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roosterforme · 2 months

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Covering the Classics Part 2 | Bob Floyd x OC

Summary: Anna knows her new coworkers want her to meet their friend Bob. But she's too hesitant, afraid to get herself in a situation where she's pining after someone new. During a spur of the moment shopping trip, Bob is delighted to bump into a woman he can only describe as adorable. Too bad he's never been great at the follow through.

Warnings: Fluff, angst, adult language, eventually 18+

Length: 3600 words

Pairing: Robert "Bob" Floyd x Female OC (this story is part of the Beer Boy/Sugar and Jake/Jessica universe)

Covering the Classics masterlist. Check my masterlist for more! Thank you to @mak-32 for the beautiful banner!

By the end of her first week teaching, Anna had learned many things, almost like she was a student herself. That nice, secluded ladies' restroom she found was secluded because one of the toilets regularly overflowed. The coffee in the teacher's lounge was actually disgusting, but the donuts were available every day. And Dr. Pham from the sociology department asked her out three times on Thursday, apparently because she wore her hair in two braids like Princess Anna from Frozen, a mistake she wouldn't be making again.

And she was so tired. She started to lose her voice on Friday morning from how much she had to talk in her lectures. She took the wrong notes to class with her and had to improvise an hour long class on Emily Dickinson, because she was too afraid to give one of her students the keys to her office door. So she sweated it out, but managed to sound somewhat coherent as she dismissed her class at noon.

She pressed her lips together. If she ran to get her sandwich and peanuts really quickly, she could join her new friends by the weird tree. After two days of joining them for lunch, she really liked both of them. She just didn't want to get their hopes up about their friend Bob whom she was supposedly perfect for.

Anna wasn't perfect for anybody. And frankly this Bob guy sounded like a dreamboat, which just made it worse. He'd probably laugh after taking one look at her, and if she opened her mouth and tried to talk to him, he'd run away scared. She already turned down their invitation to go to the Navy hangout bar on Saturday night, citing that she was too exhausted. But it was really because she needed to stand firm with herself and do everything she could to protect her feelings from now on.

After another few seconds of contemplation, she went to her office and got her lunch before heading to the quad. But today it was just Jessica there eating lasagna and garlic bread from a plastic container while Anna's stomach growled in jealousy.

"Hi," she greeted after she chewed up a bite of her perfect looking lunch. "It's just us today. Dr. Rosenthal apparently had a bunch of questions about the math curriculum and took Advanced Calculus out for a long working lunch at Covewood."

Anna had barely been in the city for more than two weeks, but even she had heard of Covewood. "That's a five star restaurant. A romantic date night hot spot."

"Mmhmm," Jessica agreed as she sunk her perfect teeth into the garlic bread.

Anna realized her own experience was fueling her next sentences, but she said them anyway. "Isn't she married? Her husband is okay with that?" she asked softly.

Advanced Physics burst into laughter. "Bradley loves Dr. Rosenthal. He's in his seventies, and he's one of the sweetest people at the school. They have him over for dinner sometimes. He actually did my tenure review."

"Oh," Anna replied, embarrassed that she could hardly relate to someone who trusted their spouse. "That actually sounds really nice."

"Hey, are you sure you don't want to come out tomorrow night? No pressure. I just think you'd have a fun time. The guys are all sweethearts."

Anna looked down at herself and her sad sandwich. She didn't even have money to spare for a beer that she would probably drink half of before she wanted to leave. And it didn't matter if the guys were sweet, she knew her two new friends would be champing at the bit to see how she and this Bob person interacted. "Not this weekend," she replied. "Maybe another night."

Instead of socializing, she spent her Saturday window shopping in North Park. She had a budget of exactly zero dollars, but she could entertain herself for hours this way. She gasped when she found a two story bookshop that claimed it contained new and used and rare finds, and she ran across the street to get to it.

It was darker and quieter inside than the sunlit, traffic filled streets, and when Anna took a deep breath, it reminded her of a cozy library. The clerk behind the register waved instead of speaking, so really, it just kept getting better. When she noticed the wooden sign on the wall informing her that The Classics were upstairs, she made her way up the creaky steps to a loft area with row after row of tall shelves.

"Perfect," she muttered, walking to the end of the open space and turning down the last tight row of bookshelves. She wasn't alone, but the only other occupant was a tall, slim man with broad shoulders and tidy, sandy colored hair. He seemed to be so absorbed by what he was reading, he didn't look up when Anna reached for an enormous copy of Shakespeare plays.

She almost moaned out loud; it was annotated and contained every play she had to teach in her Thursday morning English 300 class. It was well worn, and the cover felt nice in her hands. Shit. Of course it was seventy bucks. That was more than she spent on groceries last week. Maybe she could expense it to the department? She should probably know how to do that. Maybe she could text one of her new friends and ask if that was allowed.

But she slid the book back into place as a Vonnegut she didn't yet own caught her eye. She reached out for it with a steady hand, but as soon as her fingertips met the spine, a much larger hand, complete with graceful yet calloused fingers, wrapped around hers. Everything suddenly smelled clean like soap and also intriguingly like tea leaves. And then she heard a voice next to her ear that made her bite down on her lip as a ripple of pleasure teased her spine.

"Oh. I'm so sorry."

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Bob had never been to this store before, and he wasn't really planning on stopping by today, but Mickey dragged him in and then ditched him for the children's section at the back of the store. Bob looked around downstairs, but as a poetry fan, he found that section to be seriously lacking, so he headed up to the loft instead.

He considered himself well-read until he realized how many classic novels he'd never even heard of before. And they all sounded really depressing. Which was kind of the point, he supposed, but if he was going to get something new to read, he was in the mood for a more upbeat story. Maybe a romance or a European adventure he could get lost in. Maybe a sweeping, romantic tale where the nice guy gets the girl for once.

After several tries, he still wasn't finding anything close to what he was hoping for. As he re-shevled The Bell Jar, he decided to just reach for a book at random. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut? Maybe that would be more his speed. But when he reached for it, his fingers wrapped around a soft hand complete with glossy, burgundy fingernails instead of the actual book. He jumped an inch in the air, because he hadn't even been aware anyone else was in the aisle with him, let alone a woman who smelled like sweet perfume.

"Oh. I'm so sorry," he stammered, already mortified. Then she turned to look at him over her shoulder, and he wanted to jump off the loft railing and run out the shop door. There was only one word to accurately describe her: adorable. She had dark red hair done up in a messy braid, big brown eyes, and a smattering of freckles across her nose. "Oh."

"It's okay," she replied softly as she tried to hand him the book. "You can have it."

He shook his head, completely distracted, as he kept finding more things about her face that he liked. A grin curled along his lips as he said, "No, it's all yours. Really. I was just looking for something new to read."

She glanced down at the cover and then back at his face, and maybe he was imagining things, but it looked like she was blushing a bit. "Wow. I wasn't really expecting anyone else to be interested in reading a sarcastic take on global destruction on a sunny Saturday afternoon."

His eyebrows shot up. "Is that what it's about?"

Her laughter was also adorable. "Yeah, I mean... it's Vonnegut," she said with a bit of an eye roll. Oh no. She knew what she was talking about, and he kind of didn't. He was probably about to sound like an idiot.

Bob cleared his throat and pointed at a random spine to buy himself time. "What's this one about?"

She cocked her head slightly to the side and said, "Two murders and a kidnapping."

"Oh," he said with a little laugh. "No thanks. How about this one?"

He wasn't even looking at the books now at all, preferring to watch her facial expression change as she checked another title. "Oh, that one's good. Also about murder."

He chuckled and pointed at another. "This one?"

She smirked and looked up at him. "Jealousy, rage, hatred, and also a lot of murder."

"Wow," Bob replied with what he was sure was a stupid looking smile. "I was hoping for something a little tamer? Perhaps less murder-y? Maybe I should go down and look in the children's section?" He jerked his thumb over his shoulder and listened to her laugh again.

"I could recommend a few books with little to no murder. Maybe even a happy ending," she told him, and he watched as she pushed her braid over her shoulder.

"I'll believe it when I see it," he said as he crossed his arms over his chest. To his shock and amazement, her gaze followed his movement, and her blush returned.

When her tongue darted out between her lips, Bob could feel his heart beating in his temples. Her brown eyes drifted back up to his face, and he wondered if this was how Jake or Bradley used to feel when girls paid attention to them at the bar. It was decidedly really exciting.

He was going to be bold like his friends. He was going to ask her for her number. Maybe he'd see if she wanted to help him shop for some books, and he could buy her that horrible Vonnegut that she wanted, and then he'd ask her very nicely for her number.

"Floyd!"

Bob watched you jump as Mickey's voice echoed through the store.

"Floyd! Let's go!"

"S-Sorry," Bob muttered, stepping past her and heading for the loft railing. "Just... hang on for one second?"

As soon as Mickey looked up and saw him, he said, "We gotta go, man. I got some books for my nephews, but we'll be late to grab a drink before D&D if we don't leave now. You know how she gets when we're late." He was shaking a bag of books and heading for the door.

Bob did know for a fact that Jessica got annoyed when they showed up late because they got hungry or distracted on the way to The Hard Deck. "Just give me a minute," he told Mickey, but he was already outside.

He swiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and turned around to find the aisle empty. Oh no. He checked the next row of shelves, and the next, and the next, until he got all the way to the stairs, but the adorable redhead was nowhere to be found. And he had no idea what her name was.

"Hello?" he called out softly, checking each aisle again until he was back where he started. Bob might have believed that he imagined the whole entire exchange with an attractive woman, except that there was one book propped up against the others right where he and she had been standing.

"A Room With a View by E. M. Forster," he mumbled as he picked it up and turned it over in his hands. He glanced around again, but she was well and truly gone, leaving nothing except for what seemed like a book recommendation.

"Floyd!"

Bob sighed and tipped his head back in frustration. "Coming!"

He descended the stairs slowly, head swiveling in every direction, searching for brown eyes and a braid while he held the book. Gone. He paid for A Room With a View and headed outside to find Mickey looking quite annoyed. What he didn't see was the mystery girl watching him from the far end of the loft.

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"She was real," Bob insisted as he held his glass of ginger ale a little tighter. "Just because you were too busy yelling doesn't mean I made her up in my mind. She had red hair and brown eyes."

Mickey gave him a skeptical look. "That's actually a really rare combination. And I know for a fact you happen to have an excellent imagination, my friend."

Bob cradled his forehead in his hand. "Why didn't I ask for her name and number?" Then he paused. "You know what? It doesn't even matter. There's no way she would have agreed to give it to me."

He thought about the book he bought sitting on the front seat of his truck next to his dice bag and character sheet, and he considered just going home for the night. Maybe he could start to read the book. Maybe he'd feel like writing.

Then he felt an arm slip around his waist. "Hi, Jessica," he said as he blushed when he looked down at Jake's petite girlfriend. A second later, Bradley's wife was next to him as well, and Bob realized they were wearing matching smirks.

"Hey, Bob," Jessica replied, giving him a little squeeze. "We were just wondering if you happened to like redheads."

Mickey snickered before he tipped his beer bottle back and finished the drink. "He loves them. Daydreams about them."

Bob shot him a withering look. "She was real."

"Who was real?" Bradley's wife asked as her husband came up behind her and set his chin on her shoulder. Great, now he was going to have a full audience of people informed about his embarrassing afternoon of not even knowing how to ask a woman what her name was.

"There was a cute girl at the bookstore in North Park earlier," he muttered. "She had red hair, and I fumbled the ball."

Bradley chuckled. "You know what your problem is, right? You're too nice. Sugar met me when I was an absolute fuckboy, and she fell hard."

"I've been having a decade long lapse of judgement," she replied, and Bradley kissed her neck. "Don't listen to him, Bob. Girls love nice guys."

But Bob knew they didn't. Even the woman from the bookstore dodged him after approximately five minutes of flirting. If you could even call that flirting. He finished his ginger ale, and said, "We need to go. It's almost time for D&D. I'll drive."

Mickey nodded and said, "I'm ready." He could probably tell Bob had reached his limit with this conversation. His friend may be an extrovert to the extreme, but he was good at recognizing when Bob needed a break.

Jessica nodded as well and patted him on the chest before she pranced off into Jake's open arms. They shared the most adorable looking kisses before Jake straightened out her glasses and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Have her home by midnight, Bob!" he called as he released her.

Bob nodded wishing there was someone besides the elderly woman who lived in the duplex next to him that cared if he was out past midnight or not. Even though he always looked forward to playing Dungeons & Dragons, he kind of wanted to head home and call it an early night. Nothing sounded as good as sending an email to Nat before reading his new book. But he would wait until later, and maybe he would even be in the mood to get his laptop out.

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Anna went back to her studio apartment empty handed. Well, that wasn't quite true. She didn't buy any books, but she did splurge on a six dollar bottle of wine which would probably taste disgusting. She just hoped it would help her sleep through the night after reading some sad poetry and eating a piece of toast for dinner.

That guy from the bookstore was going to linger in her mind for a long time whether she wanted him to or not. She was more attracted to him after five minutes in his presence than she was to Kevin at any point in the past five years. And if she was going to start thinking about Kevin, she was probably going to cry.

The toast was good, but the wine was bad. And she did cry a little bit. She was never going to get attached to the idea of being in a relationship ever again. She was never going to have herself that level of intimacy just to have it ripped away. She wouldn't allow it. Relying on herself would have to be enough. Handsome strangers with muscular, veiny arms and cute glasses who made her laugh were not part of the plan. That's why she ducked behind the end cap after she left him a book she thought he might like. She watched him buy it for himself, which left her almost breathless. If she allowed herself to, she could picture him sitting in a coffee shop sipping some tea and reading that book.

"Enough," she whispered, vision a little sloppy from the wine. She opened up the website called PoetsAmongUs, read a bookmarked collection about how good it would feel to be loved completely, and passed out.

The realization that she was going to have to spend all of Sunday afternoon getting ready for the week was made slightly easier by the fact that she only had four hundred square feet of space to clean. And then she thought about the beautiful home she once had in New Jersey, and she had to finish the bottle of wine to help her get through her notes on The Great Gatsby.

She was still thinking about that hot guy with the glasses on Monday when she grabbed a donut from the teacher's lounge. Indulging in a little fantasy here and there about being loved and cared for wouldn't be so bad. And putting his face to it just made it even sexier. When she wasn't teaching, she let her mind wander to some possibilities that would never happen again. Pretty eyes, lean muscles, soft looking hair, pink cheeks. He probably had nice friends, too. He probably never cheated on anything in his life.

"Hey, Anna? Are you alright?"

She looked up from her bag of peanuts and realized she'd been so deep in thought, she wasn't paying attention to the lunch conversation. "I'm sorry," she replied, fighting the urge to groan. She wasn't very good at this stuff and should have probably just eaten lunch in her office like she did the past few days. The fact that it was Wednesday and she was still distracted was concerning to her.

"Don't apologize. You just seem lost in thought," said Jessica as she ate another perfect looking lunch.

"Do you want some chips and hummus? Bradley packed me too much food today," her other friend said. And of course he did, because he sounded like a damn dream.

Anna ate a few chips and sighed. "Have either of you ever had your heart smashed to bits?" She didn't really mean to say that out loud, but now that she had, she was met with an awkward silence that she wanted to run away from.

"Yeah," Advanced Calculus replied softly. "And I did it to myself."

"Not my heart as much as my hopes and dreams," Advanced Physics added. "But for me, I think that was much worse."

Now the silence that followed wasn't quite as painful, but Anna was still a little embarrassed. "Yeah. All of the above." She cleared her throat and tried to think of something else to talk about, but her mind was still on the bookstore. "Hey, why didn't you tell me that San Diego is full of hot guys? They are literally everywhere. I went window shopping in North Park and got sucked into a bookstore, and I bumped into a guy with glasses who smelled so nice."

"Ohhh, what did he look like?"

Anna sighed. "You know how you can just tell a guy is really strong even though he doesn't have bulging muscles?"

"Mmhmm."

"He was like that." Anna bit into her sandwich and chewed it slowly. "Pretty eyes, kind of the color of a lake. Sandy hair. Wire glasses. Soft spoken. He smelled like a cup of tea."

A few seconds later, she was snapped back from her drifting thoughts as Advanced Calculus asked, "Did you say this was at a bookstore in North Park?"

"Yes," Anna replied with a nod.

"Did you get his name?" Advanced Physics asked.

"No," she answered, still embarrassed over the fact that she hid from him.

And then she thought she was going to get whiplash again.

"Was he about six feet tall?"

"Was he slim but not skinny?"

"Did he blush when he smiled?"

"Will you please come to the Hard Deck this weekend?"

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Bradley is so proud of the fact that Sugar fell for him when they were in college. Beer Boy just gets better with age. This little Bob and Anna meet cute might spell disaster when they figure it all out! Thanks to @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 3

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#bob floyd x oc #robert bob floyd x oc #robert bob floyd #bob floyd #bob floyd imagine #robert floyd imagine #robert floyd x oc #bob floyd fic #bob floyd fanfiction #robert floyd fic #robert floyd #top gun imagine #top gun maverick imagine #top gun fanfiction #top gun maverick fanfiction #roosterforme #covering the classics

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kyluxtrashpit · 1 year

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No morals just memes anon returns with a truly wild update.

Crime Spree is running for office (local). And IM his running partner.

He said it’s because I give such wholesome vibes. And he did ask Meme Lord herself. And she said “what, with my reputation? Ah yes, the ex cult leader, currently working for the mob (long running joke about that company) of her own free will, (fun fact, upon hearing about the trade she made, her mum, my mother in law now, paid out the debt with interest, chewed her out, and demanded that meme lord come work for her, to which she said “eww, hell no”) who a not huge but probably statistically significant portion of the town this either thinks is fae, a warlock or the actual reaper (oh that’s an interesting story too) is a great look running beside some ex actual gang leader (it’s now and has been for a while, officially just a hangout spot and game club).

Man, small town, old money drama is something else… I love when wealthy people fight but holy crap being in the middle of it and married to one is trip.

Anyways, up until the other week, I thought meme lord was sitting this one out.

That was until this week I caught her. Literally as she jumped a fence and almost landed directly on me.

Doing what, you ask?

Attacking someone with a hateful anti pride sign at a charity event disguised as a supporter of the opposition. Shouting about how once [redacted] is in office, he will ‘run all you types out of town and it’ll be good riddance’.

What she had to say about it? “They’ve been sending plenty of hate mail and the like. Would this really be a stretch? ‘I was fearing for my life when one of those, you knows, were yelling in my face to leave or were going to have a problem. What if they followed me home?’ heh, I wouldn’t be shocked”

But [redacted] is definitely going to have one hell of a time explaining that one. Especially since, Meme Lord is right. I wouldn’t be shocked.

This only because one of [redacted]s supporters slashed Crime Sprees tires to stop him from appearing at an event and then when he showed up anyways, because Meme Lord is his sister (in every way except for blood, huge relief and explains a lot about their relationship) drives like a goddamn psychopath, they tried to run up and pepper spray him too before they realised who’s car he just pulled up in.

Fast forward to now, I am making cupcakes for a fundraiser. Meme Lord is working on a recipe with my boss. It’s crazy how moments of chaos can go from 0 to 100 back to 0 like that

Omg every time I get an ask from you, it never disappoints lmao. Your life does not feel real, like I haven’t watched succession but this feels like some small town version of it. Tbh though good on her for fucking with bigots, that’s the best use possible of such chaotic power. Though it seems your local elections are much more exciting than those where I live sksjdjs

Good luck I guess though! Both with the election and all the general chaos, as always lmao

#every time I see the start of one of your asks #I just know it’s gonna be a trip and you have never disappointed skskkds #ask tag #anon #text #misc

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royivia · 3 years

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The Neighborhood

Sibyl Campbell wasn’t even mad when she woke up on a hot ass May morning in her room, drenched in sweat. Instead, she bypassed anger and went straight to resignation because the HVAC system in the Robert Moses Houses was broken — again — and she didn’t have the time or the energy to bitch about it. In fact, the heating and cooling stayed shutting off across Groundview Gardens. It had become a predictable kind of disappointment in the neighborhood, more so than flooding during superstorms or the fact that no matter which part of the neighborhood you were in, you could feel the rumbling of the shuttle every seven minutes.

Sibyl had spent all night coughing and turning in her bed from the claustrophobic heat that agitated her asthma. Her mother had already gone to work, otherwise, she would have heard Mildred Campbell yelling in indignant patwa over the phone at an Arcadian Realty & Management representative “to fix the damn AC” before she threatened to call 311 on their ass, and report them to the city. Both Mildred and the AR&M rep knew it was an empty threat, but to shut her up, they’d call someone who’d tinker with the system and the air would come back on for a couple of days or so, before it chipped out. And then, the routine would start again.

Sibyl checked the weather. It was already ninety-five degrees. She took a puff from her inhaler and scrolled through her timeline. The same picture of a little girl with a big bright smile captioned with different variations of “RIP Destiny’’ and prayers for her family flooded her feed. Sibyl forced herself out of bed. The sweat on her body made her feel uncomfortable. She hauled a clunky, old portable air conditioner out from her closet and plugged it into the wall. Management would fine them for the spike in their energy use, but she didn’t care. She pushed the power button on, and waited for the box to cough out some hot air before it eventually cooled the room down from a humid haze to a lackluster lukewarm.

SOIL had been trying to meet with AR&M, the neighborhood’s collective management company, about the HVAC problem with little to no success for close to three years. They had circulated petitions. Tried shaming them in the local news. They even considered organizing a rent strike, which would have done nothing because everybody who lived in Groundview Gardens received subsidies from the city that made rent practically free. And as much as people were pissed about freezing their asses off in the winter or not being able to breathe during the summer, nobody was tryna fight free rent. So, SOIL decided to annoy the shit out of their landlords instead. On their way into their coolly ventilated corporate office buildings, occupying their lobbies, picketing in front of their luxury condos, and most effectively, managing to damage one, or two, of their solar-powered generators in the hottest month New York City had ever seen. A few arrests and some pissed off rich people later, management finally agreed to hold a town hall to hear from their tenants, which meant SOIL’s next plan of action was to convince as many people as possible to show up. Nefi Ramos saw it as a challenge that they could surely accomplish. Her neighbors were like camels to water in a desert. They were thirsty, and had learned to go without for as long as they needed to, but lead them to a watering hole, and they would drink.

“It’s too fucking hot,” she shouted into her megaphone. She was standing in front of one of the many large screens around Groundview that cycled between ads for things they couldn’t afford and AR&M’s infamous “neighborhoods of tomorrow” promotional video. Most people just used the screens to check train arrival times and the air quality. The next shuttle was two minutes away, and the air was currently “unsafe for vulnerable groups.”

“Are we just supposed to take this shit?” Nefi asked. “We don’t deserve to live like this.”

Around her, the rest of SOIL handed out cold bottles of water, popsicles, and fruit cups from coolers filled with melting ice, along with flyers to people walking towards the train platform. They walked past the demonstration uninterestedly, only stopping long enough to take a bottle of water. Everyone had gotten used to Nefi shouting at them to care about things beyond their control, and learned to tune her and the rest of her angry SOILders out, taking their flyers every now and then only to chuck them into the nearest trash can. This morning, a few people did stop to listen for a second or two, the heat getting the better of them, before they saw the time flicker on the screen behind her, and realized that they’d be late for work.

Sibyl, her camera always strapped to her body, snapped a few shots of her neighbor. Nefi was like a loud older cousin who wasn’t afraid of a little trouble, or frankly anything. She both awed and terrified Sibyl.

“It’s time for these slumlords to sweat,” Nefi went on. “We need to organize. Our voices are stronger together — ”

“What makes you think anyone gives a shit about what happens to us down here?”

Mr. Solomon had been on his way to the bodega to buy his morning loosie, but stopped to sit in his walker, taking a moment to catch his breath.

“That’s exactly what they want us to think, vecino.” Nefi softened her voice in that way she did when she was trying not to shout. “The more we believe that we can’t make them pay attention to us, the longer they get away with treating us like shit.”

“I remember when they first moved people into Groundview.” In the midst of reminiscing, Mr. Solomon started coughing aggressively, prompting someone to hand him a bottle of water which he drank quickly before continuing. “We were protesting and shouting in the streets, but they didn’t care then. They’re not gonna care now.” The history lesson quickly turned into yet another heated debate about neighborhood politics between him and some of the other SOILders trying to convince him to take one of their flyers. Sibyl used the opportunity to catch Nefi’s attention, who waved her over enthusiastically.

“Yo, did you hear?” Nefi handed her a fruit cup. “We finally got a meeting with the overlords! Are you gonna come?”

“Nahhh, Nefi. You know that’s not really my thing…I’m not an activist.” Nefi was always trying to recruit her for some radical ass shit that just never seemed worth the trouble of explaining to Sibyl’s very Jamaican mother.

“Nobody said you had to be. You live in this neighborhood, and have just as much say about what happens in it as the suits who own it.” Nefi sensed Sibyl’s hesitation. “Please Sib! Come so we have more people in the room. You don’t have to say anything. We just want those dicks to see that we have power. People power!”

Nefi was very proud of the fact that she had an uncle, or it might have been a second cousin, who had been a member of the Young Lords and, drawing on their legacy of fighting for the liberation of Puerto Ricans, was always going on about the oppressive nature of renting, and self-determination for poor people, and community empowerment, and, and…

“Aight — I’ll go,” Sibyl assured her, trying to cut her sermon short. Nefi hugged her and thanked her a million times before shoving a stack of flyers into her arms to pass out and post up around the neighborhood.

The singular garden in Groundview Gardens was usually ten degrees cooler than anywhere else in the neighborhood. It was created — not by the architects who had designed New York City’s newest development, but instead — by the community out of desperation as an escape from their cramped apartments. During the days, the older folks used it to grow their herbs, medicines, and flowers for their healing practices. The local farmers grew produce that fed the community. After school and on the weekends, all the kids hung out at the community center at the heart of the garden where they learned to dance, make art, and play music.

By the time Sybil got there later that night, Groundview’s collective of artists had already transformed the greenspace into their Saturday night hangout. One of the DJs was spinning records. People were dancing, drinking, smoking, having a good time. Dante, Sage, and Felix had bottles in their hands when Sibyl joined them at their usual spot. Their clothes were covered in colorful patches of spray paint.

“Did you finish it? When do I get to see it?,” she asked them excitedly. She hadn’t seen her friends in about a week, which meant they were either done with their latest mural or were taking a break before they disappeared for another few days. “Soon.” Dante looked tired, but excitement danced in his eyes. “Shoot anything good lately?” He leaned in reaching for her camera, but she quickly pulled back from him.

He laughed at her and took a sip of beer. Dante was her oldest friend out of the trio. There was a quiet protectiveness between the two of them Sibyl hoped they could always maintain.

“It’s been a minute since I last checked.”

“How come?” Dante asked.

Sibyl usually couldn’t wait to hold herself up in the darkroom at the community center to develop her film, but she had been putting off her latest batch. She’d fallen in love with photography while taking classes at the center as a kid. So much so that one day, her mother came home with an old film camera and Sibyl never put it down. That first summer, she ran around the neighborhood asking to take people’s photos. It felt so natural to her, though it had taken a while to gain people’s trust. Take their pictures for what? What was she going to do with them? Skeptics, but curious, they eventually agreed. They’d uncomfortably pose or force a smile, and then immediately ask her to see it because if they didn’t look good, she’d have to delete it. Then she’d explain how film photography worked, and they’d cuss her out for wasting their time.

Weeks later, she’d find them again — at the corner store, or at the People’s Garden, and give them the glossy prints she’d developed. Through her lens she could see they were secretly afraid she’d see the things they’d all spent so much time and concern trying to hide. But those things would all melt away when they’d see themselves — some for the first time — with the same worth and value she saw in them. After that Sibyl didn’t have to ask. They booked her for quinces and graduation parties and engagement photos. People would stop her when they saw her around. “So you not gonna take my picture? Girl, you know I look good today. Quit playing and snap something quick,” and they’d pose with more pride than before, as if to officially celebrate the triumph of living, something they didn’t know they had accomplished until they saw proof.

After seeing so many of her neighbors’ pictures, some of which she took, circulate in online memorials, something lodged itself in the pit of Sibyl’s gut. She couldn’t fully identify what it was, but it left her with little energy to feel or do anything else outside of going to school and work. But she didn’t know how to explain that to her friends without being weird or bringing down the mood, so she just said, “Been busy with school.” She quickly changed the subject before anyone tried to press her on it.

“Are ya gonna go to the town hall?”

“What town hall?” Sage asked.

“The one with management. About the HVACs.” Sibyl handed them flyers from her bag. “I promised Nefi I’d go, but I don’t want to go by myself. Someone come with me?”

“Pass,” Felix snorted.

“I’ll go. Should be fun,” Sage said with a smirk on their face. “I wanna hear what those assholes say their excuse is for not fixing shit.”

“I’ll save ya the trip. Sorry, you’re too poor for us to care,” Felix mocked. “It’s not like they’re all of a sudden gonna have a conscience ya know.”

“You mad negative bro,” Dante said.

“What?” Felix asked animatedly. “You really trying to spend the rest of your life down here? We all need to focus on getting the fuck up outta here instead of asking them to fix some janky ass vents.”

It’s not like anybody was trying to spend any part of their lives in Groundview, but lately it seemed like the rest of their lives wouldn’t take so long. The sound of the shuttle, more muffled than anywhere else, reverberated throughout the garden.

“I’m out the first chance I get,” Dante admitted. His answer wasn’t surprising to any of them, but this was the first time Sibyl heard him say it out loud. Dante was one of the more talented and disciplined artists in the collective. It would only be a matter of time before he blew up and left.

“What happens when ya leave though?” Sage was upset. “You get out, but what about the rest of us? Not everybody can up and leave right? Shouldn’t we try and make shit better for everyone.”

“That’s a trap, Sage. Shit’s not gonna get better,” Felix said harshly. “Does it ever hit ya, like really hit ya that there’s no future for us here? Everybody’s so busy working to get by, we don’t even have time to realize how fucked up everything is.”

“I’m not saying it’s perfect.” Sage shot back. “I just don’t think we have to turn our back on our community. That’s fucked up.”

“Don’t take it so personally, Sage,” Dante cut in. “Nobody’s turning their backs on anyone.”

“Besides, no offense to Nefi n ‘em,” Felix said, “but everybody’s wasting their time if they think those suits are gonna fix anything.”

Sibyl listened quietly. Groundview was all they ever knew. She had never considered leaving it, and yet she also was afraid to admit that she thought Felix might be right.

The middle school auditorium only had like fifteen people — half were members of SOIL — in there that Tuesday night, which was more than Nefi had expected. The handful of people who told her they wanted to go to the town hall, but couldn’t, were either working, or would get home too late from work and would have to cook dinner or iron school uniforms for the next day. Everyone else couldn’t be bothered; like Felix, they thought it was a waste of time. That nothing would come from it. Sibyl didn’t show. No one who attended the town hall actually thought anything would come from it either. If AR&M had wanted to do something, they would have done it a long ass time ago. The people who did show up were mostly Nefi’s elderly neighbors who were always ready to spit their anger into a mic because if they weren’t going to get a solution, they would at least get to cuss someone out, and have an audience to witness it.

Nefi worked her way around the room to thank people for coming. These things always felt like family reunions to her. Old friends hugging and catching up because they hadn’t seen each other in a minute, with work and family and life moving everybody in this or that direction, even though they all still lived in the same neighborhood. She finished up her greetings and joined the rest of SOIL, huddled at the front of the room. They went over the order of speakers, before Benjy, the group’s designated peacemaker for the evening, asked everyone to quiet down and get seated so they could start. He reminded everyone to keep it civil. Then one by one, people got up to the mic to direct their anger at the empty faces in tailored suits, sitting at the table in front of them, who could all care less about the people shouting at them. There was a lot of finger snapping, and “that’s right” and “tell-em’s” from the crowd throughout.

Finally about half an hour in, a young woman, with a little girl clutching on to the left side of her body, got up to the mic.

“My name is Mercy Brooks, and this is my daughter Angelique.” Her voice was shaking, in that soft, angry, pissed off kinda way that warranted attention. Nefi hushed the crowd down so that she could speak her peace without interruption. “My daughter’s asthma acts up almost every day. She can’t breathe. Ya should be fucking ashamed of yaselves. Our babies are dying down here. Is that what we deserve because we can’t do better? We just supposed to take that shit. You ever thought about what it’s like to live down here, huh? I’m sure ya don’t cause if you did, you wouldn’t think it was right to keep people living like this. Or do ya not care cause it’s not your kids?”

There was silence from the table, which was worse than feigning any sympathy or remorse. It set the room off into chants, which meant it was over from there. AR&M security shut that shit down quick right on cue, and if you weren’t arrested that night, you were brusquely escorted out. Management promised to set up some vague kind of task force with representatives from the neighborhood, but it led to nothing. A fucking disappointment, that’s what that shit was. And it wasn’t a surprise to Nefi or anyone else, but it hurt all the same. A few weeks later, that same woman who got up and spoke, her daughter Angelique died because they couldn’t get her to the hospital in time after she had an asthma attack. AR&M still hadn’t fixed the vents in their housing complex. And they still didn’t change the filters or fix the ducts in the other housing complexes so that it wouldn’t happen again after that. SOIL kept trying to drum up some kind of anger. Anything to get people to feel something. To do something.

Murals of Destiny, Angelique, and every other person who had died that year quietly popped up around the neighborhood. Vigils and altars with flowers and prayer candles accompanied them. But as much as people were upset or sad, no one knew what else to do except mourn and move on because it was clear to everyone that no one gave a damn about them. And so, what was the point?

They called it the Subterranean Housing and Inner-City Tunnels project, or S.H.I.T. for short. A plan to provide affordable housing for everyone who had experienced the worst housing crisis New York City had ever seen. People were evicted left and right. Families were priced out of their homes and neighborhoods. The shelter system, swelled beyond its limits for decades, finally collapsed. The streets and subway were overrun with people in sleeping bags and blankets. So nothing new, but it finally annoyed enough people to warrant action.

Naturally, the city contracted its most blood thirsty developers, AR&M, to help solve the problem, which was kinda like asking an arsonist to put out a fire they had proudly started. To no one’s surprise, they didn’t want to forfeit any of their luxury condos that sat empty while people slept on the streets. Instead, they struck a deal to create the largest scale of public housing of its kind, in exchange for absolute, unregulated freedom. The only problem was there was literally no land left for them to develop because they had already bought it all. And then one day, the chief architect of S.H.I.T. had an epiphany when he felt the uptown 6 train rumbling beneath his feet. There was an entire part of the city he had yet to consider. Where a majority of the people who needed housing were already living. Sprawling housing complexes with multi-unit apartments appeared overnight 150 feet underground, with the pilot site in the South Bronx. A new subway station and miles and miles of foot tunnels connected New York’s newest neighborhood to the world above it.

There were protests, anger, outrage! That the country’s most progressive city could so blatantly, and quickly!, shove all of its poor people out of sight only seemed to bother the poor people because everyone else praised S.H.I.T. as the most innovative solution of the 21st century. New York City had done the impossible, and housed every single person. That was grounds for celebration and federal funding. Plans were quickly announced to roll S.H.I.T. out across every major city in the country. To ease people’s concerns, the mayor at the time, eyeing a presidential run, promised that his own city’s underground neighborhood would just be temporary — transitional housing at best. Transitional to what, no one could answer. Temporary until when? Until they could think of something else. One year became five, became ten, etc., etc.

In time, AR&M and the city eventually added a couple schools, a hospital, a library, and a sad excuse for a park that residents eventually turned into the People’s Garden. Folks opened up bodegas, 99 cent and liquor stores, and made themselves at home. It didn’t take long to accept living where they did as another fact of life because they had no other choice. Over time, the plan to move everyone back aboveground disappeared from the city’s housing briefings. Then, the briefings disappeared altogether. The high rates of asthma and chronic bronchitis that seemed to come from living in Groundview occasionally made the nightly news, but not enough to cause major concern or stop neighborhoods like Groundview from popping up across the country.

There were still those who remembered life before Groundview, and vowed to move out of the neighborhood as soon as the opportunity arrived. They kept the dream close to their hearts. And if it didn’t happen during their lifetimes, they’d make sure it would happen during their children’s. More realized it was a fool’s dream and moved on. Eventually though, everyone adapted to the vibrations of the shuttle inside their kitchens. The white, fluorescent lighting that lit every corner of their world like a harsh, artificial sun. The damp, muggy air that arrested their chests if they tried to breathe too freely. And the humming of the massive ventilation systems that heated and cooled their cramped, windowless apartments — when they decided to work.

An Artist’s Treatise on Survival

I don’t know how we do it sometimes. That is, put up with all the shit that life throws at us. Work jobs that exhaust us with little in return. Take care of our families with little to no support. Do so much with so little. And still be able to smile or laugh in the midst of it all. Then, I remember: it’s because we have to. No one else is gonna pay our bills if we don’t. No one else is gonna put food on our tables for us. No one’s gonna bail us out. Naturally, you learn to hustle. To channel your frustrations into working around the way things are because trying to fix things that were built broken takes time you don’t have when you’re just trying to get by.

What gets me even more is how we’ve perfected survival itself as an artform, and created whole new types of living from abject desperation. We wasn’t supposed to, much less find reasons to enjoy life, but we did anyway. Some even take on the added challenge of trying to make life more bearable, more enjoyable, for the rest of us. For example, sometimes when it felt like there wasn’t much to appreciate. That you were resigned to the fate of being alive and not living and didn’t deserve any better. You’d see a mural. On the way to the laundromat. Or the corner store. While you were running errands. Or walking home, bone tired, from the train after another long, shitty day at work. And like all good, beautiful things, it reminded you to breathe. You didn’t always know who created it. Or couldn’t remember if it was there the day before even though you’ve walked that way millions of times. You just knew that it was, in its own way, encouraging you to make it to tomorrow. Bright bursts of color and story interrupting the mundane, tiresome every day you’d come to accept with no protest. After a while, it becomes easier to accept a simple truth about living. That we can still manage to find a reason to laugh, to enjoy life, despite it all, and that we can be the source of our own power. It’s kind of audacious of us to still try and find joy even if it means creating it for ourselves. Maybe that’s why we do it.

At first, it started off as harmless tagging, and they kept it up chasing the thrill of not getting caught. Then they tried to outdo each other. It became a sport: who could paint the better mural. Get the most buzz around the neighborhood before they got painted over. But the better they got, and the more the murals looked legit, the longer they stayed up. Until they stopped painting over them altogether because people loved them so much. They didn’t belong to the creators anymore. They belonged to the neighborhood. And before they knew it, they’d created something much bigger than any of them could have imagined.

The tunnels just seemed like the next natural step for the graffiti artists in Groundview. Miles and miles of blank walls? Dante, especially, saw something to keep him busy after his brother died. Besides, painting murals felt like the only thing he could do. He’d stopped going to school. He’d just paint. When he ran out of ideas to paint, he asked Sibyl to see her portraits, and he started replicating them across the neighborhood. He was relentless — portrait after portrait. Sage and Felix started helping him out because they worried he would lose it, spending all that time in the tunnels by himself. He was grasping for something, but he didn’t know what it was. Until he saw it, lying on the ground near a garbage can.

The Groundview Residents’ List of Demands

The People of Groundview Gardens demand financial and social restitution for all residents, especially those who developed chronic health issues from living underground and/or have lost loved ones because of it.

The People demand New York City move all Groundview residents back above ground into rent subsidized apartments.

The People demand New York City disband all underground housing policies so that no one else has to live in Groundview Gardens or any other housing project like it.

Until the first three demands are met, The People demand Arcadian Realty & Management fix the HVAC systems in every single housing complex it owns and regularly maintain them.

Once Groundview Gardens is fully evacuated, The People demand New York City turn the entire neighborhood into a public memorial to commemorate the loss of life, preserving the art and The People’s Garden.

After the town hall, and the supposed task force, proved to be a bust, SOIL had created the demands to deliver to the city. They circulated leaflets with the five bullet points, but no one would take them seriously. Dante himself, admittedly, had checked out, and had ignored SOIL’s literature, up until that point. The demands appeared overnight on the walls of the tunnels in bold white paint for everyone to see. They were the last thing everyone saw coming into Groundview and the first thing they saw from the shuttle on their commutes leaving the neighborhood.

Nefi kept waiting for the moment when her neighbors would suddenly realize that they were angry — very angry. They’d decide they were fed up once and for all and refuse to settle for less anymore. They’d riot in the streets. They’d protest in front of AR&M’s offices. They’d refuse to go into work until something changed. Their anger would get everyone’s attention. Her own rage had burned intensely inside her for as long as she knew herself. She learned to channel it through SOIL trying to make Groundview a better place, even though everyone told her it wasn’t worth it; it wasn’t possible; it was a waste of time. But it was either that or literally set some shit on fire. But, it didn’t matter how many rallies, tenant meetings, town halls, or demonstrations SOIL organized. Nefi learned that she couldn’t have a revolution without people. And the people? They were tired and overworked. They didn’t have time to overthrow anything. And, even though no one would admit it, they were also afraid — afraid of change, of what they could lose, of realizing that something greater than what they had come to know was possible. So to save themselves, and Nefi, further disappointment, they rebuffed her again, and again: Nefi you need to chill. Girl you’re doing too much. Don’t waste your time. Nothing’s gonna change. After the town hall, and years and years of holding hope, the fire inside Nefi dulled until she couldn’t recognize herself anymore. She conceded her rage for high-functioning hopelessness. She withdrew from her friends, from her neighbors, from SOIL, only tapping into enough energy to wake up, go to work, and make her way back home. The days bled into each other, so much so that when the night Nefi had been waiting for eventually came later that August, it caught her completely off guard. It caught everyone off guard because it wasn’t the HVACs or the deaths of toddlers, or even the wrath towards AR&M that finally set people off. But it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone who’s lived in New York City long enough because it was the one thing that could incite the level of large-scale anarchic rage Nefi had been holding out for — and that was the MTA.

The night in question, the air was hot, muggy, and heavy with potential. Like any other evening, people were heading home from work, the collective exhaustion weighing down on their bodies, stamped into their faces. They waited together, huddled in a sweaty mass on the sweltering Third Ave-138th St. platform for a train that felt like it would never come. When an empty shuttle finally did arrive in the station, the doors opened to the grating sound of a man’s voice coming through the train’s speaker system:

“Attention passengers. This is your conductor speaking. Due to unplanned construction up ahead, we are disbanding all trains to Groundview Gardens at this time. I repeat, we are disbanding all trains to Groundview. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

This shit had happened plenty of times before. A disruption of service that made it difficult to get home. Everybody was so used to it and had even come to expect it. The inconvenience of being poor and powerless consistently working against them. It too had become a predictable kind of disappointment. Even the audible, collective disapproval was muted and slightly rehearsed, nothing more than a reflex. They would have to find their way home, some two-odd miles on foot, through the tunnels. But that night, Ms. Claudette, who had been on her feet all day at work taking care of her elderly patient and still had to go home and iron her scrubs for the next day, was fucking tired. She had paid her fare. And, she had paid her taxes. She had also paid her dues in this country — twenty-seven years worth of struggle and debasement — for what? This could not be it. Life could not just be disappointment. The least she expected was that the train would get her home like it was supposed to. She decided that she was going to let the conductor have a piece of her mind.

“This is nonsense. Tell me, just tell me, how am I supposed to get home?” Her boisterous St. Lucian accent traveled well beyond her.

Folks who heard her echoed in agreement, hyping her up. “They have the nerve to raise prices for this shitty ass service,” someone said loudly. They all collectively decided to board the empty train. The construction workers in their hard hats and massive boots, the women with their large tote bags and their tiredness neatly folded away into themselves. They were all going to sit on the train, until it started up again. It was going to take them home.

The conductor was tired too. Nothing as deep-seated as his passengers, but something not too far removed. He had no skin in this game though, and his job didn’t pay him enough to care. He was annoyed; they were keeping him from clocking out. And so, after listening to a bunch of people passionately curse him out, he told them to, and I quote:

“Write a letter.”

It happened so fast. I mean, when I say shit popped off before anyone could swallow their spit. Someone knocked over the trash cans on the platform. Someone else, set them on fire, with what to this day no one really knows, but their latent anger seemed to have ignited what they didn’t know was inside them.

The riots lasted for weeks. People boycotted the MTA and didn’t go to work.

The restaurants aboveground shuttered because they were understaffed. Construction on all the new developments stopped because the workers, a lot of whom lived in Groundview, refused to show up. People aboveground had to stay home because their nannies and house cleaners weren’t able to come and relieve them like they had come to rely on. Groundview had forced the city to come to a complete stop. The mayor held a press conference saying she didn’t condone the behavior of the vandals at the train station. SOIL led protests and demonstrations in front of city hall until she had to hold a second press conference to apologize for her statements at the first press conference. She promised she was going to make sure that it would never happen again — not just the riots, but the unnecessary deaths in Groundview, the resentment the residents felt towards the city. They were going to fix the HVACs, and the MTA! They were going to heal the great divide the city had long thrived on once and for all, if, and only if, the workers called off the strike and went back to work. It sounded so sincere, everyone wanted to believe it. Tired of holding all the power, they asked SOIL to represent them at the bargaining table. Deals were made. Hands were shaken. And things went back to a semblance of normal with a few slight adjustments.

Sibyl was heading out of her apartment when she saw a piece of yellow paper on her front door.

60 DAYS NOTICE TO INCREASE RENT

Mildred Campbell 207 167th St. (GG), Unit 10E

Beginning September 1, 2041, the monthly rent will go up an additional 5% for all units located in the Robert Moses Houses. Please make the appropriate adjustments within the AR&M digital payment system.

We appreciate your continued tenancy.

Sincerely, Arcadian Realty & Management

Pieces of yellow paper were taped to every single door she passed on her way to the train. It had been a year since the last time the heating or cooling had stopped working. Everyone held their breath celebrating, just in case that was when the heat would shut off or the air would decide to stop working again, but it never did. The number of deaths and hospitalizations went down, and everyone seemed content enough after the strikes and boycott ended, to go back to work. The trains even went back to running as efficiently as possible for the MTA, always teetering on the edge of collapse, but never actually approaching it for fear of recreating another opportunity for mass rebellion.

On her way to the shuttle, Sibyl saw a group of people congregating near one of the murals. She clutched her camera in her hand, ready to raise it to her face, when she heard a voice she didn’t recognize shouting through a megaphone. It belonged to a man she had never seen around the neighborhood before, and he was walking backwards while talking to a group of people Sibyl also didn’t recognize.

“Groundview is the latest up and coming neighborhood in the city,” his voice echoed. “Some of the most promising young artists have gotten their start in this urban — ”

She didn’t stick around to hear more.

After the riots, small groups of tourists descended regularly on Groundview like vultures to see the murals they had seen in viral photographs. They’d rudely block the paths from the train platform, or take up way too much space on the footpaths of the tunnels posing in front of the murals for pictures. Not long after that came the opportunistic hacks who had never stepped foot in Groundview before, running “culture tours’’ around the neighborhood. The residents felt like they were stuck in some sick and twisted museum. Out of annoyance, they banned the tours and non-residents from the People’s Garden, preserving their one last sanctuary in the community.

Sibyl had been in the middle of it all the first night of the riots. She was on the subway platform on her way home from classes and started snapping pictures once she realized what was going on, catching the fervent energy better than anyone could describe to everyone else who wasn’t there. She had no idea her photos would end up everywhere. But they did, and they not only helped draw attention to the plight of her neighborhood. They also drew attention to the wealth of talent germinating underneath the city. Her photos of her friends, their murals, and the other members of her neighborhood, had also attracted a lot of attention that felt good to the young artists who all of a sudden saw opportunities previously unavailable to them right at their doorsteps.

The shuttle arrived on the platform before her. Sibyl boarded the cool air-conditioned cart; the beads of sweat on her skin quickly evaporated. Nefi had warned them to be careful early on. “These things always end up having you exploit your own people for a cheap come up, and it’s never worth it.” Everyone thought she was trippin’. There Nefi was again just looking for another cause to fight now that her crusade against A&RM had seemed to come to an end. Even Sibyl thought she was overreacting at first. People were finally paying attention to Groundview. If she and the rest of the artists could help show the world how important the lives of the people who lived there were, maybe things could change for the better.

The train disappeared into the tunnel towards the 138th St. station. A lot of things had quietly changed over the last year and a half. Many of the families who had lost loved ones, including Dante’s, received settlements from the city and moved out of the neighborhood, leaving a sizable number of the apartments empty. Leading to perhaps the most visible addition to the neighborhood. AR&M had a couple of the younger artists looking for their own big break paint over SOIL’s list of demands and replaced it with a more “aesthetically inviting” message for the new visitors to the neighborhood: Welcome to the Mural District. Sibyl had only heard the tour guides call it that, in an unveiled attempt to rebrand Groundview. It didn’t take too long to find out where they got it from. The name and the welcome sign led to intense debates between the artists in the collective, including her friends, about people selling out and what they owed to each other as artists and their neighbors, which led to a few people splitting off and doing their own thing. The mural made Sibyl sick to her stomach, and she tried her best to avoid seeing it on her commutes. Then one day, someone started covering it up with black graffiti making the message unreadable.

No one knew who it was because they never got caught, but it didn’t matter to AR&M. Like clockwork the next morning, they had cleaners paint a fresh welcome message over it in time for the daily tours at noon. When the welcome message started appearing on the AR&M screens, the screens started getting covered in graffiti too. After a few months, Sibyl expected the guerilla painters to give up and move on, but they didn’t. Fresh graffiti kept appearing over the mural and on the screens, prompting AR&M to deploy their clean up crews, and then the routine would start again. Sibyl looked out the window in anticipation. “OURS.” The word, written over and over again across the mural, quickly came into view and then vanished out of sight.

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fijiangecko · 3 years

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Maintaining a New Life

Chapter 8 - In Motion

Read it on AO3 here

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~~~~~~

The sun had risen and set 3 times since each group began their hunts. Each day providing no new information and the hope of keeping each other safe felt as if it was getting farther and farther away. Kuroo, Oikawa and Iwazumi split off into two groups most of the time, Oikawa and Kuroo walking around town while Iwaizumi kept an eye out for any Port Mafia patrols and your car.

Iwaizumi refused to be alone with Kuroo, stating multiple times that he would “rather gauge his own eyes out then look at the fuckwad who drove out one of his best friends”. A tad bit harsh for Oikawa's taste, but he maintained the peace between the two whenever they brought tension to the table. Kuroo doesn’t mean to be irritating but there’s still so much he doesn’t understand, and these two don’t help in answering his questions since they don’t know much about your past and why you left.

On your end of things, you decided to lay low during the day and do some rounds on the streets at dusk and dawn. Largely things remained the same for the Port Mafia: they operated on the schedule you created and stuck to the same routine based on what vehicles and hangouts you’d seen so far.

Guess they really haven’t progressed all that much since I left, you think while watching the endless stream of cars. Washijo’s health wasn’t too good, and I can’t imagine it’s gotten any better with all the stress of transferring power and dealing with the mess that I left.

After little to no new information and more questions than answers, the weekend rolled around and the sun has started to hang lower in the sky. You lean against the counter in your kitchen, sipping on a cup of tea and listen to the birds sing from tree to tree. Looking to the clock, you sigh and set the mug down, heading towards the bedroom.

If everything goes according to plan, this whole operation should be relatively quick and you can just leave the club within an hour of getting in. You sift through what little clothes you have and get ready to blend in with tonight’s crowd; standard makeup, nothing too flashy, and a relatively short dress to match. None of your shoes really fit, so the black sneakers would have to do for now.

With a deep breath, you take a final glance in the mirror and mentally prepare for whatever the night has in store. You double check that your car is stacked with any you could possibly need and rev the engine, taking the dirt road down onto the streets.

The sun starts to set over the horizon, leaving the bright orange orb blaring down on the asphalt as the tires roll down the highway. You don’t bother to turn on the radio, deciding to run through the plan and all of the backups you have prepared. Through public records you were able to find the new layout plans for “The Neon Nights”, so you knew relatively where everything should be and how to get to it. That didn’t always translate into action, though.

Instead of chewing on your lip you moved onto the inside of your cheek, ripping it to shreds over the course of the past couple of days. You haven’t been this nervous in quite a while and it was really starting to fuck with your head.

Confidence and assurance were two very different things but often got confused for one another. Back at the ADA everyone just believed you to be confident, and that’s not to say that you weren’t. You know you are one hell of a detective, doing the work that needs to be done and doing it effectively, but it was more so that you knew you were safe and around people that were relatively safe as well. Standard protocol in the Port Mafia was not to fuck with others that had gifts. Washijo always stated that it was to keep the peace on the streets, but that was total bullshit. At the very least, you knew that while the ADA was on their radar, there wasn’t anything that they would be able to do in order to harm your friends.

Now everything was uncertain, there was no more assurance. You didn’t know if they were going to be safe. Tendou always did what he wanted and Washijo just turned a blind eye to it. Now he knows that you’re alive and in Yokohama.

On top of that, he saw you with the two of your right hand men that left shortly after you and a new man from the ADA. Tooru and Hajime were found out because you got careless.

The Port Mafia is also aware now of who Kuroo is and that he has connections to you. There’s always going to be a crosshair aimed at the back of his head if you don’t get into that club tonight and do everything you possibly can to erase those damn records of not only your existence, but everyone you care about too.

You blink hard, letting the colors settle behind your eyelids before reopening your eyes and focusing on the road. The stream of thoughts that just crossed your mind had left your heart and head pounding.

Nothing will happen to them as long as everything goes as planned. I’ll find the data servers and wipe whatever I can then skip town. Again, you go through the plan as the last bit of sun disappears around the edge of the world.

Coming to a slow halt, you park a few blocks away and walk the area in order to secure a teleportation spot and secure an escape route. The checklist in your mind finally had everything marked and every movement from now on was going to be almost robotic as you try to act like the crowd around you. Countless couples and parties line the edge of the building you once knew as a headquarters, the stink of alcohol present already from those who were leaving the venue for whatever reason.

By your lonesome you wait to meet the bouncer at the door, minutes passing as the line dwindles down until you can hear the muffled electronic music. The ground felt like it was shaking from the hundreds of people all dancing just a few feet past this wall. You peer around a few people ahead of you and make note of a pin on the bouncer's suit jacket, confirming that this club is still under mafia control.

You take another deep breath and just hope that news of your reappearance was just kept to the inner circle and henchmen like him weren’t informed quite yet of what was happening. The person in front of you walks inside the club, leaving you face to face with the man with shades. He looks you up and down, your heart picking up as you smile sweetly. Charm wasn’t your specialty but you know the basics. Without another moment to spare, he nods towards the mass of people and you quickly take your place inside the dark and dense room.

The music increases tenfold from when you were outside, feeling the bass changing the rhythm of your heartbeat. Hundreds of people crowd the center of the room, dancing to their hearts out while others line the bars stretched out on the walls.

You walk to the furthest side of the bar, mapping out where you are in your head and making note of little landmarks on the map you practically memorized. Figuring it would look more natural, you squeeze yourself in and order something. Partially to calm your nerves.

“And the devil herself appears.” Chills run up and down your spine, the voice of whomever just spoke stopping you dead in your tracks. They lean in real close,from behind, lips grazing your ear, their breath warm against your skin as they whisper to you. “Nice to see you Y/N.”

Cautiously you turn your head and face the voice, only to be met with a head of bleached hair and a sultry smile. “Miss me?” He says while placing his hands on his hips.

“Terushima.” The tension in your body hadn’t quite left, unsure of where his loyalties are makes your mind run a thousand miles per second. You prepare to portal out of the club, but his hand on your wrist interrupts everything.

“Let’s have a chat in the back, yeah?” Before you even know what’s going on, you're being dragged to one of the side hallways and up a set of stairs. You take in the surroundings the best you can while being pulled along and realize that he’s taking you back to what used to be the main office area.

Terushima pushes open a set of doors into a lounge area. A large sectional couch faces glass panes that showcase the entirety of the club and a small personal bar and desk line the other two walls in the room. He lets go of the hold on your wrist and beelines it to the alcohol and starts to construct his own drink.

You’re stiff as a board in the center of the room, still taking in everything that just happened in the last two minutes. He watches as you try and create a plan, and laughs out loud at your distraught. “I’m not gonna tell anyone you know.”

It’s like your body snaps when you move to look at him. “Excuse me?”

“I said, ‘I’m not going to tell anyone’.” He strains his cocktail into a glass and saunters over to the couch, sitting himself down. “I really don’t do any work with the Port Mafia since I manage the club. There’s no real benefit to me telling them.”

“Wait,” you blink and scrunch your face together as you follow him down onto the couch, “you manage the club now?”

“Bingo.” The amber drink in his hands disappears slowly as it glides down his throat. “After you left and Tendou took over your position they redistributed everything and wanted to change our little jazz club into a full blow nightclub for the younger people to come and party. I was pretty much the only person around that knew how to keep everything relatively in order, so here we are.” The one free hand Terushima has open lifts up off of his thigh and plops back down in a sort of defeat. His chocolatey spheres hold your gaze.

“And you gave up on singing?” It’s an honest question. The last time you both had a serious conversation was when Terushima was the main singer for your aforementioned jazz club.

“No, more like I took a break. I couldn’t really say no to the Port Mafia so I put my career on hold.” A pained expression flashes across his face before returning to his previous position.

“I’m really sorry Teru.” You scoot closer to him on the cushion, setting your drink down on the table at the center and resting a hand on his shoulder. It was the best consoling you got considering this is basically your fault.

“Don’t be.” He can see the guilt in your eyes and quickly dismisses them. “You did what was better for yourself. Anyone who couldn’t see that you were unhappy was stupid and it wasn’t a suprise when they told me you were gone.” He rests that free hand on top of yours and rubs circles onto the back of your hand while reaching down to place his drink on the same table. “I just thought that I would never see you again, so spotting you by the bar tonight really shook me to the core, y’know?”

The smile that finishes his sentence is wicked, lips curling up at the end. There was always something left unsaid between you both; light touches here and there, lingering glances from across the dimly lit club room and the handful of “dates” (according to him) shared between you two. It never went anywhere; he being the flirt he was made you very nonchalant about his advances. Plus there was the matter of his gift that made things complicated, so it was just better for you to stay out of trouble the best you could.

Things are different now, though. Terushima didn’t cause your chest to tighten or make the blood in your system rush to your cheeks when you thought of what it would be like to be with him late into the night, curled into one another and just simply being. No, that spot now belonged to a tall, lean and dark haired man that weaseled his way into your heart and mind by using his shitty science puns and awkward dancing when he was almost blackout drunk. Those nights of wondering what life would be like with someone else no longer contained bleach blonde hair or a tongue piercing, but the easy comfort that came from Kuroo Tetsuro.

“Yeah, about that.” Your grasp on his shoulder tightens, other fist clenching “Tendou saw me a couple days ago and I’m pretty sure he’s on the hunt. I need to find the P.M. servers-”

“So you came here to find them.” He cuts you off, but doesn’t finish the sentence with a question. He might be a playboy but he’s been through the ringer once or twice and knows that you just didn’t show up tonight to see him. “Unfortunately they moved them a couple of years ago to create an arms deal station in the basement. To my knowledge they took all that stuff to Club Impac-”

Suddenly a young lady busts through the doors, drunkenly falling onto the floor with her eyes completely unfocused on the area around her. A man in a suit comes rushing down the corridor, targeting the woman on the ground.

With many apologies the guard pulls the woman rather harshly off of the ground and looks up to once again ask for forgiveness from Terushima, but meets your cold eyes instead. The spur of the moment interruption caused you to turn around in your seat and watch the events unfold.

Unknown to you, this man had worked under Ushijima for years and had met your eyes years ago. He recognized the dead stare you were giving him currently, but continued pulling the woman out of the room. A bitter taste fills his mouth as he shuts the doors, immediately ditching the woman by the restrooms and walking to the head of security to inform him of the guest that just happened to be sitting up in the lounge.

“Anyways…” Terushima continues filling you in on what has happened logistically within the mafia since your leaving.

Roughly 30 minutes prior to that conversation, miles out into the outskirts of the city the three men who have been trying to catch you at the right time huddled around a coffee table and went over their plan of attack one last time.

“You both got it?” Iwaizumi flicked the last piece of paper in a file down onto the hardwood, looking between the two taller men. Wordlessly they both nodded and turned to grab their respective bags with the appropriate clothes for the night. Oikawa’s outfit was a little more classy then the others to match his personality, Kuroo and Iwaizumi going for something pretty simple just in case anything goes haywire, but with their final touches done up they were ready to set out for the night.

“Do you really think that she’s going to be here tonight?” Kuroo asked Oikawa while Iwaizumi called a taxi. They were a little behind schedule and missed the train, so they had to opt for something quick.

“Out of everything we’ve done so far, I think this is our best chance at catching her. This club used to be a faux headquarters for her. I’m almost positive that she’s either looking for a certain someone,” Iwaizumi catches the tone in Oikawa’s voice as he spoke, making eyes at him while he finished his sentence, “or that she left something behind.”

They both knew that you were fond of Terushima, but they also knew that you had moved on from all of that. You had your eyes set on someone else. That still didn’t mean that you weren’t there for him, but the idea that it was anything but business was a little far fetched.

“So you guys used to be there all the time?” The taxi pulled up to the curb, waiting for Kuroo and the others to hop in.

“Yeah. Every weekend she would have us come have drinks with her since we were her ‘groupies’, essentially .” Iwaizumi answered, using quotations with his fingers to get the point across. “It was more like a weekly check in but sometimes all we did was catch up with one another.”

The memories warmed his heart. He never once felt like he was working for you, but alongside you. You truly cared about their goals and ambitions, oftentimes ignoring the actual work that the Port Mafia wanted to get done and helping the citizens most in need. Coincidentally, that was how you made the most money and controlled the most area - the people liked you. Being in your squad was a different experience from every other job he had within the Mafia, and as soon as you disappeared he knew that he was going to have to get out sooner rather than later.

Oikawa felt the exact same way, and couldn’t imagine a life where he and Iwaizumi didn’t work together, so they devised a plan and faked their deaths in order to obtain what little freedom that would allow. Both knew that you weren’t dead, no matter how solid the evidence looked, and stuck their foot in the ground in Yokohama in an effort to find you. Two years later they accepted jobs as detectives with the ADA and walked in to see you, sitting at a desk, smiling and laughing with your fellow detectives.

The car ride was silent for the most part, the taxi driver asked a handful of questions before letting the radio fill the dead air. Iwaizumi kept track of how close they were and directed the driver to a few blocks off so they could walk up to the club (he really didn’t want to get this poor guy involved, so better to keep him out of it).

With a small wave from Oikawa, the boys head down the streets but their moods quickly shift as streams of people flood out of the building. The screams of hundreds fills the night air and the heavy footsteps of the three carry as closely as possible to the front entrance. Crowds topple over one another in an attempt to make it out safely as the sound of a single gunshot ricochets off of every surface, furthering the panic in the chests of innocents. Eyes flicking to every possible entrance, Kuroo feels deep down in his soul that you’re inside - you’re either the one firing or being fired at and either causes his chest to tighten, the neverending pit of anxiety at the bottom of his stomach somehow growing deeper. The three stand like a rock against a current of bodies, everyone just running past them and filling the space behind the group as they run.

Only a few moments before their arrival, Terushima and yourself were finishing your drinks and sharing a laugh when splinters flick off the set of doors, and single shot entering the room and shattering the large glass windows that look down on the dance floor. The initial panic takes a second to kick in before the patrons below start their scramble. Terushima’s instincts kicked in and he grabbed you rather harshly and shoved you down onto the ground, covering your body with his own.

“We know you’re in there Y/N!” The voice that spoke was unfamiliar to you, probably just some higher level goon that happened to know what was going on. While tucked under Terushima’s body, you open a small portal to the dashboard of your car and grab the handgun you left waiting. It always pays off to have a backup plan, you think while taking in the surrounding area. The men had yet to breach the room itself, leaving an opportunity for both of you to escape, whether that be jumping down onto the dance floor or using a portal.

“Teru,” his eyes focus on the door but you know he’s listening to your harsh whispers, “we can jump down and blend in the crowd-”

“No.” His jaw clenches, the lines on his face becoming harsher. “They deliberately shot at the window to lure us out there. The one talking is the head of this district so I’m sure every mobster in the area is here keeping an eye out for you.”

“Fuck…” your heart beats just as fast as your brain fires off thousands of different ideas. The crowd of people down below scream for help as they run out into the night and then another shot comes, this time it sounds like it’s from down below. In the crowd.

“Are they firing at civilians?!” Your mind spirals down. What the fuck are they thinking?

“One of those idiots might’ve thought that they saw you.” Terushima detaches himself from you and reaches under one of the tables, grabbing a hidden handgun and making sure it’s loaded.

As he checks the magazine, you muster up a portal big enough for a person to fit through, the other end looking out onto the streets. “Get in Teru. They’re after me.” You plead him with both your eyes and your voice, hands twitching around the cold metal of your pistol.

“Not happening sweetheart.” His smile is sly and coy, teasing you almost. “This is my club that they’re ruining and these people are my guests.” He gestures to the window and then to you, slowing the fall of his hand to emphasize his next words. “It’s my duty to protect them.”

Your lips tugs into a smile and you shut the portal. “Alright then.”

Down on the streets below the three men try to push up river through the endless streams of people running away from yet another shot. Women fall over, others trampling them in the fearful haze that covers the downtown. Iwaizumi rushes over and picks them up, shielding them from the hoards of shoes and getting them back on their feet.

SUV’s among other black vehicles speed around various street corners and men in suits start to surround the area, each fitted with different weapons of different calibers. Pressure grows in the small atmosphere of the downtown area, ears yearning to pop and get ahold of the situation but Kuroo doesn’t know if he would rather feel the throbbing in his head or the despair of hundreds.

Oikawa spins in circles, taking in every detail he can of the mayhem. Each of his senses feels like they’re on fire, enhanced from the sudden change in pace. It would be suicide to use his gift now, so the best he can do in trust his brain to intake whatever information is available.

The three converge after each attains their bearings and stand back to back. “What now?” Iwaizumi is forced to yell over the collage of sounds.

“We go in? I mean she’s gotta be in there, right?!” Oikawa shouts equally as loud, still turning his head around to look at the distressed faces. His voice comes out exasperated and rushed, his breathing picking up.

“Go in?! We can barely move five feet forward, how the fuck are we supposed to get in?” Kuroo takes the more logical stance, trying his best to find a solution to the problem at hand: what to do next.

Luckily, Oikawa, in his twisty turn around scavenger hunt, had spotted a fire escape on the side of the closest apartment building. If they wanted to get a height advantage and take a moment to clear their heads, that would be the spot. He shakes both of his companions shoulders and gestures his head to the ladder. Lightbulbs light up in their heads and slowly but surely they take small steps towards the iron bars, giving the people enough time to adjust to the change in current.

It only takes a minute or two to finally reach the ladder, Iwa hoisting Tooru with weaved fingers and will to lift with his legs, not his back. One handed, Oikawa pulls down the ladder and the three make their way to the landing.

The chaos seen from above is only less claustrophobic as it doesn't let their hearts take a moment to rest. Rather, showcasing the complete lack of control from anyone down below. Every person down below looks like a rat on the loose, caught at the wrong time as they scatter in all directions. Kuroo leans over the edge of the railing, trying to get a better view of the inside of the club.

“There’s a bunch of guys with guns pointed at the top room, part of the window was either smashed or shot at since it’s all over the floor.” Iwa observes to the left of Kuroo, also leaning over the delicate iron bars.

“Can you see in that top room?” Kuroo squints, but it doesn’t enhance his vision.

“Not really,” Iwaizumi starts to tilt his head in various directions, finding the best angle to peer inside that room. “Looks like there’s two people up there but I can’t make out any faces.”

“We should’ve brought Akaashi…” Kuroo mumbles to himself, at this point wondering everything that could’ve been different in this moment. “Well one of them has to be Y/N. I think that’s a given at this point.”

“That or she’s the woman one of the guys has hostage on the lower level.” Oikawa notes, gesturing to each of them to come to where he stands and uses his hand to try and guide their view to a better position.

You also take note of the hostage, peeking down from the remains of the windows. The thought that the Port Mafia is now so low that they would take hostages in order to obtain an ex-member leaves a bad taste on the tip of your tongue. Cold metal brushes your chest as you keep your gun close to your chest. Being as silent as possible, you carefully crouch around the room and get eyes on everything you can.

Terushima had taken off his blazer just a few seconds ago, throwing it over the edge of the couch and creeping closer to the double doors. He listens to whatever words he can make out through the veil of screams and footsteps, retaining only the name “Tendou”.

His head turns to yours from across the room, mouthing the words “Tendou is coming”.

With a clenched jaw, you turn back to the dance floor and see that two more girls were being kicked onto the ground, making a total of three hostages. Hands cover their ears as they plead for their lives.

“Alright Y/N! You’ve got one choice: you either turn yourself over right now or you sit and wait until Satori gets here and we kill those girls and Terushima!” Whoever spoke before loudy shouts again, the words bouncing off of every glossy surface of the club.

GODDAMMIT! Sweat builds in the palm of your hands, the bass from the speakers making the miniscule shards of glass on the ground shake; bits and pieces falling off the ledge and into various crevices in the tile. There’s really only one thing left to do, you think to yourself and Terushima watches as the familiar cerulean hue starts to color the very lines of your body.

A portal opens to your left, the circle opening up to a view of the entryway of the building. From this vantage point you can see a group of men, all in suits and with their weapons either pointed at the hostages or the balcony. Without hesitation you aim the barrel of the gun at the closest guy and fire at his leg. The bullet enters his calf muscle, leaving through the shin and he immediately keels over. Other men are alerted by the sound and turn quickly to find the source. Like a trained soldier you close and open various portals, one at a time and in dissimilar spots to try and confuse them, and fire potshots at whoever catches your eye first.

Arguing continues between Kuroo and Iwaizumi as they battle on what to do next; one trying to approach the situation like it’s made of delicate porcelain and the other ready to give blood, sweat and tears. Oikawa refuses to let his eyes leave the club, and it proves to be useful as rifts start to open and close within the confined space. His eyes dilate and once again he slaps Iwa on the shoulder mid sentence.

“What the hell Shittykawa?!” Iwa gnashes, foam practically running down the side of his mouth.

“She’s making her move.” Dominos start to fall, but for once in a very long time the two don’t know what lies at the end of the line. Kuroo can’t believe what he’s seeing - he’s only ever seen you use your gift sparingly and in desperate situations, never to an extent such as this. The last piece of the puzzle finally goes into place as it dawns on Tetsuro that this is life or death. There is no playing around and there are no wrong moves.

“Alright Iwaizumi: I’m in.”

The aforementioned turns to him with a blank expression, a little unsure of what to do now. Oikawa watches as Kuroo claps his hands together and squats down and it hits him all at once; this is the first time he’s ever seen Kuroo’s gift in any capacity. Satisfied with the warm feeling on his skin, Tetsuro releases his hands and places them on the iron below, the space surrounding them glowing like they do.

In an instance, the vibrancy dies down and on the landing lies two items in a similar shape to hand grenades. A smirk tugs at his features and he states, “We’ll get in with these.”

Their jaws drop and Tooru starts to huff in disbelief, “I can appreciate your tenacity Kuroo-san but that seems like overkill.”

“Seriously…” Iwa adds sarcastically, slightly sticking out his arm to act as a shield between the two.

The smile disappears quickly and Kuroo brings a hand up to rub his brows. “They’re smoke grenades…”

Forming an ‘o’ with his mouth, Tooru starts to nod his head and Hajime drops the raised arm. “I knew that.”

Licking his lips, Kuroo passes one of the grenades to Iwaizumi and mouths “of course you did” to silently mock them. At least they share a brain cell.

Another few minutes pass, the gang of men make their way back down the ladder and into the frey. During that time you remain using the same tactic, effectively avoiding any unwanted attention from the growing crowd of henchmen. More had been called in after your initial shot, the head honcho making plays over the various walkie talkies.

You close a portal and let your chest heave, taking long deep breaths and settling down. The spacing of your shots has been growing larger to keep the suspense up, but in this timeframe you create a mini portal to grab a new magazine and reload. You close your eyes and let the noise wrap you like a blanket, surrounding you and taking precedence over every other sense in your body. Right as you whip to the right and start to open a rift, the small tinks of metal on concrete are drowned out.

Slowly, smoke swirls around the dance floor, rising and expanding out in all directions. Another can sputter to life and causes the room to turn opaque. Light bounces around in rays that color the white sheet that now fills the room.

Right outside the doors of the club Iwaizumi charges up his ability, letting a firm feeling prick every inch of his skin before ramming himself through the doors. Tooru sticks to his back and fires at every shape he can make out through the fog, Kuroo acting as the kaboose and covering any stragglers that those two seem to miss.

From your end of things, the room starts to fill with white and immediately you shut the gateway, watching from your perch as the fog dissipates right as it reaches your feet. Terushima also evaluates the situation, deciding to take the chance and barge out of the doors and tackle whoever is closest. Unfortunately he didn’t think super far ahead and that leaves you in a compromising position.

Gunfire fills the hallways of the building, but the light that flashes up on the second level lets Kuroo know that shit’s going down. Without hesitation he leaves formation and hauls ass down the hall and up some stairs. Four men in total block his path to you, two being on the floor and the other two shooting in your general direction.

It’s as if red seeps into his eyelids, rage pumps through his veins at a level he thought himself incapable. The barrel of his gun points down at the thigh of one of the standing men. As soon as the bullet hits its mark he rushes the other one and knocks him upside the head with the butt of the gun. In less than three minutes Kuroo had entered the building and knocked out two guys in order to rush to your side.

A wedge was pushed in the cogs in your brain, halting all functions and making your eye twitch. Kuroo squats down to meet your eye level and stares at you with piercing golden eyes. His pupils dilate when they meet yours which are full of confusion, then disbelief and finally annoyance.

“You fuckin’ asshole.” The words should be lost to the mirage of the night, but they’re the only things Kuroo can hear.

Almost scared, he reaches forward and curls his fingers around the flesh of your forearm and responds. “Let’s get out of here.”

Whatever shock that stopped your brain had washed over and now it felt like everything was moving too quickly in order to catch up. The fog was starting to clear and you can make out the figures of both Oikawa and Iwaizumi down on the dance floor below, watching each other's backs. Terushima stands near the edge of the balcony and joins them in taking down what seems to be an endless stream of goons.

He turns to you and winks, a silent goodbye as Kuroo grabs a tight hold of your arm and pulls you off of the ground. It’s a blur as you leap over several unconscious men and down the stairs. Whatever crowd was left was thin at best, no civilians in sight and many mafia members toppled over. Iwaizumi steps backwards towards you two, Oikawa shifting himself so the three act as armor around you.

Just as swift as the entrance, the boys shove you along and out into the streets. The screeching of tires alerts the four of you, yet another SUV speeds down the narrow streets of the downtown.

“Fuck” you whisper and get your bearings. Your legs are quicker than your brain and you shout, “follow me!” Your two fellow ex-members are already by your sides and Kuroo lags behind. Quickly you throw the keys to Iwaizumi. “When we get to the car, just drive. Doesn’t matter what streets you go down.”

Yet again Kuroo watches as the three of you work together like a well oiled machine, Hajime practically ripping the door off of its hinges and shaking the car as he sits. Tooru follows suit on the passenger side and deja vu strikes hard once Kuroo gets his but down into the seat.

Iwaizumi revs the engine and rapidly turns the wheel from side to side as the car skids and jolts into the center of a major road.

“Whatever happens, just keep her in the center of the road!” You whirl around and face the rear windshield, spotting the vehicles that now tail you all. Luckily the night means less traffic and Hajime can keep to the center of the road. Whoever was driving this late at night veers out of the way as the street turns crowded with several cars turning corners rather fast and joining in with those that already follow you.

You roll down the window next to you and start to shoot blindly out of the side, not daring to stick your whole body out of the car like last time due to the sheer amount of firepower that would be sure to hit you. Kuroo and Oikawa do the same as you, Kuroo ducking his head while doing so just in case any bullets come flying in through the back window and Oikawa tries to use the side mirror to aim his shots.

Not even two minutes since this drive began and cop cars light up the road ahead, about three quarters of a mile in front.

“Uhh Y/N! We got a problem!” Iwaizumi white knuckles the steering wheel and starts to turn it, planning on going down one of the side streets to put all threats behind your car. You whip your head around and evaluate the situation, quickly realizing that this is an opportune moment for something you’ve been keeping up your sleeve.

“You better keep this car in the center of the road Hajime or so help me God I will kill you before anyone else has the chance!” You scream and place yourself in the center of the back bench which gives you a relatively clear view of the road. Breathing in through your nose and out with your mouth, you clap your hands together much like Kuroo did earlier in the night. Continuing your breathing pattern, Hajime returns the car to the center of the road.

“Step on the gas.” You command, your eyes closed in concentration.

“Y/N are you sure?!” There wasn’t a hint of doubt in Iwaizumi’s questioning, but more of a confirmation of action.

“Just fucking do it!”

The clock ticks down as both forces start to close in. Five seconds before impact: the cops are unsure what to do. Some stopped their vehicles and were preparing road spikes while the others continue charging forward and speak through the sound system, warning you all of what’s going to happen. The Port Mafia also starts to slow down as they are just as confused as the police. No one really knows what you have in plan, but those in charge of each group are determined to get to the bottom of things.

Four seconds to go and the pit at everyone’s stomach grows a size larger; a faint sapphire glow emanates just from your hands and Kuroo watches curiously. The phrase trusting someone with your life had never meant much to him, but in this moment he really understood the complete lack of control he has.

Three; Oikawa sits up right in his seat and straps himself in, also closing his eyes to alleviate the stress of the scene before him.

Two; the glow around your fingertips has grown exponentially into something almost blinding. Iwaizumi steadies the wheel and fights the urge to jerk the car.

Right before impact with the front runner the view of a country road lined with trees fills Hajime and Kuroo’s eyes. The car barely fits into the rift and bounces up and down. You weren’t able to align the two roads perfectly off of memory, so you opted to have it a little high up. Kuroo checks behind them and the road is empty. No sight of any buildings or vehicles - just a clear sky and the wilderness that surrounds them.

Tooru didn’t realize he was clutching onto his chest strap until he opens his eyes and lets out a breath he was holding. Hajime adjusts quickly to the new territory and slows the car down some, leaning back into his seat. Kuroo, amazed that you were in the clear, turns to you, but your head is lolled to the side.

“Y/N?” Ever so gently, he shakes your shoulder and your eyes crack open. You turn to face him and blood is streaming from one nostril, down your face and dripping onto your shirt. He freezes up, just now realizing how much this whole ordeal must’ve taken out of you.

A tissue appears in front of both of your faces, Tooru’s hand attached to it. “You always pull that stuff off last second even though you could’ve just done it as soon as we got in the car.”

“Fuck off,” you sound drained and totally devoid of any emotion. “If we can get out of it without having to port out then we’ll do it that way, but the cops got in the way.” You take the tissue and start to wipe up whatever you can, your movements slow.

“Are you alright?” Kuroo is unsure of his place, a total contrast from inside the club when he was the most assertive you had ever seen him.

“Loaded question.” You want so badly to drop them off on the side of the road and hope that they just leave you alone, but your eyes blur every few seconds and you know that you are in no position to drive. Several emotions bubble up at the thought that they kept looking for you, put their lives on the line to find you and actually ended up saving you.

Effectively dodging the question, you slide back over to your side of the car and place your head on the window, giving Hajime directions to your home. They’re smart enough to know that now isn’t the time to talk, nor is it the time to ask questions like “what’s next?” and so on.

The high beams of your car light up the large house at the end of the gravel road, your headache nearing its end and the boys all ogle at your property. A flick of his hands and Iwaizumi turns the car off, then steps out into the cold air. He takes a few steps back and precariously opens the door you’re leaning on. With careful consideration, he crouches down and tries to let you use him as a crutch, but in all the time you had to think on the ride here, you shove him off and stumble a bit.

Gaining some balance, you speak with an unwavering tone. “What you did tonight was stupid. All of you.” You turn and meet each of their eyes, Kuroo and Oikawa still on the other side of the car. “I explicitly told you all not to get involved and still you fucking showed up.”

They all freeze at the accusatory finger you’re pointing and watch as you start to back yourself up to the entryway. Iwaizumi, who normally decides to let Tooru charm his way out of things, is the first to speak. “You’re right.” His eyes bore into your own, but he continues. “But that doesn’t change the fact that if we weren’t there you would’ve been fucked.”

“As if.” You spit back, not thinking clearly as you’re more focused on getting your own point across. Hajime only started fights when he thought it was absolutely necessary. This didn’t cross your mind, but Tooru’s as he realizes the upcoming screaming match.

“As if?!” His voice booms over the forest, possibly shaking the leaves on the trees. “You were backed into a fucking corner Y/N! For god's sake, did you think Terushima was gonna be able to help you out of that shitshow?” He stops his assault for a moment, seeing if you would answer but you grind your teeth instead. “You needed our help. We’re the ones that got you out of that situation-”

“Hajime-”

“No Tooru! She doesn’t get to disappear behind everyone’s backs and tell us NOT to find her! Especially not us.” Tooru purses his lips, knowing that he’s right. Tooru would’ve thought that maybe after the first day or two you would contact them, allowing them to help, all things considered. He knows where Hajime is coming from and ultimately decides to let him continue. “She sure as fuck doesn’t get to tell us that we didn’t help either. I know damn well that once we all cool off you’re gonna have to apologize and admit to me that I was right.”

“That still doesn’t change the fact that you still decided to follow me.” You're quick with your rebuttal. “I’m trying my best to protect you all-” A cackle catches you mid sentence, and you watch as Iwaizumi rests a hand over his face and laughs, shoulders shaking. “What? What’s so hilarious Hajime?”

“Do you really think that we need protecting?” His eyes peek through the cracks in his fingers, a sly smirk curling his lips.

“Maybe you don’t but the Port Mafia knows now that I’m involved with the agency. For the safety and protection of everyone I need to erase myself from their records and go away.” This is your retreat. You can feel your own arms wrap around your form and start rubbing slow circles into your sides. The more you think about it, the more you realize that you’re just pleading for them to live. Or pleading with them to leave you with the idea that they’ll be living a peaceful life without you.

“You do know who you’re talking about, right?” Iwaizumi takes his hand off of his face and glares at you. “You got Bokuto, who is an accidental genius; Sugawara and myself who act like human shields; Tanaka and Nishinoya who are the wildcards; Kenma and Asahi who can heal practically any injury and Kuroo, who can literally create a bomb if he has the right materials within his vicinity.” As he lists off the various members he sticks fingers up and counts. “I don’t think they need as much protection as you seem to think. I bet everyone’s losing their shit right now since you just walked out and now the three of us have been M.I.A. for almost a week.”

While he presents a pretty good argument, it feels like it just goes in one ear and out the other. Your only goal right now is to get them to understand that you don’t want them here. Anything you can do to save them is the top priority, and having them here with you is a fucking nuisance. “I don’t give a rat's ass about any of that! You and Torru have seen what the Port Mafia is capable of and there’s is nothing that is going to stop them from finding me! If that means blowing up the agency building, they will! You know Tendou will do anything and Washijo will just let him!”

“Y/N.” The desperation in your voice is becoming more apparent with each word as your sentences speed up and your tone gets higher and higher. Oikawa walks around the car and stands next to Hajime, taking your beat of silence as a cue to speak. “You know you can’t say that anymore. We haven’t been with them for years. Washijo might be too sick to even speak.”

“Plus everyone at the agency knows what this job entails.”

“You don’t get to talk Tetsuro.” He stands behind the two, and honestly your rage was so hyper focused on Oikawa and Iwaizumi that you forgot he was there. You snap at spit back. “It’s not a matter of knowing what they signed up for more than a problem of the Port Mafia doing whatever they want.”

“That’s why we’re here to help you.” Tooru still stands between you and the others, the mediator. “You know that we’ll do everything we can, everything you say, in order to protect them. Tendou didn’t just see you that night. Obviously he doesn’t care all that much about us but we’re on their records too so it’s not just your problem.”

“I can’t fucking do this right now.” It feels like no one is listening to you, just throwing water in the tank you’re already drowning in. With a sigh and balled fists, you come to a hasty decision. “You can all stay here tonight. I expect you to be gone by midday.” Without a chance to speak, you storm into the house and start preparing mats for them to sleep on.

Tooru runs his tongue over his teeth, lips shut and starts tapping his foot. There were a thousand different possibilities for how tonight could’ve gone - this being one that wasn’t on his radar. Hajime feels the frustration bubble over, but he knows there’s not much else he can say that will get to you. Focusing his attention on Tooru, he pats his shoulder and says, “She’s not gonna budge. C’mon.” The two walk into the house, following the lights and let you finish preparing their room.

Swiftly you finish fluffing the pillows and brushing past them, avoiding any contact, any chance for them to stop you. You slide open the door for the next room over and raid the closet, setting the room up for Kuroo.

“Y/N wait.” For one reason or another, you stop your actions and look to the aforementioned, him standing in the doorway. With a final push of your muscles, you throw the mat down on the floor and wait for what’s next. “I just wanted to say that- that I want to do everything I can to help you. I know it’s not much but Iwaizumi and Oikawa have been doing so much and I really think that-”

“Go to bed Kuroo. You guys are gonna have a long day making your way back into the city tomorrow, so you’re gonna need all the sleep you can get.” You shoulder check him, leaving the room and the yet to be unfurled bed mat on the floor.

In the late hours of the night you find yourself tossing and turning. The entirety of the past few hours replayed in your mind, every situation rewinds and restarts as you analyze the points that the guys made. You wouldn’t have lived through last night if it wasn’t for them. There’s no way in hell Tendou wouldn’t have gotten his hands on you if it wasn't for them.

You sit up, sweat dripping off of your brow bone and everything starts to feel like it’s closing in. The four walls around you feel like hands around your throat and your chest heaves. Throwing off the duvet you stand up and stretch, the small pops and clicks from your back. After a few moments you slide open the door and step into the hallway, heading to the kitchen to start a kettle.

Maybe you were being a little harsh on them earlier. Tendou was a real threat and only sought you out, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that whoever that boy was with him a few nights ago seemed to recognize you, Oikawa and Iwaizumi. They were there with you through thick and thin when you had to organize almost half of the mafia’s patrol cars, pickup sites and so much more. You went above and beyond to prove to that old fucking geezer that you deserved to be in your seat as an executive. Tooru and Hajime did nothing but support you, even after they discovered that you did in fact fake your death and worked as a detective in the same city they thought you abandoned. Even after that they still treated you like nothing happened.

The kettle whistles and you take it off the heat, trying your best to stay as quiet as possible in the early morning hours. Preparing a tea strainer and some leaves, you grab a mug and start to assemble everything. As the tea steeps, you open the back door and let the cool breeze engulf your body.

The wood that covers the porch is cool to the touch, the soles of your feet uncomfortable, wanting to go back inside but you continue forward. The only things warming you under the cascade of stars is the mug between your hands and a blanket you placed around your shoulders. You venture off of the porch onto the soft moss that tickles your toes. Further into the trees is a small creek, in which you placed a few hardwood chairs.

No distractions, you allowed yourself to continue your train of thought from earlier. Once it fully settles in your consciousness that they are in their own right to want to be a part of this battle. Just as much was on the line for them as it was for you, and it never really hit until now.

So what would happen if I let them stay?

This was the real kicker. And before you knew it, you were going through every possible scenario you could think of, listing the pros and cons of having a team to work with rather than only relying on yourself.

The moon shifts throughout the night sky as you get up a few times to refill your cup, and before you know it rays of sunshine start to peer through the fog that settles under the canopy of leaves. With a new piping cup in your hands you resume the various tracks of different decisions. Inside, Kuroo slowly cracks open his eyes, the sunshine peeking through the blinds and the birds chirping. In the other room Iwaizumi sighs heavily and looks over Tooru. Shadows define his jaw and cheekbones, even accentuating the curve of his lips and the flutter of his lashes when he finally opens his eyes.

“G’morning.” Hajime’s voice is scratchy, his eyes red from the haziness that comes in the morning.

“Morning.” With a smile, they both take their time getting up and ready for the day.

Kuroo straightens out his clothes (which he slept in) and walks out into the living room. He notes the kettle and jars of loose tea leaves on the counter, also noting that you’re nowhere to be seen. The door to your room is open as well, arousing his suspicion.

A glance passes between the two men as they each put back into their clothes. First it was Hajime trying to catch a glance at Tooru, and then vice versa just a few seconds later. They stumble around one another, pick dusting their cheeks but neither speaks.

A knock at the door interrupts their game of cat and mouse along with a voice. “Have you guys seen Y/N?”

Hajime finishes the buttons of his shirt and slides the door open. “No? She’s not here?” It’s like last night all over again, the panic bubbling in his chest.

“I haven’t seen her at all, and her room’s empty. I think she’s around since the car is still here and there’s stuff on the counter, I was just wondering if you guys heard or saw her?” Kuroo fidgets with his fingers, picking at the cuticles with his nail.

“You checked all the rooms?” Hajime takes command of the situation, stepping out of his room and into the living space.

“Yeah, all empty.” Kuroo follows him and Oikawa behind Kuroo.

“Well the back door is open, so…” Tooru nods towards the door although no one sees it.

Without another word the trio walk into the forest, taking in the scenery before them. Calm was the one word that came to mind. Branches crunch under their heels, alarming you to their presence.

They can see your figure up just ahead and slow their roll. Kuroo stops in his tracks and just looks at you bathing in the golden sunlight, hair disheveled and eyes baggy once you finally turn and face them.

“Morning boys.” You sound and look tired, each of them knowing that you probably didn’t get any sleep at all but continue down the path to meet you. With a single gesture you get them to sit in the chairs beside you. You say nothing as you drink the cold tea - or what’s left of it at this point.

“What’s going on up there Y/N?” Oikawa pokes his temple and looks at you with the most sincere eyes. It’s not like the question wasn’t just on his mind, but the silence was starting to kill him.

“I did a lot of reflecting last night,” you start, setting the small cup onto the moss and straightening up. “For starters, I hope you all can forgive me for the way I treated you last night. It was unfair and I finally get that we’re all fighting for the same thing. You all have just as much reason to fight the Port Mafia as I do.” You make eye contact with each of them individually as you try to convey remorse.

They each take it the same, knowing that adrenaline was high and that you meant the best for all of them. If anything, Hajime knows that the both of you will need to have a one on one conversation later to clear the air.

“As for what I said last night,” you turn your eyes downward, knowing that you can’t bear to stare at their eager eyes, “I thought about it, and I want to take it all back. If you want, I could use the extra hands.”

Silence settles again, but Tooru doesn’t let it last long. He stands up from his chair and rushes over to give you a big hug. His arms encase you and he puts his head close to your shoulder. “Thank you.”

It catches you off guard, but tears build in your eyes. What did you ever do to deserve them? “Of course. I knew you guys weren’t gonna leave me alone once you knew where I've been hiding.”

“Damn straight.” Hajime joins the hug, placing his head on your other shoulder.

Kuroo stays in his seat and watches the scene unfold, not wanting to ruin a second reunion. He goes back to fiddling with his fingers and looking at the ground until the three of you break off from one another. You walk over to him and place a hand over his, preventing him from doing any more damage to his hands. Maneuvering them in a way to grasp one of his hands, he looks up at you, the rays of sunshine behind you, filling the forest.

Holding onto his rough hand and smiling down on him, you say “Let’s get to work.”

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theauthorunicorn · 4 years

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She’s Back Part 2 | Evan Buckley

Read Part 1 here

Prompt: During the operation at the train wreck the reader met Abby and saw her with Evan but she doesn’t know why she’s even back.

“I mean, if I could just take a week off Captain that will be good.” it’s been three days passed since the train incident and I’m just tired ignoring Buck for a while now. He wanted to reason everything out but I think I’m not ready to hear him after knowing that they both met the day after the incident.

“A week off now? Earlier you keep asking me to transfer you to another shift? What’s wrong Y/N?” Bobby asked eyes furrowed.

I sighed in annoyance, “I don’t know, I’m kinda tired and -” I can see Buck in my peripheral vision listening to us, “I wanted to try other things or stuff. I really don’t know Cap and this answer usually could grant a week off though.”

“Who’s having a week off?” Eddie interrupted.

“Me. I’m asking a week off, okay?”

“Why?” he asked confusingly.

“I don’t know or probably I’m gonna fly to Europe and explore somethings or even go to London and see what are they up to.” I told them. I can see Buck’s annoyance in my answers and I don’t care.

“Please, grant me those. I needed this time off.” I begged to Captain Nash.

And oh if you’re wondering by the way the “I need to tell you something” by Buck was never happened because I try my very best not to talk to him or even be at the same room with him.

“I’ll go check if you can Y/N. I’ll let you know after the shift.” Captain Nash assured.

*****

“Thank you so much.” I hugged Bobby as he informed me that I could have five days off and that’s the best that he could do.

It was raining hard as soon as our shift ended and unfortunately my car was still in the shop because of engine problem. I grabbed my umbrella in the locker and booked an Uber home.

“You’re gonna Uber home?” Eddie asked as he passed me.

“Uhm,” I locked my phone, “My car was in shop, engine problems.”

“I could just swing you at your apartment this rain isn’t gonna stop soon.” Eddie offered.

“We live in the opposite side so ‘swing you home’ is not efficient.” I said as I declined his offer.

“Okay, I just want someone to hear this conversation so he could drop you home and talk whatever is going on to both off you.” He winked at me as he walk towards the door.

I checked my Uber and no one has ever picked my booking.

I walk toward the door and thought that it would be a perfect spot to wait for a cab since it’s impossible to get an Uber at this time.

It’s twenty minutes passed and no cab even passed by. I keep myself entertained over my colleagues who will start their shift after us catching up.

Then, a black Jeep stopped in front of us, I sighed to know at that very second who it was. Buck rolled his passenger side window and shouted, “Hey. Y/N it’s impossible to get a cab now, I’ll just drop you home.”

Maria, a friend of ours had this confusion then proceeded to ask me, "Buck is here, I don't know why you're still waiting for a cab? You two are basically a couple without being in a formal relationship?" I rolled my eyes to her.

"Am I right, Buck?" She shouted over Buck even though he didn't know what are we talking about.

He nodded and shouted back at me, "Y/N, get in the car."

"As if I have a choice." I mumbled as I walk over the Jeep.

I said my goodbye to Maria and she's happily teasing the me and Buck. I don't know why people kept seeing us so compatible to each other because right now, I can't even see it.

I stand in passenger side of his Jeep, "Hey, thank you for doing this, I don't even know that you're still in the station at this time." He smiled and God forbid those smiles. "Can you open up the back, I could just sit over there." I pointed it because I'm refusing to seat beside him.

He looked over at his back, "It's kinda messy over there, I got my stuff for the gym earlier. It'll be better if you'll seat over here." He pointed at the passenger side.

"I think I can do that," he smiled again, "I mean, I can sit at the back."

"It's really messy in there Y/N. I wished I cleaned it up before passing you here because I would if I just know that you'll be here. And it's pouring hard so you better get inside." He opened the door and a backed away. I climbed over the passenger side to settle this little argument.

"Where can I put my umbrella? It's literally dripping." I asked him.

He points at his back seat and it's really messy. "Put it in the back."

He started driving away from the station, he offered me a bag of Cheetos and even if I wanted some I declined his offer. Buck started casual talk but it really ends up in my yes, no or maybe.

"Do you still have grocery at your home? Because the last time I was there it was almost empty."

Well, he's not wrong. He spend a night in my apartment four days ago as we watch The Office again.

"I still have some. I'll probably just order a takeaway tonight." I said in a monotone voice.

Then, it's a dead silent. It felt like five minutes before he start speaking again.

"I heard you're gonna have a five day off, where are you going? Are you gonna visit your parents in New York?" He asked as if he dropped a million dollar question.

"No and not to be rude, Buck. It's none of your business." I put my airpods in my ear to shut whatever he's gonna talk.

He sighed deeply as he saw me doing that. I kept my head leaned over the window watching the raindrops race over the end.

*****

He parked his car adjacent to the door, I settled myself before opening it. I put my phone and airpods at my bag, "Thank you so much for driving me home, Buck and I'm sorry that I'm mean earlier I'm just not in the mood."

"It's Evan and it's okay I understand, Y/N."

I opened the door and hop out, "Drive safe." Usually it followed set of words, 'call or text me when you're home.'

And he usually answers, "Yeah, I'll text you when I'm home." and he does this time out of habit even if I didn't ask for it.

*****

I had different shifts from Buck after that day he dropped me home, he also did text me that he arrived home safely that night but I didn't reply, I left him on read. And fun fact I'm flying over London tonight for my mini vacation.

"So, London, huh?" Maria asked me as I settled my things I had the night shift the past few days so I had the chance to hangout with Maria.

"Yeah. It'll be good." I said in British accent. I tied my hair into pony tail before grabbing my things.

"I hope you have a wonderful vacation over there dearie."

"Yeah, I will." I walked over my car unlock it from a far when someone grabbed my free hand.

"Hey, I got you coffee to compensate your all nighter duty." Buck said as he handed me a venti Starbucks cup. "It's Vanilla Latte." He smiled.

"Thank you." I said confusingly. He's acting weird like he normally fo everyday.

"You're welcome and actually if you can remember I want to grab something with you so I can say something to you. Maybe right now, like breakfast?" Buck asked as if we're actually okay and its making me mad.

"No, I have something to do today." I replied plainly.

"Something much more better than me, mmm, Y/N." He said playfully.

"Buck, stop this."

"Evan, call me Evan." He insisted.

"I'll be flying to London tonight and I need to pack up my things, I'm sorry if I can't. And please stop acting that we're okay because we both know that we're not, Buck."

And now, he's totally angry. "I want to talk to you so bad because I want to explain things and after all you're gonna leave like what Abby did to me. It felt like everyone is leaving me, Y/N and you're the last person I expected to do that."

It felt like I'm burning up, I catch my breath before answering him, "I'm not like Abby, Evan. Okay. Don't compare me to her. That's it, get over it. Get over her. Find yourself and I'll go figure out what the hell is happening with me in London. I needed this time off so you don't have the right to tell me those words you said to me."

I opened my car and threw my bag at the back as I settled the coffee in the cup holder. He held the door to keep it open, "I'm sorry Y/N. I didn't mean it."

*****

I'm at the airport right now waiting my flight to board.

"All passengers from BA 798 bound to London this is your pre-boarding announcement -"

"Y/N!" Someone called my name, panting. I looked around to see Evan catching his breathe. "I'm glad I still catch you here." He hugged me tightly.

"Is everything okay? I mean how can you be at this area if you don't have a ticket." I asked him.

"I bought a ticket for Kansas tonight and I’m not even flying there just to pass through because I need to tell you something before you go." He uttered those familiar words.

"I know I fucked up that I didn't get over to what I felt with Abby because I kept a promise to wait for her but when you came into my life it drifted away but I'm not gonna lie as soon as I saw her that night it all came back even if I didn't want to because I'm finally happy. I saw pain in your eyes when you both saw us and it felt like I personally planted a knife in your heart to have those look in your eyes. I wanted to pause everything at that time to explain things to you but I couldn't they needed our help. Then, the day after the incident you avoided me, I thought it might be a temporary thing but it didn't. Yes, I met her that day also too, so I could settle whatever is left in here for her" he pointed in his heart. "And when you heard that we agreed to see each other that day, I see the pain doubled in your eyes. Abby, went here with his fiance to tell her relatives that they're going to get married in June, I met Sam too, her fiance I actually saved him at the incident, I may be lying if I'll say now that I wasn't hurt when she say that she'll be married but I did a little, then, I think about you Y/N. I think about everything that we had for the past year and especially the last few days before you start ignoring me," he giggled, "it's much more special and wonderful than what I had with Abby and it was so wrong to compare you to her this morning and again, I'm sorry."

"At this time we invite our business class customers to board the aircraft." The boarding gate agent announced and I hesitantly looked at my watch to check what time it is.

"I'm actually called?" I told him.

"Please stay for a while, I'll finish this up in a minute or two." I nodded.

"Because of the situation we didn't actually do as what we planned that night grab a breakfast or something and me telling you something and right now, you're going to London and I couldn't afford to have those five days passed away from you without knowing this, I love you Y/N more than anything. You mean the world to me and if I could just fly with you tonight I would but I can't, Captain said we will be short staffed. So, yeah, I love you and I want to spend my days with you annoying you, loving you and caring for you."

When he finished saying those words, I teared up and hugged him tightly as I savor those words in my head.

"All passengers for BA 798 bound to London kindly board your flight now at gate 22."

"Hey, I think you're being called for your flight."

"They can wait, I'm a business class passenger." I said to him. He laughed as we still hug each other. "And I love you too, Evan."

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adenei · 3 years

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Auror 99 - Chapter 9

Hey y’all! Sorry about the hiatus with this one. I’m so stoked to share that the inspiration is back and I’ll hopefully be back into this one to finish it out!

Slow State of Affairs

The next few days moved slowly. Despite various stakeouts and more research on the state of Vampire affairs in the United States, England, and Italy, they still had very little on Gerteso. He hadn’t been spotted at all entering MACUSA. It was starting to feel more and more like a wild goose chase than anything because they weren’t making any progress.

Hermione had taken to spending her free time reading Amy’s Harry Potter books. Amy had been kind enough to go back to her apartment and get the rest so that Hermione could see what Rita had written. Ron and Harry had no interest in reading them, so Hermione would just share how accurate they were, which was incredible. Hermione had become convinced that Rita had other unregistered Animagi working for her, and their sole job was to spy on Harry and gather as much possible information as they could.

“You read faster than me,” Amy had commented when Hermione had finished the first three books in two days. “Would now be a good time to tell you that there are also movies?” she asked hesitantly.

Hermione had just taken Goblet of Fire off of the table. She looked at Amy. “What? Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Um...no. Should I not have said that? I thought you might want to watch them, too.” Hermione’s jaw dropped as Amy went on quickly. “They’re really not as good compared to the books! The screenwriters....they really changed a lot with the char- I mean, with you all. We don’t have to watch them if you don’t want-”

“Oh, we’re watching them. As soon as the guys get back from their stakeout today.”

“What’d I miss?” Rosa asked as she came in the door. She’d been at the station in a briefing with Captain Holt and Kingsley.

“Just making plans for the evening. Any news?” Hermione directed the conversation back to the case.

“Still nothing. Jake and Charles haven’t seen anything. Not sure what the other two are up to. Shouldn’t you be researching the case and not what some bitch wrote about your lives?” Rosa raised her eyebrow in question at Hermione.

“I’ve researched everything I possibly can. Until we get a trace on Gerteso, I won’t know any more than I already do.” It was true.

They knew Gerteso’s motive, they’d learned everything they could about how the vampires worked, even down to known hangouts and possible headquarters. But there’d been no movement to suggest anything was happening. So, Hermione had taken solace in the books.

Hermione continued to ponder Rosa’s words as she set the children’s book down, her mind wandering back to the case. Harry and Ron were staking out different vampire hangouts in an attempt to get more information on the Cryptic, while Jake and Charles manned the entrance to MACUSA. Could there be an angle they hadn’t yet taken in the attempts of making a breakthrough?

Her thoughts were interrupted as Jake and Charles walked through the door with Chinese takeout in hand for the evening. “Anything new?” Amy asked them hopefully.

“Nada,” Charles said as Jake shook his head.

“Whoever this guy is, he must relish in taking his time.” Jake said in frustration.

“Well, if he’s taking his time, there has to be some reason for it,” Rosa added.

“But what is it? That’s what we can’t figure out,” Hermione thought out loud.

Continuously stumped over it, she shook her head and checked her watch. Harry and Ron should be back soon. As if on cue, her husband and best friend walked in the door with a simple shake of their heads. Once again, no luck.

Everyone sighed as they began tucking into the food. They were all tired and losing motivation. Something needed to give, and fast. In an effort to make conversation, Amy said, “So, Hermione and I are going to watch the Sorcerer’s Stone tonight. Maybe even Chamber of Secrets if it’s not too late.”

Harry and Ron both looked up. “What’s she mean ‘watch Sorcerer’s Stone?’ Hermione?” Ron was looking back and forth between Amy and his wife.

Hermione let out a deep sigh as Boyle said, “You didn’t know there are movies, too?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Harry said.

“Bloody buggering hell,” Ron muttered.

“If you don’t want to watch it, I’m sure I could download the second Die Hard. There’s more than one TV here…” Jake suggested.

Harry and Ron thought about it. “We should probably watch it. At least we’re not watching ourselves...just watching people act like us.”

Amy looked excited, but also nervous. “I feel like I should warn you, as an avid fan, the books are MUCH better than the movies.”

“What d’you mean by that?” Ron asked.

“Well, the first few movies are a fairly good adaptation of the books, but as they go on, stuff gets left out or changed.”

“Wait, so it’s bad enough the story of my life is in a children’s series, then it was made into movies, and those movies don’t even do the books justice?” Harry said in dismay. “Can this get any worse?”

“Well, not really for you, no,” Boyle said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ron asked.

“You’ll see,” Charles immediately went back to his food. Ron looked at Amy for further clarification.

“The screenwriters changed some of the characters. But we may not even get to the later movies, so I wouldn’t worry about it,” Amy said quickly.

“Great,” Harry said.

They all finished their meal and cleaned up before settling in the living area for the movie. Harry and Ron gladly took a beer from Jake who was offering them up. Maybe alcohol would make the experience easier. They settled into the movie, and by the time they reached the end, Hermione had to admit that, all things considered, it wasn’t terrible. She didn’t speak at first, though. Instead, she waited for Harry and Ron’s reaction.

“Of all the stink people gave about my eyes growing up, they chose an actor who didn’t even have green eyes?” Harry finally said. Everyone burst into laughter at that, and the tension seemed to be released from the air.

“I suppose it was fairly close, all things considered,” Hermione acknowledged.

“Ron, were you really that much of a badass on the chess board?” Jake asked.

“I- yeah, I guess. They downplayed the injury, though,” Ron said as his ears turned pink.

“Well, it is a kid’s movie,” Rosa commented.

“How close was the depiction of Voldemort?” Amy asked eagerly.

“Er, pretty close. Quirrell really was the perfect host,” Harry told her. “And the turban was the perfect disguise to cover him up.”

“I always did wonder how well Voldemort breathed in that thing,” Ron said, as everyone chuckled and agreed.

The conversation had continued on about the various characters and how closely the characters did or didn’t match their real life counterpart. But Hermione had stopped listening. She was stuck on something that Harry had said. The word disguise kept playing over and over in her mind.

Suddenly, Hermione looked up at the rest of the group around the room. “That’s it!”

“What? Hermione, we might need to have a talk if Alan Rickman as Snape gets you off…” Ron joked.

“I- What?” Hermione looked at him. She didn’t let the confusion of his words bother her for very long, though. “Nevermind that. What if Gerteso is using a disguise to get in and out of MACUSA?”

“What makes you say that?” Jake asked.

“Well, you’ve been staking out the entrance every day. After the altercation in the alley, he’s bound to remember you! He’s been so secretive and getting away with things for so long. Of course he’s not moving around in the open, especially now that he knows we’re onto him! He must be disguising himself!”

Realization began to dawn on everyone. “You know, Hermione, you might just be onto something!” Harry said.

“And we’ve been spending all this time in underground vampire bars, when we should be watching MACUSA!” Ron said. “Hermione, you really are a genius!”

Hermione blushed at his words. Even after years of marriage, his praise always meant the world to her. Instead of thanking him though, she said, “Always the tone of surprise,” as she smiled at him.

It was always their ‘thing’ that they said to each other, though perhaps the whole world also knew, too. She’d have to make a note to check for that when she got to the seventh book. If Rita did have such close tabs on them, even during the hunt, she had to give her credit for not selling them out to Voldemort…

“...Earth to Hermione,” she heard Jake say, “So what do you suggest tomorrow’s plan be, then?”

“Oh..right, sorry. Well, Harry and Ron should probably go investigate in the wand records office tomorrow.”

“But we don’t know what we’re investigating,” Harry said. “It’s not like we know The Cryptic’s actual name.”

Hermione furrowed her brow as she thought about what Harry had said. He was right, but before she could work it out herself, Amy chimed in. “What if you don’t need to know his name? Is there a visitor log you can track?”

“Yes! There’s a general sign in at the lobby, and another more detailed one in the wand records office. They don’t typically let anyone in that office.” Hermione answered.

“So if Gerteso’s been there, we’ll have a way to see what he was looking for,” Boyle said.

“Or what he found!” Jake added.

“And if he hasn’t been yet, he’s still working out a plan to get what he’s looking for successfully,” said Rosa. “If that’s the case, we’ll be more prepared to catch him.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. Hermione’s mind was in overdrive, formulating details for tomorrow. “Now, we plan.”

#hp fanfic #hp/b99 crossover #b99 #hp golden trio au

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theofficeimagines · 4 years

Text

My Commitment Issues Are Worse

Disclaimer: I do not own any of The Office characters or direct quotes from the show.

Ryan x OC

Part 2

After the unpleasant interactions had concluded, I made my way to my desk that was located towards the back wall behind an older looking man. "Hello" he turned around and asked "So new in town huh?" "Yeah" I put my stuff down trying to keep the small talk at a minimum. "Watch out for that guy." He said pointing at Jim. I looked at him and wondered if he was either senile or if there was something in the water in this place that made everyone bat shit crazy. Noon rolled around and I decided to take my break and grab a snack from the vending mechine. When I opened the door I saw Jim and Pam look my direction and suddenly get quiet. I could almost physically feel the tension and wondered what that was about. "Sorry to interrupt. I…" "Nope. You’re not interrupting anything. Nope. I’m… " he said looking rather nervous. "All right" I said interupting him. I made my way towards the vending machine with the tense quiet still in the air. "I should get back to work." Jim said to Pam "Yeah. I know, me too." They both walked out leaving me wondering if I should mention this to Karen, since they had just begun to date, but I decided to just mind my own business. It was probably nothing. I scanned the vending machine with my eyes then suddenly, I heard someone come in. "Can't decide huh?". I turned to see who the voice came from. It was the cute guy from earlier standing at the doorway with his hands in his pockets. "Yeah lots of options" I said gritting my teeth at the corny statement. He smiled and held out his hand. " I'm Ryan by the way I haven't gotten to introduce myself yet, uh, Beth right not Elizabeth." I replied with a smile meeting his hand with mine for the handshake. I looked into his striking blue eyes and felt my stomach jump a little. It had been a while since I felt this feeling and I forgot how good it felt. "Yeah, nice to meet you Ryan." I was glad to finally get his name instead of referring to him as the cute guy. "Well since your having a tough time choosing and if you're on break I just took mine too. Maybe I could take you out to lunch? I could show you one of those super exciting Scranton hot spots. You could cash in one of those coupons in your gift bag." he joked. Was he asking me out on a lunch date? I knew for sure I wasn't ready to start dating right now. To be commiting to anything right now other than getting my life together. I was living in a hotel goodness sakes. I didn't want anything to hold me back from my goals. My brain was telling me 'NO NO NO' over and over again concidering the fact that he was also my co-worker but if I was being completely honest with myself, my body was telling me yes. A little fun wouldn't hurt. "Mm.. sure okay maybe we coul--" "Oh my god Ryan! There you are I was looking everywhere for you." A girl said running into the breakroom wrapping her arms around his waist. Ryan groaned and rolled his eyes. "Oh hi.." she said in a rather catty tone not even having the courtesy of introducing herself. "Kelly do you really have to know where I'm at all times?" "You know what, I'm actually not that hungry um.. I'm just going to go back to my desk." I said inserting some coins and choosing a granola bar from the machine. All during which Kelly was blabbering on about some celebrity gossip to Ryan. Does this girl stop to talking to breath? Honestly, it's almost impressive how much she can say in a short amount of time. The granola bar finally fell to the bottom. I grabbed it and made my way out the break room as fast as could. The rest of the day consisted of watching a very interesting orientation video staring Michael and Dwight, way too many meetings one of which resulting in Tony qutting, and ending in the air being let out of all the cars in the parking lot. The day felt as if it lasted forever. Karen, Phyllis, Stanley, Martin, Ryan and myself ended up gathering in a circle to talk. Stanley, Phyllis, and Ryan explained to us how this day was pretty tame compared to other days. "Trust me. It only gets worse." Stanley says. "Is he always like this?" Martin asked."Sometimes he brings more costumes." Ryan answered. I reflected on the day again and realized I had hardly gotten any work done. "When do people work?" I asked the group. "Oh, we find little times during the day." Phyllis said answering my question. "How are we going to get home?" "Bob Vance has an air pump. He said he’d fill all our tires up." "Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration" Karen said. Phyllis smiled at her and we all continued to chat for a little while hearing Stanley, Phyllis and Ryan tell us more Michael Scott stories.

Finally, 5 o'clock. Bob Vance had all the cars tires filled and everyone headed toward the door out of the office. "Hey are you ready?" Karen asked me stopping at my desk. "Yeah you go ahead, I still have to put these in here" I said as I put some folders into my desk drawer. "Alright meet you down there, do you want to grab a drink. I could sure use one after today." "Yes. Please that is exactly what I was thinking." We both laughed and she walked out the door. "Beth, you haven't left yet." Ryan said sounding relieved. "Could I talk to you?" I shrugged and nodded waiting for him to continue. "Listen...about earlier.." "Oh you don't owe me an explanation. Really I'm not really um.. looking to see anybody right now.." "Oh..right maybe as like friends or something we could hangout.. or.." "Maybe, I have to get going. Karen's waiting for me. I'll see you tomorrow Ryan." I said a pretty coldly. I was a little vexed that he was still seeming to try to get me to go out with him even though something was clearly between him and Kelly. "Okay.. see you tomorrow" he replied sounding disappointed? I don't know. And whatever was going on between him and Kelly I knew I wanted no part in being in the middle of that. Karen and I arrived back at the hotel which conveniently had a bar next door. Jim met us there and we had a few drinks and shared a few laughs refeclting on our day at work. Jim and Karen finished their last drink while I was still babysitting my half finished one. "Do you want us to wait for you?" "No! No you guys go ahead I'm done being third wheel tonight " I joked being half serious. I liked hanging out with them but I wanted to give them their space. We said our goodbyes and Jim and Karen made their way out of the bar. "A scotch neat please." I hear someone say at one bar stool down from me. I turned and saw an extremely good looking man there. He was older than me. Maybe 15-20 years older but he was incredibly handsome. Black hair, brown eyes, some stubble and I noticed he was very tall before he sat down easily 6 foot. He turned to me noticing that I was looking at him. "Hi there." He said smirking at me. "Hi.." I said feeling my face get a little hot. "Can I buy you another drink?" He asked. "Oh no thanks I have to work tomorrow." He nodded and held out his hand "Elijah" "Beth" I answered simply mirroring his introduction. I shook his hand. This kind of attention was so foreign to me. Having been married up until about a month and some days ago, I never even really experienced dating. Elijah and I ended up talking for a little while. He was born here in Scranton and lived in Phili but was visiting his parents. We continued to talk and somehow ended up revealing we were both divorced. Something we had in common that I knew for a fact not many people my age understood. He was so put together and sure of himself. It was so sexy and refreshing. The conversation kept going and the flirting was getting a little heavy. I looked at the bar's clock realizing it was getting pretty late. "I should get going I have work in the morning, well in a few hours." I said. "Yeah I should get going too. I leave tomorrow evening. Here's my business card with my work number and my cell number. Give me a call sometime if you want. I come to Scranton pretty frequently. If you're ever in Phili too." We both got up off the bar stools and I grabbed my purse and put it over my shoulder. "Yeah definitely. I had fun thanks for a great conversation I had a pretty rough day." "Well I'm glad to hear I turned it around. I'll walk you next door." When we got to the front entrance, I looked up at him and he smiled down at me. "Goodnight, Beth." he said to me leaning down to kiss my cheek. "Goodnight, Elijah" I replied with a smile and entered the lobby of the hotel. I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling and thought for a little while about this evening. I had fun Elijah but the thought of that lunch date with Ryan kept creeping into my mind. How would it have gone? What would he have been like? What would we have talked about? How would it have...ended. I closed my eyes and began to trace my finger down my exposed belly and slipped it under the elastic of my panties. I bit my lip and let out a gentle sigh. Without warning I pictured the ending of the lunch date.. in the back of his car. I snapped myself out of that thought immediately. Honestly what the actual hell was wrong with me. My only priority right now had to be to work and get into law school. Nothing more. Nothing was going to stop me.

Hi reader! I'm planning on making this a bit of a slow burn so I hope you bear with me! Don't worry some smutty stuff is coming soon 🤭

#theofficeimagines #submission #the office #the office us #the office uk #michael scott #jim halpert #dwight schrute #pam beesly #ryan howard #kevin malone

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marevayo · 4 years

Text

Who ever requested this, thanks, got a laugh out of reading it. I wrote it though!!

Btw, if you want me to write a NSFW or SFW one-shot, request here

(NSFW) ~Mt. Lady~

"The crime rates really have been going up lately..." Kamui Woods spoke whist watching a news report on the TV. It had seemed offly quiet in the chatty hangout session him and Mt. Lady met at before their nightly patrols. Even if it was around eight o-clock, usually you could at least hear Yu commenting back, but nope, she was just too exausted today...

"Fifteen unrelated crimes this week... do we really have to do this every night?"

When Kamui had glanced away from the telavision, he did feel a bit bad to see how tired and fatiued the usually so talkative colleuge was, but when the clock had struck eight, they both knew what they had to do...

So, here they both are, on the streets, currently chasing a usually underground gang. There had to have been at least twenty of them...

"I don't think that we'll be able to get them like this..." Kamui chimed in, "My wood can't reach that far..."

Even in such an intense situation, Mt. Lady still had to suppress a slight giggle, "Phh, your 'wood' wouldn't reach? I thought it would've been a bit longer," though she was joking around, she also hated this. Not for the same reason as Wood, they're just some low level gang after all, but she is just tired of doing this every night; chasing wannabe villians... it's just not exciting enough... she craved more, and she found the perfect oppertunity to fullfil her desires not long after...

"Come on, how can you even make jokes like that right now-" but then they saw the group split. One left, one right. Makes it a bit easier, doncha think?

"You go left, I'll go right," Mt. Lady immediately. The left had more space, she could use her quirk, but she wanted to try a different method to subdue these guys. If you can get takoyaki with this method, surely you could get other, more exciting things...

Mt. Lady rushes towards the small criminals. It's too dangerous to be using her quirk, so she couldn't just grab them as planned. When she sneaks near the criminals, luckily (or not so luckily depending on how you see it), one of them used their teleporting quirk on them all, including Mt. Lady. His quirk had a downside- it could only teleport people. Nothing more, nothing less.

And that's how she ended up naked in a field, staring at the other naked individuals in front of her and them doing the same. She was quick to take the opportunity to use her quirk, her naked self growing till she had reached her peak. She then took one of the men into her large hands, pushing his small body in between her cleavage. The man was too dumbfounded to speak, but it was clear that everyone was enjoying this. She then moved her feet towards the others, caressing them with her large toes and feet, giggling at their reaction.

"Who would've known that Mt. Lady was into this sort of thing...," the one dared to speak. She had simply smirked and began to use more force onto the men between her feet, causing them to grunt and her to chuckle.

"Well, I've been a bit bored this week, so you lucky men will be my toys for this evening though...," she then pressed down harder onto the criminals. "You're still thieves, so you do deserve a bit of punishment~"

She then took the man who had been suffocating in her giant brest near her entrance. "You've been awfully quiet and to be honest, I'm getting quite bored. Pleasure me, you scum."

He then crawled up her gaping hole, causing moans to come out of her and her foot's grip on the others to tighten. He was really enjoying himself up there!

He had found her g-spot and kept pushing on it as hard as he could till the time came and she orgasmed, squeezing the poor souls between her feet so tight they thought that they'd die right there and then!

***

"Mt. Lady stops another robbery!! The men in question showing no remorse towards either their crimes nor the hero, one even stating that he will commit to the Mt. Lady fan club once out," the TV spoke in the office, Mt. Lady half asleep per usual and Woods staring questionably at the TV.

"Just what did you do?"

Before he could get a clear answer, the notification went off for them to leave, this time Mt. Lady was the first to head out, even looking eager.

"Welp, see you there!"

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kinghoranshit · 3 years

Text

Tell Me A Lie (NH) Ch 4

Word Count: 2,153

Warnings: swearing, anxiety

Six hours seemed to go by in a blink of an eye, and I felt like I was going to throw up as the plane came to a stop at the terminal and I had to get off.

I hauled my stuff with me and exited the plane, going through the terminal. I took more deep breaths, trying to control my nerves.

I shouldn’t have been shocked to see as many people swarming around as I did, and I saw my vision blur a bit as my anxiety kicked in. So, on top of the nausea, I felt great.

I was told to stay close to the gate, Niall and security would come get me. Hopefully it'll be soon. I felt like people were staring at me just standing there; probably had the look of being lost, which wasn’t necessarily far from the truth. I decided to take out my airpods and block out all the noises with music. The flow of it guided my heart rate to slow back to normal and I let out another heavy breath.

It’d be okay. Everything would be great.

There was a tap on my shoulder so I took out one of the pods, curious, and then someone whispered, “Lauren.”

My scream caught in my throat as I turned around in a jump. My reaction after turning around was to hit him in the arm. “Niall, not funny!”

He laughed, his eyes dancing. “I thought it was.”

Both of us looked at each other, smiling, and I sighed. “It’s great to finally see you in person again.”

“You too, Kelly.” He opened his arms for a hug and I accepted it. I couldn’t help myself from snuggling my face in his neck. He was just so soft and strong at the same time; humbled and still obviously so Irish.

“You’re not gonna cry are you?” Niall asked.

I scoffed with a small laugh, “No.”

He pulled back and it wasn’t hard to miss the small eye roll. “Come on.” He picked up my duffel from the floor. “I’m parked in one of the closer lots. It’s still gonna be crazy gettin’ out of er’.”

I couldn’t stop the look I gave him.

“What?” He laughed.

“Nothing,” I mumbled, laughing a little. “I didn’t expect you to drive us.”

He furrowed his brows now, and slightly scoffed, “Why not?”

I shrugged, then bit my lip. “You don’t seem like the best driver.”

“I’m loads good!”

When my eyes landed on the vehicle he started going towards, I rolled my eyes once again. Of course it was his black Range Rover. But the windows were tinted, so I assumed it was the safest option.

When I was a few steps from reaching the door, there was a flash and I couldn’t stop myself flinching and stepping back to catch my balance. Now, voices rushed.

“Lauren Kelly, right?”

“How’s it to be dating Niall Horan?”

“Where are you two at in your relationship?”

“Any wedding bells yet?”

“Have any major fights?”

The flashes continued and a tight wave flowed through my body as they closed in on me. I was confused how they managed to find us at this parking lot. It was a random spot hidden in the back. It was so under the radar.

A hand grabbed my wrist, yanking me forward, and I was pushed into the front passenger seat. I couldn’t rip my eye sight away from the security ushering the four paps and journalists away. After they’d done that, they nodded in our direction and Niall waved to them.

Once we were gone, Niall gave me an apologetic look. “I didn’t think they’d track us down here. But that’s what the security is for.”

I only nodded and folded my shaky hands together. I licked at my tingling lips.

Niall reached over to take one of my hands and kissed it. “You handled that so well, Lauren.”

To be honest, my mind was still fogged. That was more intense than I thought it would be. Oh my God.

I shook my head and cleared my throat. “I did not… I didn’t expect paps to be that intense. I’m fine.”

“I can’t promise that won’t happen again, but we’ll have security, and more than likely they’re gonna be the ones hired by Modest.”

“Perfect,” I retorted.

Today was meant to be a buffer day where he and I could hangout at his house. He had some studio work to do. I knew that my adhd and anxiety made things difficult, but that’s what the medications were for and I had my exercises.

Tomorrow would be our day out in public at Melrose, which I’d only been there once so it would be cool to go with Niall. The paps that Modest hired were supposed to snap us randomly over there.

We waited for this guard to open these massive gates that went into a development in Beverly Hills. This was not shocking to me, yet I felt out of place as Niall pulled through them. The buildings were definitely mansions and one of them was his. Holy shit.

“Will there be security at the house?” I asked, and that was for sure the dumbest question I’ve asked thus far.

“Oh, no, there's security at the gate. It’s a private community.”

I snorted. “Any of your neighbors famous?”

He laughed now. “All of them.”

“You fuckin posh prick,” I scoffed with a laugh.

The Range Rover came to a stop and I gasped. His house was absolutely stunning. A mixture of California and Victorian; white bricks, orange roofing, two pillars framed the front entrance, and a two door garage accented on the side. There was a lot more greenery than I anticipated as well; I wasn’t shocked by the palm trees he had out front.

“It’s really gorgeous, Niall,” I breathed.

He ran a hand through his tips a couple times, a laugh trailing after. “Wait until you see the inside. Less impressive.”

I rolled my eyes and didn’t say anything else as I stepped onto the concrete of the driveway. There was no way that it wasn’t just as nice inside. I pieced together that this wasn’t the home he spent the most time at when we stepped into the entrance; he probably did prefer his London home. The simple white walls and white marbled floor accented well with the greys, blues, and gold decor and furniture. I smiled at the framed golf photos and large canvas of an Ireland flag.

Niall cleared his throat as he rocked back and forth on his feet. “Uhm, as you can see the living room is here, bedrooms are upstairs… Feel free to pick whichever you’d like. The studio is in the basement which is where I’ll be for the remainder of today. Need anything else right now?”

I shot him a warm smile. “Thanks, Ni. I’m good for now.”

He leaned in to leave a kiss on my cheek. “Get comfy. I’ll see you later, Lauren.”

“Will do.” I laughed under my breath.

He disappeared down the second spiral staircase. I was back to being lost. I willed myself to go adventuring upstairs. There was an office with a sleek, glass desk that looked like it was never used; it was spotless clean though. The guest bedrooms all had their own attached bathrooms and that was where the extraness came from, otherwise it didn’t actually seem that large. Not like I’d imagined; Niall has always been a simple man.

The guest room closest to Niall’s room practically called my name so I plopped my duffel and backpack on the floor beside the bed. I sat down on the end and fell backward onto the soft cotton. My eyes found themselves having a hard time staying open, so I closed them for a bit.

Just a little bit…

***

I lightly groaned as I involuntarily stretched. My hand rubbed one eye as I sat up. Part of my hair had stuck to my cheek so I wiped it away behind my ear. It was clearly much later and I cursed under my breath. Despite the guilt of wasting time I could’ve used doing anything else, I did feel like a whole new person.

It was a nice nap I had to admit.

I grabbed the binder for Stone Cold, my pouch of pens and sticky notes, and airpods before I padded my way to the first floor. I’m sure there was a nook I could use to do some editing before we ate dinner, whenever that was. There was no way I would push Niall on a time.

Speaking of, there was a faint strumming that came from the basement. A flutter appeared in my chest hearing his sweet voice following it. This was an invasion of his privacy, even if I couldn’t make out the words. It wasn’t morally right to stand around.

The search for a spot to settle myself was back on. I finally found a small inset seating space under a window in the kitchen area; it was a beautiful navy velvet with a couple grey pillows. It was so comfortable, more than I could ever have predicted. It was my time to get invested in my own art and let the time slip by.

***

There was a muffled voice that didn’t match the music I was playing. As much as I wanted to keep going, I marked the paragraph I just finished and looked up. Niall’s tired, yet cheery, features filled my vision and I couldn’t stop the smile. I took out one of the airpods, which automatically paused the song, and cleared my throat.

“How’s the writing?”

He shrugged. “Not bad I think. Have you been here the whole time?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I actually fell asleep for a couple hours unintentionally.”

“The best kind of naps.” He laughed.

I bit my lip. “Yeah, and then I came here to edit. It’s a nice nook.”

He bit into the red apple he took from the bowl placed in the middle of the island and cheesed. “That it is… What should we do for dinner? We could go out, or get something to eat here.”

I thought about it. If we went out, I probably should change into a more put together outfit that didn’t reek of travel. That didn’t seem the slightest bit appealing to be honest. We had the rest of the trip to eat out.

“Do you mind eating in tonight?”

“Of course not. There’s this amazing Thai place not too far that delivers if you’ve got no objections.”

I smirked and shook my head as I stood. “Nope, Thai sounds wonderful.”

Within twenty minutes, the two of us were sprawled on the black suede L Couch in the living room with our own entrees and pot stickers. I used the chopsticks to bring some noodles and a piece of broccoli to my mouth. We had the first season of Stranger Things going and I tensed at the sight of Eleven using all her strength on the monster. I hadn’t realized I held my breath until that thing and she were gone.

I ate more of my Thai now, switching my focus to Niall who’d wiggled his way to lay his upper half across my lap at the beginning of the episode. I didn’t mind his weight though, it was more comforting than anything; even if the pressure on my pelvic area did emulate the sensation of needing to pee.

“That part gets me every time,” I stated. “She’s so badass.”

“I agree,” he remarked and reached over for another pot sticker from the coffee table.

“Get me one?”

He raised his brows momentarily before breaking out a smile and reached again, then handed it to me.

I cheesed. “You’re the best. This was really good. I might be addicted.”

“Don’t even get me started,” he scoffed with a laugh. “I get it every time I’m in LA.”

“Was the choice to eat out or in going to lead to this place no matter what?” I narrowed my eyes playfully.

“Maybe,” he mumbled, crossing his arms, and Niall made himself more comfortable; his eyes closed even.

I shook my head. “Such a dork.”

A small smile spread on his lips. He didn’t say anything else, and it didn’t take me long for me to catch on that he’d fallen asleep by the slow rise of his chest and soft snores. Netflix rolled into the second season of Stranger Things. I laid my head back, and found my fingers running through the tips of his hair.

Part of me realized that this should be more weird than it is, and the other part of me found calm happiness in it. It was okay for friends to do this sort of thing; platonic snuggles were normal.

Eventually, I drifted off too.

Next: Ch 5

[Masterlist]

#Niall Horan #Niall Horan fic #NH #NH fic #drama #comedy #romance #fanfiction #fic #Niall Horan fanfiction #NH fanfiction #Tell Me A Lie #Ch 4

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cevans16 · 4 years

Text

Thank You Bostonx - Chapter 6 ~ Truthful

“Hey do y’all need anything else for tonight’s game before I finish up this deadline?” you asked your co-workers. “No thanks!” they all replied in unison. You were running around finishing up any last minute add-on for tonight’s opening night. Opening night was always crazy busy especially in Boston but it had always been a fun one. You normally started it out by bringing donuts to the office and give a speech to motivate your workers. Chris was coming to the game since he rented out a suite for most of the season for his charity. Jules was coming as well, you noticed Chris would get somewhat quiet when you would bring him up in conversations, which was something you knew you would have to talk to him about but you weren’t sure when.

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“Hey so are we hanging out after tonight?” Jules asked. “Of course, I’m not breaking the tradition”, “Is Chris coming?”, “I don’t know what he’s doing after”, “You should invite him”, “You think? I don’t want to seem desperate”, “Oh my gosh (Y/N), you won’t, just invite him out”, “Okay look I gotta go see you soon.” you hung up and headed to the arena.

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The game was almost over so you were finishing up your final rounds going around the arena checking in on the suites, you saved Chris’ for last as you wanted to spend a bit more time with him and have the nerve to ask him to hangout with you guys after the game. Chris’ eyes lit up more when he saw you walk in, he was planning on asking you to hangout after the game as well.

“Hey Chris, just checking in on you guys, everything going okay?” you asked, “Of course, thank you for helping us put this together, should be a great season again”, he replied, “(Y/N) what are you doing after the game?”. “Well I was going to ask you if you’d like to hangout with my co-workers and I after?”, “Oh of course,” he said smiling. “Okay see you soon then!” you said as you left to go back to your office as the game had just ended.

You guys headed out to a nearby bar, you all would go there after games or even just for happy hour so the bartenders already knew you guys. You were texting Chris to him know where you guys were at, Jules was already there since he usually hangout with you guys. He was sitting next to you and you had saved the spot on the other side of you so Chris could sit there. You weren’t worried about your co-workers being weird about Chris as they had somewhat an idea of what was going on between you guys. You were sipping on your jack and coke while waiting for a dessert you normally order. You always didn’t get to eat much on game days since you would forget and by the time the game was over you felt it would be too late to eat an entire meal which is why you’d get dessert. “Here comes your dreamboat,” Jules teased you motioning his head over to Chris walking towards you guys. “Hey! You made it!” you said to Chris while giving him a hug. Chris gave you a hug with a small smile, nodded at Jules and waved at everyone else. You noticed his demeanor had slightly changed but you figured he was tired from a long day, heck you were definitely tired.

“Dude fuck off,” you said to Jules in a playful way. Jules and you kept trash talking to each other about the playoffs for baseball given that he was from NorCal and you were from SoCal, you guys always placed a bet and talked as much shit about each other’s teams. Chris was quiet and would only give short answers when you tried to make a conversation with him. “Chris did the cat get your tongue or what?” You tried to tease him to get him to talk. He shook his head and looked like he was going to say something but went back to looking at the tv.

As people left one by one including Jules you decided you were going to leave as well, “well this was fun I guess” you said to Chris. “Yeah I guess” he snapped, “What’s your problem Chris?”, “Really you’re now asking what MY problem is” he said more as a statement than a question. “Can we not do whatever we are doing in here” you said as you grabbed your jacket and headed out to the parking lot, Chris followed behind you.

You put your purse inside your Jeep, took a deep breath and turned to Chris. “Seriously what IS your problem and don’t say you’re tired because you were NOT acting this way towards me at the game. Chris it was like pulling teeth in that bar with you tonight” you said. “FINE you want to know my problem, it’s HIM”, “Who?”, “Cut the shit you know who, your ‘best friend’ Julian or Jules as you like to call him.” “Are you serious right now?!”, “Yes, you didn’t say he was coming”, “Why do I have to tell you, I told you we were all hanging out after”, “You didn’t mention him though”, “OKAY I didn’t know I’d have to name everyone that’s coming to hangout, why is it a problem that he came tonight?”. “It’s not just tonight, he is ALWAYS coming, no matter where you are, he is always there with you, I think this whole best friend thing is just a cover” “That’s bullshit Chris you know I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that I’ve told you Jules-” “YEAH JULES see there you go with-” “Can you let me speak CHRISTOPHER!?”. This caused him to shut up as you always called him Chris. “Part of the reason why I invited you out tonight was because he encouraged me to do so, he likes hanging out with you. Yes he is usually with me but you have to understand that he is my best friend, not my only best friend but one that lives here in Boston too. YES he and I went on a few dates but nothing more happened than a kiss. Yes I was attracted to him at some point but now I am attracted to you, I LIKE YOU Chris, Jules encourages me to keep hanging out with you because he says that he can tell we both really like each other so I should stop being dumb. We’ve been best friends for a while, we both bond over being from California and we just get each other, I’ve been there for him just like he has been for me. I don’t want to lose you but if you are always going to bring this up then I can’t be with someone who doesn’t trust me. I’ve been as truthful as I can be but I’m not going to drop my best friend over a guy.” “So I’m just a guy to you?”, “NO Chris, jeeezus no but I’ve learned that guys come and go but best friends will always have your back, Jules is important to me, it’s not my fault he’s a guy, you should understand your best friend is a girl and you don’t see me going crazy about it, if you lie to me that’s on you eventually I will find out.” “Yeah but we’re not practically in each other’s faces like you guys”, “How are we in each other’s faces?”, “Well like tonight all I would hear is ‘you’re going down’, ‘no you are”, “That’s shit talking you should know you’re from Boston” you said. He sighed “(Y/N) I’m not that guy that wants you to stop being friends with guys, I’m not and I don’t want to be. I just thought he would want to get back with you, I’ve seen the way he looks at you, he’s Julian fucking Edelman but fuck you are a fuckin catch however I didn’t know he was the one encouraging you to ask me to hangout” he answered in a calm voice. “Please next time just ask instead of assuming, I’m an open book Chris, I’d rather spit out the truth than waste anyone’s time, I’ve been as truthful as I can be”, “Okay then I have to trust you about this” he said as he walked closer to you, “you’re not dumb by the way” he said chuckling, “I know but he says I’m dumb for having a guard up with you”, “I know how you feel, you scare me (Y/N) in a good way but you scare”, “You do too Chris”, “Now I want to ask you something”, “Yes?”, “Would you like to be my girlfriend?”, “Do you want me to be?”, “Does this help?” he says as he kisses you on your lips for the first time. Gosh he was a great fucking kisser. “Hmmmm does this answer your question?” you say as you pull him back to kiss him again. A part of you couldn’t believe you were kissing this guy right now but another part of you knew you deserved this.

#Thank You Bostonx #Chris Evans imagine

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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nobody knows where we might end up, chapter two (branjie) - holtzmanns

(read on ao3) | (tumblr)

“Then why,” Nina punctuates it with a click of her pen, “have you been so on edge since finding out that it was her?”

Brooke scoffs. “What are you talking about?” She’s not that obvious. She’s professional. Dr. Mateo doesn’t affect her that much.

“You practically ran away from the conversation when I introduced her to you-”

“I did not-”

“And now you’re sitting here like you’ve been personally wronged. If you were anyone else, I’d tell you to get the hell out of my office and respect my hiring decisions. But it’s you, and you’re my friend, and I care about you, so you need to start talking.”

AN: Hello, hello, chapter two! Some bonding outside of class in the past and a pissed off Brooke in the present. Thank you writ for being an amazing human and helping me talk through ideas, roasting my writing, and being a great beta.

(then)

“C’mon, B. You’ve barely come out with me at all since orientation week.” Brooke’s roommate flops down on her bed, fixing her with a quivering pout that’s dramatic enough to win an Academy Award.

“I gotta study, Detox, it’s already week three and midterms start-”

“Fuck midterms.” Detox’s statement is punctuated by a hand in the air. “Uni’s not for studying-”

“Yes it is-”

“-Uni is not only for studying. You’re gonna regret it years from now if you spend it locked away in a dorm room preparing for midterms that are still weeks away.” Detox flips over onto her stomach. “Come study the different types of shitty mixed drinks that we can make instead.”

Brooke bites her lip. She’s always had a plan - get into uni, study her ass off, get experience in the field, and ace the MCAT all so that she can be accepted into med school. A worthy four year plan. She’s vowed to herself not to get distracted, not to get pulled away from it. Not if she wants to get into med school on the first try.

Detox sees the torment on her face and lets out a sigh. “It’s one night, B. It’s not even a party. Just some people on our floor gathering in 718 to get to know each other more and chill.”

“Promise we won’t stay too long?” Maybe she can go for an hour or so, max. She can spare that much time.

“Oh Jesus, yes fine, we won’t stay too long. We can come home for your nonexistent curfew so that we don’t make your mom who lives hundreds of miles away mad at you.” Detox extends a hand, tugs Brooke up into a standing position.

“She lives in Etobicoke, actually, not too far from-”

“Irrelevant. Now c’mon, put on something a little sluttier than that high school marching band t-shirt you’re wearing. Not exactly gonna get yourself a man in that.” Detox starts rifling through her own clothes, pulling out a crop top and holding it out for Brooke.

“Who’s to say I even want a man in the first place?” Not that she’s even come out to Detox just yet. Better to test the waters with her first.

“Whatever. Get changed. It’ll be fun.”

It’s only kind of fun.

Detox finds other people to talk to as soon as they step through the door, leaving Brooke to her own devices. She makes small talk with a girl who calls her ‘stunning’, which is flattering, really, before she realizes that the girl uses ‘stunning’ as an adjective for pretty much everything.

“This cider? Stunning!”

Case in point.

Brooke nurses her own drink, noticing with a wrinkle of her nose that it’s emptying faster than she’s planned. She’s only brought one, not intending to even get tipsy - she still has another lecture to get through tonight if she wants to stay on top of her study schedule.

She runs a hand through her hair when the girl leaves to grab a snack, wishing that she’d just stayed in her room. It’s hard. Having to socialize is hard. Uncomfortable. She almost misses home, misses her ballet friends and how easy things were when they had common ground to bond over.

But she’s left dance behind with high school, not following the path of her friends who want a ballet career. Her body is tired, worn. Her mind has better uses.

Maybe she should just go home and study.

“Brooke!”

Brooke’s head snaps up at the mention of her name, a voice yelling who is most definitely not Detox but-

“Vanessa?”

She’s here. Grinning with a smile that lights up her face, her hair in a high bun with pieces falling in front of her face that she goes to tuck behind her ear.

She’s adorable.

Vanessa maneuvers between the people sitting on the floor to come sit beside her. She’s in another shirt-dress, one with Led Zeppelin’s logo on it.

Brooke points to it. “Didn’t know you liked Zeppelin.”

“Who?” Vanessa looks down at her shirt. “Eh, I don’t. Stole it from my brother’s closet when I was last home.”

Brooke can’t help the giggle that escapes her lips, sounding quite similar to the girls that sit outside the Athletic Centre and watch the guys’ football team practice while hoping to catch their attention.

Nauseating. She’s better than this. She has game.

But then Vanessa nudges her, grabs her can of cider to look at it (‘I’ve never tried this one before’) and Brooke realizes from the way that her breath catches that no, she really doesn’t.

“Try it, see if you like it.” The comment slips out before Brooke can stop herself.

Vanessa raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

Her sip leaves a deep red lipstick print on the edge of the can, one that Brooke can’t help but stare at when Vanessa passes it back.

“You’re right, that shit is good. On second thought, I want another sip.” Vanessa reaches across to grab her can.

Brooke lifts it higher, out of Vanessa’s reach, can’t help but grin when Vanessa pouts up at her. “How about we trade?”

Vanessa practically thrusts her own can in Brooke’s direction. “Take it, I’m tired of this hard lemonade. It’s not even good.”

Vanessa takes another sip from Brooke’s drink, running a hand through her hair. Her leg is bouncing in place again, but somehow it’s less annoying than it is in class. “Question. What were you doing here alone, looking all sad and shit when I came in?”

“I wasn’t sad. ” Brooke’s voice is defensive. She wasn’t.

“Yeah you were.” Vanessa’s eyes are twinkling, making Brooke see that she’s just playing around. “Pouting and everything by yourself like a sad kitty.”

“You’re making me feel real cool.” Vanessa cracks up at Brooke’s wry statement, her laugh reverberating in the small room and it’s so cute that it makes Brooke crack a smile too.

“Nah. I just…my roommate dragged me here. Wasn’t really in the mood today.” Brooke shrugs at her.

“Are you ever?” Vanessa can’t keep a straight face before nudging Brooke. “Kidding, kidding. I’ve just never seen you at one of these floor hangouts before.”

Brooke can feel the blush rising on her face. So maybe she’s a bit of a hermit in her room. Who needs to hang out with others all of the time? But at the same time…Vanessa noticed.

“You were looking for me, huh?” It’s her turn to tease, and it feels great to turn the tables when Vanessa is the one flushing crimson.

“No! Okay…maybe. It’s just kinda nice seeing you outside of class. Where we can actually talk and shit, not with Professor What’s His Nuts droning on and on and on.”

Brooke can’t help but clap a hand over her mouth, looking around as if the man is going to actually materialize out of thin air or something. “Professor Who?”

“I said what I said.” Vanessa takes another swig of Brooke’s drink. “I can never pronounce his actual name, it’s too damn long.”

Brooke snorts. “And yet you can pronounce things like ‘ventricular tachycardia’ just fine in class.”

Vanessa shrugs. “Priorities, bitch. I practice. Speaking of which, I’m fucking glad we moved onto cardio from neuro. Neuro was boring.”

“It is not.” Brooke has to stop her mouth from dropping open at Vanessa’s statement. “Neuro is so fun! Learning about how the brain sends messages and the different cranial nerves and-”

“Zzzzz.” Vanessa pretends to snore. “Already asleep.”

Brooke gapes at her. “How can you hate neuro? Cardio is so confusing, with all of the different nodes and phases. I still haven’t fully gotten it, I need to go back and study it again before the midterm comes up.”

“Is that why I barely see you around? Cause you’re studying all the damn time?”

“No!” Brooke makes a face Vanessa gives her a pointed look. “Maybe?”

“You need to loosen up a little.” Vanessa stands up then and faces her. Sticks a hand out. “Lemme show you how.”

“I don’t really want to drink that much tonight.” Her protest is cut off, however, when Vanessa winks at her and makes the words that are resting on the tip of her tongue disappear.

“When did I say there was gonna be more alcohol? Come on.”

Brooke relents, letting Vanessa pull her into a standing position and drag her to another corner of the room. The music is louder, people dancing and laughing and then so is Vanessa, singing along to lyrics that Brooke doesn’t know and grabbing her hands, trying to make her move too.

Vanessa giggles at the way Brooke is frozen in her spot, stiff despite the music. “C’mon, you. Why you looking like a baby giraffe trying to learn how to walk for the first time?”

“I don’t dance. Not like this, anyway.” She’s a ballet dancer. She doesn’t know how to do this kind of dancing, one where she doesn’t have to drill the steps into her head a million times first.

“Sure you do.” Vanessa’s smile is a bit too mischievous and oh , that’s why, because she puts her hands on Brooke’s hips. Brooke’s heart does approximately twenty-five flips, because does Vanessa even know what she’s doing to her?

“Try and sway a little.” Vanessa moves her hands, bringing Brooke’s hips with them. “There you go.”

“I look like one of those inflatable balloons outside of used car dealerships.” Brooke feels her heart glow in her chest when it makes Vanessa crack up.

“Shut up, you don’t.” Vanessa says it with a smile that makes her eyes sparkle and hey, even though Brooke may be looking a bit stupid, does it even matter when she can make Vanessa’s face do that?

Vanessa lifts her hands from her hips, the loss of contact tugging on Brooke’s chest more than it should. But then Vanessa grabs both of her hands, intertwines their fingers and jeez. Brooke feels like she’s had more alcohol than she actually has, because she feels so light and happy and Vanessa is singing along again, and hey, maybe dancing like this isn’t so hard.

Brooke can’t keep the smile off of her face when she stumbles back down the hall to her room hours later. She’s a little sweaty and tired and definitely in need of a shower but her heart feels like it’s shimmying to its own rhythm, one curated by Vanessa and the way she had danced around her.

Brooke tosses Detox’s crop top back onto her bed, her roommate still not back, probably not returning until the morning.

Vanessa’s fun. Real fun outside of class, when they’re not taking turns asking and answering questions and annoying the fuck out of everyone else present in the lecture hall.

Maybe falling a tiny bit behind on her study schedule is okay. She’ll just work extra hard tomorrow.

She thinks of the way that Vanessa had held her hands, twirled her around while going on her tiptoes (‘Why are you so tall, what are you, a skyscraper?’). Perhaps she’ll need to alter her schedule to allow for such extracurricular activities, because she’s made up her mind.

She absolutely needs to hang out with Vanessa outside of class again.

(now)

Brooke exits out of the Word document open on her office computer with a frustrated growl. The words aren’t coming to her no matter how hard she fucking tries and it’s annoying, this never happens, shouldn’t happen because this research trial is her baby and she should be able to describe her findings in words.

Except that the words seem to be gone.

She rubs at her temples, trying to work away the tension headache that has started to blossom. The day has felt longer than usual. Her craniotomy had complications with bleeding that needed to be dealt with, making the surgery go for an hour longer than necessary. The patient that she had a consult with had to be intubated after a code blue. Now her research is just…not working.

Brooke hasn’t felt this off-kilter in a while. Things just changed after she saw…her.

Fucking Dr. Mateo. Throwing Brooke off of her rhythm.

Brooke stands up, shutting off her office computer. She needs a break from her work, anyway.

Her feet lead her to Nina’s office before she even realizes where she’s walking. Nina’s on the phone when Brooke lets herself in, holding up a hand until she hangs up. Brooke flops down on a chair, crossing her arms.

Nina raises an eyebrow at her when she puts the phone down. “Hello to you, too.”

Brooke leans forward in her chair. “You didn’t tell me that the new hire was Vanessa Mateo.”

“You never asked.” Nina’s forehead wrinkles. “Wait, is there something professionally that I’m missing? Her references were absolutely gushing about her.”

Brooke pauses. “Well…no. I don’t know much about her as a surgeon.”

“Then why,” Nina punctuates it with a click of her pen, “have you been so on edge since finding out that it was her?”

Brooke scoffs. “What are you talking about?” She’s not that obvious. She’s professional. Dr. Mateo doesn’t affect her that much.

“You practically ran away from the conversation when I introduced her to you-”

“I did not-”

Brooke deflates in her seat. “It’s…it’s not work related. It doesn’t matter. I can work with her.”

So she doesn’t want to talk about it. Sue her. Why bring up a relationship that ended so many years ago?

She can be professional. She can avoid Dr. Mateo, if necessary. They head completely different units, for crying out loud. Who’s to say that they’ll even run into each other at all?

Nina sighs. “Brooke-”

She’s up from her chair. “Doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.”

Brooke shouldn’t be a child about it, anyway. She can just stay away from her.

“I gotta get back to work.” She’s at the door, ignoring Nina’s disapproving look.

“If you now think that I’m absolutely not going to get this out of you, you’re wrong.” Nina clicks her pen in her direction again. “We’re gonna talk about this sometime. As well as your penchance for avoidance.”

Brooke waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah. Love you too, West.”

She’s out of the office before Nina can say anything else.

“That’s it, come on baby.” Brooke mutters the empty words into the ear of the…nurse? Radiation technician? Whoever she’s fucking on this bunk in the on call room. The woman’s moans sound fake, and would annoy Brooke if she couldn’t currently feel the way that she’s shuddering underneath her.

Brooke extricates herself as soon as the woman comes, wiping her hand on her pants. It doesn’t matter. She’ll change into a different pair of scrubs before her next surgery, anyway.

The woman is still lying on the bunk, dazed expression on her face as she giggles. “Wow, Dr. Hytes.”

Brooke pulls her lab coat back on, letting out a noncommittal hum in response. She grabs the woman’s scrubs from the floor, tosses them to her. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to work, too?”

“Uh, yeah. I will.” The woman’s still looking a bit out of it as she pulls her shirt back over her head. “Can we do that again sometime?”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” Brooke leaves with that, shutting the door behind her.

She’s used to letting off steam like this, pulling one of the women on the floor that fawn over her into the on call room for a little break. Though this time, it hasn’t been as stress relieving as it usually is. The tension in her shoulders is still there, the headache that has hovered for the last few days behind her eyes still present.

Brooke lets out an annoyed huff as she passes the cardiovascular ICU because she knows exactly why she’s still felt so off, no matter how much she wants to pretend that she hasn’t.

She hasn’t seen Dr. Mateo since she started working at the hospital at the beginning of the week, but reminders of the woman are everywhere. Avoidance hasn’t helped when the gossip on the various units is so loud, so carrying, everyone gushing about Dr. Mateo’s surgical techniques and daring nature and how fucking friendly she is.

Brooke doesn’t care. She doesn’t. But why has Dr. Mateo felt the need to come here, of all places?

She’s ruminating as she power-walks to the Stroke unit, intent on distracting herself with checking up on some of the patients that she’s operated on during the week. Her mind is running as she flips through the files in her hands as she walks, barely noticing the woman heading in her direction-

“Shit! Shit, sorry-”

The woman’s apology cuts off and it makes Brooke look up and oh.

“Dr. Hytes.”

“Dr. Mateo.”

Of fucking course.

Dr. Mateo’s in her scrubs now too, dark blue ones matching Brooke’s because she’s also an attending surgeon. Brooke clenches her jaw. Her luck, really. She doesn’t want to deal with her. Even if she still looks fucking good.

Not that the fact is relevant whatsoever. Doesn’t matter in the least. She needs to go back to work.

“Excuse me.” Brooke shoves past her, and if the files in her hands knock against Dr. Mateo’s shoulders it’s absolutely not her fault. Not at all.

“Not even the end of my first week and you’re already pushing me out of the way. Don’t let me keep you waiting from whatever important shit you’ve clearly got going on.” Dr. Mateo’s tone is biting, and it makes Brooke’s eyes narrow.

“More important than whatever it is that you’re doing here.” With that, she stalks down the hallway without looking back because she’s mature, real mature.

She’s fuming when she reaches the Stroke unit, an emotion that is only exacerbated when she overhears nurses talking about “that new cardio surgeon, I heard she’s crazy good,” making her slam her files down on the nursing desk with more force than necessary.

Clearly avoiding Vanessa isn’t going to be enough, not when she’s the talk of the hospital. Focusing on her work is going to be more difficult than she thought.

#rpdr fanfiction #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #branjie #lesbian au #hospital au #greys anatomy au #holtzmanns #nobody knows where we might end up #submission

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silverfootstepswrites · 5 years

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Lullaby [30%]

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Read Equinox here and come back!

“This is laaaaaame,” Hidan whined, sprawling across the seat. Temari shoved his head off her shoulder with a look of disgust. His head fell against Kakuzu instead, who hit him even harder.

They sat on the patio at the bar. This was supposed to be the party for some important person’s something-or-other. None of them had really listened to the many speeches. All they knew was that Tobirama had sent Hidan, Temari, and Kakuzu in his place. And Madara, who had another event to attended, had begged Sakura to go too.

“Make the boss stop sending us to shitty parties, Sakura,” groaned Hidan.

Sakura lowered her cocktail glass, eyebrows rising. “What do you want me to do? He’s your boss.”

At this, Hidan sat up, Clasping his hands together, he fluttered his eyelashes to simper, “Oh, Tobi-baby. Be nicer to Hidan and my other less-talented friends for me!” And then he lowered his voice, miming throwing his arms around her. “Anything for you, sweetheart.”

Sakura wrinkled her nose at him. She contemplated kicking him before Temari got up to grab her hand.

“Let’s head somewhere else. Didn’t you say one of your friends has a place around here?” Temari asked, already pulling her in the direction of the stairs.

“Huh? Oh yeah. Let me give him a call.” Sakura hooked her arm through Temari’s.

Genma picked up after four rings. “Graymalkin,” he answered with the name of the bar.

“Gen, Sakura.”

“Hey!”

“You guys busy tonight? I wanted to drop by with some friends.”

“Are they hot?”

Sakura hung up. Rolling her eyes, she looked over at Temari. “He says we can come,” she sighed.

Genma’s bar was tiny. Squeezed between a taco place and a fortune teller, it glowed soft orange, funky music playing low over the speakers. It was always busy, but not in an unbearable way. Like tonight, there were no free seats open at the bar, but there were a couple empty tables.

Graymalkin was a hipster hangout. There was no denying it. If the sheer amount of facial hair, black glasses, and plaid didn’t make it obvious, the number of people wearing suspenders did.

When they walked in, Genma stood at the cash register, chatting with a customer. His face lit up when he spotted Sakura. He waved at her. She winked in response.

“Cute,” Temari commented as they made their way to a table.

“The bar?” asked Hidan.

“...Sure... The bar,” replied Temari, looking over at Sakura, who sighed.

“I think Gen’s single, if you’re that interested,” Sakura told her. And Temari’s whole face lit up. She dug through her purse to find her lipstick to reapply.

While Hidan and Temari settled in, Kakuzu and Sakura walked up to the bar. Genma was too busy to take their order, so they asked the other bartender instead. He gave Sakura a not-too-subtle once-over as he took their order. Sakura ignored the look.

A couple minutes later, they returned to the table with the drinks.

It wasn’t a bad night to be here. The mood was good and the music selection wasn’t horrible. Hidan went to get them another round of drinks later. And when things finally calmed down, Genma came over to join them. Sakura didn’t have to really break the ice. Genma was a natural charmer. And he and Temari seemed to hit it off right away.

Genma was in the middle of telling one of his wild stories when Sakura thought she heard something. She tilted her head, trying to catch the sound better.

Sakura’s eyes widened. “Hang on,” she said to Kakuzu. He just grunted vaguely at her.

And that was the last thing she remembered before she opened her eyes.

Sakura jolted awake in an unfamiliar room.

“Oh no. Shit. Fuck,” she hissed, fingers tangling into her hair.

Her head whipped around as she tried to figure out where she was. The wall directly behind the bed was made of old, weathered bricks. From the rafters hung a fan that rotated in a lazy, almost sleepy way. A potted fern sat on top of the dresser, which was a weird place to put a plant, in her opinion.

And while this room was nice to look at, there was nothing she recognized. No photos. No posters. This was a stranger’s place.

She slid her hands down to cover her bare chest. The shame burning her cheeks, the heat slipping down to her neck, her shoulders as she wondered who to call. Maybe Ino? Or Temari?

“Oh, you’re awake.”

She burst into tears when Itachi walked through the door with a mug in his hands. Which he almost dropped when she began sobbing. He plunked it onto the dresser before he hurried over to her.

“Heyheyhey shhhh,” Itachi murmured, his arms wrapping around her. “What’s wrong?”

Sakura couldn’t do much else but hiccup and whimper as he hugged her. Her hands grabbing onto his as the tears spilled down her cheeks. It took her a long time for her to calm down. Even with Itachi rocking her back and forth, murmuring soothing words into her ear.

Sitting at the kitchen table an hour later, Sakura sniffed. Her eyes puffy and her nose bright red. The quilt from the bed wrapped around her shoulders. She stared blankly ahead as Itachi set a glass on the table. He poured her a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice.

“Do you feel a little better?” he asked, pushing it towards her.

Sakura shook her head.

“You should drink something. You’re dehydrated,” he said anyway.

Wrapping both hands around the glass, Sakura took a sip. Which turned to a gulp. Itachi refilled her cup with an anxious expression, hovering around her with all the nervous energy of a hummingbird.

“Sorry,” she finally managed to croak.

“For what? Drinking all my juice? I can always make more,” he replied, finally settling in the seat across from her. She only noticed then that he was wearing an apron. There was a little black bird stitched into the pocket.

“Do you feel like talking now?” he then tried again.

“I got confused... because... this doesn’t look like your place,” she mumbled.

Itachi looked around at the white walls. And the weathered wooden rafters above. “I told you that I was moving.”

“I forgot.”

His gaze returned to her.

“So... I thought that... for a minute that- that...” Sakura trailed off, rubbing her face with both hands.

He began to look a little nervous as he took that in. “I didn’t think you were drunk. Do you... not remember last night?” asked Itachi, leaning his elbow on the table.

“I do now. Not when I just woke up.”

She had recognized his voice at Genma’s bar. She had always been good with voices. And she had dragged him over to their table to laugh at Genma’s stories. His arm wound around her waist, thighs pressing together on the hard, wooden seat.

Cheeks gin-warmed, Sakura had waved goodbye to her friends and left the bar with him. Laughing into the cool night as Itachi caught her up on his busy week. Arguing with Itachi as he tried to insist on carrying her purse for her.

And as she thought, she remembered now. How the lease for his last apartment had ended and he had moved to a bigger place. White walls full of windows and the burning city lights. The sills crowded with potted cacti and souvenirs from his many business trips.

After a tour of his new place, and a glass of red wine, they had climbed the steps up to his bed in the loft.

“I’m an idiot,” Sakura sighed.

“You’re not,” Itachi assured her. He leaned across the table to put his hand over hers. It took a moment, but she answered him with a smile. She pecked him on the lips.

They had breakfast and then walked to the subway station together. They parted ways after the turnstiles. He kissed the top of her head as he gave her a hug.

“Have a great day.”

“You too,” Sakura replied. And it was almost drowned-out in the metallic screech as a train pulled up to the platform. Their heads swiveled to check the colored circle stuck to the windows. It was his train uptown. Itachi waved before he squeezed in with the crowd rushing toward the doors.

Tobirama stood in her office by the time she got to work. He held a shopping bag in one hand, the other in his pocket. He wore a black sweater with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. It had been a few months since he had covered up the chord diagram tattoo on his left arm with a new one of Apollo. He took one look at her puffy face and sighed.

“Itachi texted me. You okay?” he asked as she set her purse down. She sat on the edge of her desk, kicking off her shoes.

“I’m tired,” was all she could think to say. Which was true on a lot of different levels.

She lifted her chin when Tobirama pushed the bag into her hands. When she peeked inside, she found clothes. After a little digging, she recognized them as a sweatshirt and jeans she had left at his place a while ago. There were also two plastic packages obviously bought from some cheap pharmacy on the way there. One of socks and one containing underwear.

“Thank you, Tobirama,” was all she could say as her throat began to feel clogged.

She watched as he began moving around her office. Pulling down the blinds and drawing the black curtains shut. He locked the door and pulled down the shade on the window too. And then he sat on the little grey sofa pushed up against the wall.

“So?” Tobirama asked.

Sakura turned her back to him before she shed her jacket and then unbuttoned her blouse from last night. She folded her clothes, setting them inside the empty bag.

“I woke up in Itachi’s new apartment and I thought I went home with a stranger last night. I thought he texted you,” she grumbled. She yanked her socks off in big motions. Tossing those into the bag too.

“He did. He just said you had a rough morning and probably wanted some fresh clothes,” replied Tobirama.

“Oh.”

Sakura peeked over her shoulder. Tobirama with his too-long legs watched her with- She didn’t know what that expression was supposed to be. She quickly turned away to finish yanking her arms through the sleeves. Tugged the rest of the garment down to cover her stomach.

“So that’s why you cried, huh?” he then commented. She pretended not to hear him.

“Let me see,” Tobirama then requested.

“Don’t look at me,” grumbled Sakura.

“I can’t even look at you now?” Tobirama asked. His voice so soft that she almost didn’t register what he was saying. That made Sakura peer over her shoulder at him again as she pulled her panties on. The cheap elastic snapping over her skin. She glared at him, especially at the way he looked so innocent.

Sakura rolled her eyes when she realized what he was doing. She squeezed into the jeans. Pretended she couldn’t feel his hand reach out to touch her hair. Or that he brought it to his lips to kiss it. She swatted his hands away when she felt them creep up around her waist.

“Ugh, you’re so clingy,” she pretended to complain as he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his lap.

“I wanna look at you,” Tobirama whined. He kissed the back of her neck, her shoulder. Her scowl dissolved into giggles as his lips tickled up the side of her throat. More kisses peppering around the shell of her ear.

“Quit it! You’re so annoying,” she laughed, pushing his face away with both hands. It wasn’t until much later that she realized what he had been doing. Snuggling and annoying her until she forgot what had made her so upset in the first place.

Sakura got a call from Itachi a few nights later. There was a soft opening of a mediterranean restaurant in the city that a friend of a friend had invited him to. They browsed the stiff new menus with the glossy pages. When the waitress stopped by to offer them a drink menu, Itachi and Sakura exchanged a look.

“...Just water, thanks,” Sakura told her.

And as the waitress walked away, Itachi nudged Sakura, leaning in close. Like he was about to whisper a secret. Instead, he remarked, “Should we stop by Genma’s after this?”

He laughed as she smacked him in the forearm with the menu.

#equinox #writing #multisaku #itasaku #lullaby #tobisaku

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sarakuper · 5 years

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Visiting Sean’s Grandparents; Spirit Lake & Lake Park, Iowa

Stop #24, Sept 12-19

After a long [and scary] night we arrived at Spirit Lake where I could feel the nostalgia flowing from Sean. He pointed out everything in town that he had a connection with and shared stories from his childhood. We pulled in front of Sean’s grandparents house where Grandma Ghee and Grandpa Tim were waiting outside with big smiles. I was so relieved to finally be here and already felt a strong sense of comfort. I had met Ghee and Tim a few times before while going back to Omaha for an Elser Christmas and was looking forward to spending some more time with them.

We got settled in, showered, and ate some breakfast. Ghee made scotcharoos, which to me is a Christmas cookie delicacy, but now there was a fresh batch for us to enjoy all week long! I couldn’t help myself; even though we had donuts for breakfast I needed a scotcharoo too! After a little while we drove into town for a delicious lunch at Taco House around Okoboji, then drove around the lake town that Sean speaks so highly of. Being after labor day many of the seasonal activities had already come to a close as well as some shops and restaurants. I would love to come back in the heart of summer to enjoy some of that Okoboji magic!

The next morning Sean and I woke up to the most amazing smell for breakfast. Sean had mentioned how he loved Ghee’s monkey bread and POOF, it was there waiting for us for breakfast and still warm. Oh my goodness… that monkey bread was the best thing I’ve ever tasted!! Later in the day she made fresh oatmeal cookies too, and at that point I just accepted that I would put a on few [or more] pounds this week and shouldn’t bother getting back to normal eating until I leave Iowa. Because, of course, she packed up several leftovers for us to take when we leave the next day! At that point I happily accepted stretchy shorts and leggings for the next week.

Later in the day we stopped at Sean��s other grandparents home because my laptop was getting delivered that day, and in case it took longer I gave them the Iowa address we would be at latest. I got my laptop back so quickly, and its working perfectly! Wahoo! This time around the process was a lot smoother.

Sean and I shopped around town for some Kayaks hoping that an end of year sale would get us a great deal. But, with all the extra money I spent on my laptop I decided I’d rather put down a few bucks to rent a kayak when the time comes, rather than buy one right now.

The rest of our time with Ghee and Tim the five of us hung out and spent time catching up. Jaxon was so happy to be in a house with a rug where he could make any spot on the floor his own. We exchanged stories from our trip and life in general. Tim showed us his boat, which he was preparing for the trip they would leave for the next day, and shared some funny stories of Sean and his siblings going out on the boat when they were children. Ghee took out some old photos of Sean, which I especially enjoyed! He was a little Justin Bieber in his high school days!

I really enjoyed Ghee and Tim’s company and loved getting to know them more. Meanwhile, Ghee made sure to fill our bellies with such delicious goodies that even Tim felt like he was on vacation! I forgot to mention we ended every night with ice cream…

The night before Ghee and Tim left for their trip we ate Sean’s favorite for dinner, Godfathers Pizza, which I have come to somewhat enjoy. I’m still a pizza snob; its in my NY blood! But this pie really was delicious, and the four of us enjoyed our last meal together. The next day they left around 7:30am and Sean and I were so sad to say goodbye. I kept telling him how fun it was to hangout with them and that they are really good people whose company I really enjoyed. Ghee told us to stay as long as we’d like and just to lock up before we leave.

After a long lazy morning of sleeping in and eating more sweets for breakfast we finally packed up and left, getting ourselves over to Sean’s other grandparent’s house only 15 minutes away in Lake Park. Coincidentally, they were already on a vacation and were getting back in a few days. So, Sean and I had a lot of down time before actually spending time with Grandma Maxine and Grandpa John.

We spent those few days between doing a variety of things. First, we took out the side by side, AKA the ripper, for a drive all around the farm. The birds were hovering over the corn, the butterflies were fluttering, and the frogs were jumping, as was the mud running through the tires and shooting in the air. After the first ride I learned to keep my mouth closed; my face got hit with mud! The farm is beautiful and really fun to explore.

That night we logged right into netflix to binge watched The Office, our absolute favorite TV show that never gets old. We’ve watched the entire series too many times to count but never cease to find something new to laugh about in every episode. That first night we also raided the fridge and freezer and found some of Maxine’s home cooked meals that we defrosted for the night and the next.

Another day to ourselves Sean spent hours working on the truck while I switched between cleaning the trailer and getting caught up with computer work. Sean could not have been happier working in his grandpa’s machine shed. He had every tool you could possibly need, and light and shelter which meant Sean could work after sunset. It also meant he could leave his tools out and just pause his work for the night not having to clean up like he needed to when he worked in the alley behind our house.

On Sunday the 15th Sean took me to the Clay County Fair for its last day running. Maxine left us two tickets, and I was so exited to check it out! I’ve never been to fair that big, let alone in the middle of Iowa! Well, it sure was huge, and way different than the fairs they had in my home town growing up. Besides the capacity there was tons of livestock competing for who knows what, cheese curd stands, and huuuuuge tractors being sold! Sean and I ate our way through the fair starting off with a smoothie to keep it “light” but then continued to fried cheese curds, a jurassic sized corn dog, and a rib sandwich. Right after we walked through the live stock barn I was all upset about the treatment of the animals, and then we walked into The Chop Shop and had those rib sandwiches. Damn, that was the best I’ve ever had!!!!! Talk about conflicting feelings…. Once we felt sick to our stomachs from the food the heat really started to kick in and we decided to leave.

Grandma Maxine and Grandpa John arrived late Monday night from their bus trip and hung out with us as we all exchanged stories from our trips. After a good nights sleep they took us out to breakfast at their favorite diner, then we spent the afternoon learning how to play the card game Hand and Foot, an Elser favorite! The night ended with a delicious meal and warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream. Both my belly and heart were full <3

The next morning we woke up to the smell of bacon, and while Sean and I were supposed to leave right after breakfast we decided at the very last minute, since we were so comfortable and in such good company, we would stay an extra day. Maxine and I went grocery shopping while Sean continued to work on the trailer, and after a few hours of errands and work we played some more cards. I also took a walk to see the butterflies on the evergreens; there were hundreds right next to their house! It was so beautiful and peaceful to see.

Sean later took me on the swing where I felt like a child again. After a few minutes of getting air and spinning we were suddenly reminded we are not children; both of us got off feeling nauseous. Our bodies cannot tolerate being thrown into the air like they used to! Later that night had our final meal together, although Maxine sent us with lots of food to go.

It was such a pleasure to spend some quality time in Iowa with both of Sean’s grandparents and on the farm. I’ve been saying things along this line, but never in my life did I think I would ever go to Iowa let a lone a farm in Iowa! During 5th grade for my school’s annual “states” project I was assigned Iowa, and all I could remember from that project was that the Iowa State Coin had not come out yet… and CORN! That the extent of my understanding until I met Sean and Josh. Well, it was a blast! Next time we will come during the heart of summer to explore more of Okoboji.

Thanks for reading, love you all!

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wellnessandrelief18 · 4 years

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Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 298

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 298 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

We should be live. Hey, we are welcome to Episode 298 of Hump Day Hangouts. Just got done throwing a little video post on Facebook but we are here to answer your digital marketing questions. And if we can’t, we will definitely point you in the right direction. So with that said, we’re gonna say hi to everyone real quick. We got a couple of quick announcements and then we’re gonna get into the questions. So we’ll start with the last person to show up. Hernan How you doing man?

I’m good, man. You put me on the spot. Oh yeah. Oh, man solid took me a solid like 3045 seconds to jump on the call for some reason. So I apologize for that. Really excited to be here. Thank you, guys. 298 Wow, it’s been a ride. So excited to be here. Yep. Chris, how you doing? Good here. It’s quite a storm yesterday. So I’m glad this is over. And yeah, today it was packed sunny. So yeah. All right. Cool. Well, Marco, do you

You have like a fake lamp on in the background or what’s going on there? Doesn’t it seem that way, man?

Oh, look. Can you send me one to the same? It’s like the exact same lighting every time it says every week if time is it luck as I said before, don’t hate the player. Hate the game you play. That’s it. Play it right.

And look I fade often into the light, often to heaven don’t go light. There’s light at the end of Markos tunnel. Fake no fake backgrounds. I know fake backgrounds look. No fake back it. Have you guys noticed, like on the news and stuff. There’s a lot to everybody’s got the green screen in the back and often times like you see bubbles were not the simulated it’s funny. It’s like why bother?

No simulator here, man. It’s Groundhog Day. COMM gets home. Go killing it. Make your money and come get some as to how this works. Oh, foo

speaking of POFU before I ask Bradley how he’s doing. I’m going to talk about this in a minute. But we had a couple of people take advantage of the early bird special on a pony live tickets that hopefully live calm. It may still be up, although I think I had them take that down. So if you guys want to somebody wants to sneak over there and try to snag last minute tickets, or just go ahead and grab them at the discount. But either way, we got some great bonuses going on with that. We’ll get into that in a minute. But Bradley, I was gonna say your background looks remarkably the same to you. How are you doing now? Yeah, it’s always I used to guys go. I’m good, by the way. But if you guys go way, way back to the beginning of Hump Day Hangouts, there was always a black curtain-like right behind me and I’m still in the same office space. But I just, I got tired of setting that shit up all the time. So uh, you know, I don’t care this is, but it’s funny if you go back and look at the old Hump Day Hangouts. My face was like this much bigger.

Anyways, I’m good. I’m glad to be here. Sorry, I wasn’t here last week, guys, but I took the week off. It was a wonderful vacation. And now back and Laurie. I mean, I know people want to know, like, I would think some people might be interested, what are you up to? I went down to the state in Kentucky, but I’ve got friends that live down in that area of southwestern Virginia, which is kind of like Virginia, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky all in one spot. And just took the whole week off and went riding ATVs and just hanging out and drinking a lot of beer. And it was fine. It was good, hotter than hell. But it was good. It was good to get away for a weekend seriously unplug, which is what I did. So nice. Very good. Well, cool. We’ve got a couple of quick announcements and then we’ll jump into it. Just wanted to say as I mentioned a minute ago, POFU Live, just want to let people know about that. Now. We don’t know. I lost my train of thought. So I’m just going to start over with POFU Live since it’s virtual this year. I don’t know where I was going in that first sentence, you know, we understand that you don’t have to, you know, figure out plane tickets, you don’t have to get a hotel room, it’s a lot simpler. But I do want to tell people to make sure that it is a conference, it’s gathering, and there’s a lot to be learned and the more you’re able to kind of input, the more you’re going to get out of it. So part of that is making sure that you know, you block that time out, you know, treating it just like you were going to a conference and saying, you know, maybe could you get someone to watch the kids or make sure that you know, they’re not running around in the office. You don’t have a call scheduled for things like that so that you get the most out of it. Because we got ourselves which I value my time highly I value these guys, time highly. We got some amazing guest speakers who are coming in and going to be dropping some bombs. We’re going to have some case studies we got a lot of great stuff. So if you do decide to sign up I just want to say that you know, the value is most definitely there and it’s so high that I don’t want you to sign up, and then realize, Oh, I’m kind of busy this weekend and this other stuff happened like, don’t do that, make sure that you treat it like a real conference so that you can come in and get just an extreme amount of value out of that. So I won’t read you the sales page, you can go check it out, find out all about it, head over to pofulive.com. And if you have any questions about any of the details or anything like that, you can always email us at support at Semantic mastery.com cool All right, guys. Other than that, I just want to say Bradley’s got a question or he’s clapping What’s going on here? I was clapping because you did such a good job recovering from the misstep when you first started. Oh, yeah, just like I have no idea what I’m talking about. Where did this sentence go? Anyways? Yeah. So the last thing I did want to say too, with MGYB.co. I know a lot of people listening to us and watching already know what it is. But I want for the people who don’t know head over to MGYB.co done for you services, whether you’re looking for link building, if you’ve heard about the SEO shield, that’s where you can get it.

If you haven’t that’s where you can find out more about it. We’ve got some really good free resources over there as well. There are some best practice webinars about everything from syndication networks, to just so much more. And you can find that when you go to mg y v.co. There’s a little clickable link called webinars, go over there a bunch of really good free training. So head over there. And if you got questions about MGYB stuff, you can ask us here and we’ll definitely point you in the right direction. So with that said, Guys, anything else we need to cover before we get into it?

Nope. All right. Let’s do it. Okay, I’m gonna grab the screen and I’ll cover something very briefly. Chris is very excited. I like this. Yeah.

All right. You guys are seeing my screen, correct? Yeah. Okay. Real quick. For those of you that aren’t aware of this. Two weeks ago, I mentioned that I had created a process street process doc for our methods to make it easier for you guys. So if you want to you can, if you don’t have, if you don’t know what process street is, it’s processed .st. And that’s an app that I use for creating process docs for, you know, pretty much everything that I do in my business. That way I can train others and just have a record of how to do things in case it’s something that I don’t do very often. So I put a created a process docx, which you guys can get at semantic mastery comm slash process. It’s not 100% complete, because I was on vacation last week, there’s one section that I still need to do, which I’m going to try to get done before next Wednesday, guys, but I’m just going to open this up. So you can take a look at this. If you have your own process st account, you can import that template in your account and then run checklists from it if you wanted to, or you can just take a look at it and go through what’s there. In the actual, you know, the process training and everything. But essentially, it just talks about what our methods are, and it puts it in the proper sequential order. And it goes into detail as to why we do the things that we do and the way that we do them. It doesn’t give you the how to do them right because that’s if you want the how there are resources linked to in the process doc that you can go purchase our training courses or join one of our groups where we can discuss it you know, you can learn the actual how but this does give you the foundation for what our processes are and why we do them the way that we do them. And then it directs you to go to MGYB to purchase the done for you services or go to purchase the training programs if you want to learn how to do it yourself. So again, I just wanted to point this out guys, there’s a lot of training in here the website training is the one that I still got to complete because I’m going to update the silo architecture training that I recorded videos for, I think like way back in like 2014 or 15. But the SEO power shields here content marketing, which is rather an in-depth module and in the link building and embeds and all that so again, just go through there guys, there’s actual training videos in here, step by step processes and that kind of stuff. Okay? So again, if you want to download that or import it into your own process st account. It’s right there semantic mastery comm slash process. Okay.

Are Content Kingpin And Local Kingpin Outdated Semantic Mastery Courses?

All right, moving on. So it looks like the first question came from the user. I was interested in Content Kingpin, and I saw that on this page here, which is our knowledge base. You don’t let content outsource or local kingpin or these courses older and or unmaintained and or replaced by things and heavy hitter club or mastermind? Well, that’s a good question. Now, the reason why they’re not on there is that we had a separate organization called mastery PR that we had launched those products under that brand name. And so they weren’t on that knowledge base page, which could be updated. I don’t know, by the way, Adam, if you want to update that page or something because it’s not on here. But anyway, those courses were still produced by us they were just under a different brand. That is no longer we don’t maintain that brand any longer, but the courses are still good. Yes, like Content Kingpin nuts don’t need to be updated that those principles are absolutely still valid today. That’s all how my bloggers all produce content is through content curation, the same exact method that was taught in content kingpin. So you can check that out there. outsource kingpin, the same thing, nothing needs to be updated there. It’s the same process that we still use to this very day, every time we need to hire new virtual assistants or employees of any sort.

Local kingpin, it’s a bit outdated. But because the interface has changed so much in Google ads, it used to be AdWords. Now it’s Google ads and the interface has changed. And now Google Ads has got a lot of automated bidding strategies that are a lot better and local kingpin, I say don’t use those at all because it was older and at the time, the bidding strategy sucked the automated bidding strategies really were terrible at the time, but they’re a lot better now. But as far as the principles behind the alpha, beta campaign structure and how to target for local lead gen for Google ads and get incredibly good results. That still is the same, the concept is still the same. But yes, that course could be updated at some point, although that’s not on our priority list. Okay, so just to give you guys a quick heads up, that was a good question. But yes, Content Kingpin, Outsource Kingpin still 100% valid. So as Local Kingpin, except the Google Ads interface, has changed and automated bidding strategies are actually encouraged now, I would encourage you to use them, because they, they tend to get better results than manual campaign management. So anybody wants to comment on that?

Is There A Way To Hide GSite In SERPs But Can Still Benefit From The Power Of A Stack?

okay. Kevin g says, Is there a way to hide a G site in SERPs but still benefit from the power of a stack or shield? From MGYB? Um, is there an option to not an index a Gsite? I can’t remember. And if so, I don’t know why you wouldn’t want it to be in the SERPs. Anyways.

Those kinds of questions confused me. Like, why wouldn’t you want to take up the real estate space when that g site ranked? I don’t understand. And if the client has a problem with it, then this is that this is how I get results. And why wouldn’t you ask the client the same question why wouldn’t you want to take up extra real estate space in your funneling any leads that come through the G site to the client anyway? I mean, I just to me that there’s no reason for it. Why would you want to hide it unless you want to hide it from the client? And then if you are, then you’re not having the right conversation with the client? Yeah, I agree. I mean, I don’t see. You know, I’ve had, we’ve had a lot of people come in and ask, you know, like, Is there a way to still benefit by not having but not have them show up in the SERPs and the way I look at it is, every page, or asset or whatever that you can get ranked for a keyword is one less competitor that a Google user is going to see when they do that perform that search. So I don’t understand why you would want to do that. But there may be a way to do it, we don’t suggest it. But if there is, I would just go check the Google Site Settings, the Manage, so go to Google site, click Manage settings or manage site from the Settings menu. And I think there’s an option on there to not have its appearance. But I don’t know I don’t can’t remember off the top my head because I always just have it index. So in fact, I always submit it to search console, right after I receive it back from MGYB. So that it will index quickly. Search Console and analytics. Yeah, you want both of that on there. And this way, if it’s a client issue, you can show the client just how powerful these things are, the link across that it has, and the power that you’re pushing over to their website or the link or equity that you’re pushing. I’d need a little bit more information because I want to know why you want to be able to hide that g site or the stack. I want to know why what’s the reason for doing that.

Can You Put An Exact Match Keyword As Anchor Text To The Money Site In A Press Release?

Okay, BB has got a wall of questions here.

Okay, we’ll try to get through. Maybe we’ll get through a few of these but you’ve got way more questions than what we recommend. And you know this man, we tell you this, you know, this man who tell you this every week, and yet you still come in and squeeze in dozens of questions. We love you though. Buddy. BB says Hey, guys, number one. I understood not putting exact match keywords as anchor text to our money site. Well, it’s not necessarily the case. I mean, you just you’re not to do it strategically, then there’s, I do it from time to time.

So yes, we don’t recommend link building with exact match anchor text unless you know what you’re doing. Let’s preface it that way, okay, because it can help to have some exact match keywords and some variations. And so, you know, I wouldn’t say never do it. But anyway, since we teach you guys to build links to your tier one assets anyways, it’s not as much of an issue, to begin with. Okay. So anyways to carry on I understood not putting exact match keyword as anchor text to our money site. But what if the link came from a press release? Can we put Virginia SEO in a press release, we are eventually claiming the claiming that the page created by us.

I mean, again, you got to be careful and remember what the press release if you use an exact match anchor, it’s not the same as if you’re doing like a guest post, for example, right, which would be one article out there with one link with an exact match keyword. If you submit a press release with an exact match keyword. It’s going to get picked up by hundreds read and republished on hundreds of locations.

So now you’ve got hundreds of backlinks with exact match anchor text pointing directly back to your money site page. That’s I wouldn’t recommend that. Now that doesn’t mean and let’s see if he’s gonna call if this is gonna work before you go on. Go ahead I what I want to tell BB is when we recommend or when we don’t recommend exact match anchor is for a reason it’s because if we do, somebody somewhere is going to misinterpret what we say. And the very first link building gig that they create will be exact match anchor and it’ll kill everything that they’re doing. That’s what happens and that’s why we will wait and wait wait wait wait a minute. So the suggestion is which is why daddy is so fantastic. You pillow It is called was a Becker didn’t he come up with pillowing your link so that they can you can hit it with that exact match anchor and your link profile would be so diversified that it could stand, that exact match anchor hit. But if you don’t know what you’re doing, you don’t pillow correctly, and you hit it with that exact match. And you hit it not only with a press release, but with a gig from dedhia with multiple links with the, with the exact match anchor, now you’re talking about thousands of exact match anchor links going to the website somehow, and you just killed yourself. I mean, that’s so easy to pick out. It’s so easy for the bot to say, Yeah, he’s trying to influence rankings for this keyword. No, it’s not going to happen. Let’s deindex this and we don’t have to worry about it anymore. So in order to avoid that, what we say is don’t be using your brand, brand brand brand because when you use the brand, then you can include keywords along with the brand. And if you do it, one tear off the site, although we call it to tier one, it’s actually tiered two through the G site and drive stack then what happens is it amplifies and protect. That’s why we said we call it the SEO, power shield. It shields you from the bad stuff. And it powers up the good stuff so that when it gets to your website, you don’t have to worry about exact match anchors. You don’t have to worry about link profile diversity. You don’t have to worry about anything because we tested just about everything that you can as far as link building to these and they taste it like a champ. They just do. So there’s a reason for it. Now if you’re conversant with all of the link building tools, you know how to run GSA, you know how to run rank or X, you know how to run money robot and all of the other tools that are out there, then, by all means, have at it, build that that exact match anchor in the right proportions, and you’re good to go. Otherwise, don’t bother. Talk to dedhia come to us and go to MGYB to get a link building gig and you’re going to go much further with that then you probably could yourself not only that your time is worth much more than trying to learn all of these link building tools as well. We don’t we don’t do it because we have other shit to do that makes us much more money. We have a dedhia. That is fantastic that he has a team that he has a company, why would we do anything else? But there? Yeah. I mean, that’s what always comes to my head. No, I hope that helped me. Go question. Yeah. And so just to follow, just to point this out, like, for example, and the reason I’m showing this is that he mentioned it in his question, but also, this is the G site that I built-in 2015. It’s horrid.

But when I first learned the drive stack, like how to build Google Drive stacks. And it wasn’t even built to our specifications today, not even close because it was my first attempt at one and I did it manually in five hours. So it’s not anything like what we teach, or we produce an MGB anymore. However, after five years because it was it was in May of 2015, that that was published that site. And after five years of it being a number one position for multiple variations of Virginia, SEO, SEO, Virginia, Virginia SEO agency, multiple keywords like that, it finally started to slip but this was probably I don’t know, maybe three months ago, I happened to notice it that it was down from number one position and where I had moved for, I mean, for five damn years it hadn’t moved. And I don’t do any link building to it or anything. But it started to slip and I mentioned it to Marco I said, Hey, I noticed my, you know, Virginia SEO, the Google site and slipped and so Marco said yeah, hit it with a press release. And I said it and I said yeah, I’ll probably hit it with a link building gig from dedhia to push it back up again. And what was funny was, I was too lazy and too cheap to order a link building gig from dedhia. So I just submitted one press release. Through my press advantage account, which is the same service we use an MGB and I targeted to G site with an exact match anchor, a link the link within the press release with the exact match anchor with the anchor text being Virginia SEO agency. And so I published one press release, this was probably about two or three weeks after I had noticed that it had slipped. So we’re talking about maybe 10 weeks ago. And you can see that Virginia SEO but remember, this is a Google site, guys, that’s different. It’s not the same as a money site. So you can see that it’s for Virginia SEO agency, it’s number one for SEO Virginia looks like it’s number two. When I’m talking guys it was back then it was like that around five, six, like five-position five to eight, when I noticed it had finally slipped, and in the back for Virginia SEO, it’s back to number one. And that was from one press release with an exact match anchor, but consider what the target was it was a Google site. That’s why we keep telling you guys to use the SEO shield and use the G site and those tier-one entity assets as your link building targets because you can do stuff like that and get really really good results without running the risk. Sending over-optimized anchor text ratios to your direct to your money site. Google Sites will take it money sites, you have to know what you’re doing in order for me to advise even attempting it.

Can You Replicate Dedhia’s Link Building Magic?

Okay, that’s a good question though. All right, you say that Dedhia is responsible. We’ll read a couple more of these guys are and we’ll run through the rest of the questions we can come back maybe if we have time. Okay. So as you say that is responsible for the linking and embed and indexing packages. You also say that he does his magic and has a lot of experience but what if that he won’t be here tomorrow? Do you have any backup? Can you replicate his method by yourself? Now he has a team. He’s trained a team of people. He owns his own company with multiple link builders now and daddy manages all of them. So, you know, don’t worry about that.

We will still be able to provide those services if God forbid something were to happen to our one and only Dedhia.

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

In the MGYB, there should be a video or course for each package if someone can go and do it by themselves DIY, what to teach you how to do all the link building, it takes years of experience, which is why we recommend using dedhia. And I can tell you right now none of us are going to create a training course on how to run link building tools because none of us run link building tools. And dedhia isn’t going to create a course to compete with him. Right? That’s right, that that’d be silly. Now, he has shared his methods in our mastermind. So if you want if you’re interested in knowing more, if you’re interested in talking to Dan, how he does things, He’s really good. And he is open and really honest with people in the Semantic Mastery mastermind and in the heavy hitter club. So if you’re interested in learning more about how he does his thing, then I recommend that you come to one of our groups. In the meantime, you’re going to have to learn to you know, you have to pay for those tools, and you have to learn them on your own because that’s how you learn them. And I think we all went through that phase of trying to learn those, those LinkedIn building tools

As far as what if you’re in 2000, August of 2015. And I never forget this guy he’s ever one of Google closes the loophole tomorrow and my response is always well, what if the world ended tomorrow? Who the fuck is worried about the world ending tomorrow? I got too much to do today. Let tomorrow take care of itself. And that’s my answer to that. Will we have a backup? Well, we can reach out to the team that that’s working with dedhia that that that’d be my backup, we can reach to another link builder, that that might be as good as dedhia that or that could get as good as they do. Wait, well, we’ll just pay someone to train. I mean, come on. It’s just not something that we’re contemplating right now. And dedhia You better not? Because it gets you guys. If something happens. I’ll kill you myself.

Yeah, right. Don’t you die or I’ll kill you myself.

Alright, I’m going to answer three and four right here because they’re basically the same question and the repost from last weekend.

Does Breadcrumb Schema Help In Ranking A Money Site?

We’re moving on we can come back if we need to. Okay, repost from last week, should we include breadcrumbs in the pages of the money site? Is the breadcrumbs schema helps to rank? Does it help to rank? Um, I don’t know. I mean, I like schema. I mean, I like using structured data and breadcrumbs, especially if you’re using silo architecture and your site because it helps to really show that hierarchy of you know, how you have your content stacked within the category of the taxonomy structure, however, you’re doing it, so I prefer to use them. But, you know, a lot of themes and stuff now will actually, it’s just automatic. But, you know, as far as can you use breadcrumb schema without having actual breadcrumbs in the pages? I don’t know. Can you do that? Marco? I’ve not tested that. Typically, my themes will show the breadcrumbs and then they will appear in search as well. So I don’t know, can you just add breadcrumbs schema without there being like, it actually coded into the theme itself? Yeah, I don’t see why you can’t do that bread crumbs, but I don’t know why you would. And I don’t I mean, the effect is probably negligible. I don’t see how effective it could be you have other things that will help your entity weigh more, and will give the bot better, better data better information about your entity than breadcrumbs. But since it’s code, right, since we’re talking about code can be added to any part of your website. It’s JSO LD is what’s recommended. As a matter of fact, in breadcrumbs. I know that Google did away with data vocabulary, org markup, and now the one that they want, the one that they’ll look at is schema.org markup when it comes to breadcrumbs, so they recommend it, why not use it? But I mean, as you say, in the theme, it shows up, marks it up and yeah, you’re good to go. I don’t understand why you would want to not have these questions perplexed me. Why would you want to have breadcrumbs in your schema and not have them?

Your website. I mean, they show up in search as breadcrumbs. Yeah.

Yeah. And that’s what I like about them because it shows the hierarchy like the relationship of where the content is basically silo structure right within the search engine results. And that’s, you know, I think that’s, that’s helpful. So anyway,

What Is The Difference Between General Embeds Service And Map Embeds In MGYB?

okay, Aaron’s up, Aaron Kay says, Can you explain the difference between MGYB.co general Embeds service and map embeds? It’s the same, Aaron, the difference is the general embeds is just so you can embed anything, anything that you can iframe you can embed, okay. The reason that we have the maps heavy hitter, the video-heavy hitter, what is it the idx page heavy hitter, is just because some people didn’t understand that. So we just created separate products for each one of those but they’re all it’s all basically the same whenever you provide your iframes or you submit your order details. It’s going to ask you for what the niche or the industry is. And so you provide that and that’s it.

The type of content that will be written, you know, produced that the embeds will be embedded within. Right. So in other words, it goes out on link building network, which Daddy has been building that link building network for years. So there’s probably well over a million problems. In fact, I know there are over a million properties now. And so he has network sec, like sectors, right? So link building networks that are themed for different general themes, and even some more specific themes. And so when you put your industry in there when you submit your order details, that’s the type of content that will get produced, then your embeds get embedded within that content. So there’s relevancy. Does that make sense? And so the difference between the map embeds the video embeds, and all that is no different. It’s the same link building networks that get but it’s just so that it made it less confusing for customers. When they say Well, which one do I do? You just pick which one is the most relevant to you, it really doesn’t matter if you’re going to be embedding multiple things which you can do by the way, like for example, you can embed it, you can order an embed gig and use the general embed gig service and MGYB, for example, and embed in MGYB. Excuse me, an ID page, g site page, if you want your GMB map if you want and a YouTube video or YouTube playlist, right, you can embed all of those things because you cannot put up to five iframes in the order. So my point is, it really doesn’t matter. And we try not to confuse people. So video, embed gigs are for videos, map embed gigs are for maps, and the general is multipurpose for everything else. This is just, I don’t want people confused. I don’t want them to have to go and say, Okay, now what I do, if you have a video, use the video embed. If you have a map, whether it’s a mind map, a GMB map, or any other type of map that you can embed, then use that network to use the general. Yeah. So everything is specified right there. And the ad ID page. Sorry.

Yeah, and like I said, I typically just ordered the general because I know they’re all basically the same anyways and because I generally have more than just one in bed so I just started the general that’s just the way I do it. So but yeah, it was strict. It was purely to make it less confusing because we get that cut types of questions and unfortunately it still has it still hasn’t been very clear.

It’s a work in progress, guys. We’re still working on stuff so Social Buzz me that’s Wayne Wayne says. Bradley isn’t Southern Virginia where they’re large, the world’s largest nudist colonies located? Yeah, have you ever seen notice riding ATVs

Would you like to

be kidding? That would be awful. Especially outside. How hard is that going to be to get that thought out of your head today?

Ready, fat sweating nude is riding on

an ATV. Thanks.

That’s funny. Okay, next.

Any Tricks On How To Rank YouTube Videos Faster?

Any new tricks you can share to Rank YouTube videos faster? I can tell you You missed a shout out you missed the shout up so much about MGYB. Dwayne right after weighing. Oh, Roxy, I’m sorry, I totally missed it. MGYB packages are the best. Again MGYB packages the best. You know it you know it.

Thank you Roxy one more time with some wisdom meeting MGYB set.

Very, very good. I guess would you ever recorded great.

Alright, so Roxy asks another question. Any new tricks you can share to Rank YouTube videos faster? Okay. The same tricks that I’ve been using now for like the last three years. I really stopped doing video SEO. Other than I live stream video. Not always but most of the time I will take even a pre-recorded video or run it through OBS Studio so that I can live stream it into the channel a pre-recorded video, right? So and I always have all of my YouTube channels where I attempt Well, I really like I really don’t even care about doing YouTube SEO anymore Just because I use YouTube ads primarily for driving traffic for you with YouTube stuff. But that’s the trick that I was getting at all of the channels that I would use for SEO purposes. For YouTube SEO purposes, are going to have a multi-tiered syndication network at least once but it usually many so years ago when I was doing a ton of YouTube SEO stuff. If I was going to start a new channel that I was going to be aggressive with for marketing purposes, whether it was affiliate stuff, which I don’t do anymore, or local stuff, which I did still do today. And that’s pretty much all I do. I would always start with three two-tier networks so full two-tier networks attached to the channel.

Right, so there’d be one branded ring. And then the rest of them can all be persona-based rings or theme-based rings. But that’s just what I would always do what I would also have a total of remembering this for syndication network rings, or essentially within each two-tiered networks, so I would always do three, right? So that would be a total of 12 networks. And then I would do link building to the network’s not all at once, because that would be super, super expensive. But I would do it over time, and I would basically build up, build the authority of those networks. And that worked really, really well. But YouTube has shifted more towards engagement signals as being a ranking factor. Don’t get me wrong. I know other people are gonna say, well, you can still rank video with SEO, of course, you can. But what I’m saying is if you can do a combination of SEO tactics, as well as engagement tactics, that’s how you can make videos and that’s all I do now. So I have aged channels out there that I still use for video stuff that has syndication networks that have been operating for years. So they’re well themed, they’re older and established. They’ve been authority built to then from link building over you over the years and everything else. And I’ll still push a video out through that let it cascade through the syndication networks. But then I immediately set up a YouTube ads campaign. And it’s just for views, guys, you can buy views directly from Google ads. It’s the only legit way to buy views. If you’re buying spam views, by the way, that can get your account terminated, they typically don’t work. I don’t ever recommend doing that. But you can buy YouTube views directly from Google ads. And it’s very, very inexpensive. And it’s very, very effective, especially if you set your audience targeting correctly. For example, if it’s a local video, you set your geographic targeting to where the video is only showing to people within a specific radius or within a specific county or whatever. So like, let’s say it’s a 20-mile radius from wherever the business is located. That means all of the views that you’re going to be buying from Google are going to be coming from local eyepiece local to where the business is located locally to that search term. Does that make sense? So those are really really good engagement signals and if you’re buying audience if you’re buying views from a specific audience, what I always recommend is looking at in-market audiences, or life event audiences, or what’s called custom intent audiences. So if you can’t find a premade audience and in-market audiences or life event audiences and Google ads for video, then you can create what’s called a custom intent audience. And you can create your own custom intent audience. So a bucket of people, essentially Google users that meet specific criteria. So again, geographic targeting and audience targeting that work incredibly well. However, I do want to say one other thing. One of my tree care projects that I’ve been sharing in the mastermind, I created a kind of case study for trying to rank a single page website that was not part of the entity. I was trying to rank it specifically with just google ads, limited SEO, and just traffic from Google ads. And so it was a good click funnel landing page. But I had a video created for that Click Funnels landing page. And so I was running YouTube ads to that video, I didn’t do any SEO to the video. In fact, it was on a new channel that didn’t have syndication networks at all. So there was no link building under the video or anything else. But I’ve been running ads to it for, I don’t know, six or eight weeks, something like that. So it had I think over 4000 views from a local geographic area again from an audience, custom intent audience that I created for people looking for tree services, landscaping services, so highly related services. But over the course of those like eight to 10 weeks, I’ve been running ads to it for like roughly eight weeks. It got I don’t know like I said 4000 views, maybe 6000 views, whatever it is, but the video wasn’t ranking and it was okay because I was really doing the test was for it was really to try to rank the Click Funnels page with just traffic. But long story short, I use that same video in a press release the same press releases

We sell it at MGYB. So through press advantage. And I added the video to a press release so that it would become an embed, and did one pre-press release with it. And now that video is ranking on page one for the brand search, which it hadn’t been for all that time. So press releases are also a good way. But like we just talked about over at MGYB embeds, you can go to embeds or great link building to the pages that it’s embedded on. So if you buy an embed gig, that’s the same as going through a syndication network, because it will get embedded in themed content, then you can buy the upgrade or the in would you know as part of the order if on the next page, once you complete the order, you can buy link building for a discount, right, and link building to the embeds that adds relevancy. And then, like I said, all up, you’re going to put a video link and into a press release, and it will get picked up and republished across all the press. Not all of them, but a significant portion of the press release distribution sites. And then also Lastly, as I said, I’d set up traffic gigs from Google Ads very, very inexpensive guys, you can get away with it for I always start with $1 a day, that’s $30 a month in Google ads. But once I start getting traffic to the video, then I start peeling it back. And I got campaigns out there that I’ve been running for clients that their videos are still ranked today a number, you know, on the first page of Google, for whatever their keywords are, that I’m running on 40 cents a day. Think about that as $12 per month and I charge that particular client $100 a month to rank videos for every keyword is $100 per month, and I maintain it with 40 cents per day in Google AdSense. Right which is $12 a month. So that’s really good. return on investment if I say so. So anyway, anybody has any other tricks? Yes. So I got a really good testimonial in the Royal Academy reloaded group and Facebook is from Keith Mallinson. He’s been around us

Quite a while, both, I think in our Semantic Mastery mastermind, and in RYS Academy Reloaded, and I’m gonna read it, just so you guys know what the power that you guys have in your hands is I never doubted Marco when he said that embeds work to get you traffic. But I must admit, I was surprised that results. I purchased some stack embeds. So he went and embedded his properties, right. He purchased that through MGYB. And it was about a month ago. Then he went to Fiverr, which I don’t recommend, I highly recommend dedhia but I mean, if you’re on a strict budget, you do what you got to do because it’s protected by the power shield anyway. So he is so listening, he went and got a GSA gig from fiber and threw it at the embeds. Then he checked it.

Just recently, I got this three days ago. He checked it and the traffic had jumped 89% over a 30 day period. Wow. Compared to the previous 30 days, he is now buying more embeds from MGYB. There you go. If you want this post on me, I can take a screenshot with Keith. I mentioned the same sorry, with Keith’s permission and post it in the free site, so you can have a look at it BB or I’m sorry, whoever was asking this question, Roxy, Roxy, this shit works. I keep telling you guys, my shit works. And it works the way that Bradley says, By engagement and as a matter of fact, totally recommended method, because you’re sending Google signals from Google, with people that Google is sending. So those signals are fantastic, especially if you can get the person to convert on any of your goals. If they follow through and go to go to your website. And they happen to give you the information that’s gold on your website is golden on your video. You’re also showing signals on the video as far as how long you can keep them because watch time is really important. But that’s your relevance, right that the person clicks on your ad, they go to the video, they watch the video they stay through to the end or almost the end. Those are great signals for the video. And a person who’s interested in this to start with is likely to watch your entire video but that’s up to you. And whether your video is engaging enough to keep that person interested all the way through. So it really has to do with the video the length of time, you know, how many people see it? And how many people follow through with with whatever there’s a ton of signals or you can just brute force the fucker as Keith did. And these both of these methods work and they work like crazy.

Adam, I don’t know if you’re still lurking in the background, but do we? Do we sell the YouTube ads for local video ranking courses separately?

I forget exactly how we did that. But yeah, if they want to email [email protected]. I think Chris g can hook them up. There’s backdoor access. Yeah. Well, there you go Roxy, if you want to, I created a training course specifically for what I was talking about for using Google ads to, to augment any SEO that you’re doing for ranking videos, especially local videos. And there’s a course that I created for that we typically use that as a part of a funnel or an order bump or something like that. But if you contact [email protected] and ask for it, well you know, we’ll give you an option to purchase it there. And it’s not an expensive course guy, but it’s really really effective. Okay.

What Is The New Wiki Link Package About?

Okay, bb’s up again. Wow, who still got questions to get back to them? What is the new wiki link package all about? Is it a single link only? Yes. As far as I’m aware, I actually haven’t even tested that yet. I’ve been meaning to but I haven’t marked it. Can you talk a little bit about that? Is a single link relevant? I don’t know. How much Yeah, yeah, yeah.

from Wikipedia, yeah. So that’s that he says is it as a wiki link harder than building an IFTTT branded network? Yeah. The problem with wiki links is it’s highly moderate. So wiki Wikipedia is highly moderated. So if you go on and try to make an edit or something like that, it will typically get removed. Um, and there’s, so this is a service where we can actually get you a Wikipedia link from Wikipedia. So it’s Apple, it’s apples and oranges that he’s comparing. Yeah, one thing is building a syndication network that takes a VA a certain amount of time, they have to create all of the profiles, fill them out, whatever. The wiki link, someone actually has to go in and get it to stick. Yeah, have you tried recently to get a wiki? wiki like to me just an edit these people guard their pages like they’re better than a Rottweiler man. These people they take, they take their stuff seriously. So if you don’t know what you’re doing, if you haven’t been in there long enough to know what you’re doing. Or if you mess in somebody’s backyard, it doesn’t stick. We can for the most part, and we’ll even guarantee it for 30 days, we can get them to stick. So you’re talking to the way different things and why the cost? It’s not a good comparison. And Is that a fair comparison? Because they both have their complexities and their difficulties. And we’ve priced it at a level where we think we’re competitive and where we think it won’t hurt people’s pockets. So we take all that into consideration.

Sweet so let’s see how much of effect is that for that one? Like? It’s gonna vary, maybe it’s gonna vary, but it’s a powerful link. that’s for damn sure. So okay, Ricky, Bobby. Love that. Hello. I love the process. st file, can’t wait to dig through it. I just got my keyword research back and was told that I need to filter it and send the filtered set back to have it submitted to the system. What exactly should I be filtering keywords that don’t yet filter out any nonrelevant keywords? Because remember the keyword research, it’s like a big wide net that gets cast. And then so there’s going to be terms in there that aren’t going to be specific that they’re, they’re related to the theme, but they may not be relevant to your project. Does that make sense? So go through it and you want, you know, you have to, there’s still a little bit of a manual process. But I mean, it literally takes three working days to develop those keyword research files, guys. So when you get it back, if you have to spend an hour going through it to eliminate or delete the keywords that are not relevant to your project, then, you know, you’ve saved yourself three days worth of work for just having to put in an hour so that that’s I think what it was referring to was, is that right, Marco? Yeah, but having said that, don’t eliminate too many keywords that you think may not be relevant to the project. Because these are still they’re noncommercial. And they’re related. They’re so so somehow they’re being seen as well.

So whether it there’s a semantic relevance, we’re in the Semantic Web. And it doesn’t matter if it’s two or three hops out where the where that relevance takes place. Or man, I always forget what that’s called with the two words, where you find the CO occurrence of these two words, somewhere on the web does a co-occurrence, which is why that word was brought back with your main keyword. You don’t want to get rid of all of that, because that’s important for the bot. That’s important for all of that semantic relevance that you’re trying to create, which you define at the entity level through the schema on your website. That’s what you want. That’s those strict definitions. But outside of that for link building, and for everything else that you’re doing embeds the @ID page, the drive second G site, you want as many keywords that are relevant, as you can get. Yeah, agreed.

Okay, um, let’s see. keywords that I purchased the keyword research basic SEO showed and then link building. Yeah, and I agree I’m glad Marco clarified that because like for example for link building, I take the 200 minimum of 200 most relevant keywords to my project but like Marco said it’s still good to have those other keywords because they’re related to that keyword theme anyways right to that set that topical theme is what I’m saying. So it is good to have them now when it comes to link building or for like the drive stack for when you order the drive stack, I always put my top primary keywords at the top of the keyword list that gets submitted because those are the ones that are going to get used for the drive stack built. Right. So anyway, just kind of want to clarify that.

Ricky says I sort of spoke about this last week but I think it’s a good idea and potentially a service for you to capitalize on would be to have a survey or one on 130 minutes constant to discuss what someone should be doing should do based on the client I have, I’d be willing to pay someone to know exactly what to buy and what to do in order, the process you have now, what the process you have now might do the trick, but I haven’t gone through it yet. Yeah, I mean, the process is the same, it really doesn’t matter.

I may or may not be 100% clear on this, but the process is in the sequence in which you order things are going to be the same, obviously, the keywords are going to be different. But that’s up to you to determine, you know, how you’re going, you know, what, what the most relevant keywords are for your project and everything else, but it doesn’t matter whether it’s a local, national or global affiliate, the process is going to be the same, right, and the sequence in which you put the pieces together, which is explained or described in the process street doc that I just shared with you guys here, right? Again, I still got to cover the website stuff.

And obviously there’s, it’s there are intricacies to all of that. But the process is going to be the same no matter what type of project you’re on. And pretty much the sequence of putting those pieces together is the same as well. Do you want to comment on that? Yeah, we all have a private consultation. We all do it. We give them our mastermind members, our new mastermind members, a 30-minute consultation, to get them in. What I like to do is get them on the right track, make sure that they’re going the right way. If they have any questions initially, a lot of times it turns out okay, what should I do? And can I do this that you give them a quick process on how to start up but that that’s, I mean, we give them those 30 minutes that one on 130-minute consultation they get that as a new mastermind member? Otherwise, I’d be I don’t know how you guys set it up. I’ve set it up through my Facebook page. But I mean, unless you have the budget for it. Don’t contact me, because I’m expensive. When it comes to one on one consultation. You can catch there’s also a way to contact us through the Semantic Mastery pages. And there is Chris being out at support for one on one consultation. Our prices vary, guys. I mean, each one of us charges differently, simply because we have different levels of expertise experience, different places where we’re experts that So it varies.

That’s a good point. Marco, thank you because Ricky Yeah, I mean, just come join the mastermind. And, you know, you can ask us questions directly inside the mastermind. we each do our own mastermind webinars now. we each do two webinars per month. My mastermind webinars are usually an hour and a half to two hours long and every other Thursday, Marco’s are on the other Thursdays. You can ask us questions directly in the mastermind webinars. You can ask us questions on your 30-minute onboarding call when you first join. So that it’s actually cheaper to join the mastermind for a month than it is to order 30 minutes of content salting on the side, if that makes sense, and you get access to all of us that way, for the amount of time that you’re in the mastermind, so that might be your best bet Ricky was to jump in. And my mastermind webinars literally asked me anything. Yep. So if you come in and you ask me questions about what you should do, I’m going to answer the questions that you have about what you should do it but we reserve that I’m sorry, for our pain members. Why? Because membership has its privileges. Amen. Ask our members, man. Yeah, we’ve got a couple of guys, newer guys into the mastermind that have been asking a bunch of questions recently in the mastermind on my mastermind webinars, that I’ve been happy to go through, you know, bunches of questions that they have and that’s, that’s what we’re here for. I mean, that’s what we’re there for in the mastermind. That’s what it’s for, like, you can ask us anything in there. And I mean, we’ll go balls deep, so to speak. And just about any, any question that you want, we’ll you know, analyze your site, we’ll provide audits and all that kind of stuff. So

Should I iFrame All City Pages To Gsite And Order Link Building To Push Power To The Money Site?

anyway, moving on. The next question was from pavlo. He says, Hey, guys, thanks for all you’re doing. I have a couple of questions. One, I need to push power to the money site, city pages, better to iframe all posts to G site and then order link building to G site or build links to some other properties. My goal is to cover all city pages on the money site. Okay, I talked about this a lot recently. I’ll try to go through this very quickly. And if you go back to the previous masterminds not last week, I wasn’t here but either the week but probably the week before that, and the one before that as well because I know I’ve covered this multiple times in the last month or two. But what I like to do it again, yes, you want to theme your pages from your money site onto your G site. So if you have individual city pages or posts it can be either one it doesn’t matter that are optimized for the keyword plus city. Then put those in your G site as well. What I recommend though is if you got proper silo article texture on your money site, which you should, then you create that same, you mirror that same architecture on the G site. So if you have posted, a city, you know, optimized for keyword plus city, and they’re within a specific category, for example, then I would have the category page mirrored on the G site. And then you create child pages on the G site where you would embed and eat and a one to one ratio one to one ratio of page, from the money site page to G site, or post from the money site page on the G site because there are no posts on the G site. That makes sense. But you can create the silo structure by creating the child pages within the G site. That makes sense, right? And you so you, you would create the additional pages on G site, you just embed it in there, you don’t need to create any additional content guys, you just I find the site page, your money site right into the G site page. Okay, and then yes, you can order link building gigs to that. Something else you can do is if you’re blogging, from your syndication network, or from your money site to your syndication network, you can extract the post URL from the syndication network, right, so those posts that you’re using to optimize a particular silo or keyword or whatever, you can go out and extract those URLs from your web two Dotto properties, even if you just did the three blog properties, so blogger, Tumblr, WordPress, now you’ve got those URLs that you can also build links directly to write that are if you know how to build links from within your blog post to your money site pages are the pages that you’re trying to rank on your site. That’s what the blogging is for targeting long tails, right of whatever keyword is that you’re trying to rank for within the blog post, and you link from within the blog post to that money site page that you’re trying to rank. So you do that consistently over time with as many keywords as many posts supporting posts as you need to, to get the results that you want when now you’ve got all those posts that you can extract and post URLs you can extract from your web to properties and you can build links directly to you can also embed those in the same g site, the mirrored pages on the G site so that you have all that relevancy. And all those properties, right? We talked about iframe stacking all the time. So that’s a number of ways that you can do it. Again, press releases are also another great way. I love using press releases to promote blog posts. So I like to publish blog posts, and then have press releases written to announce or to highlight, to spotlight the blog post. Now you’ve got additional content and as long-form content, I love the press releases from press advantage and MGYB. Because there’s, you know, seven to 800 words ish, that are, you know, it’s really relevant and you can use those you can iframe those now and so that’s additional content. By the way, you can also grab the RSS feed from the organization in press advantage for whatever the company is. And you can use that to also trigger your syndication network, which I highly recommend because those are very, very powerful.

Those press releases can now get syndicated and they appear beautifully across the syndication network by just creating an additional set of applets in your syndication network with your press advantage organization feed. Does that make sense? So that’s I mean, that’s what I do. That’s specifically how I do it is everything through the G site. And then also you can order the drive stack expansion from MGYB, which will also mirror that same silo structure for whatever category it is that you’re trying to rank in a, your drive stack, and they’ll create the actual g site page on your G site if you want. So that’s how I do it. Any you want to comment on that, Marco?

Should You Direct The Links Of Your Money Site Blog Post To One Silo?

No, I was good. Okay. When I’m doing a blog post on any site that links from the post should be directed to one silo. Yeah, well, whatever silo the post is within, right, so the post is always going to be placed in a category, that’s the silo, whatever silo it’s in, you want to make sure that you’re linking from within the post back up to you know, the top of silo page or the previous post within that silo, whatever, but you just don’t want to cross-link outside of that silo to other silos on the site. You can do it it makes sense for the reader. So basically for user interface but do it with a nofollow link. In other words, if you’re going to be linking outside of the silo itself, it’s okay to do that for navigational purposes. But nofollow that link within the post, but any link that you’re going to do within the content body of that post should be going to another post within that same silo or the top level. The top of the silo page, for example, a silo landing page. Does that make sense? So you always want to think about pushing relevancy through it, right? Because that’s what network Empire created, just coined the term called buoyancy, right? They applied that term. So if you have your silo built correctly, your keywords, your content stacked correctly within the silo, then and you do your internal linking properly, then you’re going to create buoyancy for that entire silo and all of the keywords within that silo will start to rise in the SERP search results. Okay, great question, by the way.

All right. We’re almost out of time. Ricky Bobby says I wasn’t necessarily saying it needed to be you guys doing that consultation for what the budget. I am new to you guys and obviously don’t mind spending money. But I’m a little confused about everything that you guys sell and when to use them. Oh, I see what you’re saying to perhaps. And we’ve talked about actually having in the coming months or hiring somebody that can literally do one on one consultations, it was primarily for mastermind members. But that might be something that if we implement that, that could be done on a consultation basis for MGYB as well. That’s not a bad idea, actually, Ricky. So thank you.

Ricky says, Thanks, guys. always appreciate your time. You’re welcome.

Is There A Way To Set Up RSS Feed From A Gsite?

Aaron says, Is there any way to set up RSS feed from a G site? Is it possible to use an RSS from a G site to IFTTT? I’ve not done that. But Marco, is there an RSS site from or an RSS feed site? Of course, there’s Okay, of course, announcement pages. It’s in the training. Okay. Well, I’ve not actually used that to trigger. The reason why I wouldn’t want to do that is that the script that we run rebuilds that announcement page. A time, which could you could overpopulate your network very quickly that way. Am I right? Yep. Yeah.

Yeah. So that’s that. Aaron, if that doesn’t make sense to you the announcement page. So when you buy drives back from us, it’s going to come back with the announcement page, which is it’s run by a Google script that will essentially rebuild.

The announcement page with all the files and everything, it will do it, rebuild it on a schedule, whatever that interval is, it will rebuild it at that interval consistently. And the problem with us and that’s probably why I’ve never done it is because if you were to use that RSS feed, and have that script running, then every time the script would run, it would spit out a whole bunch of posts on your syndication network, which could trigger suspensions for syndication network properties for over posting high frequency of posting, and they’re going to be a lot of you know, rebuild post is great for the G site. Don’t get me wrong. The announcement pages are part of the reason why they rank so well because it’s constantly bringing the bots back to crawl it. But I don’t know that that’s why I have not used them is because whenever that script runs and it rebuilds all of those pages, it can end up overpopulating your syndication network and getting them terminated. Okay? That’s not a good thing. Five o'clock on the money. You guys are awesome. Thanks for sticking around, guys. We will see you all next week. Bye, everybody.

Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 298 published first on your-t1-blog-url https://ift.tt/1WMpNvB July 31, 2020 at 03:42AM Semantic Mastery https://ift.tt/2YeHIxM

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apollosewerandplumbing · 4 years

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Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 298

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 298 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

You have like a fake lamp on in the background or what’s going on there? Doesn’t it seem that way, man?

No simulator here, man. It’s Groundhog Day. COMM gets home. Go killing it. Make your money and come get some as to how this works. Oh, foo

Nope. All right. Let’s do it. Okay, I’m gonna grab the screen and I’ll cover something very briefly. Chris is very excited. I like this. Yeah.

Are Content Kingpin And Local Kingpin Outdated Semantic Mastery Courses?

Is There A Way To Hide GSite In SERPs But Can Still Benefit From The Power Of A Stack?

Can You Put An Exact Match Keyword As Anchor Text To The Money Site In A Press Release?

Okay, BB has got a wall of questions here.

Can You Replicate Dedhia’s Link Building Magic?

We will still be able to provide those services if God forbid something were to happen to our one and only Dedhia.

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, right. Don’t you die or I’ll kill you myself.

Alright, I’m going to answer three and four right here because they’re basically the same question and the repost from last weekend.

Does Breadcrumb Schema Help In Ranking A Money Site?

Your website. I mean, they show up in search as breadcrumbs. Yeah.

What Is The Difference Between General Embeds Service And Map Embeds In MGYB?

Would you like to

be kidding? That would be awful. Especially outside. How hard is that going to be to get that thought out of your head today?

Ready, fat sweating nude is riding on

an ATV. Thanks.

That’s funny. Okay, next.

Any Tricks On How To Rank YouTube Videos Faster?

Thank you Roxy one more time with some wisdom meeting MGYB set.

Very, very good. I guess would you ever recorded great.

Adam, I don’t know if you’re still lurking in the background, but do we? Do we sell the YouTube ads for local video ranking courses separately?

What Is The New Wiki Link Package About?

Should I iFrame All City Pages To Gsite And Order Link Building To Push Power To The Money Site?

Should You Direct The Links Of Your Money Site Blog Post To One Silo?

Ricky says, Thanks, guys. always appreciate your time. You’re welcome.

Is There A Way To Set Up RSS Feed From A Gsite?

Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 298 published first on your-t1-blog-url

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