to live is to dance

Relationships: Albert DaSilva & Racetrack Higgins, Albert DaSilva & Romeo, various other friendships Characters: Albert DaSilva, Finch, Romeo, Sniper, Buttons, Specs, Racetrack Higgins, David Jacobs, Ensemble Cast Rating: T Length: 27804 words Additional tags: Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Vomiting, Smoking, Wound Tending, Found Family, Canon Era A/N: See full author’s note on AO3 for additional content warnings - and the preview below does feature the aforementioned canon-typical violence (the post-Seize the Day fight scene) if that’s something you’d rather skip past.

***

Albert doesn’t duck fast enough, and a firecracker explodes white-hot through his face as the other guy lands a hit straight across his eye.

He staggers backward, working his jaw through the pain, and the goon advances, heavy footsteps and sweaty breath he can hear even through all the commotion around him. But he isn’t down yet, and he jabs up, knuckles tight and quick right into the goon’s throat. The guy staggers back, wheezing, stumbles back into a wagon, and behind him is Finch, bounding nimble over the cart to finish the job.

“Behind you!” yells Finch, and Albert wheels around, already running.

The hits and yells ring out harsh and fierce through the square, and every few seconds a stone whistles shrill through the air from up above. It’s chaos on the ground, a score of newsies surrounded by guys twice their size, and it’s impossible to keep track of anyone for more than a couple of seconds. Jack’s the only one Albert’s seen more than once, where he’s run across the square to rescue Les, shield Tommy Boy, fend off the guys ganging up on Henry.

The goons haven’t let up for a moment. Albert’s knuckles are already split and bleeding.

He catches the goon behind him and tussles with him, locking arms like steel vices. The guy is strong, and has a look like he’s already won, even though Albert’s momentum pushed him back two steps. That’s the thing, though. Bigger guys always think they have the upper hand.

Albert works his jaw again, balls up the throbbing through his cheek, and spits in the guy’s face.

Relationships: Otabek Altin & Leo de la Iglesia, Otabek Altin/Leo de la Iglesia, Otabek Altin & Yuri Plisetsky Characters: Otabek Altin, Leo de la Iglesia, Yuri Plisetsky Rating: T Length: 6012 words (ongoing) Chapters: 2/6 Additional tags: Motorcycles, Major Character Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Non-Chronological

Summary:

“You crashed?”

“Not really,” says Otabek—which is a lie, so he corrects himself. “Sort of. The bike’s fine.”

“I wasn’t asking about the bike.”

Five near misses Otabek has on his bike, and one crash too close for comfort.

i.

It begins in Toronto, in the winter after Otabek’s sixteenth birthday, when the snow is slick on the ground and the days are short and Otabek does not head straight home after his Saturday morning rink session.

There’s a DriveTest centre forty minutes away in the other direction, and he counts the stops as the bus rumbles along through the snow. He’s barely been able to focus that morning; his brain has been blanking in the worst possible way, and with every spin and twizzle and backwards crossover his mind hasn’t been on his form or his speed or shoulders away from your ears, Otabek, but on right of way rules and gear shifting. He has a well-thumbed copy of The Official MTO Motorcycle Handbook in hand, and tries to check through the pages he’s bookmarked, the ones with the questions he got wrong most often in the practice quizzes.

But his hands are shaking, and he can barely focus on the words, and Otabek stows the book away before he changes buses.

Before a competition, there’s a point where you can’t practice your jumps anymore, and you run out of time to go through the motions of an entire routine; where you have to trust in your body and mind and the things they have trained to do. As he stands outside the DriveTest centre in the north of North York and gathers his resolve to step inside, Otabek sends up a wish and a prayer on the wind that it works the same today.

Sixty-three days later, he gets on a motorcycle for the first time.

Pairing: Otabek Altin/Leo de la Iglesia Characters: Leo de la Iglesia,  Otabek Altin Rating: General Audiences Length: 2926 words Additional tags: POV Second Person, Non-Linear Narrative, Inspired by Poetry

Summary:

today you get a telegram

quiet and unobtrusive, like he just sat down beside you and took out his headphones to a comfortable silence where you didn't need to say a thing. You don't even notice it until an hour later.

On a boy who touches the world with sunlight.

(after Tony Hoagland’s The Word)

Down near the bottom of the crossed-out list of things you have to do today,

is car → gas, scrawled hastily and clumsily with your left hand.

You wrote it while holding the phone as he called you in your expiring parking spot; you forgot your headphones at the apartment and forgot you were in the car and could use the speakerphone because this is the way the two of you have always talked. You mutter if I can read my own handwriting later, and he chuckles, and you think of how he is left-handed and writes with looping script easy as a laugh with one hand, yet still scribes neat, practised strokes with the other, and would have none of your trouble at all.

The city hums past in streaks of chrome and loud chatter and the clamour of high summer. His voice sweeps over you, a sea breeze languid and sweet like cola, and it lets something in your heart simmer down and quiet its beating. This heart has been all over the world, restless and relentless as you chase your dream. There is a pull in it now that will never settle, even as you put down your roots and let them grow deep. But you have things you remember, on those restless days when the thought of uprooting yourself once again crosses your mind.

A song comes onto the radio, a bubbling remix with swirling beats that sounds like dancing feels when you’re with him. You wind down the window and let the breeze rush in, and laughter carries in through the window.

When he reaches out to steady you, it is sometimes as a call and his voice washing lyrical over you. Most other times, it goes something like this:

today you get a telegram

Tagged by @crollalanzaa - thank you Carole!!

Rules: List your top 5 (completed) fics of with the most hits, with the first line of dialogue from each of them. Then tag 5 of your fandom friends.

1. Blue Light In The Dead Of Night (Bokuto/Akaashi, 13.1k)

“You forgot to tell me that you won’t be here next week?”

(HAHAHA CLASSIC BOKUTO)

2. Except You Enthrall Me (ficlet collection, 4.5k total; this one is Tsukishima/Yamaguchi)

“Ugh—blegh—oh god, that was foul—”

(okay, this is good enough comeuppance for you being a butt in the hogwarts fic tsukki =w=)

3. another sunny day (Fukurodani gen, 3.4k)

“Nice, Konoha!”

(YES GOOD KEEP CHEERING ON KONOHA!!!!!)

4. Prelude Op. 20, No. 2 in D major (Intimacy) (Daichi/Suga, 1.8k)

“Gyah! Suga!”

(SHOW HIM NO MERCY, SUGA)

5. Hearth and House Elves (Yamaguchi & Suga, Yamaguchi & Tsukishima, 3.6k)

“He Vanished it,” Tsukishima said.

(a very astute observation, now stop being such a butt and scaring tiny yams omg)

...MY EARLIER HAIKYUU FICS REALLY HATED HAVING MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE, DIDN’T THEY (I’m so bad at meaningful dialogue when characters could be doing things or observing things at the start of the fic and not actually saying them laughcrying… no talking, we only look at each other meaningfully like men)

What is your total posted word count on AO3? (Go to your Works, then click Statistics.)

143691 words across 32 fics!

How often do you write?

NOT AS MUCH AS I USED TO LAUGHCRYING… when I have a project going strong, it tends to be every day, sometimes every other day if it’s a busy assessment period at uni. BUT. Currently I’m in a really bad writing slump and have been for like, three months, so I’d say… twice a week on average right now?

Do you have a routine for writing?

Not especially tbh! My main thing is that I tend to write much more if I’m not in my bedroom, so I go down to uni, or to a café; today I went down to the Botanical Gardens because it was so warm and sunny. And then… I just kind of write? No music most of the time, no special drinks or snacks, just me and my laptop.

What’s your favorite kinks/tropes/pairing?

Kinks: shibari, being tied up/bondage in general, doing The Stuff in front of a mirror, less a kink but kind of awkward and bad but still fun first times

Tropes: H U R T / C O M F O R T, taking care of the other who is sick, taking care of the other who is injured… like… cool cloth on the brow while your beloved is feverish, gently pressing your lips to their burning forehead, stroking their hair and gently squeezing their hand, and knowing everything will be okay once they squeeze back and blearily open their eyes to smile when you’re the first thing they see…

…

…

…what do you mean other tropes exist apart from gratuitous sickfic hurt/comfort,

Pairings: Leo/Otabek, Leo/Guanghong, Phichit/Yuuri, literally any two or three-way permutation of Bokuto/Akaashi/Konoha, Daichi/Suga, Fukunaga/Taketora

Do you have a favorite fic of yours?

Right now it’s 38.4, which is my giant Leo/Otabek sickfic I wrote... literally just to satisfy my own burning need for a giant Leo/Otabek sickfic to exist. It’s 19k of established relationship and hurt/comfort and soft domesticity and I’m super proud of it.

Your fic with the most kudos?

Blue Light In The Dead of Night! (Bokuto/Akaashi, 13.1k)

Anything you don’t like about your writing?

Mostly that I don’t tend to hit the cadence I really want to hit with how my sentences flow? I have a very specific way I feel like my writing should be and that my words should come out, but my fingers and brain tend to conspire against me and it is what it is.

Now something you do like?

I really like being able to clearly visualise stories that I read, and I put a lot of effort into making my own writing very cinematic so that other people can experience that too! I like to think I do a good job of it *^*

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