cup she was holding.

It was an unspoken rule between them, whenever one of their favourite songs was on the radio, they would stop what they were doing, important or not, and start to dance and sing, without caring about other people’s opinion. It was something like a ritual that had become a safe space and a signature of their friendship for both of the girls.

A few seconds through the song had played when Celine stopped dancing and approached her friend, whispering something in her ear.

“Okay, don’t look and don’t freak out, but Oliver hot stuff Wood is staring at you.”

“What? What do I do?” 

“Just keep dancing, I guess, maybe he likes it.”

“I don’t know how to dance, why would he like it?” 

Confusion and panic in her eyes, (Y/N) tried to think about all the logical reasons Oliver Wood, one of the most attractive guys in the school, could be watching her dance. The girl knew she wasn’t beautiful, even if her best friend repeatedly said so, she wasn’t funny or interesting and, on top of all, she belonged in Slytherin, the House with the worst reputation. 

“No idea, but whatever it is, keep doing it.” 

Her best friend winked at her, a large and contagious smile spreading over her face. Grabbing one of (Y/N)’s hands, she made her twirl around following the fast beat of the song. Seizing the opportunity, (Y/N) glanced at Oliver and discovered that he was, indeed, staring at her while he drank from his black cup.

A random and unexpected laugh flew out of her mouth. Her best friend, carefree as always, began to giggle with her while dancing around the room. She had never felt more alive, and some people would think she was ridiculous for actually thinking it, but singing her favourite song at the top of her lungs, dancing and laughing and just having fun with her best friend. Excitement running through her veins uniting with the nerves Oliver’s attention towards her had provoked; a slight headache caused by the alcohol mixing with the new confidence coming from the same thing. 

Aware of the dark brown eyes focusing on her, she turned around once more, but this time she didn’t look away. She kept singing, beaming at him from the middle of the dance floor, and maintaining eye contact. A sudden thought appeared on her mind, if she’d had maybe one more full cup of Quintin Black, perhaps she would’ve been confident enough to ask him on a date. 

Don’t go wasting your emotions, lay all your love on me.

Don’t go sharing your devotion, lay all your love on me.

(Y/N) didn’t think that he would take that as an invitation when she whispered the words while looking at him, it wasn’t even meant to be one, but Oliver Wood had left his cup on the table next to him and was now walking towards her.

A little small talk, a smile and baby I was stuck. 

I still don’t know what you’ve done with me.

[whyralltheusernamestaken]

A simple greeting

Where you find yourself trapped inside the world of what you thought was a fictional book and the only way you can leave is to say hi to your favourite character... Overhaul.

Overhaul x reader 

Warnings : swearing

Words : 872

Masterlist

Series masterlist 

A/N : I am the biggest chisaki simp and I have never even written a fic for him???? 

Chapter 1

One second you were getting off the train stop nearest to your home, surrounded by normal looking people and the next you were standing in a busy station full of people with extra limbs or bright skin colours. 

You felt your mind swim in confusion as you stayed still, feet frozen on the ground and eyes darting around the crowds. A familiar mop of green hair and freckles walked past and you quickly ran after. 

“Um hello?” you called out, reaching out a hand and grasping his wrist. 

“Hi?” he jumped, turning around and nearly tripping over his own feet.

“Sorry!” you said quickly, letting go of his wrist and stepping back. “I thought you looked familiar, maybe not.”

“Ah,” he nodded, pausing slightly before reaching out a hand for a handshake. “Well it’s nice to meet you, I’m Midoriya.”

Your eyes blinked repeatedly, “Like... Midoriya Izuku?”

“Yeah.” he smiled. “I’m guessing you know me from UA’s sports festival?” he rubbed the back of his neck bashfully. “I don’t think I’ve met you before.”

You hurriedly nodded, not wanting to create unwanted suspicion. It was strange to see what had once been a 2d drawing stand before you, and gosh was the human version of him so much cuter. 

“I’ve got to go to school now, it was nice meeting you...”

“Y/N.” you smiled, bowing slightly before waving as he ran towards the train.

“Bye Y/N!”

Watching his figure disappear, you realised the reality you had suddenly been thrown into, a fustrated sigh leaving you mouth as you quickly ran towards the exit. Your eyes blurred with tears as the calls you made to people in your world  refused to go through. 

You were stranded.

~~~

Sitting down at the table of a small cafe, you took a sip from your favourite drink as a snowstorm of questions running through your mind. The worldmaster? Alternate dimensions?

You had never once considered that the people in this world were actually alive and not just animated characters. And the worldmasters quirk had accidentally brought you, who was from your dimension, into theirs?

“So...? How do I leave?” you finally asked, deciding that even though you didn’t fully believe this guy, he was the only person knowing of the fact that you were not from here. 

“Well it’s simple actually.”

“Really?” you piped up, a smile gracing your features for the first time since you had stepped foot here.

“Yeah.” the worldmaster, Haru nodded, “Since this is like a book to you, you just need to talk to your favourite character.”

“Favourite character?” you racked through your brain to see who was your favourite, your smile and hope instantly shattering as the image of a man with a plague doctor’s mask entered your brain. 

“Yeah I don’t think that’s going to happen.” you sulked, burrowing your face into hands as the worldmaster looked at you puzzled. 

“Why is that? UA doesn’t have the highest security and pro heros are always happy to talk to their fans.”

“That’s not it.” you groaned, shaking your head before taking another simp. 

“Is it a civillain?”

You shook your head once again.

He sucked his teeth in before continuing. “A villain?”

You looked at him and nodded with a sigh. 

“Well that’s not the biggest problem either. LOV is all over the kids these days.”

You srunched your nose at him. “Ew, don’t say it like that. And it’s not them either.”

“Are you seriously going to leave me hanging?”

You glared at him, before speaking quickly. “It’s the bloody yakuza.” 

He looked at you, mouth open. “Your favourite character, in the whole of our world, is in the Shie Hassaikai.”

“Shut up.” you mumbled, hiding your face as you heard his cackles ring out through the entire shop, red spreading through your face as everyone’s attention turned to you two. “Shut up you’re so obnoxious.” 

He eventually died down, before continuing. “Well, there’s no such thing as impossible, I’ll try my best to help you, after all I’m the reason your in this mess.” he sighed.

“You’d better.” you seethed, pouting from the embarrassment. “And how come you’re not helping the heros if you know everything about the past, present and future in this world?”

“I would end up like my ancestor.” he explained. “Our family, as the world masters must remain completely unbiased. In this world we are simply civilians who are socially neutral.”

“Gee, sounds kinda boring.” you snickered, placing the empty cup down on the table. “So where am I staying?”

“That’s a good question.”

“Please tell me you have an answer.”

“Well let’s get you closer to the world of heros and villains first.”

“Um, I don’t have a quirk.”

“No worries. I’ll take care of it.”

“Wait no I don’t want a quirk, Overhaul doesn’t like them.”

“I can’t just manifest you a quirk.” he stated, rolling his eyes. “I mean I’ll get you to stay with one of them.” 

“What-”

~~~

You stood with your phone in hand, staring up at the dingy alleyway sign. “God I hate it here.” you muttered, wondering why the hell Haru had directed you to this musty highstreet bar. You knew you had to entually start earning money, as your mission at hand did not seem achievable in one day, but out of an entire city’s worth of jobs to apply for, the one he chose for you was... this?

You began to take a step forward before the door swung open suddenly, hitting you square in the face. Staggering a step back, your hands flew over your nose as blood slowly seeped out. 

“Shit.” someone yelled. You heard a thump to the ground and watched as he threw the trash bag onto the floor before grabbing your hands. “Hold on let me see.”

“It’s fine.” you grumbled, shaking his grip off before stepping to the side of the door to let him through. 

“Dabi.” someone screamed from inside the bar. “Hurry up and throw the trash away and get back in here.”

“Can’t you just wait a minute.” he shouted back. “Fuck um, I’ll be right back.”

He fumbled past, picking up the trash and running down the street as you walked inside, not bothering to wait for him. 

“Hi.” you greeted, everyone to turn to you perplexed as you pinced your nose, your blood messibly wiped on your chin.

Shigaraki raised an eyebrow at you from behind his father’s hand as you stood there awkwardly. 

“Wow not even a greeting in return? Rude much.” you grumbled, before clearing your throught to hopefully get rid of some of your nerves. “Um, are you hiring?”

“What?”

“Like, do you have any vacancies in your staff so that little old me could possibly occupy?”

“I know what hiring means.”

“Yeah well iI’m sure it didn’t hurt to explain it to you again.” you muttered. 

“No, we are not hiring.” the purple mist behind the counter, whom you recognised to be Kurogiri, said. “Although miss are you alright there?”

“I don’t even know.” you rasped. “Why the fuck did Haru send me here if you guys aren’t even hiring?”

“Haru sent you here?” Shigarki perked up.

You nodded and he turned to look at Kurogiri, quietly exchanging words before looking back at you.

“You should’ve mentioned that to begin with. Alright you’re hired. ”

“Excuse me?”

“Little old you can occupy the vacancy in our staff.” he deadpanned.

You huffed out before grinning at him and throwing him a thumbs up. “Epic!”

You shuffled over to the counter, peering at Kurogiri eagerly. “So when do I start?”

“You can start by wiping the tables miss...”

“Y/N.”

“Right, miss Y/N.”

“Wipe your face before you start anything.” Shigaraki muttered, pointing over to a small door in the far corner of the room. 

“Will do.” 

Slipping into the bathroom, you pulled out your phone, him picking up a few rings in. “Haru I thought you said you weren’t biased, why the hell does the league act like they’re best friends with you.”

“I’m not biased if I’m friends with both sides?” he offers. 

“Backstabber.” you quipped, washing your face.

“You know what? Enjoy your home because you’re staying with the league now.”

“You did not.” you screeched, grabbing your phone from the side as you watched him hang up. “You’re so petty you know that?” you muttered, glaring at your reflection in the mirror before exiting the bathroom. 

“Right, who’s gonna show me my room?”

[penguinwithitsarseonfire]

Mosaic Broken Hearts (But This Love is Brave and Wild)

Part 2 | See the Full Series Here

Pairing: 13th Doctor x Reader

Word Count: 5,140

Warnings: None

Summary: The Doctor knows she loves you, that isn’t her concern. However, doesn't know what to do about it. For help, she calls up one of her old faces for advice, but doesn't get the regeneration she was bargaining for. (This is technically a sequel to Your Hand Print's on my Soul but can be read as a standalone)

Key: Y/N - Your Name, Y/P1 - she, he, or they, Y/P2 - her, him, or their

A/N: So here's what I've decided on the pronouns front. When Reader is the subject of the sentence, it'll be Y/P1 (these are for pronouns like she, he and they). When reader is the object of the sentence, it'll be Y/P2 (these are for pronouns such as her, him, and their). I'm doing it like this because thanks to a wonderful anon, I've learned that people use this extension that changes Y/N (and other acronyms) into your name. So instead of just Y/P, I figured it would help if I made a distinction. Let me know how you feel about this and how it goes!

“Right,” the Doctor said, and she dumped the small book in front of Yaz. “I need your help.”

Yaz looked up from her phone. The Doctor didn’t know what had captured her attention, but apparently she had been refreshing her feed all day. “…Right,” she glanced down at the book, then back at the Doctor. “What’s up?

“It won’t take too long,” The Doctor said. “I just need your opinion.”

Yaz set her phone to the side, and cautiously picked up the book. “What on?”

The Doctor gestured to the book.

Yaz opened it and flicked through a couple of pages. It was a photo album of all the Doctor’s past faces, and as Yaz flicked through them, her face fell into a small frown. “Hey Doc, no offence or anything but… Why am I looking at a bunch of photos of random old white men?”

“They used to me,” The Doctor said, and she sat down in front of Yaz, cross legged so that she was looking slightly up at her. Yaz had been curled up on the living room sofa, the BBC playing softly in the background on the TV.

They were in Yaz’s family apartment, house sitting for them whilst Yaz’s family were down at the Coast. Her family had extended the invitation to both Yaz and the Doctor, but neither wanted to be too far away in case of a crisis.

Yaz sighed, sitting up right so she could flick through the book properly. She eyed the Doctor, as if she didn’t quite believe her. It was a look the Doctor got often from her new friends, and it gave her an edge of amusement. “Hmm,” Yaz eyed the Doctor’s eighth face. “What am I looking for exactly?”

“Which one’s the most trustworthy,” The Doctor said, then she frowned. “No wait, that’s not right. Which one looks like they’ll give the best advice?”

Yaz raised an eyebrow. “Best advice? Doc, I can’t judge that from a photo.”

“Sure you can!” The Doctor said. “You can get it from a vibe! Besides, I need a neutral party to decide. I can just imagine technicolour dream coat and I getting into an argument. He wouldn’t like my rainbow, which doesn’t even make sense, have you seen how much rainbow is on him!”

Yaz quickly flicked backwards through the pages, until she landed on the Doctor’s sixth face, in all his curly blonde haired glory. “Is this him? Technicolour dream coat?”

The Doctor nodded her head. “Oh just look at that coat, I loved that coat. I reckon I’d look smashing in that coat today.” Yaz gave it an amused smile. “It’s certainly… striking,” then she closed the photo album and gave the Doctor a look, and the mood completely shifted.

The Doctor hated when Yaz did gave her this look, it was too… knowing. It was like she was piecing together all the things the Doctor had ever said, stitching together the real Doctor, the version of herself she wasn’t sure if she wanted the others to see. “Why do you need advice from one of these blokes anyway? We’re all here for you Doc, all of us.”

The Doctor’s jaw clenched. What was she supposed to say? Oh yeah, don’t mind me, I’m just in love with Y/N and need advice on how to deal with it, nothing big or important at all.

Because that was the thing though, she wasn’t even sure what she was supposed to do about it. She wasn’t sure whether she should pursue you, if that would even be fair, given the weight that was her everything.

And? If she did decide to pursue you? If the Doctor was really going to be so selfish? Well, she couldn’t even begin to know where to start with that.

So fresh eyes, eyes that understood her to her very core. That’s what she needed.

“Honestly,” the Doctor swallowed. It was difficult being honest in this face, speaking so openly like this. She had to practise, not just for herself, not just for you, but for the rest of her friends too. “I don’t know,” she said, eventually. “But I know, right now at least, the only person who can tell me… is, well, me.” I just don’t know which me to choose, I don’t want to be biased about it, base my decision on baseless things like the opinion on a coat, for example.

“And Yaz, you’re good at this, brilliant at it even. You know people, you know how to judge people immediately. I’m asking you because… well, because I trust you. You’re one of my best mate’s Yaz, who else would I ask?

Yaz chewed her lip, giving the Doctor a look she couldn’t yet recognise. “Alright,” she said, at last. She flicked through the book, and the Doctor watched as Yaz scrutinised each and every one of the Doctor’s old faces. She made some comments from time to time, mostly about the clothes the Doctor had once worn,  or certain hairstyles.

Finally, she settled on someone. “Him,” she said. “He’s got a knowing face.”

She turned the book around so the Doctor could see. Huh. Yaz had chosen her tenth face; Sandshoes.

Well, technically her eleventh face, but that was neither here nor there.

The Doctor pondered over the thought for a moment. He wasn’t a bad choice, in fact, he was probably the best choice of the bunch. He’d wanted love more than anyone, he had fallen in love, so easily, so quickly, so readily.

At the very least he knew how to navigate it.

“That,” the Doctor said finally. “Is an excellent choice, I think.”

“Yeah?” Yaz said, and she was smiling. “You reckon?”

The Doctor nodded vigorously. This could work, this could be perfect.

Which was why, when the Doctor was finally alone, she set her plan into motion.

You, Ryan, and Graham had agreed to come over around the same time Yaz’s fam did, which had been the Doctor’s suggestion. She just needed one short moment, just a minute, a quick duck out and duck in, none of you would ever even notice – you wouldn’t know.

So, when Yaz’s family came home, and she was letting them inside, the Doctor snuck into the TARDIS, which had been parked in the spare room.

Now, the thing about time travel, the very tricky thing about time travelling, is that travelling through your own time stream could be messy, very messy. The Doctor knew this, of course, and, when she had decided that she was going to meet up with her past self, she had planned to circumvent this.

The first thing she had to do was think of a location that wouldn’t be prone to a violent world ending, explosion making paradox – which she had already done; The Medusa Cascade. She had been there enough, in so many regenerations, that the old girl would barely bat an eye should she materialise at the same time as a past version of themselves.

And even if the TARDIS did realise when exactly she was going (which, of course she would, nothing got past the TARDIS), well, the TARDIS was such a romantic, surely she wouldn’t mind.

So the Doctor punched in the coordinates.

The second thing the Doctor had to do was send her old self a message, one that conveyed the urgent-ness of the meeting, but not too urgent. She’d run into her timestream so many times now that it was basically an annual holiday for her, but that didn’t change the fact that this was something she definitely shouldn’t do lightly.

She had a message, or, well, at least, the idea of a message.

The third thing, well, the third thing she had to do, was sync up their TARDIS’, create an artificial temporal feedback loop between the two TARDIS’ so neither one of them would vomit the Doctor(s) out. Hopefully, what it would do would allow both her and sandshoes to exist in the same TARDIS, whilst also not existing in the same TARDIS at all.

The Doctor waited for someone – you, to tell her that she was clever.

Then she whacked her head on one of the crystals that towered around the console and realised you weren’t in the room at all, that all of those words had just been her internal monologue.

Huh, well then.

She rubbed her head with the back of her hand, trying to subside the throbbing, pounding, sensation that was rattling against on her forehead. She punched in the rest of the coordinates, pulled up the leaver, and was off.

The TARDIS groaned loudly. She was shuddering dramatically, and the Doctor almost groaned. “C’mon old girl, don’t tell me you’ve gone bitter in your old age.”

A panel on the wall popped off, leaking angry fiery, sparks. The Doctor yelped, and glared around her person, so the TARDIS could clearly see who the glare was directed at. “Now that wasn’t necessary.”

With a shaky grumble, the TARDIS landed, floating in deep space. The sparks stopped as soon as they started, and the Doctor made a mental note to patch it up before she left.

Right then, time for the message.

A video call wouldn’t be right, not for this. She needed something dramatic, something mysterious, something her past self would latch on and be too curious about to ignore. A simple message, completely appropriate, just 13 words:

   ↠ In a sort of pickle, Bad Wolf and all that. Fancy a cuppa?

And then, of course, she sent the instructions on how to create an artificial temporal feedback loop between the two TARDIS that her past self could follow. Of course, since this was herself that she was planning for, she knew damn well that he wouldn’t read the a word of them.

So hopefully that would mean that she would wind up inside his console, instead of it being the other way round. She didn’t have the time or energy to defend her stylistic choices to him.

The Doctor waited anxiously, pacing around the console like a nervous cat, like one sound would cause her to flee. She wasn’t even sure why she was nervous, she was only seeing herself, after all.

Which was exactly why she was nervous.

She considered bailing, finding another face of her to talk to instead. She was going to get distracted by Ten’s spikey hair, she could already tell.

No, that wasn't true.

She was scared, she felt like she was being selfish.

The thing was, Ten had loved someone too: Rose. She had been wonderful, utterly fantastic, and to this day the Doctor still loved her, in her own way. She loved Rose as an echo, a memory of what-ifs and could have beens.

The Doctor wasn't sure how it would feel to have a future version of herself tell her that she would one day love another, that it would be so tangible and close, after losing someone so awfully. She couldn't imagine that sort of pain.

Actually, she could imagine it, quite easily. It was dreadful.

She had experienced it once, with Rose.

And River.

And she wouldn’t ever, couldn’t ever, experience it with you.

The Doctor took in a deep breath. The message has already been sent, an invitation for just the two of them to talk. She couldn’t back out now.

She eyed her fez, sitting by the steps that lead up the TARDIS corridors. It was a split second decision, one second she was debating whether or not she should grab it, the next, it was on her head.

She felt more herself, more confident, wearing it.

Yeah, totally still her.

The first thing she noticed was the way her skin prickled, as if thousands of tiny needles were lightly poking her. Then the room around her went fuzzy, and the Doctor felt dizzy. In an instant, she was stumbling into a different TARDIS, with familiar brown poles, wires swinging freely in the air, and old grating under her feet.

Except… there weren’t any brown poles, or grating under her feet. The Doctor stared underneath her and oh no.

Something had gone very, very wrong.

For one thing, the most obvious thing, the thing she should have noticed immediately: she was standing on glass.

The Doctor looked around her, she was surrounded by orange chromed walls, golden metal plating, and round little lights sat into the sides. It was familiar, intimately and completely familiar, because this console room had once been hers.

But this wasn’t the console of her tenth face… this was-

“Who,” a familiar voice rang out. “Are you?”

The Doctor turned around slowly, and eyed her eleventh face carefully.

Gods, she had forgotten how big that chin was.

“So,” she said slowly. “I’ve got a bit of explaining to do.”

“A bit?” Eleven said. He said the next two words under his breath. “Bad Wolf,” he then turned to her. “I haven’t heard those words in a very long time.”

The Doctor took in her old self. He seemed tired, his clothes were a bit disorganised, with his shirt untuck and his suspenders hanging limp by his knees. His hair was a mess too, flopping over his face like he had just regenerated. He seemed stressed – scared, almost.

It was almost as if-

“Lake Silencio,” Thirteen breathed, the realisation hitting her with so much force she stumbled backwards slightly. “That’s about to happen, isn’t it?”

His eyes visibly widened – they were so expressive, these eyes. They were the only things that showed his age. “How do you-”

“I’m so sorry,” Thirteen said. “I wasn’t supposed to run into you, especially not now. I was trying to find sandshoes.”

“What? Sandshoes?” Eleven drummed his fingers against the console. “Spikey hair, big sad eyes?”

“Yup, the very same.”

“Why would you even want to talk to him, he,” Eleven straightened, and marched towards her. “No, wait, hold on. That’s distracting, you distracted me with information.”

Thirteen raised her hands up, placating. “I really am sorry-“

“Who are you?” Eleven repeated. “You can’t be me, I’m, I’m about to-”

“I am though,” Thirteen interrupted, and she scrunched up her face. She knew he didn’t want to finish saying that sentence as much as she didn’t want to hear it. “I’m you, a couple faces down the line.”

“You can’t be, you shouldn't exist," Eleven said, an edge of an accusation in his voice. “How do you exist?"

"Aww," Thirteen drew the sound out. "Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, something to do with spoilers."

"Spoilers," Eleven let out a half laugh, a half scoff. "Now that's a word that's thrown around a fair bit."


River.

The Doctor's hearts ached for her, they always would, in a way. A memory of so many chances, of sly smiles, and fleeting moments.

"Trust me though," she said. "I am you, we have a future."

Eleven’s mood changed almost instantly. “A future," he breathed, and he had a wistful smile on his face. "Well then, that's something. I hope it's a good one."

"I do my best."

"Right then," Eleven said, and he clapped his hands together. “What are you here for? What’s so urgent that my future self would come barrelling in like this? I did pop the kettle on.”

Thirteen grinned. “Peppermint tea?”

Eleven rummaged on the console for a moment, before throwing a small cardboard box in the air. He caught it one handed and turned to Thirteen with a wink. “Of course.”

He then jogged towards the kettle, not waiting for a reply. “I do love the fez by the way,” he called out. “It’s suit’s you! Let me know it was you, too. Well, that and the scan I did as you landed.”

Thirteen looked around frantically, scrunching her face up at the TARDIS interior. “Scans? When’d you do scans?”

“As you materialised,” he replied. “Set it up with Donna, remember?”

Thirteen racked her brain for the memory. That had been over a thousand years ago for her.

“Vaguely,” she replied, and hopped over to him.

“Ah, losing that memory with age then?” He eyes sparkled as he passed her a mug.

“Careful whippersnapper,” Thirteen teased. “I’ve got centuries on you.”

“Oh I don’t doubt it,” Eleven replied. They move in sync, in a sort of tandem that only they two were familiar with. They were the same person, but also so starkly different.

“But what do you think?” She said, and she gestured to the fez, but really, she was talking about all of her. “Still me?”

Eleven eyed her up and down quizzically. “Most definitely,” he said. “An upgrade, I’d say.”

Thirteen grinned as they sat down. “Tell you what, buying women’s clothes, still not used to it.”

“Nah,” Eleven replied. “It’s been ages.”

They sat on the threshold of Eleven’s TARDIS, each with a mug of peppermint tea in hand, staring out at the Medusa Nebula. Thirteen was curled in on herself, one knee tucked into her frame and the other dangling freely. Eleven, however, sat openly, his legs swinging free.

She didn’t know how long they sat there in silence, just taking in the bright dust clouds dancing across the inky black universe.

“I’ve met someone,” Thirteen started, after another moment. “A human.”

“Well,” Eleven took a sip of his tea. “That is something we do.”

“No it’s,” Thirteen floundered for a moment, trying to find the words. “It’s different.”

“Define different.”

Thirteen struggled to find a way to describe it, to fully articulate what it was like, what her love for you was like. So, she told a story.

“Do you remember,” Thirteen said. “Gods, it was so long ago for me, but there was this way Amy once described Rory. How, sometimes you meet beautiful people, but they’re dull as a brick. But then you meet someone, and their personality just becomes synonymous with their beauty…”

“She said Rory was the most beautiful man she had ever met,” Eleven finished.

“Exactly, and, well… Y/P2 name is Y/N,” Thirteen said, and risked looking at her younger self.

She watched him blink as the realisation hit him. “Oh,” he said softly, and it was enough.

“Yeah,” Thirteen breathed out.

“So…” Eleven said. “Sandshoes.”

Thirteen chuckled at that, and took a sip of her tea. “Yeah.”

“He would’ve been a bit moody about it.”

Thirteen snorted, and Eleven laughed. “Oi, don’t judge it,” Thirteen said. “My friend picked him out, said he’s got ‘a knowing face,’ so I went with it.”

“He would’ve known how to cope with it,” Eleven said. “That’s for sure.”

“That’s what I need,” Thirteen said. “See, I know I love Y/P2, I keep it safe, hold it in my hearts. That’s not the part that worries me.”

“You just don’t know what to do with it,” Eleven surmised.

“Exactly,” Thirteen nodded. “So, you’re right, and so was Yaz. Ol’ cockatoo hair would’ve known.”

“And you got me instead,” Eleven said with a rueful grin.

“Yup,” Thirteen said. “So? Got any advice for me?”

“Not really,” Eleven replied. “But tell me about Y/N, maybe that would help?”

Thirteen smiled, staring out at the Medusa Nebula, and thought of you. “Well,” she started. “Y/N’s amazing, just so thoughtful, so selfless. I don’t even know if Y/P1 realises just how much she does for others, I think it’s just so innate and present within Y/P2 that for Y/N, it’s just a state of being.”

Eleven sounded out your name on his lips, enunciating it carefully, almost reverently. “It’s a nice name,” he said. “Straight out of a storybook.”

“It is,” Thirteen agreed. “And, okay, so, you know that energy humans have? That wonderful quality that just fills them with so much vibrancy, so much life?”

“Always,” he looked riveted, like he was hanging off of Thirteens every word.

“Well, Y/N just sort… encapsulates it. It’s like, there could be an entire solar system, an entire nebula,” she gestured to the view. “Right there, but the only thing worth looking at is Y/P2.”

“But everything,” Thirteen continued. “Absolutely everything to Y/P2, is so new and exciting. I could show Y/N the seven wonders of the universe, take Y/P2 to see the most dazzling sights in the next universe over, or just show Y/P2 some pink snow, and Y/P1 would find it all just as extraordinary as the next.”

Eleven’s mouth formed a small smile. He took a small sip of his tea. “That sounds… wonderful.”

“Yeah,” Thirteen said, and then, suddenly. “If you were me-”

“I am you,” Eleven said, giving her a wry grin.

“Yes, I know that, but me, me. As in, this face me. Would you pursue something with Y/P2, would you try?”

Eleven let out a heavy breath. Thirteen had no doubt as to what he was thinking about, who he was thinking about – she had lived it, after all. I would be different hearing it, though. “Yes,” he said, after a moment of thought. “I would, if I could. What you’ve said, it sounds like… well, it sounds like everything.”

Thirteen swallowed. It certainly felt like everything.

“The thing is though,” Eleven added. “Is it what you want, is it what Y/P1 wants?”

Thirteen scrunched her face up at that. “I don’t know.”

“Look” he said. “I know next to nothing about this sort of stuff, really, it was absurd you came to me-”

Thirteen snorted, again.

“-But the way I see it, the fact that you’re going around, asking people stuff, questioning this, seeking answers, that’s got to count for something. Loving a human… I can’t imagine anything better.”

“And when I lose Y/P2?” Thirteen challenged. “When Y/N is gone with everyone else, what do I do then?”

Eleven sighed. “What we always do, what we’ve always done. Keep moving forward.”

Thirteen huffed out a breath. “I don’t know if I can do that, again. I’ve lost so much, more than you could imagine-”

“Oh I’m sure I’d be able to, one day.”

“-Right,” Thirteen ran a hand through her hair. “I’m just exhausted though. I’m so sick of losing people, of losing everyone. You fix things, you move on, and then it just keeps happening,” she gave him a desperate look. “I’m not sure I could lose someone again, I’m not sure if I could lose Y/P2.”

“I suppose then, you’ve got to think of the alternatives,” Eleven replied. “What are you willing to do, what boundaries are you willing to set?”

Thirteen considered it for a moment. Then it hit her. “I don’t want to set boundaries. Well, Y/N can set boundaries of course, but me? I… I want whatever I can have…” she scrunched up her face. “I think”

“Do you always do that?” Eleven asked suddenly.

“Do what?”

He mimicked her expression, scrunching his face up. “This.”

Thirteen couldn’t help it, she laughed. “Y/N says I do, Y/P1 notices things, that one.”

“Oh I don’t doubt that, either,” Eleven said. “Face it, we’ve got a type.”

“Plucky adventurous willing to take on the universe?” Thirteen suggested.

“Exactly,” he sobered, after. “I can’t tell you what you should do. Even though I am you, I think that’s something only you, you can decide.”

Thirteen let out a half-hearted groan. “That’s what Vastra said.”

“Oh, Madame Vastra! How is she?”

“Not enjoying her meals as much as she was,” Thirteen commented idly. “She liked Y/N though.”

“Well that’s important, her approval is hard to come by.”

Thirteen thought about Clara, and Amy, and River, and all the people the Doctor had been close with whom Vastra approved of. “She does have excellent taste.”

“Wait,” Eleven said. “If Vastra told you the same thing, why’ve you come to me – or, well, why’d you go looking for sandshoes?”

Thirteen winced. “I may have… um, interpreted it literally.”

Eleven laughed. “I would’ve done the same.”

“You will,” she sighed. “I just… I feel so…” she groaned, not finding the words. She didn’t want to say inadequate, or wrong, because neither of those words fit.  

Eleven, though,  just nodded. “I know,” he said. “I feel it too.”

“I’m just worried that my own self-doubt, or, well, not even that, but, I just feel like it will stain my decision” Thirteen went to take another sip of her tea, and frowned when it came up empty. “I want to make sure, whatever I decide, I do it for the right reasons, I do it for Y/P2. Y/N’s the most important thing.”

“Well,” Eleven said, scratching the back of his neck. “I don’t think any version of ourselves are the best person to talk to, then. We’ve all got that” he waved a hand in the air. “Sad self-doubt thing.”

The Doctor thought about you – you who was so bright, so good. She was scared of hurting you, she was scared of hurting herself, too.

And this was all under the presumption that she could woo you, too.

She groaned, again. This was all just so messy.

“Y/N,” Eleven said slowly, again. It was as if he was trying to fit your name in his mouth, hold it, like the act could help him remember it, help remember you.

Actually, no, it wasn’t ‘as if’ at all. Thirteen knew him, she had been him, she knew Eleven better than anyone.

And she knew, if she were in his position right now, she’d be doing the same.

“I’m sending invitation,” Eleven said, after a moment. “To the Ponds, to River, the people most important to me. I mean, I got the guest list because I’ve already seen it, bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, this-”

“Or a bootstrap paradox,” Thirteen supplied. “You’ve got questions like who made the list? Where did it come from?”

Eleven gave her a rueful grin. “Still obsessed with the ‘why’ I see.”

“When haven’t we been,” Thirteen countered with a soft grin.

“Although, and, I’m not sure how much of this you remember,” Eleven said. “The feeling of it, at least. When it hit me that this is what I had to do… I was grateful it was those three on the list. I think I need them there, I couldn’t go through with this alone.”

Thirteen nodded. She remembered, and she suspected she knew where he was going.

“So,” Eleven continued. “I guess what you need to think about is, if all of this,” he gestured around them both. “Was to end tomorrow, where would you want Y/N? Where would you need Y/P2?”

The question made Thirteen pause. She hadn’t ever considered that, not for a moment. She thought back to times when you had been missing, or lost, and how the only thought on her mind was how she needed you back, needed you here, by her side.

“Wow,” she breathed.

Eleven chuckled. “Yeah.”

It was an important thing to think about; boundaries. What was the Doctor willing to sacrifice? How far was she willing to go to make sure she wouldn’t get hurt, and that, in turn, you wouldn’t get hurt either.

“Right,” Thirteen stood up and brushed down her pants. “Thank you for this, I think I needed this.”

“The tea or the chat?”

Thirteen shrugged. “Both. I love a good tea, my friend’s mum makes the best tea.”

“I’m not going to remember this, am I,” Eleven said suddenly. “We’re too close to creating a paradox.”

“Part of the reason I chose this place,” Thirteen replied.

“Then…” Eleven scrunched up his suspenders in his hand, leaving his tea deserted as he stood. “The Ponds. How are they? Do… do they?”

Thirteen swallowed her sadness at the question, doing her best to give him an encouraging smile. “They live long, happy lives.”

He scrutinised her for a moment. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

The long happy lives starts in 1938.

She gave him a small, sad smile. “Spoilers.”

Eleven huffed. “I suppose I should have expected that.”

But he helped her get back to her TARDIS, and the familiar glow of the crystals warmed her hearts. She rolled her fez in between her hands, thinking about what her younger self had said, thinking about you.

What did the Doctor need? How was she supposed to work it out?

Eleven was right, it wasn’t something that any of her past selves could tell her. It was such an intimately, personal question. And not one with a clear answer.

She threw the thought in the back of her mind. She had all the time in the universe to work it out, hopefully. And rght now, she missed her fam, she missed you.

So she pressed the buttons she needed to press, pulled down the levers she needed to pull, spun her mini TARDIS that sat on the console, and flew home.

As she landed, The Doctor wondered how long her younger self would stay by the Medusa Cascade, holding the memory of their conversation, the knowledge that he would live, regenerate, and fall in love again.

If it were her (and it was, in a way), she would stay there for a long time, just thinking of you.

It was only a second or so after she had landed that there was a knock on the door. Surely it wasn’t Yaz, she couldn’t have realised that the Doctor had gone.

The Doctor swung the door open, completely unprepared for any sort of excuse to give Yaz.

Except, it wasn’t Yaz by the door… It was you.

You were giving her an amused grin, and the Doctor wanted to capture it, hold it and cherish it in that special place that held everything you gave her. Every smile, every laugh, all of it.

“Where did you get off to?” You asked.

“Oh, I just had to check out a thing, you know how it is,” she stepped to the side to allow you to come in.

“Not really,” you said. “I’m not the time travelling alien in suspenders.”

The Doctor almost snorted. Little did you know.

You were holding a bigger bag than normal. The Doctor wondered if that meant you were going to be staying longer. She hoped so. She watched your face fall into a confused frown. “What on Earth happened there?”

The Doctor followed your gaze, landing on the panel that the TARDIS had blown off in a petulant fit. Well – not a petulant fit, the Doctor would never let the TARDIS believe that’s what she thought. “Uh…” The Doctor tried to think of an excuse, any excuse. “Just some maintenance.”

“Right,” you drew out the word, clearly not believing her. “Oh!” You suddenly turned to her. “I forgot, Yaz’s mum has invited us to have tea with the family. Graham and Ryan too.”

Doctor grinned. Tea at Yaz’s. Tea with you at Yaz’s.

“Sounds brilliant.”

A/N^2: If you've made it this far, thank you for reading!! I'm having a lot of fun with this series/collection of standalone fics all set in the same universe with the same premise. On request I’ve started a tag list, so, if you'd like to join it, just let me know!

Tag List: @fictionalhoomanofnowhere​ @dreamer7black​

[calumcest]

i know we’re gonna uncover what’s sleeping in our soul

[ao3]

so! my fic exchange fic for the absolutely lovely @lifewasradical​ who had the most brilliant reader profile i have to say you are truly so big brain in your preferences (perhaps because they overlap with mine no i am not biased). thank you so much to @allsassnoclass​ for hosting this you are wonderful and i adore you

thank you to bella and ainslee for listening to me chat shit about this fic and to my anonymous friend for also patiently listening and encouraging me and also telling me to stop fucking writing i need to hear that shit

-

The most exciting thing about Luke’s twenty-first birthday is the same as everyone else’s. 

On a person’s twenty-first birthday, they get access to their soulmate.

-

The most exciting thing about Luke’s twenty-first birthday is the same as everyone else’s. 

On a person’s twenty-first birthday, they get access to their soulmate. At least, in theory. In practice, it’s a little more complicated - most people’s soulmates aren’t exactly the same age as them, so some people have to wait a few years, and some people find out they haven’t got a soulmate, and a small handful of people find out their soulmate has already passed away. It’s a complicated process that’s built up over generations - when Luke’s grandparents were younger, it was still the norm for governments to inform people of the identity of their soulmate on their twenty-first birthday, but privacy and mental health concerns in recent years following a few nasty high-profile situations where people discovered their soulmates were serious criminals led to the passing of international legislation restricting access to the information. Now, the only way a person can find their soulmate is by writing to them, or the dreaded letter that arrives the day after their twenty-first birthday informing them that their soulmate has predeceased them. 

Luke’s sort of the baby in his circle, so he’s the last to find out. His brothers are both older and so by the time Luke really understood the system they’d already found their soulmates; Alex and Jack had already known they were soulmates when Luke had met them, also being a few years older; and when Calum had woken up on his twenty-first birthday to see it best be you, dickhead scrawled on his arm in Michael’s messy handwriting it had only really been a formality, confirming what everyone already knew. 

Luke, though, has no idea who his soulmate could be. There’s no one he’s ever felt that alleged special affinity with, no matter how hard he’s tried to force it. He’s never felt entirely safe with someone, the way that Ben describes it, never felt at home with someone, the way that Michael describes it, never felt at peace, like, deep in your soul, like the universe is balanced just right around you the way that Calum describes it. He has felt the desire to punch people in the throat before, as Alex and Jack both describe it, but he thinks that’s probably more of a them problem than it is a universal experience. 

And it’s not that Luke’s particularly unusual in that - the vast majority of people don’t know who their soulmate is before their birthdays. Ben and Jack both had to fly to different countries to meet theirs, and Alex and Jack had been on opposite sides of the USA, and the way Michael talks about it, Quakers Hill would seem to be on a different continent to Mount Druitt. It’s what Luke tells himself every time he looks in the mirror at four in the morning, alcohol and often something else swimming through his veins, and sees the fear of what if I’ll be one of the lonely ones? etched into the cloudy blue of his eyes. You’ll be fine. Almost no one knows their soulmate before their twenty-first birthday. Lots of people don’t even know them then. You’re not even twenty-one yet; just be patient. 

Except, now he is twenty-one. 

It’s two minutes past midnight, and Luke’s sat on his bed, already a little buzzed, Michael and Calum flanking him, pen poised over his inner forearm. This is how it works - as soon as the clock ticks over to midnight on a person’s twenty-first birthday, their soulmate (if they’re already over twenty-one) is accessible. And the way to communicate is by writing to them. Luke still isn’t quite sure how it works, because it just does, so he’s never questioned it, but what one soulmate writes on their skin appears on the other’s, like a temporary tattoo. It fades after a few hours, but it’s usually there long enough for the person to notice; after all, who wouldn’t spot a new hi, hello, or the odd grocery shopping list appearing on their hand or arm? 

“What do I say?” Luke says, a little nervously. 

“Just say hi,” Calum suggests, and Michael scoffs. “What?” Calum says, turning to Michael and raising an eyebrow. “You got a better idea?” 

“Well, it’s not very original, is it?” Michael says haughtily. 

“It doesn’t have to be original, Mike, it just has to work,” Calum says. 

“Okay, but what if it doesn’t work because it’s not original?” Michael says. Luke’s grip on the pen tightens. 

“Who’s going to reject their soulmate because they said ‘hi’?” Calum points out. Michael crosses his arms, and shrugs. 

“I would’ve,” he says. 

“Only because you knew it was me.” 

“Yeah, and?” 

“Guys,” Luke says, anxiety leaking into the edges of his tone, and the two of them start a little, like they’ve just remembered he’s there. 

“Just say hello,” Calum says. 

“Hello?” Michael echoes. “What is he, some eighteenth century English lord? Say ‘hi’, Luke, or ‘hey’.” 

“What, you can’t say ‘hello’ now?” Calum demands. “Anyway, it’s the principle, alright? Just greet them. It doesn’t have to be the best introduction in the world.” Yeah, Luke thinks. Yeah, that makes sense, right? It doesn’t have to be stellar; it’s just got to be something. So he nods, takes a deep breath, and lets the pen touch his skin.

Hi.  

The word sits on his skin like everything he’s ever written on it before, doesn’t sink in or dissolve or do a little jig. Luke hadn’t been expecting it to - after all, he’s seen enough soulmates write things to their partners - but it looks just like when he used to hastily jot down his homework for the day because he’d forgotten his planner again, and it’s oddly underwhelming. It doesn’t look - or feel - like something he’s been anticipating for years is happening, despite the butterflies in his stomach. It looks a little lonesome. 

“Well?” Michael asks impatiently. 

“It’s been thirty fucking seconds, Mike, Jesus Christ,” Calum says, swigging from his beer. 

“So?” Michael says, craning his neck to look at Luke’s arm. “Punctuality is an important quality in a partner, you know.” Calum scoffs incredulously, and Michael scowls. “Except if your partner is me. I have enough incredible traits to make up for it.” Calum just throws him a slightly-fond-but-mostly-exasperated look, and turns back to Luke, who’s still staring at his arm.

“Maybe they live in a different timezone,” Calum suggests. “Or maybe they’re younger than you.” 

“Maybe,” Luke allows, and puts his arm back down on his lap, but doesn’t stop staring at it. “Maybe they’re busy.” 

“Maybe,” Calum agrees. 

“Maybe we should finish these fucking beers,” Michael says pointedly, and Luke finally tears his gaze away from his arm and over to Michael, who’s gesturing at the crate they’d lugged upstairs (‘they’ being Calum and Michael, because Luke refuses to lift anything heavier than a book). He’s got a point - it’s Luke’s birthday, and there’s a slim chance of his soulmate replying immediately, so he might as well enjoy himself. 

“Alright,” Luke says, reaching for another bottle. “But don’t you fucking pussy out on me at two in the morning again.”

“What the fuck?” Michael demands indignantly, also reaching for a bottle. “When have we ever done that?”

 -------

 At two a.m., when Calum and Michael have stumbled blearily into bed together, Michael curling around Calum as they drifted off to sleep, Luke’s sat up in bed, staring at his arm. It still only says hi, and Luke’s trying to focus his alcohol-addled mind as much he can to will it to say more, to say hey, I’ve been waiting for you underneath Luke’s writing, but nothing changes. 

And logically, Luke knows there are countless explanations as to why he hasn’t heard anything from his soulmate yet, least of which is that it’s only been a couple of hours. There’s a high chance his soulmate is younger than him, or asleep, or just busy, and a slim chance that they could be- well. Luke doesn’t want to think about that. It’s just- Luke’s been wanting this for years, always daydreamed about his soulmate, about the colour of their eyes and the sound of their laugh and the warmth of their touch. He’s conjured fantasy after fantasy in his mind about how his twenty-first birthday would go, about how he’d meet his soulmate and immediately fall in love, about the comfort and safety and fulfilment he would feel. Because that’s the whole thing about soulmates; they’re made for you, made to fill in the gaps in your soul that you can’t even see, and as Luke blinks at the single word written on his arm, a word that feels like it needs completing somehow, he realises he might want that more than he’d realised. 

After a good ten minutes of staring and trying to engage any telepathy he may have, Luke decides that if his soulmate isn’t going to add anything, Luke’s going to have to do it himself. So he reaches for a pen, thinks for the briefest of seconds before a slightly-drunken thought tells him just introduce yourself, tell them about yourself, and he writes:

My name is Luke. It’s my twenty-first birthday today. I live in Sydney, Australia, and I have two brothers and a dog. What’s your name? 

It reads like one of his French oral exams at school that he barely passed, but Luke’s satisfied with it, capping the pen and setting it aside. It’s good to give a bit more information, right? Surely his soulmate will appreciate more than just a hi, will be more likely to reply if they know a little more about him. Plus, he’s asked a question, and it’s only polite to respond to a question, isn’t it? They’ll be trapped into responding by social etiquette, if they’re of age.

Yeah, he thinks, satisfied, as he rolls over on his side and lets his heavy eyes fall shut. If his soulmate is old enough, he’ll have heard back by the morning. 

 -------

 When Luke wakes up to the sun streaming through his window - fuck, they forgot to shut the curtains last night - he momentarily forgets what day it is, too focused on swearing under his breath and squeezing his eyes shut, debating whether it’s worth getting up to shut the curtains or not. He decides it is, and heaves himself out of bed, and as he’s padding over to the curtains, arms already outstretched, he sees two lines of text on his arm. 

Luke had written more than two lines. He’d written a few, all bunched together in a long paragraph. And this handwriting is bigger than Luke’s, more confident, more assertive. 

It’s his soulmate. 

Luke stops dead, twisting his arm around so fast he thinks he might have given himself a Chinese burn, heart beating so fast that it’s all he can hear, and reads. 

I’m sorry. I don’t want to be your soulmate. 

And then, like an afterthought added reluctantly in a smaller script underneath: Happy birthday.  

Luke stares at the words, reading them over and over, each hastily scribbled scratch of the pen like a tiny needle in his heart; not quite enough to tear it apart entirely, but enough to make it ache and leak. 

So he has a soulmate. A soulmate who doesn’t want him back.

It doesn’t make sense, he thinks, a little disoriented, stumbling back towards his bed and reaching for the pen he’d left on his bedside table almost on autopilot. Luke’s soulmate doesn’t even know him. How can they not want to be his soulmate? What did he do wrong? How can he have ruined something that’s predestined, something that’s fated to happen? 

What? he writes back. The ink is harsh black on his pale skin, dug too deep into the flesh of his arm, sitting on top of his skin rather than underneath it like the words from his soulmate - some kind of sick symbolism, maybe, Luke thinks dazedly. An impenetrable layer between them, and it’s his own skin and bone. He’s heard of people not wanting their soulmates, but only after meeting them, or finding out that they’ve committed some horrible crime, or something of the sort. He doesn’t know of anyone who doesn’t want their soulmate before meeting them. 

“Hey,” Calum says suddenly and sleepily, clearing his throat and making Michael groan, stirring in his arms. “Did they write back yet?” Luke blinks, swallowing around a dry mouth. 

He could lie. He could pull his sleeve down and say nah, not yet, and Calum would hum noncommittally and say sorry, mate, keep trying, I guess, and that would be it. He could keep it to himself, wouldn’t have to admit to those around him that somehow, he’s managed to turn his soulmate away from him before they even know him, that while they’re all in happy relationship with their soulmates, he’s managed to fuck his up before it began. 

But on the other hand, he doesn’t know how long he could keep up that lie, because people would keep asking from time to time, and keeping it to himself feels like it would slowly eat at him from the inside out, teeth digging into the fabric of his soul and tearing it into even smaller pieces, and so he swallows, and says: “Yeah.” His voice is thick and wobbly, and it makes Calum’s brow crease, makes him struggle to sit upright leaning on his elbows, ignoring Michael’s noises of protest. 

“What?” Calum asks, sounding concerned. “What’s wrong?” Luke wants to cry. 

“I-” he starts, and then stops. He doesn’t think he can say the words aloud. Instead, he holds out his arm, sleeve still rolled up, and watches as Calum’s eyes flit over the words, then looks away quickly as he sees Calum’s expression shift from concern to pity. 

“Oh, Luke,” he says softly, and now Luke doesn’t want to cry but can’t stop it, can’t help the tears that are pricking at his eyes, forcing him to swipe at them hastily before they can fall. 

“I don’t get it,” Luke says, a little numbly. “I- how can they not- they don’t even know me.” 

“I know,” Calum says, shoving Michael off him and swinging his legs out of the bed they’re sharing. “Oh, Luke. I’m so sorry.” But Luke doesn’t want Calum to be sorry. He wants his soulmate to want him back. Was it the stilted introduction? Maybe Michael was right; maybe Luke should have thought of a more striking opener, should have mentioned some interesting facts about himself, come up with something flirtatious and witty and suave. Maybe his soulmate took one look at Luke’s nervous, awkward introduction and thought nah, fuck that, I’d rather be alone than have this guy as my soulmate. 

“I should’ve said something better,” Luke says quietly, letting himself be pulled into Calum as he sits down next to him and puts a warm, strong arm around Luke’s shoulder. “Michael was right.”

“Oh, fuck Michael,” Calum says, with feeling, and Michael opens one eye a crack.  

“Wha’ve I done?” Michael mumbles, and then, like he’s just remembered what day it is, he shoots bolt upright in bed, eyes wide and excited. “Oh, fuck, did they reply, Luke? Did they say something? What did they say, was it-”

“Mike,” Calum says warningly, and shoots Michael a look that Luke doesn’t need to be his soulmate to understand - shut the fuck up, Jesus, read the fucking room. Michael falters, and then frowns. 

“What happened?” he says, a little fiercely. “Are they a dickhead?” 

“Yeah,” Calum says. “A proper cunt.” 

“Hey,” Luke protests weakly, and Calum’s arm around him tightens. 

“What did they say?” Michael asks. Luke hesitates, swallows, and then holds his arm out. 

“Hang on, I need my-” Michael says, fumbling around on the bedside table for his glasses, and then swears when he realises they’re covered in fingerprints, wiping them hastily on his t-shirt before shoving them on his nose and squinting at the writing on Luke’s arm. He reads the words at least three times, going from a frown to a clenched jaw, and then looks up at the two of them, green eyes ablaze behind his glasses. 

“What the fuck?” he demands, and whips his glasses off. “What the fuck?” 

“I know,” Calum agrees, stroking Luke’s bicep. “It’s fucked up.” 

“They don’t even know you. All you said was ‘hi’.” Luke bites his lip.

“I wrote a bit more,” he says. “After you went to bed. I just- just introduced myself. Said it was my birthday, I live in Sydney, have two brothers and a dog.” 

“Alright, so all you did was fucking introduce yourself,” Michael corrects, leaning into his anger. “What the fuck sort of reason could they have for saying that?” 

“Mike,” Calum says gently, and Michael’s gaze turns to him for a moment and then softens in understanding. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “I just- fuck. I’m sorry, Luke.” He sets his glasses aside, gets up and sits on Luke’s other side, wrapping his arm around Luke’s waist, and that’s too much for Luke - he starts crying in earnest, big, ugly sobs that come from the frayed patches of his soul that feel like they’ll never be stitched together because the needle doesn’t want to play ball. Michael and Calum just cradle him through it, whispering soothing words, humming quietly, pressing soft kisses to his shoulders and temples and forehead as they rub gentle circles on his skin. It’s enough to stave off some of the desperate longing leaking from the pinpricks in his heart, enough to give him a little splutter of a spark in his veins that reminds him hey, you still have people who love you. It’s not enough enough, and Luke vaguely thinks it never quite will be, but it’s enough to stem the flow of tears, to make him sniff and ask for a tissue through a thick throat, to make him clear his throat and try on a watery smile. 

“D’you want us to tell your parents?” Calum asks quietly, taking Luke’s snotty, tear-stained tissue from him and setting it on the bedside table. Fuck, Luke thinks, as a fresh wave of tears brim in his eyes. He’s got to tell everyone else, now, too. Over and over, telling person after person yeah, my soulmate doesn’t want me. My soulmate doesn’t want me.  

“No,” Luke says, even though he does want Michael and Calum to tell his parents. “I- I should tell them.” 

“Okay,” Calum says gently. 

“Can you-” Luke cuts himself off, biting his lip. Michael and Calum just wait, though, so Luke bids the scraps of his dignity farewell, and mumbles: “Can you tell Alex and Jack, though?” He feels both Calum’s and Michael’s arms tighten around him, feels Michael pressing a kiss to Luke’s shoulder as Calum says yeah, mate, of course we can. Of course. 

(Happy birthday, the words underneath the line etched into Luke’s skin telling him I don’t want you say, now wet with the tears dripping from Luke’s cheeks onto his sleeves. Yeah, Luke thinks bitterly. Happy fucking birthday to him.) 

 ------- 

 Telling everybody is exactly as painful as Luke had anticipated. 

He manages to tell his family in one go, because they ask over his birthday dinner, and he almost manages not to cry into the stunned silence as he says it, only breaking when Ben sighs sadly and pulls Luke into his chest for a tight hug. Alex and Jack call around four to ask him whether he’s finally going to get laid (what, Lex, that’s literally how you wish someone a happy twenty-first birthday, what’s your fucking problem), and Luke makes big, wide eyes at Calum, who throws a quick glance at Michael, who snatches the phone out of Luke’s hands and hastily walks out of the room, whispering something fiercely with a knitted brow and his hand cupped over the receiver. When he comes back in and hands the phone back to Luke, Alex and Jack have switched tack completely, all attempts at normalcy and breeziness mitigated by the oddly gentle, hesitant tones to their voices. Luke hates it, hates the pity and the microscope he feels like he’s under, the fact that he’s done the whole thing wrong somehow before even starting it, so he mumbles his excuses and hangs up on them as soon as he can, lying back on the sofa and staring blankly up at the ceiling. 

The first few weeks are almost equally bad - Luke just wants to forget about it all, pretend that everything is normal outside of his own head, make-believe that his world hasn’t had a harsh spotlight shone on it showing the cracks in the façade he’s been admiring as though it were worthy of the Louvre, but everyone’s walking on eggshells around him, whispering whenever he leaves a room and stopping abruptly as soon as he comes in, or throwing him concerned and pitying looks. He hates it, hates that his mum will come into his room every evening and ask him too-casually how his day’s been, hates that Calum and Alex will ask him how he’s doing and look too sad when he says he’s fine, hates that Jack and Michael will bluntly tell him fuck someone else, forget about them. He just wants things to be normal again, doesn’t want the constant reminder that even the person made for him doesn’t want him swelling up in his lungs and choking him day in, day out. 

He does a lot of research in those first few weeks. The majority of the results are about soulmate pairings where one person has moral qualms with the other, and a smaller group are about pairings where one partner only sees a platonic future where the other wants a romantic future - those are rare, though, as the system is designed to take these preferences into account - and it’s only on Luke’s second week of searching that he finds something, a tiny footnote at the bottom of an article about being soulmates with a serial killer. Choosing love, it says, and when Luke clicks on the link it opens up an ancient-looking website that says Choosing love: soulmates and the autonomous self. 

It’s not a long article, and it’s riddled with spelling mistakes, but the gist of it seems to be that the author thinks the soulmate system is fucked up in principle, not in practice - they readily acknowledge that their soulmate is perfect for them, but resent the idea of having love assigned to them. It brings in ideas of free will raised by such authors as- and then Luke stops understanding, eyes glazing over as he reads metaphysical libertarianism and fatalism and compatibilism. So maybe this is what Luke’s soulmate’s problem is, Luke thinks, rereading the first few paragraphs that he actually understood. But it doesn’t make any fucking sense - why would someone try and choose someone that might not be right for them, when the right person is at their fingertips? 

(He asks one night, after a few too many hours alone with his thoughts. Why don’t you want to be my soulmate? But it, like everything he’s written over the past month since his birthday, goes unanswered.)

Luke tries to reach out a few more times over the next few weeks, with varying degrees of success. His soulmate is completely unresponsive when Luke asks where they live, or how old they are, or what they do for a living, or what they look like. 

Can you at least tell me your name? he asks once. No response. 

Okay, what about your initials? he asks the next day. Again, no response. 

One initial? he tries, the day after that. Please. Just your first initial. Maybe it’s the ‘please’ that does it, or maybe Luke’s soulmate is just sick of being asked the same question three days in a row and doesn’t want to get half a letter? Write it in code? tomorrow, but when Luke wakes up the next morning there’s a tiny, slightly-smudged A written underneath where he’d asked for the initial. 

That’s the last Luke hears from his soulmate. 

For a while, he writes a few times a day, tries to say something witty or something clever or something interesting. He tells A about his job, tells them about how frustrating it is to have Jack as his co-worker and Alex as his boss (because seriously, Jack should be fired at least four times an hour, and he’s fairly sure your boss being your soulmate violates a fair few codes of conflict of interest), tells them about Michael and Calum and how he sort of wishes he’d gone to university like they did. A never responds, and so after a while Luke gets self-conscious and stops writing so often, just checks in once a day in the evening to give A a roundup of the previous twenty-four hours. Luke figures the person doesn’t care, probably won’t read it, but it’s like a more cathartic version of a diary, one that has the possibility of being read and talking back, however slim the probability may be. Every evening, just before he goes to bed, he rounds up his day, vents to A about Jack breaking a bass in the shop again, laments that he doesn’t get to see Michael and Calum as often as he’d like to, talks about the regulars who come in like clockwork for their guitar strings, muses about whether he should get up early and get a coffee on the way to work tomorrow or whether he should get as much precious sleep as he can. He fills his arm from left to right, twisting it all the way around until he has to hold the pen at such a strange angle that he can barely control it, getting out all his thoughts and grievances and little things he’s observed that day, and when he wakes up in the morning, his arm is completely empty again. A never writes back, never even indicates that they’ve seen or read Luke’s ramblings, but they never tell him to stop it, either. And while that probably doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t not mean anything, either, and that’s as good as Luke figures it’s going to get for him. Plus, it becomes so ingrained in Luke’s daily routine that he barely even notices he’s doing it, and he sort of thinks getting a response might throw him off a bit.

(One night, so drunk he can barely stand, Luke scrawls I wish you wanted me. I wish I didn’t have to be alone. It’s gone when he wakes up the next morning, but there’s a tiny pen marking underneath where it had been, like A had gone to write something and then thought better of it.) 

A week or so after that incident, Luke’s just taking out his earphones, still humming along to the song he’d been listening to as he shoulders the door to the shop open, when Jack appears right in front of his face, making him jump and drop his phone. 

“Jesus Christ,” Luke mutters, picking his phone up from the floor and inspecting it for damage he can sue Jack for. 

“Glad you noticed,” Jack says. “Come to the back room.” Luke stops, and narrows his eyes. 

“What for?” he says suspiciously. 

“What do you mean, what for?” Jack says, sounding a little affronted. “Don’t you trust me?”

“No.”

“Well, we need to fix that. We should do a team bonding day,” Jack says, just as Alex walks around the corner. “Hey, Lex, d’you think me and Luke can do a team bonding day?”

“A team bonding day?” Alex echoes, raising an eyebrow. “I thought torture was illegal in Australia.” 

“That’s true,” Jack agrees placidly. “I’m not sure I can spend a whole day with Luke.” Luke scowls, aiming a kick at Jack’s ankle, just as Alex passes by and says: “I was talking about you, idiot.” 

“I’m a fucking pleasure to spend time with,” Jack says, voice rising as Alex walks away. “You spend all your time with me.” 

“For legal purposes,” Alex calls over his shoulder. Jack frowns.

“Legal purposes?” he says. 

“Yeah,” Alex shouts. “The life insurance papers have to look convincing.” It’s Jack’s turn to scowl, yelling fuck you at Alex’s retreating figure and getting a you can’t afford my fees in return. 

“Not on the fucking salary you pay me,” Jack shouts, and then turns to Luke. “Come to the back room.” Luke eyes him warily. 

“No,” he says. Jack scowls again. 

“Aren’t I your manager?” he says. “Come to the back room.” 

“I think I’m your manager at the moment,” Luke says, because who’s manager is dependent on the whims of a certain Alex Gaskarth and Jack breaking another bass last week had outdone Luke accidentally selling an Epiphone for half its retail price. Jack, though, just waves a hand dismissively, then grabs Luke’s wrist and starts tugging him towards the back room. 

“Hey,” Luke protests, trying to plant his feet and failing miserably - Jesus, Jack’s stronger than he looks. “This is kidnapping.” 

“Kidnapping?” Jack says. “You know where you’re going.”

“But I don’t want to be,” Luke says, grabbing onto the desk as he’s pulled past and scrabbling to hold onto it. Jack just yanks harder, dislodging Luke’s grip, and forces him into the back room. 

“What?” Luke asks warily, when Jack finally lets go, glancing around at the cardboard boxes filling their shelving units up to the ceiling full of new bass and electric guitars that Luke was meant to unbox two days ago but didn’t. “What have you done?” 

“Nothing!” Jack protests, and then kicks the door shut behind them and grins. “It’s what I’m going to do.” Luke groans, tipping his head back, and shakes his head. 

“No,” he says, taking a step back and holding his hands up. “Nope. I’m not getting involved in this.”

“You don’t even know what it is.”

“I know it’s something I don’t want to be involved in.”

“No you don’t,” Jack says. 

“I do.”

“How?”

“Because it’s something you’re planning.” Jack pouts. 

“Listen-” he starts, taking a step forward towards Luke, who instinctively takes another step back, and that’s all Luke hears because then his heel is hitting a cardboard box hard, forcing it back against the wall, and the box on top of that is wobbling and making the box on top of that one wobble even more, and Luke says shit and flings his arms out to steady himself, catching the metal of the shelving unit and pulling it towards him, making all of the heavy, heavy fucking guitars in it come crashing down on top of him. A few land next to him with ugly crunching sounds and accompanying twangs, and a few hit his legs and force him to the ground, and then a few are hitting his stomach and chest and crushing his organs, making him gasp for breath, and then a few are hitting his head, making him momentarily unable to see as his vision swims so much it almost disappears entirely, and then Luke must lose consciousness because the next thing he hears is a distant voice shouting, sounding incredibly worried.

“Luke?” they’re yelling. “Luke? Fuck. Oh, fuck. Shit. Luke, Luke, are you okay? Are you- fuck, fuck, Lex, help me, help me move- no, not that, you fucking idiot, that’s going to-” and then Jack’s face comes into view, uncharacteristic concern etched on his features. 

“Huh,” Luke says weakly. “You look funny when you care about me.” And then he passes out again. 

 -------

 When Luke wakes up again, he’s in hospital. 

At first, it sends a jolt of fear running through him when he wakes up in an all-white, clinical-looking environment, but his brain supplies a helpful hey, remember when all those guitars fell on you? That was pretty wack, and then it sort of makes sense. 

“Oh, hey!” someone says, and Luke’s head snaps to the left to find the source of the voice. It’s a pretty - very fucking pretty, oh God - man, standing next to a bunch of machines, some of which are bleeping, some of which are blinking. “You’re up.”

“I’m up,” Luke says, and finds that his throat is dry and raspy. He coughs, and tries again. “Uh. Who are you?” 

“I’m Ashton,” the guy says. “I’m your nurse. Well, until my shift ends.” 

“Oh,” Luke says. “Hi. I’m Luke.” Ashton grins, hazel eyes lighting up in amusement, and steps back from the machines he’s been fiddling with. 

“Yeah, I know,” he says. “How are you feeling?” 

“Uh,” Luke says, and looks down at himself. His right arm is bound in a cast, and when he tries to wriggle his toes he finds his left foot in a cast too, and winces when he takes a deep breath. “My body hurts.” Ashton huffs out a laugh, and moves to the foot of Luke’s bed to pick up a tablet. 

“Yeah,” he says. “You had a bunch of guitars fall on you. You’re lucky you came out of it with just a few broken bones and a concussion.” 

“And probably a huge bill for damages, if my boss is anything to go by,” Luke adds, and Ashton looks up from the tablet with a small smile. 

“Nightmare boss?” he says, and then frowns. “Hang on, you’ve had a visitor claiming to be your boss. American guy?” 

“Not the one with skunk hair?” Luke asks in trepidation, because the last thing he wants to deal with is Jack Barakat in a hospital environment, and Ashton shakes his head. 

“No, but he was with him,” he says. “I think they’re both still here, actually. They were insistent that they wanted to be here when you woke up, but I can tell them to leave, if you’d like.” Luke hesitates. 

“No, it’s okay,” he says. “The boss thing was, uh. A joke. Well. Kind of. He is a shitty boss. But. Not like that.” He swallows. Fuck. He should not be allowed to interact with hot men, honestly. Maybe Ashton will just think these incredibly lacking social skills are a part of the concussion and not just Luke’s main failing as a person. 

“It’s still visiting hours, so if you want they can come in, but I’ll get the doctor to check you over first, since you’re awake now,” Ashton says, and Luke nods. Yeah. He should probably get checked over. Seems like the kind of thing you do in a hospital, right? 

“Sure,” he says, and Ashton throws him one final grin before heading out of the room. Luke exhales shakily, lying back on the pillow and staring up at the ceiling. 

Fuck. He hopes he’s sick enough to stay in hospital forever, and that Ashton’s on shift tomorrow, too, and the day after that, and the day after that. However long it takes for Luke to become socially adept, really.

 -------

 The doctor tells him something about broken leg and fractured wrist and broken ribs and bruised internally, but all Luke hears is will take a few months to heal fully but no lasting damage, and we’re just going to keep you in for today and tomorrow and monitor your situation, since you had a fairly nasty concussion. Jack and Alex come bursting in as soon as the doctor gives Luke the all-clear for visitors, rushing to his side and telling him how fucking stupid he is, what the fuck, why would he grab onto the fucking shelving unit to steady himself, but their eyes are shining with worry and their faces are a little red and puffy, and it makes Luke’s heart lurch in his chest in an oddly pleasant way. Alex tells Luke he’ll give him a pay raise if he doesn’t sue for workplace injury, and Luke laughs and then immediately groans in pain and says don’t make me laugh, I’ve broken my ribs. 

(“Don’t worry,” Jack assures him, “Michael and Cal are coming in after us. You're safe on the laughing front.”) 

Michael and Calum do visit after Alex and Jack, but only get to stay for five minutes before Ashton’s sticking his head in the door and saying Luke, your parents are here, and they’re not happy that everyone’s seen you before they have. 

(“He’s your type, isn’t he?” Michael says loudly, before the door’s even closed behind Ashton, and Luke wants to die. He wonders whether he can force one of his broken ribs to puncture his lungs, or something.) 

By the time his parents have finished fussing over him, his mum plumping up his pillows and his dad clapping a hand on his broken leg that makes Luke let out a choked scream of pain, Luke’s so exhausted that he just falls straight asleep, only waking up when he hears some shuffling around his bed. 

“Mm?” he mumbles, blinking blearily, and finds Ashton smiling apologetically at him. 

“Sorry,” he stage-whispers. “I’m not great at being quiet.” 

“No, no, ‘s all good,” Luke says, swallowing like it’s going to get the horrible taste out of his mouth. 

“How are you?” 

“Fine, thanks, and you?” Luke answers automatically, and then belatedly realises he’s lying in a hospital bed with an IV in and a few broken bones. “Uh. I mean-” he says hastily, but Ashton just laughs, gentle and amused. It sends a shiver down Luke’s spine, although that might just be whatever Ashton’s just pressed on the machine blinking next to Luke’s head. 

“Do you ever get a good answer to that?” Luke asks, turning his head to look at Ashton. 

“To what?”

“To asking people how they are in a hospital.” Ashton smiles down at the tube he’s fiddling with, and Luke tries not to think about the fact that the other end of the tube is inside him, tries not to let his stomach turn. It’s probably not very sexy to throw up in front of Hot Ashton. 

“Not really,” Ashton says. “But it’s free to care, right?” Oh, God. Hot Ashton is also Caring Ashton. Fuck. Luke is not in the right state of mind to deal with this. 

“I guess,” Luke says. 

“So, how are you?” Ashton asks, smile still playing at his lips. 

“Uh,” Luke says. “Tired. My body still hurts.” 

“You should rest,” Ashton advises him. “Pretty much the best thing you can do for your body right now.” 

“Yeah,” Luke says, and then without thinking, adds: “I mean, I was resting, until…” he trails off, rational part of his brain kicking in and screaming what the fuck, Luke, that’s your fucking nurse, that’s so rude, that’s so unprofessional, you’re going to get kicked out of hospital and forced to try and heal your broken bones on your own (okay, maybe not so rational), but Ashton just laughs, bright and amused. 

“Point taken,” he says, but he’s still grinning, so Luke figures he’s safe. “Sorry for disturbing your beauty sleep.”

“I’ll send my botox bill your way,” Luke says, and Ashton arches an eyebrow, stepping back from the machines at Luke’s side. 

“I’m not sure that’ll hold up in court,” he says. 

“Guess we’ll have to find out,” Luke says, eyes following Ashton as he crosses the room over to the door. Ashton huffs out a laugh, looking over at Luke as he pulls the door open and lets light spill from the bright hallway into the room, making him glow softly like some kind of weird, scrubs-clad angel. 

“Sleep well, Luke,” he says, and then the light is gone.

 -------

 Luke does sleep well. 

He sleeps for most of the next day, only waking up for a very groggy talk with a new doctor of which he takes absolutely nothing in, then for a very painful walk to the bathroom with a brisk nurse who tugs on his elbow too hard, and then when Alex, Jack, Michael and Calum all pile into his room as soon as visiting hours begin. He’s kind of glad they’re all there, because it means they can entertain each other rather than him having to partake in the conversation, so he can just lie back, exhausted, and watch them bicker over whether or not Luke would notice if they stole his hospital food. Wait, hang on-

“Hey,” Luke says, frowning. “No one’s stealing my hospital food. I need to heal.”  

“But it’s salmon tonight,” Michael protests. “You don’t even like salmon.” Luke pulls a face. He really doesn’t like salmon. 

“So, what, I should starve?” he says indignantly, even though he probably would rather starve than eat salmon. 

“We can sneak you food,” Jack says earnestly. “Mike and I were thinking-” 

“I told you, Jack,” Alex says exasperatedly. “Visiting hours are once a day. Luke needs to eat more than that.” 

“No, he doesn’t,” Michael says. “Not if we bring him enough food.” 

“He can space it out,” Jack suggests. 

“Yeah, I’m sure Luke would fucking love to eat cold and soggy chicken nuggets,” Calum says sarcastically, and Alex nods and points at him, all thank God, finally someone speaking some sense.  

“They’re not going to get soggy,” Michael protests. 

“Yeah, do you know how many preservatives they put in those things?” Jack adds. 

“And you think that’s what Luke should be eating to mend his broken bones?” Alex asks dryly. 

“He’s fine,” Michael says breezily. “He’s twenty-one. His body’s been managing a poor diet so far.” Luke scowls.

“My diet’s fucking fine,” he says. “What’s wrong with my diet?” All four of them round on him in disbelief. 

“Are you fucking serious?” Calum demands, at the same time that Michael says: “What isn’t wrong with your diet?” and Alex says: “When was the last time you even looked in the general direction of a vegetable?” and Jack says: “No, y’know, the man’s got a point. His diet could be worse.” 

“Just because it could be worse doesn’t mean it isn’t bad,” Calum points out. 

“Credit where credit is due,” Jack says solemnly, “he’s doing a better job than he could be.” 

“The only way Luke’s diet could be worse is if he went all Monsieur Mangetout,” Alex says, and the four of them blink at him. “What?” he says defensively. “C’mon, Monsieur Mangetout? You know Monsieur Mangetout.” 

“You wanna flex your French pronunciation skills one more time?” Michael asks, raising an eyebrow. “The floor is yours, mate.” Alex rolls his eyes. 

“Fuck off,” he says. “My point is-” but they don’t get to find out what his point is, because then the door’s opening and Ashton’s sticking his head in. Luke wishes he’d been able to shower this morning - he’s sure his hair is sticking up all over the place, and that half the curls are flattened and frizzy, and he sort of wants to say sorry, Ashton, I swear I’m at least a little hotter than this most of the time.  

“Visiting hours are over, guys, I’m sorry,” Ashton says apologetically, and all four of Luke’s friends groan. “Sorry, sorry, I know,” Ashton says, and then throws Luke a smile before closing the door as they start gathering their things together, the sound of chairs scraping filling the room. 

“He’s hot, isn’t he?” Jack says to Luke, nodding at the door Ashton’s just closed. 

“Yeah,” Luke says. “He’s also my nurse, so. Very illegal.” Michael pulls a face. 

“Is it?” he asks. Calum and Alex both throw him hard looks. 

“Yes,” they chorus. 

“Fucking hell,” Jack grumbles, pulling his coat on. “Laws are really fucking boring.” In this case, Luke can’t help but heartily agree. 

“Well, hurry up with the healing, and then he won’t be your nurse anymore,” Michael suggests. 

“Pretty sure it’s still illegal,” Alex notes. 

“So?” 

“Jesus Christ, Jack,” Alex mutters, and pushes him towards the door. “We’ll come back tomorrow if you’re still here, Luke.” 

“Us too,” Calum says, shepherding Michael in the direction of the door too. “Bye, Luke. Be safe.” 

“Be safe?” Luke echoes. “What sort of fucking danger am I in at a hospital?” 

“Falling in love, apparently,” Calum says, and then the door swings shut behind him. 

Well, Luke thinks. He’s not exactly wrong. 

 -------

 Ashton comes back at around seven p.m. with Luke’s dinner, although I don’t usually serve dinner, it’s not a nurse’s job, but Jenna’s just had to go home for a family emergency and I was the closest person at hand. It’s salmon, and Luke pulls a face when he sees it that makes Ashton laugh. 

“You don’t like salmon?” he says. “We have veggie options too, if you want that.” 

“No, no, it’s fine,” Luke says hastily, not wanting to come across like the fussy eater he is, for some reason. “Salmon’s good. I like salmon. It’s, uh, a good fish.” Ashton blinks at him for a moment, and then snorts. 

“Sure,” he says, and sets the tray down on Luke’s lap carefully. “How are you doing?” 

“Fine,” Luke says, which isn’t really a lie this time. “Everything still hurts, but.” He shrugs. “It’s alright.” 

“You’re a trooper,” Ashton says, grinning. Luke nods solemnly, using his unbroken left hand to slot the knife into his right hand. 

“It’s the top level care I’m receiving,” he says, and Ashton laughs again. 

“Flattery will get you places,” he says, and Luke pauses, glancing over at Ashton. 

“What places?” he asks, and Ashton winks, and sets a slice of chocolate cake down on the tray balanced on Luke’s legs. Luke looks down at it, and then back up at Ashton. 

“That was on the menu,” he says. “You were going to give that to me anyway.” Ashton just grins, and heads back to the door. 

“I would’ve withheld it if you hadn’t complimented my exemplary nursing skills,” he says, as he pulls the door open. 

“I thought you said dinner service wasn’t part of the job description?” 

“I might fight for it to be now,” Ashton says, pulling the door open. “Everyone needs to play God from time to time.” Luke snorts. 

“That’s a completely non-alarming sentence to come out of your nurse’s mouth,” he says. “I think I’ll check my IV myself tonight.” Ashton’s lips hitch up in an amused smile. 

“Enjoy your dinner,” he says, and then he’s gone. 

 -------

 The next day, Luke is told that he can be discharged after a series of tests have been carried out, which are booked in for five p.m. - right in the middle of visiting hours, so he texts everybody not to come - and then get delayed until nine p.m. By ten, Luke’s still waiting for someone to come round as promised, and is getting incredibly restless, so turns to reach for his phone again - and stops dead. 

There’s writing on his arm. 

Writing that he, with his broken right hand, did not put there. 

He yanks his arm close to him, then turns to fumble with the light above his bed because he can’t fucking see, and squints at the writing. 

It’s just three words, small and scribbled like they had to be written fast or A would have lost the nerve to say them, but they make Luke’s heart thud against his ribcage like it’s trying to break a few more of his ribs.

Are you okay? 

What? 

Luke’s reaching for the pen in his drawer before he’s even thought about it, a million responses racing through his mind. What the fuck, being one, I thought you didn’t want to be my soulmate another, why are you talking to me now? What changed? in there somewhere too, but mostly: why?  

It’s a good thing it’s only why, too, because writing the letters takes a fucking age and when he’s done, it sort of looks like something he would have produced when he was four years old. The reply is instantaneous, though, and Luke can barely believe it, feels like he’s hallucinating the way the letters are appearing one by one on his arm. He’s too scared to blink, like it’ll break the spell somehow, like looking away will make A think well, he’s replied, that’s good enough, but another sentence appears, letter by letter.

You haven’t complained about Jack in a few days. 

So they have been reading Luke’s quasi-diary-entries. 

Fuck. 

Fuck.  

Shit. Luke has no idea what to say. Should he tell the truth? Should he try and take a mile from the inch A is giving him, ask what the fuck is going on, press the question of why A doesn’t want to be his soulmate? No, that’ll make them clam up again. Maybe he just shouldn’t reply at all. After all, it’s not like A’s ever given Luke anything when he’s been pouring his heart out in the early hours of the night, is it? Maybe Luke should give them a taste of their own medicine. 

He only considers that for a total of half a second before the pen is back on his skin, writing underneath A’s handwriting - God, it’s fucking surreal. 

I’m in hospital. Broke a bunch of bones. There’s a longer pause this time, and when a few minutes of Luke staring intently down at his arm have passed with no further reply and he’s thinking fuck, that’s it with a sinking heart, a few more words appear. 

I’m sorry to hear that. Get well soon. 

Luke’s just about to put the pen back down to his arm, to write a quick thanks, because it’s about all he can manage to write legibly with the weird way he has to hold his pen with the cast on, when more scribbles start appearing. 

How are you doing? Luke bites his lip. 

Fine, he says. You?

I’m not the one in hospital.  

True, Luke writes. My body aches. 

You should rest. Best thing you can do for your body. Luke huffs out a laugh. 

You sound like my nurse. 

Your nurse knows what they’re talking about. 

I’d be concerned if he didn’t. The reply takes a little longer to come this time, but after a few minutes more words are appearing. 

Touché. Luke’s just staring down at the word, racking his brain to think of something to say to keep the conversation going because fuck, fuck, he’s talking to his fucking soulmate, when a few more words appear. 

Goodnight, Luke. Get some rest. 

I’d like to, but I’m waiting for more tests, Luke writes. He waits, and he waits, but no response comes. 

Fuck, he thinks, rereading the entire conversation over and over, and over just for good measure. Fuck. He’s spoken to his soulmate. He’s spoken to A. He’s spoken to his fucking soulmate.  

He reaches over for his phone, turns his arm this way and that and takes a photo, and sends it to his group chat with Michael and Calum. He sees Michael’s typing bubble pop up before the second picture has even sent, but then the door is opening and Doctor Nichols is striding in, and Luke hastily puts his phone down and nods along to the list of tests she’s rattling off that need doing before he can be discharged, mind covered in an impervious sheen of soulmate soulmate soulmate that stops any of it going in. 

Fuck, Luke thinks, as he’s getting a bright light shone in his eyes and trying his hardest not to blink or look over at his phone, which is buzzing incessantly on his bedside table. Fuck.  

 -------

 Michael and Calum agree that this is a positive step. 

(Are you fucking kidding me? Calum says, when Luke voices hesitancy. They checked in on you. They fucking care. 

rt, Michael says.)

Luke’s not so certain, though. The thought of it is sending delicious sparks dancing from his heart to his fingertips and down to his abdomen (or maybe that’s the medication, he’s not entirely sure), but he doesn’t want to jump to any conclusions, given A’s hard stance and silence for the past few months. But A would have received a letter if Luke had died, and the government are usually pretty quick to send those out, so maybe there is something to be said for the fact that they only waited three nights before asking after Luke. 

Luke’s body is too exhausted to let him stay up psyching himself out over it, though, forcing him into a deep sleep as soon as Doctor Nichols has told him he’s free to leave the next morning and left him be, and when he wakes up the next morning it’s to someone opening his curtains. 

“Hey,” they say, as Luke’s eyelids try to fight the fucking sun, and Luke shields his eyes with his hand to see Ashton silhouetted by the window. 

“Weren’t you on shift last night?” he asks, and Ashton smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“Life of a nurse,” he says tiredly. “Sorry for the light, by the way. Figured it would be a nicer way to wake you up than ripping your IV out.” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Luke says, squinting and scrunching his face up, and Ashton huffs out a small laugh as he makes his way over to Luke’s side. 

“This isn’t going to be pleasant,” he warns. 

“That’s a shame,” Luke says. “I always thought having needles ripped out of me would be an enjoyable experience.” Ashton smiles again, and there are a few crinkles around his eyes. God, he really is fucking pretty. 

“Are you looking forward to going home?” he asks. 

“I’m looking forward to not having to eat salmon anymore,” Luke says. 

“Hey, I offered you the veggie option,” Ashton says, and Luke winces as he feels the needle and whatever the fuck else being pulled out of his vein. 

“I didn’t want to be a nuisance,” Luke says. 

“Hold this,” Ashton instructs, and Luke reaches over to hold the gauze on his arm as Ashton reaches for a clear plaster. “You wouldn’t have been a nuisance. You’ve been an exemplary patient.” 

“Is that a compliment?” Luke says. “I’m good at lying around being useless?” Ashton grins. 

“You’re not useless,” he says. “Patients keep me in a job.” Luke grins back. 

“I’ll try my best to get seriously injured again, then,” he says, and as Ashton turns away to the trolley he’s put Luke’s cannula on he catches the tail end of a small smile playing at his lips. 

“Legally and professionally, I can’t encourage that,” he says, and Luke snorts. 

“But personally?” 

“No comment.” 

“So you want me to hurt myself?” 

“Is that what ‘no comment’ means these days?” Ashton says, throwing Luke a glance over his shoulder as he pushes his trolley over to the door, eyes twinkling. “Get some rest, Luke.”

“Wait,” Luke blurts, and Ashton stops. Luke blinks, like he's waiting for Ashton to say something, even though he's the one who'd asked him to stop, because shit, he hasn't thought this through. Something in his brain just said stop, ask him out, ask him out. And really, he thinks, why not, because if he embarrasses himself he'll never have to see Ashton again, and he's no longer Ashton's patient, so he takes a deep breath, says fuck it, and mumbles: “Uh. Look. Would you- would you want to go out? With me? Not- not now, obviously. Some other time. But- y’know. Would you?” Jesus Christ. Ashton hesitates for a moment, and then throws Luke a slightly sad, kind smile. 

“I’d love to, Luke,” he says, and Luke’s heart soars for a moment, flying higher than it’s ever gone before “but I can’t.” Fuck. Luke’s heart should have read Icarus. 

“Why not?” Luke says. “I’m not your patient anymore.” Ashton shakes his head. 

“Still not allowed,” he says. “Only exception is if you find out you’re soulmates.” Well, fuck. 

“Oh,” Luke says, and hopes the wobble in his voice isn’t as audible to Ashton as it is to him. “Okay.”

“I really- fuck. Sorry. I just- I’m sorry, Luke.” Ashton smiles at him again, barely more than a twitch of his lips, and then he’s gone. 

Luke leans back against his pillows and stares up at the ceiling, heart pounding. 

Maybe he’s just not meant to be with people whose names start with the letter A.

 -------

 Luke sits around at home for a week before he decides he’s so bored and so sick of being fussed over by his parents that he insists on coming back to work. Alex, in turn, insists on picking him up and dropping him off every evening, like he’s doing a fucking school run, and Jack insists on Luke doing nothing besides working the till so he can sit down. It’s fucking boring, because all the fun parts of the job are helping little kids buy their first guitars or talking to seasoned professionals about the ins and outs of the instruments, not smiling politely and waiting while they swipe their cards. He has nothing to do between people paying, so he spends most of his time on his phone, swiping through his various social media apps and wishing his hand weren’t in a cast so he could at least play guitar. It’s not exactly the worst way to spend his time, though, especially now that he’s found that forum of people pretending to be middle-class Dads which is oddly relatable and funnier to him than it probably is to anyone else. He’s in the middle of scrolling through it in a particularly quiet lull on a Thursday afternoon, screenshotting the best ones to send to Ben and Jack, when the shadow of a person looms over him.

“Hey, I- oh,” they say, and Luke looks up from his phone hastily to find-

“Ashton?” he says, surprised. 

“Hi,” Ashton says. God, he looks good; he’s wearing a leather jacket over a faded grey Guns ‘N’ Roses t-shirt and black jeans, and his hair is falling into his eyes a little, and Luke sort of wants to kiss him and sort of wants to die. 

“Uh, hi,” Luke says. “Sorry. I just, um. Wasn’t expecting to see you here. How can I help you?” Ashton blinks at him, and then smiles. 

“I need some new strings for my Strat,” he says, and Luke nods. Of course Ashton plays guitar. Hopefully he doesn’t play, like, fucking drums, or something. That would probably be too much for Luke’s little heart to handle. 

“Sure,” he says, turning to the selection of strings behind him. “Ernie Ball Regular Slinky alright?” 

“Sounds good,” Ashton says, and Luke pulls a pack down and sets them on the desk in front of him, busying himself with adding up the cost like he doesn’t know it off by heart. 

“How are you doing?” Ashton asks as Luke furiously types in numbers to avoid looking at Ashton, making Luke pause and glance up at him. 

“You’re not on the job right now,” he says, and Ashton huffs out a laugh, raking a hand through his curls. 

“Doesn’t mean I can’t care,” he says. “So?”

“I’m alright,” Luke says. “Bored, mostly. Kind of shit not being able to use my hand.” Ashton makes a small noise of sympathy, and Luke dramatically presses a button on the till and announces: “That’s fourteen dollars, please.” 

“You won’t have to have the cast on for long,” Ashton says, digging around in his pocket for his wallet. Luke tries not to watch the way the movement exposes a sliver of his stomach. Thank fuck the scrubs had made Ashton entirely shapeless, because Jesus Christ. 

“I feel like I’ll have to relearn how to use my hand normally when it comes off,” Luke admits, accepting the twenty Ashton hands him and fumbling with the till for a five and a one. 

“That’s pretty normal,” Ashton says, accepting the change. Luke’s fingers brush against Ashton’s palm, and he tries not to let them twitch at the contact. “You’ll be used to it after a day or two.” 

“Maybe I’ll grow attached to it, though,” Luke says, and Ashton snorts. “I mean, everyone has to be nice to me now.” Ashton looks down at the cast, which has Luke sucks big dicks written on it in huge, black letters courtesy of Jack, and then back up at Luke pointedly, who sighs. “That’s just Jack,” he says, and right on cue, Jack pops his head out of the back room. 

“What’s me?” he says, and then brightens. “Hey, Nurse Irwin!” 

“Hi, Mr Barakat,” Ashton says. 

“Hey, idiot, Luke’s sexy nurse is here,” Jack shouts, and Alex’s head appears out of the office. 

“What?” he says. “Oh, hey, Nurse Irwin.”

“Hi, Mr Gaskarth,” Ashton says politely. “How’re you?” 

“Great, thanks,” Alex says. “Better now that you’ve patched my best employee up.” 

“Hey,” Jack says, affronted. “Aren’t I your best employee?”

“Did Nurse Irwin patch you up?” 

“Not yet.”

“Maybe you’ll be my best employee after that, then.” 

“Good to know my nursing skills are what keep your business running,” Ashton puts in, and Alex grins. 

“Think it’s more than just your nursing skills,” he says cryptically, and then disappears back into his office. 

“Jesus Christ,” Luke mutters under his breath, feeling his cheeks heat up. “Uh. I’m sorry. Here. Um. Have fun?” Ashton smiles, a little teasing, a little amused. 

“Will do,” he says. “Look after that arm for me.” Luke’s heart skips a beat. For me. 

“Well, I was planning on smashing it up a bit more, but now that you’ve said that…” he says, and Ashton laughs, eyes twinkling. 

“See you around, Luke,” he says, pocketing his strings and heading for the door. Luke watches him go, and then groans and puts his head in his hands. 

“What the fuck?” Jack says. “Why didn’t you ask him out?”

“I did,” Luke mumbles into his palms. “The day I got discharged. He said no.” 

“What?” Alex pipes up, sticking his head out of his office again, because apparently he’s still listening too. “Why? Does he already have a soulmate?” Luke’s stomach flips. He’s been trying not to think about that possibility. But surely Ashton would have said that, right? It’s the kindest way to let someone down. And he had said he would have loved to, however much out of politeness that may have been. 

“Apparently it’s still not allowed, unless you’re soulmates.” 

“Well, you could be-” Jack starts, but immediately falls silent upon a stern look from Alex. “Fine. Well, since you’ve got nothing better to do in your spare time now, you can start by reorganising those CDs you fucked up the other day.” He nods at the cardboard box that’s been sitting behind Luke for a few days now, and Luke rolls his eyes, and bends down to pick it up with a dramatic sigh.

“Fuck you,” Luke says sullenly, and gets to work. 

 -------

 Nine days after Luke’s discharged from the hospital, another message appears on his arm. 

How are you doing? 

Luke’s heart skips a beat, and he reaches for a pen with fumbling fingers, slotting it into his hand as best as he can manage.

Better, Luke writes. I’m out of hospital.  

I’m glad to hear that. 

Why do you ask? Luke decides to chance it. Fuck it, he thinks. Why not? 

You still haven’t been writing. Luke swallows.

My writing hand is in a cast.  

Oh. Luke frowns.

Could you not tell from my handwriting?

Honestly? No. Luke scowls. 

My handwriting isn’t that bad.

Isn’t it? Luke’s scowl deepens. A is fucking rude. Before he can come up with a suitably haughty response, though, they’re writing something else. 

Can you just write me something in the evenings to let me know you’re okay? 

Luke stares at it for a moment, something bitter rising in his throat. He doesn’t owe A that. A’s done next to nothing but ignore him, and now they’re demanding something from him? 

You never let me know you’re okay, he writes back, a little petulantly. There’s a longer pause this time, like A’s really thinking about the answer, because when the words come they’re written like they’ve been rehearsed prior to pen touching skin.

Do you want me to?

Luke hesitates. Does he? Of course he does, it’s his fucking soulmate, but they don’t want him, and it might make him more attached to them and make it hurt more when they inevitably reject him again. 

(Oh, who is he fucking kidding.) 

Yes.

Okay. That’s it, they don’t say anything else, and Luke doesn’t want to chase them, so he puts the pen down and stares at the conversation. 

Okay. So they’re- so they’re sort of talking now. That’s something, right? Maybe they can at least be friends. 

(He pushes away the that’s going to hurt too much, Luke, that’s going to hurt far too fucking much that flashes like a neon warning sign in his head, rolls over and goes to sleep.) 

 -------

 After that, he falls into a sort of routine. 

He goes to work, plays on his phone, jumps whenever the door opens in case it’s Ashton, like his strings are going to break within a week or two, then goes home or goes to Michael and Calum’s to watch them play videogames (he’d discovered fairly early on Xbox controllers and casts don’t mix), then gets ready for bed and writes A a quick I’m okay message. Sometimes it’s just that, just I’m okay, and sometimes it’s I’m okay, had a good day at work, or I’m good, really tired, or I’m okay, Jack broke another bass guitar today, I don’t know what he has against those things. A always replies with Thanks, I’m okay, but it’s something. It’s almost enough, and Luke can make do with that. 

Six and a half weeks after getting out of the hospital, Luke gets his arm cast taken off. His leg still has a few weeks to go, and he’s told his ribs are healing nicely, congratulations on refraining from strenuous exercise (Luke almost laughs in the doctor’s face), but Luke’s not really thinking about that. Logically, he knows the chances are next to nothing, but he can’t help but look out for Ashton, just in case. He doesn’t see him, of course, but when he half-jokingly mentions it to Calum and Michael that night, Michael makes an offhand comment that sticks in Luke’s mind. 

“Looks like Ashton’s helping you get over A,” he says, eyes glazed over as he stares at the screen in front of them. 

“What do you mean?” Luke says. 

“He’s all you fucking think about despite only meeting him, like, four times,” Michael says, and then swears loudly as Calum shoots him. “You cunt.”

“Should’ve been paying attention,” Calum says, with a shrug. 

Luke’s thinking about that remark as he’s getting ready for bed that night, staring at himself in the mirror as his right hand tries to remember how to use a toothbrush. Maybe Michael’s right. Maybe Ashton is the antidote to A. Or, at the very least, he’s proof that Luke can like people that aren’t his soulmate. The thought makes him smile around his toothbrush, a warm feeling blossoming in his chest. Yeah, his soulmate might not want him, but maybe he’s not doomed to be alone, after all. 

He spits and rinses, and then wanders into his room, picking up his pen to write his daily I’m okay message to A. A millimetre before the pen touches his skin, though, he hesitates. He might as well ask the question he’s asked a hundred times before, now that A actually speaks to him, even if it’s only to say the same three words every night. The worst that can happen is he gets ignored again. 

I’m okay, he writes, and then, why don’t you want to be my soulmate? 

Thanks, I’m okay. The response comes immediately, like A’s been waiting for Luke to check in, but nothing else follows it. Luke watches his arm for a few moments, waiting for more to show up, and then sighs, turns his light off, rolls over and falls asleep. 

 -------

 When he wakes up the next morning, he hobbles into the bathroom, yawning and stretching, and as he’s reaching for his toothbrush he happens to glance in the mirror - and stops dead. 

There’s something new on his arm. 

He looks down so fast he thinks he might have snapped his own neck, heart skipping a beat. 

I want to choose who I love.  

So it is that, Luke thinks, testing the weight of the words on his heart. They aren’t as heavy as he’d expected them to be. In fact, he thinks, as an image of Ashton flashes through his head, he sort of respects it. A can have their chosen love. Luke can find someone else. 

(Another image of Ashton flashes through his head.) 

He hobbles back to his room and sits down on his bed, picking up the pen and thinking. Fair enough sounds a little passive aggressive, as does that’s fair, but Luke can’t think of anything else to say, so he settles for that’s fair and adds a little smiley to try and mitigate any potential hostility that might come across in the words. He blinks at the phrase for a moment, half-hoping for a response, but it’s eight in the morning and the words must have come at around four or five for them to still be there, so A’s probably asleep. So Luke shakes himself out of it, reaches for his toothbrush, and forgets about it. 

 -------

 A week after that, Ashton comes back into the shop. 

“Hi, Luke,” he says, waving and grinning as he closes the door behind him, because of course he’s a fucking gentleman who doesn’t let the door swing shut heavily like almost everyone else who comes in. “You sell drums, right?” Oh, Jesus. He’s not a drummer. He is not.  

“Uh,” Luke says intelligently, like there aren’t two drum kits set up opposite him. “Yes?” 

“Sweet,” Ashton says, ambling over with his hands in his pockets. He’s wearing short sleeves today, because it’s November and the weather’s starting to really warm up, and Luke can’t help but thank whatever deity may exist that he lives in the southern hemisphere, because Jesus Christ, Ashton’s arms are a fucking sight to behold. “I need a new snare.” 

“Sure,” Luke says, tucking the pen he’s been holding behind his ear. “For- for you? Or- like, as a gift?” Ashton throws him an amused look. 

“Who gifts snare drums?” he asks, and Luke shrugs, trying not to think about Ashton drumming. Good fucking God.  

“People have gifted stranger things,” he says, and waves a hand at the drums opposite. 

“Oh, hey, you got your cast off!” Ashton says brightly. “How is it?”

“It’s fine,” Luke says. “Still feels a bit weak.” 

“I’m sure you know how to strengthen it,” Ashton says solemnly. Luke blinks at him. Is he- surely he’s not- is he- “Oh my God,” Ashton mutters, cheeks a little pink, like he’s just realised what he’s said. “I meant- I meant that the doctor should have given you a few exercises. Fuck. I did not mean- I’m not- fuck.” Luke can’t help but burst out laughing, warmth curling in the pit of his stomach as Ashton throws him a sheepish smile. God, he’s fucking cute. Luke is far too far gone on this man. 

“Yeah, I forgot them,” he admits, because I didn’t take them in because I was too busy looking at every nurse that walked past in case they were you sounds insanely creepy. Ashton throws him a slightly exasperated look. 

“Luke,” he says admonishingly, and Luke rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling. 

“What was that you said about me being an exemplary patient?” he reminds Ashton, who shakes his head, grinning. 

“I should have reserved judgement,” he says, making his way over to the drum kits Luke had pointed out. “Hey, do you have any sticks for these?” 

“Oh, shit, yeah,” Luke says, hobbling out from behind his desk to the basket that stores test sticks and then over to Ashton, ignoring his protests of you shouldn’t be putting weight on that foot, Luke, let me get them, tell me where they are. 

“It’s fine,” Luke says. “It’s getting taken off next week.” Ashton throws him a look. 

“Yeah, next week,” he says. “These things have specific healing times for a reason.” Luke just waves his hand dismissively. 

“I have another foot,” he says, and Ashton tuts, but a small smile is tugging at his lips. 

“Hey, Luke?” a voice shouts - Jack, whose head pops out of the back room. “Oh, hey, Nurse Irwin. Luke, can you make a note that we need to order more of the Dunlop Hendrix Wahs, the SolidGoldFX NU-33s, the-” shit, Luke thinks, looking around him wildly; there’s no fucking paper, and Luke’s got a broken foot, so he can’t get back to the desk before Jack’s finished rattling this list off. As he’s spinning on the spot, the pen he’d tucked behind his ear dislodges itself and threatens to fly out, and he slaps a hand up to stop it before realising hey, pen, I have skin, I’ll just write it on my arm and write it on paper later. 

“The Hendrix Wahs, the NU-33s, and what?” he calls, scribbling on his arm. 

“The Hydra Stereo and Reverbs, and the Boss Pocket Processors.” Luke nods, frowning as he notes it all down, and then looks back up at Jack. 

“Got it,” he says, and Jack gives him a thumbs up and disappears back into the back room. “Sorry-” he starts, turning back to Ashton, and then drinks in his ashen face, and frowns. “Are you okay?” Then he notices in the corner of his eye some writing on Ashton’s arm, and thinks huh, that’s weird, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t there when he came in - in fact, I’m certain that wasn’t there when he came in, because I made a mental map of every inch of his body, and looks down, trying to surreptitiously read it. 

Hendrix Wahs, NU-33s, Hydra S&R, Bass Pocket Processors. 

Luke’s list. Luke’s list, in Luke’s handwriting, has just appeared on Ashton’s arm. That doesn’t make any sense. 

“Wait,” Luke says slowly, and looks back up at Ashton’s stricken face. “Wait. You- hang on. How did my list just appear on your arm?” 

“How do you think?” Ashton says quietly. Luke blinks. 

“I don’t know,” he says. Ashton stares at him. 

“I- what? What do you mean?” he says. Luke frowns. 

“This doesn’t make sense,” he says. “How did my list appear on your arm?” 

“Jesus Christ, Luke,” Ashton whispers, and then grabs the pen out of Luke’s hand and scrawls hi on his own arm. It sits there next to Luke’s list, looking oddly harmonious for two things that are completely unrelated, and Luke stares at it for a moment before looking down at his own arm. 

There, right next to the messy scribble of his list, is one new word. 

Hi.  

Oh, fuck. 

“Oh, fuck,” Luke says faintly, and steadies himself against a nearby keyboard. “Oh my God. You’re- you’re A?”

“You’re Luke?” Ashton sounds just as faint as Luke. 

“I- yes? Fucking- how did you not- you met all of my friends? Michael, Calum, Jack, Alex? At the hospital?” 

“I only knew them by surname,” Ashton says. “I- fuck. You’re Luke.” 

“You’re A,” Luke says, and then a thought occurs to him and he swallows, and grits his teeth. “Fuck. You’re A.” The words come out harder this time, tinged with bitterness, and it makes Ashton’s eyes snap up to him, big and wide and so pretty it would take Luke’s breath away if he had any left to give. 

“What?” 

“You- you don’t want this.” Luke gestures a little feebly, not wanting to be too specific, but Ashton just looks at him like he doesn’t quite get it. “Y’know. This. Us.” He swallows. “Me.” Ashton’s gaze softens. 

“Oh, Luke,” he says. “I- fuck. I do. I want you. I just didn’t- I didn’t want Luke. But I want you.”

“But I am Luke.” 

“I didn’t know that, though,” Ashton says. “I- oh, fuck. You’re my soulmate.” The word sends a chill down Luke’s spine. Jesus. He’d sort of almost come to terms with the fact he’d never meet his soulmate, never have a soulmate, never hear those words out loud, and now here he is, standing with one foot in a cast at work, talking to the hot nurse he’s not been able to get off his mind for two months who just so happens to be his fucking soulmate who had semi-torn Luke’s heart out from its resting place on his birthday. 

And now, he’s not sure how he feels about it. 

“You didn’t want me,” he says, more than a little accusingly. “And now you do.” He doesn’t ask anything in particular, but Ashton seems to know what he’s pointing at anyway, because he bites his lip. 

“Look,” he says. “I- I just didn’t want to fall for someone because it was assigned to me, or whatever. I wanted it to be a choice, not something I was forced into. And then I did fall for you, without knowing you were my soulmate, but obviously I- I couldn’t, because you were a patient - or a former patient - so I just- I thought that was it, but. Fuck. I fell for you on my own, and it turns out you’re my fucking soulmate.” Luke swallows. When he puts it like that, it makes a lot more sense. Luke can kind of get that. And the fact that Ashton’s saying he fell for Luke but just couldn’t act on it is definitely helping matters - Luke’s easily buttered up by an ego stroke. 

“You broke my heart,” he says, matter-of-fact, and Ashton swallows. 

“I hoped I hadn’t,” he says, like that makes it any better. 

“You could’ve at least waited ‘til it wasn’t my birthday anymore,” Luke says. “Or explained yourself. I thought it was me.”

“You thought what was you?”

“I thought- I thought I’d put you off, somehow. That I was the problem.” Ashton’s eyes go wide, and he shakes his head. 

“God, no. Jesus. No, no. I just- I wanted to be clear, and I thought the less I engaged the better, y’know? Like, the less you’d have to latch onto, the easier you’d forget about me.” He hesitates. “I shouldn’t’ve done it on your birthday, though,” he says. “I’m sorry. And- I’m sorry for everything else, too. It was never you.” 

And, okay. Luke’s the type to hold grudges. He’s petty and he’s childish, and he doesn’t forget shit like this. But he’s also an adult and he’s (to some degree, at least) capable of rational thought, so he shoves away his first instinct that says spite him, go on, make him hurt like he hurt you and thinks about it. Yeah, Ashton fucked up. He should’ve waited until it wasn’t Luke’s birthday, and he should’ve explained himself, and he just should’ve been a lot more communicative from the beginning. But the past week or two, Luke’s actually been okay with the idea that A doesn’t want him, so he can’t really hold that against Ashton anymore, not when his heart has patched itself up the past five months and shrugs off the idea of not having his soulmate in the way he’d always wanted. And he does understand Ashton’s reasoning, even if he doesn’t agree with it, so he clears his throat, and, just to make sure, says:

“So- so you do want it now?” 

“Fuck, I- well, I want to see where it can go,” Ashton says. “I- I don’t want to make any promises. But I’d like to try.” Luke blinks at him. 

Ashton wants to try. Ashton, who is Luke’s fucking soulmate, wants to try the two of them on for size. 

“Okay,” Luke says. “Okay. Yeah. We can try.” 

“Yeah?” Ashton says, a little nervously. 

“Yeah,” Luke says. “I mean, I’ve been sort of infatuated with you from a distance since meeting you, anyway, so.” He shrugs, and Ashton grins and opens his mouth to say something, and then there’s a yell from behind them. 

“Hey, Luke,” Alex says. “Oh, hey, Nurse Irwin. Luke, can you call our accountant? I need the books going over by- uh. Why are you both smiling like you’ve committed a crime? You’ve not committed a crime on these premises, have you?” 

“What?” Luke says. “What the fuck are you talking about?” 

“What’s wrong with you two?” Alex says suspiciously. Luke glances over at Ashton, who shrugs, tiny and imperceptible, like sure, go on. Fuck.

“Uh,” Luke says, and swallows. “Turns out Ashton is, um. Kind of my soulmate?” Alex blinks at him. 

“Who’s Ashton?” Luke blinks back, and then points at Ashton. “That’s- that’s your soulmate? Ashton’s the dickhead?” The back room door opens. 

“Who’s a dickhead?” Jack asks, intrigued. 

“Ashton,” Alex says. 

“Who’s Ashton?”

“Nurse Irwin.”

“Oh. Hey again, Nurse Irwin. Why are you a dickhead?”

“He’s Luke’s soulmate.” Jack looks at Alex, and then at Luke, and then back again. 

“No, he isn’t,” he says calmly. 

“He is,” Luke says. 

“Fucking hell,” Jack says, and then goes back into the back room and closes the door. 

“Hey,” Alex shouts, frowning. “Get back out here. Luke’s just found his fucking soulmate.” ��

“I’m not dealing with this mess,” Jack yells back, muffled by the door. 

“What mess?” Ashton asks, bewildered. Alex whips around to stare at him. 

“The mess you made,” he says. “Y’know. When you broke little Luke’s heart on his twenty-first birthday.” Ashton has the good grace to look embarrassed, and even winces slightly. Good, Luke thinks, a little childishly. Public humiliation probably makes them even for Luke’s birthday being ruined, isn’t it? 

“I didn’t mean to,” Ashton says, sounding very much like a five-year-old.

“I don’t care,” Alex says. “You two sort shit out between yourselves.” Ashton blinks at him. 

“Right,” he says, and turns to Luke. “So. Uh. I feel like now is the time to ask you on a date.” 

“What, with my chaperone watching?” Luke says, throwing Alex a pointed glance, and Alex throws his hands up in exasperation and heads back into his office. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Ashton says, with a small smile. “It’s sweet how protective they are of you.” Which, yeah, but like, fuck, because if Ashton thinks this is protective, he’s got another thing coming when he meets Michael and Calum. Luke bites his lip.

“Wait ‘til you meet Michael and Calum,” he says, a little warningly, a little gleefully. 

“So is that a yes?” 

“A yes to what?”

“Me asking you out.” Luke blinks.

“Ashton, I asked you out, like, two months ago,” he says. “And you’re my soulmate. Obviously it’s a yes.” 

“Well, I don’t know,” Ashton says, a little defensively. “It’s good to check.”

“What, so now you’re the king of communicating?” Ashton throws him a slightly hard look, but it softens when he sees the smile on Luke’s lips. 

“I sort of deserve that,” he admits, and Luke grins. 

“Part and parcel of going on a date with me,” he says, and Ashton grins back.

“At least I to go on a date with you,” he says. “Softens the blow.”

Yeah. Luke could get used to the way his heart is trying to communicate with him through the medium of interpretive dance.

(It’s a good thing his soulmate’s a nurse.) 

 -------

  Hurry up, Luke scribbles on his arm as quickly as possible. I didn’t pay for parking. 

Jesus, Luke, comes back almost immediately. I’m on my way back. 

I can tell by your handwriting.

You’re one to talk. 

Fuck off.  

xxx

Luke puts the pen back in the glove compartment and taps his fingers on the gear stick, peering at the revolving doors to try and spot his boyfriend. It only takes about thirty more seconds before he sees him walking out, looking around for a moment until he sees Luke parked badly and illegally and jogs over, shaking his head fondly. 

“Idiot,” he says, when he gets in the car. “If we get a fine, you’re paying it.” 

“You’ll have to bargain with Alex to give me a raise, then,” Luke says, throwing the car into reverse without bothering to look over his shoulder. 

“Jesus, Luke, look where you’re fucking going,” Ashton says, even though there’s no one there. Luke shrugs, puts the car into first, and pulls out of the spot he’d been parked in. 

“What?” he says. “We’re right outside a hospital. It’s fine.” 

“Fucking hell,” Ashton mutters, but when Luke glances over he’s smiling. 

“So?” Luke prompts. “What did they say?” 

“It was fine,” Ashton says. “There are procedures in place for this sort of thing, y’know. They had the government papers confirming you’re my soulmate, and the ethical review was fine, because you just broke a few bones so I barely looked after you.” Luke scoffs. 

“Just broke a few bones?” he echoes, a little indignantly. “I broke half my fucking body.”

“Well, you did toss about fifty guitars onto yourself,” Ashton says, fumbling in the glove compartment as Luke pulls out onto the main road. 

“That was to get out of whatever Jack was trying to force me to do,” Luke says. “And it worked.” 

“Was it really worth it?” Ashton says, pulling the pen out of the glove compartment and raising his eyebrows. 

“Of course it was,” Luke says immediately. “I didn’t have to do whatever dumb shit Jack had in mind.” Out of the corner of his eye, Luke sees Ashton roll his eyes. 

“That was a perfect set-up to say of course, Ash, I wouldn’t have met you otherwise,” Ashton tells him, and Luke grins. 

“Would’ve said that if I meant it,” he says, and Ashton sighs, but he’s grinning. 

“I don’t know why I bother with you,” he says, and Luke grins back. 

“Because I’m your soulmate,” he says. “And worse than that, you chose to be stuck with me. This is all your own fucking doing.” 

“Fucking hell,” Ashton mumbles again, but he’s scribbling something on his arm, and when Luke glances down he sees a slightly shaky heart drawn right where his wrist meets the back of his hand, and smiles out at the road.

“Love you too.” 

[fanfics-with-coffee]

Beach Day

Beach day with your boyfriends, Akaashi and Bokuto, gone wrong silly?

Genre: P u r e fluff Characters: Poly!Akaashi x reader x Bokuto 

As soon as you stepped off the bus you shielded your eyes from the glaring sun which had been blaring down on you and your boyfriends for days now. In front of you there was the never ending expanse of ocean, the horizon only broken by the uneven specks of islands far off in the distance. “WHOA, THERE'S SO MANY ISLANDS AROUND HERE, you think they can see us from all the way over there?" Bokuto's voice broke through the sound of the city behind you and the sound of the never ending noise of the people on the beach in front of you. "I think you should worry more about the people right here on the beach for now." Akaashi reminded the over excited man, squinting as he watched the people right below you three. Looking at the two standing on either side of you, you smiled and watched how Bokuto seemed to suddenly realize the sheer amount of people on the beach right now. Akaashi didn't seem as entranced by Bokuto's shocked face as you were and sighed, starting to lead the way down the stairs connecting the bus stop to the sand below. "C'mon owl-boy, we gotta look for a good spot to settle down or you're never gonna be able to play volleyball" you playfully teased, pulling on the fully unbuttoned, short sleeved, Hawaiian shirt and he obediently followed you, a volleyball stuck under his arm. 

It was clear that you guys weren't the only people who thought today had been the perfect beach day as it was bustling with activity and people sunbathing, as well as people just normally bathing in the deep blue waves softly hitting the beach. Luckily everyone had dressed for the weather, Bokuto wearing the coolest outfit as he had just thrown on his swimming trunks and the fittingly silly hawaiian shirt which he had left unbuttoned, not that you complained. Akaashi went a bit more modest as he decided to at least throw on a proper white T-shirt with his trunks, a pair of sunglasses placed atop his head for the moment being. You dressed similarly, your bathing clothes working as a base together with whatever you felt was modest enough to travel on a bus with but nothing that would make you sweat in the summer heat. But you would be lying if you weren’t just waiting to get out of it and just lay in the shade, reading a book while watching your two favourite people play volleyball and maybe take a walk along the shore.

You quickly realised that that might be a much more difficult goal to accomplish then you had initially thought as every possible spot with availability to shade had already been claimed by people with similar plans. Akaashi had at this point taken your hand in his, afraid you’d be lost among the people. “Hey, Akaashiii, how come you’re not holding my hand huh? Aren’t you afraid I’d get lost too?” Bokuto sped up his pace to match yours, holding out his hand and making a grabby motion towards the raven haired man, pouting. “How could I? I’d probably hear you all the way from those islands you were talking about” He glanced back at you two, seemingly adamant about his decision to only hold your hand for now. But that didn’t last as he looked at Bokuto for more then two seconds and without another word he held out his other hand too. The older man instantly perked up and took ahold, happily being dragged along now. “You’re impossible..” “And yet you love usss.” You mused with Bokuto putting a hand on the small of your back, grinning. And so your trio moved across the beach.

“Hey, doesn’t that look like a good spot?” After only a minute or so you finally spotted a big enough place in the shade for you all to comfortable set up for the day. Bokuto vocally expressed his excitement, suddenly taking the lead and pulling you all along, no questions asked. Akaashi had almost tripped in the sand when his arm suddenly jerked in the direction of the spot but managed to catch himself before checking so you had survived the pull too. Thankfully you had, and not only that, you were laughing at the silliness of your boyfriends antics. But things didn’t go as planned as you got closer to the so called promised land.

“Oo- Half-n-half?” Bokuto stopped dead in his tracks, and dropped not only your hand but the ball he had been carrying too, surprised by the familiar face standing in front of him.

“Eh? What do you mean half-n-half… Your hair isn’t much better…” Kenma glared, a switch in his hands and a sports bag slung over his shoulder. You were about as surprised as Bokuto was and then you heard someone else speak up.

“What, you’re just gonna ignore me, owl bastard?” “ROOSTER HEAD?” “Don’t act like you didn’t ignore me on purpose!”

As the sudden dispute escalated between Kuroo and your own “owl bastard”, you took the moment to get your head around the situation, so did Akaashi who pulled up his own bag and picked up the one Bokuto had dropped in his shock. You looked to Kenma who was busy getting mildly annoyed at the two bickering men, impatiently waiting for them to calm down. 

“So you and Kuroo are here for a beach day yourselves, huh, Kenma?” You smiled, taking a couple steps closer so you wouldn’t have to yell. He finally looked at you and vaguely nodded his head before looking back.

“I guess, Kuroo wanted to get a tan and dragged me along with him. I’m just planning on gaming though, I’m not looking to get a sun burn.” You hummed in acknowledgment, you weren’t surprised that Kenma wasn’t the one who initiated the trip. “That’s why we need the shade here, it’s difficult to play games with a sun glare on the screen”

The way he looked at you was almost challenging, like he made it clear that he wasn’t willing to give up the shaded spot. While you had been around Kenma a couple times along with Kuroo and Bokuto, you had never stood between him and something he wanted so were a little taken aback. Luckily, Akaashi was quick to back you up even if there was no real danger.

“I’m guessing its about as difficult as reading a book with the sun in your eyes.” Akaashi’s responded for you, clearly not backing down as he let a hand land on your waist. Kenma glanced at his hand and then the small bag you were carrying, quickly connecting the dots and pursing his lips. By now the two other people in your group had noticed what was going on and stopped their own shenanigans, curious about the situation that had formed. Kuroo was the first to separate from Bokuto, walking over to standing besides Kenma with a smirk. Bokuto in return walked over to Akaashi and you, putting his hands on his hips while wearing a confident grin.

“Seems like none of us are willing to give up the spot, eh?” Kuroo glanced at Kenma who was still staring at you three.

“Nope! So if you want it, you gotta take it from us fair and square! Right Akaashi? Y/N?” Bokuto quickly looked to you two, expectantly waiting for confirmation. While he looked like an owl, he reminded you more of a puppy. 

“Right. It’s the least you can do for the spot, Nekoma.” Akaashi backed him up, something that Bokuto clearly got excited about. You looked to the two and sighed, smiling despite yourself.

The two opponents nodded and within seconds they were coming up with fair suggestions on how they could fight for the spot. Volleyball came up immediately but because of the little space on the beach, there wasn’t really a way to play during these busy hours. But after that, they came to the agreement of a race. To the ice cream shack and back to the spot, first team member to get there won it. Simple goal, simple rules.

“Y/N, you’ll be the judge.” Akaashi made eye contact to confirm his statement, checking so you would agree with it just in case. You nod, of course and straighten your back a little to prove your attention the assignment. Kuroo clearly perked up at this fact, getting playfully smug face.

“Hmm? How can we know they won’t be biased?” He asked, tilting his head. He knew you wouldn’t, you could see that in his eyes, but he couldn’t help wanting to provoke your boyfriends a little. Something that clearly worked as Bokuto puffed up his chest and furrowed his brows. Kenma gently slapped Kuroo’s arm, annoyed he had even agreed to this competition from the beginning and now he was prolonging the whole thing with useless teasing.

“Our Y/N? Never! That’s preposterous!” He argued, ready to get in another harmless tussle with the tall, dark-haired man. He was ready to defend your honor at the drop of a hat even if it was absolutely unnecessary as Akaashi mentioned that no one in this situation could be totally unbiased. Realising if you didn’t interrupt the situation now they would go on another discussion that would last god knows how long. And so you cleared your throat, gaining the mens attention while you pulled out a tissue from your bag, holding it up.

“Participants on your mark!” You said aloud, said participants quickly moving and pointing to each others feet as they scrambled to get on an even row, Akaashi taking an obvious leadership role in this. “Get ready!” You raised the tissue.

Paused. And..

“GO!”

You dropped your hand, the white tissue acting as the starting shot. They started running, throwing up sand behind them and leaving you in the shade, together with a Hawaiian shirt thrown off last second. You kept an eyes on them as they ran towards the ice cream shack but you noticed that Kenma was already falling behind, he clearly had a worse footing then the other three on the sand. While you wish you could’ve seen the whole thing with your eyes, they ended up getting lost in the maze of bodies, fighting to find the quickest way to the faded blue building. Bokuto and Kuroo were keeping their eyes on each other, throwing looks as they saw their competitor between unrelated bodies. Akaashi on the other hand was running his own race, his eyes darting from spot to spot as to find the smartest and most efficient way. Kenma got further and further behind, unable to keep up but still working logically, dodging people with practiced ease.

As they reached the shack, Bokuto and Kuroo slapped the side of the building only nanoseconds after each other, making eye contact before turning and sprinting back. Akaashi was only seconds behind, seeing the white and black tuft of hair diving back into sea of people and he couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief, thinking back to you. But that didn’t stop him from taking another deep breath and giving it his all on the way back too. Kenma was a… different story. He had run out of steam quickly and by the time he had gotten to the shack, he had already seen Kuroo wave at him. But he kept at it, knowing Kuroo wouldn’t shut up about it if he didn’t.

Back in the shade you had pulled out your water bottle, sipping on in, waiting for someone you recognized. And there he came, jumping out of the crowd, chest exposed and covered in sweat, grinning from ear to ear. Bokuto. Kuroo was the second person you saw but you also realised he was about to get passed by Akaashi whose stamina training was showing. With a shout and a leap, Bokuto crossed the line, hands thrown up in the air and you waved your tissue in the air, grinning almost as big as he was. Kuroo and Akaashi crossed the imagined line at about the same time, both of them stopping to catch their breath, Akaashi leaning his hands on his knees and Kuroo going as far as to sit down.

“D… damn…” Kuroo whispered as he leaned is head back, tilting it so he could watch you and your boyfriends who were celebrating as if they just gotten into Japans national team. Bokuto had grabbed you, lifting you up and spinning around before kissing your lips. Akaashi approaching to congratulate him and got pulled into a sideway hug accompanied by a kiss to his temple from the other. Kuroo couldn’t help but smile before it hit him, where the hell had Kenma gone.

Crossing the finish line minutes after the others, Kenma arrived with an ice lolly, examining the scene and realising what had happened.

“I guess we lost the spot.” He walked up besides Kuroo, taking another lick of his ice cream as he watched your celebrations. You looked over to the Nekoma boys and watched as they started packing their things. While the whole thing had been fun, it wasn’t really your thing to not at least try to compromise. Walking up to them, you smiled and put your hands behind you back.

“Hey, you guy’s don’t actually have to leave”

It wasn’t actually too hard to get everything to work. Since there were now four people wanting to play volleyball, or at least Kenma agreed to play for a bit, they spent majority of the time going at it in the sun. And you enjoyed your time watching them between reading the pages of your book. You had enjoyed your time regardless but seeing your two favourite men, shirtless and shining with sweat in the sun, their muscles visibly moving as they tensed and relaxed. Yeah, you’d enjoy your time but this was way better.

[dontbesoweirdkira]

Hi there! Just found your blog and I like it so far. Btw being Present Mics favorite student headcanons were amazing, as a bnha nerd may I request a part 2 where Mic meets readers parents and other stuff? Sorry if my English is bad.

A/N:Thank you so much for liking my blog and choosing to request, that means a whole lot! I got you with the Present Mic headcanons, please let me know if you want any more Present Mic stuff i’m here. I’m sorry this request took so long to come out, i was busy with a few thing please love me

-So i would feel this year would be a lot of fun, just like last year but the only difference being you are working harder towards your hero license and school is becoming much more difficult. This means that you have to up your game with your quirk skills and tactics while staying on top of your studies. You are stressed to say the least.

-Like i said previously present Mic knows when you are having a hard time, believe it or not he is quite attentive and super smart so he quickly asses the situation and realizes a few things. He sees you’re struggling with your quirk and school so he takes matters into his own hands.

-He offers to train you and offers extra help with school to you, he only wants to see you succeed even if that means sacrificing his free time.

-”oh- no no Mr.Hizashi that’s so sweet but i know you’re really busy-”

-”SHHHSHHSHSSJSJ Y/N I SHALL GET YOU THAT HERO LICENSE AND HELP YOU PICK UP YOUR GRADES EVEN IF THAT MEANS RISKING A FEW HOURS OF REST, I CANNOT LOSE TO YAGI AND DEKU- i-i- Mean icareaboutyourhealthandgradesandireallywannahelp”

-tHaT soCCer dAD rIvaLrY iS stiLl haPPeNinG 

-Everyday after school you guys meet up at the park or one of the training centers to train for a few hours

-”Now Y/N, breath in and when you breath out use that force to push your quirk-”

-Honestly you thought the training wouldn’t be as hard as it was (it’s Present Mic after all) but boi were you wrong

-”Get up off the ground Y/N, you’ve only been running for .3 seconds”

-”.3 SeCoNdS????? I DID THREE MILES NONSTOP YaMaDA!”

-” hUstLe y/NnNNnN”

-Aizawa comes to your trainings and observes bEcAusE hEs nOSeYy

-He actually helps out and help with things present might not have thought of or isn’t the best at

-This year your relationship with Present actually takes a deeper turn, you find yourself around him more often both in school and after school. You both learn more about each other's quirks and personalities a lot more.

-You thought you already knew a lot about him, given he was like an open book it seemed. But Hizashi is a much deeper and emotional person than you honestly thought and he truly had such a more serious, kindred spirited side to him

-Like sometimes when you guys are taking a break from training he will open up about his life at UA and how it was for him. He told you how he felt kind of odd and awkward and how that’s probably why he can relate to you so so much uwu

-”You know Y/N as much I am super bubbly and “overly confidant” , i still feel super out of place sometimes. I guess i always have it isn’t a new feeling, although I have Aizawa and the other teachers, sometimes I still feel...not understood? If that makes any sense?? But like I totally understand how you feel, and you are not alone...seriously. Thank you for being open to me and allowing me to teach and train you. Kind of makes me feel wanted and useful..haha-”

-iM sOft 

-He always thought of you as a little “sidekick” however recently he kind of looks at you as his own daughter and he’s really protective and fatherly over you. He’s more on top of you and making sure all your ducks are in a row. He’s not controlling or anything like that tho so don’t worry

-”Did you eat yet, Y/N?”

-”are you okay Y/N? You look exhausted.”

-”make sure you finish that report for class, okay? If you need any help let me know.”

-pRotEccS yOu fRom bOys

-If he sees a teacher kind of poking at you and making you feel uncomfortable or feel bad for being a “teacher's pet” he will immediately have them stop. He feels bad you have to get crap from him being a bit biased towards you

-You guys have a secret handshake

-HE’S STILL THE BIGGEST cRacK hEAd I swEar

-*crushes you in a hug* “MISS. AMERICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHAAATtattatSSSSSs UpPPPPPPPPPPPp”

-”YO Yo yO AMERiCaAAaAAAA HOw Is IT CrACkINGGGG”

-”YNNNNNNNNN AMErIcAAAA YoUU foRgoT yoUr lUnCH Box iN mY cLaSS *whispers* i put a donut in there for you”

-USES YOU FOR ENGLISH CONVERSATION EXAMPLES IN CLASS ALL THE TIME 

-HE EMBArASSES YOU SO MUCH ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY THIS DUDE NEEDS TO SIT TF DOWN AND LET YOU LIVE POOR GIRL

-It’s okay because he lets you skip class to pass out in the library after being exhausted from everything

-You take his weird sunglasses and strut around with them all the time

-”BlUghH I’m a rich fashion model. WAIT OMG HIZASHI ARE THESE CHILDREN SIZED GLASsES?!?!”

-EmaiLS yOU

-” ohiyo americAa,

It’s me MiC and iM waTchING tHat drAmaA you recommended to me and Im cRyING. Also i heard from the sleepy teacher that there may or may not be a pop quiz in his class on last weeks topic...Anyways I’ll see you tomorrow...unless...Nah just joking okay mic is out!

                                    -Hiz

                              sEnt fRom ToaSter oVeN”

-You get about ten of these things a week from him. help this poor man ;-;

-Made a few youtube videos with him

-He helped you pick out your hero name and outfit, you are so ready to be a hero i swear

-Once you do get your hero license..he is such big boi proud like he’s in tears, snot running out his nose, eyes all puffy and his voice is cracking. He even got you a little teddy bear with a little candy bag attached to it.

-”LOOK LOOOK MR.HIZASHIIIII LOOOK I GOT IT I FINALLY GOT IT THANK YOU SO SO MUCH HIZASHIII I LOVE YOU SO SO MUCH THANK YOU”

-”See kiddo, i knew you could do it!”

-” Pfft all thanks to you!! Oh and Hey, Mr.Hizashi? My parent(s) are coming up this weekend to celebrate me getting my license. I was wondering if you would like to come to dinner? They’d like to personally thank you for helping me.”

-THIS MAN IS THE UTMOST HONORED LIKE LET ME TELL YOU HE SAYS YES IN A HEARTBEAT AND IS AT THE RESTAURANT ON LITERAL TIME

 -He somes in a very nice suit with his hair tied into a perfectly neat bun. And is thAT GLasses he’s wearing??????  (so cute omg)

-Him meeting your parent(s) was a pretty chill experience 

-”Mr.Hizashi, right? SO NIce to finally meet you and thank you for everything you have done for Y/N.”

-”Ah, it was my pleasure. And please, call me Yamada.”

-At first it was kind of awkward but once the conversation got going, you guys were there for hours

-and i mean HoURs

-”um excuse mE, wHen aRe yoU gUyS lIkE idk LEAVING???”

-Haha but no, the literal talk was just them hyping you up and how the waiter dramatically fell coming over to the table

-”yeS Y/N is such a great kid i can’t believe you raised such a strong and patient daughter”

-”Did he just trip and act like he didn’t just dropped our food on the ground??”

-”One time Y/N tripped and dropped her easy bake cookies and she didn’t even cry, that’s when we knew she was going to be a pro hero.”

-”did he step on the fries and up it on the plate and try to serve it to us???”

-Also your parent(s) grew up around the same time as Present so they had a lot to talk about and it was interesting learning about each other different childhoods and cultures.

-Your parent(s) seriously enjoyed Hizashi and they would love to talk to him again. Vise versa, it was a great time for Hizashi as well and prepare to hear about it the next time you see him.

-”Thank you Y/N for inviting me and allowing me to meet your parent(s) it was very nice getting to know them. Next time they come up, I must treat them out instead.”

BonUs

-Let’s just make up a different scenario where maybe your parents were kind of rude and not as nice and welcoming, both to you Yamada

-When you heard your parents were coming up to visit you in Japan, you were at first excited. You were still in this frenzy of like “wow i got my hero license” so you weren't thinking about it too much plus you were excited about being treated out to dinner and having your favorite teacher tag along. 

-Everything was great...that was until you started to think about it more and started to question was that such a great idea?? Let’s just say your parents aren’t the nicest people (person). For some reason it seems like they were never proud of you, no matter how well or bad you literally did. 

-Won a championship game? Eh good, but could be better

-4.00 GPA? That’s okay but thousand of kids get that, you have to do better.

-You want to be a pro hero?? Ha in your dreams, that kid next door has a better chance of becoming one than you do.

-You started to realise they were one of the biggest reasons you wanted to exchange to Japan so much. It was far away from them and super peaceful. You wanted to tell Present to not come, but he seemed so excited, and you wanted to tell him how dreaded your parents were. But you didn’t want him to worry and get others involved. So you just hoped and prayed that they would be nice? And everything was okay?

-Everything was okay...for the first five minutes. 

-Well everyone greeted each other and sat down to eat, then the condescending comments started to pour in.

-”Yeah, well I think Y/N will make a perfect Hero in the near future. She’s gotten a lot stronger with her quirk and-”

-”Pfft, let’s not get ahead of ourselves now, Although Y/N has gotten her License that doesn’t mean she’s hero material. We watched the sports festival and compared to the other students, she’s severely overshinned. I just don’t think a year or so of training can fix that. She has to do better.”

-For a second hizashi just sat there with his face utter disbelief. How could someone just say that about their child...in front of their child...so camly?

-He looked over towards your uncomfortable figure, your face was colored with complete dismay, He felt so sad and slightly angry. You didn’t look in a position to defend yourself so he started to speak up for you

-”I really hope the both of you are seriously joking.” he snapped back with a sassy firm tone in his voice which made you look towards the three adults

-”No we are not, Y/N is pretty average and for you to put in her head that she could possibly become a Pro? Haha I understand teachers are supposed to be supportive but like come on now, just be honest with yourself.”

-Hizashi slammed his hands against the table, gaining the attention of everyone in the restaurant, including yourself who was previously looking down to avoid confrontation.

-”How DARE you. Y/N is PERFECTLY  CAPABLE of becoming a hero, her quirk,skills, technique and intelligence is all was stronger than you can even imagine. Do not downgrade her just because you’re too idiotic and narrowminded to see that. She is the sweetest kid I have ever met and quite frankly the purest. Disgusting how you talk about your own child like that. AND IN FRONT OF HER?? Now with all due respect, I think you guys need to do a self reflection and change the wrongs you have within you. If you need any help i don't mind emailing you a list of things.”

-SKSKSKSKSKSKS WOT???? DID MR.HIZASHI THE ALWAYS HAPPY AND CRACKHEADY TEACHER JUST PUT YOUR PARENTS IN THEIR PLACE???? IN FRONT OF A WHOLE RESTURANT??? BEST. TEACHER. EVER.

-on you still wore an embarrassed kind or dismayed face and when Present say that. hE tHoUghT yOU wErE eIthER mAd oR sCaREd oF Him. cri

-In reality you were literally so joyful and happy. LIKE DUUUDEEE. MARRY ME LOLOL. Seriously you were super thankful that he did that for you. 

-He looked around and suddenly realised that all eyes were on him. Aww poor man felt so flustered he didn’t mean to make a fuss and disturb others, he was just so angry your parents were such a*ssholes. 

-He turned to you and bowed while simply muttering “I’m sorry Y/N”, then grabbed his coat and walked out.

-Without even thinking you jumped up and rushed out the door with him, leaving your dumbfounded parents at the restaurant

-”m-Mr.Hizashi wait up!”  you called out from behind the blonde haired man, he stopped in his tracks then pivoted in place to face you

-”y/n im very sorry to you and your family i didn’t mean any disrespect. I understand if you may not want to be around me any more or allow me to train you.”

-”ARE YOU SERIOUS THAT WAS EPIC LIKE SERIOUSLY THEY HAVE BEEN DOING THIS SINCE I CAn rEMEBER I SWEAR YOU ARE SO AWESOME MRHIZASHI THANK YOU THANK YOU LIKE YOU’RE THE DAD I ALWAYS WANTED I FREAKING LOVE YOU AND DID YOU SEE THEIR FACES HAHA BOOM I CAN'T BELIEVE IT TELL ME I-”

-cutting you off from your frenzy and gave you a big bear hug, “haha don’t ever let what they have said about you ever ring in your head...okay L/N? I belive in you and i know you are going to be fucking great.”

-”Really?” you smiled

-”HECK YEAHHHHH, AMERICAAAAAA” 

[generallynerdy]

Adore (Theseus Scamander X Half-Mermaid!Reader) Part 1

Summary: Being half mermaid is a bit of an issue when it comes to communicating with humans. You can grow legs and walk perfectly on land, but only speak Mermish above the water. When a handsome stranger wanders into your place of residence, Newt Scamander’s basement, your inability to speak his language is more than inconvenient.

Key: (Y/N) - your name, (f/c) - favourite colour

Warnings: cursing probably, The Scamander Brothers Are Too Good And Pure, Crimes of Grindelwald? What’s that? (in short, fuck canon)

Word Count: Part 1 - 1909, Part 2 - 2166, Part 3 - 2051

Note: aad;lkjs;lkdfalskj the Scamander brothers would own my soul if i had one

Mermaids, as most people knew, thanks to Newt Scamander’s book, were only classified as beasts because they wished to be classified as so. Knowing they were intelligent and able to communicate with humans, though only in certain circumstances, made it completely inhuman to keep them for viewing. This was what most people, out of a group of no more than six that Newt had shown his home, thought when they met you.

See, you took residence in Newt’s home base-- well, his basement. It was roomy and full of magical creatures of all kinds. You were never bored, to say the least, and that was actually the reason you wanted to stay in the first place.

Newt would introduce you as his friend, (Y/N), rather than just some mermaid he was studying. You liked that about him.

He also gave you complete free reign over the basement, so you would help Bunty out whenever you could. Of course, she didn’t really understand what you were saying all the time, but you could understand her. This meant she was primarily talking, though you didn’t mind. At least someone was talking to you.

As Newt brought more and more friends, which was definitely new to you, your circle of friends increased with his. Soon, you knew Jacob, Queenie, and Tina, who you knew Newt was very fond of. You made it a point to fluster him whenever she was around, usually teasing him about her, since she couldn’t understand you. It was days like those that Newt stopped talking to you, but he was back to happy conversations within a few hours.

As far as Newt and his friends were concerned, you were just as human as the rest of them. Though, there were a few added features…

One morning, you were playing with the baby Nifflers, some of your favourite residents, when you heard the door to the basement creak open. You looked up with a smile, surprised that Newt was already home. He was usually home about ten minutes later, not that you were keeping track. You nudged the Nifflers back toward their mother and started toward the staircase, a skip in your step.

However, an unfamiliar voice came from upstairs. “Newt? Newt? Are you down here?”

Your eyes widened and you stopped in your tracks, suddenly unsure. Looking up, you saw a tall man with bright blue eyes and rather messy brown locks at the top of the stairs. That was not Newt, nor anyone else you recognised.

For a second, you considered sending a Fwooper with an emergency message to the magizoologist, but then you realised that this person knew Newt’s name. He would have entered silently if he had malicious intentions, so you figured he must be friendly.

You remained where you were and waited as he descended. When he finally saw you, he looked around. “Uh, I’m sorry, I’m looking for Newt. Is he around?”

Frowning, you bit your lip. This man was very pretty, you thought, though in a way different from Newt. Tina always told you Newt was of extremely high standards for humans, wizards and muggles alike, but you could never be sure if she was right, seeing as she was biased.

Meanwhile, this curious new wizard, as you could see by the wand tucked into his jacket, was extremely pretty in mermaid standards. Perhaps pretty wasn’t the right word. Newt had sputtered nervously when you called him that, while Queenie giggled along, so you felt that ‘pretty’ had a negative connotation. When you first met Tina’s sister and called her pretty, she took it in great stride, but Newt had a strange reaction. Apparently, pretty was only used for girls in human culture, which didn’t seem right to you.

“Er, hello?” the wizard got your attention. “Sorry, have you seen Newt?”

You didn’t want to make him feel awkward trying to talk to him, when you knew it wouldn’t work, so you had to try plan B.

You nodded lightly and waved for him to follow you. He furrowed his eyebrows when you started walking away, but you heard his footsteps echo across the room. Hearing his loud steps versus your utterly silent ones, he realised that you were barefoot, oddly enough.

He followed you to the stone walkway overlooking the Kelpie’s enclosure. This was also where you took residence, having built a little home for yourself resembling a classic mermaid settlement’s architecture. Newt had gathered the supplies for you and had the Kelpie bring them underwater so you could use them. The Kelpie was quite nice to you, though that was to be expected.

There wasn’t much you could do to explain to the wizard why you had led him there, but you tried your hardest. You gestured to the water and pointed to your mouth, but he only tilted his head. Desperate, you even grabbed his arm and lightly tugged on him, gesturing again at the water. You didn’t dare shove him in, not wanting to give the wrong impression, though you hoped he would gather what you were trying to say.

“Get in the water?” He asked, raising his eyebrows. You nodded enthusiastically, a small smile on your expression. He chuckled a little, “I’m not exactly dressed for the occasion, am I?”

You sighed and let your shoulders droop, doing what Newt called ‘blowing a raspberry’. It was meant to show disappointment, he told you.

Figuring that you couldn’t convince this wizard to go in by himself, you backed up so you stood right above the water. You looked straight at him and outstretched your arms, before doing a graceful backflip into the warm waters Newt had specifically altered to fit the sort of environment you were used to living in.

The wizard gaped and looked over the edge to make sure you were alright, sure that Newt had some kind of dangerous beast in the water.

When you came up to the surface, you had a shimmering (f/c) fish tail rather than legs. You made sure to stretch it out where he could see and waved at him pointedly, sure that he would understand now. The only thing he did was gape, jaw dropped and eyes wide. You giggled a little, a very human reaction to the situation. Then, you waved for him to join you, though he looked doubtful.

Just then, he was joined by another figure, one you recognised this time. “I see you’ve met (Y/N), then,” came Newt’s soft tone, chuckling at this wizard’s expression. He looked absolutely floored and it was rather amusing. “Hello, (Y/N)!” Newt waved.

You replied in a language that only the two of you could understand, which only made the new wizard look more awed. He glanced between you and Newt, rubbing his temples as if checking whether he was dreaming. While he was busy contemplating, you swam up to the stone wall on which they stood, smiling up at Newt. You hoped he would introduce you to this new person. He was very funny.

“(Y/N),” he said, pointing to the wizard, “This is my brother, Theseus.”

You grinned when he said that, waving yet again at him. So this was the infamous Theseus! He was nothing like you imagined, what with all the stories Newt told of his older brother, but maybe that was a good thing.

“Theseus, this is (Y/N),” he nodded to his brother, who waved hesitantly.

You wanted to stick around, but the Kelpie called for you across the enclosure. You called back to it, mimicking its voice before swimming toward it at a rapid speed. He was a needy thing, but you didn’t mind.

Back above the water, Theseus and Newt did not stop talking about you, though you were unaware of this.

“She’s...something,” Theseus muttered.

“Yes, she is,” Newt smiled to himself, sorting out feed for the Kelpie in a bucket to the side. “She’s a good friend, too. I don’t think we’d manage without her, Bunty and I.”

Theseus frowned, “She chose to stay here? I thought mermaids lived in societies.”

His brother shrugged, “They do. She said her home was nowhere near as fun as mine. She likes creatures almost as much as I do. I think she enjoys helping them, especially our Kelpie here.”

Meanwhile, his brother leaned on a stone pillar, watching you from afar. You played joyfully with the Kelpie, giggling every time it splashed or nuzzled you. Oddly enough, Theseus couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off of you. You were the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen, that was for sure.

“She’s not like any mermaid I’ve seen,” he said, remembering the ones in the Black Lake at Hogwarts.

“Yes, well,” Newt looked up from his work, “She comes from warmer waters, where the more stereotypical or muggle fairy tale type mermaids live. They’re a little less...reptilian, for lack of a better word.”

Theseus hummed thoughtfully. “And do they usually try to get people to swim with them within seconds of meeting them?”

Newt laughed and shook his head. “You never did pay attention in Care of Magical Creatures, Theseus.”

“Oh, c’mon,” He rolled his eyes. “I just asked a question.”

“Mermaids can’t speak anything but Mermish when they’re above the water,” Newt said. “She was probably just trying to talk to you. She would usually call me if someone odd was in here, though. Not sure what’s so special about you,” he teased.

Theseus ignored his offhand comment, continuing to ask about you. “And mermaids are prone to growing legs?”

“She’s actually half mermaid,” Newt said, “She can switch between legs and a tail.”

His brother furrowed his eyebrows and tilted his head. “How do a human and a mermaid even--?” He started to ask.

“Don’t. You don’t want to know.”

“Noted.”

It was at this moment in the conversation that you swam back over. Newt handed down a basket of food for the Kelpie, since you always enjoyed feeding him more than he did. He didn’t like having to change out of damp clothes every day, so he usually left the job to you. You couldn’t complain.

Before you left, Newt sparked a conversation. “Well, what do you think of Theseus, (Y/N)? He bother you at all?”

Theseus glared, but you only smiled. I think he is very nice, you told Newt, for only him to hear. And pretty for a human.

This made Newt laugh, while his brother looked on concernedly. “All good things,” Newt reassured him. “What were you here for again?”

With a quick wave goodbye, the brothers walked away, leaving you to take care of the Kelpie. Though you did your job, you couldn’t help but watch them as they left, chattering about some dinner at the Scamander house or other. You smiled to yourself as you saw Theseus glance back at you. He almost looked away, his face an unnatural red colour, making you wonder if he was sick. You waved at him and he did the same, though his movement was significantly smaller.

You smiled to yourself when he was gone and turned your attention back to the Kelpie. Earlier, when Theseus first showed, he trusted you nearly instantly. For some reason, you could have sworn he would have followed you into the water if Newt hadn’t arrived.

Well, you would never know, you supposed. You could only imagine.

Adore Tags: @marsbars101, @abovethyfold

Part 2

Masterlist

[messyscriptorium]

Honest mistake.

Surprise! Happy Valentine’s Day @simplyyeol I really hope you enjoy this little thing. I got a little bit carried away and I hoped I could have written more of this Kyungsoo :(

This is a one shot written for the Secret Valentine event of EXO writers network.

Fandom: EXO

Type: Fluff. Comedy

Member: Do Kyungsoo (D.O).

Warnings: None

Word count: 1528

You hated blind dates with a burning passion. You didn’t need to go on a blind date to meet someone. In fact, your main problem was that you talked too much.

Your mum had warned you that men didn’t like that. But it wasn’t your fault! You just couldn’t stand awkward silence so you overshared. How was it your fault that male ego was so fragile that they couldn’t handle anything that wasn’t the sound of their own voice? You used to tell your mother that you wouldn’t want a man who couldn’t put up with your constant word vomit, either.

But at the age of 28, your determination was starting to falter and you found yourself agreeing to a blind date your mum had organised with the son of one of her co-workers. Which explained why you were sitting in a Starbucks, all by yourself, sipping on your latte while you eyed the door nervously. You only knew his name and a general physical description your mum had provided.

Your opinion on him was already biased, though. Who chooses to go to Starbucks for a first date? A moron, that’s who. But you promised your mother to keep an open mind and to “please, make it work, uh”. So you’ve dressed nicely and even arrived ten minutes earlier to cause a good impression.

He was fifteen minutes late.

That was not a good sign and you kind of hated unpunctuality. This dude just kept losing points with you. What if he didn’t show up? You would end up all dressed up at a Starbucks on a Thursday afternoon drinking coffee all by yourself. You didn’t even have your laptop with you so you could pass as some writer or college student taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi. You would just look like someone who just had been stood up.

Just as you were grabbing your things to leave, the door opened. A guy around your age entered the café and you studied him closely. Medium height, big eyes, thick eyebrows… he was handsome in a “your mum will love me” kind of way, his grave aura making him look really serious. That must be him, right?

He was looking at you, so you tried to disguise your previous impulse of leaving the place by plastering a smile to your face while you approached him. His eyes opened wider when he realised you were walking towards him and your smile turned from fake to pleased.

“Hello, I’m Kwon Bora’s daughter,” you greeted extending your hand for him to shake. “I’m sitting at that table, so when you’re done ordering, go there, okay?”

You pointed to the table where you had left your stuff while the man was still shaking your other hand with a confused look on his face.

“Oh, o-okay, sure.”

His voice was deep but it had a tinge of amusement you didn’t miss. Before you could start talking non-stop you forced yourself to turn around and waited patiently for him to join you. Five minutes later he was sitting across from you with a very hot mug of black tea between his hands. You looked at him and you felt it. Oh, no, here it came.

“So, tell me, what do you do for a living?” you asked but before he could open his mouth, another question was leaving yours. “I’m a teacher. Young kids, you know? Do you like kids? I love them but sometimes they make me crazy, I wish they had an on and off switch, don’t you think? But they also have given me the best moments of my life. They’re so sweet sometimes and they have the most bizarre occurrences to make you laugh. One day a kid told me in confidence that our librarian was leaving the school not because she was retiring but because she had read all the books in the school’s library. Do you like books?”

Oh, dear, you were doing it again. This dude was so handsome you were too nervous your brain was on autopilot. He seemed to take advantage of your need to breathe to answer you.

“I’m not a great reader myself, sorry.” He sounded entertained by your constant talk and that was actually the worst he could have done because it only encouraged you.

“That’s okay, not everybody has to like reading, but I always say it’s because they haven’t found the right book yet. Maybe we’ll have to find you a book. Tell me, what kind of genre do you like? Mystery, maybe? Fantasy? You don’t look like the type of person who would like that. I love hist–“

Your nonsense babbling was interrupted by the sound of your phone and you threw a quick glance at it. It was your mother. You looked at him and he smiled softly before pointing at your phone.

“You can take it. It’s okay, it could be important.”

He really was trying to compensate for his tardiness and the questionable location of this date with that sweet smile of his and his attentive listening.

“I am so sorry, my mother knows I’m with you.”

He raised one of his thick eyebrows at that statement but you couldn’t think much into it as you hurried outside to answer.

“Ah, honey, thank goodness,” you heard her say.

“Mum, why are you calling me? You know I’m in the middle of my date,” you said, turning around to take a look inside to see if he was still there. He was actually looking at you with an amused expression.

“Your date? Suhee asked me to tell you her son couldn’t make it today. He got caught up at work. Is he there, then?”

But you weren’t listening anymore. As your mother was talking, your face changed from confusion to mortification, to pure horror. He must have noticed something was wrong because he didn’t look amused anymore, he looked more concerned than anything.

“I’m sorry, mum, I have to go. Call you later.”

Without waiting for an answer you hang up your phone and walked inside, not breaking eye contact with him the whole time. He was not the man you were supposed to meet.

He stood up the second you reached the table.

“Is everything alright? Did something happen to your mother? You looked like you got some really bad n–”

“What’s your name?” You cut him.

“Ah, you could have started with that one,” he said and then he laughed. He laughed! And his laugh was really nice, it transformed his whole aura from grave to boyish, his face even looked younger than what he was. For that laugh, you would wait before jumping into conclusions.

“My name is Do Kyungsoo,” he stated. “I’m 26. I work as an intern in a bank. I like kids but I agree they should come with an on and off switch, sometimes.” He took a pause but you didn’t say anything. This must have been the first time in your life where you had been left speechless. The only thing you could do was look at him while he kept talking. Was this how your previous dates felt about you?

“Today,” Kyungsoo continued, “as I was about to order my tea, the prettiest woman I have ever seen approached me as if she knows who I am, and she wants to have a date with me? The way she demands stuff is part of the reason I end up sitting across from her. The other reason is that she’s outstanding. So,” he said looking straight into your eyes, “I kept quiet and let her talk because she has a nice way of speaking and because I wanted to enjoy her company a little longer.”

“But as it turned out, I’m not the guy she thinks I am so I should have said something sooner, right?” This time he was moving towards you, his hand stretched, the one you were shaking not so long ago. He looks at you full of hope, waiting for you to shake it.

You doubted. Why were you doubting, it was all just a misunderstanding and the dude –Kyungsoo– looks truthful. It really was your fault for not checking his identity before starting to speak like the parrot you were. And he liked to listen, damn it. He even enjoyed your word vomit. You knew why you were doubting, though. Mortification was eating you up alive and you couldn’t even look him in the eye without blushing, being very aware of the new level of stupidity you’d reached.

You shook his hand in an act of bravery just when he was about to withdraw it.

“You didn’t answer my last question,” you said, trying to keep it cool even though you only wanted to find a very deep hole to hide. “Genre?”

He seemed confused for a moment until his eyes lit up with the question.

“I really like the spy thriller type of movies, so I guess I’m gonna enjoy those books, too.”

You nodded at his choice but he spoke again.

“Does this mean I can ask about your name?”

[ladyherenya]

Books read in November

I like it when I read a bunch of books with similar-coloured covers in a row . I love it when those covers are all blue.

This was another successful month of reading, including three YA short story collections, two graphic novels and one audiobook (and all the rest).

I’ve asterisked my favourites.

(My longer reviews and ratings are on LibraryThing. And also my Dreamwidth blog.)

Almost Midnight: two festive stories by Rainbow Rowell, illustrated by Simini Blocker: This is super cute. Delightful. “Midnights” is about Mags and Noel over several years of New Year’s Eve parties. I liked how Rowell-ish the story is, and loved the illustrations. They brought the characters to life and gave the story a really strong sense of place. “Kindred Spirits” is about being a Star Wars fan. Elena camps outside the cinema in the days before The Force Awakens’s release, and the experience is not what she expects. This story is geeky, delightful and surprising.. My only disappointment is that there’s no more about these characters.

My True Love Gave to Me: twelve winter romances edited by Stephanie Perkins: After I read “Midnights”, I borrowed the anthology in which first appeared. I’m not a fan of the whole cheesy, commercial idea of Christmas and winter - but I enjoyed these stories more than I expected. They present different experiences of, and attitudes towards, the holiday season. My favourites included Kelly Link’s “The Lady and the Fox”, Stephanie Perkins’ “It’s a Yuletide Miracle, Charlie Brown”, and Gayle Forman’s “What the Hell Have You Done, Sophie Roth?” I really liked Myra McEntire’s “Beer Buckets and Baby Jesus” and Ally Carter’s “Star of Bethlehem” and liked Lainie Taylor’s “The Girl Who Woke the Dreamer” for its prose.

Summer Days & Summer Nights: twelve summer romances edited by Stephanie Perkins: I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as the winter anthology. But I liked that Perkins’ “In Ninety Minutes, Turn North” was a sequel to her story from the previous anthology. That was unexpected and delightful - and the story itself was one of my favourites. My other favourites were “Inertia” by Veronica Roth and “A Thousand Ways This Could All Go Wrong” by Jennifer E. Smith. And I liked how “The End of Love” by Nina LaCour unfolded, and the way time repeated in “The Map of Tiny Perfect Things” by Lev Grossman.

The Prisoner of Limnos: a novella in the World of the Five Gods by Lois McMaster Bujold:  No way was I waiting for the audiobook! This is both a standalone adventure and the third installment of a larger story, following on from Penric’s Mission and Mira’s Last Dance. It’s an interesting case of themes and variations. Another member of Nikys’s family requires rescue, and although the circumstances are different, the politics behind it are not (Her brother has enemies in high places). Penric takes inspiration from Desdemona for another disguise. Nikys is given another example of people whose relationships are successful despite being unconventionally complicated. It’s a much better place to leave everyone than Mira’s Last Dance.

* Shattered Warrior by Sharon Shinn, illustrated by Molly Knox Ostertag (graphic novel):  I’m not really a graphic novel person so I wasn’t excited until I saw the artwork. Colleen’s planet has been invaded by aliens, society and infrastructure have crumbled and her family are dead or missing. I loved the worldbuilding, how expressive everyone’s faces are and how the pictures tell the story. I really liked the balance between action and emotion - this is as much about the choices and connections Colleen makes as it’s about how she rebels. I also appreciated that darker aspects are not ignored but neither are they allowed to dominate. This is a story about hope.

The Witch Boy by Molly Knox Ostertag (graphic novel): In Aster's family, girls become witches and boys become shapeshifters. Everyone discourages Aster’s interest in witchery but he keeps learning in secret. A solid, diverse story about being different and finding acceptance. I'd have stronger feelings about it if the artwork’s aesthetic had appealed to me more. I didn’t dislike it - I loved Ostertag’s illustrations for Shattered Warrior and it’s only the colour palette (and worldbuilding) that’s different here - but I didn’t love it, either? Graphic novels are not my preferred mode of storytelling, so maybe I’m just not very interested if I don’t love the artwork...

A College of Magics by Caroline Stevermer: I've wanted to read this ever since I read the companion novel/sequel years ago. In hindsight, taking so long to find this was actually a good thing, because I couldn’t remember anything remotely spoiler-ish. And I wasn’t disappointed by how much of it is about Faris after she leaves college. This is a mystery about magic and a coming-of-age story about responsibility. It is vivid and poignant and there’s something really lovely about it. I enjoyed the parts about college life, and Faris’ friend Jane is an utter delight. I’m so pleased I finally got to read this.

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon: Two Indian-American teenagers meet at a summer app-development convention. Their meeting is arranged by their parents, but while Rishi believes Dimple has agreed to meet him, to see if they’d suit, Dimple is unaware of their parents’ plans. I enjoyed this, but not as much as I was expecting to. All the comments I’d seen suggested this was funny. And it wasn’t. It was still entertaining and likeable, I just didn’t find it humorous. Because humour is subjective, I guess. Also, I wished there was less focus on the romance - or rather, more focus on other parts of the story.

Provenance by Ann Leckie: Leckie’s new story is about family - the things people do for them and the things people do to get away from them. There were a lot of things I liked. Characters, scenes, ideas. There were moments that made me laugh or took me took me by surprise. I also like how Leckie presents elements of her worldbuilding and leaves the reader to put the pieces together. However I found I had to concentrate extra hard to follow what was going on, and, although I liked them, I didn't feel strongly about the characters. I was expecting that I'd care more...

* Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis (narrated by Nadia May): The Cupid and Psyche myth, from the perspective of Psyche’s older sister, surpassed my expectations. It is surprising, powerful and occasionally heartbreaking. Orual is fierce in love and anger and her relationships are complex, often more so than is first apparent. She’s not so much an unreliable narrator as a biased one, which I found really interesting. Also interesting is all the ways in which she does not conform to conventional ideas of womanhood - neither as a woman of Glome nor as the protagonist of a novel written in 1956.

The City in the Lake by Rachel Neumeier: A coming-of-age story written in a style that reminded me less of Rachel Neumeier’s others novels and much more of Patricia A. McKillip, and maybe Robin McKinley. An the City, the Prince disappears. Meanwhile, on the other side of the great forest, Timou’s father, the mage Kapoen, leaves for the City and does not return. This is lovely. There’s a dreamlike quality to parts of it, but at its heart, it is very real and emotionally relatable - this story is about losing (and finding) family members. 

In the Greenwood by Mari Ness (short story): Published on Tor.com. This Robin Hood retelling is sharp and unexpected and fraught, in a way that I appreciate in short fiction or poetry but tend to find unsatisfying in novels.

This Adventure Ends by Emma Mills: Sloane, a high school senior, has recently moved to Florida. There’s a lot of different things going on here, from Sloane’s mission to find a painting by her new friends’ mother to her father’s adventures in fanfiction. At first, there didn’t seem to be quite enough space to explore everything properly - although I didn’t mind, because Sloane is witty and I was entertained. But as I read, I realised all of these are actually about love: family relationships, friendships, romantic relationships and the things people are passionate about. I really liked the way everything fitted together.

* Winter of Ice and Iron by Rachel Neumeier:  A tense, atmospheric and utterly gripping story of power and sacrifice. It is almost too dark for me to enjoy it - almost, because there’s thoughtful restraint to how the darkness is handled. The most unusual and complex aspect of the worldbuilding is the influence of Immanent Powers have on politics and those tied to them. But the characters were the reason I cared. By the time Kehera and Innisth’s paths cross, I was completely invested - and conflicted, because they each have the ability to help each other but their goals are different. Neumeier writes beautifully. This is amongst her strongest books. 

Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crawley: Rachel and Henry were best friends until Rachel moved away and stopped replying to Henry’s letters. But after her brother drowns and she fails Year 12, she ends up working in Henry’s family’s secondhand bookshop. Meanwhile Henry has just been dumped and his parents are arguing about selling the shop. This alternates between Rachel and Henry’s POV, which means there’s a lot less suspense as the reader knows what both of them are thinking. On the other hand, knowing what they think of each other gives a sad story about endings - of life, of relationships, of dreams - a hopeful inevitability.

The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by Jaclyn Moriarty: When Bronte was a baby, her parents left her with an aunt before gallivanting off on adventures. Ten years later, she receives the news that her parents have been killed by pirates. Their will insists that she set out alone on a journey to deliver a gift to each of her aunts. This is quirky and entertaining, and what begins as a episodic adventure eventually twists together in Moriarty-fashion. I suspect I would have stronger feelings about it were I still Bronte’s age or if it hadn’t been so light-hearted. All the same, I’d happily read more.

[newzealandabortion]

The Villainesse Abortion Series: One woman's story

Over the last few weeks we’ve been talking about pregnancy and abortion. We’ve published two Villainesse Guides: one (in two parts) that gives information about how to get an abortion and another on where to access support if you decide to keep a pregnancy.

We’ve had a huge response from our readers after publishing these guides. Articles like these can provide lots of practical information about the process, but we also realise that some of the most powerful tools in reducing the stigma around abortion are the stories real women have to tell.

Pregnancy is a fact of life. Sometimes a pregnancy comes at exactly the right time, and sometimes girls and women find themselves pregnant when they don’t want to be, when they’re not ready or when it just doesn’t feel right. Whatever the reason for seeking an abortion, girls and women deserve to be respected and supported in their decision.

As we’re all about starting ‘no filter’ conversations… we had a chat with one of our beautiful, brave and generous Villainesse community members. Every woman’s experience of termination is uniquely their own, as every woman’s body, level of pain tolerance and receptiveness to medication is different, and everyone processes the emotional side of the experience in their own individual way.

So with the hope of opening up the conversation, and working to end any shame or stigma that surrounds termination of pregnancy, here is one true abortion story:

Were you planning on getting pregnant?

Not in the slightest. We were in a loving relationship at the time but it was very new. Getting pregnant was actually the last goal I had at the time.

How did you feel when you realised you were pregnant?

Total shock, panic and slight stupidity. It was my partner who suspected it first. I was struggling to eat at a restaurant one night, and I also complained about being tired and irritable. I thought it was just a sensitive tummy. He leaned in and whispered, “you don’t think you could be pregnant do you?” I laughed and then my face dropped. After tests revealed that I was in fact 100 per cent pregnant, a huge rush of helplessness and confusion settled on me for days… I took us two to three days to figure out we should just go to a doctor.

Was termination always going to be your choice?

Nope, we tossed about all types of ideas. I had a horrific experience when I called a helpline (I can’t remember the number, but I want to warn others). I was told that the only options should be “keep it or adoption” – both good options but I was shamed for even asking about abortions with the exact words “we don’t deal with or advise on those practices sorry”. Perhaps I was being super sensitive, but I hung up instantly and cried. We came very close to deciding to go through with the pregnancy but I put my foot down once I didn’t get lots of hard pressure from my partner. He admitted that his opinion and position on such a large decision wasn’t as important as my wishes, as it’s my body, and he felt powerless in contrast.

Did you know how to go about getting an abortion?

I had no idea what I was doing, who to talk to and even how to go about starting the process. I didn’t even know there was a process. Once I surrendered myself to go to a doctor I was better educated. I even booked in with Family Planning just to get another opinion and wanting to know all the facts. That’s where my decision was really made and I started the planning process of termination. The Family Planning clinic was great as they were supportive and informative on every option. They did confront our contraception methods in the process since I admitted this wasn’t planned and was feeling a little bit dumb, but they did this kindly and gently, knowing this wasn’t the most amazing time for me.

Was the father part of the decision-making process to get an abortion?

Yes 100 per cent. I did wish he was a little more aggressive with his opinion and wishes during the decision-making stage but I think he was a bit relieved when the decision was made and put in place. The scans were a small challenge for us as a couple as it was an amazing thing to witness and we almost changed our minds.

Describe the process of arranging the first stage of termination. How did you find out where to go and what to do?

Family Planning made the paperwork and the actual process to get the ball rolling relatively stress-free. They know this is something you don’t do everyday so they take control a bit. What I didn’t like was the feeling of not being control of the situation and my body. It’s the one thing I would warn girls about – just prepare yourself before you walk into a clinic and say, “I want a termination”. The same day I said yes, I had 3-4 appointments instantly set for that day and the day after, so while feeling lousy and emotionally drained, I was made to pee a million times, draw blood and consume way too much water for an impromptu scan, and had someone hurry me into a smear.

I felt like I was being pushed, pulled and prodded. In that moment I learnt that you can’t just get a termination, there are so many tests and things that you have to do before they will even consider saying “yes you can have one”… and nobody really explains anything in great detail to make it feel like you are a person. After the first stage, I lost my cool and reminded a clinic staff member that I’m not a lab rat and I have feelings. I don’t know how people do this without support, but I’m warning those of you supporting women helping a friend or family member through a termination that you should be prepared to field all kinds of emotions. It might be an ugly day in your relationship.

Did you feel that you were supported in your decision to terminate by your medical consultant?

Yes, and I also liked that I wasn’t pressured to come up with decisions instantly. Right up to the day of the procedure he was just checking in on me, and how I was feeling, and how life was. It was a great way to make sure it was what I wanted without being biased. I felt very safe – safe in my decision and safe in the hands of his care.

Were you offered other options?

We were offered other options, which were welcomed and explored. One option that did come to light was my partner’s father decided what we were doing was wrong and told us to go full term, and he and his new wife would take the baby and raise it as theirs. I don’t know if it was the hormones but I set that idea on fire! The idea of having a baby then just giving it away would never be an option for me.

Do you feel that the medical community gave you enough counselling during the decision process?

I think I was fine as I had great support outside of the clinics, but if I were to do this alone then I think women need more in the area of counselling for the psychological side of the procedure and also to vent, as it’s so invasive! You need an outlet to feel heard.

How did you find the actual procedure?

My personal experience was horrible. I think I sat in a waiting room with 20-30 others scheduled for that day and we were almost herded like cows. I was called into a room with a nurse, first by myself and then I was offered to have my partner in there with me. She went through a series of questions and honestly explained what was about to happen to me. I was given a choice between a pill, or the surgical option of termination. As I was further along, she recommended surgical, as essentially the pill forces your body into a miscarriage and the risk of your body needing assistance surgically later can be high. She listed the drugs that they use and filled out my paperwork for the surgeon.

I was called into an examination room and told I could bring my partner. I was starting to feel scared so I made him come with me. The doctor went over the same stuff as the nurse, and checked my medical history. She also went over pain meds and contraception options for after the procedure.

I was then separated from my partner and led into a small room with about ten women from all walks of life. Two in particular looked to be coming down or still high. I felt scared and threatened. The surgeon came to meet us and addressed us as a group, making sure nobody had eaten and minimal water had been consumed. He was cold, very impersonal and somewhat insensitive (just what you want when someone’s about to dive up your vagina!) then we were told to sign a bunch of forms, and we were lead to a ward with a bunch of lazy-boy chairs.

I was given a gown and a giant maxi pad, then they settled me and started with all the drugs and drips. It was a sobering moment when they told me that the drug I was taking was the one that stops the body from producing the hormone to keep you pregnant. I knew then I was ending a life, which was a total guilt trip. Then they gave me drugs that really chilled me out. They let my partner in to sit with me, and I also had the option of having him with me when I went in for the actual procedure, but as I was told it would be quick and easy and New Zealand gives the most pain relief in the world (actually the words the nurse used), I told him to wait for me. I wish I’d asked him to come with me.

I was led down the hall to the surgery room and I lay out on a cold bed in all my glory waiting for the surgeon with the personality of an inanimate object. I had a support nurse who showed me how to use the gas and made sure my pain meds were in check with my drip. I think the procedure took about 5 minutes but it felt longer with being so out of it on meds. I’ll be honest – in my experience, it hurt. I felt a sharp pain way up, which I think was the numbing of the uterus, then there was a loud sounding machine and the surgeon telling me to stay still (I was trying). It felt like the worst period cramps or like the surgeon had his hand up there squeezing my insides really, really hard. I know I yelped and I know I cried a lot. The gas was stupid and did nothing but make my tongue numb. Then I was manoeuvred off the bed really quickly and ushered back to my lazy-boy. My partner was actually scared when I came back. He said I was white as a ghost.

After an hour or so I was given more meds, then I saw the exit doctor who was ready to send me home. But it turns out that one in 1000 people vomit from the meds, and I was that one person, so I had to wait longer to leave.

What happened over the first few weeks afterwards?

I’m happy to report my morning sickness left before I even left the clinic. I had some bleeding and cramping, but bounced back pretty quick. I hung out in bed for a day then I wanted to get up and get moving and I think this helped me. I started walking and doing light exercise, and the bleeding stopped before the first week was out.

One weird thing was I was moody for a few months after and I was told it was my hormones. Then I got this weird rash, and a friend who is an experienced nurse questioned if I had been pregnant. Apparently this rash was the result of my body being allergic to my own hormone levels!

Can you describe how you felt emotionally?

I was a bit sensitive but the decision sat 100 per cent perfectly with me so there weren’t any internal issues for me. But since the procedure, I have been the keeper of my body, and not having control of it has become a fear. I have more empathy with women going through this now.

How did your partner feel afterwards?

It has very much made us closer. He’s protective and agrees this was the best thing for us. Now we’re further down the track we are looking at our future. I’m ready to have kids, even if it’s a surprise, and so is my partner. We’re not trying but we wouldn’t hate it either.

How easy do you think it is to find out information about termination?

Pretty easy if you know where to originally look. Family Planning is such a win for the community and sexual health education.

Is it something you talk about with other women?

Yes and no. I have given my honest rundown of it to a few women struggling with similar situations. At the end of the day, it’s all down to what’s best for you, your body and life.

Author/Source: Jo Raj, Deputy Editor at Villainesse