#and eventually if you live to be old enough?

[uncuredturkeybacon]

𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚕𝚞𝚎 || 𝚊𝚣𝚣𝚒 𝚏𝚞𝚍𝚍 𝚡 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

in which you’re the biggest husky fan in the world

You were six months old the first time your parents took you to a UConn women’s basketball game.

It was snowing the way it only snows in Connecticut—fat flakes thick and wet and falling like they’re on a mission. The windshield wipers thudded in rhythm, clearing the view of the highway as your mother turned around in the passenger seat to check on you. You were bundled up like a marshmallow, cheeks red and nose runny, a navy blue knit hat barely staying on your head. Your father joked that you looked like a baby blueberry. He said it again to make your mom laugh. You didn't know what a blueberry was.

You don’t remember anything about that day, of course. But your parents tell the story like it’s folklore. The way your eyes stayed wide the whole time. How you flinched at the first buzzer and cried through the first half, but fell asleep in your mom’s arms during the third quarter, lips curled around your pacifier while the arena roared around you. You wore a onesie that said “Husky Baby” in sparkly white letters. It was too big. You drooled on it.

They say Diana Taurasi hit a game-winner that night. Your dad still has the program tucked into a shoebox with your birth bracelet and a print-out of your first ultrasound. On the cover, she’s mid-dribble, eyes locked forward like she already knows what the defense is about to do. He says the crowd lost its mind when she let that last shot fly, that your mom stood up and screamed so loud you startled awake, blinking up at the scoreboard like you were trying to understand.

They tell that story every year on your birthday.

Your childhood unspooled in quarters and halves. Seasons marked not just by holidays or school breaks, but by game days and rankings, by conference titles and March. You lived in Hartford, close enough that Gampel Pavilion and the XL Center both felt like second homes. You learned the names of the players before you learned to spell. There was no question who your favorite team was. No debate. No compromise.

You were always in the stands—first as a bundle in your parents’ arms, later in a booster seat with your legs swinging above the concrete floor. When you were two, your mom bought you your first jersey. Number 3. Red, white, and navy. “That’s Diana,” your dad told you. You didn’t know who Diana was, but you liked the way the fabric felt and how the crowd would chant when anyone wearing that jersey touched the ball.

Eventually, you knew them all by heart. Not just Taurasi but Bird and Moore and Charles, names that hung from the rafters like prayers. You could trace the line of greatness with a finger, like a constellation. At night, you’d sit at the kitchen table with your dad and rewatch recorded games on VHS, rewinding big plays over and over. He’d freeze the frame to show you the footwork, the spacing, the cuts. You didn’t play basketball yourself. Not once. But you understood it. You loved it.

When your parents couldn’t take you, you took the bus. That started around age ten. They were hesitant at first, but you convinced them. It was just a few stops. You packed your bag like it was a mission. Portable charger, extra snacks, schedule printout folded neatly in the side pocket. You became a fixture in the student sections, though you were nowhere near college age yet. People started recognizing you. Security guards waved. Some of the ushers called you “Coach.” You wore that like a badge of honor.

Your room at home was a shrine. Posters taped unevenly to the wall. Ticket stubs lined up on your cork board. You made your own stat charts, color-coded by player. Your mom shook her head affectionately every time she caught you annotating a box score like it was sacred text.

“You know this isn’t your homework, right?” she’d tease. “It is,” you’d say without looking up. “It’s just not graded.”

The years passed like quarters on a scoreboard. The names on the jerseys changed. The banners got higher. You grew into your voice—asking questions, reading scouting reports, predicting lineups before the broadcast even caught up. You had favorite broadcasters and hated when the national coverage got it wrong. You screamed at missed calls like you were courtside.

But you stayed in the stands.

You never crossed that line. Never picked up a ball. Never dribbled or practiced a layup or joined your school’s rec league even when they begged you to come. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to play—it just wasn’t you. Watching was enough. Worshipping the game was enough. Being there, living it from the bleachers, was enough.

At least, that’s what you told yourself.

Freshman year of High School doesn’t begin with a bang. It starts with a 5:45 a.m. alarm, the one you set to make sure you could catch the local bus from your side of Hartford to school on the east side before the sun even clears the tops of the houses. You sit by the window, hoodie up, earbuds in, knees pressed to the seat in front of you. You’re not listening to music. You’re rewatching last night’s UConn game. You know every stat already, but you still want to see it again. The offensive set with the double screen. The baseline jumper off a late inbound. The missed free throw that almost cost the win. You’re already thinking of how to write about it.

You’ve joined the school paper. It's a small operation—two seniors, one overworked English teacher, and a Google Drive that hasn’t been organized since 2009—but you see it as your way in. You're not interested in the lunchroom drama or the debate team blurbs. You pitch a weekly column, “The Husky Report.” Your teacher hesitates—says it's niche and not everyone follows college sports. But you’re already drafting the first one in your notebook before he finishes saying no.

You publish under your initials. You’re not sure why. Maybe because it makes you feel older. Or more professional. Or because it hides the fact that you’re a freshman with braces and a UConn keychain dangling from your backpack like a badge of honor. Still, people start reading it. At first, it’s just your teachers. Then your history class group chat starts circulating your write-ups. One day, a senior stops you in the hallway and says, “Yo, you really watch all the games?” You nod. He fist-bumps you. Keeps walking. That’s it. But it stays with you all day.

At home, your room’s changed a little. Your parents painted it two summers ago—a cool slate blue—and you’ve taken down most of the cartoon posters. But the basketball wall remains. Jerseys hung carefully. Ticket stubs pinned like battle ribbons. Your cork board's filling with clippings now. The front page when UConn won its eleventh title, your own printed columns from the school site, even a grainy photo of you standing courtside at a youth event Geno spoke at. He signed your notepad. It’s in a plastic sleeve like it’s holy.

Your parents still go with you to some games, but they don’t need to anymore. You've memorized the bus schedule, the student discounts, which gates have shorter lines, which hot dog vendors won't overcharge. You keep a little journal in your pocket at all times. Game notes. Quotes. Impressions. Nothing gets past you. Not a missed defensive rotation. Not a ref’s bad angle. You tweet updates too, tagging players and throwing in gifs. Occasionally a like. Once, a retweet from the UConn WBB official account. You ran downstairs to show your mom like it was an Olympic medal.

By sophomore year, your name starts circulating a little.

The UConn student-run paper reposts one of your longer recaps with a short line, “Better coverage than most pros.” You print it. Frame it. Your journalism teacher calls you the “resident UConn oracle.” Your parents joke about building you a press booth in the garage.

Still, there’s something that lingers in your chest. A kind of ache you can’t name yet. It hits when you’re watching warmups from the second row, alone in a sea of fans. When you see the team huddled together, laughing, bumping shoulders, drenched in sweat and confidence. When the lights dim and the intro video plays and your pulse jumps like it’s your name on the Jumbotron. But it never is.

You’re always watching. Always writing. But you’re not in it.

There’s a moment, sometime that winter, when you start wondering what it would feel like to be known by them. Not in a creepy way. Not in an I want to be part of the team type of way. But… something else. To be seen. To be a fixture, not a fan. To have one of them look up after a win and spot you. Smile. Wave.

You tuck that thought away. You don’t write it down. You barely admit it to yourself.

In sophomore year, you get serious.

You start studying tape more deliberately. Not just for recaps, but for yourself. You keep spreadsheets now. Advanced stats. Scouting notes. You teach yourself analytics from online videos and a couple of free courses online. Your teacher offers to help you apply to a summer sports journalism camp in Boston. You get in. You're the youngest person there. Also the only one who never played any sport. But your mock articles get handed around. You make a couple of connections. A woman who used to work at ESPN gives you her card. Says you have an eye for the game. That your writing “moves.”

That night in your dorm room, you pull out your notebook. You scribble one sentence on the cover, They’ll know who I am one day, and underline it.

Not in a cocky way. Not even in a hopeful way. Just a truth you believe with your whole chest.

Junior year begins differently.

It starts not with the usual chill of October or the ritual of printing out the UConn schedule and taping it beside your desk, but with an email.

Subject: The Husky Report Sender: Leah Moore, Assistant Director of Strategic Communications, UConn Athletics.

You read it four times before moving.

At first you think it’s a prank. A scam. Something fake or automated, even though the signature is too specific and the greeting says your full name. You check it on your phone. You check it again on your laptop. You Google her name just to be sure. She’s real. And she works for UConn.

Hi Y/N,

I’ve been following your weekly columns and Twitter threads this season. Your eye for detail and storytelling stands out—especially for someone still in high school. I showed your piece on the Baylor game to our department lead and she said, “Who is this kid?”

Would you ever be interested in shadowing a game day with our media team this season? No pressure. Just thought it might be something you’d enjoy. Let me know.

— Leah Moore.

You sit frozen, the cursor blinking in reply. For two whole minutes, you don’t move. You don’t even breathe right. Your fingers hover over the keys, and something builds inside you—not panic or excitement, but something steadier. Quieter. Like gravity.

The game day you choose is against Notre Dame. It's a non-conference classic, always personal, always dramatic. You’ve written about it the last three years, circling the same themes of legacy and rivalry and bloodlines. You’ve never missed it. But you’ve never seen it from this side.

Leah meets you in front of the loading dock behind Gampel. You’re wearing your cleanest jeans, a tucked-in UConn polo you had to borrow from your dad, and a pair of sneakers you scrubbed the night before. She gives you a lanyard and a smile and walks you through it like you’re a new hire, not a high school junior who still needs a parent signature to leave campus some days.

It feels surreal, like walking into the dream you’ve been watching from the outside for sixteen years.

Inside the media room, people are pacing. Laptops out. Screens open. Everyone’s in motion but not rushed, like they’ve done this dance so often they don’t have to think anymore. Leah walks you around the control desk, the social media monitor, the tunnel access screen. You’re not allowed to post anything live, but she says you can shadow their content guy for pregame media.

When the team walks in, you stand near the corner. Quiet. Out of the way.

And you see them.

Not on a screen. Not through binoculars. But here. Real. So close you could count their braids, see the scuffs on their shoes, hear the rhythm of their jokes. You recognize every face. You mouth their names to yourself like a litany. You remember their high school stats, their redshirt seasons, the injuries they fought through. They’re bigger than life—but now, somehow, smaller too. Real. Human.

You think of the little version of you—knees dangling in the student section, Sharpie tucked behind your ear. What would she say if she saw you here now?

The moment doesn’t feel loud. It feels earned.

You write a recap of the experience for your school blog. It’s not a game recap, not really. It’s about proximity. About what it means to watch the same story unfold a hundred times and finally step onto the same page. You include a paragraph about the pregame prep, the pressure behind the scenes, the weight of doing something perfectly even when no one sees it.

It gets picked up by a couple of local outlets. Nothing huge. But Leah emails again, saying your insight is rare. Says they’d like to keep you in the loop. Maybe consider you for a longer mentorship next fall. She calls you a “natural storyteller.”

You forward it to your parents. You print it, too. Tack it up next to the framed tweet repost. You stare at it when you can’t sleep.

It’s around this time that her name keeps popping up more and more.

Azzi Fudd.

You’d heard it before—clips, rumors, the occasional ranking blurb—but now it’s everywhere. Articles. Interviews. Everyone’s calling her the next big thing. She hasn’t even picked a school yet. But her game footage hits the internet like fire.

The first time you really watch her play, you’re on your bedroom floor, knees curled under you, a bowl of cereal forgotten at your side. It’s just a grainy highlight reel from an AAU game, filmed by some dad in the stands, but it doesn’t matter. What she does on the court—off the dribble, off the screen, without hesitation—it’s different. Smooth, yes. But also sharp. Sharp like scripture. Like a myth. Like someone wrote a story about a perfect shooter and Azzi decided to make it true.

You watch the video three times in a row. First muted. Then with sound.

You don’t know her. You don’t even know if she’s seriously considering UConn.

But something in your chest reacts.

Not just because she’s good. Plenty of players are good. It’s more than that.

It’s the way she carries herself. The calm. The discipline. The sheer gravity of her presence. The way her release looks like poetry and prayer at once.

You scroll through her Instagram that night. She's all over the place—smiling in one post, serious in another. Media day shots. Workout clips. Candid snaps with teammates. You pause on one of them. She’s laughing, eyes closed, head thrown back, hand mid-air like she just swatted someone who said something dumb.

You double tap. Move on. But your stomach feels different.

You don’t know what it is. Not yet.

But you will.

You decided to start making videos and not just writing for your school paper and tweeting the occasional tweet. You wanted to what you do to reach more people, to understand your love for the game, for the team, and hopefully help them love it too.

You started with a voiceover.

No face reveal. No professional production. Just you and your phone camera pointed at your laptop while you replay a sequence from Uconn’s last game. The part with one of those suffocating sequence where no one seems to hit anything clean for minutes until someone finally gets hot. You rewind a clip of Napheesa Collier making a spinning fadeaway jump shot with a defender all over her and how she was able to make space, narrating it.

The video is thirty seconds. Maybe thirty-five. You post it to Twitter. 

i promise you, no one in women’s college basketball is dissecting games like this. let me show you something.

It gets four likes that night. Two retweets. One of them is your cousin. The other is someone you’ve never heard of.

By the end of the week, it has 15,000 views.

It becomes a series before you can talk yourself out of it.

You give it a name. Husky Vision.

White text over a navy background, slapped together in Canva during lunch. You don’t appear on screen. Just your voice, your angles, your highlights. Your knowledge. It’s not flashy, but it’s smart. And fans—especially women’s basketball fans—start to notice.

The first time a former UConn player DMs you, you nearly drop your phone in AP Bio.

“Hey—just wanted to say you really get it. You’ve got a great eye.”

You don’t tell anyone, not even your parents. You just stare at the message, heart thudding, and reread it until you finally let yourself smile.

From there, everything picks up. Slowly, then all at once.

Leah from UConn reposts your breakdown of their win over South Carolina. She doesn’t even tag you—just reposts your video directly with a flame emoji. That same night, one of the assistant coaches likes two of your old tweets.

Your account starts gaining followers—students, women’s basketball super fans, some analysts. You notice a few names you recognize. Even one from The Athletic. You tell yourself it doesn’t mean anything. But it does. It means something big.

You start doing mid-game threads, too. Live thoughts. Adjustments. What you’d change if you were calling the plays. People begin replying. Debating. Asking questions.

“How do you know so much?” “You’re sixteen???”

You don’t answer those. Not directly.

Instead, you just keep uploading. One post-game breakdown after another. Some long. Some short. Always sharp. Always specific.

Azzi starts showing up more.

Not in your notifications—she’s still a ghost to you—but in the games you’re watching. The national chatter is undeniable now. She’s a senior. Final year of high school. Her team is undefeated. One of the top recruits in the country. Her clips are showing up on all over social media.

You resist, at first. You tell yourself you don’t want to be one of those people—jumping on a name just because it’s trending. But her game… her game is undeniable.

You post your first video about Azzi on a quiet Sunday.

What makes Azzi Fudd different? Not the range. Not the handle. It’s the silence. Watch the way she moves without the ball. No panic. Just purpose.

You upload a 40-second clip. No music. Just your voice.

You wake up the next morning with 78,000 views. By lunch, it’s over 100K.

You don’t even realize she followed you until someone comments.

“omg Azzi just followed you??? do you KNOW what that means?????”

Your heart skips a beat. You check twice. Three times.

She did. No comment. No like. Just the quiet little blue check next to her name now following you back.

You sit in the bathroom stall during 5th period and stare at the screen until your phone dies.

That night, you open her profile again. You scroll slowly. Watch her media day clips. See the selfies with her teammates, the training clips in empty gyms, the one video of her laughing on the bench while her coach throws his clipboard.

You think of reaching out. Just something simple like a ‘thank you.’ You type it. You delete it. You’re not ready yet. But the slow burn has begun. Even if she doesn’t know it.

Yet.

You’re seventeen, standing under the buzzing lights of a high school gym in Springfield, Massachusetts, wearing a press badge with your name misspelled and your heart beating too loud to think straight.

It’s the Gatorade National Girls' High School Showcase, and you're here on a student press pass from Hartford Youth Sports Watch, a local online newsletter that publishes one of your columns every week. You pitched the idea yourself. Wrote the sample copy. Sent a portfolio. Asked—begged, really—to tag along with a couple of regional reporters who didn’t know who you were two months ago but now call you “the kid with the breakdowns.”

You were assigned Court 3. Middle of the bracket. A game between two strong teams from New York and Ohio. Good basketball. Plenty to write about.

But your eyes drift.

You know who’s playing on Court 1.

Team St. John’s College High. D.C. powerhouse. Headlined by none other than Azzi Fudd.

You spotted her twenty minutes ago as you stepped into the gym. Warmups. Black shooting shirt. Hair pulled back tight. Calm. Controlled. Eyes like ice water. You watched her knock down five threes in a row like she wasn’t even trying. Like her release didn’t need breath to function.

Your hands got clammy. You’d practiced what you’d say—if you saw her. If you got the chance. Something short. Respectful. Cool, but not weird.

Hi, I’m Y/N. I’ve done a few breakdowns on your games. I’d love to ask you a couple quick questions if you have a minute.

You rehearsed it. Memorized the inflection. Smoothed your hoodie three times before walking in.

And now, you're frozen.

You’re sitting on the folding chair behind the scorer’s table on Court 3, but your body is angled toward Court 1. Your eyes flick constantly between the action in front of you and the action across the gym, like you’re pretending to multitask but everyone can tell you’re distracted.

Azzi is on fire.

Her team isn’t blowing out the opponent, but she’s clearly the anchor. Commanding the floor. Talking just loud enough to lead, but quiet enough to make it seem easy. There’s a pace to her. You know it well now. The way she slows her defender down just by being near. The subtle shift of her weight before a screen. The way her shot stays level even when she's falling sideways.

You should be filming Court 3. You know it. You have a job.

Instead, you hold your phone low and record ten seconds of Azzi snatching a rebound, pushing coast to coast, and finishing with a mid-air hesitation so smooth it doesn’t look real. You whisper to yourself, “Jesus Christ.”

You don’t post it. You just save it to your camera roll.

At halftime, your game ends. There’s a twenty-minute break before the next match, and you're supposed to send a quick summary to the editor of the newsletter.

You don’t.

You get up, walk slow, and circle the far side of the gym—close enough to get to Court 1, but not too close. You still haven’t figured out what you’re doing. You’ve got a reporter’s notebook in one hand and your phone in the other. Your feet are moving on instinct.

She’s standing near the water cooler with a towel around her neck, talking with one of her teammates. Laughing. Not fake laughing. Real laughing—the kind that makes her head tilt back a little and her dimples show. You freeze again. You’re five feet away. You could say it. You should say it.

But your throat closes. You pretend to check your notes. Pretend to tie your shoe. Pretend to be invisible. And that’s when it happens. She looks up. Right at you. Not a glance. Not an accident.

She sees you.

And for a second—a full, tangible second—Azzi Fudd stares. She doesn’t smile. Doesn’t frown. She just tilts her head a little like she’s trying to place you. Like you might be familiar.

You’re still. Then her eyes flick to your notebook. You panic.

You whip your gaze to the floor, scribble a line you’ll never use, and step back toward the bleachers before she can say anything. Your heart hammers. You don’t breathe until you’re back at Court 3, sitting down hard, hands shaking a little from whatever just passed between you.

You don’t know what that moment meant.

Maybe she recognized you from your videos. Maybe she didn’t.

Maybe she just caught a weird kid staring and made a mental note to never do interviews with high schoolers again.

You don’t know. But you can’t stop thinking about it.

Not when you leave the gym. Not when you email your write-up. Not when you lie awake that night and replay the look in her eyes over and over like you’re trying to find something in the freeze frame.

You write your article on the showcase the next day. It’s about the team from Ohio. About rebounding margins and high-percentage shots and defensive tempo.

But at the end, in the final paragraph, you add a single line.

“And of course, all eyes kept drifting to Court 1. Azzi Fudd doesn’t just play the game. She redefines how it feels to watch it.”

You don’t tag her.

You don’t even say her name again.

But the view count climbs higher than your usual posts. You get a few more followers. One of her teammates likes the article.

That night, you check your followers list again. She’s still there. Still following you.

You decided to do something different for your application for Uconn. You don’t know if someone before you have done it, but you do it anyway. 

It takes you three weeks to write the first sentence. You scrap it five times.

Every version sounds too polished or too desperate or too… not you. But it matters. It’s everything. Your application to UConn—the school you’ve loved since you were a baby in a blue onesie—has to be perfect.

You have good grades. A clean transcript. Some solid recs. But the personal essay? That’s where you have to bleed a little.

So finally, on a night when the house is quiet and the rain hits soft against your window, you open a blank document and type.

“My earliest memory isn’t of a toy or a birthday or a bedtime story. It’s of sitting on my father’s shoulders in the XL Center, watching Maya Moore hit a three from the corner and not understanding what basketball was—but knowing it meant everything.”

That’s the line that stays.

The rest flows like breath. You write about your first game. The way your mom clapped louder than the student section. The sound of the buzzer. The way Geno’s voice became part of your family’s dinner conversations. How you’ve never played basketball, not once, but the game has shaped you like a second spine. How you don’t want to be on the court. You want to be near it. Recording it. Honoring it. Living beside it.

You cry when you finish. Just a little.

But the writing isn’t what you’re most proud of.

It’s the video.

You’ve been working on it since August. It’s part of your application—an optional supplement. You call it, My UConn Dream.

A ten minute mini-documentary. 

It opens with old footage—your dad’s grainy camcorder shots of toddler-you in a UConn beanie, holding a popcorn bucket bigger than your face. A cut to the upper bowl. A crowd rising to its feet. Taurasi on the jumbotron. You barely blinking.

Then it transitions to your voice.

“This isn’t just about a school. It’s about a lifetime of falling in love with the same thing over and over again.”

You layer in your own vlogs. Clips from games. Interviews you’ve done. Geno calling you Stat Girl with that smirk. Diana throwing you a peace sign after a win. Behind the scenes shots from the media room, from buses, from cold walks through campus before dawn.

You narrate throughout. Honest. Real.

“I want to major in digital media and sports journalism. I want to tell stories. I want to keep honoring women who never get the camera pointed at them first.”

There’s a moment near the end where your voice breaks. Just a little.

“I want to go to the place that raised me.”

You post it publicly on your channel the same night you submit your application.

Your thumbnail, a still of you as a kid in the stands, face painted, holding a sign that says “In Geno We Trust.”

It goes up at midnight.

By morning, it has 40,000 views. Hundreds of comments flood in.

You’re overwhelmed. In the best way.

You don't know, as you scroll through those comments in your kitchen that morning, still in your pajamas and still too stunned to eat breakfast, that your video has already traveled farther than you thought.

You don’t know that a girl two states away watched it alone in her bedroom the night it dropped.

That her best friend sent her the link.

Paige: yo, this the girl coach always talking about

You don’t know that Azzi Fudd clicked it out of curiosity, not expecting much. Just another fan, probably. Some girl with a phone and a ring light and a big voice.

But she watched the whole thing.

Every second.

Watched you in the stands. Watched your hands shake holding a mic. Watched the way your voice softened when you talked about what basketball means to you.

She watched you say, “Some people are born into teams. But I chose this one. Or maybe it chose me.”

And she paused the video. Sat back. Felt something shift. Just a little. She recognized your voice from that one video you made about her. Now she won’t forget it. She doesn’t comment. Doesn’t like. Doesn’t share.

But she sends it to her mom. And later, she watches it again.

She doesn’t know why. She just does.

You, meanwhile, are pacing.

You triple-check your application portal every night before bed. Refresh it. Stare at the little “Submitted” checkmark like it might morph into “Accepted” if you squint hard enough.

You go to every home game you can. Still wearing your lanyard. Still getting quotes. Still uploading breakdowns.

People greet you by name now in the concourse. You start your next video with a laugh.

“So, I did a thing. I applied to UConn. And if you’ve been here long enough, you already know this was coming.”

You hold up a keychain you bought from the campus bookstore.

It just says Soon.

Weeks later, you’re in your bedroom writing another piece when you see the email.

It’s almost anticlimactic—just a vibration on your phone during fifth period that you don’t check until after school. You’re walking up the driveway, backpack digging into one shoulder, when your thumb swipes down and your eyes catch the header.

University of Connecticut – Admissions Decision Available

Your heart stumbles.

You don’t run inside. You try to walk normal. You make it halfway to the kitchen before dropping your bag and unlocking your phone with fingers that suddenly feel too big. Your mom’s in the other room. Your dad’s still at work. You open the email alone, standing in your socks on the hardwood floor.

You click the portal. Your breath skips.

Congratulations!

You don’t read the rest, just yell.

“MOM!”

She’s already running in, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “What? What happened—”

“I GOT IN!”

“OH MY GOD—” She drops the towel. “ARE YOU SERIOUS?!”

You spin your phone around and she grabs your face and starts crying before you even do.

It’s not a fancy scholarship announcement. There’s no marching band or TV camera crew. Just a shaking screen, your mom squeezing you, your chest cracked wide open because you did it. You got in.

To UConn.

The place you’ve been dreaming of since before you knew how dreams worked.

That night, you make the video.

You’ve never done something like this. Not with you in it.

Your voice has always been there—behind the camera, under the highlights, in captions and threads and box score breakdowns—but never you. Not your face. Not your story.

You set your phone up against a stack of books, right next to the cork board full of game tickets and your “Bleed Blue” sign. You wear your old UConn hoodie—sleeves too short, frayed at the wrist. Your hair’s a mess. You don’t care.

You hit record.

“Okay,” you say, laughing nervously. “Hi. Um. I don’t know how to do this. This isn’t a breakdown or anything. This is just… me.”

You glance off camera. Take a breath.

“I got in. I got into UConn. I got my acceptance email this afternoon, and I still don’t fully believe it. I’ve wanted to go to UConn since I was—what—six months old? No, like actually. My parents took me to my first UConn women’s basketball game when I was a baby. I don’t remember it, but they say Diana Taurasi hit a game-winner and I cried through the whole first half.”

You smile.

“This school, this program, it raised me. I wasn’t a basketball player. I didn’t put on a jersey or go to summer camp or play AAU. I was the kid in the stands with a notebook and a pen. I was the one yelling stats at my parents on the drive home. I took the bus to games when they couldn’t take me. I wrote about the team in my school paper.”

Your voice starts to shake, just a little.

“I made videos. I made so many videos. And I didn’t think anyone was watching, at first. But some people did. And now I’m going to the place that made me fall in love with basketball without ever playing a second of it.”

You sniff. Wipe your cheek quickly.

“I guess what I’m saying is… if you’re someone who loves something so hard it feels dumb or small or embarrassing—don’t stop. Don’t shrink it down to make other people comfortable. Just keep loving it. Loudly. Obsessively. Because I did. And it brought me here.”

You pause. Bite your lip. Then grin.

“Also—minor detail, but—if I do happen to marry a UConn women’s basketball player… nobody be surprised.” You wink at the camera, shrugging. “Just saying.”

You end the video there.

You post it around 10:30 p.m. You think maybe your friends will see it. Maybe some people from Twitter. You almost don’t tag the UConn WBB account.

But you do.

When you wake up… everything is different.

Your phone is buzzing. Not just a few notifications. Hundreds.

The video has already passed 90,000 views. It’s been reposted by a local news station, quote-tweeted by a beat reporter, and—most terrifyingly—shared by the official UConn WBB account with the caption, This is what Husky Nation is all about! Welcome home, Y/N.

You sit straight up in bed. You scroll down.

One comment catches your eye. You recognize the name immediately.

azzi35: congratulations! 

Your jaw drops. You reread it five times. You don’t move. Don’t breathe.

She saw it.

She saw it.

Your mom comes in a few minutes later, holding a mug of coffee and grinning.

“You’re famous,” she teases, handing it to you. “I just watched it again.”

You stare down at your screen. “Azzi Fudd commented on it.”

She pauses. Blinks.

“Like the Azzi Fudd?”

“Yeah.”

Your mom sits on the edge of your bed. “Oh honey,” she laughs softly, nudging your shoulder. “You really might marry a UConn player someday.”

You hide your face in your hands.

And smile.

It’s Thursday. Four days after the video. Three days since UConn reposted it. Two since a local TV station invited you for an interview, to which you politely declined, and exactly zero days since you last reread the part where Azzi Fudd commented on your post.

You’ve read it so many times it’s engraved in your brain.

congratulations!

You didn’t know how one word could impact you like this.

You didn’t reply. You couldn’t. What were you supposed to say—“thanks, I’ve watched every minute you’ve played since sophomore year and also your jumper is technically a religious experience”?

No.

You let it sit. You breathed. You told yourself it was enough.

And it was.

Until your phone buzzes at 6:47 p.m. while you’re heating up leftovers in the microwave and you glance down to see the words,

azzi35 sent you a message

You stare at it like it’s not real. Like it’s going to vanish if you blink too fast.

You dry your hands on your hoodie and sit at the counter. The microwave beeps. You don’t hear it.

You tap the screen.

That video made my mom cry. Just wanted to say congrats again. Maybe I’ll see you on campus soon? 

You read it once. Twice. A third time, aloud, under your breath.

“Her mom cried?” you whisper. “Her mom.”

You cover your face with one hand and try not to spiral. The message is so simple. So normal. But it’s from Azzi. And it’s kind. And direct. And real. And she remembered. She saw the video days ago and still thought about it long enough to follow up.

You try typing.

Thank you so much, that seriously means the wor—

Delete.

Can’t believe you saw it. Congrats on making my soul leave my—

Delete.

Not me sobbing into my hoodie like an absolute idiot becau—

Delete.

You exhale, hard.

that’s so sweet!! tell her thank you for me?? and thank YOU for even watching it. hope our paths actually cross sometime 

You stare at it.

Or like… casually all the time since we’ll be at the same school?? nbd or anything??

No. Too much. Too desperate.

You delete the second half. Hit send before you can change your mind.

You don’t expect her to reply right away. You actually don’t expect her to reply at all. But two minutes later, ’typing…’, appears.

Your stomach flips like you’re on a rollercoaster that only goes up.

If I see you on campus I’m definitely saying hi. You’re pretty famous now anyway 

You laugh out loud. Alone. In your kitchen. With your mom’s spaghetti steaming behind you, untouched.

don’t do that. i will collapse in public. like full dramatic slow fall to the pavement.

More typing.

I’ll catch you. I got fast reflexes.

You slap your hand over your mouth and make an inhuman sound.

You pace the kitchen. You stare at the message. You take a screenshot, text it to your best friend with seventeen exclamation marks, delete the screenshot, then open your fridge for absolutely no reason other than to put your face inside it and whisper, “Get it together.”

Your phone buzzes again.

also ur videos? literally the best ones out there. i’m not kidding.

You stop breathing. You sit down slowly. Your hands tremble just a little.

ok so if i die tonight it’s fine because azzi fudd said my videos are the best ones out there. tell my mom i love her. bury me in husky blue.

Her reply comes quick.

stop. i’m being serious.

i watch all of them. they’re like… calming, idk? i’ll be nervous pregame and someone shows me one, especially the one you made of me, and it’s just like… “oh. right. i know how to do this.”

You stare at that message for a long time. Not because it’s surreal. But because it’s intimate. She didn’t have to say that. She didn’t have to say any of this.

You take a breath. You reply honestly.

i can’t even tell you what that means to me. i’ve loved this game my whole life. i never played but it’s always been from the outside looking in. hearing that it helps you? that makes all of it worth it.

She doesn’t type right away. You sit with the silence. Eventually, her message comes through.

maybe not for long though. outside looking in, i mean. you’re gonna be there soon.

You blink. Smile.

And think—not for the first time, not for the last—maybe you're not just going to attend UConn. Maybe you're about to belong there.

The air in Storrs smells like August. Grass, asphalt, hot mulch, sweat, and a little bit of panic.

You’re three trips into moving your whole life from Hartford to your tiny dorm in North Campus. Your back hurts, your shirt is sticking to you, and your mom already cried twice—once when she saw the room, again when she handed you a Ziplock of chocolate chip cookies with a shaky smile.

You’re standing on the curb with your last box. It’s heavy. Your arms are burning. Your RA said the elevator was broken, because of course it is, and there’s no one else around because you told your parents to go grab iced coffee without you, thinking you could carry this one on your own.

You’re halfway to convincing yourself to make the climb when you hear it.

“Need a hand?”

You turn.

She’s standing in front of you. Azzi. In shorts and a loose gray UConn Athletics t-shirt, sunglasses perched on her head, braids pulled back tight. A folded map of campus in one hand, half a smoothie in the other.

You forget how to hold the box for a second. You blink.

“Wait—are you serious right now?” you say.

Her grin widens. “I’m pretty strong,” she says, flexing one arm dramatically, then snorts. “You looked like you were about to just sit down and let the box win.”

“I was,” you say. “It was winning. Completely dominating me. No contest.”

She laughs. Sets her smoothie on the ground. “Here,” she says, and takes the box from your arms like it weighs nothing. “Which floor?”

“Third.”

“No elevator?” she asks, walking beside you now.

“Of course not,” you mutter. “Welcome to college.”

You glance at her from the corner of your eye. She’s calm. Like this is normal. Like helping someone move into a random dorm is something she just does. Her pace is easy. Her shoulders loose.

You reach the stairwell. She goes first. You trail behind, still slightly disoriented.

“I didn’t know you were in this dorm,” you manage.

“I’m not,” she says. “I just got here early for practice. I was grabbing something from the student center and saw you on the sidewalk. Thought you looked familiar. Thought—‘hey, that’s the breakdown girl who made my mom cry.’”

You groan. “You just had to bring that up.”

“It was cute,” she says, glancing over her shoulder. “Don’t worry. She’s still talking about it.”

“I’m gonna change my name and live in a hole.”

She laughs again, and you swear it echoes.

By the time you reach the room, your heartbeat isn’t just from the stairs.

She sets the box down and wipes her hands on her shorts. “There we go.”

You try to think of something cool to say. Something not weird. Something that doesn’t scream… I’ve had a crush on you from the moment I saw you step behind a screen and bury a three like it was nothing.

What comes out instead is, “So like… how does it feel?”

She tilts her head. “How does what feel?”

“Being Azzi Fudd,” you say, then wince. “Sorry. That sounded—”

“No, I like that question,” she says, still smiling. She leans against your desk, arms folded now. “It feels… crazy. Like, people say the name like it’s a brand. Or a stat sheet. But I still wake up with my bonnet half-falling off and toothpaste on my shirt, you know?”

You laugh. You can’t help it.

She shrugs. “It’s humbling being here, honestly. UConn’s where all my heroes came from. And now I’m just hoping I don’t trip over my own feet in front of Geno.”

“You won’t,” you say, automatically. “You belong here.”

Azzi pauses and looks at you for a beat.

“Thanks,” she says softly. “You really think that?”

“I mean… yeah. I’ve been watching this program my whole life. I can tell who’s got it. And you? You’ve got it.”

There’s a flicker of something in her eyes. Not just amusement now. Something warmer.

She nudges your desk chair with her foot. “And what about you? You’re finally here. After all the years in the stands.”

You exhale. “I still don’t believe it. I keep waiting for someone to tap my shoulder and tell me it was a mistake.”

“It wasn’t.” You look at her. “It wasn’t,” she repeats, and her voice is firm now. “You worked for this.”

You sit down on your bed because your legs are suddenly a little wobbly. “I didn’t even play basketball. I always loved it from the outside. Like I was watching through a glass wall. But now I’m here. With an official pass. And a class schedule. And a mini fridge.”

“And a camera that makes players nervous,” she adds, grinning. “Seriously—do you know how many people talk about your videos? Paige loves them.”

Your brain short-circuits for a second. “Paige Bueckers?”

She nods. “She’s my best friend. We played USA ball together. Trained together a ton. I’m hyped to be on her team again.”

You nod too fast. “Yeah. No. Yeah. She’s insane. Her court vision? Unreal.”

Azzi perks up. “Right? You get it. Most people just talk about her scoring.”

You grin. “No, her reads are the most dangerous part. It’s like she sees into the future.”

Azzi points at you. “Exactly!”

You both pause. Smiling. The room quiets.

“So,” she says, nudging her shoe against yours. “Now that we’re both here… what happens next?”

Your mouth opens. Closes. You think of ten possible answers. You settle on one.

“I guess we both do what we came here to do,” you say. “You win games. I tell stories.”

She holds your gaze for a second.

“I like that,” she says. “Sounds like a pretty good team.”

Your cheeks burn.

You smile. “Yeah. I think so too.”

You weren’t planning on staying late.

You just needed to print a last-minute syllabus, maybe jot down a few class notes before the chaos of syllabus week turned into real deadlines. The main library was packed, the dorm lobby was loud, so you wandered until you found the tiny study lounge tucked between the chemistry building and the dining hall.

It’s quiet. Almost sacred.

Dim yellow light. One humming vending machine. Two long tables. One outlet that works. You set your laptop down at the far end, earbuds in, hoodie up, world shut out.

Until you hear the soft scrape of sneakers against tile.

You look up.

Azzi stands in the doorway, hoodie half-zipped, curls tied up, water bottle in one hand, textbook in the other.

She sees you and smiles like it’s not even surprising.

“Oh hey,” she says. “I knew I’d run into you eventually.”

You blink. “In the library?”

She laughs. “Exactly where I thought you’d be.”

You gesture to the empty seat across from you. “Welcome to the land of procrastination.”

She drops her bag with a soft thud. “My favorite.”

At first, it’s quiet. You’re working on class notes. She’s flipping through a textbook—sports psych, you think. Every so often you hear the soft tick-tick of her highlighter, or the slosh of her water bottle when she takes a sip.

It’s… easy.

Too easy, maybe.

Until she looks up and says softly, “Do you ever think about how weird this is?”

You glance up. “What part?”

“This,” she says, waving vaguely at the room. “Like… you and me. Sitting here. Same school. Same campus. I used to watch UConn highlights on my phone between homework and shooting workouts, and now I’m just… here.”

You nod slowly. “I do think about that a lot.”

She rests her chin on her hand. “I think sometimes people expect me to feel like the version of myself they know from the internet or YouTube or whatever. Like I’m supposed to always be locked in. Always the brand.”

You don’t say anything. You let her keep going.

“But here,” she says, voice lower now, “it’s kinda nice just being Azzi. Not the basketball player. Just me.”

You swallow. And carefully, gently, you say, “What’s just you like?”

She looks at you. Really looks. Like she’s surprised you asked.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m still figuring that out.”

You nod. She shifts a little, lets her leg bump yours under the table. Doesn’t move it.

“I’m quiet,” she says. “At first. I like routines. I don’t like attention off the court, even though I always seem to get it. I like Twizzlers more than I should probably admit. And I can watch the same movie three times in one week if I’m stressed.”

“What movie?”

“Coach Carter,” she says, grinning. “Judge me.”

You shake your head. “I’d only judge you if you said Thunderstruck.”

Her whole face lights up. “Okay wait—objectively one of the worst basketball movies ever made.”

“Thank you!”

She bites her bottom lip, still smiling. “I was worried you were gonna say it’s your favorite.”

“I make videos, Azzi. I have taste.”

She laughs again, leans back in her chair. Her posture’s looser now. Like she’s shedding something.

You watch her for a second. The quiet under the lights. The way her gaze lingers on the ceiling tiles like she’s somewhere else for a moment—maybe in her own head, maybe somewhere she hasn’t told anyone about yet.

“Why UConn?” you ask.

She looks down. Twirls the cap of her highlighter.

“Because I wanted to play for Geno,” she says. “Because I wanted to wear the jersey I grew up watching. Because Paige is here. Because I wanted to be part of something bigger than just my name.”

You nod. “That makes sense.”

She glances at you. “What about you? Why here?”

You pause. Think. Not about the rehearsed answers you gave in essays or to your guidance counselor. You think about the answer you’ve never really said out loud.

“Because it’s always felt like home,” you say. “Even when I was just a face in the stands. It felt like where I was supposed to be.”

She tilts her head. “Even though you never played?”

You smile. “Especially because I never played. Watching was playing. In my head. In my notebooks. It’s how I learned to love the game.”

Azzi stares at you for a long second.

“I think that’s beautiful,” she says softly.

Your throat goes a little tight. You look back at your screen. “Don’t say stuff like that or I’ll start writing a poem about you and post it on Twitter.”

She laughs again. “Do it. I dare you.” You open a Word doc. Start typing. She leans across the table. “No you won’t.”

You keep typing. She squints at the screen.

Roses are red Huskies are blue Azzi Fudd walked in And I forgot how to function like a normal person who knows how to make eye contact—

She snorts. “You’re such a weirdo.”

You grin. “Takes one to know one.”

By the time you check the clock, it’s past 1 a.m. The building is silent. Just the hum of the vending machine and the click of your keys as you pack up. She stands at the same time you do. Your shoulders brush. Neither of you steps away.

She looks at you under the soft yellow light. “Wanna walk back together?”

You nod. You both walk out into the night. The air’s cooler now. Softer.

She nudges your arm gently. “Hey.” You glance over. “Thanks,” she says. “For tonight.”

“For carrying your half of the friendship so far?”

“For letting me be Azzi,” she says.

You smile. “Anytime.”

You mean it.

It’s your second week working student media and your first real UConn Women’s Basketball practice.

You’ve got the press vest, the clunky video camera, checked out of the digital lab, a spare battery in your back pocket, and a nervous buzz running all the way through your limbs like static. You’re supposed to be filming highlights for a pre-season hype reel, which means getting clean, tight shots of drills, scrimmages, Geno being Geno, and—if you’re lucky—some personality.

You try to stay out of the way. Hug the wall, step behind the scorer’s table, film from above when the angle works. You know this gym. You’ve grown up in this gym. But today, it feels like walking through a dream that keeps touching you back.

The team moves like music—chaotic, precise, loud. Shoes squeaking, balls slamming into hardwood, whistles sharp. Azzi is everywhere. She’s vocal. Focused. Cutting sharp and fast like her legs are on springs. You track her without even meaning to.

You’re filming from midcourt when it happens.

She glances over during a break, wipes sweat from her brow, and smirks.

“Yo, Y/N—you getting my good side or what?”

You fumble the focus.

“Uh,” you say, stupidly. “You… have more than one.”

She raises an eyebrow. Grins like she just scored.

“Nice save,” she says, turning back toward the drill line.

From down the court, Aaliyah lets out a loud “OHHHhhh she’s FLIRTIN’ again!”

Everyone laughs.

Dorka claps. “That’s like the third time this week.”

Azzi doesn’t flinch. “I’m just making sure the videographer stays focused.”

Paige leans over to you. “She only says that to people she likes.”

You choke on your spit.

Later, you're crouched on the baseline, capturing close-ups during a half-court scrimmage. Azzi drives hard to the right, fakes a pass, pulls back, and buries a three so smooth it could’ve been filmed at half-speed.

As she jogs backward, she turns slightly toward you, throws two fingers up at her temple, and mouths, “Get that?”

You nod, too stunned to speak.

Behind her, Paige—who’s just arrived and is watching from the sideline with a Gatorade—calls out, “If you make a mixtape just for her, I swear to God.”

Azzi calls back, “Don’t worry, it’s for her personal archives.”

Everyone oohs. You just bury your face in your hands, camera shaking.

After practice, you’re transferring footage onto your laptop in the media room when you hear sneakers on linoleum. You look up.

Azzi leans in the doorway, fresh out of the locker room. Hair damp. Hoodie slung over her shoulder.

“Hey,” she says, a little softer now.

“Hey.”

“You got the shot, right? That step-back?”

You nod. “In high definition. It’s practically a religious experience.”

She grins. “Good. I wanna send it to my mom.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You’re gonna send your mom a clip from my camera?”

She walks in, shrugs. “You shoot me better than the actual team page does.”

Your cheeks burn.

She eyes your screen. “Wanna sit in the stands sometime? Like… not for work. Just as friends. Watch the men’s practice with me?”

“Friends watch practices together?”

She shrugs again. “They do if they’re secretly scouting each other.”

You laugh, shake your head. “You’re a menace.”

“And you’re blushing.”

You are. Fully.

You shut your laptop slowly. “Yeah, well. You are my favorite player.”

She pauses. Smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Good. Because you’re kinda becoming one of mine.” Your breath stutters. You say nothing. And she just smiles wider. “See you around, camera girl.”

She disappears back down the hall.

You sit frozen for a beat before whispering into the empty room, “Oh my God.”

It’s a Thursday afternoon when the gym lights flicker on overhead and the thump of basketballs begins to echo like a heartbeat. You’re back again, perched behind the camera at the scorer’s table, watching the team warm up. Same camera. Same assignment. Same angle.

But everything feels a little different now.

Because this time, Azzi keeps looking at you.

Not subtle glances. Not maybe she’s checking the clock kind of looks. No—this is head up, eyes locked, tiny grin tugging at the corners of her mouth every time she sinks a shot. She doesn’t break her stride. Doesn’t call attention to it. But it’s there. Like she’s playing with the gym but performing for you.

You try to stay focused. Try to pan smoothly. Try to track the drills without letting your hands shake. But every time she glances over, you feel it in your spine.

And when scrimmage starts, it only gets worse.

It’s a loose five-on-five, full-court with a few new sets they’re testing. Paige’s running point. Dorka’s working on her inside presence. Azzi starts slow—light on her feet, reading the floor, not forcing anything.

But midway through the second possession, Paige kicks it out to her beyond the arc.

One dribble. Step back.

Three.

Swish.

You instinctively follow the shot through your lens and catch her turning—eyes to you. She lifts her eyebrows once, like you get that?

You give a barely-there nod.

Next play, Azzi curls off a screen from Nika, gets the handoff, barely sets her feet.

Second three.

Net again.

This time, when she turns to jog back on defense, she says just loud enough for everyone to hear, “I’m telling you—Y/N’s my lucky charm.”

You freeze behind the camera.

Paige, mid-transition, snorts. “Oh my god.”

Aaliyah yells, “Here she goes!”

You catch Dorka dramatically wiping imaginary sweat from her brow.

On the next trip down, Paige feeds her again. No hesitation. No wasted movement.

Third three.

This one rattles in. Still counts.

The gym erupts in the usual “Woooo” from the sideline, sneakers squealing as players shuffle back into place.

But this time, it’s Geno who steps in from the wing with his whistle in his hand and that familiar, half-exhausted, half-amused look on his face—the one you’ve seen a thousand times on television but never this close. He points at Azzi, then points directly at you, sitting behind the camera.

“You two dating yet? Do I need to start charging her rent for attention?”

The gym explodes with laughter. It’s immediate, loud, relentless. Nika claps like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. Paige almost falls to the floor. Aaliyah shouts, “Coach, please!!” and covers her face with a towel. Dorka gasps like she’s scandalized.

And you? You short-circuit. Fully. You duck your head behind the camera, ears burning, heart punching holes in your chest.

Azzi grins. “Don’t worry, Coach,” she says, still breathing a little heavy from the play, “if we were dating, I wouldn’t be missing any shots.”

Geno just shakes his head, muttering something under his breath that sounds like, “god help me.”

You don’t say a word. You keep filming. But your mouth won’t stop smiling.

After practice, you stay behind to upload footage. Azzi wanders over slowly, towel around her neck, sweat still glistening across her brow. She doesn’t sit. Just leans on the table beside your laptop and glances at the playback.

“That third one was ugly,” she murmurs. “But it went in.”

You click back and replay it. “Your arc was a little flat. You were leaning.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t notice.”

“I did.”

You play it again. She watches the ball drop clean through the net, the gym behind her erupting in sound, and smirks.

“And I noticed you,” she says.

You look up. She’s watching you now, not the screen.

“I meant it, by the way,” she adds. “You really are my lucky charm.”

You try to laugh it off. “I think your jump shot deserves most of the credit.”

“Maybe,” she says, standing straighter, slinging the towel around her shoulders. “But it’s more fun thinking it’s you.”

You don’t say anything. Don’t have to. She takes a step back, but her eyes linger.

“Text me the clips?” she says. “I wanna post the second one.”

You nod.

“Cool. And…” she bites her bottom lip, hesitates for a second. “You free tomorrow?”

Your breath catches.

“Yeah,” you say. “I think I can be.”

“Great,” she says. “Let’s grab dinner. My treat.”

You blink. “Like… just us?”

She nods. “You know—lucky charm privileges.”

You laugh quietly. “I’ll bring the magic.”

She smiles. “I’m counting on it.”

And she walks away, leaving you in the quiet echo of the gym, sitting behind a camera that finally stopped rolling.

You’ve checked your shirt twice in the mirror and fixed your collar three times before you even leave your room. Not because you’re trying to impress her—well, okay, yes, because you’re trying to impress her—but not in the way people expect. It’s not flowers and cologne and rehearsed lines. It’s… subtler than that. Tucked shirts, pressed pants, a clean watch and your best calm voice.

You open doors. You walk on the outside of the sidewalk. You ask if she’s warm enough before you even think of your own coat.

You’re a little shy about it. You don’t broadcast who you are. You just show it.

And somehow—Azzi sees it all anyway.

She picked a little place off campus. Not too far, just past the edge of the college town strip, a small family-owned spot with warm lighting and quiet booths. She’s already waiting when you get there, tucked into the corner table with a water glass sweating beside her and her phone face down.

She sees you and smiles slow, soft, like she’s glad you’re real and standing in front of her.

“Hey,” she says, standing up before you can pull her chair out for her. “You clean up nice.”

You rub the back of your neck. “Was aiming for something between ‘student media’ and ‘my mom raised me right.’”

She laughs and gestures for you to sit. “Well, you nailed it.”

You take the seat across from her, hands resting loosely in your lap. The menu’s already waiting, but you don’t open it right away.

She watches you for a second before saying, “It’s weird seeing you without a camera.”

You smile. “It’s weird not having one.”

“Do you ever turn it off?” she asks.

You blink. “The camera?”

“No,” she says gently. “You. The part of you that’s always… watching.”

You sit with that.

“No one’s asked me that before,” you admit.

“Well,” she says, leaning in a little, “tonight I want you to not be working. Just be you.”

You glance down, then back at her. “And who’s that, exactly?”

Azzi tilts her head. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

Dinner is easy.

Conversation flows like it’s been waiting to happen—never forced, never performative. You talk about your childhood in Hartford, about taking the bus to games alone when your parents were working, about the first time you saw Diana Taurasi play and how you didn’t blink the entire fourth quarter.

Azzi tells you about her first time meeting Geno. How nervous she was. How Paige teased her about her handshake being “too polite.” She mimics it—stiff, formal, laughably awkward—and you laugh harder than you expect.

She talks about Paige a lot, but not in the way that threatens you. It’s soft. Familiar. Like a big sister figure she admires and still wants to impress. There’s affection in every mention, but it’s different from the attention she’s been giving you.

And she gives you a lot of it.

Her eyes don’t wander. She leans closer when you speak. And when your fingers brush lightly while reaching for your water, she doesn’t pull away. Not even a little.

“You really love this school,” she says at one point, after you’ve told her about your acceptance video, your old journals, the posters that still hang on your childhood bedroom wall.

“I do,” you admit. “It raised me. Even when I didn’t know it.”

Azzi looks at you for a long time after that. Not just watching, but seeing.

“You’re different,” she says quietly.

You shift slightly in your seat, brows tugging together. “How do you mean?”

She’s still looking at you, expression unreadable. But not cold. Just open. Bare.

“You don’t look at me like the rest of them do.”

You pause. Swallow. “How do the rest of them look at you?”

“Like I’m a story they already wrote,” she murmurs. “Like I exist on highlight reels and shoe deals and media day quotes.” You don’t speak. She lifts her gaze. “But you… you watch me like you’re still figuring me out. Like you’re not trying to own any part of me. Just… witness me.”

You feel the words in your chest before they reach your brain.

“I think you deserve that,” you say. “To just be.”

Azzi’s lips part like she wants to say something back but decides against it. Instead, she just exhales and leans back in the booth, letting the silence sit between you—warm, unhurried.

After dinner, you offer to walk her back. Of course you do. It’s late, and the air has gone from cool to crisp. You take her empty smoothie cup and toss it into the trash can outside before she even has to ask. She thanks you without looking, like it’s natural now.

Halfway back to her dorm, she stops.

You turn with her.

She’s smiling. Just a little.

“Can I say something weird?” she asks.

You nod. “Always.”

“I wasn’t planning on liking you this much.”

You blink. “I wasn’t planning on being liked this much.”

Azzi laughs. It’s soft. She tucks a curl behind her ear. “That makes two of us.”

There’s a quiet moment where she’s just looking at you again. Not speaking. Not teasing. Just… soaking you in.

She steps forward, and you think for a second she might kiss you. She doesn’t. Just bumps her shoulder into yours and says, “Same time next week?”

You smile. “Same table?”

“Only if you wear the same shirt.”

You pretend to groan. “I have three shirts, Fudd. Don’t make me waste all my charm too fast.”

She laughs again and steps into the lobby of her building. You stay on the sidewalk a minute longer, watching the door slowly close. And you swear, just before it shuts, she turns and smiles at you one more time.

You and Azzi don’t make an announcement. There’s no sit-down conversation, no hard lines drawn or expectations set. It just… happens. You start showing up for each other in the smallest, quietest ways. Ways no one really notices until they suddenly do.

She texts you when she’s leaving the gym late and asks if you’re still up. You are. You always are. So you meet halfway between your dorms and split a bag of vending machine pretzels under flickering lights while the rest of campus sleeps.

You start bringing her iced coffee to morning classes on Wednesdays. She doesn’t ask for it, but she starts texting you her order anyway.

You study together on Tuesdays in the tiny music library with the bad Wi-Fi and the good sunlight. She wears glasses she never wears anywhere else. You never tell her how unfairly good she looks in them. But she catches you staring one day and says, “Stop that,” with a smile so soft it curls your ribs.

Your playlists start to blur. Your snacks. Your hours. She starts calling your hoodie hers without really asking, and you never take it back.

People don’t really ask questions at first. They just assume you’re close. Until it’s clear you’re not just teammates or classmates or campus acquaintances.

You’re something.

And that’s when Paige corners you.

You’re filming light drills during a morning practice. Most of the team is stretching, quiet murmurs floating around the gym. You’re crouched at midcourt, fixing your focus, when a shadow steps into your peripheral vision.

You glance up.

Paige Bueckers stands there with a smirk and a half-empty Gatorade bottle. Her hair’s a mess, and she’s already got a sweatband tied loose around one wrist.

She squints at you like she’s inspecting an exhibit.

“So,” she says slowly, “what are you two, exactly?”

You blink. “Huh?”

She points her Gatorade bottle in your direction. “You. Azzi. The subtle stares. The hallway walks. The hoodie swaps. The fact that she basically glares at anyone who gets within six feet of you.”

You lower the camera. “I don’t… I mean, we’re just…”

“Don’t say friends,” Paige cuts in. “I have friends. I don’t look at them like I want to memorize how they laugh.” Your mouth opens. Closes. She steps closer. “I’m her best friend. I’ve seen her with a million people. I’ve seen her pretend. But with you?” She shakes her head. “She’s not pretending.”

You swallow. “She hasn’t said anything.”

“Yeah, well,” Paige mutters, “she’s Azzi. She doesn’t always say things. She does them.”

You look down at your hands. They’re shaking a little.

“I don’t want to rush her,” you say softly. “I just… like being around her. I’m happy to wait. Or not wait. Or just—exist next to her.”

Paige watches you for a long beat. Then she softens.

“She trusts you,” she says. “That’s rare. Just don’t let her down, okay?”

You nod.

And she smirks. “Also, if you hurt her, I will dunk on you emotionally.”

You laugh. “I think I could survive that.”

“You couldn’t,” Paige says, and walks away.

Later that night, you and Azzi are sitting on a bench outside the student union. You’ve got fries between you and the cold air biting at your hands. She’s wearing your hoodie—oversized on her, sleeves swallowed up—and she’s scrolling through her phone while your knee bumps hers, back and forth, like a slow rhythm.

Out of nowhere, she says, “Paige talked to you, didn’t she?”

You glance over. “Yeah.”

“What’d she say?”

“That you glare at people who get too close to me.”

She rolls her eyes. “God, she’s so dramatic.”

“Is it true?”

Azzi doesn’t answer right away. “Only a little.”

You smirk. “Possessive much?”

She bumps her shoulder into you. “No. Just careful. I don’t like sharing what feels good.”

You glance down at your hands. She’s not holding yours. But she’s close enough. And when she exhales and leans into your side, you let her stay there.

And the feeling that this—whatever it is—is something you’re both building brick by brick.

It’s nearly 1:30 a.m. when you hear the knock.

Three soft taps. No urgency. But enough to pull you from your reading.

You glance toward the door, confused—because no one comes to your room at this hour. Not without texting first. Not without a reason.

When you crack the door open, Azzi’s standing there in sleep shorts and an oversized UConn t-shirt that hangs off one shoulder. Her hair’s loosely braided, face bare, a faint crease in her cheek from where she must’ve been lying down earlier.

She doesn’t say anything at first. Just shifts from foot to foot like she’s working up the courage to speak.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she murmurs, eyes tired but steady. “And I… didn’t want to be alone.”

You open the door wider without hesitation. “Come in.”

She steps past you quietly, her hand brushing yours just for a second.

Your room is dim. Only the lamp on your desk is still on. The bed is small—UConn twin bed small—but you shift over instinctively, pushing your laptop and pillow aside, making space that doesn’t exist but somehow still feels enough for her.

She climbs in slowly, careful. Like she’s not sure if she’s allowed to let her guard down here.

But when she finally settles, she curls up beside you—tucks herself into the space between your body and the wall. Her knees brush yours. Her shoulder rests against your bicep. She lets out a breath you swear she’s been holding all day.

“You okay?” you ask gently.

She nods, but it’s small.

“I’ve just been… in my head,” she says. “It gets loud in there sometimes.”

You don’t ask for details. You don’t press.

Instead, you turn just enough so your body faces hers. “You want me to talk? Or just stay quiet?”

She shakes her head, eyes closed. “No talking.” Then, barely above a whisper, she adds, “You calm me down.”

You don’t answer. You just reach out and lightly place your hand on the curve of her waist—gentle, grounding. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pull away. She exhales again. And this time it sounds like relief.

You don’t fall asleep right away, but you stay still. Let her breathe against you. Let your body mold around the shape of hers, careful and quiet and steady. You memorize the weight of her knee over yours, the rise and fall of her chest against your side, the slow soft shift of her hand under your arm as she finally, finally relaxes.

At some point, you do fall asleep. And when you wake up—she’s still there.

Fully tucked into you, head resting right over your heart, one arm draped across your ribs, the other curled tight between you like she’s trying to stay anchored. Your hoodie—which she must’ve pulled over in the middle of the night—covers half her face.

And she’s still asleep.

Peaceful.

Like the noise is gone now.

Your first instinct is not to move. Not even to breathe too loud. You look down at her, lashes resting against her cheeks, lips parted just slightly.

You shift only enough to tighten your arm around her. Pull her closer.

She hums softly at the motion—barely awake, maybe not at all—but leans in like her body already knows it belongs there.

And you lie there in the quiet morning light with her tucked into your chest, her breath warm on your skin, and all you can think is…

This… this is home.

The room is soaked in that soft gray-blue that only happens just before the sun fully breaks over campus. You’re still beneath the thin dorm blanket, your arm wrapped gently around Azzi, her body pressed close—like she molded herself into the curve of your chest overnight.

You haven’t moved in twenty minutes. Not because you’re asleep. But because this is the stillest you’ve ever felt.

And then she shifts. Just a little. A quiet inhale. A slight roll of her shoulders. Her head nestles deeper against your chest. You glance down. Her eyes are open now—barely. Still hazy. Still blinking off sleep.

She doesn’t look at you right away. Just… breathes. Lets her hand flex against your ribs, lets her fingers move slightly against the fabric of your shirt like she’s checking if you’re still real.

And then, in the quietest voice you’ve ever heard her use, she whispers, “I don’t want to leave yet.”

Your chest tightens.

You could answer a million ways. Could make a joke. Could nod. Could say nothing and just kiss the crown of her head. But you turn your head slightly and speak gently, as soft as she is.

“Do you want to stay?”

Azzi lifts her chin just enough to meet your eyes, and for a moment she doesn’t smile, doesn’t speak—just looks at you like she’s never been allowed to look at anyone this long.

Then she nods. A small, certain nod.

You shift just slightly, enough to tuck your other arm under her, enough to cradle her properly. She sighs, one hand sliding up to rest lightly over your collarbone. Her forehead presses against your throat, and she lets her whole body relax into yours like gravity doesn’t exist outside this bed.

You hold her like she’s something delicate but sure. Something you’ve always known how to protect. Neither of you says anything else. There’s no need.

Outside, the campus starts to wake up—faraway doors opening, a soft burst of laughter down the hall, sneakers squeaking in the stairwell. But in this tiny corner of the dorm building, in your twin bed barely built for one, it’s just you and her.

And she’s still. Still in your arms. Still letting you hold her like this isn’t new.

You don’t think about the team. You don’t think about Paige, or Geno, or the next practice or the classes you’re missing. You don’t even think about what this is.

You just hold her. Because she asked to stay. And you want her to. So you stay like that for another hour. Until the sun finally reaches your window. And even then, neither of you moves. Not yet.

It didn’t happen with fireworks or a kiss under stadium lights.

It happened slowly and then all at once.

One night, she stayed over without asking. The next, she came back with her pillow. Then her toothbrush. Her hoodie. Her charger. One morning, she was brushing her teeth in your mirror, hair tied up, wearing your sweats and her socks and you looked up from your side of the bed and just—knew.

You were already hers.

And she’d already been yours.

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t do you want to be together?

It was, we are. We just are.

Azzi touches you like you’re something safe. Holds your hand under tables. Rest her head on your shoulder during film nights. She lets you fix her braid when it comes undone in your room, even though you're not very good at it.

You bring her iced coffee before morning lifts and wrap your arm around her waist when she’s got a towel over her head after practice, sweat still clinging to her neck. She mutters, “gross,” but doesn’t pull away. Never pulls away.

She calls you “babe” now, but only when she’s sleepy. Or really happy. Or trying to get you to give her the last of the sour gummy worms.

One night after a win, Paige stops you in the tunnel, eyebrow raised.

“So it’s official now, huh?” You don’t answer. Just nod once, calm and easy. Paige grins. “Good. She deserves someone who sees her the way you do.”

Later that night, Azzi kisses you in your kitchen. Long. Sure. With her hands tucked under your shirt and her forehead resting against yours when she pulls back.

“You’re the first thing that feels… still,” she whispers.

You hold her tighter.

Now?

You’re on the couch in your apartment just off campus, her legs draped across yours, both of you pretending to study. The TV’s on mute. There’s a plate of shared fries on the coffee table, and her sock-covered foot keeps nudging your thigh every few minutes like she wants you to look at her.

You do. She smiles. You lean forward. Press a soft kiss to the inside of her knee, just because you can.

“You’re staring,” you tease.

“You’re wearing that smug face again,” she shoots back.

“I don’t have a smug face.”

“You do,” she says. “You get it when I call you mine.”

You smirk. “Say it again.”

She shifts, climbs into your lap, arms loose around your neck, forehead against yours.

“You’re mine,” she murmurs, quiet and warm.

And you smile the way you always do when you hear it. Because she’s yours, too. No question. No hesitation.

The game wasn’t perfect.

UConn had trailed in the first half. Turnovers were sloppy. The defense looked a step slow. But it was one of those classic second-half comebacks—the kind that made you fall in love with the program in the first place. Gritty. Relentless. Blue-blood basketball that didn’t panic when the rhythm broke, just reshaped itself until the song made sense again.

And Azzi? Azzi was the pulse that pulled it all back together. You don’t say her name in the video. Not out loud. But it’s all about her.

You set up your phone against a stack of books on your desk, flip your hoodie inside out to hide the logo, student media rules, and hit record just past 11 p.m., your voice calm but low, steady in that familiar tone that says, You’re watching something that mattered.

“Tonight’s game wasn’t about dominance,” you begin. “It was about control. The kind of control that looks quiet from the outside, but is doing all the heavy lifting behind the scenes.”

You play the first clip. A curl off a down screen. The ball never touches the floor—just one clean catch-and-release, a perfect arc, the net singing as it snaps.

“This is a shot you don’t attempt unless you trust yourself,” you say. “You don’t take it unless you’ve put in the hours when no one’s watching. You don’t make it unless your feet know what to do before your brain tells them.”

The next clip rolls. She’s off-ball now. Moving without drawing attention. Setting an off-screen that forces a mismatch. Two passes later, someone else scores.

“She won’t show up on the stat sheet for this one,” you say. “But she broke that play open with her movement. With her patience. That’s what makes the difference.”

You show a transition possession. A swing pass. A stop-and-pop jumper.

“She doesn’t shout with her game,” you continue. “She whispers. She hums. And by the end of the night, you realize she’s been the melody the whole time.”

You pause the tape. Just your face now. Calm. Still.

“This team doesn’t just need shot-makers. It needs tone-setters. Players who make the floor feel settled. Balanced. Trusted.”

You breathe out slowly.

“There’s one player on this roster who does that every time she’s out there.”

You don’t say her name. But everyone knows.

You post the video with a caption that just says, Game recap—the quiet ones always carry the weight.

You close the app. Put your phone down.

Fifteen minutes later, while you’re brushing your teeth, it buzzes on the counter.

azzi: just watched it. i don’t need you to say my name. i heard every word.

You stare at the screen.

good. because every word that i said? i meant it.

azzi: come over? i want to fall asleep hearing your voice, not just watching it.

And you don’t even hesitate.

It’s strange being the oldest now.

Not in life—just in this world. The UConn world. The practice jersey, locker room, Gampel at dawn world. You’re still in your early twenties, but somehow, senior year settles in your chest like the last page of a chapter you’re not quite ready to close.

You wear the same media badge, now faded at the edges, and carry the same camera you’ve had since freshman year. But your presence isn’t tentative anymore. Coaches nod when they pass you in the tunnel. Freshmen ask if they can “maybe be in the next clip.” The film room plays your edits before games. They say your name when they talk about the program now.

And Azzi?

Azzi is everything you knew she’d become.

She’s the co-captain. The shooter. The calming force. She’s the one they look to in timeouts, the one the little girls in the stands scream for, the one ESPN mics during pregame because her voice means something now.

She’s also still the one who texts you during film study from across the room, your girl just cooked that closeout. admit it.

You look up. She doesn’t even glance your way. Just smirks into her Gatorade.

You send back, you’re lucky i love you.

You’ve been together for three years now.

It’s not new anymore. But somehow, it never feels old.

You still get the same warm chill when she knocks on your door and slips inside without speaking. When she wears your shirt to bed. When she sits between your legs on the floor during game replays, her back against your chest, your fingers tracing light shapes over her ribs as the room glows blue with the paused footage.

Azzi still doesn’t talk a lot about her emotions. But she shows them. In how she watches you when she thinks you’re not looking. In how she adjusts your hoodie drawstrings without saying a word. In the way she always asks if you’ve eaten before she lets you start editing film. In the way she asks—quietly, but directly—if you’ll stay the night, even though she never has to.

You’ve been with her through everything. Through the rehab stint after her knee scare sophomore year. Through the championship loss in junior year that kept both of you up in silence. Through every early-morning workout, every late night edit, every moment where the pressure started to make her forget she was more than what she could score.

You never let her forget. And she never stops choosing you.

Now, it’s senior year.

And you’re both carrying the weight of lasts.

Last home opener. Last conference road trip. Last Midnight Madness.

There’s talk about what comes after—draft declarations, sports media job offers, maybe even that apartment in New York you bookmarked but never showed her. You don’t say it out loud yet. But you feel the shape of it behind everything.

Still, tonight’s not about what’s next.

Tonight is about the now.

The two of you walk into Gampel together for a game against South Carolina, the final non-conference home game of the season. You’re filming as always. Azzi’s in uniform, headphones in, locked in. She slows near the tunnel just enough to let your shoulder brush hers.

You catch her eye.

She mouths, “Watch this.”

And you do.

She drops 27 points. 6-for-7 from beyond the arc. Four assists. Two steals. One dagger of a three with a minute left that sends the crowd into a frenzy.

And when she walks off the court, towel around her neck, teammates bumping her shoulder, she doesn’t look for the ESPN cameras or the press row.

She looks for you.

And when she finds you—camera down, hands shaking just a little from trying not to scream during that final shot—she smiles like she already knows what you’ll say.

But you say it anyway. “Jesus Christ, Fudd.”

She laughs.

Then steps in and presses a kiss to your cheek. Right there. Right in front of everyone. The crowd still buzzing, the team still cooling down, the band still playing. No hesitation. No secrecy. Just her lips against your skin and her hand resting at your side like it’s home.

You don’t say anything. You don’t have to. She’s yours. And she always has been.

The confetti’s still falling when she finds you.

She should be somewhere else. On the stage. On the podium. With the cameras. Holding the Most Outstanding Player trophy in one hand and the net she cut down in the other. But instead, she’s weaving through the chaos like she’s been looking for you the whole time.

Your camera’s still rolling, half-raised, the screen shaking slightly from adrenaline. You’ve been filming through tears—yours, theirs, everyone’s. Geno’s last timeout. Paige’s final assist. Azzi’s ice-cold three with 1:13 left that sealed it. You haven’t moved from the baseline since the buzzer sounded.

And suddenly she’s there. In front of you.

Grinning like her whole body is full of light. Hair matted to her forehead, jersey drenched, eyes glassy and shining beneath the overhead lights. She’s not crying. Not yet. But she looks like if you said one thing too soft, she would.

So you don’t say anything. You drop the camera. And open your arms. She crashes into you. Hard. Not careful. Not composed. Just Azzi, all of her, colliding into you like you’re the only solid thing left in the universe. You catch her.

Wrap your arms around her and feel her fists clench behind your back as she buries her face into your shoulder. She shakes once—just once—like the win finally hit her in your arms, not when the clock hit zero.

“I did it,” she whispers. “We did it.”

“You did it,” you say, pulling her tighter. “You were unreal tonight.”

“I was scared,” she breathes, muffled against your neck. “I didn’t know if I could—”

“You did,” you cut in. “And you didn’t just play, Azzi. You led. You carried. You earned every second of this.”

She pulls back, just enough to look at you.

“You’re shaking,” she murmurs, laughing a little.

“So are you,” you reply.

Her hand finds yours. Palm rough with resin, trembling slightly. You squeeze three times.

Five minutes later, she’s called back to the main stage. Reporters. Flashbulbs. A camera crew trying to wedge into your space, asking her for comments. She’s too polite to ignore them but too distracted to fully focus.

Before she turns to go, she tugs your wrist. You lean close. She kisses your cheek. Quick. Sure. Public. Everyone sees it. And she doesn’t care.

“They’re gonna ask me how I stayed calm all tournament,” she says. “I’m gonna want to tell them it was you.”

You smile. “You can’t. I’ll get fired.”

Azzi shrugs, already walking backward into the media swarm. “Fine. I’ll just say I had a secret weapon.”

You call after her, “Tell them your lucky charm came through.”

She flashes a grin over her shoulder. “Always.”

Later—much later—the arena’s mostly empty. Security’s doing a final sweep. You’re sitting on the court again, knees bent, her championship hat askew on your head and your camera shut off for once. Azzi’s beside you, her legs stretched out, her shoes untied.

The net’s tied around her neck like a necklace. Her trophy rests in her lap, her fingers brushing over the engraved plate like it still doesn’t feel real. She doesn’t say anything. So you do.

“Did you hear the crowd when you hit that three?”

Azzi exhales. “Felt like everything got quiet.”

You nudge her thigh with your knee. “That’s because you silenced the world.”

She leans into you, resting her head on your shoulder.

“I didn’t want to look for you until I was sure we’d won,” she says. “I told myself I’d run to you if the buzzer went and we were still standing.”

You nod. “You found me.”

“I always will.”

You turn. Kiss the top of her head. Smell the salt, the resin, the weight of four years coming to rest all at once.

She glances down at the trophy. Then up at you.

“This is ours,” she says.

And you believe her.

Because for four years, you’ve watched her become this. Not a headline. Not a name on a graphic. Not a logo on a sneaker deal.

But Azzi. Fully. Wholly. Yours.

She didn’t declare.

Azzi Fudd, consensus top-ten pick, Most Outstanding Player, national champion, walking bucket—stayed.

Everyone thought she’d leave. Follow Paige, The mock drafts said she was gone. The WNBA teams practically started designing her jerseys. But when the time came, when the lights dimmed and the confetti settled and the press release was ready to drop, she looked across the kitchen table at you in a hoodie and sweats and said, “I’m not done here.”

And she stayed. One more year. One more season at UConn. One more chance to wear that jersey with the same grace and grit she always had. One more year of being the leader, the big sister, the captain.

You didn’t try to talk her out of it. You just said, “Then we go all in.”

Because this time, you weren’t filming from the student section. You weren’t hiding behind a school media vest. You weren’t the wide-eyed kid from Hartford anymore.

You were you now.

It happened fast after graduation. The videos you’d built over four years at UConn had long outgrown the platform. Coaches shared them. Players reposted them. Parents sent them to their kids. And when networks started knocking, you told them no.

Because you didn’t need a desk job in a studio. You were already building something better. You went independent.

Self branded. Self scheduled. Self funded. You called it Court Vision—a solo platform for women’s basketball storytelling. You didn’t just cover stats. You covered rhythm. Identity. Psychology. You saw what others missed. That same calm voice you used in dorm rooms was now playing in thousands of ears across the country.

Everywhere you went, players greeted you like family. Coaches asked if you could send your breakdowns. Parents told you their daughters learned the game watching your videos. You had press credentials at every arena. Interviews on every court.

You weren’t just in the room anymore. You were the room.

And yet—even with all the traveling, all the acclaim—when UConn’s schedule dropped, the first date you circled was Storrs.

Because Azzi stayed. And she was yours.

You fly back on a Thursday. The gym smells the same—pine and sweat and polish and history. You show your credential at the tunnel and get waved through with a nod. No questions. Everyone knows you by now.

Geno’s mid-practice, yelling about tempo. KK is courtside talking to her phone sipping a smoothie. But you don’t look at anyone else.

She’s there.

Number 35. Ponytail flying. Eyes locked in.

Still Azzi.

She hits a three off a staggered screen, doesn’t even glance toward the bench—but she sees you. Feels you. After the whistle, she jogs over like it’s nothing. Like you didn’t just come from a courtside interview in Atlanta the night before. Like you don’t have a flight to L.A. in three days. She stops short of touching you. Still sweat-soaked. Still in game mode. But her eyes burn like fire under soft lashes.

“I was wondering when you’d show,” she says.

You smirk. “Had to see the return of the queen in person.”

“Is that what your analysis is gonna say?”

You tilt your head. “Only if you make it worth it.”

Azzi narrows her eyes. “You want a quote?”

“I want a win,” you say.

She laughs. “Don’t worry. I’m still your girl.”

You raise an eyebrow. “UConn’s princess, technically.”

Azzi steps a little closer, low and quiet.

“But only yours after the buzzer.”

After practice, you sit in the bleachers while she finishes her lift. Geno walks past you muttering, “If she plays the way she smiles at you, we’ll win by 40.”

You shout back, “She usually does.”

When Azzi joins you, towel around her neck, hair damp, you hand her the protein bar you brought from a gas station in Chicago.

“Romantic,” she says, unwrapping it anyway.

You kiss her cheek. “You still owe me that postgame.”

She nods. “I’ll give you the best quote of your career.”

“You promise?”

She grins.

“Only if you stay the night.”

You didn’t think it could top the first one.

The chaos, the confetti, the hugging, the laughing, the relief. The night she hoisted the trophy with sweat-slicked hands and kissed your cheek in front of thousands like there wasn’t anything left to hide.

But this year? This year, it was different. Because it wasn’t about proving anything. It was about finishing everything right.

Azzi Fudd. Fifth-year senior. Leader. Anchor. The face of UConn’s redemption arc. Back-to-back championships. Back-to-back Most Outstanding Player. Twenty-nine points. Seven rebounds. Five assists. No missed free throws. And a quiet dominance that wove the whole game into something sacred.

You stood behind the press row, camera at your side, heart pounding harder than it ever had. Not from nerves. But from knowing.

Because you’d already decided. Tonight was the night.

You let the postgame chaos swirl without you.

You held your camera when she smiled for photos, laughed when KK fake-posed with her and said “This is your last chance to change your mind,” and nodded quietly when Geno found you afterward and muttered, “She’ll always be ours, but she was yours first.”

But you didn’t ask for a moment yet. Not until later.

After the crowd filtered out. After the media cleared. After the net was around her neck again and the trophy sat cradled in her arms like it had always belonged there.

You found her in the tunnel. Still in her jersey. She lit up the second she saw you.

“Hey,” she said, breathless. “Did you see that pass in the third—”

You kissed her. Right there. One hand on her cheek, the other in her hair. And she melted into it, into you, the arena dim and echoing around you.

You pulled back only far enough to whisper, “Get dressed.”

She blinked. “Why?”

“Because I’m taking you out.”

“Now?”

You grinned. “Right now.”

You don’t go far.

A quiet rooftop. Soft lights strung along the railing. The city buzzing far below. A table set with takeout containers of her favorite pasta because you knew she’d be starving, and a chilled bottle of sparkling cider because she doesn’t drink and you remember everything she ever said in passing.

She raises an eyebrow when she sees the setup.

“What is this?” she asks, smiling.

You shrug. “Just a little postgame celebration.”

She walks closer. “You did all this today?”

You nod. “I knew you’d win.”

Azzi stares at you. “You’re insane.”

“And you’re in love with me.”

She laughs. “Unfortunately.”

You sit. Eat. Talk about everything but the game. You remind her of the first time you saw her live, back in that dusty high school gym. She reminds you that you couldn’t make eye contact with her until October of sophomore year.

And then, after she’s scraped up the last bit of marinara sauce with a crust of bread and leaned back in her chair, happy and full and tired in the best way—

You stand. Reach for your jacket pocket. Her brow furrows. You step in front of her. She freezes. And the world disappears.

Your hand is shaking. You can’t even help it.

She’s already gasped, hand pressed to her mouth, eyes wide and wet before you’ve said a single word. And your voice—your voice cracks before it can carry the first line.

“Sorry,” you breathe, blinking up at her. “I had a whole speech. I practiced. I swear I did.”

She doesn’t say anything. She’s holding her breath.

“I’ve loved you since before I could say it. Since before I knew what it was. Since the moment you looked at me like I wasn’t just another fan, or another lens, or another voice trying to tell your story.”

Your throat catches again. You pause. Try to keep it steady.

“You’ve made me better. Kinder. Quieter. Stronger. You’ve taught me how to lead without shouting. How to stand still and still be powerful. You’ve taught me what it means to stay. To love even when it’s hard. Even when we’re tired. Even when the whole world is loud.”

She’s crying now. Quietly. Openly.

“I don’t care where you play next. I don’t care what city, what team, what coast. I just want to be there. In the front row. Behind the scenes. Next to you. Always.”

You open the ring box and kneel. Her hands fly to her mouth again.

“Azzi Fudd,” you say, voice breaking, “will you marry me?”

She doesn’t say yes right away. Because she’s already on her knees. Already wrapping her arms around your neck. 

Already crying into your shoulder, whispering— “Yes. Yes. God, yes.”

The city spins beneath you. But you don’t feel it. Just her. Just this. Just forever starting now.

The sun pours into your room like it's in on the secret.

It catches the edge of the champagne colored blanket half-tangled around your legs, brushes over the takeout containers you were too love-struck to clean up last night, and settles—gently, reverently—on the girl curled up on your chest.

Azzi.

Still in your hoodie. Her bare feet tucked beneath the blanket. One hand draped over your stomach, the other curled near her face. And on that hand, a glimmer.

The ring. She hasn’t taken it off. Not even to sleep. You stare at it for a long time. The way it fits. The way it already belongs there. Like it always has. You don’t want to move. But your heart is too full. Your chest feels swollen with words, with memories, with every version of you that never thought this could happen. So you ease out from under her, careful, reverent, like you’re slipping out of a church pew mid-hymn.

You grab your phone. Sit by the window. Open your camera app. And press record.

The video starts with the sun on your face. You’re in a hoodie. Hair messy. Eyes red in the soft way that comes from crying for the right reasons. Your voice is low. Calm. Familiar.

“Hey,” you say. “I don’t really know where to begin. So I’ll start where I always do. With a game.”

You pause. Glance out the window. Then look back at the lens.

“Last night, UConn won its thirteenth national championship. And if you know me—if you’ve followed me, or watched anything I’ve ever posted—you know what this team means to me.”

You take a breath. A real one.

“But last night was more than that. Last night was the end of a promise I made to myself a long time ago.”

You tap your screen. The footage cuts.

To your UConn acceptance video.

You, five years younger, sitting in your childhood bedroom. Hartford skyline through your window. A UConn pennant behind you. You’re holding your laptop with your acceptance letter on the screen, eyes wide and shimmering.

“I’ve been going to games since I was a baby. I’ve watched legends on that court. I don’t know what the future looks like, but I do know this—UConn women's basketball raised me. Also—minor detail, but—if I do happen to marry a UConn women’s basketball player… nobody be surprised.” You wink at the camera, shrugging. “Just saying.”

You, now, smile faintly in the corner of the screen as it cuts back to you in present day.

“That was a joke at the time. Kind of.”

You glance over your shoulder. Off screen. Your voice softens.

“But some dreams… they’re quiet. They live in your chest. They follow you until you’re ready to meet them.” You call out, “Z?”

There’s rustling. A sleepy groan. And then—her. Azzi steps into frame, barefoot, wrapped in your blanket, hair a mess, ring glinting on her left hand. She blinks at the camera.

“Wait—are we filming?” You nod. She groans, laughing. “You couldn’t wait?”

You smile. “I didn’t want to forget this part.”

She slips into your lap. Tucks her face under your chin. Her hand rests on your chest, just over your heart. The ring sparkles. It’s not the centerpiece—but it doesn’t have to be. She is.

You speak again. Voice thicker now.

“She said yes.” A pause. “I asked Azzi to marry me last night.” Another beat. “And she said yes.”

Azzi leans up, kisses your cheek, and whispers, “Of course I did.”

You laugh, blinking fast.

“She’s the one I made videos about when I didn’t even know I was writing love letters. She’s the one who saw me before the rest of the world did. She’s been my constant. My compass. My favorite player—and my favorite person.”

Azzi nudges your chin. “You’re gonna make me cry again.”

“Too late,” you mumble.

You let the silence sit for a moment. Let the footage breathe. And then you say, “I started this journey with a camera and a dream. And now I get to spend the rest of my life beside the person who turned both into something real.”

Azzi squeezes your hand. You look into the camera one last time.

“I loved UConn before I knew what love was. And somewhere between the student section and the court, I found the person I’ll love forever.”

Azzi rests her head against your shoulder again, smiling.

You whisper to her, not to the camera, “You’re the best story I’ve ever told.”

And then you reach out.

And end the recording.

You don’t even check your notifications at first.

You post the video, drop your phone face-down on the kitchen counter, and walk back to the bedroom, where Azzi is wrapped up in a hoodie and blanket like a sleepy human burrito. She smiles as you crawl into bed next to her and whisper something about needing more hours in the day.

You fall asleep with her tucked under your arm, her ring glinting in the soft morning light like it’s always belonged there.

By the time you wake up, the world has changed.

You fumble for your phone, half-asleep, and finally open TikTok.

The video’s at 3.1 million views. You blink. Refresh. 4.2 million. The comments are… unhinged. Emotional. Beautiful.

Azzi watches it all happen from next to you. She’s curled into your side, watching you scroll through your mentions, her chin on your shoulder.

“You didn’t think it’d blow up like this, huh?” she murmurs, kissing the corner of your jaw.

You shake your head slowly. “I thought a few people might smile. Cry a little, maybe. I didn’t think it would turn into… this.”

Azzi hums. “Think the whole world’s been waiting for us.”

You glance at her. “Are you okay with it? With it being this public?”

She holds your hand, looks at the ring on her finger, then at you.

“I’m not hiding you,” she says. “Not ever. If the whole world sees it? That’s just proof I got it right.”

You lean in and kiss her. Soft. Certain.

The kind of kiss that feels like a full circle closing.

[thunderbolt-ing]

Three Roommates and a Loft [3]

PREVIOUS | NEXT The One Where You Get Romanoff'd: A lifestyle adjustment, a bed-rotting intervention, a surprise guest, and a rebound roster. Yeah, you'll probably regret this later. Warnings: none, just pure silliness and slight (stupid) sexual innuendo. I'm sleep deprived when I'm writing this, so this is just pure crack. Word count: 6.6K (sorry for the mistakes, i dont proofread as you already know)

You were jolted awake at exactly 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday by the unmistakable sound of an old-timey trumpet muffly blaring through the ceiling, specifically, a World War II-era jump blues song. 

🎵 He was a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way,

He had a boogie style that no one else could play,

He was the top man at his craft,

But then his number came up and he was gone with the draft,

He’s in the army now, a blowin’ reveille, 

He’s the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B! 🎵

There was only one possible culprit: Steve Rogers. 

His room was directly above yours, and apparently so was his nostalgia-fueled alarm clock. The song continued at full volume for a solid two minutes before Steve finally got up and shut it off. 

Unfortunately for you, that wasn’t the end of it. 

Next came the footsteps. Then the light stomping. Then… counting… and grunting…? 

Was he doing pushups? At six-thirty-five in the morning? On a Sunday? 

You buried your head under a pillow and groaned. The realization settled slowly and painfully; the walls in this loft were way too thin. Adjusting to life here was going to take time and possibly noise-cancelling headphones. Or earplugs. Definitely earplugs. 

Eventually, you managed to fall asleep again, though it was more like drifting in and out of consciousness while dreaming about WWII-era trumpets. Still, your body naturally woke up at your usual weekend time of 9:00 a.m., groggy but functional. 

Noise was already filtering in from the living room—voices, at least two of them, mixed with the clatter of dishes and the unmistakable sound of someone being way too enthusiastic for a Sunday morning (suspects are either Steve or Sam. You’re leaning towards Steve). 

You stared at the ceiling and sighed. 

This was your life now.

With the weight of reluctant acceptance, you braced yourself for the horror of human interaction. You got up from your bed and mentally prepared yourself to walk out of your room looking like a witch who’d just crawled out of a bog. Your oversized t-shirt was twisted halfway around your torso, your hair was an unruly mess, and you were certain that your face bore the imprint of your pillowcase. 

You didn’t even bother to make yourself look presentable. What was the point? 

You needed caffeine. You needed breakfast. And most of all, you needed to not be spoken to until at least a cup of coffee had been fully consumed. 

You sluggishly dragged yourself out of your room, your first stop being the bathroom. You just wanted to splash some water on your face and pretend to be alive. Instead, you opened the door to find a near-naked Bucky Barnes hunched over the sink, towel slung low on his hips, mid-shave. 

Your brain short-circuited, but he didn’t flinch. He just met your stunned silence with a deadpan stare. 

“Do you know how to knock?” he asked coolly, eyes narrowing like you’d just ruined his entire day. 

You blinked, fighting the instinctive downward glance that, traitorously, happened anyway. It only made everything worse. 

“Sorry,” you muttered, slamming the door shut as your heart pounded loudly in your chest. Your face burned with the mix of rage and embarrassment, and now, thanks to him, you were fully and disturbingly awake. 

From inside the bathroom, you heard him mutter just loud enough to be heard: 

“Unbelievable.” 

“Oh, fuck you,” you snapped through the door, patience running thin with the lack of caffeine in your system.  

“No thanks,” he called back flatly without missing a beat. 

You were two seconds away from throwing the door open and escalating when Sam’s voice rang out from the kitchen: 

“I told y’all to come up with a bathroom system.” 

You huffed and stomped your way into the common area, still fuming. 

Sam was at the stove flipping pancakes that were definitely a little burnt, but pretending not to notice. Steve was already seated at the newly placed dining table (thanks to your charitable donation), sipping coffee like this was a perfectly normal, drama-free Sunday morning. 

“Hey, sunshine!” Steve greeted you as you stepped into the room, entirely too cheerful for someone who caused your 6:30 a.m. trumpet wake-up call. “How was your first night?” 

“What is wrong with him?” you shot back, completely ignoring Steve’s question. “Does he not believe in getting dressed after a shower? Is that not a thing for him?”

Sam’s laughter echoed through the loft. “Wait—did you see him butt-ass naked?” 

Steve choked on his coffee, but being Steve, he tried to play it off with a composed nod and a sip like nothing had happened. 

You gave Sam a withering glare. “Toweled, but barely. It was an assault on my morning.” 

Sam was practically doubled over now. “Man, you and Bucky are gonna kill each other before the month’s out.” 

“Yeah?” you muttered as you poured yourself a cup of coffee. “Well, I’ll make sure I get to him first.”

“Doubt it,” Bucky said unenthusiastically, stepping into the room fully clothed this time. 

“No one’s killing anyone,” Steve cut in with a chuckle. “We just need time to adjust. There are four of us now, it’s gonna take a little grace.” 

You and Bucky locked eyes over your mugs. Clearly, there was no grace, only war. 

——

After breakfast, the guys headed out for a Whole Foods run, arguing over oat milk versus almond milk as they disappeared out the door. You stayed behind, however, choosing to confront the disaster that the loft turned into from your move-in yesterday. So, with Japanese Breakfast on Sam’s speaker, you got to work. 

You hauled your boxes to the center of the living room, then tore through them with the determination of a woman who was about to perform a miracle. Blankets, candles, books, and years of collected knick-knacks found their homes. A patchwork quilt over the chaise. A vase of bodega flowers on the dining table. Your Princess Diaries poster now hung proudly beside Bruce Willis, which perfectly summarized the loft’s new look. 

In the kitchen, you replaced the single wooden spoon with actual utensils, alphabetized the spice rack (because who was stopping you?), and stuck a whiteboard on the fridge that read Weekly Chore Rotation — TBD in teacher handwriting. You almost changed your alphabet magnet message from HELLO ROOMIES to HELLO FUCKERS, but you figured you’d soft launch your personality and have them get used to the harmless kindergarten teacher first. 

Perhaps you were getting carried away, but you even cleaned the entryway. Now there was a shoe rack, jacket hooks, and a key bowl because you weren’t a barbarian. You felt very smug about your work… until you opened the hallway closet and discovered the mini-armory. 

Mounted neatly on the back wall was an array of throwing knives, each blade gleaming despite the dim light. Steve’s old, battered shield leaned against the corner, the once bright paint chipped and scratched raw to the vibranium. It looked like it had been through hell, probably had. Maybe he kept it for emergencies, or maybe out of sentiment. Above the shield, resting on a shelf, sat a worn military grade duffle bag with WILSON embroidered on the front. You didn’t dare to open it, something told you that it didn’t hold gym clothes. 

And then, there was the bundle. It was tucked in the far corner, hidden enough that it could be overlooked. Before you could even begin to think about unwrapping it, keys jingled outside, and the front door swung open with a dramatic slam. 

“Guess who survived Whole Foods!” Sam’s voice rang through the loft, followed by the telltale thud of grocery bags hitting the floor. 

You quickly shut the closet door, forcing a casual smile despite your heart hammering in your chest. “Hey! So, who won the milk debate? For the record, I was team oat—”

“Hold up,” Sam cut in, eyes widening as he entered the living room. He gasped, hand clutching his chest theatrically. “Is that Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi, Queen of Genovia next to John McClane?!”

You followed him into the living room with a shrug. “Don’t they look cute together?” 

“Who the hell is that?” Bucky asked, breezing past with grocery bags and heading straight for the kitchen. 

“Princess Diaries,” Sam and Steve answered in unison, though Steve was a beat slower and slightly more ashamed about knowing. 

Steve bent to pick up the remaining bags, but paused as he took in the living room. His eyes did a slow sweep across the space before he broke into a pleased, golden-retriever grin. “You redecorated.”

“Holy shit, you did,” Sam added, spinning in place to look around. “No more hostage bunker, frat house adjacent. This place has… character now.”

“There’s a key bowl,” Steve noted in delight, pointing to the entryway like you’d just placed a national treasure. 

“I’m ignoring this,” Bucky cut in from the kitchen. He scowled at the whiteboard magnetized to the fridge. “Weekly Chore Rotation? This is not elementary school.”

“Also, where are the tongs?” he asked, rummaging through the newly organized drawer with increasing irritation. 

“The rusty ones?” You asked, joining him in the kitchen. “I threw them out before it gave someone tetanus, but don’t worry, I replaced them with new ones.” You opened the other drawer and showed him the new tongs. 

Bucky turned to you, arms crossed. “So you’re in charge now?” 

You smiled sweetly. “Someone has to be a functional adult out of the four of us.” 

Steve chuckled as he dropped the last bag on the counter. “She’s not wrong.” 

Bucky muttered something about “whiteboard dictatorships” as he walked off, but not before you caught him glancing at the newly filled bookshelf. 

That was the closest thing to approval you were probably ever going to get. 

——

Adjusting to your new life at the loft with three superhero roommates was… messy at best. The only man you’ve ever lived with before was Adam, and while that came with its own set of issues, chaos had never been one of them. Adam had been neat, predictable, and quiet. The exact opposite of the three men you now shared a loft (and very thin walls) with. 

The loft wasn’t perfect. It was loud, unfiltered, and filled with clashing personalities. But oddly enough, it was exactly what you needed right now. You wouldn’t admit it out loud, not to them at least, but the chaos helped. It distracted you from thinking about Adam and from falling back into the life you’d walked away from. 

Monday started off strong. 

You were in the kitchen, half-asleep and clinging to your coffee before work, when Sam practically sprinted down the stairs looking like he’d already finished at least three marathons.

“Morning, miss girl,” he beamed, already reaching for your mug as if you didn’t need it to survive. “What’s your sign by the way? Wait—don’t tell me. You’re a Virgo aren’t you? You alphabetized the spices.” 

You stared at him. You didn’t even get a word in before he declared you his ‘platonic soulmate’ three times and tried to convince you to join him on a sunrise run. It was 5:07 a.m.

Later that day, after work, you found Steve in the living room, utterly absorbed in The Great British Bake Off. You expected him to switch to something more macho when you sat beside him, but instead he turned to you with a frown.

“I just think he could’ve decorated that cake better…” 

You blinked at him, unsure how to respond at first. “You know what, you’re right. It’s lacking something and the sponge looks dry.” 

“You wanna make something better?” 

“...Sure?” 

By the end of the hour, you were in the kitchen covered in flour, while Steve was making frosting. You two were making something completely unrelated to the show, and the smell of vanilla filled the loft. Steve wore an apron that said ‘Be Patriotic & Kiss the Captain’ with an arrow pointing toward himself. You didn’t question it, but you had a sneaky feeling that Sam was the one who gave it to him. 

Steve and Sam were surprisingly easy to get along with, but Bucky on the other hand, was the human equivalent of a locked door. 

On Tuesday, he glared at you for leaving your clothes in the dryer. 

On Wednesday, you got into a five-minute shouting match because he was using your shampoo. 

On Thursday, he accused you of “hogging the hot water” like you’ve just committed crimes against humanity. 

But on Friday, your shampoo was replaced with a fresh bottle, and when you walked into the living room later, he was reading your copy of Anne of Green Gables. You didn’t say a word. Instead, you just baked the cookies that Steve offhandedly mentioned Bucky liked. He didn’t say thank you, but the cookies didn’t last a day. 

Midweek, the boys left on an impromptu mission. It was a quick recon, nothing too dangerous according to Steve, but the silence in the loft was jarring. You wandered around in your fuzzy socks, grading math quizzes with background noise from a sitcom rerun just to fill the void. 

You actually missed the chaos. 

They came back home a day later, exhausted and grumpy. You didn’t say anything, but you had grilled cheese and tomato soup ready for them. Steve muttered something about being “blessed,” and Sam dramatically asked that you platonically marry him (whatever that meant). Bucky just gave you a curt nod, which, in his language, might as well be a hug. 

On Saturday, Steve and Sam insisted on helping you grade a stack of your kindergarteners’ spelling tests while eating cereal straight from the box. 

“Why does this kid spell ‘banana’ like ‘bunahnuh’?” Sam asked. 

“Gwen spells phonetically,” you replied, like it was obvious. 

Steve, squinting through his reading glasses with a red pen in his hand, held up a paper. “What’s turlul?”

“Turtle,” you replied with a grin.

Then Sam, looking deeply concerned, held up your lesson plan. “You’re teaching them Romeo and Juliet with puppets?” 

“What? They’re five and they love tragic romance.” 

Steve chuckled. “New York kids… gotta love ‘em.” 

The week ended with you, curled up on the couch, blanket over your legs, grading kindergarten science homework while Steve sat beside you, quietly sketching. Sam DJ’d badly from the kitchen while Bucky was silently fixing the crooked picture frame you meant to fix days ago. 

“You hung this badly,” he muttered.

“I’ll fix it later,” you replied without looking up. 

“It’s going to fall.” 

“Aw,” you looked up and smirked at him. “So you do care.” 

His lips twitched just a little, but you didn’t point it out. 

Living in the loft was a mess, but it was home. 

Your home.

——

Two months into living with the boys, a rhythm had settled in. It was morning coffees with Sam’s unsolicited astrology takes, quiet evenings grading assignments with Steve, and your usual snark-filled cold war with Bucky. Against all odds, the arrangement was working. And yet, even with all the laughter and distractions, the sinking feeling hadn’t gone away. If anything, the stillness between the noise made it even louder. 

You missed Adam. Terribly and painfully, in spite of the hell he put you through. Some wounds didn’t announce themselves with aching pain, they crept in during the quiet, slipping through the cracks when you were doing everything to keep moving forward. 

You thought you were hiding it well, smiling when you needed to, laughing when expected. But somewhere deep down, you had a feeling that the boys were starting to catch on. 

It started with Sam. One afternoon after work, he appeared at your door without knocking, flopping onto the edge of your bed with a bag of chips and zero introduction. He didn’t pry or asked how you were, he just talked about nothing. He complained about the subway system. He argued about why almond milk was better than oat milk. He recalled the dream he had where Steve ran for mayor and lost to RuPaul. 

Then Steve started stopping by too. He’d sit in the armchair in the corner, sketchbook in hand, half-listening to Sam’s ramblings and occasionally offering stories about old missions and silly anecdotes about his teammates. He talked about the Avengers often that you were starting to feel like you knew them, even though you hadn’t met any of them in person. Steve never asked what was wrong, he just stayed just like Sam did. 

Bucky never set foot in your room, but the arguments with him stalled. The sharpness between you dulled just a bit. He still glared, still muttered under his breath when you used the last of the coffee, but he didn’t pick fights the way he used to. It was as if he didn’t want to add more weight to what you were already carrying. 

At one point, the quiet sadness that had been simmering beneath the surface tipped into something heavier. A mini depressive episode, maybe. If you could even call it that. It crept in gradually at first and was barely noticeable, but soon your behavior shifted in ways the boys couldn’t ignore. 

You started locking your bedroom door after work, claiming you were just tired. You bailed on loft game night more than once, always with a vague excuse about lesson planning or needing to grade your students’ assignments. Even when you didn’t have a stack of spelling tests to get through, you stayed tucked away in your room, lights dim with Pride and Prejudice looping in your TV just to feel something. 

You stopped lounging on the couch. Stopped making dinner for the loft. Stopped bickering with Sam over his abhorrent snack combinations or baking with Steve for fun. You slipped in and out of the kitchen like a ghost, only entering when the coast was clear. You timed your showers to avoid Bucky, dodging eye contact in the hallway like it was a full-time job. 

It wasn’t that you didn’t care. You did. It was that everything suddenly felt unbearable. Every noise, every conversation, every mundane task, it all felt too much. 

The worst part? You didn’t even know how to explain it to yourself or the boys. 

By the time the weekend rolled around, you’d all but vanished into your room. The door stayed closed, the lights stayed off, and not even the smell of Steve’s buttermilk waffles managed to lure you out. 

Sam, in an attempt to get you to talk, slipped a piece of paper under your door:

Are u mad at me? Yes or no. Circle one pls <3. 

You saw it, but you didn’t pick it up. 

Later that evening, the three boys were sprawled on the couch, half-watching a terrible action movie and working through their respective takeout containers. The dialogue on the screen was awful, the explosions louder than necessary, but no one bothered to change the channel. 

Then, casually, as if tossing in an afterthought, Bucky asked, “What’s going on with her?” 

He didn’t look up from his food, he just stabbed a piece of broccoli with his fork. “Last night, she had this song on repeat. Something about a girl sitting in a restaurant, waiting or something. Played it for hours. I didn’t say anything. Kinda liked it.” 

Sam froze mid-chew. Slowly, he lowered his chopsticks. “Wait. Was she playing Right Where You Left Me?” 

Bucky shugged. “How should I know? I wasn’t paying attention. Her room’s next to mine, I just heard it.” 

Sam immediately placed his food on the coffee table like it had become irrelevant. “Oh hell no. That’s the emotional paralysis anthem.” 

Steve frowned. “You got all that from a song about… a restaurant?” 

“It’s not about the restaurant, Steven, it’s about the metaphor,” Sam said, deadly serious. “It’s heartbreak, it’s what you play when you’re stuck. And she’s got it on loop? Oh, I’m gonna kill that Adam guy.” 

“Who the hell is Adam?” Bucky asked, brow furrowing. 

“Her ex,” Sam said, crossing his arms. “Steve and I met him briefly. Bad vibes, stank aura, absolutely zero stars.” 

“Not a pleasant man,” Steve added diplomatically. “Didn’t seem to appreciate her.” 

Bucky went quiet for a moment, then muttered. “Figures.” 

Sam narrowed his eyes. “Figures what, Barnes?” 

“Nothing,” Bucky replied, too quickly. He refocused on his takeout with exaggerated interest, stabbing the piece of beef in his plate half-heartedly. 

Steve sighed and looked toward your room, his features softening. “I should try checking in on her again.” 

Sam was already on his feet, grabbing the extra box of chow mein from table. “Nope. We’re doing this together. This is a group effort.” 

Bucky didn’t move. 

Steve glanced at him. “You coming?” 

Bucky groaned, dragging himself up with zero enthusiasm. “Do I have to?” 

“Yes.” Sam and Steve said in unison, leaving no room for argument.

Reluctantly, Bucky followed them down the hallway. Sam knocked first, rapping his knuckles gently against your door. 

“I know you’re alive in there,” he called. “I can hear Mr. Darcy monologuing through the wall.” 

No response. 

Bucky shifted awkwardly. “Wanna insult me? Could be therapeutic. I’m an easy target and I used up all your conditioner again.” 

Still nothing. 

Steve gave the door handle a patient turn, but it didn’t budge. “We just wanna check in. No pressure.” Steve said, his voice low and gentle.

Sam held up the box of food like you could see it through the door. “We brought noodles… and poor emotional boundaries.” 

“Speak for yourself,” Bucky muttered. 

Steve side-eyed him. “You offered yourself up for verbal abuse two seconds ago.”

“I’m just trying to help!” Bucky snapped, crossing his arms. 

Another beat of silence followed. Then, from inside the room, you spoke up, your voice muffled, “Is it chow mein or lo mein?” 

Sam grinned triumphantly. “Chow mein.”

You shuffled to the door and creaked it open an inch. 

“Fine,” you sighed. “But only because I’m hungry and you guys are loud.”

As you stepped back to let them in, Bucky was the last to follow, but not before glancing at your TV, the frozen frame of Pride and Prejudice paused on Darcy’s rain-soaked confession. He didn’t say anything, just slipped inside and quietly straightened the crooked calendar by your door as the others made themselves at home. 

Sam looked around your room, eyebrows raised at the unmade bed, scattered tissues, and the lopsided stack of grading papers on your desk. “I love you,” he said as he handed you the box of chow mein, “But this is just… a mess, and I will be cleaning while we talk.” 

You gave a weak laugh as he started picking up the empty cups on your nightstand like he lived in your room, too. 

Steve sat gently on the edge of your bed, his tone soft. “I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you could talk to us.” His brows pulled together in concern. “I know we’re not… the best at this kind of thing, but we care and we want to help.” 

You looked down at the box in your hands, fingers digging into the paper. “It’s not that I didn’t feel comfortable with you guys,” you said, voice tight. “I just didn’t know how to explain it. And honestly, it’s stupid. I’ve been crying over Adam.” 

The words felt small and pathetic once they were out in the open. But the silence that followed wasn’t judgmental.

From the doorway, Bucky shifted his weight, arms still crossed tightly. His gaze stayed on the floor, then he mumbled, barely loud enough to hear. “It’s not… stupid.” 

You glanced up at him in surprise, but he refused to meet your eyes. 

Sam looked between the two of you with a knowing expression. “Well damn. If Barnes is offering moral support, then you’re officially at rock bottom.”

Bucky glowered at Sam while you flipped him off. “Whatever, Wilson,” you muttered in mock annoyance. 

Steve smiled, looking relieved that they were somehow helping. “Why don’t you go and spend a day with your own friends?” He suggested kindly, his tone gentle. “Not us, you know, like… women. People who get it more than we do.” 

“Sure! That’s cute,” You said dryly, bitterness bleeding into your voice. “Except all my friends were Adam’s friends, and when we broke up, he turned them all against me. They blocked me, every single one of them.”

“That motherf—�� 

“Okay,” Steve cut in quickly, shooting Sam a look before he could finish. “I’m calling Nat. She’ll know what to do.” 

“Nat?” You echoed, confused. “Who’s Nat?”

“Natasha,” Steve clarified, pulling out his phone.

“You know… Natasha Romanoff,” Sam clarified further, seeing your confused expression. “Black Widow…? Come on, keep up.”

“Oh no, no, no,” You sat up a little, alarmed. “I am not meeting her like this. She’s going to think I’m a loser. I mean, she kills men for sport, and I’m here sobbing into my pillow over one. I’m literally crying over someone who owns a mug that says ‘Rise and Grind’, I am beyond pathetic.” 

Steve raised his brow, but you kept going.

“It’s already embarrassing that you three know,” you muttered, tugging your blanket higher. “Just give me one more week of bed rotting and I swear I’ll bounce back.” 

“You’ve been rotting,” Sam said bluntly. “We’ve hit the compost stage.” 

“Advanced decay,” Bucky chimed in, arms still crossed. You shot him a glare. “Nat won’t judge.” Steve reassured, patting your shoulder gently. “She’ll understand more than we do.” 

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “She’ll actually be gentle, like surprisingly gentle. You need someone who gets it, because if it were me? I’d just deck the guy and move on.” 

You groaned, flopping back onto your bed dramatically. “If I end up crying in front of Black Widow, I’m changing my name and I’m leaving the country.”

“She cried during Marley and Me, you’ll be fine,” Steve reassured as he pressed Natasha’s contact on his phone. 

——

The next morning, you shuffled out of your room in an oversized t-shirt and mismatched socks. Your only mission for the day: retrieve coffee without making eye contact with anyone. 

You failed instantly. 

All three of your roommates were seated around the dining table, and sitting casually among them, as if she hadn’t just completely caused your soul to leave your body, was her. 

Natasha. Romanoff.

The Black Widow. 

Former Assassin. Legendary Avenger. Threat to all men. 

She was drinking her coffee from one of your ridiculous mugs. She wore no tactical gear, no combat boots, just jeans and a fitted black top, with a posture so immaculate that it made you stand up a little straighter. 

Her red hair was braided loosely over one shoulder, and her gaze met yours the moment you entered. She didn’t smile, she didn’t frown, she just looked. It was as if she was quietly assessing whether you were dangerous or just a sad little mess Steve had guilted her into babysitting. 

You, of course, chose to freeze like a deer in headlights. 

Flattening your sleep-matted hair instinctively, you stood awkwardly in the doorway, wondering if you should apologize for daring to set foot in front of her presence. You didn’t understand why she was here. There was no way someone like Natasha Romanoff wasted time on strangers. She must’ve owed Steve big-time if she came to the loft immediately after he called yesterday. 

“Good morning,” Natasha said smoothly, voice low and unreadable. It was a statement, not a greeting. Like a poker player declaring her turn.  You stalled in real time, your brain shutting down in a panic. And then, you opened your mouth despite every survival instinct begging you not to embarrass yourself: 

“Hi. Wow. Is being hot a requirement to be an Avenger because… damn.” 

Silence. You could even hear the birds chirp outside. 

Sam snorted into his coffee. Steve blinked slowly like he was rebooting. Bucky coughed to hide what suspiciously sounded like a laugh. 

Natasha tilted her head, still expressionless. “Yes,” she said simply, and took another sip of her coffee. “That’s why Sam didn’t make the cut.” 

Your laugh came out before you could stop it. It was your first real laugh in weeks, and it caught everyone off guard. 

“Okay, first of all, I just didn’t sign the papers, Romanoff,” Sam shot back, pointing his fork at her like it was a weapon. “I was recruited! There were negotiations!” 

“Yeah,” she replied dryly. “Negotiations to keep you off the roster.” 

Steve hid a grin behind his coffee. Bucky didn’t bother hiding his smirk, though he kept eating like he wasn’t paying attention. 

Sam turned to you with a hand over his heart. “I’m being dragged in my own home. Do something,” he said, turning to you with pleading eyes. 

You dropped into an empty seat next to Bucky, grabbed a piece of toast, and casually stole a forkful of eggs from his plate. He shot you a look, brows knitting in mild disapproval, but he didn’t stop you. 

“Not too much on Sam,” you said with a grin. “He’s an emotional guy. He cried during Paddington 2.” 

“He went to prison!” Sam cried, throwing his hands in the air. “Why would you incarcerate a cute little bear who just wanted to make marmalade?!”

Steve nodded solemnly, like he was testifying in court. “It was deeply unfair.” 

Natasha raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “You’re all unwell.” 

“This is my life now,” Bucky muttered, sliding the rest of his eggs your way with a resigned sigh. You beamed at the gesture. 

Natasha took a sip of her coffee, eyes scanning you like she was running a background check. Then, finally, she nodded. “Okay. I like you. You’ve got potential.” 

You blinked at her, your fork halfway to your mouth. “Potential for…?” 

Natasha stood up from her chair, already grabbing her keys off the counter like this was a done deal. “Not sure yet, but you’re coming with me today.” 

You choked on your eggs. “What—why?” 

“Does it matter?” she said, already halfway to the door. 

You looked around the table like someone might save you, but Steve just gave you a thumbs up and took another sip of his coffee. “You’ll be fine.” 

“Fine or maybe dead,” you muttered. ‘What’s her idea of fun anyway?” you asked in a small, horrified voice as Natasha opened the front door. 

“Get dressed,” Natasha called. “Ten minutes. I leave with or without you.” 

Sam leaned back in his chair, grinning. “Congratulations. You’ve been Romanoff’d.”

Bucky, now taking back his eggs, gave you a flat look and a lazy wave. Then, with zero sympathy, he nudged your chair with his foot. “Go. Now.” 

You groaned, already standing. “God help me,” you muttered, fast walking to your room like your life depended on it because with Natasha Romanoff waiting at the door, it just might. 

——

Spending the day with Natasha Romanoff was nothing like you’d expected, but exactly what you needed. She didn’t drag you to brunch to get bottomless mimosas or ask how you were feeling. Instead, she tossed you into the passenger seat of a black Corvette Stingray, drove like every red light was a suggestion, and took you to an underground boxing gym in Brooklyn where she taught you how to properly throw a punch. You expected sympathy, but she gave you bruised knuckles and a protein bar. 

Later, she made you walk through the city with her, mostly in comfortable silence, stopping only to grab overpriced lattes and people-watch like spies on a stakeout. At one point, she handed you a pair of sunglasses and muttered, “Put these on. We’re stalking your ex.” You tried to protest, but she was already leading the way, reciting tire-slashing tips like they were ancient wisdom. “Don’t worry,” she added coolly, “I’ll make sure there’s no trace.” You still don’t know how she found Adam’s car, but you did it, and oddly enough, it felt like therapy. 

By the time you got back to the loft, your head felt a little clearer, your shoulders a little lighter, and for the first time in weeks, the tightness in your chest had eased. You didn’t feel fixed, but you finally didn’t feel like rotting for the foreseeable future. 

Now, the five of you were sprawled across the loft’s living room, half-watching The Princess Diaries play on the TV. It was Sam’s idea, of course. He insisted that Bucky had to be cultured, and no one else had any other suggestions. 

Steve sat on the floor with a bowl of popcorn, fully invested. Bucky was squinting at the screen like he was trying to solve a murder. Natasha, lounging in the armchair with her legs propped on the ottoman, glanced at you. You were pitifully curled up under a blanket with a bowl of ice cream. She gave you a once-over, then turned to Steve. 

“She needs a rebound.”

Steve opened his mouth to say something, maybe to disagree, but instead he gave Natasha a thoughtful look and decided to keep his mouth shut.

You choked on your spoon. “I’m sitting right here.” 

“Exactly,” Nat said coolly, not missing a beat. “You’re sitting, you’re sad, and you haven’t been laid in…?” 

“Do not answer that,” Sam interjected, hands raised. “Please, I beg.”

Unfazed, Natasha went on. “You need someone pretty who’ll tell you your hair looks good and you know… absolutely ruin you in the best way.” 

Your face flushed an alarming shade of red as you stared hard at the TV. “I need to get struck by lightning.” 

“Whatever you do,” Bucky said flatly from the opposite end of the couch, “Do it at his place. I’m not hearing that.” 

Sam gagged dramatically. “Can we not talk about her getting defiled during Princess Diaries?’ 

“Uh-uh,” Natasha cut in smoothly, already pulling out her phone. “No talking unless you’re volunteering, I need to focus.” 

Before anyone could argue, she cast her screen onto the TV, replacing The Princess Diaries entirely. Sam let out a horrified gasp as the screen flickered. 

“Nat! Princess Mia was about to give a speech!” 

“Shhh,” Natasha waved him off. “This is more important.” 

On the screen, three crisp photos appeared in a neat row. 

“These,” she said, gesturing toward the candidates like she was presenting a PowerPoint presentation, “are all people we know. Which means they’re not losers… not really. Low emotional investment, good hygiene, passably good-looking. All solid rebound options.” 

The screen displayed the following candidates: 

Johnny Storm — Shirtless in a bathroom mirror, abs flexed, sunglasses on indoors. There was a 99% chance this selfie had originally been sent to someone else, or possibly everyone else. He looked like the human embodiment of a “wyd?” text at 2 a.m. “This guy? Really?” Bucky sighed, genuinely disappointed. “Slim pickings, huh?” “I’d steer clear with this one,” Steve added with a grimace. 

Sébastien Noir — A S.H.I.E.L.D agent with a sleek black-and-white headshot, clearly pulled from a classified S.H.I.E.L.D file (because, of course, Nat had access to that). Dark hair and a darker smirk. Very French, very suave. “Could be the next James Bond,” Natasha said casually. “Or a complete poser,” Bucky muttered under his breath.

Matt Murdock — The Avengers’ lawyer. Crisp navy suit, tousled hair, holding a cane and leaning casually against a brownstone like he walked out of a Jane Austen adaptation if it was directed by Scorsese. “I like this one,” Sam said with a thoughtful nod, “Lawyers have money.” 

After much deliberation and a fair amount of peer pressure, you begrudgingly settled on Sébastien Noir. Johnny had given you nothing but red flags, and you didn’t hate yourself enough to fall for a walking thirst trap with the romantic depth of a frat boy.. 

Matt Murdock, on the other hand, was too much. Too handsome, too smart, and too put together. You weren’t emotionally stable enough to be perceived by someone that kind, and to be honest, it felt borderline disrespectful to label him a rebound. 

So… Sébastien it was. 

Tall, French, and suspiciously charming, he felt like the safest terrible decision. There was a certain relief in choosing someone who came with low expectations and virtually no risk of actual feelings. If it all went up in flames, you could just blame it on ‘cultural misunderstanding’... or Natasha. 

“Are you sure about this…?” Steve asked cautiously, like he might step in and offer a better alternative if you gave him even a hint of hesitation. 

“Not really,” you admitted with a frown. “I feel like I’m setting feminism back a few decades.” 

“That’s how you know you chose the right rebound,” Natasha nodded while typing something on her phone, probably texting Sébastien himself. 

Bucky didn’t even bother commenting. He just sat there, slowly shaking his head like a man watching a car crash. 

“What? No notes?” you asked him, raising an eyebrow. 

“This is just… unbelievable,” He simply muttered, shoveling another handful of popcorn into his mouth like he was trying to eat away his disapproval. 

“To your slut era, I guess,” Sam said half-heartedly, raising his beer before switching the TV back to Princess Diaries like nothing life-altering had just occurred. 

——

Later that evening, on your way out of your room to brush your teeth, you caught a glimpse of Bucky standing by the hallway closet you jokingly dubbed the mini armory. The door was open, and dim light spilled out over the floor. He was unraveling a black bundle you vaguely remembered seeing months ago, back when you were just trying to store your cleaning supplies. 

You paused in your room’s doorway, unsure if he’d want company. 

The cloth slipped from his hands to reveal a silver prosthetic arm with a red star near the shoulder area. 

“So that’s what it was,” you said softly, stepping out just enough for him to hear. 

Bucky froze. His head turned slightly, shoulders tense. “You were looking around here?” 

“I just thought it was a normal closet, okay?” you said quickly, holding your hands up. “I was just looking for somewhere to stash my Swiffer and boom… murder closet.”

That earned the smallest twitch of his lips. Barely. 

“I should throw this thing out. Make room for your junk.” 

You smiled just a little at the jab. “I don’t know…” You said, tilting your head. “I kinda think you should keep it.”

He gave you a look. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Because it’s good to have a reminder of how far you’ve come,” you said, meeting his eyes. Then, with a wry twist of your lips, you added, “And also, maybe we can use it as a talking stick. In my class, we pass around this glittery baseball bat to stop the kids from yelling over each other. This could be our version.” 

That earned you a real smirk this time, brief but genuine. “You’re weird.” 

“Not the worst thing I’ve been called,” you said with a shrug, just as your phone buzzed. 

You glanced down at your phone to see a text from Sébastien. Bucky noticed, and his smirk immediately faded. 

“You’re going through with Romanoff’s idea?” He asked, crossing his arms. 

“Why not?” You replied, shrugging your shoulders. “It could be fun.” 

“You’re going to regret it,” he warned, putting his old prosthetic back inside the closet like he was wrapping up the conversation. 

“Probably,” you called over your shoulder as you turned to the bathroom, “But at least I won’t be looping Pride and Prejudice in my room anymore.” 

Bucky didn’t say anything, he just gave you one last unreadable look before retreating to his room and closing the door with a soft click.

—————————————————————————————————— End Notes: this was so dumb i cracked myself up writing this one. oh and for some reason, when i was writing this i kept imagining Sébastien (original character) as Sebastian Stan when he was the mad hatter in ONCE hashsdhasdhahdfh i need to sleep oh and i will be changing the summaries to look like friends episode titles because why not

tags: @projectjuvia @vibraniumavenger @mommymilkers0526 @iyskgd @pllwprincess @hiraethmae @b1pan1cg1rly @starstruckfirecat @soupiemeowmeow @biaswreckedbybuckybarnes @cherrypieyourface @lasnych @okbutiambabygorl @herejustforbuckybarnes @ilistentotayswifttocope @s-sh-ne @ficmeiguess @alagalaska

[dragonmasterhiccup]

Part of him did want to show Astrid his world. The other part of him was scared to. At least, scared to show her his pod. They didn't exactly like him all that much.

But, if they could find a way to get her there without them knowing she was human...it could work, at least long enough for her to get to see it. Then, he'd bring her home, back to the surface.

There was however the issue of the water pressure...

"I'll see what I can do. You've shown me so much here, I'd like to return the favor."

He leaned in again, closing his eyes, when a sudden shout caused him to pull away. His eyes widened at the old man's accusations, the merman at a loss for words as Astrid helped him get to his crutch.

Evil. Sea-devil. Creature.

It echoed in his mind, bringing back bad memories from his pod. His heart was racing, and he felt as though he couldn't get enough air.

Outside. He needed to get outside...

Using the crutch, he hurried out as fast as he could, with only Phlegma seeing him escape.

The door was left ajar as he continued on down the massive stairwell.

A spell. He'd never put a spell on Astrid, let alone drag her to the depths. That wasn't who he is! Even then, that wasn't how his magic worked. He knew he'd have to go back eventually, but that was to be temporary. Hiccup wanted to live among the humans, but if they would only see him as some trickster creature, could they ever truly accept him?

The sun was low, lower than he thought it would be. He had to get to water before moonrise, he knew that. But where? He still had to keep the end of his tail dry.

🐟

He didn't make it.

Hiccup had gotten the human clothes off, and just as he was about to climb into the wash basin, his tail returned, leaving him stuck in the grass.

Flopping over to his back, he let out a frustrated groan. "Why can't things ever be simple," he wondered aloud, hands in his hair and his eyes closed, "she's a human, and I'm a merman. I should have expected that it wouldn't be received all that well..."

Astrid, the best warrior on Berk. And Hiccup...the cowardly merman who ran at the first sign of trouble.

His hands lowered to cover his face. "She deserves better..."

"I'm not so sure about that," said a voice from above. Startled, Hiccup opened his eyes to find Phlegma standing above him. Her arms were crossed, a basket of banging on her arm. "Aye, you shouldn't have left. You missed quite the spectacle. But, Hiccup?"

She knelt down, looking him in the eye. "What my daughter deserves is someone who loves her, cherishes her. You may be part fish, but you fit that bill."

Hiccup shook his head, "She's a warrior. She shouldn't be with a coward."

Phlegma paused before motioning for him to give her his tail. He curled the end of it towards her, and she began to change the wrappings, "Hiccup. I get the feeling that something caused that reaction of yours. It wasn't just Mildew, but something else."

Hiccup didn't respond, averting his gaze.

"Hm. I thought so. Something also tells me that you can be quite brave when the situation calls for it. I don't know how you did it, but you befriended a dragon. That takes bravery, lad."

"You're both young. You both have a lot to learn. But don't be so hard on yourself, Hiccup. Even mermen deserve love, you know," she gave him a soft smile, tying the new wrappings after applying some salve.

"Astrid is inside, worried about you. I told her to let me speak with you first," she rested a hand on his shoulder, and he finally met her gaze. "You did nothing wrong, Hiccup. Mildew, he's just looking to cause trouble. He always has been that way. If you had stayed, you would have seen just about everyone come to your defense. Axel and Astrid were the most vocal."

Gathering the supplies, she got to her feet. "I'll send Astrid out to you. I'll see you in the morning, dear."

Without another word, she left, leaving Hiccup a bit speechless as he stretched his fins out.

A moment later, he heard hurried footsteps approaching. Looking over at his girlfriend, he said, "I, I'm so sorry I ran off like that, I can explain..."

After a long training session, all Astrid wanted to do was cool off on the beach. Maybe a tiny swim, even though the ocean was so cold at this time of year. She pushed through the brush and staggered down to the shore.

Only to find a boy lounging in the shallows.

“Oh!” She dropped her axe in the sand. From his bare torso, she assumed he was naked. “Sorry! I didn’t know someone else would be…here…” as the apologies flowed, she realized from the waist down, he had green scales and a pair of fins.

No wonder she hadn’t recognized him.

“No way…” she inched closer. “A real mermaid! In the flesh! Are the stories true?” She stamped down her overwhelming curiosity for a moment to give him a stern point. “Don’t try anything fishy, mermaid. I’m very capable of protecting myself, got it?”

((I saw the prompt and went feral, hope you don’t mind))

[X]

Hiccup started, the water around him splashing as he sat up straight in surprise, before he moved a little further back, his cheeks flushed.

"No, sorry, I, I shouldn't--" Ducking his head, the merman awkwardly held up a hand, "Usually no one comes here..."

But his movements only caused his tail to briefly break the surface, emerald scales glittering in the sun for a moment before dipping below the water again.

Firmly, he responded, "Merman. I am a merman. And no, don't worry, I, I wasn't going to try anything...I know you'd probably kill me if I did..."

Clearing his throat, he ran a hand through his hair, which had partially dried in his time sitting in the shallow water. "What, what stories are you referring to?"

He knew, or at least had a gut feeling about what she was asking, but he wanted to hear it from her. She appeared wary, but not fearful. Maybe these humans didn't have the same fears of his kind like the others?

[loricciardo]

CHAPTER ONE | SO THIS IS HOW IT STARTS?

tags. original female character, jos verstappen, depictions of physical and verbal abuse in reference to max & jos, mild references to childhood loneliness and emotional isolation, mentions of of pressure and high expectations in youth sports, neglectful parenting.

taglist. want to join or be removed from my taglist? send me an ask or comment below!

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The first time Natalie Schumacher met Max Verstappen, she was seven years old.

They were in Wackersdorf for the weekend. It was another karting event, another lineup of engines echoing across the tarmac and the familiar scent of petrol clinging to everything. Natalie already had grease under her nails and a smear of oil on her cheek from helping Mick zip up his suit too fast.

In the beginning, her mama had been hesitant about letting her race. Not because she didn’t believe Natalie could do it but she’d seen too much of what the sport could take. The injuries, the pressure, the loneliness that sometimes came with living life on a pedestal. “One Schumacher on the track is enough,” she’d said once, half joking. But Natalie wanted it too badly. She wanted to follow in her papa’s footsteps, to chase what her big brother Mick chased. It wasn’t expected of her but it called to her. And eventually, her mama stopped protesting. Not because the fear went away, but because she saw how Natalie lit up every time she got behind the wheel.

But what mattered the most, arguably, was that their father was here. Not just in the “he brought us and paid our entry fees” way, but really here. Michael Schumacher had been away a lot that year, just like every year, swallowed up by Ferrari duties and sponsor meetings. Luckily, it was his last year as a driver. And this weekend, he had cleared everything just to watch them race.

Natalie knew that because she’d asked him twice.

Now, sitting criss-crossed on a folding chair next to their kart, she picked at the velcro strap on her glove while Mick paced the tent with quiet nerves. He always got like that before the race started. His mind would buzz in circles. Natalie liked to think it was because he wanted to win, but deep down, she suspected it was because he didn’t want to disappoint their dad.

“Meinst du ich sollte in Turn 5 später bremsen?” Mick asked suddenly. (Do you think I should brake later in Turn 5?)

Natalie shrugged. “Sie haben dort das letzte Mal abgeschlossen.” (You locked up there last time.)

“Ich habe fast abgeschlossen.” (I almost locked up.)

She raised a brow. “Okay… Du wärst fast ins Schleudern gekommen.” (Okay… You almost spun into the gravel.)

That earned a look from Michael, who was crouched by Natalie’s rear tires, double checking the pressure gauge like it hadn’t already been done by five other track mechanics. “You two, be nice,” he scolded in English, without turning around. “You’re both here to learn. No one’s perfect.”

Natalie held back rolling her eyes at him. Papa always said that. No one’s perfect. Even though, to her, he was.

Mick frowned but nodded slowly. Natalie leaned back in her chair and watched the other kids trickle into the circuit. Some in karts, some dragging helmets behind them like they were too heavy to carry. Regardless, all the boys looked older, taller. More serious.

She didn’t feel out of place, despite being the only girl. At least, not in the way people expected her to. Natalie didn’t flinch when boys stared too long or made snide comments under their breath. She was used to it by now. The double takes, the raised eyebrows, the occasional series organizer asking her if she was in the wrong tent. None of it mattered once the kart turned on. Out there, she wasn’t someone’s sister or someone’s daughter or that girl who thinks she can race. She was just a racing driver. And that was all she needed to be.

Michael stood up, brushing his hands off on a rag, and turned to look at them both. “Remember,” he smiled gently, “you don’t have to win. Just drive your best. That’s enough for me.”

Natalie tried not to smile too hard. She hated when Mick called her soft. He always did it in that annoying older brother way that meant he did care, but didn’t quite know how to say it. Mick always got weird when their papa said things like that. Like he didn’t know how to hold onto praise taking it to heart. Natalie understood that a little.

Natalie Schumacher did not expect to win that race.

She knew she was fast but this track was always brutal to her used tires. Papa always insisted that he put them on her and Mick’s karts. He said it was to teach them how to adapt. To feel the loss of grip, to wrestle with unpredictability. “You have to learn how to win with worse equipment,” he told them, tightening a lug nut with calloused hands. “I didn’t grow up with the best parts. I would fish them out the bin. If you can drive well on these, you’ll fly on brand new ones.”

And of course, the name Max Verstappen had was being whispered all weekend. Her papa had warned her about him, too. “He’s aggressive,” he’d told her, kneeling beside Natalie’s kart that morning. “Clever as well. You’ll have to be smarter, not just quicker.”

And the Max boy was quick. He took different lines than she did. They were wider, riskier ones. He would break late, causing her to almost fly off track. In practice, he had flown past her twice. It had made Natalie’s jaw clench, made her papa sigh, and made her stomach twist in that sickening way it always did when she felt like she was falling short.

But that wasn’t the case for today.

Today, she drove that kart with fire in her veins and dirt under her tiny fingernails. She fought for her spot every turn, and when the chequered flag dropped, she crossed the line first. Barely, in front of the Max boy, but she did.

Again: Natalie Schumacher had just won her first karting race.

She couldn’t stop smiling as she slowly climbed onto the taller podium, her blonde hair a mess beneath her winners cap, her race suit dusted with mud. The cheers of the small crowd were loud, and the sun caught the edge of the little gold trophy in her hands, making it glint like something bigger than it was.

But something felt off.

Max, the boy who was supposed to be standing beside her, wasn’t there.

His name was still printed neatly on the silver trophy that lay on the second place pedestal, waiting for his little boots to fill the space. But he never came. The officials called for him once, maybe twice, before giving up and continuing with the ceremony. Natalie frowned, scanning the crowd, trying to spot that unmistakable bright orange and white helmet or the sharp blue eyes beneath the weight of his little scowl.

Natalie didn’t see Max near the tents. Instead, her eyes caught movement far behind the motorhomes barely visible beyond the chain link fence.

Ah! There he was!

Max stood stiff and still, his face bright red, head cast toward the ground. A tall man hovered over him, speaking rapidly in some foreign language. The language wasn’t German. Not French either. Natalie’s young self couldn’t place it, but the meaning didn’t need translating. The scary man’s hand was clenched tight around Max’s shoulder, shaking the boy once, sharply, before releasing. Max didn’t flinch, but even from this distance, Natalie could feel something sour twist in her chest.

The scary man wasn’t just angry. He looked furious. She wanted to march over there and tell the scary man how hard Max fought her for first. And honestly, the thought made Natalie wish she had gotten second. She didn’t understand the words, but she didn’t need to.

Natalie had never seen a parent look at their child that way before. Her papa never raised his voice like that. Even when she messed up, or rather, especially when she messed up. His voice stayed calm, steady. We’ll work on it, he’d say. You’re getting there.

Before she could watch any longer, a sudden POP! beside her made her flinch.

“Hah!” a young boy’s voice chirped, high and teasing.

Small but mighty, there was Charles Leclerc, triumphant in third place, grinned as he sprayed her with cheap pretend champagne, half of which missed and splattered onto her race boots. Natalie squealed, laughing despite herself, raising the little bottle in defense and catching him in the chest.

And just like that, Max and the scary man disappeared. Natalie Schumacher felt like a real race car driver.

Natalie sat on the steps of the Schumacher motorhome, her tiny race suit rolled down to her waist, the arms tied in a loose knot around her hips. Her hair was still messy from the fake champagne, and her cheeks were warm from the evening German sun. Across from her, their papa crouched low over the little fire pit he’d built out of bricks and gravel, carefully turning the sausages he’d set on a metal grate.

“Paaaaa! Don’t poke them so much,” Mick spoke from behind him, nose wrinkled. “They’ll split.”

“They won’t split,” Michael replied, amused as he looked at his son. “They’re fine. Do you want yours burnt, or not burnt?”

“… Not burnt.”

Michael grinned. “Then stop giving advice and let the sausage master work.”

The fire hissed, and the smell of charring meat mixed with the nearby scent of gasoline and fresh cut grass. Someone else at the campground was cooking too. It was something buttery and smoky, yum. And with the sun slowly setting, it was finally starting to cool off. Natalie was realizing that this was her favorite smell in the whole world: grease, petrol, and campfire.

She was still holding her little gold trophy in one hand. She hadn’t put it down yet, not really out of pride. Well, yes, she was proud, but, because the weight of it in her hand reminded her that it had actually happened.

Natalie leaned her head against the edge of the doorframe, eyes scanning lazily across the lot. Until a sharp slam cut through the quiet.

Her gaze snapped to the source of the noise. It was Max. And that scary man from before.

They stood a few motorhomes down, under the weak yellow glow of a lamp post. It was the second time that weekend she’d seen that man yell at him like that.

It was happening again. Worse, maybe. The man was louder this time, more animated. His hands sliced through the air like he was trying to cut something that wouldn’t go away. Max stood perfectly still, staring up at him with this blank sort of expression. He’d learned a long time ago that it was better not to respond. His face was red from holding his tears all in.

She didn’t know what the scary man was saying, but it was clearly bad. He looked very mean. He was the kind of grown up that made your stomach knot just from being in the same space.

The man turned to walk away, then spun back around suddenly and shouted again, louder this time. Max flinched, just barely, but didn’t move otherwise.

When the man finally stormed off for good, Max stayed behind. He just sat right there in the grass beside his motorhome, legs pulled up, elbows resting on his knees. His hands moved automatically, picking at the dirt and stray blades of grass. It was something to do, something to focus on instead of whatever had just happened.

Natalie’s cautious, curious eyes stayed on him longer than she meant to.

“Dinner’s ready,” Papa smiled gently beside her, handing her a bun with a sausage tucked neatly inside, wrapped in kitchen roll.

“Danke,” she murmured, taking it with both hands. But instead of taking a bite, she stared down at it.

Then she glanced sideways at Max again. Still sitting there, still quiet, still alone. She shifted on her feet. Thought for a second. Then looked up at her papa.

“Papa?” she asked, softly. “Do you.. think I could give one to him?”

Michael looked up again, this time following her gaze. He saw little Max Verstappen, alone in the grass, and his expression changed slightly. His brow creased, just a little. He took a breath, slow and steady.

Michael, of couse, had raced against Jos Verstappen. He remembered him well. Not for his skill, which was average at his prime, but for his temper. The way Jos shoved mechanics in the garage. The way he barked orders at engineers like they were below him. He remembered the way Jos had spoken to people when he thought no one important was listening.

And everyone had heard the numerous stories. Everyone knew that Jos was hard on his son. Way too hard. Hell, he even boasted about it! Michael had never seen it up close, but he had heard things. Seen the way the little boy flinched when Jos raised his voice behind the fences of junior events.

Michael looked back at his daughter, her little face scrunched with concern, thumb nervously brushing the edge of the paper napkin.

“Nat… I think it’d be a very nice thing to do,” he spoke finally, his voice quiet. “But you can’t take it personally if he doesn’t say thank you.”

Natalie slowly nodded, trying to understand why Michael would mention such things.

“You have to remember, he’s not used to kindness, Kleine,” Michael added, almost more to himself than to her. “Not from people who don’t want something from him.” (Kleine = little one)

She looked up at him, confused. “But.. Papa, I don’t.. want anything from him?”

Michael smiled softly. “I know you don’t,” He nodded, slowly. “You can go ahead,” his voice quiet. “But don’t stay too long, okay?”

“I won’t, Pa,” she promised.

Natalie spun around and walked across the gravel with no hesitation, sausage bun in both hands, toward the boy no one seemed to look at twice. Her eyes moved from the food to Max, then back again.

The boy didn’t look up right away. He was crouched low, elbows resting on his knees, eyes fixed on the dirt. His fingers were smudged with mud, busy pulling up little weeds just for something to do.

But when her racing boots crunched softly against the grass, Max tensed. His head snapped up, and cold blue eyes met hers. Wide, suspicious, a little red around the edges. Natalie froze; she hadn’t expected his stare to feel like that. She felt her face go warm, suddenly too aware of how quiet it was between them. But she held up the hotdog anyway.

“Um… hi,” she slowly smiled.

Max didn’t answer. Just blinked at her, not moving an inch.

They hadn’t spoken before. Not even once. She didn’t know if he spoke English. Or German, or anything she knew. But she figured she had to try something.

“I… I brought you food,” she added awkwardly, holding it out a little further.

Max glanced at the hotdog, then back at her. His shoulders stayed hunched. His small face didn’t soften.

“Why..?” he asked confused, voice quiet.

Natalie shifted her weight, unsure what to say. She didn’t have the guts to explain all of it. That she’d seen the way his father yelled, how it reminded her of stories Papa never told but the adults sometimes did. That she didn’t think anyone should have to eat dinner alone, especially not after working so hard to win a race.

So instead, she shrugged. “Because you didn’t get one,” she settled on. “And it’s good. And I thought you might’ve wanted one.”

Max looked at her like she’d just said something in a completely foreign language. His lips pressed into a thin line, and for a moment she thought he might stand up and walk away.

But then, slowly, carefully, Max reached out and took the hotdog from Natalie’s hands. Their fingers brushed for a second, and he flinched, just barely, but didn’t let go.

Natalie smiled, relieved. “See? Not poisoned.”He didn’t smile back, but he didn’t scowl either. Which felt like progress.

Natalie sat down beside him in the grass, close enough to be friendly but not enough to crowd him. Her knees brushed against a dandelion, and she plucked it absentmindedly as he stared down at the food like he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“You can eat,” Natalie raised a brow, glancing sideways at him. “I told you it wasn’t poisonous.”

She watched with quiet curiosity as Max slowly unwrapped the hotdog in his lap. His tiny fingers moved carefully, like he was afraid of tearing the paper wrong, or maybe just buying time. Then, without saying a word, he tore the hotdog in half. He glanced sideways at her, a little shy, then held one half out in her direction.

She didn’t move at first, too surprised to. “Huh? You can have it,” Natalie said softly. “It was for you.”

Max shrugged, still holding it out. He didn’t explain, and Natalie didn’t push him. Eventually, she took it from his hand, their fingers brushing again for the briefest second. It wasn’t a big piece, but her stomach was grateful anyway. She hadn’t even realized how hungry she still was.

With a smirk, she took an overly dramatic bite, exaggerating the chew and letting out a satisfied “Mmm” that made Max’s lips twitch. Then he giggled. Just a little, barely more than a breath. Natalie tried not to make a big deal out of it, but it made her grin widen.

She watched from the corner of her eye as he finally brought his half to his mouth and took a small, cautious bite, like he was waiting to make sure it wouldn’t disappear before he could finish it.

“Natalie,” she spoke after a moment, pointing to herself. “I’m Natalie.”

Max tilted his head, swallowed his bite, and echoed, “Nah-lee?”

“Close enough,” she smiled.

He paused, then pointed to himself. “Max.”

“I know,” she shook her head, and then laughed softly. “You’re very fast.”

Max blinked, surprised by the compliment. His face shifted a little. It was less guarded, and more curious.

“You too,” he acknowledged, the words slow and thick with what she realized was a Dutch accent. “Very fast.”

Natalie nodded, chewing the last bit of her food. She liked the way he said it. His voice sounded better now, separated from the fright of his father.

They didn’t talk much after that. There wasn’t really a need to. They sat there in the grass, the firelight from the camps scattered around the grounds casting flickers of gold across Max’s face as he ate quietly beside her.

When they finished, Natalie stood, brushing crumbs from her knees. Max looked up at her unsure.

She reached out and took the crumpled kitchen roll from his lap, combining it with hers in one hand. Max blinked at her, clearly surprised, but didn’t argue. Just folded his hands awkwardly in his lap.

“Uhm… Bye,” Natalie offered him a little wave and a small smile.

Max hesitated, then returned it with the same tiny wave. “Bye.”

And just like that, Natalie turned and walked back toward her motorhome, toward the warm hum of her father’s voice and the quiet comfort of knowing she was loved. Never realizing that for Max, that hotdog and that five minutes of peace might be the kindest thing anyone had done for him in months.

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[misschue]

Major Apothecary diaries manga and LN spoilers ahead...

So I've been thinking. We know TAD has a tendency to do some heavy foreshadowing like they did with the locust plague. So many volumes of build up where they talk about crickets, ways of harvesting, etc. to finally end up in the long awaited locust invasion.

And I'm sure is headed that way with the pox too. Suddenly characters who had the pox start appearing and talks of a way to handle it come up more often.

But what I'm also sure is we're getting major foreshadowing for Jinshis eventually finding out about his real parents AND abdicating in favor of his younger brother. In the last volume we have not one but two examples of former royals who resigned their duties and went on to live their lives. The Shin Clan founder who was so beloved he was allowed to keep a heirloom in the form of a dragon and Kada, also an emperor's son who was casted away for commiting a terrible taboo (but still allowed to live).

I think the Shin Clan guy it's how's most likely to go. This was a beloved son, a crown prince!, but he didn't consider himself adequate and preferred his younger brother ruled instead. Right now Jinshi feels safe being just a younger brother and having two healthy baby nephews. But his entire parentage is one huge Chekhov's gun waiting to be fired. You don't put that out there if you're not planning to reveal it at some point. Especially bringing into equation the factions and the dislike for the current heir. Someone somehow it's gonna figure Jinshi is the emperors son and bring it to light, causing at least two volumes of trouble.

But the Shin Clan example is already giving us a way out. IT IS possible to just resign. I think it will take a lot of courage but Jinshi will finally end up doing it, with no major negative consequences to him.

It's also worth noting that times passes really fast in the light novel. Gyokuyou and Lihuas sons aren't that far from being 7 years old, the moment a baby is consider old enough to not worry about dying suddenly. They were born when Maomao was 18ish and she's now 21!

Obviously this is all volumes ahead, I think we'll see the pox arc first and based on a few spoilers of the web novel some other issues first but I don't doubt Jinshis parents reveal will come eventually

[booniebaby141]

Birds of Ratite

Ghost X Soap

After extensive research, I’ve come to the conclusion that Simon Riley would have a hyperfixation about birds, specifically Cassowaries because “They’re like fucking dinosaurs Johnny, be grateful they can’t fly, they can kick hard enough to break bones.”

Johnny will gladly listen to Simon yap about them for hours on end. I like to think when Simon runs out of Dad jokes to tell him during missions, he just rattles off fact after fact. Johnny can’t really complain, he does the EXACT same shit to Simon all the time; any time he gets first kit haul, he will prattle on about all the explosives, chemical compounds, and ammunition he got for the next demolition.

They will gladly listen to each other yap, especially in a high stress situation, where it could mean the difference between life or death…

~~~

“Bravo 7-1 to Watcher, just outside the safe house 2 Klicks North of the drop zone. Ghost is in critical condition! Knife wound to the abdomen, need medevac NOW!”

“Copy that 7-1, sending help your way.”

“Fuck, c’mon stay with me Sir.”

The two collapsed just outside the safe house, falling to the grassy field before leaning back against the safe house wall. Soap looked around aimlessly and desperately, watching as the sun peaked just over the horizon, illuminating his face, and his hands, now covered in the blood of his best friend as he kept a firm hold over the wound to prevent further bleeding.

Ghost almost wanted to laugh at the situation, being stabbed with his own knife by an opposing soldier was definitely not on his Task Force bingo card. It had been driven deep into his stomach before being yanked out as Soap flanked the man, dropping him to the ground while he still had a solid grip on the knife. The cut was deep and Ghost was starting to get delirious from the blood loss, he’d pass out soon enough if they didn’t get help quickly.

“Sir? Stay with me... Help’s coming L.T.”

“Johnny?”

“Ghost? I’m right here mate.”

He began to pull at the seams of his mask, trying to take it off in his weakened state when Soaps hands stopped him. It was an old promise they’d made to each other if they found themselves in a near death situation. They wanted to die seeing each others faces, their real faces.

“Simon no, stop. I’m not gonna let that happen, you’re gonna be fine. Quick, umm… How high can a cassowary jump?”

“What Johnny? Why?”

“Just answer the question, Sir.”

Ghost huffed raggedly but eventually wheezed out a struggled “7 feet.”

Soap nodded with a weak smile. “Aye, what’s the scientific name for them?” He continued to ask Ghost questions and keep him somewhat lucid.

Ghost realized what Soap was doing now, and he thought hard to try and stay awake until medevac arrived. “It’s *cough* it-it’s Casuar- *cough* casuarius johnsonii.”

They could hear the chopper approaching, Ghost rolled his head against the safe house wall, landing on Soaps shoulder as darkness approached the corners of his vision. “It’s cold Johnny…”

Soap propped him back up, getting in front of him and running his hands up and down the length of his arms in an attempt to warm him up some. “They’re landing now Simon, just a bit longer aye? Quick, tell me where they live.”

“Wha? Johnny?” Ghost slurred out, struggling to keep himself awake but he knew he had to, for his sake, and Johnnys.

“The cassowaries L.T, where do they live?”

“N-new *cough* New Guinea, and Aus-Australia.”

“Aye? Well I’m gonna take you there when this is all over, so you stay awake you big, broody, bastard.”

That got a slight chuckle from Ghost, which quickly turned to a fit of coughing and sputtering as the pain sharpened in his abdomen and the blood seemed to pour out at an even faster rate. Soap kept his hands placed firmly on the wound, watching as Ghosts head lolled to the side again and he grew quiet, uncharacteristically so even for him. He was so cold, so tired. In his half delirious state, the warmth of Johnnys hands gave him enough of an illusion of safety to start falling asleep.

“Ghost? Ghost?! Come on wake up Sir! Their wheels are down. Wake up you bastard! Come on, tell me their wingspan, what colours are they, anything Sir!”

The last thing Ghost remembered hearing before passing out was the frantic, panicked shouting of his teammate and the warmth of his skin, and the hurried thudding of boots on the ground as a medical team was pulling over a stretcher with Price in tow. He hears a faint conversation, something whispered, something upsetting, before being pulled up to the stretcher and the last bit of consciousness being pulled out of him.

The warmth never left however.

He wakes up in a hospital bed, Johnny’s hand clasped around his. He looks like shit, like he hadn’t left Ghosts side for a second to clean himself up. Still bloodied and stained, yet here he was watching over his lieutenant like a hawk.

“You made it L.T.”

“You fucking made it.”

Ghost didn’t have time to reply before strong arms were wrapped around his chest in embrace. He winced slightly as Johnnys weight pressed down on the bandaged stab wound, but eventually settled in a soothing silence as he held Johnny closer. He pretended not to hear the sniffles coming from his sergeant.

“I made it Johnny.”

The two remained that way for a while, Ghost looked around his hospital room to see the array of things left by his team. There were several cards surrounding a large bouquet of roses, hydrangeas, morning glories, and marigolds; all the colors of a cassowary’s feathers. There were some bottles of bourbon left by the Vaqueros, even Nik had brought a little mug with birds painted on by Soap. Inside the mug, Ghost noticed two slips of paper.

“What’s in the mug Johnny?” He asked suspiciously, to which Soap chuckled before briefly letting go to grab the tickets.

“I told you, you make it through this, I’m taking you to see them. Once you’re given the all clear from medical, we’re going…”

Ghost looked in awe at the two tickets, round trip to Australia with accommodations and a visit to the Taronga Conservation.

“Fucking hell, Johnny…”

“Ahh, don’t give me all the credit, Gaz helped me find the place and Price gave us the leave and got us a hotel. But I planned the rest. Got even more surprises in sto-”

Soap was cut off as Ghost pulled up his balaclava slightly to give him a kiss. Soap leaned into it, returning to his initial embrace and kissing right back, soft and gentle; what they both needed after such a close encounter with death. Talk of the trip could wait. For now, they simply needed each other.

“8 to 10 feet Johnny.”

“What Sir?”

“I never answered your question before, their wingspan is 8 to 10 feet.”

“Hah, guess we’re gonna see then aye L.T.”

“I guess we are.”

2 Weeks Later

“Watch out for the magpies Johnny, they’re even worse than Canadian Geese. Hey look up, a Masked Lapwing! And it’s a black shouldered subspecies, you usually only find them in New Zealand. Did you know that the only species of bird who can do…”

Soap listened with a smile although he did lose track at times as Ghost listed off every bird in the conservation he could see and had at least 3 facts for each of them. Still, it was good to see him back up and about, and back to his usual self. Although if it was a side of him rarely seen, Soap felt honoured he felt comfortable to show it to him. Both men nearly cried when they finally got to visit the cassowaries. Simon nearly cried because he finally got to meet his favourite bird in person, and Johnny because he finally got to watch Simon meet his favourite bird in person.

~~~

Just a silly Ghoap idea I had from a TikTok I saw on cassowaries. What else would they yap about? I just know Ghost and Soap are the AuDHD dream team of hyperfixation.

[serenadeonacanoe]

Untitled, 2025 (GD x OFC) Chapter 7: March 25th

Pairing: G-Dragon/Kwon Jiyong x OFC Genre/Warnings: Slow Burn, Tour Life, fluffyfluff, yearning, eventual smut, 2014 ==> 2020 ==> 2025.

It’s 2025 and the King of K-Pop is back. He and his music are everywhere. On the charts, all over social media and smack in the middle of Maddie’s work schedule. Sometimes she still can’t believe this is her actual job now - documenting the chaos behind the scenes and trying to make sure no one on his team gets lost, bruised or accidentally starts a viral scandal.

What’s even harder to believe? That she and Jiyong met five years ago. Actually… scratch that. They met ten years ago too. Time has a weird sense of humor like that and things get blurry when you’re busy, nostalgic, and maybe just a little bit smitten. Also, life throws more daisies your way than you’d expect.

Part 1 2 3 4 5 6

More on AO3 —————————————–

Summer 2014

The sky looks too cheerful for how I feel. Blue, sunny, a few lazy clouds. Birds are chirping. It’s offensively peaceful for a day full of hangovers. I’m standing by the gravel driveway, sunglasses on, hoodie up, suitcase beside me like I can’t wait to leave and… well yeah, I really can’t wait to leave. Everyone’s pretending to be fine after last night’s party. Maybe they are, but it smells like old beer and regret here.

I’m not mad. Just ready to go. “Hey, Daisy.” I turn. It’s Jiyong. Of course. He's holding a coffee cup like a prize. Sweater hood pulled low, hair underneath a mess, tired. Still looks too good for someone who should probably be hiding from the world. “You leaving without saying goodbye?” he asks, voice all smooth like this is charming, like it’s a joke. I blink. He smirks. I hate that it still does things to me.

“You’re cute when you’re mad.” “Oh wow. You really just said that?” He shrugs. “You’re not mad?” he asks, stepping a little closer. “No” I say honestly. “Just not impressed.”

He tips his head like that’s new information. Like I’m supposed to be flattered he’s even here talking to me. I can tell he’s still drunk. Or maybe that’s just who he is. His smile falters. Just for a second. But he catches himself and goes back to grinning like this is still salvageable.

That’s when Daesung walks past us with a huge plastic bottle of water. “You two flirt way less sexy in daylight” he says without stopping. “We’re not flirting.” I call out after him. Jiyong raises an eyebrow. “Speak for yourself.”

And that is when I walk away. Not fast. Not dramatically. Just done. I’ve got a train to catch and enough dignity left to not waste another breath on him. Still… in the car, on the ride to the station, head resting against the window, I find myself replaying the look on his face. That tiny crack in his confidence. That moment where maybe - just maybe - he didn’t have it all together. Not that it changes anything. But it lingers a little.

March 2025

It’s the 25th. The album is out. Übermensch is here. A couple of days have passed since that snowy walk but it feels like a lifetime ago.

We’ve seen each other nearly every day since - at work. Surrounded by people. Surrounded by deadlines. Surrounded by too much caffeine and not enough sleep. Everyone is exhausted in that giddy, running-on-adrenaline kind of way. No one has time to breathe. Let alone flirt.

We’ve texted. Brief little things. Updates. Memes. One photo of one of his cats. Nothing romantic. Nothing that said hey, remember how we kissed like our lives depended on it?

It’s fine. We’re fine. I’m not spiraling. Okay. I might be spiraling just a bit.

I didn’t want to be of course and at first I didn’t even want to admit it, but fuck. It’s always in the back of my head.

The worst part is he seems normal. Not cold. Just… busy. Charming to everyone, polite to me. A couple of long glances across meeting rooms, but nothing that lands. I start to wonder if I made it bigger in my head than it was. Maybe it was the snow. Maybe he felt something for five minutes and then went back to being whoever he is now. A pop star with a schedule that has its own gravitational pull. I tell myself not to take it personally.

The day comes and goes. Some of it - a lot of it actually - feels like a dream. Hard to grasp, in a way, because we worked so long and hard on this album. It’s hard to believe it’s finally here, people are listening.

Tonight is the album release party at a swanky venue downtown and I was hoping to enjoy the night but I still feel so much pressure when I get ready. This is still work after all. Maybe come tomorrow it will get better? Or will we forever run after the next thing and then the next thing… Or am I just being anxious because of everything?

When I arrive it feels good… but at the same time I disappear into the background. There are so many people I know and so many I know of. Pictures are being taken and flashes illuminate the otherwise dark red-tinted room. Is this a party? Or just the photo op of a party?

I sigh at myself. What did I expect.

Well… at least a pretty tight hug.

Instead I try to at least have a good time.

It’s after midnight and I am standing in a hallway toward the back entrance of the venue. I needed a quieter moment, a strong coffee and a moment to lean against this table after dancing for quite a while. My feet hurt. My voice is hoarse. A part of me wishes I was drunker. Another just wants to go to bed. And a third one wishes I wasn’t thinking about Ji.

Of course it’s hard not to. I’ve seen him all night. Deep down I know I’m being hard on myself but what can you do.

Daesung walks past me toward the exit, probably to sneak a smoke outside and grins wide at me. I know that grin. He’s trying to make me smile as well because he can tell I am not a hundred percent, he is good at that. The sound of his footsteps gets me out of my thoughts. I check my phone once he’s gone and wonder whether I should just go home. My duties for today are done done done.

That’s when a second pair of footsteps comes up, much quieter and not quite as startling anymore.

When I look up, Jiyong has already walked up next to me. He’s now also leaning against the table and just props his chin onto my shoulder, pretending to look at my phone with me. A hesitant smile from him. Then me smiling as well.

My heart is about to explode. I feel… shy and somewhat relieved. Confused but happy. It’s a lot. “Hi,” he says, looking up. He doesn’t move away. Still leans over at me, but now we’re on eye level. “Hi.”

For a second we just… look at each other.

It’s strange how familiar he feels and also how much space we’ve let grow between us the last few days.

“I’ve been hoping to catch you alone all day. Several days actually.”

Mad, almost concerning, how these two sentences from him make all that spiraling disappear for a moment. Thank fucking god. I wasn’t alone in this. Well, I was. But we were on the same page. Just not together, unfortunately.

“Busy. I get it,” I answer, trying to be casual for some reason, pretty sure that my face gives me away anyway. To be honest, I have no idea why I say that. It’s stupid.

He nods. Then adds, almost shyly “I couldn’t stop thinking about you though.”

I swallow, look down at the steam from my coffee cup. Then I sigh all my relief away and now I’m the one who lets her head fall to his shoulder.

Ji moves an arm around my back and puts his cheek to my head and we just stand there for a second.

There are so many things I want to say but now that I have the chance my head is so empty. I just want to be here with him… quiet for a moment. And so we are.

Until I finally break away to look into his eyes again.

“I hope… I really hope this album does as well as it deserves. Like… you deserve. I hope people appreciate it because…”

Why am I getting teary-eyed. I haven’t even expressed what I mean. That I’m proud of him. That he doesn’t need the praise but I still hope he gets it because the music is so great and every stupid little detail and… I’m tired but happy now and… too many words. Too little at the same time, so I stop and stand there with slightly open mouth.

He just looks at me and presses his lips together. Raises one hand to gently let the side of his thumb glide across my temple. Nods slowly a couple of times, as if to say It’s okay, I get it. And I think he really does.

I take another deep breath and then I just hug him. That might be reckless but I don’t care, because finally, the pressure is gone. All of it. Work and the stupid questions in my head. Nothing is clear yet, but I think there is nothing I can do.

Of course that is when Daesung appears again, muttering curse words and something about “nobody has lighters anymore these days.”

But he stops right away, mid-sentence, mid-step and starts grinning when he sees us. Makes another four steps until he is right next to us. Throws his arms around both of us at once like we’re in a sitcom.

“OH… my gawd” he practically shouts. “You guys are totally fucking.”

I almost choke. Jiyong makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “We’re not,” I manage. “Yet” Jiyong adds under his breath.

Daesung gasps like he just won a prize. Gossip Gold, basically. “I KNEW IT” he announces to absolutely no one. “Oh this is crazy, I can’t believe you finally… oh wow.” Then he bounds off again, still laughing. I panic for a second before I realize that whatever this is is safe with him. He loves gossip but he’s been doing this for long enough.

We’re left blinking. Jiyong looks at me with wide, amused eyes. “Well… that’s one way to get found out.” I nod, laughing into my cup before I take another sip.

And just like that, everything that was heavy lifts. Not everything is fixed. Not everything is said. But we’re back in orbit.

Jiyong shifts just a little closer. Not obvious. But close enough that I can feel the warmth of his hand brushing against mine. And then, gently, deliberately, his fingers slip into the space between mine. I glance down like my hand suddenly belongs to someone else. His thumb grazes mine once. Just once. And I swear to god it short-circuits something in my chest. I look up at him. He’s still smiling, but softer now. Like we’re in a bubble and he knows it. His hand tightens just slightly around mine.

Then I start smirking because I just remembered that... “So… yet? We aren’t fucking yet?” He audibly sucks in some air, rolls his eyes and is actually a tiny bit embarrassed, I can tell. But there is also a hint of a mischievous smile on his lips and the combination of all that is so intoxicating.

Instead of saying anything he moves both arms back around my waist and rests his face back against my collarbone. His currently very green hair is tickling me a little and I move one arm around his back, the other to the back of his head. Let my fingers glide into his (well, a little crispy) hair. For a second I close my eyes while there is the biggest smile on my face. I am so goddamn happy.

It’s a short moment that could have ended quite badly. We got luckier than we probabyl deserved there. So in the end that is all it is. A few minutes of hugging and shared silence. We return to the party hesitantly but both know it’s better that way.

By the time I get home, my cheeks are still warm. It’s the alcohol and the fact that it’s still really cold outside. 

But it’s the hand-holding. It’s the yet. It’s how much lighter I feel compared to a couple of hours ago.

I kick off my shoes, toss my coat on the back of the chair and lean against the wall for a second, just breathing. The city is quiet outside my window. My phone is still in my hand. I stare at the screen, thumb hovering, considering. Maybe I’ll just send a goodnight. Something chill. Something casual and completely non-deranged like hey hope you made it home safe and also I’m still thinking about your hand in mine and my brain’s made of fireworks now ok cool sleep tight.

Before I can type anything, my phone buzzes.

Jiyong: made it home, you there yet? Jiyong: you looked really pretty tonight btw

I smile so hard it hurts.

Me: same Me: home I mean Me: but also… thanks Me: you didn’t look too bad either Me: for someone emotionally attacked by daesung

Jiyong: tragic

Me: he might have printed shirts already Me: there might be a shipping name

Jiyong: might take me years to recover Jiyong: unless you and I can hang out again sometime soon Jiyong: that might help Jiyong: just us this time

I bite my lip. Consider typing something witty, but then don’t. What he wrote didn’t make much sense, but I am so glad he asked.

Me: I’d like that

I beam. Alone in my apartment. At my phone. Like an idiot. But not really an idiot. I am not an idiot. I am just fucking smitten. Why be unkind to myself about that. It feels amazing.

Me: Soon?

Jiyong: Yes please Jiyong: Sleep tight, Dais.

[theofficialfrogni]

I really, REALLY hope Ragatha proves she is WAY more than just an abused victim and that she eventually refuses to allow that shit to effect her treatment towards others/her day to day actions, whether it be the fawning, overly 'positivity', crashouts etc. Like, she has a choice. Replicate the shit her mother put her through or make sure no around her goes through that shit themselves.

Yes, it's way harder to MAKE the right choices when living through abuse, especially if it's all you've ever known or admittedly dealing with a butthole like Jax some days. BUT it's still a choice at the end of the day. Sometimes, Ragatha makes the right choices; other times, not so much.

Hogarth Hughes well, technically Dean McCoppin said it but I like thinking an 11 year old is smart enough to come up with this deep shit from The Iron Giant said it best:

"You are who YOU choose to be."

Anyways, I love my bb to pieces but want her to develop herself in a truly more positive way. Along with your last point, I can love Ragatha AND not agree with everything she say/does and want to her to grow into a better person HELL of a lot better person than her mother that witch can ROT

Yes, I know I’m currently in my anti-Ragatha phase right now but just because I condemn the shit she said to Gangle in episode 4 & the shit she said to Jax in episode 5 does NOT mean I support Ragatha’s mother abusing her. I can dislike Ragatha AND believe that Ragatha is a much better person than her mother is.

[brofightiscancelled]

okay ill bite why do u hate kaoru sakuraba sidem aside from the fact that they went from hokuto as a main blue to downgrade to kaoru. to make it less awkward that I’m asking abt sidem on ur osomatsu side blog, what sidem idols would u assign to each matsu ?

i think sideM should collab w osomatsu-san and put them all in Beit so they can all get JOBS!!!!!!

anyways i hate kaoru from idolmaster sideM. i need all my osomatsu-san side blog followers to know that i hate this man. "i need a lot of money fast to pursue an extremely niche medical research track, which is why i quit my stable and high paying job as a surgeon to become an idol while having no soft skills, physical strength or stamina, or interest in getting along with people" are you Stupid??

he's not even using his idol clout to spread awareness of the rare disease he's trying to cure (like SEM does) so it can secure funding, he sees it 100% as a job and refuses to have fun, he is actively unpleasant and uncooperative in every interaction with his coworkers because he's trying to "rise to the top". it seems like the only thing he has going for him are his looks and that he kind of liked to sing when he was a kid. why not become a model at that point when you have the personality of a wet tree trunk. or better yet why not STAY A FUCKING DOCTOR!!!!!

also, i don't like meganes, so write that down.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Rummaging around my house and i got jumpscared

[july-19th-club]

huge eric fan now for how he is about his weird little two-thousand-year-old enlightened teenage dad . like, oh, i'm huge and tall but i never want to seem like i'm looming over you so whenever we're face to face i'll kneel or sit below you and look up like you're some kind of jesus . when i met you i thought you were death and you said come walk with me through the dark and i said what's in it for me? and it's been a thousand years and i'm the age now that you were then and i haven't changed; i'm still a careless, blood-soaked opportunist and loving it, but you decided you were a pacifist somewhere in the past couple centuries and i SO SUPER don't get it but i love you so i hope you're happy and enjoying your linen smocks and ancient mien of peaceful remorse. and then i let you die because you think it will help and i hate to let you down. and i never get over you, ever

[meruhenshoujo]

muslimintp-1999-girl: #seriously the issue is that capitalism has made single income households almost impossible/difficult and that's why people end up treating#each other like a burden when what they should be aiming for is an economic system that doesn't view people as disposables/burden & belief#that everyone should have basic human rights such as housing regardless of their financial status#it is so sad that owning a house these days is so out of reach for most people

Precisely!

Can we stop using "still lives with their parents" or "unemployed" or "doesn't have a drivers license" or "didn't graduate high school" as an insult or evidence that someone is a bad person? Struggling with independence or meeting milestones is not a moral failing.

[primordialruin]

Lilith's happy ending is dying. 🤷

[marinecorvid]

blorbos from my brain

[haledamage]

Past, Present, Future

I was planning to write something a little more seasonally-appropriate, but stumbled across a WIP that my brain decided to latch onto instead. So, uh… Happy Life Day?

@queen-scribbles gave me this prompt in a conversation we had well over a year ago, and I’ve finally finished it 😅 the specific request was something along the lines of “LET THEM SMOOCH ALREADY DAMMIT” for Qora/Arcann, and the prompts were:

“don’t leave, illusion, too loud, or harsh whisper”

I’m not sure where exactly this fits on the timeline, but definitely later on in-game. probably post-Echoes of Vengeance, but I… haven’t actually finished that questline yet, so there should be little to no spoilers 😆 ~2.5k words, trigger warning for abuse/violence against children, because this is Qora and Arcann we’re talking about

---

“Again.”

The overseer’s stern voice echoed through the chamber, seeming to come from everywhere at once.

The training room was dark beyond the platform Qora stood in the center of, giving her the illusion that she was alone. But she wasn’t. She knew she had an audience, but who they were or how many, she had no idea. The whole Academy could’ve been watching, and she wouldn’t know the difference.

The sweet-metallic scent of blood hung heavy in the air, along with the acrid odor of sweat and the ever-present ozone tang of lightning.

There was blood in her mouth, too. Her lip was bleeding sluggishly, split by a lucky blow… five fights ago? Six? She’d lost count.

Four acolytes stepped out of the shadows to join her on the platform. They were all older than her - most of the other acolytes were - and they were all armed.

Qora tightened the grip on her own practice blades, the handles digging into her palms. Her combat stance was steady, even if the rest of her didn’t feel it.

“Begin.”

The first acolyte lunged too quickly, too eager for the kill, and didn’t have the safety of numbers to protect him. One hard strike to the jaw, and he was on the floor before the others had even started moving.

The second and third were smart enough to attack together, both rushing her in tandem. Their swords were a blur of motion, almost too fast to follow, but she managed to keep them at bay. When the larger of the two raised his blade for what was meant to be an incapacitating blow, Qora reached out with the Force and dragged the smaller one between them. The blow took her opponent out instead. After that, the other one was dispatched easily.

The fourth snuck up behind her as soon as Two and Three were down. The pommel of his sword slammed into the back of her skull.

Her vision went white. She lashed out on instinct, swinging her blade in the direction the blow had come from.

She heard her opponent hit the mat, and followed right after him.

It was over almost as soon as it began.

“Again.”

The overseer’s voice sounded farther away, hard to hear over her own too loud heartbeat. Static hissed at the edges of Qora’s vision, and her eyes refused to focus. She could feel her consciousness slipping, and clung to it with everything she had.

“Again.”

The repeated order was a threat. A concussion would be the least of her worries if she didn’t stand up soon, but her legs refused to obey her orders.

A hand appeared in what remained of her field of vision, and Qora snapped her head up. Forcing herself to focus past the pain, she followed the arm up to… a boy. 

A boy she knew--though she wasn’t sure how she knew him. 

He looked to be around twelve or thirteen, the same age as her, with the same buzzed hair that she and all the other younger acolytes had, and gentle, pale blue eyes. The fine white robes he wore were much different than the grays and blacks the rest of them had, and contrasted so sharply against their dark surroundings that he almost seemed to glow.

“On your feet, Qora,” he said in a soft, raspy voice, his words firm but not demanding. “The next wave won’t wait for you to recover.”

“They never do,” she replied dryly. Her own voice sounded unfamiliar to her ears, a Corellian drawl instead of the crisp edges of Dromund Kaas. Like someone had filed all the corners off of her accent. She hadn't sounded like that in a long time.

She shook off the thought and took the offered hand, letting him help her to her feet. He didn’t flinch away from the cold metal of her prosthetic, or from the way she stumbled as her bruised and battered limbs protested the change in position. He just held on and let her take her time steadying herself.

He only let her go once he was sure she could stand on her own. “Are you alright?”

Part of her wanted to laugh at the question, no matter how sincere it was, but she bit it back. Instead, she said, “You shouldn’t have come here, Arcann. It’s not--not safe to be around me. Especially not here.”

“Just try and stop me.” Despite her warning and his challenge in response, Arcann carefully cupped the back of her head. The pain eased immediately in a warm yellow glow and a muted hum of the Force. “Unless you’d rather face them on your own?”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“...No.” Qora felt guilty as soon as the word was out. It was stupid and selfish and Arcann was going to get hurt because of her, but it was too late to take it back. “Please don’t leave me here alone.”

“Never.” His hand slid from the back of her head along her jaw, until his thumb brushed her bottom lip. Another whisper of Force healing, and there was no evidence of the split lip besides the blood in her mouth. “There is nowhere I would rather be than by your side.”

There was a sound of boots scuffing against stone as someone else approached, and Qora and Arcann turned in tandem, shifting until they stood back to back. Blindly, she reached back and pressed one of her swords into his hand.

He squeezed her hand before taking the offered weapon. “You know this is a dream, right?” he murmured, as six new acolytes stepped into the light with them.

“Yes.” She knew it the same way she knew Arcann’s name, knew the difference in her own accent. “Doesn’t make it less real.”

Further conversation was halted as the overseer’s voice snapped “Begin,” and the acolytes closed in.

Qora and Arcann moved as one, staying back to back in the center of the platform. When one of their assailants rushed toward Arcann’s left, Qora spun to intercept, knowing his vision was limited on that side--or would be, someday, in a future far from this place--and caught the oncoming vibrosword with her own before it could make contact. She took that one down with a sharp elbow strike to the jaw.

A second acolyte took advantage of her momentary distraction and threw their sword, sending it in a Force-aimed arc toward her now-unguarded side.

Arcann snatched it out of the air without even looking, still holding back another two opponents with his other hand. He presented Qora the hilt with a small, playful flourish. “Your weapon, my lord.”

She laughed, exultant and a touch manic, as she swept the sword out in front of her, sending another opponent scrambling backwards to avoid it. It was the first time the Academy walls had ever heard her laughter, even in dreams.

The remaining assailants didn’t stand a chance. They were on the floor before they had time to react.

“How many more are there?” Arcann asked, when they were alone again. He hadn’t even broken a sweat yet, that first round barely enough to make him breathe faster.

“However many it takes.”

“Again,” the overseer called out, but neither of them heeded the implied threat this time. Qora was no longer afraid, now that Arcann was by her side.

“Takes for what?”

“For me to learn my lesson.” She stepped away from him toward the edge of the platform. From there, she could just barely see past the heavy darkness to the dozens of faceless, nameless acolytes that still waited for their turn. Far more of them than there’d ever been while she was a student (a prisoner, a gladiator, a slave) at the Academy.

She felt when Arcann stepped up beside her, though his footsteps made no sound. “Is this training, or a punishment?”

She laughed again, empty, humorless, bitter. “You’d be surprised how often the two coincide.”

“No. I would not.” The anger in his voice was a distant thing, an echo of past rage rather than something fresh. His hand gently covered hers, easing the white-knuckled grip she still had on the vibroblade. “This isn’t your life anymore, Qora. You don’t have to keep fighting.”

The sword fell from her hand, and she reached out to cling to him instead. “This is who I am. What I was made for.”

“Not anymore.” He tugged on her hand, coaxing her to turn around. When she did, his other hand settled over her cheek, the warmth of his touch comforting in the chill of the training arena. “It’s time to wake up.”

Qora awoke with a gasp to find herself in the familiar confines of her quarters on Odessen. The blankets were hopelessly tangled around her legs. The cluttered shelves and tables nearest the bed were in disarray from the Force reacting to her emotions, some of their contents spilling onto the floor.

Arcann’s arm tightened around her waist, and just his presence was enough to clear her mind and slow the panicked flurry of her heart. Without a word, she rolled over and pressed her face into his shoulder.

His hand traveled up and down the length of her spine, gentle and soothing but firm enough to anchor her. With every caress, the Academy fell farther away.

Eventually, she felt calm enough to pull back, if only just far enough to see his face. The look she found there was patient and understanding, embers of anger shining in his eyes but very clearly not directed at her.

“Sometimes it feels like no matter how far I travel, part of me will always be twelve years old, alone in that pit,” she confessed quietly. Arcann’s anger flared a little brighter, but he didn’t interrupt. “It was supposed to break me. So they could reforge me into something more useful. I guess in some ways, it did.”

She certainly didn’t bear any resemblance to the child she’d been before the Sith took her, that little girl who crawled through Corellian junkyards for scraps she could turn into art. Sweet little Qora, who could fix anything you brought her, be it a speeder or a teddy bear or a broken arm. She liked to think that girl might have become a healer, if she’d been able to join the Jedi like she was meant to.

Qora let her hands wander, fingertips tracing the lines of scars on Arcann’s shoulder and chest, following the edge of where warm skin and firm muscle gave way to the cool metal of his cybernetics.

“This happened on Korriban, too, didn’t it? Not long before we met.” It wasn’t really a question, and she didn’t really expect an answer, but she got one anyway.

“Yes.” He caught her hand and stopped its further exploration, pressing it flat over his heart. “And they paid dearly for it. My brother and I made sure of that.”

“Good. I hope you burned it all down,” she said in a harsh whisper. She hoped Arcann and Thexan had reduced the entire planet to ash, every tomb, every temple, every overseer, every blasted k’lor’slug crushed under the might of the Eternal Empire. “Not even the memory of that place deserves to be left standing.”

Rage burned so hot in her chest that it hurt to breathe, and she shook with the effort to push it down. Tears blurred her vision and stung the corners of her eyes, but Qora refused to let them fall. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of her tears, even when they weren’t here to see it.

Arcann didn't reply, but instead rolled them over so that she was on her back, his body caging her in and pressing her down into the mattress. It grounded her, forcing her out of the past and back into her own body, driving away all thoughts of Korriban and the Academy and the shadows of the training room.

He kissed her then, slow and deep, demanding her attention to be on him and him alone. That was a command she was more than happy to follow. The fire in her chest receded, replaced by a much more pleasant warmth that built and spread through her under his skillful guidance, and the tremor in her hands abated when she cupped his face between them.

It was only when the mood started to shift from comfort to desire, kisses turning heated and hands starting to roam, that Arcann broke away. He was breathing harder just from kissing her than he had been at any point in the nightmare they’d just escaped.

“They will never touch you again. I swear it,” he vowed, deep voice solemn and utterly sincere.

“I believe you.” She exhaled a long breath, releasing the last lingering tension with it, and drew him back down enough for their foreheads to touch. “Thank you, Arcann. I needed to hear that.”

No matter what the Sith Council thought, or the machinations of whoever they’d decided to blindly follow this week, she was beyond their reach now. She had no doubt that if they tried to subjugate her again, they would learn their lesson the hard way. And Arcann would be among the first in line to teach it to them.

She was grateful that he was so willing to remind her of that, when she needed it.

Qora let out another sigh and slid her hands up to the back of his neck, playing idly with the hair at his nape. It was only barely long enough to run her fingers through, but she adored it. Both for what it represented for Arcann’s healing and growth and because it was just… pretty. His hair was silky soft to the touch, and the warm caramel color made his eyes appear an even brighter blue. It warmed her heart every time she looked at him, to see this visible proof of how far they’d come.

They should probably talk about what had just happened, she knew that, but she wasn’t in any hurry to broach the subject and reopen those wounds for the second time in one night. It’s not like this was their first time sharing dreams, anyway, even if none of the others had been quite so… authentic. Dwelling on it wouldn’t solve anything.

“Do you want to go back to sleep?” There wouldn’t be any more rest for her tonight, but that didn’t mean Arcann had to suffer on her account. “There are still a few hours until--”

“No.” How he could put so much intention into a single syllable, she’d never know, but when combined with the heated look he gave her, it was enough to make her shiver. 

“Oh?” she said in feigned innocence, even as she lightly scraped her nails against his scalp. It earned her a low rumble that she felt more than heard, something between a warning growl and a contented purr. “Did you have something else in mind?”

His smile was soft, and so was the kiss that followed it; neither did anything to dim the desire burning in his eyes.

“The past will always haunt us, in one form or another.” He took one of her hands in his and slowly led it down from his neck and over his shoulder, his chest, his ribs, lingering on a scar there.

It was one Qora knew very well. And she should--after all, she’d put it there herself. During their last fight, when she’d “defeated” him. She brushed her thumb over the thin, raised line; such a small souvenir from something that had been so important.

Arcann only let her linger for a few seconds before moving on, guiding her deliberately lower. His lips grazed her cheek before finding firmer purchase on the sensitive spot under her ear. “There is no need for us to give it more power than it already has. I would rather… appreciate what’s right in front of me.”

“By all means. Appreciate away.” Her breath hitched when he kissed the hollow of her throat, ruining any attempt at keeping her tone light and teasing. She gave it up as a lost cause, and surrendered completely to him, and to whatever came next.

[aeolianblues]

The duality of life is so crazy. I was back on campus today, I’ve been feeling pretty ancient all week because it’s been frosh week which means I have to deal with the fact that this year’s class graduates in 2028 (that’s not a real year) and were born in 2006 and 07, years that I can remember writing in the margins of a school notebook.

I'm walking around campus for the beginning-of-year campus clubs fair, and it's all, people love me, people think I'm cool, people are coming up to me saying they like my fit, in the meanwhile I'm internally getting jumpscared thinking wait; these incredibly well-dressed kids are approaching me whilst I'm shovelling fucking peanuts into my mouth out of a bag in my tote bag

There comes a point when you officially get Older and become invisible to cool young tiny things, and then you can do whatever you want because they sort of stop noticing you. I've been feeling a bit old this week, I'm at Big Person work, everyone around me is like half a decade younger, we're at quite different stages in our lives, I've been thinking. But I also have the sort of face that would pass me for a 19 y/o clearly, because these kids all have pulled me in like I'm some sort of counter culture bohemian trendsetting cool kid, and whatever the hell that means, it's definitely instantly made me feel a lot younger and connected with 'the youth'