#thought id at least pass this along to someone more knowledgeable

[amplified-pain-culture-is]

my rheumatologist told me that her treatment plan will "cure" my AMPS, do you think that's true or BS lmfao (i definitely think the treatment could HELP but cure is a strong word,,?)

.

#sorry i havent been active on this blog! college and health has been rough #thought id at least pass this along to someone more knowledgeable #i personally think the idea that AMPS can be cured is BS #you can definitely get better and/or find ways to cope with it that improve your quality of life #things get better #but theres no for sure cure #amps #amplified musculoskeletal pain syndrome #amplified pain culture is #amps culture is #crps #rsd #crps/rsd

[shivunin]

a kiss while being reunited after a long time

(I started writing this as a warmup like a week and a half ago, then mistakenly misfiled it. Oops. Anyways, it's taken from this prompt list, which I keep going back to.)

A Reunion

Arianwen was inspecting the assembled Warden ranks when she felt the prickle along her neck. 

Someone was watching her. 

“Looks good enough,” she told Nate casually, stretching her arms over her head as an excuse to scan the ramparts and upper windows of Vigil’s Keep. There—the barest flick of a shadow ducking down behind a crenel. 

Yes. 

“Have the bowmen continue to work on target shooting,” she added, strolling toward the keep proper, the hint of a smile taking the corner of her mouth, “They’re better, but not good enough yet.”

“I take it you’ll be occupied?” he asked drily, then raised a hand, “No, don’t tell me; I don’t want to know.”

Wen snorted and took the stairs up two at a time, her heart speeding slightly. She’d had no idea he was coming back this week; she hadn’t expected him for another month at least. The only question now was: play as if she had no idea he was there or sneak up behind him? 

Hmm. 

She passed through the courtyard, nodding to the merchants and pausing to peruse their offerings for the day. She didn’t really need to buy anything; she was always well supplied here these days, and she’d already gotten a gift for Zev weeks ago. It was in her room now—so perhaps that would be the goal. Reach the room and the gift without interception. 

Yes; that was what she would do. 

Wen nodded to the merchant, the faint smile she’d worn before smoothed back into her more usual neutral lines. Then, she slipped into a side yard, through a back door, and into the halls of the Keep. 

She had the advantage here: despite his many infiltrations, she was the one who lived in these walls, and she was the one who had access to knowledge of the old tunnels and secret places. She used them now, slipping through secret hallways and old ways in order to more quickly reach her room. Stepping inside her bedroom put her in the most danger of being caught—because the ceiling was so high and there were plenty of places to crouch amongst the rafters, especially since she’d had them reinforced and tucked plenty of little nooks amongst them. 

A girl needed a place to sneak around, after all, if she didn’t want to be seen in her own bedroom. 

Here, too, she was in luck: she reached the little chest on the dressing table before she heard the soft whisper of fabric behind her and felt the sharp prick of a dagger at the base of her neck. 

“Yield,” a man’s voice said behind her. 

Arianwen grinned at the stone wall and slowly raised her hands to either side, one of them half-curled around the object it held. 

“Oh, dear,” she said, “You have me at your mercy, ser. And I all alone, unarmed, and entirely helpless.”

A snort from behind her. 

Her smile widened. 

“And now that you have me? What will you do with me?”

“Ah,” he said, and the dagger traveled lower, running over her spine and the loose fabric of her practice tunic, “I think I may have some id—”

She struck as soon as his attention wandered, knocking the hand with the dagger aside, ducking a swing that would have pulled her in against his chest, flowing back and away when he swung for her chest. She hadn’t been lying when she said she was unarmed—not that she really wanted to stab him—but she did have one goal. 

Yes—it would be hilarious. If she could manage it. 

Wen vaulted onto the trunk at the foot of her bed and the man, swathed head to toe in black, followed. Never give up the high ground—that was one of the basic rules of close combat. She jumped to avoid a kick and used the height to grasp the upper edge of the wooden post over her bed. It was polished, rounded, smooth; she swung around it once and let go, using the momentum to flip over his head and away, landing ably on her toes and dancing away when he leapt from the trunk to follow. 

She thought she’d managed it, but—yes! There.

Gold flashed at the tip of his ear and she stopped moving at once, tipping her head back and laughing. His motion arrested, Zevran reached for his ear and felt along the edge. 

“You sneak,” he said, false outrage warring with affection in his voice, “I thought we were fighting! And here I had planned to cut that blouse from you. I had a speech planned, and all along  you were playing your own game.”

“I don’t know why you’re surprised,” she said, one hand half-covering her mouth, “You should look at it.”

Zevran sheathed his dagger, tugged the fabric from his lower face, and loosened the bauble from his ear. 

It had taken weeks to choose just the right one, but she had in the end: an ear cuff of gold, as befitted someone so golden, in the shape of a crow’s skull. The filigree that bent to hold it on was patterned like feathers, and the tiniest of rubies were tucked in amongst them. 

Just like blood. 

“And here I have brought you nothing but myself,” he said regretfully, holding an arm out. Arianwen tucked herself into it, taking a deep breath through her nose. He smelled of salt and the sea; he must have come to her straight from the boat. 

“Yourself is plenty gift enough for me,” she told him, kissing the angle of his jaw before tucking her hair back behind one ear, “And I seem to recall you giving me an earring, too. I’m just making us even.”

Zevran scoffed, his eyes wandering to the earring she still wore everywhere, but he bent his head to her instead of making the pithy remark she’d expected. For a moment, he simply rested there, his eyes half-closed, his forehead pressed to hers. Wen waited, examining what little of his face she could see. There was a new scar along one cheekbone, and the lines at the corners of his eyes were deeper now than they had been when he’d last left her. 

But he was here, and he was still hers; that much, she knew from a glance. 

“Aren’t you going to kiss me?” she murmured, and he laughed a little. 

“Impatient,” Zevran said, but he did kiss her. His lips were faintly chapped, his hand was rough over her jaw when he laid it there to hold her in place, but he was still undeniably himself. As far as Wen was concerned, he was perfect. 

For a moment, they stayed like that, their lips pressed tightly to each other without moving. She pulled away first, but only to angle her face to the side and take his mouth again, this kiss more thorough, conveying with it all the lonely months of command, all that time going to sleep in a cold bed alone, the hours she’d stood at the practice target, blades thudding into the wood over and over while she imagined him cut to ribbons and dead in an Antivan alleyway somewhere. 

“Perhaps I am imagining it,” he said when they broke apart at last, his breath labored, “But I might almost think you missed me.”

Wen scoffed, tossing her head and turning away. 

“I don’t know what gave you that idea,” she said, her hand lingering in his, “I only wrote you a hundred letters. That’s hardly pining.” 

“Ah,” Zevran said, a fond smile crossing his lips, “My mistake.” 

But he caught her hips and pulled her back against him, then hauled her into his arms when holding her there was insufficient. She let him carry her—she’d almost certainly get the chance to do the same to him later—and rested her head on his shoulder until he set her on the bed and climbed over her. 

“Perhaps I must give you something more to miss,” he went on, unwinding the dark fabric from his head and casting it aside, “I must have been too lazy when I was here last, if you were hardly pining.”

Wen decided not to tell him about all the rest until she’d had him at least twice and some of the tension had drained from his body; such admissions were easier once they’d satisfied other, more pressing hungers. 

And anyways, his earlier words had given her ideas. 

Arianwen had his dagger from its sheath before Zev could stop her, but instead of pointing it at him she offered him the hilt. He took it readily, raising an eyebrow as he undid the clasp of his cloak. 

“Well,” she said, shrugging one shoulder, “You said you wanted to cut my shirt off. I’d hate to waste a good speech.” 

It seemed to Arianwen that, as her love tipped his head back and laughed at her, she felt most at home when the walls rang with the sounds of his voice, when his warmth leaked into her bedsheets. 

So—little love as she held for these halls, for a time, at least, let this be home. 

To both of them.

#zevran arainai #arianwen tabris #warden tabris #zevran x tabris #zevran x warden #zevwarden #dao #da fanfic #my writing #knife fight as foreplay: the relationship #i definitely didn't finish this to delay having to go grocery shopping no siree #anyways everyone at vigil's keep is tired of their antics #when zev is there sometimes they spend the whole day sneaking around trying to catch each other unawares #they're having a blast and everyone else is Not #it just occurred to me that maybe i am taking up a lot of the tag oops sorry if so my bad they are eating my brains #zevwen #shivunin scrivening

[throwingmuses]

need 2 vent about the shit show that was the doctors appt i had yesterday 🤩 cw for weight ment and other eating disorder stuff

ok so basically its been an extreme pain to get into this ed program because i need medical clearance (including blood work) before i can start bc the clinic isnt equipped to help treat medical issues. essentially i have to have a doctor order the blood test or else id have to pay out of pocket and order the tests myself (which i definitely dont have the money for rn), but the soonest appointment my doctor had available was over a month out. so i tried going to several of those walk in clinics and all of them gave me some convoluded answer essentially saying they couldnt help me. finally i found someplace that let me make an appointment with another doctor that was a bit sooner than my other one, so i went ahead and did that. i walked into it expecting it to be pretty brief, and i was confused at first why the doctor was doing a psych assessment when all i needed was a quick physical checkup??? but i was really tired and confused so i just went along with it anyways. from the second i walked in the doctor seemed very irritated and was acting rude for literally no reason. i tried to just let it roll off my shoulders because i desperately needed someone to just order these goddamn blood tests and sign a paper saying im good to go. but then, when she asked me my current height/weight, i told her that i was 5'4 and 120lb, to which she actually fucking responded by saying "Wow, you weigh more than me!" which was EXTREMELY TRIGGERING and has been fucking haunting me in the form of obsessive thoughts ever since. she also implied that my current therapist/psychiatrist wasnt very informed because shes a recent graduate when in reality shes the most knowledgable and up front psych ive ever had and this bitch who thinks shes the hot shit didnt even know that there were different types of bipolar disorder. clearly her "knowledge" of psychology as a whole is extremely outdated. anyways towards the end of the meeting, she told me straight up that the clinic probably wouldnt accept me because im at a healthy weight which is total bullshit because thats not how it works whatsoever and i was already ACCEPTED into the program regardless of my weight. ive had this issue a lot over the years with providers not believing that im anorexic because ive never lost a significant amount of weight and the worst medical issue ive had was having low potassium and almost passing out at work, and im forever fucking baffled as to why that is because i often eat less than 1000 calories per day. like im grateful for my body continuing to take care of me despite all of the hell i put it through, but just because im healthy on paper doesnt mean this shit doesnt terrorize me on a daily basis. anyways at that point i just fucking snapped (which is very out of character for me cuz im rather shy) and i told her that she had no idea what she was even talking about, that anyone with half a brain let alone a degree in psychology shouldnt talk to someone with an eating disorder like that (which she KNEW i had walking into this bc thats what the whole appointment was about), and explaining to her that the stress i have around food is ruining my life and preventing me from doing pretty much anything i want/have to do. after yelling at her she changed her disposition entirely and started acting like a dog with its tail between its legs which was pretty gratifying at least. i was like openly sobbing very loudly afterward tho and like everyone in the office could hear me which i found to be embarassing but Oh Well. then me and my bf talked to her supervisior and told them what happened and they were actually very receptive and apologetic so heres to hoping she gets fired (: also she wasnt even a fuckin doctor so the whole thing was pointless but luckily i got an earlier appointment with my doctor cuz someone cancelled But Yeah Ive Been Fucked Up Ever Since

[sunflowervolvimp3]

NFWMB (boxer!harry)

Warnings: language, nsfw content, alcohol, violence

Pairing: boxer!Harry x reader

Word Count: 30k (I got carried away)

A/N: So this got a little out of hand!! I will admit!! I did not mean to make this so long!! but it’s about the yearning people!!! the yearning!!! anyways I really hope you guys like this!! just a few disclaimers: my medical knowledge comes from google and my first-aid badge I got in girl guides so please do not take any of the medical advice in here as doctor recommended. also this is very long and if you’re reading on mobile it may make it crash? so try opening it on a web browser under the read more if you need to!! I really honestly can’t believe I managed to write 30k, but I love boxer!harry so much, and yes he does have long hair in this fic because I make the rules!! thank you to @adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy​ for proof reading this for me and putting up with my messages about it. also, the title is from NFWMB by hozier and i’d recommend listening to it as you read!! as always, feedback is appreciated!! and if you like it, please reblog it!! reblogging is the best way to show content creators support and encourage them to write more!!

{masterlist}

If money wasn’t so tight, there’s no way Y/N would be doing this.

She’s thought it over a thousand times, running every possible scenario and outcome in her head. More often than not, those scenarios end badly.  Yet here she is, standing at the edge of stairs that lead to a gym below the streets of New York City.  Men push past her to get below, muttering quick apologies as they bump into her. None of them are sincere, she notices, but why would they be?  They don’t care about her.  Y/N, on the other hand…she’s being paid to care about them.  They’re why she’s here.

The offer had been posted on a bulletin board in the nursing student’s lounge on campus.  It was a crumpled piece of paper, with a handwritten message scribbled across it.  Y/N had spotted it when she was looking at the board for a summer job, and the uniqueness of it caught her eye.  She had pulled it down from the board, reading it over.

WANTED:

Looking for an individual with medical background/first aid training.

Complete medical degree not required.

For all inquiries, contact Patrick Lawson.

Y/N remembers running her fingers over the phone number listed.  It was a peculiar request, to say the least.  Patrick Lawson, whoever he was, seemed to be searching for someone with medical training, but didn’t require a full medical professional. Still…a job was a job.  And it had looked like it was the most promising thing on the board.

Later that day, Y/N had found herself calling the number, and within three minutes of dialing, she had set up a meeting with Patrick Lawson at a Starbucks a few blocks away from campus.  When she walked in, her eyes scanning the café for someone who would’ve posted the ad, she had instantly known who he was.  The burly man by the window with a long scar across his weathered face and the smell of cigarette smoke wafting from him stuck out from the crowd of students studying, and he had seemed to be the only patron who would hire unlicensed medical personnel.

“Hi.” Y/N had walked over slowly. “Are you Patrick Lawson?”

“That depends.” He looked her up and down, a small smirk at the corner of his mouth. “Who’s asking?”

“My name is Y/N Y/L/N. We spoke on the phone?” She took the advertisement out of her bag and handed it to him.

“Right.” Patrick nodded, motioning to the chair across from him. “Sit down.”

“Alright.” Y/N had taken a seat slowly, her eyes on the door behind him.  She hadn’t quite decided not to run. “So…you didn’t say what kind of job—”

“What are your medical credentials?” Patrick cut across her, sipping his coffee.

Y/N remembered thinking that that was rude, and completely unprofessional for an interview.  Of course, now that she actually knew Patrick, the action was completely in character.

“I’m a third-year nursing student at NYU Meyer.” She had answered, reaching into her bag to pull out her student ID. “And I’m trained in first aid.”

“You ever stitched somebody up before?”

Y/N frowned at the bluntness of the question. “Um, yes, but—”

“What about set broken bones?  Noses?”

With an incredulous look on her face, Y/N had glanced around the coffee shop.  Could anyone else hear this?  When the answer to that question appeared to be no, she had leaned forward, unable to keep the curiosity out of her voice.

“Mr. Lawson, what exactly is this a job interview for?”

 What it was for, it had turned out, was an underground boxing ring in the heart of New York. Patrick explained between sips of black coffee that he owns the gym that everyone fought in, and the business is growing.  The only downside (the use of the word “only” had made the corners of Y/N’s mouth twitch—there was only one downside to an illegal boxing ring?) is that with no regulations, men get injured.  A lot. And because the boxing is illegal, they can’t exactly keep going to the hospital…which was where Y/N comes in.

After seeing her student ID, her first-aid certifications, and testing her on the spot by having her look at a bandaged cut on his leg to see if it was infected (“It is.” Y/N had told him immediately), Patrick had hired Y/N on the spot.  For three hundred dollars a night, she would be watching illegal boxing matches with a first-aid kit by her side.  If anyone got injured too badly, they would bring them back to the locker rooms, where she would be waiting.  There, she would bandage cuts, check for concussions, set broken bones, stitch people up with no anesthetic…

Y/N shudders as she looks at the gym door again, finally pulling herself from her thoughts.  It’s definitely not an ideal situation—or even a moderately ideal situation— and she’s not looking forward to it in the least. But being a student in New York isn’t exactly cheap, and the money is good, even if it’s dirty.  Really dirty.  Probably bloody, from the fighters that she would be expected to stitch up from awful injuries—

“Don’t.” Y/N mutters to herself, taking a deep breath. “Everything is going to be okay.  It’s fine.  This is fine.”

“Hey, lady.” A man approaches her from behind, giving her a strange look—which is to be expected, Y/N thinks, seeing as how she’s talking to herself in the doorway of an underground gym. “Are you going to stare at the door all night, or are you going to open it?”

“Sorry.” She says sheepishly, stepping out of his way and allowing him to step around her down the stairs.  

Knowing that there’s nowhere else to go but inside—and knowing that she can’t block the doorway forever—Y/N quickly makes her own way down the stairs and through the heavy doors.

Y/N isn’t exactly sure what she had expected an underground boxing gym to look like, but the room in front of her eyes pretty much meets her expectations.  The gym is dark, with one bright light in the center hanging over the beaten-up ring.  There are a few dark-coloured mats scattered around the ring, along with people getting ready to watch that night’s match.  Everyone she sees, with their black clothing and leather boots and tough demeanors, looks like they belong at an illegal gym, whereas Y/N…she glances down at herself for a moment.  Next time, she thinks, she’ll remember not to wear lavender.

Still, no matter how out of place she feels, she’s here now, and if university and nursing school had taught her anything, it was to act like she belonged until she did.  With that in mind, Y/N holds her head up high, ignoring the stares of the gym patrons as she makes her way to the back hallway.  Although she’s not exactly sure where Patrick’s office lies within the dark and claustrophobic gym, she feels that the more cigarette smoke she can smell in the air, the closer she’s getting.

Despite passing many identical doors with the same chipped and peeling paint, Y/N continues until she reaches the door at the end of the hallway.  The black paint is scuffed, but in far better condition than any of the other doors around her, and Y/N can smell the cigarette smoke wafting out from the cracks beneath it.

“Patrick?” She knocks on the door softly, just in case she’s guessed wrong.

A rough but recognizable voice answers from the other side. “Yeah.  Come in.”

With permission, Y/N opens the door, coughing a bit when a wall of cigarette smoke hits her. “Hi…?”

“Hey, Doc.” Patrick has a cigarette tucked between his lips as he speaks, and he hardly glances up at her from the papers in his hands. “How you doing?”

“I’m—I’m good.” Y/N says, her voice tinged with nerves. “I just wanted to check in before the match.”

“Good.  Here.” Patrick stands up and walks to a cupboard in his office, pulling out a weathered leather case from within. “This has everything you should need in it.”

He hands the case to Y/N, and she opens it slowly, not entirely sure what Patrick is handing to her. Inside, she finds, is an assortment of medical supplies, all placed haphazardly inside the makeshift medical kit. Y/N roots around a bit with one hand, quickly taking stock of the contents.  Bandages, antiseptics, not-yet-frozen cold compresses, painkillers, a stitch kit… “I’ll need all of this?” She asks, looking up at Patrick with a surprised look in her eyes.

“Look around you, Doc. This isn’t a daycare.” Patrick snorts, puffing on his cigarette. “We bare knuckle box.  We don’t have personal physicians checking up on us, rules, regulations…this is about making money.  And sometimes…it gets messy.”

“But if you needed a medical professional, then why didn’t you get someone who’s finished school?” Y/N asks as she shuts the case and clasps it closed. “They’d be a lot more experienced than a student.”

“Because medical professionals have a duty to report abuse to the cops.” Patrick shrugs as if the reasons are of little consequence to him.  Which, Y/N thinks, they are. “You don’t.  And students need the money more.”

Y/N purses her lips as she clutches the handle of the case tightly in her hand. “What happened to your last student?”

Patrick sighs with a flip of his hand, waving off the question. “He pissed off the wrong guy and went from being the doctor to being the patient.  That’s why I hired a pretty lady this time.”

Y/N scoffs, the ease she had been beginning to feel around Patrick fading within a moment as she remembers where she is.  She meets Patrick’s gaze with a harsh look. “Don’t patronize me, Patrick, or I’ll walk out that door right now.”

Patrick raises his hands defensively, an indifferent look on his face, and Y/N understands that it’s not an apology.

“Look, Doc, the last guy had a mouth on him.  By all accounts, he deserved it.” Patrick walks back around to his desk, tapping his cigarette ash off into the glass ashtray that sits there, already half full. When he looks back up at Y/N, his gaze is softer than before, and Y/N can’t quite decipher the flicker she sees in his eyes. “I don’t mean to be patronizing.  But if any guy in here says shit to you…lemme know.  Got it?”

Y/N has a feeling that that’s as close to an apology as she’ll get from Patrick, so she nods tersely. “Got it.” Her attention turns back to the case in her hands. “So I just…wait by the ring?”

Patrick nods, tucking his cigarette back in his mouth as he sits back down at his desk, his thoughts moving back to the paperwork in front of him. “You got it.  Watch the match.  Have some fun, have a drink…if anything goes too wrong, I’ll pull you up to the ring.  If everything is fine, you’ll come back to the locker room after the match to make sure my guys don’t have a concussion.”

“Sounds…good.” Y/N shifts the case around in her hands as she speaks, unsure of what else there is to say. “I’ll go to the audience, then.”

Patrick nods, but offers no other advice as she leaves.  Not that Y/N expected it.

By the time Y/N makes it to her designated spot at the edge of the crowd, the gym is already filling with people who are buzzing about the fight.  The smell of alcohol, cigarette smoke, and sweat is thick in the air, and after her third time of getting shoved by a man she doesn’t know, Y/N is wondering if sewing some medical patches onto her jean jacket will stop her from getting shoved at the next match.  Of course, she’s not quite certain she’ll be attending the next match, but she makes the plans to do it nonetheless.  

The area around the ring continues to pack itself full with people, and as Y/N stares at the spectators around her, she wonders just how much Patrick is making off this one fight. She’s not sure how much people have to pay to get in, but with at least two hundred people here, not including the money the spectators have put down on bets…Y/N’s certain Patrick will be coming away with a tidy sum.

As the crowd starts to scream, her attention shifts from the people around her to the one bare aisle leading to the ring, where the first fighter has begun walking out.  He has a heavy build with broad shoulders, and Y/N knows he has to be over six feet.  Top heavy, she thinks, as he climbs onto the edge of the ring and ducks his shaved head under the ropes.  He raises his arms as the crowd cheers, apparently loving the attention, and spits to the side before his coach slides his mouth guard in for him.

Y/N wrinkles her nose as she watches the fighter display his muscles to the crowd, and at how much the crowd seems to love it.

There’s a crackle of static over the speakers as the announcer begins to speak. “As last year’s reigning champion, Adam Bowers is aiming to maintain his title this season.” The crowd cheers again as the fighter, Bowers, rolls out his shoulders.

“Those who watched him box last season know that getting this giant off his feet is a gargantuan task. Will his opponent be able to do it?”

The crowd jeers as the announcer mentions the opponent, and Y/N gets the feeling that they don’t think the other guy has a chance.  When the other fighter begins to walk towards the ring, Y/N can’t help but agree.

This fighter’s build is much slimmer, despite the apparent muscle mass on his arms and legs.  He’s more evenly built than Bowers, and while Y/N knows that will be helpful, she can’t make herself feel anything other than worry as she watches the fighter climb under the rings.  He reaches up and fixes the neat bun keeping his brown hair away from his face, and although the crowd roars, Y/N can make out a look of focus and determination in his green eyes.

“Facing our champion is rookie Harry Styles.  Despite beginning training just three months ago…”

Three months?  Y/N bites her lip in concern, watching as Styles’ coach pulls him down to look him in the eye, giving him his mouth guard as he does.  Y/N leans over to a man next to her, unable to stop herself from asking a question that’s at the forefront of her mind. “Don’t they use weight classes to match fighters?” She half yells the question over the cheers. “Bowers seems so much bigger than him!”

“This is illegal fighting, sweetheart.” The man laughs at her question as he takes a sip of his beer. The hair on the back of Y/N’s neck bristles at the pet name, and she once again reminds herself to keep her guard up as the man continues to speak.

“They don’t care about weight classes.” He says easily, nodding towards the ring. “They care about putting on a good show, so they can make money.”

Y/N turns her attention back to the ring, making sure to keep her distance from the other spectators. Styles is surveying the crowd now, and for just a moment, he locks eyes with her.

As his gaze meets hers, Y/N gets the impression that he’s sizing her up just as much as she’s sized him up.  His eyes flick down her body and back up, but not in the way most men in the gym have been doing it.  When the boxer’s eyes flick back to hers, Y/N doesn’t see a look of lust or desire reflected in his irises.  Instead, she sees concern.  

He’s about to fight a behemoth, she thinks, and he’s concerned because I’m in the crowd of the fight?  The idea would make Y/N laugh, if she didn’t have a sneaking suspicion that she’d be setting his bones before the end of the night.

Styles’ finally looks away from her after a moment, centering himself again to be ready to fight. Y/N watches as he makes his way to the center of the ring, his gaze having to turn up to meet the eyes of Bowers. The bell rings, signalling the beginning of the match, and the loud ring makes Y/N flinch as she watches the two boxers begin to fight.

She had been right when she initially sized them up.  Bowers is the first to throw a punch, all of his weight behind it, but Styles’ smaller stature allows him to duck easily, weaving out of the way from the first few strikes.  As he ducks from a punch, Styles manages to land the first hit of the match, his fist connecting directly with Bowers’ jaw.  

Y/N’s face lights up with surprise as the crowd cheers.  However, the surprise quickly turns to worry as Bowers uses his anger to move faster, finally landing a blow on Styles.  Not letting one hit deter him, the smaller boxer is quick to recuperate and keep himself in the moment.  Already, Y/N can tell that he plays the long game, while Bowers seems to favour a more offensive stance.  

As the match continues, Y/N’s concern turns to curiosity as she examines the fighting style of both boxers. Bowers is always the quickest to throw out punches, but Styles manages to dodge more punches than he receives, only standing still long enough to land his own hits on Bowers.  The audience, while shocked by the proficiency of the rookie at first, begins to cheer loudly as their champion fights for a victory. The cheering only gets louder when blood splatters from Bowers’ nose to the floor of the ring.

Y/N winces, searching the crowd for Patrick’s familiar face.  She finds him in the back, watching with his arms crossed, and raises an eyebrow in question as she catches his eye.  He gives a quick shake of his head.  This isn’t anything to worry about, the action says.  Worse is coming.

The worse comes quickly, Y/N finds, as the groan of the crowd draws her attention back to the ring. Styles is doubled over now, presumably from a punch to the gut.  Y/N watches in horrified silence as Bowers lands another punch on Styles’ jaw, knocking the smaller boxer onto his knees.  However, the groan of the crowd quickly turns to a cheer as Styles pushes himself to stand once again, a grunt escaping his lips as he straights.  Spitting the blood out of his mouth, he attacks Bowers again with a new energy, one wilder and more uncalculated than before.

The crowd roars louder as Styles pummels his opponent, and Y/N watches in shock as he knocks Bowers back in a daze.  Styles hits him once, then again, and again, until Bowers goes down with a dull thud that echoes through the gym.  He stays there, lying limp, as the referee begins to count, and doesn’t rise when Styles is declared the winner.

“Harry Styles has managed to begin his journey with a win!” The announcer yells, barely audible above the cheering crowd.  Styles wipes his bleeding mouth with a shaky hand, a grin just beginning to tug at the corner of his mouth as the referee raises his hand in the air in victory.

The crowd continues to yell and cheer as people turn to those next to them, rehashing the match’s highlights.  Y/N sees money change hands a few times, and while she wants to get out of the crowd that’s becoming rowdier by the minute, she’s not exactly sure where to go.

A hand on her elbow brings her from her thoughts, and Y/N whips around, cuss words hanging off the ends of her lips, ready to throw at whoever grabbed her.  When she sees Patrick’s face, however, the words fade away, and she grabs the case that she’s all but forgotten is beside her as he begins to guide her back to the locker rooms.

“Time to get to work, Doc.” Patrick calls over the crowd, glancing over his shoulder at her to make sure she’s following.

Y/N nods silently, taking deep breaths to center herself for the task at hand.  She can’t let herself be uncomfortable now; it’s time for her to work.

Patrick leads her through the crowd and down the hallway, taking a left turn towards the locker rooms. The echoes of someone groaning get louder and louder the closer they get, and as they walk inside the locker room, Y/N is certain she’ll find Styles sitting in front of her.  Instead, her eyes settle on Bowers with a hand to his nose and his head tilted back.

“You need to lean forward.” Y/N says immediately, instinct taking over as she sits down next to Bowers while opening her case.

Bowers grunts, his eyes flicking to Y/N as he does. “I’m bleeding, sweetheart—”

“And leaning back is causing the blood to run down your throat.  It’s harmful to your health, sweetheart.” Y/N counters in an icy tone, shooting him a glare before slipping on plastic gloves.

Patrick crosses his arms as he watches the exchange, a smirk making its way onto his face. “I’d watch my mouth if I were you, Bowers.  Don’t piss off the person about to set your nose.”

Y/N glances at Patrick for a moment before turning back to Bowers.  Although she’s still weary of him, Patrick seems to be the only one looking out for her in the gym, and she makes a note to bring it up with him after she finishes her work.

Upon examination, Y/N finds that Styles has broken Bowers’ nose, and gives him some pain medication and a cold compress before making a splint, setting it as best as she can in a gym locker room.

“There.” Y/N sits back and pulls off her bloody gloves. “That should be okay.  Keep taking ibuprofen to help with the pain and swelling, and if it doesn’t seem to heal, try going to a real doctor.  Alright?”

Bowers nods jerkily.  Although she can see the doubt in his eyes, he doesn’t contradict her again. “Yeah. Alright.”

“What do you say to the Doc, Bowers?” Patrick prompts him, an expectant look on his face.

The boxer glares at her, but still manages to mutter a quick “thanks.”

Although it doesn’t seem sincere, Y/N doesn’t challenge it. “You’re welcome.” She replies curtly, closing her case before standing up again and turning to Patrick. “Where’s Styles?”

 After washing her hands, Patrick leads Y/N down a corridor to another section of the locker room.  Styles is sitting on the bench between the lockers, unwrapping the tape from his hands as his coach leans against the lockers while speaking to him.  From the towel around his neck, wet curls hanging around his face, and damp chest, Y/N gathers that he showered after his victory.  While her observations begin as professional, Y/N’s mind soon drifts to notice how the water droplets cling to his tattooed chest and arms, and how his fingers flex as he unwraps his tape.  The clearing of his throat pulls her from her thoughts, and her eyes snap back up to his face as he speaks.

“Patrick.” The boxer’s voice is accented and low, and she sees recognition from earlier flicker across his phase. “Who’s this?”

“This is Doc Y/N.” Patrick lights a cigarette as he speaks, despite the disapproving look that Y/N gives him. “She’s the one who’s going to be saving your injured ass.”

“You can just call me Y/N.” Y/N rolls her eyes slightly as she refutes the nickname that, to her displeasure, Patrick’s already grown fond of before turning her attention back to Styles. “I’m just going to make sure you’re alright, Mr. Styles.”

When she addresses him, his coach laughs lightly, crossing his arms against his chest.  Y/N looks at him with a raised eyebrow, her mouth open to ask about the laughter, when a voice cuts her off.

“No one’s ever called me Mr. Styles.  Jeff seems to think it’s humorous.” A light chuckle escapes from the boxer, although his is more controlled than that of his coach. “You can call me Harry.  Just Harry.”

Y/N nods as she sits next to him on the bench, opening up her medical kit and slipping on gloves.  She has to focus at the task at hand. “Alright.  How are you feeling?”

“’M fine.” Harry replies easily, running a hand through his wet curls. “Healthy as a horse.”

A snort leaves Jeff’s mouth at that comment. “A horse that got the shit beat out of him.” He turns his attention to Y/N with his next sentence. “He got hit pretty hard in the—”

“The ribs, yeah.” Y/N finishes the sentence for him, her eyes already examining the bruises developing on Harry’s abdomen with a keen eye. “I saw.  Thought you were a goner.”

Harry shrugs a bit in response, seemingly unconcerned with the punches he sustained during the match. “I’ve had worse.”

“May I?” Y/N asks, extending a gloved hand.  At Harry’s nod, she begins to press around his abdomen. “Can’t imagine much worse. You must’ve really pissed someone off, then.”

A laugh rumbles out from Harry’s chest at the comment, but a wince quickly replaces the expression of mirth on his face as his muscles contract.  Although he quickly covers it, Y/N doesn’t miss it.

“Does that hurt?” She asks, pressing on his muscles again while gauging his reactions. “Where? Here?”

Harry clears his throat quietly, carefully controlling his expression as Jeff steps closer. “Uh, yeah. A bit.  Just a bit sore.”

“Patrick,” Y/N glances over her shoulder at him before rummaging in her kit for the stethoscope she saw earlier. “Could you grab me a cold compress?”

Patrick leaves the locker room as Y/N presses the stethoscope to Harry’s chest and back, listening to his heartbeat and breathing. “Do you have any abdominal pain?  Any shortness in breath, or dizziness?”

Harry shakes his head slightly. “No.  None at all. I’m just sore.”

Y/N pulls the stethoscope from her ears and touches his jaw lightly, frowning at the purple bruise that’s blossomed under his pink skin. “You got hit pretty hard here.”

Harry’s jaw flexes under her touch as he chuckles. “I know.  I was there.”

“Don’t be a smart ass, Harry.” Jeff chastises him from his position against the lockers.  

“I’m not!  I’m just saying—”

“She’s trying to help you—”

Y/N tunes out the argument between coach and boxer as she sets the stethoscope back down in the kit, making a note to bring her own next week.  In fact, she can think of a few things that would be useful to add to the makeshift medical bag Patrick gave her—a manual blood pressure cuff, better suturing supplies, maybe some more bandages—

“Y/N?”

“Hm?” Jeff’s voice pulls Y/N from her thoughts just as Patrick enters the locker room again, the cold compress in hand.  She accepts it from him before turning her attention back to the coach.

“Sorry, what was that?” She asks again, closing the medical kit.

“I asked if you thought Harry was being a smart ass.” Jeff gives a pointed look to his boxer. “And if he should apologize.”

Y/N shrugs as she hands the cold compress to Harry. “It’s fine.  It’s definitely not the worst thing anyone’s ever said to me.” She turns her attention back to Harry, who’s frowning at her again, like he did when they first locked eyes in the ring.  That look is back, too, she notices.  The concern.  Like the comment she made worries him.

Y/N clears her throat, pushing the thought out of her head. “You have some bruising and swelling, but nothing is broken.  No internal bleeding, either.  At least, nothing detectable.” She says with a sigh, pulling off her gloves. “I think you’re good to go, but if you start experiencing nausea, dizziness, or bleeding from any orifices, then you need to go to the doctor.  A real one.”

Harry presses the compress against his swollen jaw, wincing as the cold makes contact with his flushed skin. “Are you not a real doctor?”

A laugh bubbles out from Y/N’s lips as she shakes her head. “I’d say I’m a half doctor at best.”

“The best half doctor this gym can buy.” Patrick chimes in, pausing after a moment. “Which, honestly, isn’t saying much, but…”

“Right.” Y/N tosses her gloves in the garbage can sitting against a locker. “So, again, if you start feeling strange, see a real doctor.  One that’s actually licensed.”

Harry nods, standing up and extending a hand. “Thanks, Doc.  I appreciate it.”

It takes Y/N a moment to realize he wants to shake her hand.  Once the realization hits her, she extends her hand cautiously, locking it with his in an awkward fashion.  She prays it goes unnoticed by Harry, but judging from the laughter in his eyes, it hasn’t.  Her own cheeks flush as she pulls her hand away.

“Of course.  I’ll see you at your next match.” She says quickly, and escapes the locker room behind Patrick before she can say anything else.

 Patrick brings Y/N back to his office, shutting the door behind them before going behind his desk and removing a cheap picture of a city off his wall, exposing the door of a safe. He opens it quickly and counts out three hundred dollars in cash before slipping it into an envelope for Y/N. “Here, Doc.  You did good tonight.”

Y/N had almost forgotten that she’s doing this for cash. “Thanks.” She takes the money from him, tucking it inside her jacket. “I’m just glad I didn’t need to stitch anyone up.”

Patrick laughs as he lights a fresh cigarette, sitting down at his desk chair as he puffs on it. “This time.”

“Yeah.  This time.” Y/N eyes the cigarette with distaste. “Smoking kills, you know.”

Patrick glances at her with an incredulous look on his face, unfazed. “I run an illegal boxing ring. Do you think I care?” He exhales smoke slowly. “I got more to worry about killing me than smoking.”

Y/N shifts her weight from one foot to another as a band of anxiety twists its way through her stomach. “Do I have to worry about that, too?”

“Nah.” Patrick waves his hand indifferently, clearly unconcerned. “No one cares about a nursing student with a few bandages and some ice packs.”

“Right.” Y/N says slowly. Her previous hesitancy about her security at the gym returns, and although she tries to hide it, she knows it’s written all over her face.

Patrick’s keen eyes notice right away. “That’s a good thing, Y/N.” For the first time that night, he uses her name to address her. “Trust me, you want to go unnoticed here.”

“Do I?” Y/N pauses in front of the door, her hand resting on the handle.

“Yeah.  You do.” Patrick taps the ash off his cigarette as he gives her a long look. “I know you noticed how…different you are from our regular visitors.”

“You mean how I’m not a gigantic man dressed in all leather who enjoys making sexist comments towards women?” Y/N’s voice drips with sarcasm as she rolls her eyes. “Believe me. I noticed.”

“You want to go unnoticed here.” Patrick says again, firmer this time. “Dress in darker clothes. Blend in more.  No good men spend their time here.  Not one.  Understood?”

The serious tone in Patrick’s voice causes a chill to run down Y/N’s back, and her hand tightens on the handle of the door.  She doesn’t doubt what he’s saying; she already had her suspicions that she’d need to do more to blend into the crowd next week.  But being directly warned about the danger she’s putting herself in gives her pause.

“You seem like a good kid, and I’ll do my best to make sure no one fucks with you.  But you have to be watching your own back, too.” Patrick takes a long puff of his cigarette. “I got enough shit on my plate without keeping tabs on you.”

“Got it.” Y/N nods sharply, her fingernails digging into her palm as she steadies herself. “Blend in. Watch my own back.  Go unnoticed.  Understood.”

…

“So how’s the new job?”

Y/N’s eyes snap up at her friend’s question as her grip on her beer bottle tightens just the slightest bit.  The bar around them is loud, filled with the sound of obnoxious, half-drunk laughter and bad music, and Y/N hopes that the ambient noise is enough cover for her to pretend that she didn’t hear the question.

“What, Sadie?” She leans closer as her mind searches for a plausible answer. “What did you say?”

Sadie leans across the table, perfectly unaware of how her question has increased her friend’s heart rate. “I asked you how your new job is.”

“Oh.” Y/N brings the lip of her bottle to her mouth, taking a sip to prolong her pause. “It’s good, yeah. Pretty good.”

“Where is it again?” Sadie asks, settling back down in her seat comfortable. “Some gym?”

“Yeah, I just—I’m doing some first-aid lessons there.  For their trainers.” Y/N says quickly, attempting to keep her voice even.  Lying has never been her strong suit, especially to her friends. “You know, basic stuff, but it pays well.”

“That’s good!” Sadie replies in an encouraging voice. “That’ll be good for you.”

“Yeah, it’s good so far.” Y/N nods, her fingers tapping anxiously against her beer bottle. “So…” Her mind searches for another topic of discussion. “Tell me more about that guy you’ve been seeing.  Peter?”

As Sadie begins to rehash the events of her last date with a man from Tinder, Y/N’s mind begins to wander to the real answer to her friend’s question.  How was her new job going?

It’s certainly…going, she thinks, nodding absentmindedly at something Sadie says.  It didn’t ever seem to stop going.  Every Saturday brings a new crisis for her to handle. Within her first month of working at Patrick’s gym, she’s reset multiple noses, splinted fingers, bandaged knuckles, stitched lips and foreheads, and—Y/N suppresses a shudder—popped a dislocated shoulder back into a boxer’s shoulder socket.  

When Patrick told her that the job would be messy, Y/N had assumed that he was overexaggerating, but she’s found herself repairing every single boxer at the gym in some way, shape, or form over the last month.

Every boxer except Harry, that is.

Y/N’s not sure if there’s some sort of guardian angel looking out for him, or if he’s really just that lucky, but so far, the worst injury she’s had to help him with is a bloody nose.  Despite being the busiest boxer at the gym, with fights every week, Harry’s managed to evade any broken or dislocated bones.  He hasn’t even so much as pulled a muscle.

Although Y/N’s happy that she has one less patient to deal with every week, his winning streak is starting to make her nervous.  Whenever Harry steps into the ring, he’s cool, calm, and collected, but Y/N’s seen too much in life to ignore the rule that what goes up must come down.  She has a bad feeling that the higher Harry’s luck pushes him, the harder he’ll fall.  And when he does, it’ll be her job to put him together again.

“…And I just don’t know what it means.” Sadie pushes her phone in front of Y/N, pulling her from her thoughts. “I mean, who sends the wheat emoji?  Is he a farmer?  How do I respond to that?”

“Tell him he can plow your crops.” Y/N replies easily, shifting her attention back to her friend. “But only if he wears overalls.”

Sadie rolls her eyes as she pulls her phone back. “Haha.  Maybe it’s a weird vegan thing.  Do vegans have codes?”

“How the fuck would I know?” Y/N snorts before taking a swig from her beer bottle. “And I thought he was keto?”

“He was, until two weeks ago.”

“Well, even if vegans do have codes, I doubt two weeks is long enough to learn them.” Y/N stands from her seat. “I’m going to grab another beer; do you want a refill?”

Sadie shakes her head, her attention already turned back to her text messages with Peter.  

Y/N pushes her way through the crowd until she reaches the bar, carefully working her way in between the bodies of intoxicated New Yorkers.  She waits patiently next to a group of a few men until the bartender acknowledges her while her mind drifts to the assignment she has due next week that, really, she should be at home working on.

The bartender stops in front of her, wiping his hands on the towel over his shoulder. “What can I get you?”

“I’ll have another Budweiser.” Y/N says, reaching for her back pocket for her phone. “It’ll be on debit—”

“Actually—” The body next to her turns at the sound of her voice. “You can put it on my tab.  And add another scotch and soda to the order, as well.”

The bartender nods, but Y/N huffs under her breath, pushing her hair out of her face as she prepares the speech that she always hopes she won’t have to use. “That’s very kind of you, but—Harry?”

The green eyed boxer peers down at her, a charming grin playing on his red lips.  His long hair is down and flowing, curling around his defined shoulders and collarbones that peak out of his loose, half unbuttoned shirt. One arm hangs loosely at his side as the other clutches an empty glass, rings clicking as he taps his fingers against it.  His tongue swipes his lips once before he speaks, making them impossibly redder.

“’M surprised to see you here.” Harry’s voice is as low as it ever is, even in the noise of the club. “I didn’t think dive bars would be your scene.”

Y/N scoffs as she straightens her back, trying to make herself a better match for Harry’s height. “As opposed to what, sleazy underground gyms?”

“Hm.  That’s true.” An amused look paints its way onto Harry’s features as he sets his empty glass down on the bar. “Are you here alone?  Or did a date bring you here?”

“A friend, actually.” Y/N motions over her shoulder to Sadie, who’s still wrapped up in her messages with Peter. “I’ve never been here before, but she really likes it.”

“Yeah?” Harry’s grin slowly grows as he leans against the edge of the bar. “How are you liking it so far?”

Y/N lifts her shoulders slightly in a small shrug. “It’s alright.  Not much different than any other bar in New York.  A beer is a beer anywhere, right?”

“That’s your mistake, though.” Harry sighs a bit as his eyes train on something over Y/N’s shoulder. He reaches past her, his warm, tanned arm brushing against the bare skin of her shoulder.  It brushes against her again when he moves his arm back, this time with an open beer bottle and scotch and soda in hand, and Y/N’s not sure what’s worse: how good Harry’s skin feels against hers, or the fact that his hands are so large that he can easily carry two drinks in them without spilling a drop.

“My mistake?” Y/N’s successful in keeping her voice steady—just barely—as she takes the bottle from him. “What mistake?”

“Ordering a bottle of beer wherever you go.” Harry’s ringed hand wraps around the cold glass of scotch. “Let me pick the next drink I buy you, yeah?  Then you’ll be able to see if you really like this bar or not.”

“Um—” It takes Y/N a moment to process what he says, and when it finally hits her, she feels heat rush to her cheeks faster than it ever has before.  Her mouth opens and closes for a moment, and it takes the charming smile on Harry’s face changing to a grin of satisfaction at her reaction for her to snap out of her stupor.

“I don’t need you to buy me drinks.” Y/N says firmly, setting her beer bottle down on the counter. “I can buy my own.  Thank you, though.”

“Wait—” Harry’s arm touches her wrist lightly as she turns around, pulling her attention back to him. His satisfied grin has slipped into a look of apology. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that in—that sounded worse than I meant it to.  I know you can buy your own drinks, I just—I meant it as a thank you.”

Y/N raises an eyebrow as she looks him up and down.  The difference in his demeanor compared to a moment ago is noticeable—his shoulders have curled in slightly, making his body appear smaller, and his brows are knit together in a look of worry.  His teeth are tugging on his lower lip as he waits for her response, and it’s not until noticing his lips that Y/N realizes she hasn’t responded.

“A thank you for what?” Y/N asks, surprise evident in her voice.  Although Harry’s let go of her wrist, she still feels a stinging in the skin there, and wraps her own hand around the area he touched.

Harry’s free hand grazes his abdomen, just over his ribs, where Y/N knows there’s a bruise from a fight the previous week. “For cleaning me up all the time.”

Y/N waves off his comment with a flip of her hand. “You don’t need to thank me for that.  It’s my job.  Literally.”

“I know, but—” A man pushes his way to the bar, breaking into the space between Y/N and Harry. Harry grabs the beer bottle off the bar counter before the man can spill it, a darkening look in his eyes as he steps around the (clearly intoxicated) man to stand before Y/N again. “I can’t imagine it’s easy.  I’ve seen how the men there treat you.”

Y/N straightens her spine even more, her mouth pressing into a tight line.  The last thing she needs is Harry’s pity. “I made the choice to take the job.  I knew what the environment would be like.  I don’t need you feeling like you have to be the good guy and buy me drinks to make up for the assholes at the gym.”

“No, that’s not—” Harry shakes his head quickly. “That’s not what I meant, Y/N—” She hates the flutter she feels in her core when she hears her name in his accent. “I’m just concerned—”

“I didn’t ask for you to be concerned!” Y/N replies hotly, her arms crossing tightly over her body. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Sadie begin to notice the interaction between herself and Harry, and she knows she’s going to be interrogated the moment she gets back to the table.

“I know that!” Harry defends himself, his face growing more agitated as their conversation continues. “I can’t help it—”

“Why?  Because I’m a girl surrounded by big tough guys?  Because I obviously need protecting?  Because I can’t protect myself?” Although she’s aware that her frustration is only partly aimed at Harry, and is mostly the product of the emotions she’s kept locked inside her over the last month, Y/N can’t make herself stop.

“No.” Harry’s eyes drop down from her sharp gaze. “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to sound like that.”

Y/N feels a twinge of guilt when she sees the brightness fade from Harry’s eyes, but she doesn’t shift her position. “I appreciate the thanks, and the drink.  But I don’t need your pity, your concern, or your protection.”

“Alright.” Harry nods once as his eyes snap up to meet hers again.  He has the same calm and collected look that Y/N usually sees reflected in his jade irises before a match. “I understand.”

“Good.” Y/N’s fingers twist around each other as she considers what else to say. Nothing else really seems worth saying, so instead she focuses on a goodbye. “I’ll see you next Saturday, then.”

“Yeah.” Harry nods again, and Y/N moves to step away, but Harry’s hand catches her one more time. Y/N’s eyes find his face in confusion, and her whole body jumps as she feels the cool glass of the beer bottle press into her palm.

“Take that with you.” Harry’s voice is rough, unreadable. “It’s not safe to leave your drinks unattended.”

…

Now that she’s spent the last five Saturdays working at Patrick’s gym, Y/N’s fallen into a comfortable routine—or at least, as comfortable as she can be in an environment filled exclusively by men with anger issues and no morals.  Every Saturday morning, she gets up around nine A.M. and lounges around for a while, just reading her phone in bed.  Once she actually makes it out of bed, she showers, taking the time she doesn’t normally have on university mornings to wash her hair, shave anything that she thinks needs shaving, and just enjoy the hot water on her skin. After her shower, Y/N gets dressed in whatever the day’s activity calls for.  Sometimes she stays in all day, just studying and catching up on readings, while other times she has errands to run, or friends to meet for brunch at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that charges seventeen dollars for avocado toast. Whatever the day brings, however, her evening routine is always the same.  

Y/N sets her dinner plate in the kitchen sink before grabbing her jean jacket from the back of her kitchen chair.  She slips it over her black t-shirt, which is tucked into her dark jeans, before grabbing her heavy black boots from the closet.  After her first week, Y/N realized the key to being comfortable at her new job was dark clothing and protective footwear, as drunk men placing bets on illegal fights seemed to have a habit of stepping on her toes—literally.  Y/N found that it was best to take protective measures against the shoving of the crowds, as stitching paramedic patches onto the sleeves of her jean jacket hadn’t done any good.

With one final check to make sure her good stethoscope and manual blood pressure pump is in her bag, Y/N sets out for the gym, arriving at 9 P.M. on the dot.  Although the match doesn’t start until 10, she likes to get there early and check in with Patrick.  They’ve begun to develop a rapport over the last few weeks, and Y/N finds herself looking forward to her talks with the surly gym owner.

Y/N doesn’t blink when she enters the dark gym now, and instead keeps her gaze aimed straight ahead as she makes her way to Patrick’s office, knocking on the door thrice in quick succession.

“Yeah?” His voice calls out roughly from behind the door.  Y/N opens and shuts it behind her, managing to take one last gasp of clean air before being confronted with the scent of stale cigarette smoke.

“Evening, Doc.” Patrick leans back in his desk chair, the usual cigarette between his lips. “How are things looking out there?”

“The gym is already half full, and the fight isn’t for another hour.” Y/N takes a seat across from the desk as Patrick reaches under it, opening the minifridge he has stashed away and pulling out a beer for each of them.  Y/N accepts the bottle, opening it on the edge of his desk before continuing. “You’re getting famous.”

“I’m not getting famous; Styles is.” Patrick stubs out his cigarette before opening his own bottle. “He’s going on five weeks undefeated in his first season.  That’s never been done before.”

Y/N scratches at the label of her beer with her fingernail while her teeth tug on her bottom lip. “What’s his story, anyways?” She asks after a moment, unable to hold back her curiosity any longer. “How did he end up here?”

Patrick takes a swig of beer, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. “I don’t know how he ended up here, but I assume it’s for the same reason anyone ever does, including you. The money.” Patrick shrugs a bit. “As for his story at the gym…he knocked on my office door seven months ago, saying he wanted to get into boxing.  He had a bit of muscle, yeah, but nothing like he has now.  He just sounded like some posh boarding school kid, so I sent him packing.  But he was adamant.  Wouldn’t give up.  Kept coming back, over and over.” Patrick snorts, shaking his head at the memory. “Finally, I told him to start training and bulking up just to get him off my back. And then he came back the next day with his coach, Jeff, and spent hours working every drill imaginable.  I have to admit, it impressed me.  So I gave him a trial match, the first night you worked. You remember how that went, don’t you?”

Y/N thinks back to the blood spurting from Bowers’ nose after Harry broke it. “Yeah.  I do.”

“He’s a strange guy. Pretty different from any other boxer here.  But he’s bringing in cash, and lots of it, so I don’t give a shit.” Patrick takes another sip of beer, his eyes focusing on Y/N’s untouched bottle. “You better drink that, Doc.  I don’t like wasting beer.”

Y/N lifts the bottle to her mouth automatically, but doesn’t register the taste of the liquid as it passes her lips. “I’m pretty sure rule number one of nursing is not drinking before a shift.”

“That’s some bullshit hospital rule, not mine.” Patrick gives an unconcerned wave of his hand. “Besides, I think the alcohol steadies your hands a bit.  Liquid courage and all that.”

Y/N raises the bottle in her hand, tilting it towards Patrick with a wry grin. “To liquid courage.”

…

“You should consider telling Harry to reign it in, Patrick.” Y/N carefully slips off her bloodied gloves, tossing them in the locker room garbage. “That’s the third nose he’s broken in the last month!”

“Why would he need to reign it in?” Patrick raises an eyebrow, leaning against the lockers as Y/N washes her hands. “Do you know how much money he’s making me?  The crowd goes crazy for blood!”

Y/N shakes off her wet hands, quickly drying them on a paper towel before taking her medical kit back from Patrick.  The bag feels heavier in her hand than it did earlier. “At this rate, you’re going to be out of boxers before the month is over.”

“I can always get new fighters, Doc.” Patrick sniffs, rubbing his nose while leading Y/N to the other locker room.  He still comes with her to check on the boxers, despite her knowing the drill by now. Deep down, Y/N appreciates it. “A new champion, on the other hand…those are rare.”

“Are they?” Y/N raises an eyebrow as Patrick steps back, letting her step into the room first. “I’m surprised this champion hasn’t worn himself out yet.”

Harry’s eyes snap up at the sound of her voice.  He’s in his usual spot on the bench, his hands already unwrapped and his body already clean from his shower.  Y/N wishes she could say that the sight of Harry’s damp and tattooed chest doesn’t have an affect on her anymore, but as she takes in the sight of him, her eyes are only half scanning his body for injuries.  The other half of her, to her displeasure, is focused on how his muscles flex under the harsh artificial light as he takes a drink from his water bottle.

Patrick laughs once as Y/N takes a seat next to Harry, opening her medical kit. “Jeff, you’ll never guess what Doc Y/N thinks.” Patrick approaches the coach with a smirk on his face. “She wants Harry to reign it in.  Says he’s too harsh in the ring.”

Jeff’s laughter matches Patrick’s, and Y/N feels a flush come over her face as she searches for clean gloves.  She does her best to keep her gaze down and keep her focus on her work, but when she looks up, the look on Harry’s face makes her mind go completely blank.

Although Jeff and Patrick are snickering at her comment, Harry’s face is as unreadable as ever. There’s no amusement in his deep green eyes, nor is there a grin on his pink lips.  Instead, there’s just a small crease between his brows as he meets her gaze, and Y/N can hardly fight back the urge to lean forward and press her lips to the worried spot.

She had been afraid that seeing Harry for the first time since their bar dispute would throw her, and it only takes one look in his eyes to know her anxiety has a solid foundation of reason underneath it.

“You think I’m too harsh?” The corners of his lips turn down the slightest bit as he speaks, and Y/N has to tell herself that she has no right to notice such a slight difference as quickly as she does.

With a slight shake of her head, Y/N begins to press around Harry’s side, where she had watched him sustain most of his opponent’s hits in the match. “I’m the one who cleans up your messes, remember?” She keeps her voice quiet, so she can hear any noises he makes as she presses on his muscles. “Is this sore?”

“Not more than usual.” Harry replies in the same quiet tone, his eyes glued to her movements.  Y/N can feel his irises burning into her skin, and tries her best to ignore how the attention makes her feel.  She almost forgets that they’re not alone in the locker room until Patrick speaks.

“Jeff and I have to discuss some things for next week’s match.” He says, speaking more to Y/N than Harry. “Are you alright here, Doc?”

Y/N understands the tone underneath his question.  Patrick wants to know if she’s alright being left alone with a boxer who just proved himself capable, once again, of breaking bones.  If it was anyone else, Y/N would shake her head and say she needs him to stay.  With Harry, however, Y/N’s not afraid of what he can do to her.  If anything, she’s concerned about what she may do to him.

“Yeah, it’s fine.” Y/N gives a slight nod to Patrick as she pulls out her stethoscope. “I won’t be much longer.”

“Alright.” Patrick gives one hardened look to Harry before following Jeff out of the locker rooms, leaving behind only the smell of his cigarette to mix with the locker room air.

Silence sits between the two of them for a moment, until Y/N fixes the stethoscope in her ears. “This may be a bit cold.” She warns, setting the device on his chest.  She listens for a moment before moving it to his back. “Breathe in for me?”

Harry’s ribs expand underneath her fingers as he inhales deeply, exhaling just as slow.

“Again.” Y/N says, moving her stethoscope.  Even through her gloves, she can feel the heat radiating off his skin, and briefly wonders if she should take his temperature before deciding that there’s no need.  Harry is just…warm.

Y/N pulls her stethoscope out of her ears and sets it down in her bag, reaching instead for some wipes. “There’s a bit of blood under your nose still.” She pulls out a wipe and gently rubs it over the affected skin. “But your nose isn’t broken.”

Harry’s hands fiddle in his lap as she cleans him up, shifting and wincing every once in a while. “I don’t mean to break noses, you know.” He says after a moment. “I mean, I do, kind of, but it’s just—I’m fighting to win.”

“I know.” Y/N tosses the used wipe in the trash, her fingers still moving gently over his cheek.  A black eye is beginning to develop under his left eye, so she reaches in her kit for her penlight.  She flicks it on and holds up a finger with her other hand. “Follow my finger with your eyes, will you?”

Harry does as she asks, passing the simple test with ease. “We’re all fighting to win.  I just happen to be better at it than the others.”

The corner of Y/N’s lip twitches as she turns off the penlight, swapping it in favour of a cold compress she can press to Harry’s bruised eye. “I suppose you are.” Harry winces as the compress makes contact with his eye, and Y/N sighs. “Sorry.”

“S’alright.” Harry says immediately, voice low.

Once again, the conversation dies out in favour of silence.  As Y/N holds the compress to Harry’s eye, she wonders if he’s been thinking of their conversation in the bar as much as she has.  She wonders if he’s been thinking of their conversation in the bar at all.  As much as she dislikes how much Harry’s been occupying her thoughts, she dislikes the idea of her occupying none of his even more.

“So…” Y/N clears her throat quietly. “Patrick told me this is your first season, right?”

Harry jerks his head in a slight nod. “It is.”

When he offers no more information, Y/N asks another question. “What made you want to start?”

Harry’s uncovered eye meets hers, just for a moment, before looking down at his calloused hands. “I needed some extra cash, and I’m a good fighter.  Figured I’d put it to use.”

Y/N can sense more of a story behind his words, but she can also tell by his demeanor that he’s not in the sharing mood.  Instead of prying more, she just nods and takes his hand, pressing it over her hand and the cold compress.  She gives herself a split second to enjoy his hand on hers before pulling her own hand away.

She stands up slowly as she snaps off her gloves, tossing them in the garbage. “Take some Ibuprofen if you have any pain, and again, if you start to feel weird—”

“See an actual doctor.” Harry finishes the sentence for her with a small smile. “Because you’re not one.”

“Exactly.” Y/N clicks the medical kit closed. “Now you get it.”

“So what are you then, if not an actual doctor?” Harry asks, leaning back on the bench to look up at her better. “What made you start here?”

Y/N pauses by the lockers, surprised he’s inquiring about her life. “I’m a nursing student at NYU. I’m here because I was the only one dumb enough to answer Patrick’s ad, apparently.”

A chuckle rolls out of Harry’s body, and Y/N watches as she tries to hide the wince caused by his abdomen contracting. “Are you—?” She begins to step closer, but Harry waves off her concern.

“I’m fine.” He insists. “Don’t change the subject.”

“Right.” Y/N gives him a confused look. “What was the subject, again?”

“You.  Your life.” Harry shifts the cold compress to his other hand, flexing his cold fingers to get blood circulating.  Y/N watches the movement for a moment before forcing herself to meet his eyes again.

“What about my life?” She asks, just a hint of breathlessness detectable in her voice.

Harry shrugs with one shoulder as he stands, making his way to the locker next to Y/N.  He opens it quickly, grabbing a t-shirt from within and smoothly pulls it on with one hand.  The fabric settles over his muscles nicely. “I don’t know.  I’m just curious.”

Y/N’s brow furrows as she takes in his words. “Okay, but…no offence, Harry, I just—I don’t think it’s very wise of me to tell you too much about my life.”

Harry’s mouth twitches down into a frown as he grabs his leather jacket from the locker, shutting it with a bang that echoes around the empty locker room. “Why not?”

“Because it’s not safe?” Y/N knows her words are true, but her infliction makes it sound like a question, and Harry proves himself eager to answer it.

“It’s not?” Harry glances around the locker room slowly, gesturing to the empty space. “Who else is here?”

“Just you, but I—that’s part of the reason.” Y/N speaks steadily and carefully, as if to make Harry understand, but the words are as much a reminder for herself as they are for him. “You shouldn’t know about my life.  About me.  At least, not any more than you need to.”

That unreadable look crosses over Harry’s face again, clouding his green irises in mystery. His free hand combs through his long hair, still damp from his shower, as his teeth worry his bottom lip. “Who decides what I need to know?”

Y/N tightens her grip on the medical kit, the feel of the rough leather acting as a reminder for where she is and who she’s with. “I do.” She murmurs. “I decide.”

Harry nods roughly once, jerking his chin up as he takes the cold compress off his eye.  The bruise is darker now, staining his pale skin, but he hands the compress back to her. “Alright, then.  Thanks for clearing that up.”

From the tone of his voice, Y/N gets the sense that he’s bothered by what she said, but she doesn’t let herself focus on it.  Harry’s is a grown man, and if he has an issue with what she’s saying, he can tell her. It’s not her job to coddle him and drag his feelings out.

Y/N matches his tone of voice, looking him straight in the eye as she replies. “You’re welcome.”

…

When Y/N’s phone rings three weeks later with an unknown number flashing on the screen just past midnight on a Thursday, she almost doesn’t answer it. After a day of consecutive classes and working through tutorials and labs until her mind went numb, she can’t handle dealing with a telemarketer in a different time zone. However, the New York area code catches her eye, and her curiosity gets the best of her as she picks up her phone and taps the screen.

“Hello?”

“Y/N?” Harry’s familiar accent crackles through her speaker, half drowned out from the sound of yelling and New York traffic.

“Harry?” Y/N sits up on her couch so fast that she almost spills her tea. “What—how did you get my number?”

“Texted Patrick for it.” Harry’s voice drifts further away, and Y/N can’t make out what he’s saying.

“What?” She presses the phone closer to her ear in an attempt to hear him. “I can’t understand, Harry—”

“What’s your address?” Harry repeats again, his voice finally audible. “It’s in Tribeca, right?”

Y/N sets down her tea with a thud. “I—yeah, but—”

“Just text it to me, please.” Harry asks, his voice low and strained. “I’ll be there in ten.”

“But—”

The line clicks dead.

Y/N stares down in her phone in shock for a moment before adding Harry’s number to her contacts and texting him her address.  She’s not sure why she does it without question—she should be concerned that he’s coming for a negative reason, she thinks, but something in his voice over the phone…there was something there that she’d never heard before.

A knock comes to her door eight minutes later, after Y/N’s bustled around her tiny studio apartment to tidy it up.  She’s normally a clean person, but had to toss some clothes in her hamper, put her mug in the sink, and, three seconds before the knock came, tossed her old teddy bear under her bed.

When Y/N opens the door, she’s not entirely sure what she’s expecting, but she knows for sure it isn’t this.

Harry is slumped against your door frame, his right hand cradled to his chest by his left arm. There’s a dark liquid splattered on his navy blue shirt, and it takes Y/N a second to register that it’s blood, not alcohol, despite his body reeking of liquor.  His curls, which are normally so soft and carefully tied back, are falling into his eyes as he struggles to keep himself upright.  Bruises are already blossoming along his jaw, there’s a split in the skin next to his eyebrow, and a frightening amount of blood trailing down his cheek like tears.  A sheen of sweat covers his face and neck, and when he looks at Y/N, she can see the moment it takes him to register that it’s her he’s looking at.

“Oh my God—” Y/N grabs his shoulders quickly, leading him into the apartment.  She can tell he’s trying his best to walk independently, but half his body weight is being pressed into her while she struggles to lead him to the couch.

A groan escapes Harry’s lips as he flops onto the couch, low and weak and a complete knife in Y/N’s chest. Normally, when she sees someone this injured, she goes straight into nurse mode, examining them without emotion, but there’s something about the way Harry’s chest is rapidly rising and falling that’s preventing her from doing that.

“Harry—I—” She pushes his curls back from his face, and is horrified to find blood on her hand when she pulls it back. “What happened?”

“I—” The words struggle to make it past his pale lips as he takes a shuddering breath. “I got into a fight. At the bar.”

The answer is so simple, so common, and yet it shocks Y/N that she pauses mid-step on her way to get her medical kit. “A bar fight?  This is from a bar fight?”

Harry nods once as he winces. “Had a few—few too many.  Got into an argument.” He grits his teeth as he does his best to take his jacket off. “Christ—”

“Stop.” Y/N sets her medical kit down on the coffee table, reaching over and carefully helping him remove his jacket.  Her curiosity is raging inside her—what could have irritated Harry so much that he would fight in a bar?  And, even more pressing, what could have irritated him so much that he would lose? “So you can only box while sober, huh?”

“Yeah.” Harry mutters the word, a tinge of shame echoing in the back of his voice. “Apparently.”

Y/N tosses his jacket to the ground once it’s off, her eyes canvassing over Harry’s body.  There’s so much that seems wrong that she doesn’t even know where to start. “Okay, just—what hurts?  What happened?”

“The bastard got a few good shots in at my head.  Split my eyebrow, but that’s about it.” Harry sucks in a sharp breath as he hears you snap on your disposable gloves. “But I—shit—I fucked up my hand, Y/N.  I threw a bad punch and—fuck—”

Y/N carefully takes Harry’s injured hand in her own, examining it closely.  A few of his knuckles are split and dripping blood down his pale skin.  His calloused fingers are bruised, swelling over the rings he’s wearing, and Y/N knows that those have to be the first things to go.  She takes one of her decorative pillows and sets it on Harry’s lap, setting his injured hand on top of it before quickly moving to her fridge. She grabs an ice pack from the freezer and wraps it in a tea towel, tucking it under her arm as her eyes scan her apartment for something to help her get his rings off.  Only one thing comes to her mind, and Y/N tries to control the blood rushing to her cheeks as she opens her bedside drawer and grabs the lube she keeps stashed there.

When Harry sees it in her hand, he raises an eyebrow for a split second until the pain of the cut catches him off guard.

“What—” He takes a deep breath as she settles next to him, carefully setting the ice pack underneath his hand. “What’s the KY for?”

Y/N attempts to keep her voice steady as she answers. “You’re wearing two rings.  We have to get them off before your fingers swell any more.” She pops the seal of the lube open and pours a liberal amount over Harry’s fingers. “This—this is going to hurt, so just—I’m sorry.”

Harry nods once, his eyes closed as his head jerks in response. “Just do it.”

Although she does her best to be gentle, Y/N can feel Harry’s body tensing as she pulls the rings over his bruised fingers.  No words leave his lips, but she can tell that he’s gritting his teeth to keep quiet as she works the two rings off.

“Good.  Good job.” She sets the lube-covered rings on her coffee table with a clink. “That was the worst of it, I think.  Or I hope, at least.”

A huff of liquor scented air passes through Harry’s lips. “Is it broken?”

Y/N gingerly picks up Harry’s hand, moving his fingers as much as she can, feeling for anything out of place. “I don’t think so, no.” She murmurs in a quiet voice. “Just sprained, I think.  Your index and middle finger got it the worst, but I’m fairly certain they’re not fractured.”

“Fairly certain?” Harry asks, jaw tense. “How could we be 100% certain?”

“If we went to an actual hospital and got an X-ray.” Y/N shoots back, giving him a harsh look. “But seeing as how you’re here, I assume that’s something you don’t want to do.”

Harry exhales hard as she cleans his hand with a wipe. “No.  It’s not.”

Once his hand is clean, Y/N wraps it in a bandage carefully, setting it back down on the ice pack once the bandage is secure.  With his hand taken care of, she turns her attention to Harry’s face.  The cut in his brow has stopped bleeding now, enough for Y/N to see that it’s not horribly deep. “I don’t need to stitch it.” She tells him as she grabs a cotton pad and rubbing alcohol. “I just need to clean it and then bandage it.”

Harry winces when she presses the alcohol soaked pad to the cut.

“Sorry.” Y/N mumbles, her eyes trained on the split skin next to his eyebrow.

“S’alright, I’ll manage.” Harry matches her mumble, his voice barely audible in the quiet living room. She can feel the heat of his skin pressed against her hand, and just when she’s thinking that there’s no way that her icy skin can feel pleasant, Harry sighs.

“Your hands are cold.” He murmurs, his uninjured hand touching the hand that’s cupping his jaw to keep him steady. “It’s nice.  Feels like a million degrees in here.”

Y/N resists the urge to pull her hand away from his, keeping all her focus on applying the bandage to his eyebrow like it’s a monumentally difficult task.  She waits until she’s smoothed the beige cover over his skin to respond. “Probably because you’re so sweaty.” She presses her other hand to his forehead, doing her best to ignore how another sigh slips past Harry’s lips. “I hope you don’t have a fever…”

“’M just warm, that’s all.” His words are less slurred than they had been when he first arrived, and his green eyes are just starting to open again. “The bar was hot.”

Y/N pulls her hand away from his forehead. “Right.” She walks the three steps it takes her to get to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. “Here.” She hands it to Harry, along with two ibuprofen pills from her medical kit. “Swallow these, and then drink that entire glass of water.”

“You got it, Doc.” Harry murmurs, following her instructions immediately.  Y/N rolls her eyes as she takes a seat next to him again, carefully readjusting the ice pack on his injured hand.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?” She asks in a tired voice.  Harry’s hair is falling into his eyes, she notices, and she doesn’t even think before she slips her hair tie off her wrist to carefully pull his curls into a bun on top of his head.

Harry doesn’t complain. “Patrick calls you Doc,” is the only thing he says.

“That’s because Patrick is…Patrick.” Y/N settles back into the couch as she watches Harry drink the water. “Why didn’t you call him for my address instead of my number?  You could’ve been here quicker.”

“I did.” Harry swallows down another gulp of water, his good hand wiping his mouth gingerly. “He told me to ask you myself.  Said he wouldn’t give your address out to creeps.”

A rush of affection flows through Y/N’s heart for the tough gym owner. “That’s good to know.”

“It is.” Harry agrees after another drink of water.  Once he’s drained it, Y/N takes the glass from him and sets it on the coffee table.

“Thank you.” Harry murmurs gratefully. “For…everything tonight.  I really—I appreciate it.”

“You don’t need to thank me, it’s my—”

“No, Y/N.  This isn’t your job.” Harry looks at her intensely, a sincerity on his face that she’s never seen before, or at the very least, never noticed before. “Bandaging my hand and head at one A.M. in your apartment isn’t your job.  I know you—you said you didn’t want me to know things about you, and now—”

“Not quite.” Now it’s Y/N’s turn to cut him off. “I said I would decide what you could know, and I decided that you could know my address.  Just don’t tell anyone else at the gym, alright?”

Despite the bruising-induced tenderness on his face, Harry frowns immediately. “I would never do that. They’re all awful, and I would never…betray you like that.”

Y/N’s heart rate picks up as she listens to Harry speak.  There’s something about him throwing around the word “betray” in the same sentence as “I” and “you” that makes a rush flow through her veins. “Thanks.”

“I know it’s not easy for you there.” Harry carefully gauges her reaction as he speaks. “I’ve heard how they speak to you.  It’s—they have no respect.”

“It’s nothing you need to worry about.” Y/N sighs, tucking her hair behind her ears (her hair tie is in Harry’s hair, and she’s too tired to get another one from the bathroom). “I’m used to it.”

Harry’s frown deepens, his lips finally pinkening back up (which Y/N notices for medical reasons. Purely medical reasons). “You shouldn’t have to be used to it.”

Y/N barks out a laugh, harsh and short. “Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious.” Harry’s face is indignant, and in any other circumstances, Y/N might find it endearing.  But not now.

“Harry.” She clears the laughter out of her voice. “Do you know what I deal with every day?”

“With the boxers? Yeah—”

“No.  Just in general.” Y/N tucks her legs underneath her as she settles herself into the couch, careful not to bump Harry’s hand. “I’m a female in the medical field.  The amount of shit I get from people, from men…” She shakes her head. “I’ve had male professors tell me it’s a good thing that I’m going to nursing school, and not medical school, because I’m too emotional to handle being a doctor.  I’ve heard male medical students tell female medical students that they don’t belong in the program, because girls can’t make quick and rational decisions with patients.  I’ve watched my male classmates be belittled for choosing to be a nurse over being a doctor.  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” Y/N bites her lip, but only for a moment. Now that she’s started, she can’t stop the flood of words pouring out of her. “Every day, I get my decisions and my calls second guessed by my superiors, while my male classmates’ decisions are accepted right away.  I get called ‘sweetheart’ and ‘honey’ and ‘darling’ by professors and patients alike, while my male classmates are ‘mister’ and ‘nurse’.  It’s nothing new.”

Harry watches her as she speaks with eyes full of awareness.  She can tell he’s hanging on every word, his gaze trained on her and her only.  He doesn’t speak as she pauses for a breath, so she continues, a rushed urgency weaving its way through her words.

“Do you want to know why I told you that I didn’t need your concern or your protection at the gym?” Y/N leans the side of her head against the back of the couch, not breaking Harry’s stare. “Because I deal with that shit every day, and I’ve learned to either ignore it or handle it myself.  Unless some asshole puts his hands on me, and I physically need your help, then I’m fine.  Can you understand that?”

Harry clears his throat once, but his voice is still thick when he replies. “Yeah, I can.  I’m sorry that I—it was never my intention to push the topic, or make you uncomfortable, but I did.  I’m sorry.”

The sincere apology brings a warm feeling to Y/N’s stomach, and it radiates further throughout her body with every breath Harry takes. “I accept your apology.  Thank you.”

Harry smiles at her just the slightest bit, the corners of his mouth tugging up, and the warmth increases when Y/N notices the dimples that appear in his cheeks.  Something about them makes Harry look so much younger, so much more innocent…and Y/N’s not certain why, but something about that observation makes her feel electric.  As a distraction, she reaches for a wipe from her kit, catching Harry’s eye before touching his face with it. “May I?” She asks, waiting for his nod.

When he gives it, she begins to wipe the sweat and dried blood from his face, careful not to aggravate his bruises.  It only takes her a few moments, but she spends extra time running the wipe over his cheeks, feeling the dip of his dimples beneath the cloth.

“Y/N…” Harry’s voice rumbles deep in his chest as his good hand catches hers.  The wipe falls from her fingers as he keeps her hand pressed to his cheek. “You’re a wonderful nurse.” He says, his deep green irises burning holes into her own.

The burning of Harry’s skin is so much more apparent when he nuzzles his cheek into her hand, and Y/N feels as if she’s the one who’s been drinking with how badly her head is spinning at the contact. “I think…” She does her best to make sense of her words, while Harry busies himself with moving her hand over his cheek, guiding her to stroke the stubbled skin. “I think you may have a fever.”

Harry gives a short shake of his head, and he maneuvers Y/N’s hand over his lips before responding. “’S just how you make me feel.  Feverish.” A small laugh falls out of his mouth, and he presses a chaste kiss to the tips of her cold fingers. “Sorry.  I shouldn’t say that.”

An involuntary sound echoes from the back of Y/N’s throat at his words, and she’s not sure if it’s a gasp, a whimper, or both, but it brings heat to her cheeks nonetheless. “N-no. You shouldn’t say that.”

“Sorry.” Harry repeats again, his lips gently brushing against her fingertips over and over. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re drunk.” Y/N briefly thinks that she should pull her hand away, but she doesn’t, and while she may later blame that on her thinking she wouldn’t be able to, the truth is that she doesn’t want to. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I’m not that drunk.” Harry moves her hand to cup his cheek again, his thumb rubbing over her knuckles in a gentle but constant motion. “I know what I’m doing.”

Y/N’s breath hitches as Harry turns his head to plant a kiss in the middle of her open palm.  His lips are just as warm as the rest of him, and she’s starting to wonder if there’s a fire burning inside him, deep in his chest.

It would explain the burning she feels whenever she’s near him.

“You have the hands of a healer, y’know that?” Harry’s voice echoes from deep in his chest, filling her senses with the cadence of his accent. “Calloused for all the right reasons. The complete opposite of mine.”

With a shaking breath, Y/N carefully threads her fingers through Harry’s, the metal of his rings cooling down the fire she feels. “I…I love your hands.” She says truthfully, because apparently they’re being truthful tonight. “They’re so strong when you fight, but…when you’re like this…” Y/N lets go of his hand, but keeps their fingers locked together, so both of their palms are open.  It’s like each of them is an extension of the other, and delight flushes through her when she realizes it. “You’re gentle with me.”

“Because I don’t want to hurt you.” Harry breathes, shifting a bit on the couch.  A flicker of pain darkens his face, and Y/N’s free hand moves to his chest, rubbing circles over his shirt to soothe him.  A relaxed sigh falls from his lips. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

Y/N’s brow furrows, her hands pausing their movements.  A whine of protest leaves Harry’s pink lips, but she ignores it as she gives him a confused look. “You think I’m afraid of you?”

“I-I wouldn’t blame you if you were.” As Harry’s eyes drop to their intertwined fingers, Y/N begins to realize that this—his body close, his eyes downcast, his voice quiet—this is Harry opening up.  This is Harry being vulnerable, honest, and himself.  The fear in his voice is as much himself as the calm look on his face before a fight.

His fingers fiddle with hers as he searches for his next words, and Y/N can see the effort he’s making to choose the right thing to say. “I…” He pauses, the struggle clear on his face before he tries again. “Every week, you see what I do, right?  You know—better than anyone, you know what I’m capable of.  So if you were afraid of me, I…I wouldn’t blame you, Y/N.  I’d understand.”

If someone asked Y/N in this moment how she got here, she wouldn’t be able to explain it.  The journey from Point A has never been more muddled, but Point B is so clearly within her sight that she doesn’t care. How did she get here? she asks herself, when she already knows the answer like she knows the back of her hand, the bones and muscles of Harry’s body, and the precariousness of their situation.  How did she get here?  Y/N has no fucking clue.  But here is the vulnerable look in Harry’s deep green eyes, the steady beat of his heart under her hand, the raw emotion in his voice, and Y/N wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

When Y/N realizes that, how badly she wants Harry, after weeks of denying it, the wind gets knocked out of her chest.  She struggles to form words, to take anything more than a shallow breath, to do anything but watch as Harry’s composure starts to slip more and more.  His teeth tug on his bottom lip more and more frequently, and his breathing increases as he sits anxiously, waiting for her response.

“I…” Y/N begins to rub his chest again, the circles careful and tight, and the anxiety that she heard in Harry’s words is now laced through her own. “I could never be…afraid of you, Harry.  I told you, you’re…you’re gentle with me.”

He exhales a quick breath of relief as she speaks, the tightness visibly relaxing out of his expression, and Y/N moves her hand from his chest to his neck, cupping over his pulse point, her fingers tangling in the few strands of Hair she couldn’t tie back.

“You’re not—you don’t—” She struggles to find the right words, the perfect way to express herself. “I don’t know how to say it…”

“’S’alright.” Harry assures her right away as he presses their palms together again. “You don’t need to say it, Y/N, I—fuck—!”

Harry cries out with pain, his injured hand falling back onto the ice pack covered pillow after he tried to move it.  Y/N immediately tends to it, securing the ice pack back around it quickly and carefully as Harry closes his eyes and lets his head fall back on the couch.

“Did you forget it’s sprained?” She asks him incredulously, cupping his cheek so he’ll look her in the eyes. “What were you trying to do?”

“I wanted to—your hair—” Harry grits his teeth, sucking in a quick breath as he struggles to control the pain. “I wanted to touch it, but I forgot…”

Y/N sighs, smoothing her thumb over his jaw. “You should go to bed.  It’s late.”

Harry nods slightly, his eyes glued to the ground as he lets go of your hand and carefully stands. “Thank you for your help.  I’ll get out of your hair—”

“What are you doing?” Y/N stands quickly, her arms automatically moving to support Harry. “You’re not leaving.  You can’t go home like this.”

Harry meets her eyes with a look of confusion before glancing around her small studio apartment. “You don’t have a guest room, Y/N.  Don’t worry about me, I’ve gone home looking worse.  It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not.  You’re not going anywhere.” Y/N tugs carefully on the sleeve covering his good arm. “C’mon.  I have some clothes you can borrow.”

“I can’t stay—”

“Yes, you can.” She says stubbornly, her soft look transforming into a firm stare, as if she’s challenging him to challenge her. “It’s not a big deal, Harry.  Not unless you make it one.”

The corners of his lips twitch, and Y/N wants to plant kiss after kiss on the edge of his mouth until he gives her a true smile. “Fine, Doc.” Harry murmurs. “If you say so.”

Y/N helps him to her bathroom, setting him down on the edge of her tub before grabbing him clothes from her dresser.  Harry examines them after she hands them to him, a clear look of displeasure written on his face.

“These are men’s clothes.” He says quietly, holding up the sweatpants and t-shirt.

Y/N chews on her bottom lip. “Yeah.  They are.”

Harry stares at her for a beat, waiting for an elaboration.  When one doesn’t come, he decides to prompt it. “Whose clothes are these?”

“An ex.” Y/N says simply, her usual guard is back as she turns to open her bathroom cabinet. “There’s, um, a spare toothbrush in here.  Use anything you need.  I’ll…give you a moment to change.”

 As Harry changes (which takes longer than Y/N would’ve thought, but then again, it may be hard to do with one sprained hand), Y/N busies herself with cleaning up.  She tosses out the wipes and cotton pads stained with blood, and packs up her medical kit before setting it in her closet. As she pulls back the covers of her bed, a seed of regret begins to grow in her stomach.  Would she be able to handle sleeping next to Harry?  The idea of being encompassed by the smell of his cologne and musk for an extended period of time makes her woozy, and she’s beginning to consider sleeping on the couch when he emerges from the bathroom.

His build is bigger than that of her ex, so the t-shirt strains across his shoulders and arms. The pants fit nicely, but almost too nicely, if the way that Y/N can’t stop the thoughts that are racing through her head are any clue.

“They fit.” She says lamely as Harry approaches the bed, the ice pack still wrapped against his sprained hand. “That’s…that’s good.”

“Yeah.  Your ex and I are pretty close in size.” Harry sits on the edge of the bed, his every movement careful and calculated.  Now that the alcohol has completely left his system, Y/N can see how he’s assessing the situation with every passing moment.

Her instinct tells her that that’s good, and it’s what she should be doing too, but the memory of him touching her on the couch is too sweet to let her be cautious.  They’ve passed that point, she thinks, and so she pushes back the covers, giving Harry a long look.

“Come here.” Y/N says quietly, beckoning him towards her. “Please.”

It’s the small plea that gets to Harry, and he can’t stop himself from carefully moving underneath the blanket.  His warmth is immediately apparent, and Y/N thinks that the blankets are probably unnecessary if she’s going to be sleeping next to Harry’s fire all night.

Once he’s situated comfortably (or as comfortable as he can be with a sprained hand), Y/N flicks off her lamp, and darkness envelopes them.  It takes a minute of blinking in the darkness for her eyes to adjust, but she quickly finds Harry’s green irises in the darkness.  They give off their own light, she thinks, but that’s not surprising.

They lay there for a moment, each of them on their side, until Y/N decides to break the silence. “Hi.” She whispers into the space between them.

“Hi.” Harry’s low voice echoes back.  His minty breath rolls over her, and Y/N lets out a soft sigh after inhaling the scent. She likes it more than she should.

Quiet falls between them again as each of them takes in the other.  Y/N feels like she’s trying to memorize every plane of Harry’s face, like there’s going to be a quiz later and she needs to ace it.  Where are the creases between his eyebrows?  Where is his stubble the darkest?  Where is the tiny, crescent shaped scar?  Y/N commits every detail to memory, if only for her own pleasure.  Being this close to him reminds her that he’s real, and she can’t help but wonder if Harry is doing the same.

There’s a tenseness between them, and Y/N’s not quite sure how to fix it.  She’s certain she’ll never be able to relax around Harry, until his good hand reaches out and begins to stroke her hair.

The action is so tender and so gentle that her breath hitches in her chest.  Harry keeps his eyes locked on hers, his gaze intense and unrelenting as his fingers deftly work their way through her hair.  Y/N watches his chest rise and fall in time with his movements, and there’s something about the synchronized actions that calms her racing heart.

A flicker of emotion in Harry’s eyes is the last thing she registers before her own eyes drift shut.

…

The note is scribbled messily on a scrap of paper from her kitchen note pad, left on the pillow for Y/N to find the next morning.

Thanks again for the help. -H

…

“Patrick, you can’t be fucking serious.”

The gym owner gives her a sharp look as he taps ash off his cigarette. “Do I look like I’m one for jokes, Doc?”

Y/N’s mouth gapes open for a moment, her grip tightening on the back of the office chair. “Harry can’t fight tonight!  He hurt his hand!  Haven’t you listened to anything I told you?”

“Honestly, Doc, the only thing I listened to was Styles himself telling me he was fine.” Patrick gives Y/N a pointed look. “He wants to fight, so he’s going to fight.”

“It’s your gym!” Y/N yells, the anger inside her outweighing the feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. “Tell him no!”

Puffing on his cigarette, Patrick shakes his head once. “I’m not doing that.  Those people out there paid to see Styles fight, and that’s what they’re going to get.”

“They’re not going to see Harry fight.” Y/N spits out through gritted teeth. “They’re going to see Harry lose!”

“That’s his business.” Patrick shrugs nonchalantly, as if they’re not discussing how Harry’s blood is about to be splattered against the off-white vinyl of the ring. “I make my money either way, Doc.”

“And that’s your business, isn’t it?” Y/N says scathingly, pushing away from the chair.  She lets her nails dig into her palms instead. “You don’t care who gets hurt, as long as you get your money!”

Patrick stands up now, his agitation beginning to show. “I’m not the bad guy here, Y/N.  Harry says he’s good to fight, so he’s fighting.  I’m not his babysitter, and I’m not his mother.  He’s old enough to make his own decisions.”

Y/N opens her mouth again, but no sound comes out.  Instead, she gives Patrick one last look of fury before storming out of his office, slamming the door behind her.

She should’ve known.  She should’ve known that Harry would still try to fight tonight, despite his sprained hand that’s had less than two days to heal.  In all honesty, the thought that he would try to fight never even occurred to her until she walked into the gym tonight and overheard multiple men talking in excitement about the match.  When she first heard the name Styles, she had been sure she that was mishearing the conversations.  But then it happened again.  And again. And when she realized that Harry planned on fighting, she had been certain, so foolishly certain, that Patrick would cancel the match when she explained the situation.  

It’s her own fault, she thinks, making her way into the crowd to watch the match.  It’s her own fault for getting too comfortable, for believing that anyone would listen to what she says.  The way Harry had looked at her made her believe that her words mattered, but tonight…this is a harsh reminder of what the world is really like.

If she thought there would be any chance of convincing Harry to call off the match, Y/N would storm the locker room in an instant, yelling and screaming and pleading until Harry saw sense.  It was a double-edged sword, really.  She knows him now, which makes her care for him more than ever before.  And knowing him means knowing that he won’t back down from this match.

Y/N knows it’s going to be bad when Harry walks out with his sprained hand held awkwardly at his side, his face void of its usual calm and collected expression.  But she knows it’s going to be a blood bath when Adam Bowers immediately follows him.

While Harry is doing his best to not show the pain and weakness on his face, Bowers is snarling at him from across the ring, rage and fury written into every one of his movements.  It’s clear that Bowers wants his revenge for the humiliation Harry caused him in his very first match, and Y/N knows that he’ll stop at nothing to get it.

While most of the short match is watched from behind her hands, Y/N doesn’t miss the important moments.  Harry on all fours, spitting blood out onto the vinyl matt.  Harry barely dodging a punch, only to take a fist to his chest and having the wind knocked out of him.  Harry gritting his teeth as his fist connects with Bowers’ jaw, not hard enough to hurt him, but enough to make him angry.  Harry facedown on the floor of the ring, breath barely moving in and out of his body as blood streams from a gash on his head, mixing with the blood already flowing from his nose.  

As the fear and panic seizes Y/N’s body, everything around her begins to move in slow motion.  She sees the crowd roar, but does not hear it.  She sees the referee drag Bowers away from Harry’s limp body, but does not hear the words he’s yelling.  She sees Jeff run into the ring, but does not hear him calling for help.  She sees Patrick run towards her, but does not hear him screaming her name until the fourth or fifth time.

“Y/N!” He yells again, grabbing her arm and yanking her behind him as he tears through the crowd. “Come on!”

Y/N lets herself be pulled back to the locker room, which is being transformed into a makeshift E.R.  Men that she’s never met before are opening a folding table over the bench, tossing training mats on top of it to make a poor man’s gurney.  Patrick takes the medical kit from her hands, opening it roughly and throwing a pair of clean gloves at her.  If she were in a clearer state of mind, Y/N would scream at him, demand to know why he allowed this to happen, but the sound of Jeff’s yelling signals Harry’s arrival, and all thoughts rush out of her head.

Jeff and another man carry Harry into the locker room, and while Y/N can tell they’re trying to be careful, groans are leaving Harry’s mouth as they lay him face up on the folding table, displaying the full extent of his injuries.

And here it is.  The fall of Harry Styles.

Bruises are blossoming over every inch of skin that she can see, new tattoos that she hates the meaning behind, but those are the least of her worries. There’s swelling and agitation in his sprained hand (which she suspects is now broken), along with blood spilling from his split knuckles.  His nose is swollen and bleeding, his lip is cut open, and there’s a black eye forming on his face at an alarming rate.  His cut from a few nights ago has split open again, three times as wide, two times as deep, and the blood pouring down his face is getting into his half shut eyes.

That’s where Y/N decides to start.

She takes a deep breath to center herself, pushing all of her emotions out of her as best as she can.  Harry needs her right now.  He needs her to take care of him in the way that only she can.

Y/N ties her hair out of her face quickly before snapping on the gloves. She pushes Jeff and Patrick out of the way, grabbing her penlight from her kit and stepping towards Harry.

“Harry.” She speaks in a calm but firm voice. “Open your eyes for me, Harry. Can you do that?”

His eyelids flutter at her voice, the green that she’s come to know barely peaking through.  Y/N flicks on the penlight, carefully raising one of his eyelids and then the other while shining the light in his eyes.  The dilation of his pupils is slightly uneven, but Y/N ignores the sick feeling that it causes in her stomach so that she can continue to work.

“Jeff.” She calls over her shoulder. “Put on gloves and apply pressure to the gash on his forehead.  Keep talking to him while you do it.”

Jeff steps forward and follows her instructions exactly.  She hears him muttering to Harry, but can’t make out the words as her focus shifts to Harry’s abdomen.  His breathing is still shallow, much too shallow for her liking, and she’s worried that something is affecting his lungs.

“Patrick, I need my stetho—” Before Y/N finishes the sentence, Patrick is already holding out the item for her, swapping it for her penlight.  She mutters a quick “thank you” as she slips the ends in her ears. “Harry, I need you to take a deep breath for me, alright?” She places the stethoscope on his chest. “As deep as you can.”

Harry sucks in a breath, but quickly moans in pain.

Y/N curses under her breath. “Again, Harry.  As deep as you can.”

Again, the only breath he can take is shallow and constricted.  Y/N loops the stethoscope around her neck as she begins to examine his chest, her fingers prodding around the bruises.  When she gets to his ribs, Harry lets out another cry, jerking forward on the table.

“Keep him still.” Y/N commands Jeff and the other man, who she finally recognizes as a gym trainer named Nick.  She pushes on the same spot, her face grim as she receives the same reaction.

“I think he has a fractured rib.” She glances at Jeff before continuing her examination. “Just one, I think, but there’s definitely something wrong.  It doesn’t feel completely broken, or like there’s any splinters, but that last hit to his chest—” Y/N’s demeanor begins to slip as she remembers the sight of Harry lying on the floor of the ring, and she shakes her head to clear the image from her mind.  She needs to focus. “Yeah.  Fractured rib.”

Y/N moves through the checklist in her mind, turning her attention to Harry’s injured hand.  It’s still wrapped from his fight, so she grabs her bandage scissors from her bag to get a better look at the damage.  She tries to be careful as she cuts, but she knows Harry’s in pain, and she wishes she had stronger medicine to offer than an extra strength ibuprofen.

It doesn’t take her long to guess that his hand is fractured.  Of course, she can’t be entirely sure without an X-ray, but the closest thing to an X-ray machine that she has at her disposal is the vending machine down the hall.  Y/N does her best to clean the cuts on his knuckles, carefully bandaging them before looking up at Patrick.

“Go to the pharmacy and buy a hand brace.” She tells him as she wraps a cold compress around Harry’s hand. “Something sturdy.  And get more painkillers.”

Patrick disappears with a nod, leaving Y/N with just Jeff and Nick to help her.  She sets another cold compress over his abdomen before working her way up to the injuries that look the worst.

Harry’s nose, she’s surprised to find, isn’t broken.  She can touch it without hearing any cracking sounds, and, to her relief, the majority of the blood beneath his nose is from the initial hit. She instructs Jeff to hold another cold compress lightly to the area before she moves to the gash on his forehead.

From the first look, Y/N knows it’s bad.  Despite the pressure Jeff’s been applying, the gash hasn’t stopped bleeding, and seems to be tearing more every time Harry’s forehead contracts in pain. She wipes more blood from the area as the dread in her stomach grows.

“I think…” Y/N takes a deep breath through her mouth. “I’m going to have to stitch it.”

Jeff and Nick exchange a look with each other as Y/N pushes back Harry’s sweat and blood slicked curls from his forehead.

“Nick, grab me two ibuprofen and some water.  And Jeff, pass me my suturing kit, will you?  It’s probably towards the bottom of my bag.” Y/N waits until the two men are preoccupied with their tasks to address Harry.  His eyes are still closed, but he’s vocal enough to voice when he’s in pain. “Harry.” She murmurs, smoothing his hair again. “Harry, do you know where you are?”

Harry sucks in another shallow breath as his eyelids crack open. “I-I’m—the locker room.  In the locker room.”

Y/N nods quickly. “You are.  Do you remember what happened?”

“Had a…” Harry’s brow furrows, causing a fresh stream of blood to drip from the gash.  Y/N applies more pressure as he speaks. “Had a match.  Got hurt.”

“You did.” Y/N nods again, glancing at the medicine in Nick’s hand. Harry’s responses ease her worries of a serious concussion, so she motions Nick over. “You have a bad cut on your forehead, Harry, so I need you to take this medicine before I fix it, alright?”

Harry makes a noise of understanding in the back of his throat, and Y/N swaps out her gloves and prepares her sutures while Nick helps Harry swallow the pills.  She prays that she hasn’t underestimated the severity of his head injury, and that the medicine won’t do more damage than good.  She knows it’s risky, but she just wants to give him something to ease his pain, even if it’s only a fraction of the painkillers he actually needs.

Jeff sets up a folding chair for Y/N, so she can sit and be more comfortable as she stitches the gash closed.  Y/N steadies herself against the cold metal chair before turning her attention back to Harry.

“I’m going to stitch you now, Harry, alright?” She says in a clear voice. “It—it’s going to hurt, but I have to do it.  If the pain gets really bad—” she nods at Jeff, who takes Harry’s uninjured hand in his own. “Squeeze Jeff’s hand, but only with your left hand. Do you understand?”

Harry manages to mutter a weak “yeah,” before his eyes clamp shut again.

Stitching somebody up in a locker room is about as awful as Y/N imagined it would be.

She knows that each tug of the needle through Harry’s skin hurts him badly, and with no anesthetic, the pain only increases with each stitch.  Harry, to his credit, does his best to stay still, gritting his teeth and squeezing Jeff’s hand until it turns blue, but small moans and whimpers still escape him every few minutes.  When Y/N finally finishes, cleaning and bandaging the now-closed wound, the entire room breathes a sigh of relief.

Patrick returns a few minutes later with more medicine and a brace, which Y/N carefully straps onto Harry’s fractured hand.  After that, all that’s left for her to do is to wipe more blood from his face and say a prayer.

The pain medication now finally starting to kick in, Harry begins to doze off, his breathing shallow yet even.  It’s not until his eyes completely close that the exhaustion and emotions catch up with Y/N, and she leans against the lockers, her back sliding down them until she’s seated on the ground with her knees pulled to her chest.

Patrick crouches down next to her, taking off her plastic gloves and handing her a water bottle. “You did good, Doc.” He mutters, rubbing her shoulder. “Really good.”

Y/N takes the water from him, but offers no other response.  It’ll take her a bit of time to forgive Patrick for this, she thinks, although she knows most of the blame is on Harry’s shoulders.  

Jeff sits down in the metal hair he brought for Y/N and lets out a long sigh. “Thank you, Y/N.  If it weren’t for you, I don’t know…”

“He shouldn’t have been fighting tonight, Jeff.” Y/N says in a thick voice, her fingers picking at the label on the bottle. “He was injured, and—”

“I tried to stop him.” Jeff glances at Harry’s sleeping form. “He’s so fucking stubborn.  He insisted on fighting.”

“No more.” Y/N shakes her head. “No more fights.  Not until he’s completely recovered.”

No one contradicts her.

Nick reappears in the doorway, despite Y/N not even realizing he had left the room, with a pair of keys in his hand. “I got the car ready, Jeff.  We can move him whenever.”

“Where are you taking him?” Y/N asks, and while she hopes the answer is “a hospital,” she knows it won’t be.

“Back to his apartment.” Jeff stands up slowly, wiping his hands on his pants. “I’ll stay with him for a bit, make sure he’s alright.” He glances at Y/N. “Can I call you if—?”

Y/N nods before he even finishes the sentence, her eyes trained on the rise and fall of Harry’s chest.  It had soothed her less two nights before, and its continuation still soothed her now. “Yeah.  Call me if he needs anything.  I’ll come right over.”

…

It takes five days for Harry’s name to pop up on Y/N’s phone screen.  

While she normally keeps her phone on do not disturb during class, she programmed his number to come through, just in case there was any sort of emergency.  The sound of her phone vibrating on her desk makes her jump, and she sends an apologetic look to her professor, reaching to turn it off.  When she sees Harry’s name, however, her heart begins to pound.

She ducks outside the classroom quickly before she answers.  Y/N had been dying to hear from Jeff on Harry’s recovery, but now that the call was actually coming, she worries that the call isn’t just for an update.

“Jeff?” She asks, assuming the coach is on the other line. “Is everything alright?”

“Uh—” It takes just one syllable for Y/N’s heart to stop. “It’s Harry, not Jeff.”

Y/N walks further away from her classroom, glancing around to see if she’s alone. “It’s good to hear your voice.” Y/N murmurs. “How—how are you feeling?”

A dry chuckle echoes through the phone. “Like shit, but that’s to be expected. Jeff told me I have a fractured rib?”

“And a fractured hand, and a mild concussion.” Y/N bites her lip. “Your nose wasn’t broken, though, so…at least there’s that.”

“Yeah.  There’s that.”

Y/N rubs her eyes as she leans against the corridor wall, her gaze trained on the trees outside the window. “I—Jeff said he’d call me if there was anything wrong, so—I would’ve stopped by—”

“No, I’ve been fine.  Just in pain, but that’s to be expected.” Harry assures her.  Y/N can almost picture him running his (not broken) hand through his hair. “You’re busy with school.  I understand.”

“Yeah, but—” Y/N lowers her voice as a group of students walks by. “My class finishes in an hour.  Can I come see you tonight?”

There’s silence on the other end, and for a moment, Y/N begins to worry that she’s overstepped a boundary.  She opens her mouth to apologize when Harry finally answers.

“Yeah.  You can.”

…

Y/N’s medical knowledge tells her that things have to get worse before they can get better.  She’s seen it time and time again, not only in cases she studies, but in her life. For things to heal, they have to hurt.

And yet, when Harry opens the door to his apartment, her breath still freezes in her chest.

More bruises have settled in since she last saw him in the locker room. Dark purple stains down his skin, across his jaw, under his eye, and if Harry wasn’t wearing a black t-shirt, she knows she would see more scattered across his chest.  To Y/N’s relief, however, the swelling in his face has gone down, and it’s obvious that the bandage over his stitched wound has been changed, albeit a bit clumsily.  His fractured hand is held gently at his side, so as not to agitate it, but Y/N can tell that the fractured rib is bothering him as he breathes carefully.

“Hi.” Harry opens the door wider, stepping back to allow her inside. “Come on in.”

Y/N steps over the threshold, her gaze turning from Harry’s injuries to his apartment.  It’s a little bigger than hers, she notices, and estimates that it’s a one bedroom with actual spaces dedicated for separate things.  Although he mostly sticks to a grey colour pallet in his minimalist decorating, Y/N can pick out objects that tell her this is where Harry lives.  A framed photo of him and a woman who looks just like him sits on the table next to the couch.  A pair of red boxing gloves dangle off the edge of the closet door. Harry’s familiar cologne lingers in the air, mixing with the scent of a candle he has lit in the living room. Despite the grey tones, the apartment feels just as warm as Harry does.

“I like your place.” Y/N stands in the hallway awkwardly, not sure of where to go. “It’s nice.”

“Thanks.” Harry shuts the door with his good hand before gesturing for her to sit down. “You can, uh, sit on the couch if you’d like.  Do you want something to drink?”

Y/N shakes her head. “No, I’m fine, thank you.  But you should drink some water.”

An unbelieving laugh leaves Harry’s mouth, but he moves to the kitchen nonetheless. “Are you telling me what to do in my own home?”

“Yes.  You have to be hydrated to heal.” Y/N watches as Harry fills two glasses with a water filter from the fridge, her mouth falling open slightly when Harry manages to pick up both filled glasses with his good hand.  Although the sight sets off a familiar flutter in her stomach, she manages to come to her senses enough to snap her mouth shut again by the time he turns around.

Harry sets the glass down on the coffee table in front of her before gingerly sitting down on the other side of the couch.  While he’s trying to mask his discomfort, Y/N can detect it easily.

“Is it your rib?” She asks, worry slipping into her voice. “Is it hurting you?”

Harry manages to give a small shrug. “’S not awful.  I’ve been taking some ibuprofen for pain, like you said.”

Y/N twists her ring around her finger, the fidgeting helping to keep her centered. “I’d get you something stronger if I could, but—”

“You’ve done more than enough for me, Y/N.” Harry cuts over her with a firm look. “Don’t worry about it.”

Y/N can’t look at Harry.  She can’t. If she does, she knows that all she’s going to be able to see is the bruises and bandages and braces, and she’ll start to cry.  And if she starts to cry, she won’t stop, and then she’ll just be upset and crying in Harry’s living room, all because she looked at him, and that’s not what she’s going to do.  She repeats the thought in her head like a mantra.  That’s not what she’s going to do.  That’s not what she’s going to do.

And then she looks at Harry.

Harry is already looking at her.  The longer they’ve spent together, the more she’s noticed cracks in his calm façade, and in this moment, those cracks are wide open.  The problem, however, is that Y/N can never decipher what exactly those cracks show her.  Harry’s face, even while emotional, is unreadable.  She can’t understand the feelings swirling through his green eyes any more than she can understand the flexing and unflexing of his uninjured hand. Is it a nervous tic?  Is he trying to calm himself, like Y/N does when she plays with her ring?  Is he trying to restrain himself from reaching over to touch her, like the night he showed up at her door?  While all those questions flip through her mind, only one passes through her lips.

“Why did you do it, Harry?” She asks, voice barely above a whisper, as if speaking any louder will shatter the space between them.

Harry takes a long sip of water like he’s stalling for an answer, trying to find anything worth saying. “I needed the money, Y/N.  And I couldn’t—getting the shit beat out of me by Bowers was better than forfeiting to him.  I couldn’t do that.  I couldn’t give him the satisfaction.”

“That—” Y/N sucks in a breath, trying to remind her lungs to move the air in and out of her body. “That is…ridiculously idiotic, and prideful, and stupid, and a million other things, but that’s not what I meant.” She steels herself before meeting Harry’s eyes again, willing herself to sound less like a child and more like a woman. “I was asking why you left me that morning, after…after you stayed the night.”

For the first time since she arrived, it’s Harry’s eyes that are unable to meet hers.  He drops his gaze to his injured hand, cradling it in his lap, and Y/N takes his silence as a signal for her to continue.

“You just—I told you it was fine for you to stay.  And then the next morning you were gone, and your note…” Y/N can’t help but scoff. “‘Thanks again for the help’?  Really?  That’s all you had to say to me?”

Harry clears his throat as his good hand begins to tap against his thigh. “It’s not all I had to say, I just—I couldn’t say everything in a note.”

“Why did you even have to leave a note?” Y/N asks incredulously. “That’s the whole point, Harry!  You left, didn’t call me, or tell me that you were alright, and then the next time I saw you, you were getting beat half to death.  That’s not…fair.”

At that word, Harry’s eyes widen, and his face contorts into an expression Y/N can finally read: disbelief. “Fair?” He repeats, accent thick. “It’s not fair?  Nothing in life is fair, Y/N.  I didn’t call you because I’m not yours, and you’re not mine.  I let myself pretend a bit that night, while I was drunk, but I shouldn’t have.  If there’s anything that wasn’t fair, anything I have to apologize for, it’s that.”

The tears come then, pricking her eyes with an irritating heat as she drops her gaze into her lap. “So you—you showed up at my apartment in the middle of the night, bleeding and injured and drunk, and you spend the night so I can make sure you’re safe, and the only thing you think you have to apologize for is—is pretending?” Y/N shakes her head. “What does that even mean?”

“It means I shouldn’t even have been there in the first place.  And after I showed up, I should’ve been more careful. More in control.” Harry stares down at his hands again, not to avoid her gaze, but to think about what they did that night. “I shouldn’t have talked to you like I did.  I shouldn’t have asked questions.  I shouldn’t have touched you.  I shouldn’t have crossed all the lines I set for myself months ago.  But I did, and I’m sorry.”

“I’m not sorry.” Y/N wraps her arms around herself tightly, and although the force against her is comforting, she’d prefer it if the arms weren’t hers. “I’d rather you come to me for help than stumble home in the dark, and I…” A chill runs through her, and she rubs her arms a bit to keep warm.  Being away from Harry and his fire takes its toll. “I didn’t mind you asking questions, or touching me.  I liked it.  I thought I made that obvious.”

Harry’s face flicks back to the expression that she’s unable to read. “Nevertheless—”

“Do you honestly think you’re the only one who set lines and boundaries?” Y/N turns her gaze back to Harry, taking in the closed off posture he displays. She hates it almost as much as she hates her own guarded appearance. “I did, too, but the more we talked, the more I started to waver.  The boundaries were out the window the moment you stepped into my apartment, Harry.  And we can go back and forth and debate who crossed what line first, but the truth is, we both knew exactly what we were doing, so don’t—” Y/N gestures at him, how he’s turned his body away from her. “Don’t sit there and act like you’re the only one to blame when I took every step with you.”

Her final words are followed by silence and all the sounds that fill it. The ticking of the clock on the wall, the dripping of the kitchen sink, the laboured sound of Harry’s shallow breathing, the pounding of Y/N’s own heart.  She focuses on each individual sound, each one an ode to whatever it is that’s been hanging between them since the night they met, until Harry finally responds in a low and controlled voice.

“I didn’t think that you…wanted me like that.” He begins slowly, his body finally turning to look at Y/N straight on.  She can see the strain on his face, and how difficult this movement is for him, but he doesn’t stop until he can meet her eyes.

The sight of his green irises takes all the fight out of her.

“How could you not realize that?” Y/N crosses her legs underneath her, placing her palms flat against her thighs.  If she wants to have an open conversation, she thinks, then she needs to be open.

“Because you’re you.  And I’m…” Harry’s head turns just for a moment as he gathers his thoughts. “I told you last week.  You’re a healer, in every sense of the word, and I’m the complete opposite.”

“And I told you,” Y/N says stubbornly. “That I don’t buy that for a minute.  I meant it when I said I wasn’t afraid of you.  And for once, you were being honest, and I thought that we were going to move forward together.”

A sharp laugh falls from Harry’s lips, followed by a wince as his good hand rubs gently over his ribs. “Honest?  Do you have any idea of how much I managed to hold back that night? I was half pissed, sitting on your couch, feeling you touch me, while things I had never said out loud before were coming out of my mouth, and I still didn’t tell you the worst of it.” Harry drags his hand through his hair roughly. “I don’t know, maybe I should’ve. Maybe you would’ve left by now, and saved yourself the trouble.”

“Stop it!” Y/N takes his hand, weaving their fingers together like she did when he was at her apartment. “You keep—it’s like you want to create this narrative where I’m good and you’re bad.  That’s not true!” She presses her other hand over his. “We’re both here.  We both ended up in the same place.”

“But what about after?” Harry’s voice is tight as his gaze settles on their locked hands. “The difference between us is that you have a life outside of that gym that’s waiting for you.  But the gym is my life.  Boxing is my life.  I don’t have any other career to hold out for, Y/N.  There’s nothing for me except boxing, and there’s everything for you.”

“What about me?” Y/N brings Harry’s fingers to her lips, pressing small kisses to the tips like he had done for her. “You could have boxing and me. If you were just honest with me, if you opened up completely, I’d do the same.”

Harry exhales slowly, closing his eyes at the feeling of your lips dancing over his hand. “It doesn’t work like that, Y/N.  I wish it did, but it doesn’t.”

“Who decides if it works like that?”

The corner of Harry’s lip twitches, and Y/N knows he’s remembering one of the first conversations they had, when he asked who decided what he needed to know.  Y/N wonders if that was the first line that was crossed.

“I do.” Harry says after a moment. “I decide.”

…

With how little she knows about Harry, Y/N would’ve expected forgetting him to be easier.

She can count on one hand the number of personal facts that she knows about him, with at least three of them involve his boxing, and yet…when she’s home in the evenings, her schoolwork done, her mind free to roam, it’s always Harry’s face that she sees.

Y/N had known that Harry’s first night back would be hard.  After six weeks of being away from the ring, recovering from his injuries, Harry’s return to the ring would be the first time she’s seen him since he got hurt.  Patrick had forewarned her about him coming back two weeks ago, and although he mentioned it like an update, Y/N knows he was saying it to caution her.  She had assured him that Harry’s return had no personal meaning to her, and no affect on her, but as she makes her way to the locker rooms after the match, her nerves are as high strung as they’ve ever been.

The match between Harry and an unexperienced boxer named Jackson ends within minutes, with Harry the unsurprising victor, but the match had only been a small source of her anxiety.  As she set Jackson’s nose (Harry seems to be back to his old patterns), her mind was on one thing and one thing only.

Compared to the last time she saw Harry’s locker room, the place looks like a paradise.  The floors are stained with sweat instead of blood.  The brown stains in the sink are only from rust.  And the blood that’s splattered on Harry’s forehead isn’t his own.

“You’re getting quicker, Doc.” Jeff comments in lieu of a hello. “Harry hasn’t even had time to shower yet.”

Y/N glances at the sweaty boxer sitting on the bench, who is currently preoccupied with the incredibly difficult task of unwrapping his hands. “I’ve had more practice, I suppose.”

Taking her seat next to Harry, she opens her case and slips on a pair of disposable gloves.  Jeff and Patrick stand in the corner, discussing Harry’s return to the ring, as Y/N focuses on the work that she’s here to do.

“You have a bruise on your jaw, but that’s about it.” Y/N touches his chin gently, tilting his head to a different angle. “How do you feel?”

“Fine.” Harry says shortly, giving a quick nod of his head. “Yeah, I feel fine.  It felt good to be out there again.”

Y/N’s eyes flicker to the new scar on his forehead before turning her attention to his hands. “Did you wrap your right hand tighter tonight?”

“I did.” Harry nods again. “And I’ve been using the brace at home, like you told me to.”

“Good.” After a quick check, Y/N moves to his abdomen, pressing carefully. “Have you been having any difficulties breathing?”

Harry shakes his head. “No, it’s much better.  It only hurts if I stretch a lot, and only for a second.”

“Just some residual bruising, probably.” Y/N bites her lip as her fingers brush over his tattoos. “It’s to be expected.”

Harry’s gaze finally catches her own, as unreadable and cavernous as ever, and Y/N clears her throat as she pulls her hands away. “I think you’re all good. Jackson barely touched you tonight.”

“I wanted to give him someone easy to ease him back into the ring.” Patrick joins the conversation. “I need to build my champion back up.”

Irritation flickers across Harry’s face for a brief moment.  Y/N can tell that he doesn’t like the idea of being eased into something.

“We appreciate it, Patrick.” Jeff claps a hand over the gym owner’s shoulder. “Why don’t we go discuss next week in your office?”

Patrick glances at Y/N, who’s busying herself with rooting around in her medical kit. “Yeah.  Alright.” He says after a moment. “Are you two good here?”

Y/N nods, not lifting her head to watch the two men leave the locker room. She keeps her eyes glued to anything but Harry as she stands, snapping off her gloves and tossing them in the trash.

“Well, you’re good to go.” She says after a moment. “I’ll, um, I’ll see you next week.”

“Wait.” Harry catches her arm when she reaches for the kit. “Y/N, wait, I—just wait.”

The familiar burn of Harry touching her courses through her arm, and Y/N bites her lip to keep the sigh of relief from slipping out of her. “What?”

“Look at me.” Harry murmurs, his voice lower than normal. “Please look at me.”

Y/N finally raises her head, looking Harry in the eyes again.  She can tell he’s searching for something in her stare, but she’s not sure what.  If she knew, she’d give it to him in a heartbeat.  Or maybe she’d withhold it, she muses, so that he’d keep searching, his arm on hers.

“What?” She asks after a moment, Harry still looking up at her. “What? What is it?”

“I…” Harry clears his throat as his hand drops slightly, his grip falling from her forearm to her wrist. “Did you watch the match?”

Y/N nods, hoping her disappointment at the innocence of his question isn’t too apparent on her face. “I did.  I always do.”

“I know, but I wasn’t sure if…” Harry’s gaze flickers to his hand on your wrist. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want to.”

“It’s my job.” Y/N tries to sound professional, tries to reinstate the boundaries that they so carelessly broke, but there’s nothing professional about the way Harry is threading his fingers through hers as he pulls her back down to the bench.

“I missed you.” He says quietly, his thumb moving over the back of her knuckles. “I wanted to call, but I didn’t want to…I wanted you to move on.”

“Is that why you’re holding my hand?” Y/N raises an eyebrow, but she doesn’t pull away.

Harry tugs his bottom lip between his teeth. “Holding your hand is more for myself right now.”

“You can’t do that, Harry.” Y/N’s voice grows tighter as she wills herself to pull her hand away. “You can’t just—you can’t say things like that.  Not after what you said before.”

“I know—”

“No, you don’t.” Y/N finally pulls her hand away, grabbing her medical kit before taking a step back from him.  Harry watches her movements with disappointed eyes. “You don’t know.  You don’t want to give us a chance?  You don’t want to open yourself up to me? Then fine.  Don’t.  But don’t expect me to do anything more than my job.  Is that understood?”

Harry’s mouth presses into a tight line. “Understood.”

…

It’s four A.M. when Harry knocks on Y/N’s door two weeks later.

Y/N, like most people at this time of the very early morning, is in bed when she hears the frantic knocking on her front door.  She’s been asleep for less than two hours, having only made it back home from that night’s match at two A.M. (Harry had dislocated his opponent’s shoulder, as well as split the skin of his forehead, and it took her some time to clean them up), and almost doesn’t get up.  Her neighbours have no problem with making as much noise as they see fit at any time of the day, and she assumes it’s one of their drunk friends trying to find a place to stay overnight.  Thinking she’ll just wait for them to go away, Y/N pulls her comforter up to her chin tightly.

And then the person knocks again.  And again.  And again.

Once it’s clear that she won’t be getting any sleep until she deals with whoever is pounding on her front door, Y/N angrily pulls herself out from under her covers, throwing a hoodie over her tank top to cover herself.  She grumbles to herself as she walks from her bed to her front door, ready to curse out whoever it is that gets so drunk that they can’t remember which apartment their friends live in.

And then she sees Harry.

He looks more or less the same as he did when Y/N left him at the gym two hours ago, save for the black eye that’s darkened in her absence.  His curls are wild, falling carelessly over his shoulders to dust the top of his long jacket.  He’s dressed in casual street clothes, covering up the tattoos that Y/N’s gotten so used to seeing every week.  His expression, like always, is unreadable, but when Y/N meets Harry’s eyes after he looks her up and down, she can define one thing: longing.

Then again, she may just be imagining that as a symptom of sleep deprivation.

“Harry, what are you doing here?” Y/N demands, opening her door a little wider once she realizes that he’s not a stranger. “It’s four in the morning!”

“I know.  I’m sorry.” Harry glances over her shoulder, as if he’s checking to make sure she’s alone. “Can I come in?”

Y/N’s mouth drops open in confusion, but she still takes a step back from the door.  Where else is he supposed to go at this time of night? “I—yeah.  Alright.”

Harry walks into her apartment slowly, his eyes scanning her living space like he’s seeing it for the first time.  Y/N thinks that maybe he doesn’t remember much about it from when he was last here, seeing he had been drunk and in pain at the time.  Still, she doesn’t appreciate how he seems to be evaluating how she lives, especially when he smirks as he spots the teddy bear on her bed that she had hidden when he was last there.

“Did I wake you?” Harry asks slowly, as if the idea that Y/N had been sleeping had just occurred to him.

“It’s four in the morning.” Y/N repeats in a deadpan voice. “Yes.  You woke me, and you better have a damn good reason for it.” Her eyes scan over his body again, in case there’s an injury from the fight that she didn’t notice before.  Or a stab wound.  Honestly, with Harry, she feels like there are any number of things that he could show up at her door to ask for help with.

And she knows that she’d help him.  No matter what.

Harry rakes a hand through his loose hair, and Y/N wonders how his rings don’t get caught as he does it.  Then she tells herself to stop looking at his rings, because if she looks at his rings, she’ll look at his hands, and if she looks at his hands—

“My dad left when I was a kid.”

Harry’s voice snaps Y/N out of her thoughts.  She refocuses on him, watching as the cracks in his façade slowly open up again to reveal the nervousness behind his words.

“What?” She asks, brow furrowing in confusion.  Y/N thinks that she should tell him to sit, but by the energy radiating off of Harry, she doesn’t think he’ll listen.

“My dad left when I was a kid.” Harry repeats, his voice wavering for just a second.  He clears his throat before continuing. “I was around seven when he ran off, and then it was just my mum, my sister, and I.  My mum did her best to take care of us herself, but it—it was hard.  We never really had much, and what we did have, she spent on my sister and I, to make sure that we were alright.”

“Harry, I don’t understand.” Y/N reaches for him hesitantly, but pauses before her fingers actually make contact with his jacket. “Why are you telling me this?”

Harry licks his lips once, and Y/N watches as he flexes and unflexes his right hand. “I’m trying to…to be open.  To be honest.”

A beat passes between them before Y/N comprehends his words. “You—what?”

“You said I had to be honest with you.” Harry’s teeth worry his bottom lip, chewing it for a moment before he continues. “And I-I want to try it.  I want to make this work—make us work. I’ve been thinking about it for the last few weeks, but tonight, when you were helping me after the match, I just—” The words are spilling out of him faster than they ever have before, like a dam has burst, and Harry is getting washed away in the flood.  And taking Y/N with him. “I wanted to kiss you.  I almost did, but that wouldn’t be right of me, because you told me what you wanted, and what you needed, so I went home, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and missing you, and wanting you, because I want you so bad, Y/N—”

“Harry.” Y/N touches his shoulder this time, rubbing her hand against him in soothing circles. “Take a deep breath, yeah?  Slow down.  How about we sit down on the couch, and I’ll get us a drink, and then we’ll talk, okay?”

Harry’s eyes soften at the suggestion, and colour rushes to his cheeks, flushing his pale skin to a light pink. “Yeah.” He mumbles, his hands rubbing over the sleeves of his jacket. “I want that.”

The way he says, “I want that,” such a simple phrase, causes Y/N’s heart to thump in her chest.  There’s something so sincere in his tone, but Y/N doesn’t want to let herself hope. She needs to hear everything he has to say before she lets herself be that foolish.

Y/N walks to her tiny kitchen, pulling out two glasses and filling them halfway with whiskey and ice.  The whiskey had been a gift from that year’s secret Santa gift exchange in the nursing program, and Y/N had yet to open it, as she doesn’t have much of a taste for sipping liquors.  However, tonight seems to call for something stronger than regular beer.

When Y/N returns to Harry, he’s stripped off his long jacket, but his patterned shirt doesn’t seem to be warm enough to stop him from shivering.  Y/N hands the drink to him, frowning as she touches his arm.

“Are you cold?” She asks in concern, despite his skin feeling as warm to her touch as it usually is. “I can get you a sweater…”

Harry shakes his head once, taking a long sip of the whiskey. “No, just—nervous, I suppose.”

Y/N nods softly, pulling her feet under her to sit cross-legged on the couch. She wants to watch Harry straight on as he speaks. “Finish what you were saying earlier.” She murmurs. “If…you can.”

“Can’t remember how far into my speech I got.” Harry laughs once, short and anxious, his hand tugging on his hair again. “I was rehearsing it on my walk over, but I blanked the moment you opened the door.”

“There was something about…” Y/N wraps her hands around her full glass. “Needing me?”

Harry’s cheeks pinken again. “Right.  Yeah.  That’s quite…new for me.  I’ve never needed someone before in a—in the way that I need you.  I have my mum and sister, and Jeff, but you…you’re different.” He busies himself with another sip of his drink. “It’s like…it’s so confusing, Y/N.  I know I shouldn’t.  I’ve had that talk with myself countless times, and with you, and I’ve told myself that you’re so much better off without me, but I just can’t make myself let you go.”

Y/N purses her lips, her eyes dropping to her lap as she answers in a careful and controlled voice. “I feel the same.  I haven’t stopped thinking about you in weeks.  I don’t think I’m capable of it, really.  You’re—you’re under my skin.  And it’s new, and strange, and uncomfortable, but only when I’m away from you.  When I’m with you, it feels as easy as breathing.”

Harry rubs his lips, and Y /N can tell that he’s still processing what she said, which she doesn’t blame him for.  When he continues with his story, instead of commenting on her response, she feels a sense of relief.  He’s not retreating back into the familiarity of being guarded.  Not yet. “So…so my dad left.  And Mum tried, but we weren’t in a super good place.  Gemma wanted to go to college, so she took out loans, and my mum remortgaged the house, and…all the bills piled up at once.  And I didn’t even know until we were about to lose the house.  I found her crying one day, my mum…” Harry’s eyes get a far away look in them. “She said she…felt like she failed us, which is ridiculous, because she’s—she’s just the best,” A smile flickers on Harry’s face for a brief moment. “You’d like her.” He takes another sip of whiskey before continuing. “Well, I had just graduated high school, and I didn’t really have any…plans.  College didn’t seem that important at the moment, so I went to work. I had to take care of her, you know?” Harry fiddles with a ring on his finger. “I was the man of the house.  I had to take care of her.  So I went to work, and I boxed a bit in my free time, nothing serious, but it still wasn’t quite enough.  And I had some friends who had come to America to work, and I knew that there were…easier ways to make money here.  And I could make a lot of money fast, and send it back home, and make sure that everything was okay.  So…that’s what I did.”

“I remember.  Patrick told me.” Y/N bites her lip, tapping her fingers against her glass. “He said that he sent you away at first.”

“He did.  It pissed me off.” Irritation flickers through Harry’s eyes. “I’d come so far, only to be turned down because I didn’t have as much muscle as the other fighters, when I knew I could fight three times as good.  But I couldn’t just go home, so I trained.  I fought at some other gyms while training, but none of them paid as much as Patrick’s.  Boxing there…I have enough money to send home to Mum while living here.  It’s high risk, but it’s high reward.”

Y/N finally takes a sip of her whiskey, trying her best to hide the grimace that crawls onto her features. “Do you really think you’re going to box for the rest of your life?”

“I do.” Harry answers immediately. “I’m no good at anything else. I’ll box until my body gives out, and after that I’ll train others, if I can.  Either way…this is my life.  This is as far as I go, really.  And you…”

“I still have more school ahead of me.” Y/N runs her finger over the rim of her glass as she replies. “But I’m not—I said it before.  You want to paint me as good, when we both ended up at that gym. I needed the money too.”

Harry shifts on the couch, repositioning himself to look at her better. “I was open with you.  I…shared. Will you share with me, now?”

Y/N hesitates, but knows she can’t say no. “Share what?”

It takes Harry a moment to settle on a question. “You had clothes from an ex.” He says finally. “What happened with them?”

Y/N sighs, leaning her head against the back of the couch. “His name was Parker.  We met in high school.  We started dating in our junior year, and continued dating until last year.  He goes to school back east, at Stanford. We…I was in love with him.  Very in love with him.” Y/N glances at Harry, watching how his jaw tenses as she says that. “And, um, it didn’t work out. Well, at first, actually, it did. Kind of.  He proposed to me about eighteen months ago, and I said yes.” Y/N looks down at her left ring finger, the only finger on her hands that has no ring tan line. “And then he started talking about me transferring to Stanford, leaving NYU, so I could be with him, and then that conversation changed to me dropping out altogether, so I could plan the wedding, get married, have kids, and just—just be what he wanted.” Her voice cracks in a mixture of hurt and anger, and she knows both emotions are apparent in her eyes when she meets Harry’s gaze. “He wanted a wife.  He didn’t want me.  So I sent back the ring about six months before I met you, and I haven’t heard from him since.  The clothes are just…they’re left over from when he came to visit me.  I know I should get rid of them, but it’s…hard, you know?  To let go of someone…”

“I know.” Harry twists one of his rings around his finger, the same one that he always fidgets with, a plain silver band. “This is my dad’s wedding ring. I found it in my mum’s room before I moved to New York.  I didn’t know she still had it, or why she still had it, and I don’t know why I took it, but I just looked at it and…felt like I needed it.”

Y/N sets down her drink before taking Harry’s hand in her own, rubbing her thumb over the band. “He’s your dad.  It’s alright.”

Harry stares at their intertwined hands, and his voice is thick when he replies. “I’ve never told anyone that.  About the ring, or my dad leaving.  I never really talk about it.”

“I’m glad you told me.” Y/N keeps her voice soft as she moves closer to him. “I meant it when I said I wanted to know you.  That means the bad as well as the good.”

“I know you say that now, but—but no one stays forever, Y/N.” Harry’s voice drops impossibly low. “Everyone leaves eventually.  You will, too, once you see what I’m like.”

“I don’t care.  I really don’t.” Y/N shakes her head fiercely. “I’ve seen what you’re like. I’ve seen you happy and angry and irritated and guarded, and I want it all.  Do you know how long I’ve waited to feel this way about someone?” She plays with his fingers as she speaks, adoring the familiar warmth that she feels in his skin. “It was never like this with Parker.”

“You said you didn’t want a protector.  And all I want to do is protect you.” Harry brings Y/N’s hand to his lips, kissing the inside of her wrist gently. “I don’t want to force something that you don’t want—”

“It’s different if we’re—if you and I—” Y/N flushes as she watches him kiss along her wrist and hand. “I’ll be your protector as much as you’ll be mine. We’ll protect each other.  We’ll be equal.”

“Y/N, you’re so much—we’ll never be—”

“We’ll be equal.” Y/N repeats firmly, unfolding her legs from beneath her. She sits up on her knees right next to Harry, cupping his cheeks with both hands. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Can you give that to me?”

A soft breath leaves Harry’s lips, and it washes over her in the sweetest way. “Yes.” He says sincerely.

“Good.” Y/N swallows hard as a fire starts to burn in her core. “Will you give that to me?”

“Yes.” Harry’s hands shift to her waist, pulling her impossibly closer to him until she’s straddling his lap.

Y/N rubs her thumbs along Harry’s stubbled jaw. “Do you need me?”

Harry’s green irises flicker to Y/N’s pink lips and back again.  She’s starting to get better at reading his eyes, she thinks, although she’s still not as good as she’d like to be.  She still can’t see exactly what’s swirling inside them, but in this moment, she thinks she has an idea of it.

“Yes.” Harry says again, his hands moving up her back. “I need you.”

Y/N presses a chaste kiss over Harry’s forehead scar, down his temple, his cheek, his jaw, delighting in every soft breath and sigh that escapes him. “Do you want me?”

Her voice is barely above a whisper when she asks, and Harry matches her tone perfectly as his fingers press into her back. “More than anything.” He breathes, tilting his head back as she kisses his neck. “I want you more than anything.”

Y/N kisses across his neck, down to his collarbones, before traveling up the other side of his face.  She kisses across Harry’s jaw again, his cheek, back to the scar-free side of his forehead, planting one last kiss in the center of it before pressing her own forehead to his. “Then kiss me.” She whispers, half panting the words.

Harry’s breath is just as ragged as hers as one of his hands tangles in her sleep-mussed hair, pulling them together until their lips meet.  The contrast between the softness of his lips and the roughness of his stubble delights her, and Y/N finds herself pressing closer and closer to him just to feel it more.  Her arms wrap around his shoulders as she tries to get as close to him as possible.  After spending so long waiting, she wants to feel him close to her.  She wants to be his, in every sense of the word.

A wrecked moan falls from Y/N’s mouth as Harry’s teeth graze her lips, his tongue immediately soothing the spot after he nips at her.  He repeats the action over and over, anything to hear her moan again, and Y/N has to pull away to collect herself.  She’s not sure if it’s the whiskey or Harry, but her head is spinning in the best way.

Undeterred, Harry’s lips move to her neck, kissing and nipping just as much as they did before. “Is this alright?” He mutters between kisses, his hands pushing up her hoodie to get a grip on her bare skin. “I-I’ll stop if it’s—”

“Don’t you dare.” Y/N moans, throwing her head back to allow him better access. “If you stop now, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Noted.” Harry mumbles the word against her jugular, letting his teeth scrape her skin before sucking over the spot.  A guttural moan slips from Y/N’s mouth as a shock runs through her, and she can feel the smirk on Harry’s lips as he licks over the mark he’s made.

The fabric of Harry’s shirt is soft to the touch when Y/N gathers it in her fists, tugging on it enough to get Harry’s attention. “Take it off.” She says in a low voice, her eyes locking with Harry’s as he pulls away from her neck. “Doctor’s orders.”

A groan rolls out from the back of Harry’s throat. “God, that’s so fucking hot.” He mutters, kissing her once more. “In a totally respectful and non-objectifying way.”

Y/N laughs into the kiss, tugging on the hem of his shirt again. “Mhmm. Just take it off, will you?”

Harry’s hands replace her own as he tugs his shirt over his head, letting it drop to the floor before attempting to kiss Y/N again.  Y/N, however, has other plans, and begins to run her hands down Harry’s chest.

“I’ve wanted to do this for weeks.” She murmurs, tracing her fingers over his tattoos. “So handsome…” She scratches her nail over Harry’s butterfly tattoo, adoring how his eyelids flutter at the feeling.

“That feels so…” Harry closes his eyes completely, letting his head rest on the back of the couch to fully lose himself in Y/N’s touches. “Keep going.”

Y/N leans in and kisses his neck again, spreading the pecks all along his collar bones and shoulders while her fingers continue to trace the contours of Harry’s body.  She works them over his chest, grazing over his nipples just enough to make his body jump beneath her.

“Is that…?” She begins, trailing off as she touches them again.  Harry doesn’t jump as much this time, but there’s an undeniable hitch in his breath.

“Feels good.” He says thickly, his fingers digging into her back in the best way possible. “Yeah.  Really good.”

Y/N nods, tweaking them one last time before she continues her exploration down his abdomen.  She runs one finger lightly around his belly button, and feels the shiver that runs through Harry as she continues down the light trail of hair situated between his two vine tattoos.

“I love these.” She whispers, her fingers taking their time as they touch them. “They’re some of my favourite tattoos of yours.”

Harry’s eyes open, and the tenderness in his green eyes is unmistakable. “You have favourites?”

Y/N flushes as she nods. “I-I do.  I like your cross tattoo.  And your mermaid.  And these…” Y/N raises one hand to touch over his collar bones again. “What does this year mean?”

“It’s my mum’s birth year.” Harry admits as one of his hands begins to play with Y/N’s hair. “I got it last year.”

Y/N knows that her eyes match the tenderness in Harry’s, and she kisses him once more before continuing to move her hand lower.  She traces her finger over the buckle of his belt as her teeth tug on Harry’s lip lightly.

“Can I?” She asks gently, her breath blowing across his lips. “Please?”

Harry strokes her cheek, letting the back of his knuckles drag across her skin. Y/N leans into his touch wholeheartedly, wanting Harry to know that she’s never once been afraid of his hands and what they can do.

“Is it the Doctor’s orders?” Harry asks, his teasing tone disguising the need in his voice.

Y/N lets out a light laugh, and it’s then that she knows that she and Harry are meant to be.  When two people can be so intimate together while still laughing and giggling and teasing each other…Y/N knows that’s something good, despite never having it before.  

“Yes.” She works her hand over his belt, and the only sounds in the room are their laboured breathing and the gentle clinking of the metal buckle.  When it’s finally free, Y/N busies herself with the button and zipper of his jeans.

“Wait.” Harry grasps her wrist carefully, stopping her before she can attempt to pull his jeans down. “I didn’t—I came here to take care of you.” He murmurs as he pushes her hands away.  His own hands move to Y/N’s thighs, grasping them tightly before picking her up with ease. Y/N gasps, her hands flying to his shoulders as Harry carries her to her bed, laying her down gently on the mussed sheets.

“Let me take care of you.” He repeats the sentiment as his hands move to the hem of her hoodie, slowly and carefully removing the article of clothing, along with the tank top underneath.  Y/N knows that his pace is intentional, giving her plenty of time to refuse, but stopping Harry is the last thing she wants to do.

When her top is off, the first thing Harry does is kiss her.  He moves her carefully as he does, so her head is supported by her pillows.  Y/N doesn’t notice his hands moving from her waist until—

“Why don’t we just move this guy until we’re done, hm?” There’s a trace of laughter in Harry’s voice as he holds up the teddy bear. “I don’t think I’ll be able to look him in the eye after if he watches.”

Y/N clears her throat as an embarrassed flush quickly works its way up her neck. “Alright, just—here—” She takes the teddy bear from Harry, dropping it to the side of the bed. “And he has a name, you know.  It’s Paddington.”

“Paddington?” Harry’s laughter is obvious now, and he buries his head in her neck as he attempts to stifle it. “That is so fucking adorable—”

“Can you not laugh at my teddy bear when you’re about to fuck me?” Y/N asks, voice exasperated and strained.

Harry’s laughter dies off as he pulls his face back up, his eyes darker than they were a minute ago. “I’m about to fuck you, am I?”

Y/N clears her throat, and as Harry’s gaze finally sweeps down her body, she gets the overwhelming urge to cross her arms and cover her exposed self. “You are.  At least, you were, until you got distracted.”

“I’m not distracted.” Harry traces a single finger down Y/N’s sternum, and Y/N can’t hold back the choked gasp in her throat.

“I’m completely focused.” Harry adds on, and before Y/N can gather herself enough to give a retort, his mouth is on her breast.

With her hands immediately tangling in Harry’s long curls, Y/N lets out another whine in sync with her tugging. “Harry—!”

Although Y/N doesn’t have her eyes on the boxer, she can feel the smirk that’s on his face, and just knows that he’s adoring the way that she’s reacting to him.  While there’s a small part of Y/N that’s irritated at his smugness, there’s a bigger part of her telling her to react more.  Moan more.  Pull his hair more.  Anything to make him happy.

Y/N wants to make him happy.

While his mouth works over one breast, his hand works over the other.  Harry’s ring covered fingers tweak her nipple, tugging and twisting just enough to work more whimpers out of her.  When his teeth graze one nipple at the same time that he tugs on the other, Y/N drags the nails of one hand down Harry’s warm back, and it quickly becomes her turn to delight in the whine that leaves his mouth.

It almost becomes a competition then, with both of them working to see who can make the other moan more.  Harry switches his mouth to Y/N’s other breast while Y/N alternates between tugging on his hair and pushing her hand down the waistband of his jeans, her fingers rubbing over his defined hip bones.  The competition, however, yields no winners, and is quickly forgotten in the pursuit of pulling the other closer, touching them harder, dragging them deeper into the safe space they’ve created on Y/N’s bed.

When Harry lets Y/N’s nipple fall out of his mouth, his lips are bright red, shining with saliva almost as much as his eyes are shining with lust.  Y/N quickly pulls him up to kiss her, and fingers one of his curls as she takes a shaking breath.

“I’ve never felt so good from just…” Her voice wavers for a moment, and a new wave of blush heats her cheeks.  “Just…you know.”

Harry brushes a thumb over her cheekbone, delighting in the heat he feels beneath his fingers. “Yeah?” His accent is thick. “Then you’re going to love what I’m going to do next.”

Y/N knows exactly what Harry means, but a surprised gasp still leaves her as he quickly pulls himself down her body, situating himself easily between her legs.  Within a moment, her pajama shorts are tossed to the side, and Harry is directing her movements.

“Bend your knees for me, love, just—yeah.  Just like that.  And spread them wider.” He coaxes her gently, helping to guide her body into the position he wants.  The pleasure on his face at the sight of Y/N’s uncovered cunt is evident as he inhales deeply, laying his stubbled cheek onto one of her thighs as he just stares at her.

Y/N’s chest heaves as she glances down at the sight.  Harry hasn’t even touched her core, and yet she’s never been more turned on in her entire life.  Something about the look in his eyes as he stares at her bare cunt drives her insane, and Y/N knows that she’ll never experience this with anyone else.  No one else will ever compare to Harry, and she doesn’t want them to.  She just wants him.

Harry’s breath is hot on her wet core when he lets out a sigh, his hands continuously rubbing her thighs, up to her pelvis, and back down again. “Don’t even want to touch you.” He murmurs. “Just want to keep staring…”

“That—that’s sweet, but—” Y/N swallows hard as she shifts on the bed. “I need you to touch me, Harry.  I need it.”

“Yeah?” Harry cocks an eyebrow at her, that smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth again. “Good.  I need it, too.”

And then his mouth is on her, and Y/N loses herself completely.

It’s not even that Harry is so wonderfully talented at cunnilingus that drives Y/N insane—although, honestly, that’s definitely a significant factor.  No, the thing that makes Y/N fall apart is how obvious it is that Harry loves doing it.

From the moment Harry’s tongue flicks over her clit, he’s making as many sounds as she is.  Moans and whimpers fall out of his mouth in abundance while his lips and tongue work Y/N over, and while most of it is incoherent sounds of pleasure, Y/N can decipher the occasional phrase.

“Taste so fucking good—”

“Fuck, Y/N—”

“So bloody sweet—”

“Tug on my hair harder—”

Y/N does as he requests, gripping his curls by the roots as she pulls harder in response to his tongue dipping into her entrance.  It briefly occurs to her that Harry may have a pain kink, which explains a lot about him and his career choice, she thinks, but then Harry’s fingers begin to aid his mouth, and Y/N can’t think at all.

While one of his hands pumps two fingers in and out of Y/N slowly, and while his mouth is still firmly suctioned over her clit, Harry’s other hand moves up to her pelvis, pressing down on top of it to keep her in place. “You’re a squirmer, aren’t you?” Harry mutters, and the flat of his tongue licks over her clit just to prove the point.

Y/N’s body jumps again as another guttural moan leaves her lips. “Harry, I—fuck—”

Harry hums against her. “I know.  You’re alright, love.  You can let go.”

And when Harry sucks on her clit again, crooking his fingers inside of her, she does as he says.

Incoherent whimpers and whines fall from Y/N’s mouth as she squirms on the bed, held only in place by Harry’s firm hand on her tummy.  Something in the pressure is comforting, and it’s the only thing that keeps her grounded to her bed as waves of pleasure roll over her.

Harry’s mouth moves from her clit to her thigh, pressing gentle kisses along the tender skin, which is red from his stubble scraping against it. Although his fingers have stilled inside her, he doesn’t pull them out just yet.

“I can feel you squeezing me.” Harry’s eyes flicker between Y/N’s soaked cunt to her heaving chest. “’S nice.”

Another flood of warmth passes through Y/N’s core when he says that, and she pants out what’s meant to be a laugh, but instead turns into a whimper. “Fuck, H…”

Harry’s eyes brighten from between her thighs as he presses another kiss to her thigh. “You’ve never called me that before.” He comments quietly. “I like it.”

“We’ve never done a lot of this before.” Y/N squirms again, “This is all new.”

“It’ll take some time to get used to it.” Harry presses on her tummy again, a reminder to keep still as he slowly pulls his fingers out of her.  Y/N bites her lip to hold back the whine that threatens to leave her mouth, and watches with heavy eyelids as Harry sucks his own fingers into his mouth.

Despite the trembling from her orgasm, Y/N manages to sit up on her elbows to look at Harry between her legs.  He seems quite content there, his black eye a stark contrast against the red of his cheeks and lips, one hand holding her as the other runs over his own lips.  Y/N snaps a picture in her mind to remember later on, when Harry has someone else’s blood dripping from his fingertips.  A reminder that this man lives within the fighter, underneath every wall and safeguard that he had to build to be able to protect and provide for his family.

Y/N reaches down and cups Harry’s cheek in her hand.  Although there’s a tenderness growing in the pit of her stomach, the need is still there alongside it. “Lay down for me.” She murmurs, gently grazing her fingers along the edge of his black eye.

Harry doesn’t speak as he moves, and the room falls quiet again, a brief break between the symphony of pleasure that they composed only a moment earlier. He takes his place on the pillows next to Y/N, and she kisses him again before moving down the bed.

Y/N sits on her knees by his side, allowing her fingers to run over his vine tattoos and down his pelvic bones.  She loves the way Harry’s breath flutters, how it hitches when she uses her nails, and delights in how a quiet moan leaves his lips when she wraps her hand around his warm cock.

He’s already so hard from eating her out, with precum dripping from his flushed tip.  Y/N pumps him a few times with her hand, adjusting to his size and weight before leaning her head down and licking over his slit.

“Christ—” The word falls out of Harry’s mouth involuntarily, and his cheeks redden more at the outburst.  Y/N rubs his tummy with her free hand, assuring him that it’s alright without actually saying the words.  

While one of Harry’s hands is running through his own curls, he brings the other down to play with Y/N’s hair, helping to guide her mouth as she takes him more and more.  Her tongue runs up and down his length, tracing the veins that throb beneath his skin, and Y/N loves how Harry tugs on her hair harder when she does it.

Y/N pulls up from his cock to give her jaw a break, continuing to pump him as she looks up with him.  His arm is thrown over his eyes now, and his chest is rising and falling in rapid succession.  Y/N can tell he’s close, so she slows down her movements until her hand is just lazily pumping him.

Sensing the change in momentum (and his orgasm slipping away), Harry removes his arm, looking down at Y/N with lustful eyes. “Why’d you stop?” He asks, his voice cracking in the middle of the question that he knows the answer to.

“Because I want you.” Y/N presses one last kiss to the top of his cock before letting go.  She crawls up the bed again and reaches over to her bedside table, opening the drawer and pulling out a condom.  Her fingers pause over the lube, remembering the last time that she had used it with Harry, and she can’t help the smile that flickers over her face as she holds up the bottle. “Remember this?”

Harry laughs breathlessly as he rubs his eyes. “Bloody hell, don’t remind me. I was a fucking mess that night.”

“A bit, but I didn’t mind.” Y/N sets the lube back in the drawer before shutting it. “That was the night that I knew I wanted you.”

“Was it?” Harry raises an eyebrow, the teasing grin back on his face as pushes his sweaty curls out of his face. “Took you that long, hm?”

Y/N rolls her eyes as she rips the condom packaging with her teeth, retrieving the latex disc from inside.  She pumps Harry once more before sliding the condom on, making sure that it’s positioned correctly. “Shut up.”

“Are you really telling me to shut up while you’ve got your hand on my cock?” Harry laugh again, and while Y/N’s heart flutters at the sound, she does her best to keep her face from showing it.

“I am.” Y/N throws her leg over him, straddling his lower stomach as she leans down to kiss him.  The teasing tone between them fades into one of lust and affection and need as Harry’s lips move against hers, and they’re both panting when Y/N pulls away to press her forehead against his.

“Are you comfortable like this?” She asks, worry seeping into her tone. “I know your ribs are still bothering you a bit, so I figured that this would be—”

Harry cuts her off with another kiss, this one wilder and more passionate than the last. “I’m fine, love.  You don’t need to worry about me.” He says, despite the flutter in his stomach at the idea of Y/N worrying about him.

“I always worry, H.” Y/N reaches underneath to grip his cock, rubbing the tip of it over her slit as she balances herself with one hand on his pelvis. Harry’s hands grip her hips to give her more stability. “You’re so—fuck—reckless that it drives me—” Y/N gasps loudly as she begins to sink down on Harry’s cock. “Insane.”

Harry’s first instinct at the feeling of Y/N’s warm walls hugging his cock is to throw his head back, close his eyes, and let the pleasure take over. However, he uses every ounce of willpower he has to do the opposite, and thanks God that he does, because he gets to see Y/N take his cock for the first time.

Y/N’s entire body is flushed, and she knows that the heat practically rolling off of her is because of Harry.  Everything that she’s feeling, from the fullness in her core that extends to her stomach, to the fluttering of her body, to the overwhelming sense of something just being right, is all because of Harry.  

After giving herself a moment to adjust to his size, Y/N begins to move. Harry helps guide her hips up and down slowly, and she decides from the first moment that she’s going to take her time building up her speed.  She wants this to last.

Y/N knows that Harry has the capacity to fuck her.  She knows that, if she asked, he’d flip her over and bend her over the edge of the bed and fuck her as fast as he possibly could until she screamed his name.  But, as much as the thought intrigues her, that’s not what she wants right now.  There will be time for fucking later, she thinks. There will be time for loud moans and teeth clicking together and bruises in the shape of a lover’s hand left on thighs and necks.  Right now, all she wants is to feel every inch of Harry inside of her, and to listen to his quiet yet desperate moans as she gradually increases her pace.  

With one of his hands still guiding her hips, Harry gently grips the back of Y/N’s neck, pulling her chest down to press against his.  Their lips find each other quickly, kissing and nipping as Y/N feels herself beginning to fall apart.

“H.” She breathes against his lips. “I’m so close…” A choked moan stumbles out of her mouth as Harry’s hand shifts from her neck to her clit, rubbing small circles with two nimble fingers.

“I can feel it.” Harry’s breath is hot on her ear as he presses open mouthed kisses to her neck. “Can feel you squeezing me, love…being so good for me…”

Y/N bites her lip hard, almost enough to draw blood as the movement of her hips begins to stutter. “I-I want you to—Harry—” she digs her nails into his shoulder when Harry’s fingers speed up, and within a moment, another orgasm is sending shockwaves through her body.

Harry can tell the moment it happens, and a grunt leaves his throat as he begins to lift his hips to meet her movements. “That’s a good girl, love—breathe through it, that’s it…” Harry buries his face into Y/N’s neck, inhaling the scent of her perfume and sweat that’s more intoxicating than anything else he’s ever smelled. “Fuck, Y/N—” His words cut off in a strangled moan as her walls squeeze his sensitive member.

Although she’s barely come down from her high, Y/N takes it upon herself to guide Harry through his orgasm like he’s done for her.  One of her hands moves from his marked shoulder to his hair, pushing the sweaty curls back from his eyes in a repeated motion as she murmurs in his ear. “Let go, H…feels so good…” She can feel the jerking of his hips as he finishes inside the condom, and for a split second, she wishes that there wasn’t a barrier of latex between the two of them, despite knowing that protection is mandatory.

Y/N waits until Harry’s managed to catch his breath before she carefully climbs down from him, missing the feeling of him inside her the moment she’s empty.  She lays down on her rumpled sheets next to his exhausted body, and hopes that she looks just as pretty in her post-sex haze as Harry.  

Now that she’s begun to touch him, she can’t stop.  Y/N’s hands continue to rub tenderly over his sweat-soaked chest, feeling the thumping beat of his heart beneath her as Harry carefully removes and ties off the used condom.  Although a small grumble leaves her when he gets up to throw it away, she can’t help but smile when he returns with two glasses of water in his hands.

“Here.” Harry hands her a glass before getting back on the bed, situating his naked form back into the position he was in a moment ago. “You need to hydrate. Doctor’s orders.”

Y/N lets out a breathless laugh before taking a sip of the cool liquid. “So you’re the doctor now, huh?”

“God, no.  I’m not nearly as smart as you.  I’m just smart enough to remember what you tell me.” Harry gulps down his own glass, setting it on the bedside table once it’s empty.  His arms then move to encircle Y/N’s body, pulling their chests together so her weight lies on top of him.

Y/N doesn’t miss the small wince that the movement causes, and she sets her own glass down before moving back to her position next to him. “You need to be more careful.” She murmurs, resuming her motion of rubbing over his chest.  She’s not sure why the motion is so soothing, but she doesn’t fight it, loving the feeling of Harry’s warm skin beneath her hand. “Patrick won’t forgive me if I put his best fighter out of commission.”

“No, he probably won’t.” Harry muses, settling for wrapping one arm around Y/N’s body. “He might fire you.”

“And then who will clean up your messes?” She cocks an eyebrow teasingly. “Or clean you up, when you’re a mess?”

“I’d just have to stumble my way to your apartment in the middle of the night again.” A laugh rumbles deep in Harry’s chest. “And then after you bandage me up, we can have a quick shag.  It’ll be a nice routine.”

Y/N rolls her eyes. “Mhmm.  Nice try.”

Harry’s laughter trails off after a moment as his fingers begin to trace shapes on Y/N’s back. “Seriously, though…” His eyes grow sober. “How do you want to…handle this?”

Y/N bites her lip. “How do you want to handle this?”

A sigh leaves Harry’s lips. “I want…you.  I want you to be mine.  And I don’t want to hide it, but if you feel like that’s best, then…”

“It’s just—I don’t know.  It’s complicated.” Y/N’s eyes focus on the G tattoo on Harry’s shoulder.  She wonders if it’s for Harry’s sister, and then wonders if Harry would ever tattoo her initial on his body. “Yeah.  Complicated.”

“You’re nervous about Patrick knowing.” Harry states simply.

Y/N nods. “He specifically told me not to get involved with any boxers. He said that…no good men come there.”

Harry’s hand moves over his jaw, scratching at his stubble. “Yeah.  He wasn’t wrong.”

His answer bothers Y/N, and she moves to sit up more in bed, making him look her in the eyes. “You’re a good man, Harry.  I know that.”

“I’m not.” Harry shakes his head once, his voice growing rougher. “I have a lot of shit that I’m…trying to work through.  I’m not that good.” When he sees how Y/N’s face shifts at his words, his tone changes. “But I’d never…that has nothing to do with you.  Any of my issues, my pride, my anger, anything like that, it’s all—it’s separate from you.” He cups her cheek gently. “I’d never hurt you.”

“I know that, Harry.” Y/N repeats as she places her hand over his, weaving their fingers together. “I trust you.  I just wish you’d trust yourself.”

“I trust myself more when I’m with you.” Harry admits. “I’ve never really felt…regret for what I’ve done.  The ring is an equal playing field, right?  But that night when you said you thought I was too harsh…”

Y/N bites her lip. “Did that bother you?”

“I was worried I scared you off.” His eyes close for a moment as he remembers. “I thought…I don’t know.  I thought you already disliked me just for being a boxer, and now I’m the boxer that breaks bones, and there’s no way you’d ever want to be around me.”

“I probably shouldn’t want it.” Y/N admits. “When you phrase it like that.  But I’ve told you before…you’re different when you’re with me.”

“Only with you.  Only for you.” Harry’s voice grows tender as he holds her close to him. “So if you want to keep it private, I understand.  I just want you to be mine.”

Y/N’s finger brushes over one of Harry’s rings.  It’s a beautifully sculpted silver rose, and there’s something so wonderful to her in how Harry chooses to wear flowers on the hands that have done so much damage.

She twists the ring around his finger before pulling it off.  It’s too big to fit on her ring or middle finger, so after a moment of consideration, she slips it onto her thumb. “Then I’m yours.”

Harry’s eyes darken at the sight of Y/N with his ring on her finger. “Yeah. You’re mine.”

The feeling of Harry’s ring on her finger makes Y/N feel so complete, and she wants to share it with him, so she ignores Harry’s whine of protest as she climbs out of bed to walk to her dresser.  A little ceramic dish with her jewelry in it sits on top, and she sorts through the rings and bracelets before setting on something that he can wear while in the ring.  She cups it in her palms before returning to bed, an excited but shy smile on her face.

“Here.” She places it in Harry’s hand. “You can put this on your chain with your cross.”

The silver caduceus looks small in Harry’s palm, and he brings it closer to his eyes to examine it. “What is it?”

“It’s a caduceus.  It’s the medical symbol, the one I wear on my jacket to the ring.” Y/N explains, her cheeks reddening at her words. “It’s from Greek mythology, but doctors adopted it, and—yeah.  Just something to show that…you’re mine, too.”

A small smile plays on the corner of Harry’s lips. “Will you put it on me?”

Y/N nods, and although her fingers are shaking a bit, she manages to undo the clasp on Harry’s chain, and slips the pendant on before refastening it around his neck.  She settles the caduceus and cross pendants on his chest, just between his two swallow tattoos.

“It looks pretty on you.” She murmurs, her hand brushing down his abdomen. “Really nice.”

“It’ll be my good luck charm in the ring.” Harry brings her hand to his mouth, kissing over the rose ring. “I won’t take it off, as long as you don’t take my ring off.  Deal?”

“Deal.” Y/N lays her head back down on Harry’s chest. “Now get some sleep. Doctor’s orders.”

A playful groan falls out of Harry’s mouth. “Is that going to be a new thing?  Are you going to get me to do everything by saying it’s doctor’s orders?”

“I wouldn’t have to if you took better care of yourself.” Y/N matches his playful tone. “But we both know that you have a tendency to ignore your instincts—”

“My instincts are good!”

“Like your instinct to fight with a sprained hand was good?”

The corner of Harry’s mouth twitches. “Fine.  Let’s go to sleep.”

Sunlight is beginning to spill through the curtains as Harry closes his eyes, bathing his entire face in a golden glow.  His pale skin glows under the light, save for the purplish bruise that rings one of his eyes.  Y/N presses a gentle kiss to the darkened area before settling herself down in Harry’s arms.

#feedback is appreciated!! #boxer!harry #harry styles oneshot #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fic #harry styles imagines #harry styles preference #harry styles #one direction imagine #one direction preference #one direction fanfiction #one direction fic #one direction smut #harry styles smut #boxer!harry styles #watermelon sugar #watermelon sugar music video #fine line #fine line album #writing

[arc852]

A Companion for Loneliness 1/2

Summary: Tommy is lonely, so Phil takes the advice of Tommy’s therapist and gets him a pet.

Warnings: Dehuminization (treating people like pets)

Word Count:  2234

__________________________________________________________

 Phil hung up the phone and let out a long sigh, hanging his head. The call from his boss, about having to work longer hours, was a good thing money wise. Especially since his boss guaranteed he’d be paid overtime for the longer hours. What it wasn’t good for was his son.

 Now Tommy was old enough to take care of himself. The fifteen year old reminded him of that everyday, calling himself a big man and other such similar things. But, though Tommy didn’t admit it, Phil knew that he got lonely when Phil was out all day and night at his job. And especially now that it was summer, Tommy no longer had school to distract him from that loneliness. 

 Phil was hoping to spend more time with Tommy during the summer but with his increase in hours, that wasn’t going to be possible. It wouldn’t be so bad if Tommy had friends to hang out with but…

 Of course, that wasn’t Tommy’s fault. But it made Phil feel even worse about not being able to be there for his son.

 His phone rang again, pulling Phil out of his thoughts. He glanced at the caller ID before answering it. “Hey Puffy,” Tommy’s therapist was a wonderful young woman and had helped Tommy a lot. Tommy didn’t see her as often anymore but Puffy always made sure to call every once in a while to see how things were going. Phil appreciated it and he knew Tommy did too.

 “Hey Mr. Minecraft! Just checking in. How is Tommy doing? Summer should be starting soon, right?” Puffy asked, cheerful as always. 

 “Yeah, it just started actually. And Tommy’s...good.” The silence he received made Phil wince.

 “And how is Tommy actually doing?” Puffy asked, tone softer this time. Phil sighed. He really couldn’t get anything past Puffy. Not that he was really trying to but still.

 “He is doing well at the moment but I just received some news from my work. I...They need me to put in extra hours. The money will be great for us but--” He was cut off.

 “But Tommy will be left all alone.”

 Phil shut his eyes, using his free hand to rub at them. “Yeah. For the most part. And I hate doing that to him but there really isn’t anything I can do about it.”

 “...Have you thought about getting Tommy a pet?” Puffy said suddenly and Phil opened his eyes again, blinking.

 “A pet?”

 “Yeah, ya know, a companion to keep Tommy company and distracted while you're gone. Pets are wonderful for that sort of thing.” Puffy explained. Phil had never thought about that before, mostly because he never really cared for having a pet in the first place. But if it was to help Tommy…

 “So, should I get him a dog? Or would a cat be better? A hamster?” What pet would be best for Tommy?

 “Actually, for Tommy, I was thinking more along the lines of a borrower.”

 “A borrower?” Phil didn’t pay much attention to things happening around the world but even he had heard about the discovery of borrowers several years ago. They were huge back then but the hype had died down over the years. They were still fairly popular but the novelty had long since worn off. “Why a borrower for Tommy?”

 “Well, unlike other pets, they can actually have conversations with us.” Puffy said and, well, she had a really good point there. “It might be good for Tommy to be able to talk with someone. My nephew recently got his own pet borrower and he loves him and my son has had one for years. They make great companions, in ways a dog or cat can’t be. I think one would be perfect for Tommy.”

 Phil had been nodding along, a smile slowly creeping onto his face. It really did sound perfect. A pet that would not only distract Tommy but one he could also speak to and hang out with. 

 “I think I’ll take you up on your advice Puffy, thank you so much.” Phil could hear the smile on Puffy’s face as he spoke back.

 “That’s what I’m here for! Literally. Anyway, let me know how it goes and I wish you luck in picking one out for Tommy. Oh and I would stick to males when picking out a borrower and either around Tommy’s age or a bit older. It’ll hopefully make it easier for Tommy to connect with a borrower like that.”

 Phil nodded despite knowing Puffy couldn’t see him. “Thank you Puffy. Talk to you later.”

 “Bye Mr. Minecraft!” And with that, Puffy hung up. Phil placed his phone down on his desk, feeling better about the whole situation. He glanced at the time and went to grab his keys.

 He started working again tomorrow, so he might as well go out and get Tommy that borrower while he could.

***

 Phil entered the pet store, looking around to try and see where they kept their borrowers. He must have looked as lost as he felt though, as an employee came up to him with a smile on her face. Her name tag read Niki. 

 “Hello sir, is there anything I could help you with today?” Her voice was cheerful and authentic. It made Phil smile.

 “Yes, actually. Um, I’m here to buy my fifteen year old son a borrower.” Phil said and he almost missed the way Niki shifted and tensed up slightly at the mention of a borrower. But as quickly as it came it went and Niki was back to her relaxed self. Phil must have imagined it.

 “Of course! Right this way, I’ll show you our selection of borrowers.” Niki started walking towards the back of the store and Phil followed, looking down the aisles as they passed them. Finally, Niki turned into one and Phil followed, seeing the rows of cages filled with borrowers. Though, there weren't as many as Phil would have first thought.

 “Our selection in this store is a little small but you should be able to find one here.” Niki said with a smile. Phil glanced around at the cages, biting his lip at all the choices. How was he supposed to pick?

 “You said this was for your son, right?” Niki chimed in again and Phil’s gaze landed back on her as he nodded.

 “Yeah, my job is keeping me extra long this summer and my son...doesn’t really have any friends. He gets lonely, though he won’t admit it, and I feel bad for leaving him. His therapist is the one who suggested I get him a borrower, actually.” Phil explained.

 “I see.” Niki hummed. Phil noticed how her gaze had softened though it was weird considering Phil hadn’t noticed her tense before. “Well, I have to go back to the front but there are a few borrowers in that last cage at the end of the aisle that might catch your eye.” She pointed at said cage, gave Phil a smile and then walked past him to head back up to the front.

 Phil watched her go and then turned back towards the cage she had pointed at. He headed over that way, glancing into the cage once he came upon it. There were about five in this one cage and Phil looked them all over. A couple seemed to simply ignore him, while one seemed to try and make itself smaller and another refused to even look at him.

 The fifth one though, was actually actively glaring at him. 

 Phil blinked, meeting that one's gaze. It was hard to make out the finer details of his face from the corner he was sitting in but he was clearly tall for a borrower, or at least, compared to the others in the cage with him, and his hair sat in a similar way to Tommy’s but was brown instead of blond.

 In fact, though Phil couldn’t quite place why, this borrower reminded him a lot of Tommy right off the bat. Maybe it was the fire behind that glare or even just the hair, but it was there and Phil couldn’t ignore it.

 “Hello mate,” He said in greeting, smiling softly and ignoring the glare. The borrower jumped slightly but his glare only hardened. “What’s your name?” 

 “F*** off.” The borrower spat out and Phil’s eyes widened. He was reminded of Tommy more by the second. 

 Well, that had been easier than Phil thought.

 He stood up straight and walked away, ignoring the confused look the borrower had sent him. When he came back with Niki, the borrower’s eyes widened and he hurried to a stand. “Oh f*** no.”

 “I had a feeling you’d take a liking to Wilbur.” Niki said with a smile towards Phil.

 “Wilbur?” Phil asked for clarification and Niki nodded.

 “That’s his name. Wilbur Soot, 22 years old. He was caught and brought into this pet store around 6 months ago.” Niki explained and then turned her attention to said borrower. “Hey Wilbur, it looks like today is the day.”

 Wilbur shook his head, looking panicked. “N-No! What the hell, Niki?!”

 Phil glanced between the two, confused. Niki let out a little sigh and sent a sad smile towards Phil. “Sorry, he’s just nervous.” She turned back to Wilbur. “Trust me Wil, this will be good for you.” Phil watched as she reached in and wrapped her hand around the borrower. Said borrower squirmed and tried to fight his way out of the grip but it proved fruitless. Niki brought him out of the large cage, only to place him into the smaller one she had brought with her from the front.

 Once he was locked inside, he was handed over to Phil. “Alright, let’s go and get the payment all settled.” Niki said and Phil nodded, following her once again back towards the front. He handed his card over once Niki took to the register and Niki started the payment process.

 “Were you getting anything else today?” Niki asked, she was still smiling but it was a little less wide than before. Phil blinked at the question, glancing down at the borrower in the small cage. He was still being glared at but now the little guy was curled in on himself near the center of the cage.

 “Um...should I be getting something else? Sorry, this was sort of a last minute thing. What exactly do borrowers need?” Phil asked, feeling sheepish at his lack of knowledge. Thankfully, Niki’s understanding gaze made him feel better.

 “Well, honestly, they don’t need a lot. Or, at least, they don’t need a lot of things that you need to buy. They eat human food just fine, so no need to waste money on that. I would recommend a borrower bed for him to sleep in though. And a collar for if he gets lost but those aren’t required.” Niki explained and Phil nodded along. 

 “That sounds good. Could you throw in a borrower bed and I’ll go ahead and take the collar too.” Phil said and Niki nodded, fetching the items and placing them in a small bag. She then rang up the order and Phil was hesitant to see the price. But when it appeared on screen his eyes widened. It wasn’t nearly as much as he would have thought.

 “Here you go.” She handed over the bag, which Phil took and picked back up the cage that he had placed on the counter.

 “Thank you so much for your help.” Phil said and Niki grinned.

 “Of course, if you need anything again, I’m happy to help!” They waved goodbye and then Phil was out the door.

 He got into his car but hesitated placing Wilbur down into the front seat. He looked down at the borrower, noticing how the little guy hadn’t moved much from his earlier position but now he seemed to be refusing to look at him. He looked sad and it made Phil’s heart melt just a little bit. 

 “Hey mate,” He spoke and Wilbur’s head snapped up to look at him. The glare was back but it was less intense this time, another emotion that Phil couldn’t quite pinpoint getting in the way of the heat. “Just thought I should explain. I’m getting you for my son, Tommy. He’s fifteen and doesn’t have any friends. His therapist suggested I get him a borrower, so here we are.”

 Wilbur’s expression dropped and Phil suddenly felt the need to reassure him. “Don’t worry though, Tommy is a good kid and I’m sure he’ll love you. You’ll be just fine.” Satisfied with that amount of reassurance, Phil put Wilbur’s cage down and locked it into place with the seatbelt, just in case.

 Once he was sure the cage and the borrower inside were secure, Phil started up the car. He glanced at the time and hummed to himself. “Should probably pick up some dinner on the way home.” He’d pick up Tommy’s favorite, to try and further ease the pain the news of him working extra hours would bring. Hopefully the food and the new pet will be enough for Tommy.

 “Don’t worry mate, we’ll be home soon.” He spoke aloud to Wilbur again, for some extra reassurance before backing out of the parking space and rolling out of the parking lot.

#g/t #giant/tiny #mcyt g/t #dsmp g/t #au #borrowers #borrower!wilbur #human!phil #human!tommy #i don't really like the title #but oh well

[notmymainblog]

A Sirius Black x reader angst where he's always flirting with other girls and one day she's had enough and breaks up with him. its only then that he realises how much he loves and needs her, but she doesn't want him anymore. angst ending for sirius, but maybe reader could have a new good relationship or something?

Obsession

Ok, so this is good but also like horrible. Like if I weren’t me, I would cringe at this (i honestly still kinda do). I’ve had a tough time writing at all but a harder time writing Sirius because an angry blow torch and hand mannequin boy are stuck rent-free in my mind. So I um...mixed fandoms I CAN'T HELP IT OK this is what you get for giving me creative freedom ig 🙄  , But I will get through the requests.  

And at your request i will also rewrite this if you want LMAO

Master list

InteractiveFics

To use:

Download obvi. Click the icon (upper right by the search bar) in the first box to enter your name. If you did it correctly y/n should read as your actual name. Under that it will say something along the lines of “need to change something other than y/n?” there you can change anything you want.y/h/c and y/h don't work together so please enter y/ho if you're inputting your Hogwarts house

TW: Oh baby, get ready, kidnapping, semi-forced sex (coercion?) asshole Sirius, self-harm? Like scratching? Stupid fic that sucks, yandere Sirius which, yes, deserves a warning and a big one at that. Death threats, lol. Me simping for a psycho who desperately needs Chapstick.

Here's a song I like!

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It wasn't anything new. Not at all. It shouldn't be normal like this. But it was. Everyone wanted Sirius. Everyone. You often asked yourself why he chose you, but you had never come up with an answer, and neither had he. Sirius always laughed it off. Made a dumb joke. It was pointless.

Almost everything was pointless with Sirius. Making plans, sitting together, being partners in class, and it was incredibly pointless to try and object to sex.

It was always “oh, but y/n I need you so bad baby. Look at how hard I am. Just for you. So hard it fucking hurts. Oh y/n please, ”

So you always gave in. Before you were dating, every sexual exploit Sirius had was public knowledge. But he never told anyone about you. Most of the school didn't even know you were dating.

It was normal for Sirius to wink at a girl, put a hand on her thigh, compliment her before tucking her hair behind her ear, “I'm just joking y/n. I'm not fucking them. Don't be so dramatic.”

“You're not dramatic y/n, ” is what literally anyone else would say if you told them about it. But you didn't. Hell, not even the pillow you cried into knew why.

You had decided enough was enough.

“Sirius, we need to talk, love, ” you said as he tried to pull your shirt off.

He smirked “ooohh, I get it. You want to hear how fucking hard I am for you, how pretty you sound moaning my name?” he chuckled.

“N-no, I want to talk about something else, ” you whispered

“What? Do you have a piss kink or something?” he asked.

“No, Sirius, not everything is about sex!” you said, much louder than you intended to.

He nodded, “so it's your period, huh? It's ok, you can still blow me, ” he shrugged.

“No! It's about you being all over the other girls. All. The. Damn. Time. Every time I see you, a girl is hanging on your shoulder.” you said.

“Oh my god, y/n, you are the most dramatic woman I've ever met. Have you never had a friendly conversation before?” he scoffed.

“I've had plenty of conversations with other boys, and I didn't have my hand on their thigh the entire conversation,” you said.

“God, just calm down; why are you so emotional?” he sighed.

“why aren't you so emotional. Why aren't you worried that you made me sad? Do you even care?” you sniffled.

“Of course I care, but hon, we need to move past this. It's stupid, and I haven't really done anything wrong. It's fine, ” Sirius smiled, pulling at the waistband of your pants.

“Get off me, ” you groaned, pushing him away by his head.

“Ow ow ow y/n the hair! That hurts!” he whined.

You gave it an extra tug before storming into your dorm.

By the end of the night, your pillow was wet with tears and sticky with snot. You threw the cover off of it before washing your face. The cold water felt heavenly against your watery, itchy eyes and irritated nose. A couple of shaky deep breaths stilled your cries as you fell into the sweet release of sleep.

However, the morning was hell. The whispers and laughter were horrible. The sympathetic looks were even worse.

‘I don't need to be coddled; I'm not made of glass.’ you huffed to yourself.

You sat down at the y/ho table and began to eat. You felt a hot presence next to you.

“Hello, Dabi, ” you said dully.

“Hey princess, finally ditched dog breath, I see, ” he said with a grin.

“Yeah, why do you care?” you asked, stabbing your pancake aggressively.

“Because I take broken girls and manipulate them into doing whatever I want over a week because I'm so good at gaslighting. Got that from my dad, ” he winks.

Your brain loaded for a second, “excuse me, you what?”

“You heard me, sugar. But we both know you're much too smart and much too pretty for it,” Dabi said, leaning in.

“This is literally part of gaslighting Dabi, ” you laughed.

“Shut up, or it won't work, ” he whispered.

“Ah, alright, I'm so flattered that I'm special and your feelings are real, ” you said in a robotic voice.

“Ha!” he laughed, “you're not bad y/n we should be friends, ” he said.

You nodded, smiling, “alright.” making friends had always been hard for you so to have this opportunity fall in your lap was a blessing.

“Um, but my other friend is-” he started.

“Weird?” you interrupted.

“Um yeah, you could say that. Not to Tomura's face, but you could say that” he smiled

(and that ^^ is what happens when you forget to turn the writer's block sub back on)

A couple of days passed. Tomura kept to himself mostly. Calling him and Dabi friends was a stretch; they were enemies who enjoyed each other's company was the best way to describe it.

However, when Tomura did come around for the first time, he was obviously anxious, taking off his gloves and scratching his neck more than usual, leaving red marks.

(we need to have soft Tomura moments, but cannonly he would be a Slytherin and act the part, but I just need more of him being baby)

At one point, you simply yanked his hand away from his neck (by his arm, obviously). He stared at you, and for a second, you thought you were done for.

But his look turned to one of adoration, and he hasn't left you alone since. No one had done anything like that for him, which was... Surprising since it was literally the bare minimum. Nevertheless, he followed you around like a lost puppy dog.

He ate with you, read with you, partnered up with you (leaving a very annoyed Dabi to fend for himself). You could've easily discouraged him by ignoring him, but you felt bad for him. If you were honest, it felt good for someone to finally need you. And he really was a sweet boy. He just needed someone to talk to.

And not in a hurl-playful-insults type of way. He would talk to you about his hobbies, his favorite muggle games, everything. It made your heart warm. He kept his gloves on a lot more which made teachers and students alike sigh in relief.

Usually, he'd leave at least one hand free as a sort of “ill disintegrate your ass if you piss me off” way. But he wanted to be careful around you.

“y/n?” he said, sitting beside you.

“Yes, Tomura?” you smiled, closing your book. You learned quickly that if you weren't giving him your undivided attention, he would get discouraged and moody.

“There's a dance on Friday, ” he said, looking at you.

You really didn't understand where this was going. Sirius has never asked you to dance. He just got ready and dragged you with him until he found another girl to dance with.

You nodded, “yeah are you taking someone?”

“N-no, but I was wondering if you wanted to go with me?” he asked timidly.

“Id love to, anything for you, my friend ” you smiled.

It was rare that someone gave him something he wanted without the threat of instant death. Even if it was just as friends, he was thrilled.

“And I, ” Dabi interrupted, “ want both of you to hang out with me. Because everyone else is “scared ill light them on fire”? What bullshit, ” he muttered.

“You would, Mr. anger issues. They have a good reason to be sacred. Most of us don't want to be toasted like a marshmallow, ” Tomura shot back, beginning to engage in their usual banter.

And so the night ended with laughter, but for Sirius, things hadn't been as fun.

“You miss her! Admit it!” James cried.

Sirius punched the wall, “yes! Yes, I fucking do, James! Ok! I get it! But her new “friends” will literally cremate me if I get close to her! And one of them is basically obsessed with her.” he huffed, “such a creep, ”

Remus grabbed Sirius by the shoulders, “I'm a nice guy, but Sirius, you did this to yourself. Even after she told you about how she felt you made...you made...” he pinched the bridge of his nose, “I still can't believe you made a fucking period joke!”

“Jeez, Rem, it wasn't a joke, ” he said.

“Sirius, ” James said, “that's even worse,”

“Even James knows what he's doing, Sirius!” Remus cried, “ladies-man, my ass, you don't know what you're doing!”

“Girls like assholes, ” he shrugged. “I was born for this, ”

“At least he's self-aware, ” Remus muttered

“If she liked assholes like you, Sirius, she’d be fucking Dabi right now, ” James said.

“Make it up to her, ” Remus said, pushing him out of the room, “like right now!”

Sirius muttered something about a ‘burnt piece of toast looking man’ before sulking down the stairs.

He dragged his feet to the y/ho common room. The girls were like mosquitoes; they were bearable at first, but now they were really fucking annoying.

Sirius let out an audible sigh when he saw you weren't there, alerting everyone of his presence. And so the mosquitoes swarmed him again.

“Oh my god, get off, ” he finally groaned, pushing away from the group of pouting girls.

He dragged his feet up the stairs to your dorm, peeking in to make sure your personal blow torch wasn't there. What he did see pissed him off. More than anything ever had.

There you were with Shigaraki dabbing lotion on the scratches and taking care of him. He should be the only one you took care of. Him and only him. Hell, he would kill the wrinkly bastard if he had to. Take him away so you would only fall for him. Only him. He'd get rid of Dabi too. It didn't fucking matter to him.

The only thing that stopped him was the realization that, in a way, he sounded just like his parents—mindless killing. He swallowed his pride and knocked on the door.

“What's up, you fiery bastard?” you called to who you assume was Dabi.

“A fiery what?” Sirius called back.

You tensed, and Tomura placed a gloved hand on yours, squeezing softly.

“Come in, ” you said glumly.

“Hey, um, I just came in here to apologize and see if you wanted to go to that dance with me?” he asked.

Tomura reached a hand to his neck, but before he could start, you grabbed his arm again.

“Hey, what did we talk about? No scratching. I don't want you hurting yourself, Tomu, ” you said quietly.

The nickname hit him like a truck; he loved it. He loved it more than anything on earth. He loved you more than anything on earth- no, more than anything in any galaxy.

“Sirius, I’m already taking someone to the dance. And they're a lot nicer than you. So, kindly, fuck off.”

His eyes widened, and his mouth almost dropped open, “who?” he said.

“None of your business, ” you scowled.

“They'll never love you the way I did, sweetie. You know that. I'm the only one who could really love you.” he cooed.

Tomura was filled with rage, but he clenched his hand at his side instead of scratching. He didn't want to disappoint you.

“Y-you love me?” you whisper.

“Of course I do baby, I love my girl more than anything on earth, ” he smiled, but it never reached his eyes.

“Whos gonna love you better than I can, huh?” he asked, “nobody, that's who, ”

His lips moved of his own accord, “You're wrong, ” Tomura said.

“Oh yeah?” he growled, “who? Blow torch boy?”

“No, ” he said, standing up and taking a breath, “me, ”

Sirius just looked at him and laughed, “please, you'll fucking kill her. Literally. What will she do with gloved hands? They can't touch you like mine do, baby, ”

That snapped you right out of your trance, “oops, I must have forgotten that you're missing a brain, Black. You only think with your dick, which, by the way, isn't even that great.”

“And for your information, as long as he has one finger covered, he can touch me, ” you huffed, standing up as well.

This was it, the moment Shigaraki had waited for; it should have been more romantic and without your ex, but still, this was it. Someone cleared their throat from behind Sirius.

“You're blocking the door, dog breath. Get out of the way or say goodbye to your eyebrows, ” Dabi said.

He moved reluctantly, and Dabi flopped down on your bed.

“If you're gonna take this asshole back, you should gimme a chance. I bet I fuck better than him, ” he smirked.

“We’ll talk later without these assholes—astronomy tower. 3:00 am,” Sirius mumbled before shutting the door.

You wrapped your arms around Tomura, rubbing his back.

“I'm not going. Don't worry, ” you said, knowing how anxious Tomura was.

He nodded and wrapped his arms around you, kissing the top of your head.

“Wait, wait, wait a fucking minute. Did I miss a season? Can I have a fucking recap?” Dabi groaned.

And so, you talked late into the night with an arm around Tomura and a very angry Dabi who was sent into the bathroom to take a cold shower after almost burning your bed.

Sirius waited for over an hour for you at the tower. He stomped on the roses, pulling off each petal before throwing them off the tower.

“Those assholes, ” he growled, breathing heavily, “I'll kill them. I'll fucking kill them both of them, ” he rambles for a good thirty minutes before stomping down the stairs.

He slammed the door to his dorm open.

“She didn't fucking show that fucking asshole stole her from me, and I'm gonna kill them both of them and make her all mine, ” he rambled.

“Merlin Siri, calm down. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life in Azkaban (😳), you'd better get ahold of yourself.” James yawned.

“For the love of god, go to fucking sleep, Sirius. She's not vanishing tomorrow.” Remus groaned.

“You're a genius!” Sirius shouted.

“Oh my god. Sirius, no. Bad dog. Don't kidnap girls you like... Or well are obsessed with. Love is a stretch, ” Remus said, going back to sleep.

But come morning, you were not, in fact, at breakfast.

Sirius almost vomited when he saw you with your arms around Tomura. Tomura Shigaraki, the perpetual thorn in his side. He carefully lifted you and carried you to a small closet no one but him even knew about before binding and gagging you. He thought it was so sweet. Waking up slowly, not knowing where you are.

When you're y/e/c eyes met his, your face contorted into disgust. It broke his heart to watch his brainwashed little girl so mad at him.

He stroked your cheek, “Oh baby girl, I hope you can clear your mind from all the silly things they told you. It would be lovely if it were before the dance, but... A two-day timeframe may not do the trick.” he tutted, placing a kiss on your nose.

You tried to squirm away but just backed yourself into a corner. Sirius muttered a silencing charm before removing the gag.

“Dabi is gonna burn you to bits, Sirius, ” you growled.

“Whatever makes you happy, my love, you are allowed to think. Even if you're oh so wrong. Even if I know they don't care for you the way I do, ” he cooed.

“Oh my god, Tomura is gonna flip, ” you said, “shit, I hope he's ok, I hope he doesn't think I just left him, ” tears brimmed your eyes.

“What if he hurts himself? Oh god, Sirius, please let me go, ” you pleaded.

“No can do, sweetheart, ” he smiled, pressing a kiss to your lips as you tried to turn away.

It felt like days, even though it was only a couple of hours. Sirius kept telling you that only he loved you. How a silly little girl like you could never survive without him. That no one else wanted you this way.

But finally, after dozens of prayers to whoever's listening, James and Remus opened the door.

“What are you doing here?” Sirius cried, “you'll ruin it! Everything I've worked for! You weren't even supposed to know where we were!”

“We have a fucking map, Sirius. This is so creepy. You're so creepy. Get out of here, man.” Said James as he pulled him out by his hair.

Remus made quick work of the knots before setting you free. After giving them both two quick hugs, you rushed to breakfast. Your eyes scanned the hall for light blue or spiky black hair. You found the latter first.

“Hey Dabi, where's Tomura, ” you asked.

“Wouldn't you like to know, ” he sneered over his coffee.

“Yes, I would like to fucking know flame boy, ” you said.

“How can you just leave in the middle of the night and demand to know where he is?” he said, slamming a fist on the table.

“Cause I was taken from my bed by a psycho and spent the last couple hours trapped in a closet!” you whisper shouted, showing him the rope marks.

“I'm gonna incinerate him; he's in your dorm still. Didn't wanna leave.” Dabi whispered.

The walk back to the y/ho dorms felt excruciatingly long. When you finally burst through the door, your heart broke. There was Tomura nearly shaking, crying softly with bleeding scratches on his neck.

You crouched in front of him, reaching up to touch his face before he grabbed your arm.

“You left, ” he whispered, “was it for him? Please just tell the truth,”

“I didn't want to Tomu, ” you said, “He took me, and I couldn't stop him. He put me in a closet, and the whole time, I was thinking about you nonstop. I was worried, and I missed you. I just wanted you. You make me feel so safe, darling,”

He pulled you into his chest by your arm; you never realized how strong he was. He made slow circles on your back with his finger.

“It's ok, ” he whispered, “it's ok, ” he too saw the marks from the rope on your wrist.

(how do I fucking end this. Do I kill off Sirius? AH, I know).

The days felt shorter with Dabi and Tomura by your side. Suddenly it was the day of the dance. You woke up to soft kisses on the back of your neck.

“Good morning, love, ” you said sleepily.

“Good morning to you too, y/n, ” he whispered.

The day went by quickly; the teachers gave up on teaching, and before you know it, you were slipping on your dress.

Your hands clenched into fists as you walked past Sirius, feeling his eyes on you. You were too scared to tell anyone. And who would they believe? The golden boy who was the purest kindest family member, or you?

You felt his eyes on you as a burnt and stapled arm wrapped around your shoulders. He pointed to a very nervous Tomura.

“Please, for the love of god y/n calm the man down, ” he said.

The closer you got, the more you blushed; he was amazing. He was the most beautiful boy you’d ever seen. You stopped in your tracks as a girl stopped to talk to him.

This was it; it was the end; it was happening again. But instead, Tomura shook his head, and the girl walked away. You ran over to him (as fast as your shoes allowed) and wrapped your arms around his neck.

You pressed a soft kiss to his neck, “you're so amazing, ” you whispered

His arms wrapped around your waist, “I'm happy you think so, my dear, ” he smiled.

And you spent the night dancing as Sirius broke the glass he was holding in his hand. But he'd get you again someday, he knew it.

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This was long. This was pathetic. This was horrible. The was unrealistic. This was cringe-worthy. This was dramatic. I should probably make a side account. It all started with a playlist on my recommended and idk which mental illness caused this or if I'm just dramatic, but my brain immediately latched on to this burnt piece of toast, and after watching the show, this wrinkly psycho. It's been hard to write, period. But also hard to write Sirius, but I will power through, I promise.

#Sirius Black #Sirius orion black #sirius black x reader #sirius x you #sirius black angst #angst #sad? #mha #mixed fandom #Harry Potter #harry potter marauders #marauders era #this sucks so good

[seraphanangelica]

Can I please have scenarios or headcanons on how bnha characters (any that you like) would handle dealing with a ghost with their s/o who totally believes in the supernatural? Thank you in advance

I absolutely love this idea! As a firm believer of the supernatural myself, there was absolutely no way I could delay this response. So here you go!

How They And Their S/O Would Deal With Ghosts

💥This guy has only seen or heard about ghosts and spirits from horror movies. That’s all he cares about them. If they’re not in a movie, they have no existence. Of course, every time he says something along those lines, you roll your eyes and laugh to yourself at his blatant lack of attention to the supernatural.

💥You’ve tried, many times to prove just how real they were. And every single time it would go like this:

💥”I’m telling you, Katsuki, I’ve had experiences with them. You just don’t think they’re real becuase you haven’t.”

💥”Your experiences are just things you don’t want to give logical explanations to, dumbass.”

💥His point is proved further when nothing happens. And nothing happened for days after the last time you two had the repetitive conversation.

💥One day, as Katsuki woke up before you, he got out of bed and proceeded to go about his completely non-paranormal life. After giving you a light kiss on your forehead, he went downstairs to start preparing breakfast.

💥He stopped mid-stair though, as he heard another pair of feet pattering down the stairs behind him at a much quicker and softer pace. At first he thought it was you that had gotten up earlier than usual to spend more time with him in the mornings. He turned around to greet you with a smirk, his face falling slightly when he saw no one around.

💥Paying it no mind, he finished descending the stairs, and continued into the kitchen.

💥In the middle of sautéing vegetables, Katsuki reached out to grab the bottle of olive oil that sat on the counter to his left. He froze mid reach as he saw the barstool behind him rotate as if someone were sitting there out of the corner of his eye.

💥”Oh hell, no.” He still refused to take into account anything you’ve said about the matter.

💥Twenty minutes later, you were downstairs and eating breakfast, in the barstool next to the one that moved. You watched in curiosity as Katsuki leaned against the counter in front of you, crimson eyes darting from the empty seat then to you, then back again.

💥You were concerned, to say the least. “Katsuki, are you alright? You’re acting weird. Come sit down.”

💥He only shook his head and took a deep breath, looking you in the eyes. “Tell me about everything you know about ghosts. Now.”

💥And so you did. You told him everything you’ve been trying to tell him since you’ve known each other. The only difference was that this time, he was actually listening as if it were real and not a story.

💥When you finished he shook his head. “Look, I still don’t believe in this ‘ghost’ stuff, but-“ crash!

💥You’re heads snapped over to the source of the sound, your eyes settling on the plate that used to be next to Katsuki. It was now shattered on the floor, the pieces spreading out farther than the counter span. You knew Katsuki was freaking out but concealing it on the outside.

💥You couldn’t help but smile at your husband as his eyes still focused on the broken dish. “Don’t belive me now? We both know that dish was no where near the edge.”

💀Dabi would be disbelieving, but open to conversation. People talk about anime, right? It’s not real but makes for great small talk. He’d also be stupid. Very, very stupid.

💀The day he walked into the League of Villain’s hideout with an Ouija board under his arm, you thought he’d finally lost his mind.

💀”Are you crazy? Do you know the kind of stuff that happens when you use one of those things? You don’t know what you’re letting in!” You tried to reason with him, even coming up with ways to dispose of it without his knowledge. Unfortunately for you, he knew what you were up to and hid it.

💀”Oh come on. It’s just a little fun,” he teased you one night when he bagan setting it up in the center of your shared room. “What’s the worst that happen?”

💀”Asking ‘is anybody there’ is the stupidest thing you can do becuase thats inviting anything to come into the space. Secondly, you don’t know how to protect yourself against that kind of thing. The worst that can happen is possession, Dabi.” You scolded, leaning against the wall farthest from the board.

💀”Relax, Doll. I have someone in mind, actually. He didn’t really matter much, but I picked this from his wallet,” he reached into his pocket and tossed an ID card in your general direction. “See? Perfectly fine.”

💀It was not perfectly fine. You reluctantly joined him in the game, placing your fingers on the planchette, cringing with every subtle movement the burnt boy made. Because you didn’t want to do this in the first place, you let Dabi carry out the ‘ritual’.

💀As you would’ve guessed, the moment Dabi’s target was acquired, the planchette began moving, much to your dismay. Slowly, the letters formed a sentence. ‘You killed me.’

💀You shot a glare at your boyfriend. “What the hell did you do? Did you seriously just kill a man to contact him?”

💀He shrugged. “I caught the guy stealing from the convenience store, he had to go.”

💀”YOU STEAL FROM CONVENIENCE STORES!”

💀After you both said ‘goodbye’, you couldn’t shake the feeling that you were being watched. It practically consumed you as the next hours passed, your eyes always finding themselves back to the abandoned board that still laid on the floor.

💀”WHAT THE FUCK!?” Dabi shouted from the bathroom, his voice one of surprise and confusion. You darted into the small room, expecting a prank left by Twice or blood left by Toga (it happens), and to be pretty honest, you were expecting this too. From the mirror, you could see eight distinct and parallel scratches on his back, too fresh and too deep not to be ignored.

💀Without a word, you bounded over to the closet and wrenched the doors apart with a set purpose. Pushing clothes out of the way, you pulled out an old chest you stored wherever you stayed. Opening the wooden box, you pulled out a match and a bundle of juniper and sage. Lighting the end of the dried herbs, and opening the nearest window, you let the smoke drift to all corners of the room.

💀Dabi watched in confusion and amusement as you walked towards him and started waving the herbs around him, cleansing him as well as the room.

💀”Y/N.”

💀“What, Dabi?”

💀”We should do it in a graveyard next time. This Halloween.”

💀”Fucking Samhain? Are you out of your goddamn mind?!”

💀He believes in ghosts now, so you had that going for ya.

🥦Midoriya would be skeptical about it. As someone who never rules out any possibilities, he has a wide range of knowledge towards that kind of thing. You never knew if someone had a quirk that could control the spirits of the dead.

🥦When you told Izuku that you see dead people, he honestly thought you were quoting The Sixth Sense. You were, in a way. In the same way you were being serious.

🥦You sat on the couch in the living room, remote in hand as you got ready to start a Marvel movie marathon when your fiancé got back from the store downtown. He got called in when someone was murdered just outside, appearing to have been trying to steal some food and magnets. Why someone would try to steal magnets from the convenience store was beyond you.

🥦Sighing, you settled into the cushions, and turned on the TV. Soon you began playing Netflix as you waited. You felt the couch dip next to you. No one was home but you, and you hadn’t heard Izuku get back yet. This was the time she came out.

🥦You faced the girl that sat next to you with a smile. “Looking for Izuku?” She nodded. “He’s not home right now, but you’re welcome to stay with me until he gets back if you like.” She thought for a minute, running a hand through her long hair, then nodded again.

🥦You scrolled through various shows until she pointed at one that sparked her interest. You began playing ‘Supernatural’, watching her reaction to each of the Winchester Brother’s ghostly adventures. “What, it’s not accurate? There’s got to be something that’s right.” You teased.

🥦The girl laughed, the sound never reaching your ears, and shook her head, continuing the show anyway.

🥦A couple episodes later, you heard the sound of keys turning in the lock, signaling your fiancé’s return. You turned to warn the girl, but she was already gone. She liked Izuku, but she was shy; something you learned upon meeting her. “He wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, you know.” You told her in a low voice as Izuku stepped into the house.

🥦He gave you a smile. “Hey, sorry for being gone so long,” he held up a plastic bag full of sweets. “They gave this to me as a thank you for helping them, so now we have even more marathon snacks.” Setting the bag on the counter, he wrapped his arms around you, giving you a firm, loving kiss to your forehead.

🥦”It’s fine, Izu. You weren’t gone that long. I had plenty of company.” You returned the hug, your last statement directed to the girl who was now peeking in from the doorway.

🥦The movie marathon was a blast. You nerded out, quoting almost every line from every movie you watched that night. The girl warmed up to Izuku, you noticed, as she sat on the floor in front of him almost as if she were nervous to sit next to him.

🥦”You can sit next to him, kid. He won’t mind.” You told her. Both pairs of eyes snapped up at your speech.

🥦Izuku looked around to see if there were any unknown guests, turning back to you when he saw none. “Uh, Y/N?”

🥦You ignored him and continued. “He’ll be nervous at first, but he’ll warm up to you. Go ahead. You were in this house long before we came here.”

🥦Izuku screeched like a banshee when he felt the couch sink next to him. Like he was a cartoon, he jumped into your arms, clutching you like he was afraid to lose you. The poor panicked boy didn’t know what to do.

🥦So, you began explaining all that you knew about your abilities, or extra quirk as he said. The girl never left, quite amused by the interaction. Izuku never really calmed down. Sure he’s prepared for it in his journals, but he never thought there would be a day.

🥦”I told you ‘I see dead people’.”

🥦”Y-yeah, I guess you did."

#bnha bakugo katsuki #bnha dabi #bnha midoriya #midoriya x reader #bakugo x reader #dabi x reader #bnha x gender neutral reader #bnha #midoriya izuku #bakugo katsuki #dabi #bnha scenarios #bnha headcanons #bnha au #supernatural #bakugo smut #dabi smut #midoriya smut

[yutaya]

Iron Fist Week Day 7: minor character/missing scene

Albert is a man. A man... with a van.

He's proud of his van. Sure it was a bitch and a half to get certified and sometimes trying to drive three freaking blocks in this city when he's having a bad enough day can threaten to put his blood pressure through the roof, but he's ground out an honest living for himself with it. That's no mean feat, in this neighborhood.

Plus, Al likes his job. It involves a lot of visiting every nook and cranny of the area, meeting loads of people at varying levels of talkative - it's a job that requires someone personable, and Al doesn't think it's too immodest to say that he fits the bill.

Staring down a fully loaded armoire, though, Al can admit to himself that there are times he's less fond of this job than others.

By the time he's got the thing down on the sidewalk, doors and drawers bound shut and with an initial layer of wrapping to protect it from pedestrian traffic while he sets up the loader, Al has mentally added two upticks to his pain-in-the-ass fee.

"Woah, can I help you with that?"

Al pauses in his transferring long enough to take a look at who's spoken. It's a white guy, 20s, a little scruffy but looks comfortable, and, most importantly, seems genuine.

Al smiles at him. "I appreciate the offer, but these need to be moved in a specific way to prevent scuffing."

"Oh." Al goes back to loading the armoire. "...Would you show me?" Al pauses again. Looks back at the guy. "I'm Danny, by the way," he adds, and smiles beatifically.

Al blinks up at the sky. Had the sun shone more brightly for a second, there? He turns back to wrapping the furniture with blankets and bungee cords. "You need to move a lot of furniture, Danny?" he asks while he works. Engaging in friendly conversation with strangers is second nature to him, at this point.

Danny, who has the courtesy to remain standing out on the street behind the van as they talk, bounces a little as he replies. "Yes, actually! My girlfriend and I have been redoing her apartment."

"Wow, big project. Hey, if you guys need stuff moved around, I've got you covered. Back and forth from the storage unit, delivering your new stuff from the store, bringing your old stuff wherever it's going... My rates are fair and, as you can see, I'd actually take care of your things." He pats the carefully cushioned furniture from his current job in indication.

Danny laughs a little, looking at it. "At least that isn't a piano, right?"

"Hey man, pianos have wheels. I can walk them right up the ramp."

Danny eyes the ramp Al uses with the handtrucks. "Isn't it too skinny?"

Al laughs again. "What kind of piano are you picturing, a grand?" As if anyone who owned one of those would be hiring Al to move it. As if anyone who owned one of those would be living in this area at all.

Danny shrugs, unbothered. "I haven't seen one since I was a kid. Maybe it seemed bigger back then." A beat passes, and then Danny continues talking, the oversharing sort of babble symptomatic of the sleep-deprived. "Anyway, we'll definitely call you for help with our stuff. And you can show me all the right ways to handle everything! I'm probably going to be doing a lot of rearranging furniture and stuff since Colleen is out at Bayard all the time now; she keeps talking about helping the community during the daytime - Colleen's my girlfriend, she's the best - and, I mean, she's right, of course, plus, we just got back to the city and I am not used to not having to do something -" he cuts himself off, lighting up. "Hey, could I get a job with you?"

Al startles. He can usually recognize when someone's coming at that angle. Granted, they usually don't seem to stumble into it by mistake.

"The shop down the street is hiring," he offers. "On the corner."

"Thanks! I'd like to work for this business, though."

Al pauses. Revaluates "Danny". There are only so many reasons someone would be looking for a moving job specifically, and in this neighborhood, the most likely scenario is one that Al has been very carefully steering clear of for 30 years.

"I appreciate the interest," he repeats cautiously, "but we're a small business. I'm afraid we don't really have the means to hire right now." It's a bit of a risk, revealing a vulnerability like that. Luckily, Albert is overstating it a bit; it won't be that easy for any of the triads to put financial pressure on him, and, well. He's stubborn. He swore a long time ago that he wouldn't go there.

"Oh, that's not a problem!" Danny says brightly. "You wouldn't need to pay me. I'm more looking for the experience, you know? I've never had a normal job, and Colleen thinks it'll be good for us to start over."

The alarm bell clanging in Al's head rises to a shriek, then falters. If this is a ploy, it is astoundingly poorly executed. If this guy is in with any sort of organized crime, he can't be more than a fledgling recruit. Al feels a moral obligation to try and steer him better, even if his self preservation instincts disagree.

"Look," Al says, watching Danny's face carefully. "I'm running an honest business, here. I'm not interested in having our name attached to anything. And, if I could offer you a word of advice?" Danny, who mostly just looks confused, nods. "Don't go saying that stuff about working for free. Depending who hears it, that's a good way to end up either severely taken advantage of, or in a coffin. Anyone you might be trying that hard to get a resource for won't be happy about you overplaying your hand."

Danny still looks confused. Al mimes swinging a hatchet. Danny's eyes go wide with clarity.

"I'm not with the triads," he says disconcertingly earnestly. "I'm the Iron Fist. I'm sworn to defend the city from people like them."

...Ok.

Well, at least this is an interesting conversation.

"If you're not with the triads, why do you want this job?"

"I guess I'm looking for something new. For fifteen years, I had one purpose. Now, it's done. Now, I need to build a new life, and..." His voice dips in a certain way with the next words, a way that makes Al's stomach sink with the familiarity of it. "...keep a promise to a friend."

Al looks at Danny, a pit in his stomach and memories in his heart. Resignation settles underneath his skin.

"You have a résumé?" he asks. At least Danny doesn't seem inclined to just throw things around, like some other shipping companies that Al could name. Royal Al Moving provides quality for its clients, thank you very much.

"I don't think so. What is that, equipment? I could buy some."

Al stares at him. He'd been expecting either an agreement to email or bring by a copy later, or a conversation along the lines of 'do I really need one?' followed by a verbal listing off of previous work or even just ability.

"Do you have any previous experience?" Al tries again. "Had any jobs before?"

"Yeah, I have," Danny says, and doesn't elaborate.

White people.

"What about ID?" Al asks, despite knowing full well he'll probably pretend not to notice if anything seems off about it.

Danny laughs a bit, seemingly unphased by his own complete lack of knowledge regarding ordinary job application/interview etiquette whatsoever. "Oh, I definitely have that. Had to fight really hard for it, too. It was almost all gone, but once everything got sorted out, we made, like, 10 new copies of everything." Danny pats around at his pockets, not appearing to notice Al's incredulous expression. "I don't have any of those with me right now, but... Ah ha!" He pulls something out triumphantly. "Business cards! I'm pretty sure my brother thought I was just going to destroy them, but my friend Jeri said it's important to always have one. It might have gone through the laundry, though, sorry."

Assuming this day can't get any weirder, like a fool, Al takes the card.

Even worn and slightly crumpled, the obnoxiously expensive quality of the original card is still clear. There's embossing and gold foil, for god's sake. The Rand Enterprises logo glints up at him almost mockingly even as the three dimensional lines of the border rise and fall under his thumb. Either seems unnecessary and frankly tone deaf for a Humanitarian Aid company, let alone both. Then again, maybe they reserve this version of the card for the executive level, those who hobnob among the elite, who need to make a certain type of impression on the too rich in order to convince them to donate well.

Because that's another thing this card reads, right there in plain English: a 9pt bold 'Daniel Rand', and under that, 'CEO'.

'What,' a little voice in Al's head wails semi-hysterically, 'the fuck?'

"Is this a joke?" Al asks out loud, vaguely surprised by how calm he sounds given the way the voice inside his head might be having a meltdown. "Am I on Candid Camera?"

But, no, wasn't he just thinking that this card is way too expensive - and thus definitely too expensive to be a prop?

"Hey, I know that one!" Danny Rand says cheerfully. "Joy and I used to watch it together!"

'Joy,' the voice in Al's head supplies. 'Joy Meachum.

'Well, at least this explains why he said he doesn't need money.

'Wait, why is he looking for a job in the first place? Is he not CEO? Did they kick him out or something? Did they disown him for wearing a hoodie with holes in it? Is that what he meant earlier when he said the thing he was doing before is over now?'

Al has never felt more rueful that he doesn't pay much attention to celebrity news.

"So," Al tries to find a way to word this that isn't 'have you been cut off or what?' "Why is Danny Rand looking for a job here?"

By "here", Al means a lot of things. This type of neighborhood, in general. Chinatown, out of all of them. At a low-wage position in a manual labor business with very little room for growth, if they're really getting into it.

"I like your name," Danny replies. It's far from the kind of answer that Al was expecting, but he finds himself unperturbed. Maybe he's hit a point where nothing is surprising anymore. "It reminds me of a friend. He was more of a Big Al than a Royal one, but I saw your logo and it seemed right."

-

(Al still pays Danny, because he refuses to be a shady business and because if he's finally getting around to setting up an employee system, he's needs to make it one that will work for anyone he might hire in the future, too. They won't all be Danny Rand. Danny keeps finding ways to immediately give it back, because he's literally a billionaire.)

#here it is like an entire week late #it took so long to write and i still kind of hate it but whatever #ironfistweek #iron fist #danny rand #fanfic #? #my stuff #the immortal iron fist #the internet is for fanfiction #colleen and misty's days still to come #they're just gonna be gifsets tho so~

[hanjisungz-remade]

love equation ☽ minho

✦ genre: friends to lovers au, college au, fluff, slight angst ✦ description: minho’s ideas were dangerous but of course, as his best friend, you went along with them all. this one, however, could be dangerous for you. specifically your heart ✦ pairings: lee minho x reader ✦ word count: 11.5k ✦ warnings: mild language, slightly suggestive at points ✦ a/n: i decided i wanted to get back into writing fics and here is my first fic in three years! i’m a little bit rusty but i hope you all like it ♡

i.

“Ta-da! All done.” You smiled, taking a step back to admire the work you’d done. Small picture frames littered the walls of your new bedroom, stereotypical fairy lights decorating the empty space around it. It wasn’t night just yet, but you were excited to be able to lay down and see a recreation of the night sky on your ceiling.

However, as soon as you stopped hanging everything up, a sharp pain shot through your back. A shockwave of small pricks traveling from your lower back to above your shoulder blades. Suddenly everything seemed too much, the pain making you lightheaded.

Turning on your heels, you slowly walked out to your living room, plopping down on the couch and bringing both of your hands to your back. As much as you tried to massage out the pain, there was only so much your own reach could do. 

Great, first day of college and you get hurt, you thought. 

Just as you were about to text your best friend, Minho, to see if he had gotten settled in, you heard a knock at your door. Before you could ask who it is, the person at the other side sighed, “Don’t keep me waiting all day!” Speak of the devil, you thought as you continued the assault on your taut muscles.

“Door’s open!” You shout, maybe too loud, at Minho, watching as he flung open the door and looked around the room, eyes settling on you wincing in pain.

“First of all, lock your door! You don’t know what kind of creep can just walk in.”

Before he could continue you interrupted, “Like you just did?”

Minho raised his eyebrows almost to his hairline, “You’re the one that let me in!” There’s a slight pause before he continued on, his face now shifted to one of concern, “What happened to you?”

Leaning back so your head rested on the wall behind you, you groaned again, “I was hanging up picture frames in my bedroom and I must have pulled a muscle.” You winced as you sat up, hands continuing to massage your lower back. “Or multiple muscles.” 

Sitting up caused you to get a full look at what Minho was wearing. A pair of black basketball shorts along with an old Metallica shirt that was a little too big on him settled on his frame. It was big enough to dip down in the front, showing his collarbones and the silver chain necklace that always hung around his neck. You knew these were his relaxed, “i-look-bad-but-i-don't-care” clothes, but why did he look so good?!

You found yourself staring at him and you tried to shake off the thoughts of finding your best friend that attractive but no one could deny that Lee Minho had always been one of the most attractive guys in your class.

Said man seemed to notice your eyes glazed over, because he suddenly appeared right in front of you, hand waving furiously across your face, “Hello? Earth to Y/N? Anyone in there?” He raised a hand, presumably to hit you on the head, but then quickly retracted it.

“Yeah, I’m here. Sorry I was just thinking about classes starting tomorrow.” You chuckled, wincing slightly as a shock ran up your back. Surely these thoughts would pass, they always did. 

Minho moved around to sit next to you, smiling as he bounced up and down on your couch. “I’m so excited! My first class is choreography 101 and I heard the instructor made dances for all the big pop stars!” He leaned into you, looking up at the empty space. “Think of it. Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Beyonce, I could be one of those people to make dances for them!” His arms outstretched before he whipped around to face you.

Suddenly you realized just how close you were, and you’ve been this close before but now you focused on how his eyes sparkled when he talked about the one thing he loved. You shook those thoughts away, seeing his bright smile and immediately countering with your own. 

“That sounds great, Min! I’m sure you’ll be one of the best choreographers in the world.” Again, you shook off the intense beating of your heart and forced yourself not to let your eyes wander down to Minho’s lips. No matter how much it tempted you, you would resist.

“You’re just saying that because you’re my best friend, you're required to say it.” He nudged your side, standing up and looking around once. “Your dorm is actually really cool, and you're lucky you don’t have a roommate.” Pausing, he looked at you, wiggling his eyebrows in a very mischievous and very Minho-like way. “You can bring guys over and not worry about thin walls.”

He knew you had never dated anyone before, much less had to worry about ‘thin walls’, yet he always used it tease you lightly. You had thought about dating before, but as you always countered back at him, you weren’t sure how it was supposed to work. Sure, people meet and they get together, but what happens after that? It was like some sort of mystery that you were way too skeptical to jump into.

“Maybe you’ll meet someone in your geeky science classes! You know, a cute chemist that can woo you with a love potion.” Minho waved his hand around as if he was holding a wand.

You rolled your eyes as his suggestion, yet the idea didn’t seem that bad. Maybe you could get your mind off of your newfound feelings for Minho (that were probably always there yet you refused to believe) and score yourself your first relationship.

“I guess that doesn’t sound that bad.” You said, standing up from the couch and stretching. The pain in your back had diminished somewhat, and you found yourself feeling somewhat liberated from the worries of freshman year.

“What are your classes tomorrow?” Minho backed up into the doorframe, waving hello to some of the people passing by.

“Uh, Chemistry Lab and English Lit.” You replied.

“Are we still going to have our monthly movie nights?” His voice sounded hopeful and you smiled gently at him. 

You walked up to him in the doorway, reaching one hand up and ruffling his already tousled hair. “Of course, Min. You’re only a building away now so we can watch even more movies.”

“Awesome, I can’t wait.” Minho leaned forward, moving one hand from the doorframe and resting his hand on your head, repeating the same motion you did to him.

He ran away laughing before you could do anything about it, but you got one good, “asshole!” in before he rounded the corner, out of your sight and hopefully out of your mind.

ii.

Walking into your first class of your new college life was nerve wracking, to say the least, and you hadn’t started off the day too well either. First, you woke up to a loud argument from the room next to you. It’s the first day and there’s already yelling?! Then, you almost forgot your student ID, effectively locking you out of the classroom buildings. And finally, the icing on the cake, you almost burst into a class in the middle of a test because you thought it was yours and you knew you would be dreaming about that horrifically embarrassing moment for years to come.

Luckily, none of that happened, and you passed through your English Lit class with just a large book and thick packet the teacher deemed as the syllabus. Next was Chemistry and as you looked around the room, there were only two empty seats. One of them being right in front of the teacher’s desk and the other being next to a guy already messing with the beakers sat in front of each table. Since it was your very first day of class, you decided against sitting right in front of the teacher, opting to slowly approach the man that was really engrossed in whatever he was doing.

“Hello?” You asked, speaking loud enough to be heard amongst the pre-class chatter throughout the room. “Can I sit here?”

When he turned around, you took notice of his soft brown eyes. He seemed surprised, mouth hung open as he looked to the beaker in his hand and then at the empty seat next to you.

“Oh, yeah! Of course.” He answered, sliding over slightly to make room for you. “My name is Chan.”

“Nice to meet you, my name is Y/N.” You took out a pen, eyes drifting to his hands holding the beaker. Chan went back to looking at it suspiciously, eyebrows furrowed in a tight line. “Um, can I ask what you’re doing?” You asked. You didn’t know where this confidence came from, you would normally never interact with classmates unless instructed to, but you already found yourself somewhat comfortable around Chan.

He chuckled, and your eyes were drawn to his big smile and the one dimple poking at his right cheek. “I was just checking to make sure there wasn’t any extra residue from past classes left in here. I wouldn’t want any extra cesium or germane left in here and then we all go boom!”

You were impressed by his knowledge, nodding your head and waiting for class to start. Tapping your pen, you looked around at the other students. They all seemed engulfed in the beakers in front of them. Some turned on the burners while others went to the front where small bags were arranged in groups.

“Are we supposed to be starting an experiment?” You looked around the room again, and then to the paper at the front of your desk. Picking it up, you noticed Chan coming closer to you, head peering over at the paper.

“Pick up the bags of chemicals on the table up front.” Chan read aloud, “Then test each chemical, recording your findings on each one. This assignment is a team assignment. Work with your partner next to you. Good luck!”

Immediately he went to grab the bags and you couldn’t help but look him up and down. His shoulders were very wide, the hint of two earrings poking out from behind his curly hair and there were three rings all on his right hand. You weren’t sure why you were checking him out this much, but he held a dorky and interesting aura that made you want to find out more.

As he was walking back, he held up the bags, all with various different colors, and said in an all too cheery but very sweet voice, “Ready to do this, partner?”

You mimicked his smile, “Let’s go, partner.”

iii.

After your second chemistry class, Chan had asked for your number and feeling that this was an opportunity to try and banish your feelings for Minho and possibly get yourself your first boyfriend, you agreed. Honestly you weren’t sure if Chan thought of you in the same way, but the image of his smile clouded your judgement so you agreed. 

For the past two days you had been texting him and asking about the countless textbook pages that you were assigned as homework. Of course no one in the class wanted to do them, but you figured having someone to motivate you by saying he’s already finished the pages could be of some help.

Now it was Saturday and you could feel the relaxation taking over as you got back from the library, checking out books on the various chemical reactions that water could have to prepare for a quiz next week. As soon as you walked through your door you ran into your room, changing into a soft baggy shirt and shorts. The weather hadn’t changed from warm to cold yet, so you knew you had a few more weeks until you could dodge shaving for a day or two in favor of wearing jeans.

You’re snapped back to reality as you heard someone knock on the door, immediately remembering that this was your monthly movie night with Minho. You two had been doing this since the beginning of high school and very rarely had you missed a month, and those had been because of severe stomach flu and a date Minho had that he swore he couldn’t pass up even though they broke up two weeks later.

You ran to the door after the knocking turned into more of a drum beat. “Okay, okay I’m coming. Calm your ass.” 

“I wasn’t the one that said 5 PM on the dot. You’re the one that’s late.” Minho walked through the door with a stack of movies in his arms and all of a sudden you were reminded of your annoying feelings for this man.

“I figured we could start with one or two and if it’s too late we could hit the hay and leave the rest here for next month.” He turned around and you noticed the small dark bags under his eyes. You hadn’t texted him much if at all this week, too focused on the start of all your classes this semester but you knew he must be exhausted from all the dance classes he took. It was his major but there was only so much your legs could move before they gave out.

“You look tired.” You remarked, walking over to the couch and motioning for him to sit next to you.

He obliged, sitting down with a thump and resting his head just as you had done the weekend before. “I practiced late last night finishing this short dance piece for class. It’s nothing,” Minho picked his head up and shot you a smile, “I’ll be fine.”

You eyed him suspiciously, not fully believing him, but instead nodding. “Okay.” Then you turned your head to the stack of movies, flipping through them and settling on a scary one you didn’t think you had seen before. “I haven’t seen this one, have you?” Minho shook his head. “Great, let’s start.”

You stood up to put the movie in the DVD player before settling back onto the couch in the most comfortable position. Your feet were resting in Minho’s lap, his hands softly tapping a beat onto your shins. You noticed he was wearing a similar outfit to the last time you saw him, this time with a brightly tie dyed Nirvana shirt. 

Before your mind could wander, you heard the loud screams from the screen and you snapped your attention back to the movie. You didn’t want to think about how much you wanted to be wrapped in his arms or how much you craved his fingers dancing down your arms or face before he kissed you. You didn’t want to think about it, so you forced yourself to watch the already cheesy thrasher movie playing in front of you.

You noticed Minho’s hands would squeeze your leg when a jumpscare popped up, the slight pressure causing you to look up at him. His eyes were squinted, lips set in a straight line as he cocked his head to the side. It seemed he thought this movie was bad, and you definitely couldn't disagree with that sentiment.

Suddenly Minho leaned forward and paused the movie, hand flinging up towards the screen. “Look at that! This relationship is not realistic.” You shrugged, not knowing exactly what a realistic relationship would look like, yet letting him go on. “It’s so obvious that the guy is gonna die and she’s going to be the only one left at the end.” Something close to a scowl crept up on his face.

“I agree this movie is trash, but I want to see the end.” You sat up and shrugged again. “Besides, I don’t know what a realistic relationship looks like so I thought they looked cute.” You chuckled, turning around when you heard your phone beep. 

It was Chan, texting you a joke about the chemicals you were learning about and you found yourself laughing softly at it. Minho leaned forward, peering over your shoulder, a sound of surprise coming from him as he sat back, “Did you find someone? He better be good if he’s interrupting our monthly movie night.” His voice sounded hopeful, yet you thought there was a hint of disappointment. Maybe that was just your own brain hoping, so you brushed past it. 

“I don’t know, maybe? His name is Chan and he’s my lab partner for chemistry.” You looked up from your phone, a small frown on your face. “You know I’m not good with relationships, Min. I’m worried I’ll mess something up.”

Minho nodded along, one side of his mouth tilted up as if he was deep in thought. “I have an idea.” He finally spit out after sitting there for a minute.

Normally when Minho said he had an idea, you were terrified, to say the least, since those ideas usually consisted of something dangerous or potentially trouble-causing. But of course, you were his best friend, so you almost always went along with whatever plan he had. You signaled for him to say it, but you were not expecting what came out of his mouth.

“Well, you’ve never been in a relationship. And I don’t want inexperience to get in between you and a good guy, so why don’t I show you how you should be treated in a relationship?” His tone was nonchalant but you saw a nervousness behind his eyes. And at that moment you knew that this idea of his was dangerous. It was dangerous for your heart.

Yet you still nodded. What could go wrong? You thought as you clarified, “so you mean like pretending to date?”

Minho shrugged, “I guess? I didn’t think past this point.” He sat up, grabbing both of your hands. He was warm, and the thought of those hands cupping your face made your heart speed up. “I want you to have some experience before you find someone. I don’t want you to be an awkward mess.” He chuckled and you found yourself relaxing and laughing back. “I just thought we could do some couple things, I could show you the ropes, and when you feel like you're ready, you can go after this Chan guy with all the knowledge you gained from me. It’s like best friends with romantic benefits.”

The thought of experiencing anything close to romantic with Minho made your heart almost explode out of your chest, yet you thought that maybe if you did this it would somehow satisfy your feelings for him and you could move on.

So you nodded again. “Sure,” you said, smiling, “let’s do it.”

“Cool. Now come here.” Minho sat back, motioning for you to come closer so you did. Your knees moved against the plush couch and as soon as you were close enough, Minho’s arm wrapped around your shoulders. You let out a soft sound of surprise as your head was met with his chest.

You had cuddled with Minho before, after a sad movie when you just needed a shoulder to cry on, after getting accepted to college and you fell asleep on him that night talking about how excited you were to be going to the same school. 

But this was different. This was Minho moving one hand to start the movie again. This was Minho resting one hand on your arm, fingers going back to tapping a soft rhythm. This was Minho and his scent invading your nose. This was your best friend softly holding you as you relaxed into his touch.

“I know it’s trash but how about we have a bad movie night?” He didn’t need to raise his voice much, your ear pressed against his chest. You could practically hear the rumble in his chest as he spoke. You had expected it to become awkward, but after a breath, you relaxed into his arms, one of your own hesitantly resting on his stomach.

“Is this right?” You asked, wanting to get as much information as you could. If this was supposed to be a learning experience you were going to make the most of it.

Minho chuckled and you felt the vibrations through your whole body. “Yea, that’s good, but you can move your head to wherever you feel comfortable.”

Your back was starting to ache from this position, so you listened to Minho’s words, adjusting yourself so that your forehead was against his neck. Your hand that was previously on his stomach went to wrap around his torso. 

On an instinct that only comes with a lot of experience, Minho’s hand went to your back, his palm moving slowly up and down your spine. You felt a shiver run through you which made no sense because Minho was really warm and that warmth spread from head to toe.

You thought about just how many people Minho had done this with. You knew just how many significant others he’d had, and the thought of anyone else doing this with him stung just a little bit.

It also stung to know that eventually you would go back to best friends and he would likely forget this ever happened. As much as you wanted to push back the feelings, you felt a small spark in your stomach and you knew if you let this go on for a while it would only cause you pain.

Minho must have sensed your tense shoulders because the hand that was on your back moved to your hair. His fingertips danced across your scalp. “You okay Y/N?” His voice was soft, head tilting down and you could feel his lips inches away from your forehead. The way he said your voice could only be described as delicate. It was a soft whisper said into thin air and if you hadn’t been pressed right up against him you were sure you wouldn't have heard it.

“Yeah, I’m okay, just cold.” Your voice mimicked his own, your breath fanning out against his shirt. Though you knew it would hurt, you decided that you would throw caution into the wind and just enjoy the now.

As you continued on with the movie, you took notice of Minho’s hand. One rested on the side of the couch, ready to turn off the movie if it got too bad, while the other alternated from resting on your arm to rubbing soothing circles into your back.

Everything overwhelmed your senses. His hand felt soft on your back, touching you as if you were porcelain. His shirt smelled of laundry detergent but with your nose pressed into his neck you caught a scent that was obviously very Minho. You couldn’t put your finger on it particularly, but it was a smell that you didn't think you could ever identify except by one name, Minho. His heart thumped against your ear, and it reminded you of just how real this was and how his heartbeat was oddly fast.

A sense of comfort washed over you, and you realized you were subconsciously drawing circles into Minho’s stomach with your right hand. His shirt was soft and you had the overwhelming urge to slip under his shirt and find out if his skin was just as plush.

Suddenly all of the exhaustion you had pushed off from the week caught up to you. Your eyelids drooped down halfway, and you felt Minho move his head, peering down at you. “Go to sleep, sweetheart.” He chuckled.

He had called you countless nicknames before, some jokingly vulgar and others only someone who you were close with could use, but sweetheart was different. It made you smile and oblige his words, letting yourself fall into a slumber with a smile stuck on your face.

iv.

A soft swaying woke you from your dream. You hadn’t even remembered exactly what the dream was about, but you knew that Minho was there and you thought it must have been a good thing you didn’t remember.

Air sweeped below you and you realized that you weren’t standing nor sitting, you were being carried, albeit very carefully. You felt the tentative steps of the person carrying you and you could only assume it was Minho. 

His arms were holding you gently, so much so that you could barely feel his fingers touching your shoulders and legs. You knew he was strong, but he moved with such light steps that it seemed as though he had no trouble in transporting you to your bedroom.

It was only another moment before you felt your body on the mattress and you decided to act as if you were still sleeping. You let your body naturally curl onto your side and it was then you remembered that it was probably late. You weren’t sure how long you slept but it was still too late for Minho to walk to his dorm. 

You thought about waking up and asking him if he wanted to sleep on the couch or with you, but you were stopped by the feeling of a warm body pulling you softly against him. When your back hit something hard, you almost gave yourself away, gasping as an arm settled onto your waist.

This wasn’t the first time you found yourself in this position with Minho. Hell, you had known each other for nearly 10 years of your life, there wasn’t much you had kept private from Minho and vice versa. But this part, this vulnerable and far too touch deprived side of you, had never been shown to anyone and it was terrifying.

The tendrils of sleep were just about to overcome you when you remembered something that made your stomach flip and your heart start racing. Minho didn’t know you were awake. Why would he do these things if he knew you wouldn’t know? 

Surely it was for when you woke up. Surely it wasn’t your mind running a mile a minute. You couldn't help but hold a small bit of hope, however, as you finally drifted off into sleep.

v. 

It had been three days since your agreement with Minho and you were met with radio silence. It’s not like you’re dating you thought to yourself as you walked back to your dorm from your final lecture of the day.

However as soon as you set your books down, your phone rang, the familiar contact name of ‘my favorite asshole’ popping up on the screen. It had been Minho who had changed his contact name, claiming it was “way too basic for your best friend.”

“Hey, what’s up?” You tried not to sound too upset at the lack of communication but you knew Minho like the back of your hand and you also knew that Minho knew you like the back of his hand.

“Practicing for an exam coming up next week.” His voice echoed and you were about to try and distract him with questions but he beat you to it. “Are you okay? You sound weird.”

“I’m just tired as fuck. Two tests and a lab experiment has been kicking my ass.” You replied and you weren’t lying, your back was starting to ache again from the constant moving around in Chemistry and you could feel a headache coming on.

There was a pause on the other line as Minho seemed to contemplate something. “Do you just wanna rest then?”

“I don’t know, I have some homework I should finish before I even think about a nap.” As soon as you replied, you followed up with a very curious, “Why? What’s up?”

Minho’s voice quieted for the moment, like someone was next to him and he didn’t want them to hear what he was saying. “I was just wondering if you wanted to come over and watch me practice. It’s been a while since we hung out and I miss my best friend.” There it was, best friend. It's exactly what you were, except you couldn’t help but feel a small pang in your chest. His voice dropped even quieter this time. “But you have to be sneaky, my dance teacher is strict about not letting dance students in the practice rooms.”

“Yea, sure. That sounds fun.” You grabbed your books, thinking you could get some work in. “I miss my best friend too.” You smiled. “Even if you’re an asshole sometimes.”

The giggle on the other side of the phone caused you to feel that warmth that you did three days ago. “But I’m you’re favorite asshole.” Minho countered.

He hung up before you could reply, so you gathered your things and headed to the dance studio.

The walk to the studio didn’t take long, in fact it was only two buildings over, so you got there rather quickly. After texting Minho you were there, you heard the door unlock and a fluffy haired Minho poke his head out.

“Come on in.” He held the door open for you, the hand that wasn’t gripped onto the door coming to rest on your lower back. It was surprising but you willed yourself not to get too taken aback. This was all part of the agreement. 

It felt nice to be treated like that, however. How am I gonna find someone like Minho after this deal is over? You thought to yourself as said man steered you towards his practice room. The hand on your back was light but you definitely felt his presence there. His voice could be heard over the multitude of ‘what if’s flying around your head, but you had no idea what he was saying.

“You’re not listening to me.” He chuckled and opened the door for you, stepping in behind you while you looked around. The floor was shiny, all leading up to mirrors on three of the walls. It was weird seeing yourself from all different angles and you had to admit you looked tired.

“To be fair I never listen to you.” You countered against him, a smirk playing on your face as you walked towards the middle of the room. Your appearance stuck out in each of the mirror walls you looked at. There were deep bags under your eyes and you noticed a sense of fatigue hiding behind them. 

“I look like shit.” You laughed, but you weren’t joking. Classes were draining and you could barely recognize yourself in the mirror.

“You look fine, sweetheart.” Minho laughed breathy and exhausted.

You saw Minho in the mirror walk up behind you, his hands rested on your shoulders. Instead of looking him in the eyes through the mirror, you opted to stare at his hands. His fingers dug into your shoulders, thumbs pressing just between your shoulder blades and an immense feeling of relief shot through you.

“Does that help?” He asked, fingers working deeper into your muscles.

It was as if all the stress and fatigue was slowly being lifted off of you as Minho’s hands worked magic. Instead of answering his question, you let out a soft sign followed by a groan, hoping that was an acceptable answer.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Minho laughed and continued like that for a minute. Small groans and sighs of relief were the only thing echoing off the walls. Although it had been more than a minute, it felt like just one second as he slowly stopped massaging you. “I don’t want to overdo it. You should sit down.” He motioned over to the bench in the corner.

As you walked over you took out your Chemistry textbook, “I’m gonna just get some reading done if you don’t mind.”

“Of course. Just having you here makes me feel better.” Minho smiled at you through the mirror. “I hope the music won’t distract you though.”

You shook your head, smiling back at the man in front of you. “No, I should be fine. Go ahead and practice.”

As soon as he turned to the audio machine, busy looking through the computer to find the song, you observed his outfit. He was wearing the baggy black sweatpants tucked into sneakers. Then you noticed his shirt. He was wearing a tank top, the straps resting on his shoulders but were so thin they threatened to slip off.

Music blasted through the studio and you recognized the smooth beats that washed over you. Soft drums hit your ears and you couldn't help but nod your head along as you read your textbook. It was only ten more pages you had to read and then you could curl up in bed and sleep.

You tried to finish reading the page on various chemical reactions but your temptation got the better of you and snuck a glance up at Minho and wow. The dance seemed to edge on the sensual side and you were surprised they weren’t assigned a partner for this. His hips rocked perfectly to the rhythm and you didn’t dare look at his eyes. You had seen him dance before and the look in his eyes when he danced could make any person melt from the sheer passion and determination.

You weren't sure exactly when he had gotten so muscular but you assumed him dedicating his life to dancing helped build them. He wasn’t ripped, per say, but he had just the right amount of muscle to prevent you from teasing him with string bean comments. Not to mention his thighs. The majority of his power resided in his thighs and you knew if you kept thinking about him you would dig yourself a deeper hole.

Somewhere in the trenches of you damn near drooling over Minho, you were startled by the door to the practice room being flung open. A woman dressed in workout shorts and a baggy crop top walks in, eyes following Minho’s movements before landing on you sitting in the far corner of the room.

“I thought I told you only dance students in this building.” The woman raised her voice over the music before finally going and turning it off. “Who is this?” She pointed towards you and you ducked your eyes down in embarrassment.

Minho paused for a moment, thinking of what to say before he finally blurts out, “They’re my significant other.” If you had been eating or drinking anything you’re sure you would have choked, but you tried to keep your composure as he continued, “They were going to work on homework but the library was closed and I offered to let them work here. I’m sorry Mrs. Lee.”

The dance teacher looked between you and Minho, and you decided to try and help the situation. “I’m so sorry. Don’t blame Minho, blame me. I wanted to spend some time with him but we were both busy with homework and I figured this would work. Again, I’m sorry. I won’t come back.” Your voice remained steady as you tried to play into the perception that you and Minho were actually dating. Although with the feelings blooming in you recently it wasn’t hard to act as though you wanted to spend time with him.

A loud sigh escaped her, her face softening slightly. “Ah, young love. I was there once.” You felt your face heat up. “Minho,” she directed her attention towards him, leaving you to observe, “You’re one of the best students in this class. Perhaps I can let this pass, as long as your choreography assignment is up to my expectations.”

“It is!” You smiled up at Mrs. Lee. “I haven’t seen it all but he’s one of the best dancers I know and you won’t be disappointed.” 

She nodded curtly, turning around on her heels and making a swift exit.

As soon as she left, you felt Minho’s eyes on you. You avoided it for as long as you could before you heard Minho say your name. “Yeah?” You replied, looking up at him.

“I hope you're okay with me saying that to Mrs. Lee. If you want I can go tell her we aren’t-”

“No!” You cut him off maybe too quickly. “I mean, I don’t mind it. It’s helping me get experience isn’t it? Being introduced as someone’s significant other.” You didn’t add how much hearing it come from Minho’s mouth made a million sparklers go off in your stomach, nor did you add that now you’ve heard him say it, you never wanted him to stop saying it.

“Okay.” Was all Minho said before motioning towards the computer, the song he was dancing too that was paused by Mrs. Lee waiting to be started again. “I’m gonna practice again.”

You nodded. “Of course. I’m going to try and finish this chapter and then I might head home and hit the hay early.” As you looked into his eyes, you saw the deep bags that mirrored your own. “You should get some sleep too, Min. You look exhausted.”

Minho hesitated, shrugging his shoulders slowly. You could almost see his muscles working overtime just to keep him upright. “I should be fine, sweetheart. Don't worry about me.” He turned around so you could no longer see his face, not even in the mirror in front of you. “Maybe you should just head out and get some sleep. I don't want you to fall asleep in Chemistry tomorrow.”

Confusion flashed across your features as you stood up. You put your textbook in your bag, walking up to Minho and resting your hand on his shoulder. “No.” You spoke sternly, set on making him listen to you. “I refuse to leave unless you’re leaving with me. I don’t like seeing you like this, Min. It hurts me as much as it hurts you.”

Minho knew you like the back of his hand, and he knew you were firm in your statement. You really wouldn't leave until he did. A long sigh escaped his lips, air cascading into the already stuffy dance room.

Instinctively, your other hand raised to his other shoulder, pulling him closer to you. Minho’s muscles relaxed as he loosely wrapped his arms around your waist. His thumbs pressed lightly into your spine and that familiar wave of electricity surged from your head to your toes. 

Hot breath fanned across your neck as Minho nuzzled his head there. It was weird having someone that close to you and it reminded you of just how vulnerable you were. You ran your fingers around his neck to the nape of his head, playing with the small hairs that tickled you.

Sure, you had hugged Minho before, but nothing like this. This was holding someone in one of their darkest moments. This was fearing to speak in fear of reality coming crashing back to you. This was letting your existence speak for itself. This was your soul latching itself onto Minho’s. This was the moment you finally had to admit to yourself. 

I am hopelessly and madly in love with you, Lee Minho. 

After what felt like an eternity you separated yourself from him, but only enough to be able to see his face. “How about we go back to my room and sleep?” You weren’t sure what prompted you to ask that, but right now you didn’t want to be alone.

The corners of Minho’s mouth drooped as he nodded his head yes. In the span of ten minutes he had lost all his energy and you could tell he had been living off energy drinks and coffee. You knew it was hard for you, but you couldn’t imagine what it was like for Minho. Classes where you danced for an hour straight with no breaks, countless hours in the practice rooms forcing your limbs to move in this exact pattern or your whole assignment was ruined. You hated seeing him like this and hoped he would be better at taking care of himself eventually.

“Good. You can worry about your assignment tomorrow, but you need sleep, Min.” You smoothed one side of his messy hair down, heart clenching when Minho leans his head into your hand.

“Okay. Let’s go.” Minho trudged over to the computer, turning it off and unplugging his phone from the USB port. He grabbed his bag off the floor and looked to you sleepily. A hand was extended towards you and you had held hands with Minho before, but this, as did everything else that had happened recently, made you even more vulnerable.

Yet you reached out, your palm meeting Minho’s and your fingers locking together like a zipper. You hadn’t thought about just how well your hands fit with his until a silence washed over you and you were left to your own devices. Maybe your hands were always meant to find each other. Maybe this was fate saying that if the pieces fit together, it was meant to be.

The walk to your room was shrouded in silence, but you couldn’t say that you minded it. There wasn't always a need for words between you and Minho. It was like your minds connected in a way that you've never experienced with anyone else. You always joked you should never play poker together because you could tell when he was lying.

Minho held you close, except when you walked up to your dorm building, when he detached your hand from his and moved to open the door for you. Even now he was treating you like royalty. A small “thank you” left your lips as you entered the chilly front room.

You waited for Minho to walk through the door before you silently grasped his hand again, leading him towards the elevator doors. The woman at the desk watched you two, “You are just the cutest couple!” She whispered to you.

The pang in your chest was back, but you put on a smile and replied. “Thank you so much.”

In the elevator, Minho leaned more into your side. His eyes were open, but you knew he wasn’t fully coherent. He looked drained of all energy and you were scared that you might have to carry him to your room.

“Just a little bit more Min and you can sleep.” You ran your thumb over his hand lightly, smiling when Minho just tightened the grip he had.

As soon as you were in front of your room, you used the hand that wasn’t interlocked with Minho’s to get your keys out of your pocket, unlocking the door and stepping inside. You locked the door behind you, setting the keys on the table next to the door and throwing your bag in front of the couch. 

You pried your hand from Minho’s only to be met with a sound of disapproval. Pulling the bag off of Minho’s shoulder, you gave him his wish and reconnected your hands, leading him to your room. 

It was dark outside, so you turned on the lamp beside your bed, watching as Minho stripped himself of his shirt and looked up at you from beneath his eyelashes. “Did you happen to save any of the clothes I've left at your house back home?”

Digging through your drawer, you're met with a sound of surprise because you knew you kept some of the clothes he’s left over the years, but you didn’t know you had packed them and brought them here when you came to college. You pulled out a pair of shorts that looked like his, holding them up, “Are these okay?”

Minho nods, grabbing the shorts and walking over to the other side of the bed. He doesn't bother telling you to turn around, you're best friends, you've almost seen worse from him.

You didn't think anything of it when he immediately striped himself of his sweatpants, quickly slipping on the pants that were a little bit loose but you knew he was going to fall asleep in a snap so you didn't say anything. You also didn't think anything of it when you pulled out sleep clothes for yourself and began to strip as well. The air conditioning in your room was on full blast and you shivered slightly at the cold air against your skin. You could feel the goosebumps on your skin as you pulled your shirt and pants on, turning around to face the bed once more.

The covers were already pulled back and Minho was sitting up in your bed. His hands were resting on his stomach, fingers interlaced and thumbs tapping another rhythm. He always had that habit, always getting yelled at by teachers for tapping on the desks during tests, always having music in his head that no one else could hear.

You took a moment to admire him before smiling at him, Minho immediately mirroring that smile back to you. He opened his arms, waving both of them as if to beckon you towards him. And it always worked, you knew it would always work because you couldn’t just say no to his tired face and hopeful grin.

Climbing into bed, you moved closer to Minho, hands instinctively going around his waist. It was as if whatever deity was up above heard your thoughts, because now there was no fabric barrier between you and Minho’s torso. Your thumb pressed lightly into his side, massaging circles into whatever skin you could reach.

One of Minho’s hands went to your back and the other one rested on your arm. Sleep immediately started to creep up on you but you snapped out of it when you heard Minho utter a soft apology to you.

You sat up, body feeling cold after moving away from him. “What are you sorry for?” You asked, one of your hands not moving from rubbing circles into his side.

There was a heavy silence in the room and you were scared of what would come next. What if he wants to stop this, whatever this is. What if something is wrong? 

“I’m sorry I haven't been able to treat you how you should be treated, I just wanted to show you what it was like to be treated right.” Minho’s eyes bore into your own and although you saw fatigue, you also saw a sense of sadness.

“Don’t apologize, Min. Everything you do tells me how I should be treated. You don’t have to be there for me 24/7 for me to know you are an amazing person.” You leaned forward, moving your hands to cup his cheeks. They were cold and you felt goosebumps rise on your arms. Your thumbs moved across his cheekbones and you watched as Minho closed his eyes. “Anyone would be lucky to have you as their boyfriend.”

You pulled the covers up, grabbing Minho by the shoulders and urging him to move down. “I know that once you get some sleep, you’ll feel better in the morning, okay?” You didn’t wait for him to confirm your statement and that was the last you saw of his face, because you opted for cuddling closer to him. The hand that was previously on his waist returned, your head finding purchase as it did before.

Your nose pressed into the junction of his shoulder and neck, the scent that could only be described by the name Minho much stronger now that there wasn’t any fabric in the way. “I like you just the way you are. And what you are is the best best friend I could ever ask for.”

The last thing you remember before sleep overcame you was a soft pressure on your forehead in what you could only guess was Minho’s lips, followed by him whispering. “Goodnight sweetheart.”

vi. 

Since that night two weeks ago, Minho had taken to sleeping over every night.

Not that you were complaining, no, you could never complain about having your best friend and newly discovered crush (was it just a crush at this point, though?) holding you like you were fine china every night. In fact, you would rather have him there with you as opposed to waking up every morning to cold air and an empty kitchen.

Now, waking up to an empty bed was unusual. So when you opened your eyes and found your arms clutching empty air you were confused.

Checking your clock on the bedside table you saw you had an hour until Chemistry (getting the email yesterday that your English Lit class was canceled for today was a blessing) and while you debated going back to sleep wishing Minho was with you, you also were curious if he was still here.

By now you had memorized his schedule, knowing he didn't have class until later in the afternoon, so the only explanation was that he had gone to the practice room. You didn’t blame him, since that night Minho had made it his mission to walk you back to your dorm after your last class of each day. Sometimes he would go back to practice and sometimes he would just gently guide you to bed, tracing patterns on your back until you fell asleep.

You knew you were in deep and you knew it would hurt when all of this eventually stopped but for now you wanted to enjoy the way Minho said your name paired with “sweetheart”, or the way he would hold you tight but not enough to hurt you.

The smell of something cooking snapped you out of your thoughts and you pulled the covers back, feet softly sliding across the carpeted floor. You silently stood in the doorway and watched as the small stove burner was bright red. A pan sat on the burner with a pale yellow scrambled egg in it.

From this angle you could only see Minho’s back and the way his shoulder muscles rippled under his skin as he messed with the pans and plates in front of him. He looked handsome. But not in the handsome that everyone else saw. Everyone saw the dancer, the student, the friend, the guy that walked into a room and just his presence drew attention. Yes, you saw that as well, but you also saw the vulnerability, the chivalry, the deepest parts of Lee Minho that he never showed to anyone else.

That made you fall even more in love with him.

Just as you were about to interrupt the silence, Minho turned around, breaking the silence on his own. “Hey.” He said, holding up the newly made plate of eggs and bacon.

“Goodmorning, Min.” You smiled, walking towards the small table and sitting down.

“I made breakfast. I figured you could eat and then I could walk you to class.” Minho explained as he set the plate down, putting another plate in front of himself as he sat opposite to you.

“Yeah, that sounds good.” You replied, already starting to eat. 

You both sat in a comfortable silence until you both had finished, leaving you to get ready for class while Minho got ready to walk you there. 

As soon as you had finished getting ready you grabbed your bag and checked your phone. Ten minutes. You had ten minutes to get to class and you knew it would be busy as a lot of classes started and stopped around this time.

“Shit, we gotta go, Min. I don’t want to be late.” You grabbed your keys, quickly locking your door and grabbing Minho’s hand. At this point it was by impulse that you grabbed it and you were glad that he didn’t mind.

Before you could walk far, Minho stopped in the hall, making you turn around and face him. He grabbed your bag, slinging it over his own shoulder and smiling at you as he started walking again.

The walk there seemed like an eternity but that was only because you felt the weight of Minho’s hand in yours. In a particularly large crowd of people, Minho opted for a hand resting on your lower back so he didn’t lose you and could stay close, but when your hand was in his, you felt like you were in your own bubble. It was like nothing could affect you when you were next to him.

As you approached your classroom, you saw Chan standing at the doorway. It was weird, he never did that, opting instead to start on whatever experiment you had for the day. 

His eyes caught yours in the crowd of people and they lit up. He lifted his hand to wave but his eyes wandered down to your hand that was clasped in Minho’s and his large smile lowered slightly.

“Shit.” You said, looking over at Minho who had a frown on his face.

Before you could say anything else, Minho released your hand, your bag sliding off his shoulder and finding your arms. “I’m gonna go to class. Have a good day, Y/N.” There was a melancholy tone to his voice that made you want to say something but before you knew it you had lost him in the crowd of people.

“Hey.” You said softly to Chan as you stood in front of him.

He smiled at you but you could tell it wasn’t as wide as it normally was. “Hey!”

You followed him into the room, looking at the front table where the ingredients for the days lab would be but instead seeing the teacher sitting there. On the board behind him were the big words NO LAB. LECTURE DAY. 

“Oh great.” You groaned, setting your textbook down at your table and sitting down. 

Chan sat next to you, his hands clasped in his lap as he stared down at his book. “So who was that?” 

You knew he was referring to Minho, and you were thinking of exactly what you should say. If you said he was your boyfriend, you might not get the opportunity to date Chan but if you said he was your best friend, you could still have a chance. Through the last month, you knew just where your feelings were and you didn’t hesitate to answer him.

“That’s my boyfriend.”

His face registered shock and what you could only pinpoint as disappointed. You wished you could lie and say you wanted to be with Chan but for the second time in that month you had to admit it to yourself. You loved Minho.

“Oh, okay.” Chan nodded, looking up at the whiteboard. There was a moment of silence before he seemed to snap back to his normal cheery self. “Lecture days were specifically made by the devil himself.”

At that comment, you were back to clutching your stomach and doubling over in laughter. You quickly agreed, looking to the front of the room and seeing the teacher giving you a disapproving look. Not realizing class had started, you made a motion of zipping your mouth shut, turning to Chan and seeing him do the same.

As the lecture went on, you scribbled notes down and found yourself thinking about Minho. Yeah, Chan made you laugh and he was a dorky type of handsome that made you want to sit down and listen to his lame jokes all day long. 

But Minho.. Lee Minho. He was the guy who watched you embarrass yourself in front of the whole school accepting an award in high school. He was the guy who held you tight when you cried about getting rejected by your first crush. He was the guy that told you you could do anything and everything that came to your mind. He was the guy who promised he would always be by your side through anything.

“Let’s talk about the chemistry of love.” The teacher’s voice faded back into your head, and you were intrigued to know more. “Most people don’t know that love is a chemical equation. I will go into more detail in a later lesson but the basic combination is dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin.”

You found yourself furiously scribbling everything down, hanging off his every word and worrying you were missing something. To your right, you felt Chan’s eyes focused on your face and you wanted to turn to him but you were too busy fixating on what the teacher was saying.

“Dopamine is released in the process of picking a mate and following the release of dopamine comes oxytocin, also known as the cuddle hormone. Just the simple gesture of holding someone’s hand releases oxytocin and causes a sense of attraction and what chemists then call ‘love’. Eventually, once the honeymoon phase is over chemically, meaning your body develops a tolerance to these chemicals, endorphins are released.” The teacher had his back turned, quickly writing down the full chemical compositions of these chemicals, but when he finished his sentence he slowly faced the class.

“Endorphins cause a feeling of comfort. It’s the feeling of being safe in someone’s presence, like you know they would do anything for you and vice versa.” He sat his uncapped marker on the lab table and proceeded to walk around the class, looking at every student he passed. He was silent, watching everyone (including you) try and write everything he said down.

As soon as he made his way back to his table, he began to speak again. “That, my wonderful students, is love.” There was a moment of silence before he smiled. “I will see you next week.”

You didn’t say goodbye to Chan when you left the classroom, knowing that seeing his face anymore would only make your chest ache.

Walking back to your dorm felt empty without Minho by your side. You wondered if he was busy with homework or class, deciding not to worry too much and instead thinking back to the lecture you just sat through.

The way Minho treated you for the past month had butterflies erupting in your stomach from holding your hand, carrying your books, the constant touches and the way he would follow every other sentence with “sweetheart”. You found yourself melting and constantly telling him that whomever he dated must feel like royalty.

But you also knew that even before this deal, the way Minho hugged you didn’t make you feel nervous or sweaty palmed, it made you feel safe. Whenever Minho walked into a room you felt your shoulders untense and a smile slip its way onto your face. 

To you, Minho was home. He was the one you would go to with anything. He was the one that came to you with anything. You've helped him with relationship problems despite your lack of experience. He’s helped you with gym class and the history lessons you couldn’t seem to grasp.

You had been in love with Minho for a long time, yet you only seemed to notice it now.

Through your thinking you found your way to your room, unlocking it and slipping in. You went through the normal routine of setting your bag down in front of the couch, grabbing a water bottle and taking out your notebook. 

Looking around, however, you noticed the surprising lack of clothes. Minho was a mess sometimes, leaving his shirts or socks on the floor, but there was not one trace of his clothes in sight. Everything looked sparkly clean, in fact, and there wasn’t any trace of Minho ever having been there.

You knew he had a spare key to your dorm and figured he just cleaned up a bit but the feeling of everything being a bit too clean couldn't be erased from your mind. 

Deciding to call him to make sure everything was okay, you grabbed your phone. You saw Minho’s smiling face staring back as you tried to unlock your phone. Minho had taken a selfie and set it as your lock screen, and you made no protest, happy to be able to see his smiling face every time you wanted to unlock your phone.

He answered on the fifth ring. “Hey.” He said quietly and you were confused at his severe lack of energy.

“Are you okay, Min?” You asked him, hearing shuffling on the other side along with loud chatter of what you could only assume was students.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just on my way to class.” Minho’s voice sounded more than tired, it sounded sad.

“No, you’re not fine. I can tell.” When Minho didn’t answer you, you continued talking. “Whatever it is, you should talk about it. How about after your class? Come by my dorm, okay?”

There was a long sigh on the other line and you were worried he would decline your request but relief washed over you when he said, “Okay. I’ll see you then. Bye, Y/N.”

When you hung up, you decided to bury yourself in reading pages, trying not to think about the fact that he called you by your name, something he hadn’t done much if at all in the last month.

vii.

A knock at your door startled you off your textbook, realizing that you fell asleep with your face resting on it. You wondered who it was, knowing Minho had a key and could just let himself in.

So you were surprised to open up the door and see Minho standing there. He was wearing what he normally did after a shower, baggy sweatpants and a tank top, his hair still slightly damp and shining. For two weeks he had opted for taking a shower at your place, so why didn’t he do it now?

“Hey. Why didn’t you let yourself in?” You asked him, walking back towards the couch and closing your textbook, trying not to think of the small drool patch staining the periodic table.

Minho shrugged, his head dipping and eyes trailing on the ground. As he walked in he made sure to close and lock your door, knowing how paranoid you got. He didn’t look at you and you felt an empty feeling when he sat opposite to you on the couch, the farthest he could be.

“What’s wrong, Min? You’re worrying me.” You tried to move closer to him, putting a hand on top of his but he just pulled back, clasping his hands in his lap.

“I’m sorry.” Minho looked at you for the first time that night and you didn’t feel the warmth you normally did. There weren’t any bags under his eyes. Rather, it was like a dark cloud over his head. Before you could say anything, he interjected. “So how is Chan? Did he ask about me?”

Your stomach turned and you weren’t sure how to tell Minho you called him your boyfriend. Instead, you opted for a silent nod.

“What did you say?” Minho asked and you knew there was no way getting out of it.

“I, uh, I said you were my boyfriend.”

Silence. You felt like you wanted the couch to swallow you up.

“I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have done this.” Minho shakes his head, eyes falling back down to his clasped hands.

Your stomach sunk, not knowing how to respond. At this point, you just wanted to save your friendship because you knew you couldn’t take Minho no longer speaking to you. You tried to stutter out a response but all you got out was a mixture of “Um”s and “Uh”s.

“I’m sorry.” Minho apologized again and you stopped him before he said anything else.

“No. Don't apologize. I don’t feel that way about Chan anymore.” Although it felt like a dagger to your heart, you leaned back, farther away from Minho. “It’s not your fault Minho. If anything it’s mine.”

“Don’t say that Y/N.” Minho shook his head. “It’s my fault for letting my feelings cloud my judgement. I know it would hurt me more than help, but I wanted to express to you just how much I love you.”

Silence again, but this time you felt a spark in your stomach, warmth spread to the tips of your toes and fingers. I love you. Did he mean it like you did?

“I love you too.” You weren’t sure if you meant to say it or if your heart had a mind of its own. “I mean, I have for a long time but I think it took me a while to admit it.”

Minho looked up at you again, eyebrows disappearing behind his long fringe. His mouth hung open. “Really?”

You nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t think you felt the same but I wanted to be selfish and feel what everyone else that dated you felt. I wanted to feel loved that way.” Pausing, you asked a question that had you curious. “But if you weren’t sure I felt the same way why did you propose this idea anyways?”

“I’ve always loved you that way.” Minho moved closer to you and you felt the warmth slowly overtake your senses. “I wanted to be selfish too. I wanted to hold you like a boyfriend would and treat you like how you deserved. I just wanted to help you find someone, whether that be me or not was up to you.”

As soon as you got close enough, you reached out and cupped his cheeks with both your hands. His skin wasn’t so cold anymore, it made warmth radiate from your fingertips. “I would always choose you, Min. Always.”

Your knees knocked into Minho’s as he moved closer, and you were forced to remove your hands from his face. His nose almost touched yours and you swore you could see the entire galaxy in his eyes.

You smiled, a genuine eye-crinkling smile and Minho’s face mirrored your own. You weren't sure how his hands ended up on your waist, but you welcomed them there. His eyes searched yours, occasionally flicking to your lips. You moved your hands to his shoulders, thumbs running along his collarbones.

It seemed like an eternity before he asked you the one question you had been hoping to hear since the beginning of this idea of his.

“Can I kiss you?”

You did nothing but nod, closing your eyes and gasping when his lips finally met yours. They were slightly cold but you didn’t mind. Your hands raised to his neck, pulling him closer. Your knees hit together again but you couldn’t care less when Minho was kissing you like you were going to slip away.

Your lips moved together lightly, only leaving enough space for your breaths to mingle together in the air between you. Minho’s hand slowly traveled up your torso, stopping at your neck for him to run his thumbs along your jaw. Everything was so intimate and although you’ve only had few people to compare it to, Minho was the best kisser you had ever known.

Time seemed to halt when Minho’s hands finally settled on your cheeks and it felt like he was trying to pull you closer and if you had gotten any closer the line between you and Minho would blur. You wanted to be as close as you could to him, feel the heat from your head to your toes but right now all you felt was Minho’s soft lips moving softly against your own.

When Minho moved his lips again, tilting his head even more and letting you find a more comfortable rhythm, you smiled into the kiss. He tasted like peppermint and everything you ever could have imagined. You felt him smile against your lips as well and were forced to pull away.

“I could spend forever kissing you, sweetheart.” Minho smiled, the familiar feeling of his fingers tapping a rhythm on your waist making the warmth in you heighten.

You were breathless, but you mirrored his sentiment with a whispered. “Me too.”

There were a few beats of silence in which you threaded your fingers into his still dewy hair. Under his stare you felt nothing but comfort and love for your best friend sitting before you.

His eyes lit up even more. “I have an idea.”

You raised your eyebrows, ready to hear just exactly what he had in mind.

“Well, you’ve never been in a relationship. So why don’t I change that?” Minho’s cheeks were tinted red and he took his bottom lip in his teeth.

“You mean like real dating?” You were reminded of a month ago when he had asked you if you wanted to try out that little idea of his. But now you get the real thing.

“I guess? I didn’t think this far.” His smirk told you everything and you felt your face heat up. You chuckled, fingers carding through his hair before resting back onto his shoulders.

You didn’t need another moment to think of your answer.

“Sure. Let’s do it.”

viii.

Perhaps your Chemistry teacher was right, there was an equation for love going on in your brain as you laid in Minho's arms in your bed. He had already fallen asleep but you found yourself unable to stop smiling against his bare neck. His scent flooded your nose and you decided on another name for it. Home.

You felt safe. You felt like you could conquer the world as long as Minho was by your side. You knew no one would be able to make you feel the way Minho did as you felt his fingers slowly tapping against your waist. Soft snores came from above your head and you found your eyelids drooping. Minho’s heartbeat was the best lullaby as you drifted off to sleep.

Everyone had their own love equation and you knew yours.

seratonin + dopamine + oxytocin + endorphins = Lee Minho.

#stray kids #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #m.writing #lee minho #lee know #sk-writersnet #skzwriters #stray kids fanfic #stray kids oneshot #stray kids imagine #minho imagine #minho scenario #lee know imagine #lee know scenario #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #skzinc #its here !!!! i know its probably not The Best but ill get better with time #i hope you guys enjoy it 💌🌙 #(yea this is my first fic in Years so skjdhfjdh i would love to know what yall think !!!)

[hirvitank]

Waste + 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

I knew Death of the Outsider was coming, and as the Outsider was my favourite character I really wanted to explore the theory of him becoming human—the game hadn’t been released yet so we had no idea how it’d actually end, just that Billie and Daud were working together to kill him. Since the Outsider functioned as a sort of moral compass, I was very curious to try and imagine how his canon characteristics and biases would translate into a human version of him; how would he experience the world? How would he come to terms with such a humbling existence? Where did he come from and who was he? How would he cope with his own mortality, human emotion, the consequences following his choices in the Void? And most importantly; how had his being the Outsider affected his humanity? There was so much I wanted to see explored, things I feel the previous games hinted at but never elaborated upon. I wanted to write a psychological sort of story where we’d really be able to feel and experience whatever passed in his mind, and I tried my best to use my knowledge as well as my own experiences—flaws I either observed within myself or others, ideas, thoughts and feelings influenced by bias, depression, trauma, etc. When in art school, most of my inspiration came from the transience of things; my fear of death. I really wanted to take the subject and explore it through the eyes of someone previously immortal.

2: What scene did you first put down?

I think it was the original ending I wrote down first. I was supposed to write towards a particular scene, but somewhere along the way I’d decided to discard the idea entirely and opt for a happier resolution. I originally intended for the Outsider to die in the end, both to explore the feelings of those around him, as well as his own emotions accepting such a fate. I wanted a way to embrace death, as well as an output for all my bitterness regarding the subject; my anger at the ‘unfairness’ of it all, as well as my own trauma. I wanted to express loss, and in a way try and reveal the beauty of it. In the end, I had already found a way to deal with grief, and I also felt these characters deserved more; the fairness of fiction

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

That’s a REALLY difficult pick haha (does this mean literally a single line, or like a paragraph?). I’ll just share one of my favourite parts, because I can, and because it’s even more difficult to pick a single line from such a long story and I’m honestly horrible at making choices:

I heard the whispers of rats all around me, tiny feet scampering through the pipes; Billie’s gift tucked inside my shirt. My bare feet light, making little noise—as if I wasn’t really there. Perhaps I wasn’t. Perhaps I hadn’t been anywhere for centuries.

Up the stairs, cold stones. The walls decorated, grand and lavish. Empty corridors and lingering traces of hushed whispers—the guards had left their posts. She’d be there. How would that have made me feel? How should that make me feel? Almost, getting closer. My heart pounded in my ears, lungs greedily begging for more air, more—more. I felt like running. Strong currents of energy coursed through my veins, vibrated through bones and tendons. If I lost control, would I explode in a million pieces? Would the energy burst out and take my body apart, like the Void tearing into reality?

Who was I?

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

Honestly impossible to pick, I’ll just take this monologue:

“Anton Sokolov: sire to 14 children, but a father to none. A brilliant mind at a terrible cost, enlightenment in exchange for the dark depravity of the soul. Fingers that turn the times into a revolution of progress, the same fingers that touch upon women as they do the cold inventions they craft. Objects close to his heart—objects from his mind.

“The stench of alcohol in his bed, his clothes, his skin. Liquors and paints; on the canvas, dripping from his fingers, in the eyes of the beggar he found in the flooded slums of a place forsaken. The stench of rot still fresh on his teeth as he smiles at young Emily Kaldwin and tells her: ‘Don’t worry dear, here in the tower you are safe.’ Don’t worry dear, for I know the truest evil lies not within the high walls of Dunwall but within my hands and mind, within the flooded basement where a woman screamed and bled until she hung her head and closed eyes from which the dark paint still leaked—forever.

“The human body—like clockwork—taken apart in exchange for coin, for valuables. But those things Anton Sokolov values most lay outside of his intellectual grasp; for all the reasoning in the world he is but a cold, lonely man in search of a higher purpose that is but a lie of his own twisted imagination. A delusion of grandeur.

“How does it feel? One’s biggest regrets are but feelings of little consequence. The true disease is the sickness that allows one to enact true consequence on an innocent in the name of a self-prescribed fate. But I suppose that’s the curse of boredom. That, is the curse of your brilliance.”

5: What part was hardest to write?

The first chapter! There’s nothing more difficult than a set-up imo; establishing characters, pacing, setting and feel. I had a vague idea of where I wanted to go, but there was still so much I didn’t know that I had a hard time choosing how and where to start. I think it’s one of the most heavily edited chapters, just because I didn’t have a clear grasp on the characters or plot yet. (Also smut, oh lord help me)

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

There’s the original ending, and I did at one point start on a companion fic to explore Emily’s pov, but decided I better focus on finishing the original instead.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

The fact that it’s finished (hurrahhhh!!), and the themes and subjects.

12: What do you like least about this fic?

My own sense of humour, I always cringe reading my own jokes so I can only hope it hits with others—I genuinely have no idea, and it’s hard at times to figure out where to draw the line.

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

WELL IM GLAD U ASKED!! I’ll try and keep this short, but these are some of the songs that carried this fic, not even exaggerating.

1. Lover Don’t Leave, Citizen Shade

2. Happy Life, Roland Faunte

3. Painting Roses, Dresses

4. ID, Charlie Allen

5. High Tops, Del Water Gap

6. Love Song for Lady Earth, Del Water Gap

7. Battle Cry, The Family Crest

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

EVERYTHING. I had literally no idea about writing, apparently. I’ve had no classes in literature, nor have I ever been taught the common rules when it comes to writing. I got to learn most of it thanks to my friends who helped edit (shoutout to @onewhoturns again), and through trial and error. I absolutely loved the experience of it, and I’m so grateful for all I’ve learned, and all I will continue to learn in the future. It’s given me the basis for my own original writing which I’m trying to pursue, and which I hope will someday become reality.

Thank you so much for these! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed answering every single one. ♥

#anon #ask #emsider #waste #my writing #it’s almost 4 am but i wanted to finish answering these #im gon sleep now byeee thank u so muchhhh

[vivdunye]

present day, present time

and you don't seem to understand

fabled adages of science

so i was watching the snyder cut of justice league the other morning, i couldn't really begin to tell you why other than i needed 4 hours of background noise . but i tuned in at one point when the fictional super Israeli, wonder woman, narrated a scene explaining an alien technology "that was so advanced that it almost seemed like sorcery", and wouldn't yknow, that's a real concept actually, i recognized it immediately as clark's third law:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

it's perhaps the most well known and oft quoted of the three, but i always felt like arthur c. clark's first 2 laws don't ever get quite enough love . i've been thinking heavily about the first law lately:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

i've been thinking about it in relation to this one quote from wernher von braun that i always liked:

Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death.

many people are afraid of death; of ceasing the awareness of life, because they don't know what will happen to themselves after, where do they go if anywhere? it's much more nebulous in the secular sense if you haven't a construct for the afterlife already . i've been thinking about death more and more often lately to a worrying degree . however, scientific thought for all its clinical detachment from all things spiritual has strangely enough always felt like the perfect module for contemplating the metaphysical . so i decided to do some research .

i want to recall right now thomas edison's first intended use for the phonograph . edison had originally envisioned the phonograph primarily as a means of preserving the voices of loved ones after death . he later went on to try and develop a "ghost box" or "spiritphone" . this device would allow humans to communicate directly with the dead . he was unsuccessful .

if hauntology has taught us anything, we technically do have ghost boxes now, but maybe not in the way edison intended or even predicted . we carry them everywhere and can check them anytime, channeling messages through them constantly . we actively become digital ghosts, online we are both present and absent . the present implodes with the past, we've over-documented everything so now we can experience an instant nostalgia . today's future becomes archaic, we live in the archive to try and remember what the future once was .

'haunted' and 'futuristic' become one and the same .

by this token i'm reminded also by transhumanism . as the technological singularity fast approaches, as progress charges forward at a constantly increasing speed, current estimates posit the 2040s as the point in which technological improvements will occur at a constantly self-replicating rate . in the time between now and then, transhumanism and the eventual merging of human consciousness with machinery are theorized outcomes of technological progress . one day we might be able to leave the shackles of our human bodies and transcend our physical forms as a joined digital consciousness .

and in relation to this i also think now of clark's second law

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

through the wired

this is the stage on which the anime Serial Experiments Lain is set . a story, that while constructed on the patchwork of fiction, is nevertheless symbolic of certain phenomena based in reality .

also i apologize if it wasn't apparent that this post was going to be about Lain . im lainposting boys

the first few episodes exist to misdirect the viewer right from the beginning . and only by returning to these episodes having thought through the rest of the show, does their purpose become clear . the first episode, aptly titled "Layer 01: Weird" , is meant to show us exactly one thing, that lain is fucking weird . we can't tell what she's thinking, we can't tell what she's doing, and that's exactly how everyone around her feels . lain is totally and completely disconnected, she doesn't keep up with current events at school, she doesn't communicate with her family, near as we can tell she has no actual interests besides her stuffed animals and totally phasing out of reality. the inciting incident of the series happens when someone tries to make a connection with lain, and that person happens to be dead...

or at least there body is dead, their consciousness seems to have escaped into the wired . lain's decision to pursue this connection is what lead's her to ask her father for a new navi (the series' name for a personal computer) and that's all that really happens in this episode . coming back to it from later episodes we know that lain is probably thinking a lot throughout this episode . the decision to not entreat us to any of her thoughts is intentional, it is to make us feel distant from her as viewers, the same way that the world around her is distant . as lain forms connections throughout the series, so too, will we form a connection with her .

we do not know how much time has passed since then and the second episode, but whatever has happened lain has already developed a significant presence in the wired . this episode is tricky in its presentation as it doesn't make us privy to which things lain is lying about and which things she's honest about . in it we have lain talking to someone on her navi, she types sporadically in an encrypted language, and someone who looks just like her appears late one night in a night club downtown . while lain won't admit it to her classmates it's apparent at the end of the episode that it was her at the club all along . the key to understanding her actions throughout the episode is to realize she is trying to keep her existence in the wired and her existence in reality as separate entities . the realization she has by the end of the episode, which she uses to terrify a gunmen into suicide is that there is no escape from the wired, no matter where you are you are always connected .

made in the late-90s, Lain was quite ahead of its time . it predicted not only how in the early 2000s the internet would be regarded as a separate world where anonymity and personas reigned—it also predicted how the internet would eventually and inevitably overlap with the real world, once people in the real world realized that the internet is the real world . people have a tendency to see one part of themselves as their "true selves", whereas the parts they show to others are personas, they think of these things as separate when in reality a person is an amalgamation of all of their personas . lain tries to change her personas by dressing and acting differently from when she's in the wired-mode and in normal-mode, but she doesn't realize how people have been doing this way before the wired existed . her classmates are all 15 but they all pass for adults when they've dolled up and hit the club . if the characters in the show seem a bit young for their attitudes then you may not have met enough tech-savvy teenagers before . the purpose of this episode is to ultimately to prove to lain that the so-called real world and the wired are merely two layers of one reality, which couldn't be more true of the world today .

let there be light300pMTK. .

in mythology, psyche was the mortal princess who fell in love with and, eventually, married the god cupid; in religion and classical philosophy, psyche came to mean the human soul, and in the modern, literate world, it retains that meaning as the human spirit; in freudian analysis, psyche refers to the totality of the human mind: the id, ego and superego .

every meaning of psyche is distinctly human: a human princess who achieves godhood, the soul or mind of an individual . if previous episodes introduced the blurring of the real world with the wired, then episode three; "Layer 03: Psyche" is the episode that starts to blur human identity online and offline . one doesn’t even have to venture into the wired to ask what is human .

by this point we know that lain is definitely up to something . at this stage it's hard to tell what, but all we get are little glimpses into her actions . she still seems to be hiding a lot from the world around her and from the viewer in turn . ironically, lain's blank-faced silence and response to the questions of those around her it's own incrimination . when a police officer tells her to speak up (regarding the gunman's suicide) even if she had nothing to do with it, he doesn't realize she's being silent precisely because she does have something to do with it . but her deer-in-the-headlights persona gets her out of it .

the lain of the wired and the lain of reality are slowly starting to mesh into one whole . it remains difficult to interpret the physical existence of "other lain" so to speak, and the show refuses to outright show her playing that character . at the least, we do get to see lain access the wired in all its chaotic glory and she does begin to take an active interest in expanding her knowledge as she learns about and installs the "Psyche drive", a computer circuit that lain procures in hopes of it enhancing her computer's processing power . on the smaller scale, when lain applies the psyche processor to her navi, she is installing a spirit or soul, an animating element, to her machine . notably, the psyche does not replace the main processor; psyche augments the main processor, interpreting the data that flows through it . the soul is not simply the brain, it is an elevated consciousness or meta-self. by this point in the series lines become blurred and the lains begin to merge (hehe) . all of this is set against the backdrop of lain trying to decide if she should remain in the physical world or fully integrate in the wired . she hears one voice telling her that death feels amazing, and god exists in the wired, that there is nothing left for lain in this world . however, lain begins to establish a connection with her classmate alice, saying her name out loud and commiting it to memory for the first time, alice asks why her friends are not more shaken up after watching someone shoot himself in the head the previous day . it's almost as though lain is clinging to alice as an excuse to stay in the physical world out of fear for changing over . this all sets the seeds for what eventually grows throughout the series .

i want to recall the final meaning of the word “psyche". that the word also meant “butterfly,” which is how the greeks imagined the soul to appear . no doubt the symbolism of a creature that begins as one thing and transforms into another is not lost on us here .

every event serves to emphasize the existence of one's own personal reality, and as individuals from all others, we desire a place to belong . however that too is an egotistical concept . in order for there to be a mutual understanding, it is necessary to recognize here and now, like the brain synapses, we are all—in a logical yet chaotic manner—connected .

each is seperate—yet they are one . by connecting, humanity gains first awareness of its function as a seed . and by connecting a human no longer remains a mere endpoint, a "terminus", but becomes a junction to another point, having won the right to continue itself . in a sense, the ability to connect is the ability to continue . this not only applies to the connection of axial coordinates but temporal coordinates as well . therefore, at the time when a conscious, intentional connection is made, surely the dead will rise from there intended place, appearing at the time coordinate of the connection's origin .

in that moment, the realization will dawn that the time in which we inhabit our physical bodies is but the starting point of the connection, and the very meaning of possessing a physical body might be questioned .

we recognize we are connected .

serialize thyself .

#tecnobabel #text

[feelingfredly]

Just Remember I Love You

Summary:

Stiles pulled up the playlists and took pictures of them... as he scrolled through, he saw one labeled M&D's song and he was like, Who's M? Derek and someone had a song?   Stiles can't stand the thought of Derek and some stranger having a song. And a cheesy 70's love song at that!

Talia loved music. She wasn't a great singer but was always humming and singing and dancing around. She and her husband met at a disco night, of all things, and they were often seen dancing to a scratchy radio in the kitchen late at night after the kids were supposed to be in bed.

There was a song called Just Remember I Love You that she loved. It was "their song" because while wolf life was nice, it wasn't perfect and damn if it wouldn't be better sometimes if there were wolf antidepressants because even Alpha wolves get the blues, and when things were more than she could bear, Paul, her husband, would sing it to her.

After the pups came along Laura heard daddy singing it to mommy and one day when she was sad she came and demanded the "make it better song" so, Talia sang it to her as they danced around the kitchen and it made everything better.

After that, it was the thing to do when someone had hurt feelings, or a broken heart, or was stressed at school--someone would sing Just remember I love you, and it'll be alright... Just remember I love you, more than I can say.

After the fire, Laura tried to sing it to Derek and they both fell apart because nothing was ever going to be alright again.

They listened to other songs together, but not that one...  never that one

Time passed until one day Stiles Stilinski let himself into Derek's loft. The wolf was puttering around the kitchen with his battered old smart phone in a coffee cup, letting the cup act as a sound box so there was this echoey music drifting through the loft and Stiles was surprised because this was Camaro guy,  with his scruff and leather jacket, listening to 70's soft rock? nah...  that's just nuts, dude. But, before he can say anything, Derek was scrambling to turn the phone off and practically ripped Stiles's head off for just barging in without calling first or at least knocking.

A couple months later Stiles was sidelined with a jacked-up knee and was sitting in the Camaro while the others were fighting the MOTW right over there and he was bored and antsy and freaking out, so he poked through everything in the car and there was Derek's phone, so thank God he could at least listen to music or something while his friends were maybe getting eviscerated and he couldn't do anything, and there are only two playlists on the damn thing--of course Derek doesn't have something as useful as Spotify--and one of them was your typical 00's angry music, and the other...   was fucking yacht rock, man.

So, when Derek and Isaac pile back in the car Stiles is ramped up on fear and relief, full of asshol-itude and was like, "You need to join the modern age, Sourwolf... The youngest song on your phone can legally drink." and Derek pushed back with, "What, you jealous because you're still getting by on a lousy fake I.D. and All-Star gets laid more than you do?"

But Derek takes the phone and shoves it into his pocket like it's something precious...  and Stiles, who is an asshole, but not a stupid asshole, realized that there was something important on that phone.

Derek never took it into fights.

Derek never put it anywhere that it could get hurt.

Derek had another fucking phone.

so, what's the deal with that one?

He can't let the idea go--it eats at him.  Why the two phones?  Why the freaking beat up second-gen piece of crap that should have been put out to pasture years ago?

So, the next time he was alone and saw the phone he grabbed it--the sucker doesn't even have a lock screen--and he called himself.  At least that way he can get the number, right?  But it didn’t come up as Derek Hale on his caller ID.  It came up as Laura Hale.

Which made a strange sort of sense.  If it was Laura's phone, he'd keep it for sentimental purposes, right?  Holy fuck, the dude's been paying for his sister's phone the whole time, keeping some little piece of her alive.  There are probably messages on that fucker from before the fire.

He's more careful about the phone after that.

He didn't stop watching, though.  He popped into the loft unannounced more often.  Offered to go make coffee for anyone--everyone--so he could get a little alone time with the phone.

He finally got it one day when Derek was in the shower, so covered in nixie guts that he didn't stop on the way up to grab it like he normally did, and Stiles pulled up the playlists and took pictures of them...  and as he scrolled through, he saw one labeled M&D's song and he was like, Who's M?  Derek and someone had a song?

It hit him, harder than he could admit comfortably. He knew about Paige, and Kate, and Jennifer, and even Braeden, because...  well, they all knew about them, but there's an M now...  someone Derek cared enough about to have a song with, and fuck, Derek wasn't supposed to be a romantic...  Stiles was a romantic.  Stiles wanted to woo someone with flowers and candlelight dinners and in-jokes and a song they could play at their wedding. Derek's just distance and angry eyebrows and that little bit of respect that leaked through occasionally, and gratitude, because fuck, yeah, that's what everyone wanted from the hottest thing they've ever seen, gratitude. He'd pick the slamming up against things over the fucking gratitude every damn day because Derek should know that he didn't got to bat for him because he wanted thanks, he did it because he cared for the bitter bastard, okay?  At least when he was angry he looked alive, invested, and he was LOOKING AT STILES and actually seeing him.

Yeah, so bad attention was better than no attention, sue him.

Later when he was alone, he pulled up Spotify and loaded the song, and well...  it wasn't what he expected at all.  

 When there's so much trouble that you wanna cry

The world has crumbled and you don't know why

When your hopes are fading and they can't be found

Dreams have left you waiting, friends have let you down

 He listened to the song three times in a row, and by halfway through the third he was wiping away tears, because fuck that's...  well, that was a lot.

"It was my mom and dad's song."

The window--the fucking window--was open, and Stiles had been so wrapped up in the song that he hadn't heard Derek and his super-secret wolfy breaking and entering. Stiles was instantly up and deflecting--he didn't mean to pry (he totally did) and what was Derek doing there, and didn't he ever knock, and fuck use the door, and everything he'd ever said when one of the wolves had broken in while he was jerking off, but somehow being caught listening to this seemed even more personal to him.

He couldn't imagine how Derek felt

Derek just stared at him as he stormed and when he wound down and scrubbed the evidence of tears away Stiles just sagged under the scrutiny. "I'm sorry.  I didn't know.  I just...  I wanted..."

"You wanted to know.” Derek said, less antagonism in his voice than he had a right to. “You always want to know.  That's sort of Stiles distilled."

They stared at each other for a little before Stiles waded in with an apology.  He at least owed the wolf that much. "I didn't mean to stir up bad memories, Der.  I am sorry."

Derek looked a little distant, like his mind wasn't actually there in the moment, and Stiles bet he looked a lot like that when he was thinking about his mom.

"Not bad,” he said finally. “Just hard sometimes.  Good memories, though.  It's why I can't let that--" he waved at the computer that was still playing the song on loop--"go."

Stiles nodded. "I get that. I feel that way about my mom's recipes.  I can't cook them for dad, but I'll bake the cookies or the bread and remember cooking with her, and then end up giving the stuff away.  Mr. Abernathy next door loves it when I get sentimental."

They sat like that for a while until the quiet got to be too much and Derek took off again, leaving Stiles with a little bit more knowledge about the older man, and a lot to think about.

He called Cora the next day. She cried when he told her what happened, and when he apologized to another Hale for stirring things up she yelled at him for hurting her brother, and yelled at the Universe a little, and then cried again as she explained the significance of the song. When she calmed down she asked him to email her the playlist because she was too young to remember the names of the songs and she wanted to listen to them again, and if they cried a little more at that, well neither of them was going to tell anyone.

But… now he knew.  He knew what the song meant, what it was for, and he had a plan.  It might not be a great plan, but hell, he's had worse.

He didn’t make a move for weeks.  He wasn't stupid, and he knew Derek wasn’t either.

He started by playing some 70's music around the house--even getting a laugh out of his dad as he busted out "Do the hustle!" in the kitchen one day as he danced around making a casserole for pack night.

"Your mom and I used to go out dancing all the time.” The sheriff actually smiled at the memory. “She could dance up a storm.  You get that from her."

And just like that Stiles had another thing to thank Derek for....

Finally, it was time. He'd been spending more time with the wolf, his spark finding an anchor in the alpha, and he could feel it developing into something like a real pack bond.  Derek clearly felt it as well, his shoulders relaxing every time Stiles would get close enough for him to bump against him, subtly scenting his new packmate.

Then it wasn't so subtle. A hand on the head, Stiles rubbing Derek's shoulder, a scruff of the back of the neck...  and time.  Sitting. Talking. Snarking.  But time spent together, alone or with the others, but always together.

And then it was his birthday.  21. Finally legal in all the ways, and finally ready to make that last leap of faith.  The ladies at Jungle were thrilled to help, and when everyone asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday, he said "pack night at the club--no excuses" and they gave in, because as much as he was an asshole, he was their asshole

They got there, dressed in their club gear and black leather coats, and Stiles pulled up in his Jeep and rolled out wearing a shirt unbuttoned to his navel that showcased his toned torso, a big gold pendant he'd enchanted the month before for a protection spell but that looked like one of the terrible 70's zodiac sign necklaces, and skin tight pants that flared out into truly terrible bell bottoms. "Oh, didn't I tell you?  It's a theme night!  Disco, Babies!  And I'm the Dancing Queen!"

The pack groaned and then laughed, following the nutcase they'd adopted into the club, listening to the thrum of the music and saying, "Fuck it." before heading to the bar for drinks that their spark would add a little kick to so they could feel a buzz for the night.

Derek gave him a long look, and then another, but just sighed and nodded as Stiles pulled him out onto the packed dance floor.

"Thanks for coming, Sourwolf."  He made the appropriate noises, and Derek swayed against him, surprisingly--or not surprisingly, the dude was physicality embodied--a good dancer, and not shy with the hips once he got going.

"Happy Birthday, Stiles," he said, bending down to speak directly into the spark’s ear, "this is the only gift you're getting."

Stiles looked at him from under his lashes and smiled. "It's the only thing I wanted, Der. Really."

They finished their dance and then his best Lady of the Jungle, Brianna Cracker, walked up to the microphone--"We have a special birthday boy in our midst tonight--hey there Little Red, looking good!--"  the crowd cheered and Stiles wriggled around in Derek's hold to look at the stage, flailing his arms a little at the attention.

She went on, "He had a special request so he could dance with his boo--or his boo-to-be if he doesn't fuck this up tonight--so everyone wrap their arms around their special someone's and get ready for something slow and sweet.  Happy Birthday, Red!  We love you!"

And then… the song played.

Derek froze, so like a deer in headlights that Stiles had to bite his lips not to make a joke, but now wasn't the time for jokes.  He held out his hand hopefully, and Derek finally thawed enough to take it, wrapping Stiles in an almost painfully tight hug.

"Give me a chance, Sourwolf?" Stiles asked quietly. He felt Derek's head nod once against his neck, and Stiles felt a knot in his gut unravel.  

It was going to be alright.

 Notes: This fic owes its existence to Sirius XM's Yacht Rock Radio, and Firefall's amazing 70's classic, Just Remember I Love You.

"Just Remember I Love You" by Firefall

When it all goes crazy and the thrill is gone The days get rainy and the nights get long When you get that feelin' you were born to lose Staring at your ceiling thinkin' of your blues

When there's so much trouble that you wanna cry The world has crumbled and you don't know why When your hopes are fading and they can't be found Dreams have left you waiting, friends have let you down

Just remember I love you And it'll be alright Just remember I love you More than I can say Maybe then your blues will fade away

When you need a lover and you're down so low Start to wonder, but you never know When it feels like sorrow is your only friend Knowing that tomorrow you'll feel this way again

When the blues come callin' at the break of dawn Rain keeps fallin', but the rainbow's gone When you feel like crying but the tears won't come When your dreams are dyin', when you're on the run

Just remember I love you And it'll be alright Just remember I love you More than I can say Just remember I love you And it'll be alright It'll be alright It'll be alright It'll be alright

#teen wolf #sterek #derek deserves nice things #stiles is a nice thing #feelings #tooth-rotting fluff #mild hurt/comfort #songfic #derek hale #stiles stilinski

[reading-while-queer]

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, Alison Bechdel

Rating: Great Read Genre: Graphic Novel Representation: -Lesbian ensemble cast -Racially diverse ensemble cast Trigger warnings: Reclaimed D-slur, animal death, cheating, divorce, cancer, casual transphobia, biphobia, and ableism, difficult topics ranging from war to AIDS to 9/11. Note: Not YA; sexually explicit

If you’re familiar with Fun Home or Are You My Mother? you’ll know what I mean when I say that Dykes to Watch Out For is no entry level work - though Dykes to Watch Out For is difficult for different reasons.  While Bechdel’s ruminations on her childhood, psyche, and sexuality require a decent amount of outside reading to be fully appreciated, Dykes to Watch Out For requires an equally rigorous knowledge of the political landscape of the past forty years.

But on the other hand, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  The wars, elections, discourse, and protests are not so unfamiliar.  If I had to pinpoint Dykes to Watch Out For’s continued importance to lesbians today in just one idea, it would be this: “Against the sweeping backdrop of history... everyday life pretty much continues” (371).  

It’s not a major theme of the work, yet it is the shape of the final tapestry.  Politics, discourse, trauma, and sickness make their ravages, and here we all are, much the same as we ever were 10, 20, 30 years ago: this pattern, far from intentional, emerges from the tide-like flow of 30 years of comics.  But it’s why Dykes to Watch Out For is so special.  And we have the privilege of going back to look into that reflection of the 80s, 90s, and 00s and recognize familiar features. The political scenery may be different (or, honestly, not so different) but has daily life changed much?

I first tried to read Dykes to Watch Out For as a curious high schooler, and my eyes glazed over.  Without having absorbed enough recent history through cultural osmosis, nor having developed a taste for gray morality, I just didn’t get it.  Two characters would have an argument on the page, both of them would make provocative points, and then Bechdel would refrain from telling her reader which was in the wrong.  Neither character was a straw man; it almost felt like Bechdel was arguing with herself, trying to decide what was right - if there even was a right answer.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around it, especially when the vocabulary and context were both tantalizingly out of reach.

Reading now, I found the once alien discourse all too familiar.  The same exact discussions were being had in 1985 as are being hashed out on Twitter.  One of a hundred examples is whether gay marriage is a buy-in to the privilege bestowed by heteronormativity. Bechdel asks if marriage is a patriarchal model that can be salvaged, but she doesn’t have an answer for you, just a prompt to chew on.

Another example is Bechdel’s discourse on the outliers of lesbian spheres: trans lesbians, trans men, genderqueer people, and bisexual lesbians (Would you believe that term is used in the text - and equally as contentiously?).  These are conversations we are all very familiar with.  However, this discourse is especially interesting in a work that took 30 years to write.  The reader combs through 30 years of metamorphosis in just a handful of hours.  Bechdel’s tongue-in-cheek “Whatever will they come up with next?” is printed in the same volume with genuine consternation on who is allowed to be a lesbian.

Trans women start as a punchline.  But on most topics, Dykes to Watch Out For tends, eventually, to stop itself to re-evaluate.  Thirty years later, one of the main characters IDs as genderqueer, finds herself meeting trans men and doing drag king shows, fights with her friends over their trans exclusivity, and in the end, ends up advocating for and co-parenting a teenage trans girl, who ends up a main character in her own right.  It’s one of Bechdel’s firmer positions on right and wrong, although she doesn’t hesitate to mouth the opposite argument, too.

Plenty of sympathetic characters say transphobic things which just hang in the air, unaddressed.  It’s maddening - but in sticking with the material, I got to see the characters who flubbed the pronouns and complained about gender confusion eventually get in line - changes which are not commented upon and happen so gradually in the thirty years over which the comic was written, that they mimic how change happens in real life.  In our own lives, change may seem impossible, but then you blink, a decade has passed since you first came out, and half the homophobes have come around.  Much the same for Dykes to Watch Out For, which is almost as much a memoir as Fun Home (albeit of Bechdel’s discourse rather than her life).  I think every cisgender lesbian should read it - it’s a powerful antidote against TERFism, not because it lays down the law, but because it meets you where you are and gives you the chance to say your piece without ridicule, before taking you by the hand and showing you something kinder. If Dykes to Watch Out For has anything to teach us, it’s that hard lines in the sand make you look like a dick thirty years later.  Take Sparrow’s story arc.  Mo, Lois, and Ginger are thrown when their friend Sparrow starts dating a man.  They say some rotten things about how betrayed they are, how they don’t know if they can trust Sparrow anymore, or her politics - but when they are overheard, the “discourse” suddenly becomes real.  That’s their friend, and her feelings are hurt.  What else can you do for your friend who has spent decades of her life as a lesbian, whose identity is culturally and socially interwoven with lesbianism, and who identifies as a bisexual lesbian - except love her?

A frequent lesson is that anyone can be reactionary - even the left-est of leftists.  Years later, when Sparrow faces an accidental pregnancy, her friends overwhelmingly pressure her to keep the baby, not because of their politics, but because of their excitement - yet the impact, if not the intent, is anti-choice.  It’s ideas like these being brought to the forefront that make Dykes to Watch Out For something special.

In her introduction to the book, Bechdel frets over both keeping up with the changing current of discourse (XVI) 

...and her own role in shaping that discourse (XVII)

But her work speaks for itself: if we are to do right by one another, we must prioritize one another, not the rules.  The same conversations will be had again, and again, and again, from 1983 until we all go blue in the face.  We can’t control someone angrily shouting into the room (or Twitter timeline) “but WHAT about BISEXUAL LESBIANS?” and the chaos that follows - but we can accept that someone will shout it again in twenty years, and that the following chaos will be so nearly identical to the previous chaos as to challenge whether it is chaos at all, or just the universe putting on a matinee performance of the same old song and dance.  Is it useful to put on your tap shoes and sing along?  Or do you end up hurting the feelings of a genuine friend who just happens to be one of the outliers this time around?

Dykes to Watch Out For is thought-provoking (as you can see, my thoughts have been well and truly provoked), occasionally in poor taste, but mostly surprisingly sympathetic, both to its more marginalized characters, and to its wrong-doers - this comic doesn’t have any villains.  The initial gag, that Bechdel would write a catalog of lesbians like a lepidopterist giving clinical attention to a series of specimens, works to her favor.  There are no bad lesbians and good lesbians.  At least, not essentially.  This approach lends Dykes to Watch Out For more staying power than it might otherwise have had - it’s relatable.  You know these people.  You’ve had some of these arguments, and hurt each other’s feelings over them.  Your friends live in the mildewy house that’s kept at 64 degrees in the winter, where you’re as likely to be walked in on in the bathroom as not, a home where everyone in the friend group feels free to stop by.  

Here in the future, we have the immense privilege of watching how these parallel lives to ours play out.  The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For may be a comic for a different generation, but Bechdel has given us something fascinating from both a history and literary perspective.  She has put to paper a sprawling epic about lesbians growing from their twenties to their forties, getting married (or not), progressing their careers, having children, having PTA meetings, having affairs, and doing civil disobedience with their kids.  Rarely do we see the map from here to there laid out so meticulously.  I read this book voraciously, both the earlier chapters that relate to life as a new adult, and the later chapters, which serve as a window into what life was, and could be.

For more from Alison Bechdel, visit her Twitter here.

#the essential dykes to watch out for #alison bechdel #lesbian #great read #graphic novel #protagonist of color #not ya #reviews only

[overheardatthecontinental]

Talk Chapter 5 now posted

AO3

Helen was waiting.

It was a matter of time now, for John to come.

She pulled the sweatshirt that Nick had given to her tighter around her shoulders. It must be getting late, she notes, because it’s getting colder again.

The guards had changed just two hours after she managed to send John the text. The new ones weren’t as talkative but she really didn’t need them to be. Not anymore.

She had gotten a message out.

Now she just had to wait.

She wonders if he’s narrowing her location or if he’s already on his way.

She wonders what the fuck she’ll do if she wakes up again in the morning and find she’s still here. That John hadn’t come for her.

Maybe he wasn’t able to?

No. She pushes that thought quickly from her mind.

This was John. Nothing would stop him.

She just needs to keep waiting.

The phone rings from one of the guards and she watches, with vague interest, as he picks up the call.

“’lo?”

She can’t hear what is happening on the other side of the line, but the guard looks to Helen, his eyes wide with fear.

She can’t help the smile that grows on her face with the unbidden knowledge: He’s coming.

“What? Why?” There’s a pause and his eyes widen, “Yes, sir.” He hangs up and jumps to his feet, turning to his partner, “Go get the car. We’re moving her.”

“Now?” The other guy rolls his eyes.

“Marco, John Wick is coming.”

Helen breathed a sigh of relief just at hearing his name. He was on his way. He was coming.

Marco’s eyes widen and he, too, scrambles to his feet.

“Baba Yaga? Why?”

“Oh, you poor bastards.” Marco and the other guard look at her fearfully, “You agreed to guarding me without ever asking who I was.”

Stall, she thinks. They’re trying to move her to a second location, one that John might not be able to find as easily… She can’t let them move her.

Not if he’s coming.

“Who are you?” Marco asks.

She borrows the language that Nick used. Therapist or not, in this world, it was probably the most accurate assessment of their relationship, “I’m John Wick’s girl.”

“Oh fuck.”

Helen makes a show of examining her nails, “Honestly, it took him long enough.”

“Get the car, now!” The taller guard states.

“I mean, you could get the car.” Helen says, “But trust me when I tell you, that’s just going to piss him off.”

They exchange a look.

“My suggestion is that both of you leave before he gets here. He won’t come after you right away that way. Or you could stay here and surrender. Maybe he’ll take pity on you.” She offers a smile, “Claim your ignorance. You didn’t know who I was.”

They’re both distraught and tense. Finally, one of them breaks.

“Marco, get the car.”

“Dude, I don’t know…”

“Do you want to be here when John Wick gets here? GO!”

Helen makes a face, doing her best to look both understanding of his decision but skeptical of his choice. “Not your best move, but I get it. It’s noble that you’re willing to die for your cause.”

Marco makes a noise of fear but he hurries to the stairs, taking them two at a time.

The other guard grabs the keys that had been hanging from a nearby hook. He shoves it into the lock of her cell and Helen feels her heart start to race.

They can’t move her. Not yet.

Not after she finally got through to him.

He reaches for her and she quickly jumps across the floor to the edge of her cell. The sweatshirt falls from her shoulders as she does, and she wraps her arms around the bars as tightly as she can.

Fingers dig into her arm, but she holds tight. Every second counts.

“Fuck! Let go!” There’s panic in his voice and there should be. Every single thing these men have heard about John Wick, every rumor and urban legend, was about John at his baseline.

But right now, he was pissed.

She gave the guards the option to walk away. That they hadn’t is now beyond her control.

One arm is pried loose but the other stands firm. She manages to kick backward and he grunts, falling to one knee as his leg is knocked down.

She manages to free the arm and entangles herself back amongst the bars.

His arms wrap under hers this time and he tries to pull her off that way. The technique is a little better and she feels herself slipping.

She kicks out again, thrashing as hard as she can. She just needs to waste time, to stall. Just a little longer.

He’s coming.

There are footsteps on the stairs and Marco hurries back down.

Fuck.

She was barely holding out against one of DeLuca’s goons.

“Get the sedative!” The guard growls out and Helen resists the urge to swear.

She slams her foot back again, managing a kick to the balls and watches, in relief, as the guard doubles over in pain. She lets go of the bars and bolts to her feet. She feels her head rush after being on the ground for so long but she runs as fast as she can towards the stairs.

She makes it up the first few and then her ankle is grabbed and she falls forward. Her head bounces off a step and the world goes fuzzy.

Helen tries to blink, to keep herself conscious but it’s pointless. The needle is jabbed into her flesh and she feels herself being picked up.

She had been so close…

But it wasn’t enough.

…

They had a name. And an organization.

But nothing else. The sender had immediately blocked their number, but it was a start.

“Dante DeLuca is dead.” Winston had said when John read the text aloud. “He passed on three months ago. I had flowers sent to his widow, in Rome.”

“Does he have children?”

“Several. Only one legitimate, I believe. Mateo.”

“Karl, run a search on Mateo DeLuca. Current position, known allies, and any properties listed under his or his father’s name.”

“Running now.”

Mateo DeLuca was largely unknown. He wasn’t particularly well-respected by anyone and was really known only as Dante DeLuca’s son and heir. Dante, himself, hadn’t seemed too fond of the boy but that was often the case.

You raise spoiled children; you get rotten adults.

Mateo had a degree from Columbia University in business. A few arrests during that time but no convictions.

As far as the Underworld went, Mateo had virtually no presence.

And while Mateo was Dante’s heir, there was some evidence that he had been grooming a few others to take over the business upon his passing. But then he had died, seemingly of natural causes.

John was doubting that.

Winston stated that, indeed, the Syndicate was an enemy of the Camorra. Still, they were far too small to overtake the larger empire of the D’Antonio’s.

John didn’t care about that. The politics were over now that he had a name. Winston could deal with the fallout. Report Mateo’s treason to the High Table. Or not.

There really wasn’t much of a point considering that John was more than willing to just kill the bastard and be done with it.

Karl ran every property associated with the Syndicate in New York while John began strapping weapons.

“I have a location on Mateo.” Karl says, “He’s at a party in Manhattan. He just posted on his Instagram.”

John wasn’t entirely sure what that sentence meant.

“She must be being kept somewhere else.”

“A small property.” John agrees, “Someplace private, out of the way.”

“He’s got a handful of houses. A brownstone in Brooklyn.”

John shakes his head, “Too many potential witnesses.”

“There’s a few places down in Staten Island and oh… He owns a condemned block in Long Beach. Series of houses bought out after Hurricane Irene.”

“Closest neighbor?”

“At least a block.”

John grabs his phone back and types the address into his GPS.

She’s there. She has to be.

Still, he gruffly adds, “Keep searching. Just in case.”

“Jonathan, perhaps you should come up with a plan—”

John shoots the Manager a look.

He isn’t waiting anymore.

“Call for my car. I’ll update you when I can.” John tells him as he leaves the room.

The drive from the Continental to Long Beach should have been an hour. Luckily, traffic was on his side. The gas pedal pressed to the floor didn’t hurt, either. He blows through every stop sign and red light he meets.

The ocean is visible and he breathes a sigh of relief. He’s close, now.

His phone begins to ring and John spares the ID a glance. The Continental.

He answers it, “This is Wick?”

“Hi, Mister Wick, it’s, uh, Karl.” The Technician awkwardly greets, “You said to keep an eye out and I did and, um, DeLuca knows.”

“What?”

“He knows you’re coming, sir. He has sentries over in Long Beach and they reported seeing your car. He knows you’re coming and he made a call to someone at the house.”

“How many sentries?”

“I don’t know, sir. But DeLuca’s made two more calls since the house that have pinged in your general vicinity.”

Sure enough, John checks his rearview and a black car is following him. They’d have to be going at least fifty to keep on his tail.

“Thank you.” John turns off the phone. He’s less than five miles away.

Five miles away from Helen.

He’s sure they’re keeping her there now.

And they’ll be ready for him.

That’s fine. It won’t make a difference. He’ll kill them all.

As long as he got there in time.

They’d be moving her. DeLuca’s only leverage against John, and the only thing keeping John from outright murdering him was Helen.

He hears the sounds of loud motors and checks his rearview.

Sure enough, another car slides off of a side street and joins the pursuit.

In any other situation, he might have laughed. Now, it was just a nuisance. Another obstacle trying to prevent him from reaching what he needed most.

But he can’t worry about them now. He can’t stop to take care of the problem because he can’t fucking risk them moving her.

There’s an idling car out front of one of the houses.

He can see her. She’s clearly unconscious, being carried from the house to the car. Two men in front of him, he’s not even sure of how many are behind.

He had hoped for a bit of stealth, the element of surprise. But then, his car barreling down a side street at eighty miles an hour is hard to miss, especially when he slams the breaks and the tires loudly squeal along the pavement.

He’s usually better than this. A lot better than this. In fact, he’s not sure he can really remember a time since his teens when he went in guns’ blazing.

He was too calm, to focused, to tactical for that.

Yet here he is.

And the clock is ticking.

He can’t let them get away.

John opens the door and lunges from the car, ducking from the shots being fired from the cars behind them as they squeal to a stop. He aims low, not willing to waste ammo until he knew what he was dealing with and fired a shot. The back left tire starts to compress and he does the same for the right.

They’re not getting away.

The man, not carrying Helen, reaches to his belt and John fires again.

The bullet breaks into his hand and he can hear the cry of pain. Before the man can reach again, John aims higher and shoots him in the neck.

He can hear firing coming from behind him.

He has to take them out before she can be hit by a stray bullet.

All it takes is one.

Luckily, the man who has Helen has ducked down low.

He needs more eyes, more hands.

He turns, because he needs to and starts counting.

Three cars, two men each. Clearly, DeLuca had not paid enough attention when researching potential assassins to manipulate.

John ducks back behind the car, reloading his weapon. He wants to move towards them, to finish this quickly, but he needs to keep his head. He needs to deal with this like he’s not emotionally involved because, to do otherwise, would be suicide.

He stops and listens. The gunfire dies down and the men on the other side of the car are hollering directions to one another.

Amateur hour.

He can hear footsteps coming on either side of car, heavily pounding on the concrete.

John stays crouched but moves to the left side. He tucks his gun into its holster and, instead, grabs a knife from his boot.

Just as the first two men reach the front of the car, John grabs the one on the left but the shirt and stabs him in the gut. He stands, disarming the shocked man and drags the blade up. His hand snatches the gun with ease and he fires once over his shoulder to the man just behind him, then again at the man who was coming around the right side of the car.

He manages to dodge, jumping back behind the tallest part of the car.

John fires through the passenger side window. The bullet flies through the car and comes out on the other side, staggering the man back. He fires again and the man drops to the ground.

Four down, he thinks. Four to go.

A shot is fired at him from back where the other cars were. Two of the men still are hiding back at the cars they came in.

John spins back around to the front of the car.

The man from the opposite side of the car takes off running as John sneaks down low to the other side. He uses the new gun to fire low. The first shot goes through the calf, likely shredding the muscle.

Hurts like a bitch, John knows from experience. He hobbles and falls to the ground, screaming.

DeLuca’s men, it would seem, are well armed but not trained for shit. He’s momentarily baffled that these were the forces, the army that DeLuca thought he could use to overthrow the Camorra?

But arrogance was his pitfall.

John couldn’t fault him for that; it was his own, as well.

But everything else? The stalking, the kidnapping, the threats? John could fault him for that. That was the reason that DeLuca was going to die.

The last two standing from his pursuers seem unwilling to leave the safety of their cars. Which means, unfortunately, that John can either wait them out or be the one to move.

Waiting it out is smarter. He knows it’s what he should do but a look across to where Helen is and he can’t.

Anger flares within him as he realizes that the man holding her is using her as a kind of shield.

It won’t save him, John thinks, turning his attention back towards the cars. They’re waiting for movement, waiting to fire.

Outnumbered, outgunned, back against the wall.

Thank fuck for Kevlar.

He stands and immediately hears the shots being fired at him. He swerves, immediately, expecting to draw their fire. The bullets miss him and John sprints forward, firing as he does. A bullet hits the front side of the Kevlar and it nearly winds him, but he keeps moving.

John hits the opposite side of the first car and drops to his stomach. In the confusion, he fires and a bullet breaks the ankle of the closer man.

He drops to the ground and John flips around, jumping on top of the hood of the car to shoot the last man standing in the head before delivering a kill shot to wounded man on the ground.

There’s silence, except for the spluttering breaths of the man John had shot in the calf.

He hops off the hood of the car, heading towards Helen and the last of DeLuca’s men. He idly shoots the fallen soldier in the head and moves on.

DeLuca’s man scrambles backward, his arm wrapped around Helen’s torso, holding her up literally as a shield.

John shakes his head in disbelief, his gun lowered at his side but cocked just the same.

The man almost trips over the sidewalk in his state of panic.

John glances to Helen and tries not to tense or flinch at the blood spilling from her temple or the scratch marring her cheek. There are bruises on her arms that resemble fingers and he wishes he could kill them all again.

“Don’t, please…”

“Set her on the ground. Gently.”

“You’ll shoot me.”

“I’ll shoot you either way.” He snarls, “Set her down, and I’ll make it quick.”

“Please, I’ll do anything. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just don’t kill me.”

“I’m not going to tell you again.” John says, stepping closer.

“Okay, okay!” The man kneels and carefully sets Helen so that she’s on the grassy front lawn. Her body is laid out, her head lolling to the side. “Just, please don’t—”

John shoots him in the head.

The closest thing to mercy he was capable of while watching her bleed.

John reloads his weapon as he kneels, keeping it out of his holster. Just in case.

He checks her headwound first. It’s shallow but there’s a large bump that’s already forming. A fall, he thinks, rather than a hit.

The mark on her cheek similarly resembles an abrasion.

It’s simultaneously not bad and the worst thing he’s ever seen. He wraps an arm under her legs and another around her back and lifts her up. He pulls her close to his chest and breathes easy for the first time in two days.

He keeps his eyes peeled for enemies as he hurries back to his car.

He can’t stay here long. As much as he would love a confrontation with every single person under DeLuca’s employ, he has to get her out of here. To safety.

John hadn’t been thinking long-term beyond getting Helen to safety but now there were other things to consider.

He couldn’t take her back to her home. DeLuca would find it and attack, whether John was there or not. He couldn’t risk putting Helen back into the line of fire.

The Continental was off the table, too.

DeLuca already knew she existed, as did a select few of the Continental staff, but the last thing John wanted was for others to find out about her. She might never have another moment’s rest if the Underworld found out that John Wick had a weakness.

That left his house.

His heart stuttered at the thought.

He’d imagined it a thousand times.

Every morning when he had breakfast, he wondered what Helen would look like standing in his kitchen.

Every time he watched television or read on the couch, he would imagine her presence beside him.

Every night he went to sleep in his own bed, he would roll on his side and think about what it would be like to reach over and touch her.

His love. His life.

He maneuvers Helen to one arm as he opens the passenger-side door and slips her inside. He fastens the seatbelt and leans the seat back the best he can. Finally, he slips off his suit jacket and covers her with it. It’s huge over her small frame and he tries not to delight in the sight.

John cannot resist placing a kiss to her head.

She’s here.

She’s safe.

He closes the door and goes around to the passenger side. He turns the car around and hurries out of the neighborhood and back towards the city and the bridge that will take him back home.

John sets a hand on her leg, squeezing gently to make sure that she really was there.

The nightmare was over.

The rest could be handled with ease now that she was safe. He could track down DeLuca and make him fucking pay for taking Helen. Burn what was left of Syndicate to the ground.

The moment they had cleared Long Beach, he reaches for his phone, dialing the Manager.

Winston picks up after the first ring.

“Jonathan.”

“I have her.”

Winston hums in response.

“I’m going to need Doc.”

“At the Continental?”

“At my house.”

He can practically feel Winston rolls his eyes, “The Doctor doesn’t do house calls.”

“I’ll pay whatever he wants.”

“You are aware that I’m not your secretary, aren’t you, Jonathan?”

John resists the urge to roll his eyes, “Winston. Please.”

“I’ll make it happen.”

“Thank you.”

Winston huffs, then asks, “Is she alright?”

John glances over at the passenger seat. She still was unconscious, but she had stopped bleeding.

“She’s safe. A few injuries. I want to make sure that none are worse than they look.”

He’s met with silence at first. Winston clears his throat, “You do know this won’t be the end of it?”

John focuses his attention on the road ahead. “I’ll track down DeLuca.”

“Your secret is already out. Others will find out about your little therapist. You say she’s safe, but for how long?”

He swallows hard. He can’t begin to process those thoughts until Helen is safe, in bed, and being looked at by a doctor. Then, he’ll have the breakdown he’s been putting off for two days.

“I’ll speak with you soon. Can you make sure Karl gets paid and tipped well for his services?”

He can practically feel the Manager roll his eyes, “Yes, yes. I’ll send the Doctor out shortly. If you’re leaving Long Beach now, he may even make it there before you.”

John offers his thanks and drives the rest of the route in silence, safe the soft sounds of her breathing.

It puts him at ease, hearing her breathe.

He revels in every slight intake and gentle exhale.

It takes longer to get home than it did to find her. While he still speeds, he is no longer doubling the speed limit as he travels home.

As Winston had suggested, the Doctor was already there when John pulls up. He parks out front rather than pulling up to the garage.

“Mister Wick.” The Doctor greets as John climbs out of the car.

“Doc. Thank you for coming.”

John goes to the other side of the car. He undoes the seatbelt and slips her, carefully, back into his arms.

“Do you know what happened to her?” The Doctor asks, eyeing his new patient the best he can while she remains in John’s grasp.

John shakes his head, “She was unconscious when I found her. I don’t know if she was sedated or if she’s still out from the headwound she sustained.”

He opens the door to his home and leads Doc through the house, upstairs to John’s own bedroom.

With a sense of longing, he lays Helen in his bed.

He takes his jacket back and tosses it to the side, allowing Doc access to the rest of her body. The bruises on her arms look worse in the light of his room.

The man was lucky John was feeling merciful.

Doc opens his bag and starts by cleaning the wounds marring her face. He wipes away the blood and bandages the cut on her temple.

“It wasn’t the headwound that knocked her out.” Doc says after examining her. “It’s superficial, although I’m sure she’ll have headaches for the next few weeks. It looks like she’s been drugged a few times. I’d guess this is the work of a sedative.”

That was John’s guess as well.

“Give her twelve hours and try to wake her up. If she’s unresponsive, call me.”

The Doctor grabs a bottle of pills and hands them to John. “Aspirin will do just fine for the pain. Give her this for the headaches.”

John nods, tucking Helen into his bed as the Doctor packs up.

“I can’t thank you enough for coming out here.” John tells him. On his bureau, there’s several stacks of coins. He takes one and hands it off to the Doctor.

“Of course. I hope you’ll forgive my boldness, but I don’t recognize her. Is she based in another city?”

John fights back the urge to wince. While he doesn’t think Doc would say anything to anybody, he doesn’t want to let anyone else know about her identity. But then, Doc had come all this way to ease John’s fears.

He swallows, “She’s not of the Underworld. She’s… a friend of mine. Who got pulled in over her head.”

The Doc hums, “Be careful with otherworlders, John Wick. Persephone was only a guest of the Underworld and she never escaped it.” Before John can think of a response, Doc has his bag in hand, “I wish her a speedy recovery. Good night, Mister Wick.”

The Doctor leaves them in peace and John brings a chair around to her side of the bed. He sits down, nearly collapsing. She is safe.

His vigil begins anew.

#john wick #john x helen wick #helen x john wick #overheard at the continental #the matrix has queue #john wick talk #john wick fanfic #john wiction #john wick fanfiction

[funkymbtifiction]

Do you have any examples of how dom Ti works in everyday life?

I don’t use it, and I do observe it in other people, so I can add a few things at the end, but I thought I’d ask my ISTP friend how hers appears on a daily basis.

She sent me this:

I work for a software company, primarily in tech support because I’m very good at troubleshooting (though I don’t like routines, so I help out other departments who come to me directly.  This is technically unsanctioned, but when a co-worker needs help and I know how to provide it, I do it anyway).  I’m able to use my in-depth knowledge of the software to determine not only how to solve the issue, but also, half the time, I need to figure out what is actually wrong from customer’s invariably scanty and vague description of their issue.  I’ll receive tickets with statements like “the totals for 12345 aren’t right” – which could mean anything.  12345 could be an invoice number, a master account number, a sub-account, or an import ID, or inventory ID, or a user-defined value… anything, really. However, before I email the customer and ask for clarification, I can often decipher their vague descriptions myself.  I know it’s something invoice related, and master accounts are the primary method of referring to invoices, so I would start there.  I would pull up all invoices or account 12345, and then check to see if any have discrepant totals and/or alerts that they’re out of balance. If I find one, then at that point, I will usually send an email to the customer to confirm I’m looking at the right issue, and I don’t have to make them feel like an idiot for not providing enough info up front. I work frequently with a newer employee who tends to be very literal. He’ll tell me in frustration:  "I spent two hours searching the reports for this number but found nothing.“

Me: “Did you use wildcards and part of the number?" 

Newer Employee: ” …“ 

Me, two minutes later:  "Is this the data you’re looking for?" 

Newer Employee: ”…“ 

There’s not one way to do things, there are many ways.  I can jury rig just about any process in the software I support.  I find it easy to work back from the end result someone needs to find ways to populate and/or pull it out.  I also tend to troubleshoot faster than my co-workers can keep up with, and if I’m training someone I usually have to slow way down.   Working with detail-oriented, by-the-book, methodical people is the bane of my life.  They want to go through the process from start to finish, and I can jump to the heart of the problem.   But doing that breaks their way of thinking, so I prefer to work by myself. I am not a team player, not if I can help it.  Other people just slow me down.  But leave me alone and I’ll figure out whatever the problem is.

A Ti/Se example of how it turns up in daily life, with regards to meal-planning (ahh, perceivers… let’s just wing it!! ;):

My sister:  "What should we get for dinner tonight?" 

Me:  "I don’t know, let’s see what the store has and decide there.”

My answer to this question drives my sister crazy.  She wants to go to the store with some idea of what kind of food we’re looking for in advance. I can’t do that.  I don’t know how you can possibly have any idea what to buy for dinner until you get to the store and see what’s on sale and/or what looks good.  My head stays full of all the meals we would regularly make, so I know what other ingredients I would need to buy based on whatever main ingredient is chosen.  If chicken is on sale, great, there are 30 ways I can make chicken quickly.  Then it’s a matter of what sounds good at the time, grab those ingredients and whatever goes with it, done.  I’ve got dinner. Along the same lines, my mom loves to read the grocery store ads to see what’s on sale.  She saves these to pass to me… and I haven’t the heart to tell her they don’t matter to me.  Even if I read them, I won’t remember which store had what when it is time to go to the store.  I don’t plan my grocery store visits around sales.  If something’s on sale that I use, I’ll see it when I get to the store.  If it’s not on sale and I don’t need it, then I’ll pass it by.  I make all those decisions at the store, not in advance.  I don’t make lists either.  The only exception to that is when I’m baking something with unusual ingredients that wouldn’t normally be on my radar.  Otherwise, I always know what I need (there’s a running list in my head), or I’ll make it up as I go.   Don’t make me plan about food before I get to the store! I’m also very good about timing the cooking of all side dishes and the main dish so that everything comes off the stove at the same time.  I’m not a casserole (gross) or one-pot cooking type of person.  So, when I cook dinner, it’s usually some kind of protein, with a couple of side dishes (like grilled chicken, with jasmine rice and sauteed broccoli, for example).  Usually at least 2 or 3 different pots/pans etc.  It is extremely rare that I won’t have all three coming off the stove within a minute of each other.   I know how long things take to cook and I simply start each dish so that it will finish at the right time.  I don’t really need a clock for this, though I do use timers for how long things like rice should cook, etc.

Mod Note: from an outside perspective, looking at my Ti-dom / INTP brother (who is admittedly a strong 5), Ti in daily life seems more interested in figuring things out and focusing on picking away at others’ arguments to make them all consistent than anything. It is ruthlessly logical and detached, once it knows how ‘something works’ it can work within that system effortlessly, and it often will go in without any kind of plan and just… ‘wing it’ based on what’s available, a lot like the cooking example above, but more in terms of abstract theories. They typically do not like having their thinking process challenged in the sense that they will prefer their own method of thinking / logical assessment to yours, yours probably is flawed, and therefore mine is the superior argument that I am sticking to… in part because if they are wrong and you are right, it means doing a complete mental re-haul of their logical process, which is time-consuming and might cause the entire thing to fracture. Logic is logic, and logic is what they see, and THEIR logic is how they respond. - ENFP Mod

#question #intp #istp #mbti

[varibean]

Would You, Could You, Say ‘I Do’?

here’s a fanfiction inspired by the wonderful artwork by @fluttytheflutt here! it’s wedding time! hope y’all enjoy!

In previous stages of his life, when Sam I-Am thought about his future, marriage was never part of it. He was a romantic, somewhat at least. Having never gotten to experience romance first hand he couldn’t really say for sure but he liked the idea. The notion that somewhere there was a person just for him who would vow to never leave him behind, to always stay by his side, was enticing to put it plainly. But he never thought it was an actuality. The thought had never crossed his mind that such a life could be for him.

His life was anything but consistent and marriage was the most steadfast constant of it all in addition to-as his elders always said-death and taxes. But he’d cheated death and he didn’t pay his taxes so that was already two down.

Everything was always moving; his jobs, his home, his identity. Never in his life was he one person for two long. It started to make him sick if he was. Every new persona was fun at first but in the back of his mind there was always the thought, the fear that if he stayed as one person too long he would find out a terrible truth: He didn’t like the person he had become.

So he jumped and switched from fake ID to fake ID, only staying for the fun part. Nothing more, nothing less.

And then there was Guy. His Guy. His wonderful, amazing, perfect Guy who could do so many amazing things and came up with the most incredible ideas. Suddenly, with Guy, he wasn’t scared of being the same person anymore. He didn’t have to fear who he would be because whoever he was, Guy was going to be there too.

For a while it was just a promise of words. Nothing binding or set in stone, just the knowledge that Guy would always be there for him, that he liked him just the way he was. Sam thought that would be enough. They didn’t need to take the next steps forward because why risk the unknown when life was so comfortable as it was?

Then came the night that Guy took him on a small hometown cold air balloon. And there among the clouds just barely scraping above the roofs of the houses below them, Guy got down on one knee.

The ring wasn’t terribly special; just a silver band with the tiniest emerald in the middle, the green hue sparkling in the moonlight like a cosmos seen from a far off telescope. What could Sam do but say yes?

Up there, away from the world with just the two of them, the words seemed so easy to say. Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes! They spilled from his mouth like the crack of a perfectly runny yolk and he never thought anything in the world could taste as good as green eggs and ham but then Guy kissed him as the fog of the night drifted by him and he knew that some things just existed beyond compare or dispersion.

Everything was easier up in the air. But all things had to come back down to earth eventually.

The dressing room he stood in was lit up like a mall during the holiday season. On their own Sam and Guy couldn’t afford much but as there luck would have it the rest of the Am-I family wanted to pitch in for the youngest golden child. The bruckles poured in from Mr. and Mrs. Am-I and Guy’s brothers and no expense had been spared on setting everything up for the two. The venue, the flowers, the food; all if it five star and perfect in every way.

And of course, above all else, the dress.

The long and wide floor to ceiling mirror in the dressing room reflected the fabric back perfectly. If one were to spare it only a glance, it could be said that the dress was simple. The cut was a flower bud covered boat neck, showing off the slight dip of his collar before fading into a near sheer sleeve design. Crystals were sewn into the fabric, making his arms sparkle under the lights. The dress itself had a ribboned waist that showed off his slight form before fanning out as the rest of the dress poofed around him. It wasn’t overly fluffy, but it was well fitted and flowy. Plenty of room to move while still looking elegant.

Was he elegant?

Staring in the mirror, Sam wasn’t so sure. Elegant was never a word he thought of when he considered himself in a physical sense. Short, slender, rounded; those were words that described him. But beautiful? Radiant? Elegant? All the things he was told someone to marry should be? He wasn’t quite sure.

“Sam? It’s almost time. Do you have the veil on?” Michellee’s voice echoed in the near empty room.

For such a large and grand dressing room, there really wasn’t anyone else needed to get him into the dress. The lingering con-artist in him thought of money and how easy a wedding scam could go off. But he quickly shook his head at the thought before he ran his hands over his face.

“Yeah I’m-I mean no, I haven’t put it on yet I was just...uh-”

“Nervous?” Michellee offered with a smirk.

Sam opened his mouth to object but then realized it was useless to do so. He was trying not to lie as much, to be more honest with himself.

“Maybe, just an itty-bitty-teeny-weeny-itsy-bitsy smidgen of a smidge. Like, half a smidge. No, strike that, one twenty-seventh of a smidge.”

Michellee laughed and suddenly Sam felt a little bit better about everything.

“It’s ok Sam. I remember my wedding day. Of course, I didn’t have rich in-laws to pay for everything-”

“Hey come on, it’s not like we asked for it!”

“-But it was still the most important day of my life. Well, up until I had E.B.”

Sam chuckled and smoothed out the fabric of his dress even though it didn’t need it. As he did so, Michellee picked up the veil from its resting place and put it on his head.

“How’d you know?” Sam asked.

“Know what?”

“How’d you know that it wasn’t one big mistake? How’d you know that everything wasn’t going to fall apart?”

There was hardly a moment of silence before Michelle gently turned him around to face her, away from the mirror, away from all of his doubts reflected back at him.

“I didn’t. That’s the fun part isn’t it? Not knowing but still wanting to see. Going for it and knowing no matter where you land you’d be holding someone else’s hand. Trying something new.”

“Trying something new.” He repeated.

A smile formed on his lips and he reached for her arm to loop his around.

“Alright. Alright, here you go I-Am. Off to try something new.”

_______________

Guy’s Mother walked Sam down the aisle and the action only caused the slightest pang of sadness within him. But he was able to shake it off, kept his eyes forward and fixed on the altar.

The venue was a small park area just beside Guy’s home, everything rented out and decorated for an informal (but still, at the older Am-I’s insistence, fairly expensive) ceremony and party.  

The second he saw Guy he knew that he was ridiculous for ever having any doubts. The knox was dressed in a charming bowtie and a deep blue wreath of flowers topped of his head. He looked so much younger without the hat, without the scowl marks. Instead smile lines had taken their place as his husband to be positively beamed at him.

Sam hadn’t even realized he was at the stand until Guy reached over to take his hand.

“You look amazing, Sam.”

“Yeah, well, one of had to do a booty tooch down the catwalk.”

Sam smiled as he saw Guy’s cheeks puff up as he choked back a laugh. He wanted Guy to make that face every day and soon, that goal was going to be closer to a reality.

The officiant nodded to Guy after the happy murmurs of the crowd died down to start.  

“Sam I-Am, the first days after I met you, you took my briefcase, dragged me along on the craziest job in the entire world, nearly got me killed more times than I could count, and stole my wallet three times. Those were the best days of my life and every day since then has just kept getting better. You’re a weird little adult and I can’t find any room in the refrigerator for any of the groceries because all you keep in there is ham and eggs. The amount of luck you possess is almost infuriating and you are, by far, the biggest dope I’ve ever met. But...you’re my hope man and I always know that I have you in my corner. You gave me a reason to keep on trying and, Sam, every day...every day for the rest of our lives I want to keep trying new things with you. I think your luck really did rub off on me at some point, because otherwise I can’t imagine how I ended up so yipping lucky-sorry I know I’m not supposed to curse during these things but it’s true. So, if you’ll have me, I want to spend the rest of my life with you...um, the end? It’s-It’s been a while since I’ve been to a wedding I didn’t really think of a closer.”

There was a small chuckle that passed throughout the audience at Guy’s fumble and Sam could see in his eyes that he meant every word of his vows.

“Wow. You see, I had this whole spoken word musical number that I was gonna try to pull off in a dress but that just made me forget about ninety percent of it. So I guess I’ll just say that no one has ever really wanted me to stay the same person before. No one’s ever hung around long enough to decide if I was worth it. But you did. And that was the first time I thought that maybe I didn’t have to run away from myself anymore. I still don’t know who I want to be in this world, what kind of a difference I want to make, but I know I want to do it all with you. And, this is embarrassing, I don’t really have a closer either.”

Both men turned to the officiant with a questioning look, only to have the other shrug at them.

“I always thought weddings were supposed to be way longer and more boring,” Sam started, “But I think we’re good? Can say the Big Final Words and do the kissing thing now? I wanna skip to that part.”

Sam and Guy took out their rings and slipped them onto each other’s fingers with another nod of approval from the officiant.

“You’re absolutely ridiculous. I do.” Guy said.

“I do!”

And with that, Guy lifted him up bridal style and dipped him, a small nuzzle passing between them before they finally sealed it all together with a kiss.

The small crowd of friends and family cheered for the two as their grins became so wide that it seemed like their faces would crack.

Guy sat Sam down gently and before they began to walk into the crowd, he leaned over and chuckled.

“I was really excited to see you in your wedding attire. And as always, you didn’t disappoint.”

Sam giggled before standing on the tips of his toes and whispering something into Guy’s ear.

As the cheering and talking started to commence all around them, the knox’s face turned a bright red.

“Can’t say I don’t feel the same with you Wedding Buddy!” Sam chirped before heading out to the sea of smiling faces ready to congratulate him and get the party started.

Guy stood there for a moment, his face beating red as his brothers came and slapped him on the back for a job well done.

It was going to be an interesting honeymoon.

#green eggs and ham #geah #briefcase buddies #briefcase boyfriends #zk fic #guy am i #sam i am #i hope yall like it this was fun!!!!!!