#Check hall tickets

[therealbeachfox]

Twenty years ago, February 15th, 2004, I got married for the first time.

It was twenty years earlier than I ever expected to.

To celebrate/comemorate the date, I'm sitting down to write out everything I remember as I remember it. No checking all the pictures I took or all the times I've written about this before. I'm not going to turn to my husband (of twenty years, how the f'ing hell) to remember a detail for me.

This is not a 100% accurate recounting of that first wild weekend in San Francisco. But it -is- a 100% accurate recounting of how I remember it today, twenty years after the fact.

Join me below, if you would.

2004 was an election year, and much like conservatives are whipping up anti-trans hysteria and anti-trans bills and propositions to drive out the vote today, in 2004 it was all anti-gay stuff. Specifically, preventing the evil scourge of same-sex marriage from destroying everything good and decent in the world.

Enter Gavin Newstrom. At the time, he was the newly elected mayor of San Francisco. Despite living next door to the city all my life, I hadn’t even heard of the man until Valentines Day 2004 when he announced that gay marriage was legal in San Francisco and started marrying people at city hall.

It was a political stunt. It was very obviously a political stunt. That shit was illegal, after all. But it was a very sweet political stunt. I still remember the front page photo of two ancient women hugging each other forehead to forehead and crying happy tears.

But it was only going to last for as long as it took for the California legal system to come in and make them knock it off.

The next day, we’re on the phone with an acquaintance, and she casually mentions that she’s surprised the two of us aren’t up at San Francisco getting married with everyone else.

“Everyone else?” Goes I, “I thought they would’ve shut that down already?”

“Oh no!” goes she, “The courts aren’t open until Tuesday. Presidents Day on Monday and all. They’re doing them all weekend long!”

We didn’t know because social media wasn’t a thing yet. I only knew as much about it as I’d read on CNN, and most of the blogs I was following were more focused on what bullshit President George W Bush was up to that day.

"Well shit", me and my man go, "do you wanna?" I mean, it’s a political stunt, it wont really mean anything, but we’re not going to get another chance like this for at least 20 years. Why not?

The next day, Sunday, we get up early. We drive north to the southern-most BART station. We load onto Bay Area Rapid Transit, and rattle back and forth all the way to the San Francisco City Hall stop.

We had slightly miscalculated.

Apparently, demand for marriages was far outstripping the staff they had on hand to process them. Who knew. Everyone who’d gotten turned away Saturday had been given tickets with times to show up Sunday to get their marriages done. My babe and I, we could either wait to see if there was a space that opened up, or come back the next day, Monday.

“Isn’t City Hall closed on Monday?” I asked. “It’s a holiday”

“Oh sure,” they reply, “but people are allowed to volunteer their time to come in and work on stuff anyways. And we have a lot of people who want to volunteer their time to have the marriage licensing offices open tomorrow.”

“Oh cool,” we go, “Backup.”

“Make sure you’re here if you do,” they say, “because the California Supreme Court is back in session Tuesday, and will be reviewing the motion that got filed to shut us down.”

And all this shit is super not-legal, so they’ll totally be shutting us down goes unsaid.

00000

We don’t get in Saturday. We wind up hanging out most of the day, though.

It’s… incredible. I can say, without hyperbole, that I have never experienced so much concentrated joy and happiness and celebration of others’ joy and happiness in all my life before or since. My face literally ached from grinning. Every other minute, a new couple was coming out of City Hall, waving their paperwork to the crowd and cheering and leaping and skipping. Two glorious Latina women in full Mariachi band outfits came out, one in the arms of another. A pair of Jewish boys with their families and Rabbi. One couple managed to get a Just Married convertible arranged complete with tin-cans tied to the bumper to drive off in. More than once I was giving some rice to throw at whoever was coming out next.

At some point in the mid-afternoon, there was a sudden wave of extra cheering from the several hundred of us gathered at the steps, even though no one was coming out. There was a group going up the steps to head inside, with some generic black-haired shiny guy at the front. My not-yet-husband nudged me, “That’s Newsom.” He said, because he knew I was hopeless about matching names and people.

Ooooooh, I go. That explains it. Then I joined in the cheers. He waved and ducked inside.

So dusk is starting to fall. It’s February, so it’s only six or so, but it’s getting dark.

“Should we just try getting in line for tomorrow -now-?” we ask.

“Yeah, I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.” One of the volunteers tells us. “We’re not allowed to have people hang out overnight like this unless there are facilities for them and security. We’d need Porta-Poties for a thousand people and police patrols and the whole lot, and no one had time to get all that organized. Your best bet is to get home, sleep, and then catch the first BART train up at 5am and keep your fingers crossed.

Monday is the last day to do this, after all.

00000

So we go home. We crash out early. We wake up at 4:00. We drive an hour to hit the BART station. We get the first train up. We arrive at City Hall at 6:30AM.

The line stretches around the entirety of San Francisco City Hall. You could toss a can of Coke from the end of the line to the people who’re up to be first through the doors and not have to worry about cracking it open after.

“Uh.” We go. “What the fuck is -this-?”

So.

Remember why they weren’t going to be able to have people hang out overnight?

Turns out, enough SF cops were willing to volunteer unpaid time to do patrols to cover security. And some anonymous person delivered over a dozen Porta-Poties that’d gotten dropped off around 8 the night before.

It’s 6:30 am, there are almost a thousand people in front of us in line to get this literal once in a lifetime marriage, the last chance we expect to have for at least 15 more years (it was 2004, gay rights were getting shoved back on every front. It was not looking good. We were just happy we lived in California were we at least weren’t likely to loose job protections any time soon.).

Then it starts to rain.

We had not dressed for rain.

00000

Here is how the next six hours go.

We’re in line. Once the doors open at 7am, it will creep forward at a slow crawl. It’s around 7 when someone shows up with garbage bags for everyone. Cut holes for the head and arms and you’ve got a makeshift raincoat! So you’ve got hundreds of gays and lesbians decked out in the nicest shit they could get on short notice wearing trashbags over it.

Everyone is so happy.

Everyone is so nervous/scared/frantic that we wont be able to get through the doors before they close for the day.

People online start making delivery orders.

Coffee and bagels are ordered in bulk and delivered to City Hall for whoever needs it. We get pizza. We get roses. Random people come by who just want to give hugs to people in line because they’re just so happy for us. The tour busses make detours to go past the lines. Chinese tourists lean out with their cameras and shout GOOD LUCK while car horns honk.

A single sad man holding a Bible tries to talk people out of doing this, tells us all we’re sinning and to please don’t. He gives up after an hour. A nun replaces him with a small sign about how this is against God’s will. She leaves after it disintegrates in the rain.

The day before, when it was sunny, there had been a lot of protestors. Including a large Muslim group with their signs about how “Not even DOGS do such things!” Which… Yes they do.

A lot of snide words are said (by me) about how the fact that we’re willing to come out in the rain to do this while they’re not willing to come out in the rain to protest it proves who actually gives an actual shit about the topic.

Time passes. I measure it based on which side of City Hall we’re on. The doors face East. We start on Northside. Coffee and trashbags are delivered when we’re on the North Side. Pizza first starts showing up when we’re on Westside, which is also where I see Bible Man and Nun. Roses are delivered on Southside. And so forth.

00000

We have Line Neighbors.

Ahead of us are a gay couple a decade or two older than us. They’ve been together for eight years. The older one is a school teacher. He has his coat collar up and turns away from any news cameras that come near while we reposition ourselves between the lenses and him. He’s worried about the parents of one of his students seeing him on the news and getting him fired. The younger one will step away to get interviewed on his own later on. They drove down for the weekend once they heard what was going on. They’d started around the same time we did, coming from the Northeast, and are parked in a nearby garage.

The most perky energetic joyful woman I’ve ever met shows up right after we turned the corner to Southside to tackle the younger of the two into a hug. She’s their local friend who’d just gotten their message about what they’re doing and she will NOT be missing this. She is -so- happy for them. Her friends cry on her shoulders at her unconditional joy.

Behind us are a lesbian couple who’d been up in San Francisco to celebrate their 12th anniversary together. “We met here Valentines Day weekend! We live down in San Diego, now, but we like to come up for the weekend because it’s our first love city.”

“Then they announced -this-,” the other one says, “and we can’t leave until we get married. I called work Sunday and told them I calling in sick until Wednesday.”

“I told them why,” her partner says, “I don’t care if they want to give me trouble for it. This is worth it. Fuck them.”

My husband-to-be and I look at each other. We’ve been together for not even two years at this point. Less than two years. Is it right for us to be here? We’re potentially taking a spot from another couple that’d been together longer, who needed it more, who deserved it more.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Says the 40-something gay couple in front of us.

“This is as much for you as it is for us!” says the lesbian couple who’ve been together for over a decade behind us.

“You kids are too cute together,” says the gay couple’s friend. “you -have- to. Someday -you’re- going to be the old gay couple that’s been together for years and years, and you deserve to have been married by then.”

We stay in line.

It’s while we’re on the Southside of City Hall, just about to turn the corner to Eastside at long last that we pick up our own companions. A white woman who reminds me an awful lot of my aunt with a four year old black boy riding on her shoulders. “Can we say we’re with you? His uncles are already inside and they’re not letting anyone in who isn’t with a couple right there.” “Of course!” we say.

The kid is so very confused about what all the big deal is, but there’s free pizza and the busses keep driving by and honking, so he’s having a great time.

We pass by a statue of Lincoln with ‘Marriage for All!’ and "Gay Rights are Human Rights!" flags tucked in the crooks of his arms and hanging off his hat.

It’s about noon, noon-thirty when we finally make it through the doors and out of the rain.

They’ve promised that anyone who’s inside when the doors shut will get married. We made it. We’re safe.

We still have a -long- way to go.

00000

They’re trying to fit as many people into City Hall as possible. Partially to get people out of the rain, mostly to get as many people indoors as possible. The line now stretches down into the basement and up side stairs and through hallways I’m not entirely sure the public should ever be given access to. We crawl along slowly but surely.

It’s after we’ve gone through the low-ceiling basement hallways past offices and storage and back up another set of staircases and are going through a back hallway of low-ranked functionary offices that someone comes along handing out the paperwork. “It’s an hour or so until you hit the office, but take the time to fill these out so you don’t have to do it there!”

We spend our time filling out the paperwork against walls, against backs, on stone floors, on books.

We enter one of the public areas, filled with displays and photos of City Hall Demonstrations of years past.

I take pictures of the big black and white photo of the Abraham Lincoln statue holding banners and signs against segregation and for civil rights.

The four year old boy we helped get inside runs past us around this time, chased by a blond haired girl about his own age, both perused by an exhausted looking teenager helplessly begging them to stop running.

Everyone is wet and exhausted and vibrating with anticipation and the building-wide aura of happiness that infuses everything.

The line goes into the marriage office. A dozen people are at the desk, shoulder to shoulder, far more than it was built to have working it at once.

A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence is directing people to city officials the moment they open up. She’s done up in her nun getup with all her makeup on and her beard is fluffed and be-glittered and on point. “Oh, I was here yesterday getting married myself, but today I’m acting as your guide. Number 4 sweeties, and -Congradulatiooooons!-“

The guy behind the counter has been there since six. It’s now 1:30. He’s still giddy with joy. He counts our money. He takes our paperwork, reviews it, stamps it, sends off the parts he needs to, and hands the rest back to us. “Alright, go to the Rotunda, they’ll direct you to someone who’ll do the ceremony. Then, if you want the certificate, they’ll direct you to -that- line.” “Can’t you just mail it to us?” “Normally, yeah, but the moment the courts shut us down, we’re not going to be allowed to.”

We take our paperwork and join the line to the Rotunda.

If you’ve seen James Bond: A View to a Kill, you’ve seen the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda. There are literally a dozen spots set up along the balconies that overlook the open area where marriage officials and witnesses are gathered and are just processing people through as fast as they can.

That’s for the people who didn’t bring their own wedding officials.

There’s a Catholic-adjacent couple there who seem to have brought their entire families -and- the priest on the main steps. They’re doing the whole damn thing. There’s at least one more Rabbi at work, I can’t remember what else. Just that there was a -lot-.

We get directed to the second story, northside. The San Francisco City Treasurer is one of our two witnesses. Our marriage officient is some other elected official I cannot remember for the life of me (and I'm only writing down what I can actively remember, so I can't turn to my husband next to me and ask, but he'll have remembered because that's what he does.)

I have a wilting lily flower tucked into my shirt pocket. My pants have water stains up to the knees. My hair is still wet from the rain, I am blubbering, and I can’t get the ring on my husband’s finger. The picture is a treat, I tell you.

There really isn’t a word for the mix of emotions I had at that time. Complete disbelief that this was reality and was happening. Relief that we’d made it. Awe at how many dozens of people had personally cheered for us along the way and the hundreds to thousands who’d cheered for us generally.

Then we're married.

Then we get in line to get our license.

It’s another hour. This time, the line goes through the higher stories. Then snakes around and goes past the doorway to the mayor’s office.

Mayor Newsom is not in today. And will be having trouble getting into his office on Tuesday because of the absolute barricade of letters and flowers and folded up notes and stuffed animals and City Hall maps with black marked “THANK YOU!”s that have been piled up against it.

We make it to the marriage records office.

I take a picture of my now husband standing in front of a case of the marriage records for 1902-1912. Numerous kids are curled up in corners sleeping. My own memory is spotty. I just know we got the papers, and then we’re done with lines. We get out, we head to the front entrance, and we walk out onto the City Hall steps.

It's almost 3PM.

00000

There are cheers, there’s rice thrown at us, there are hundreds of people celebrating us with unconditional love and joy and I had never before felt the goodness that exists in humanity to such an extent. It’s no longer raining, just a light sprinkle, but there are still no protestors. There’s barely even any news vans.

We make our way through the gauntlet, we get hands shaked, people with signs reading ”Congratulations!” jump up and down for us. We hit the sidewalks, and we begin to limp our way back to the BART station.

I’m at the BART station, we’re waiting for our train back south, and I’m sitting on the ground leaning against a pillar and in danger of falling asleep when a nondescript young man stops in front of me and shuffles his feet nervously. “Hey. I just- I saw you guys, down at City Hall, and I just… I’m so happy for you. I’m so proud of what you could do. I’m- I’m just really glad, glad you could get to do this.”

He shakes my hand, clasps it with both of his and shakes it. I thank him and he smiles and then hurries away as fast as he can without running.

Our train arrives and the trip south passes in a semilucid blur.

We get back to our car and climb in.

It’s 4:30 and we are starving.

There’s a Carls Jr near the station that we stop off at and have our first official meal as a married couple. We sit by the window and watch people walking past and pick out others who are returning from San Francisco. We're all easy to pick out, what with the combination of giddiness and water damage.

We get home about 6-7. We take the dog out for a good long walk after being left alone for two days in a row. We shower. We bundle ourselves up. We bury ourselves in blankets and curl up and just sort of sit adrift in the surrealness of what we’d just done.

We wake up the next day, Tuesday, to read that the California State Supreme Court has rejected the petition to shut down the San Francisco weddings because the paperwork had a misplaced comma that made the meaning of one phrase unclear.

The State Supreme Court would proceed to play similar bureaucratic tricks to drag the process out for nearly a full month before they have nothing left and finally shut down Mayor Newsom’s marriages.

My parents had been out of state at the time at a convention. They were flying into SFO about the same moment we were walking out of City Hall. I apologized to them later for not waiting and my mom all but shook me by the shoulders. “No! No one knew that they’d go on for so long! You did what you needed to do! I’ll just be there for the next one!”

00000

It was just a piece of paper. Legally, it didn’t even hold any weight thirty days later. My philosophy at the time was “marriage really isn’t that important, aside from the legal benefits. It’s just confirming what you already have.”

But maybe it’s just societal weight, or ingrained culture, or something, but it was different after. The way I described it at the time, and I’ve never really come up with a better metaphor is, “It’s like we were both holding onto each other in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a storm. We were keeping each other above water, we were each other’s support. But then we got this piece of paper. And it was like the ground rose up to meet our feet. We were still in an ocean, still in the middle of a storm, but there was a solid foundation beneath our feet. We still supported each other, but there was this other thing that was also keeping our heads above the water.

It was different. It was better. It made things more solid and real.

I am forever grateful for all the forces and all the people who came together to make it possible. It’s been twenty years and we’re still together and still married.

We did a domestic partnership a year later to get the legal paperwork. We’d done a private ceremony with proper rings (not just ones grabbed out of the husband’s collection hours before) before then. And in 2008, we did a legal marriage again.

Rushed. In a hurry. Because there was Proposition 13 to be voted on which would make them all illegal again if it passed.

It did, but we were already married at that point, and they couldn’t negate it that time.

Another few years after that, the Supreme Court finally threw up their hands and said "Fine! It's been legal in places and nothing's caught on fire or been devoured by locusts. It's legal everywhere. Shut up about it!"

And that was that.

00000

When I was in highschool, in the late 90s, I didn’t expect to see legal gay marriage until I was in my 50s. I just couldn’t see how the American public as it was would ever be okay with it.

I never expected to be getting married within five years. I never expected it to be legal nationwide before I’d barely started by 30s. I never thought I’d be in my 40s and it’d be such a non-issue that the conservative rabble rousers would’ve had to move onto other wedge issues altogether.

I never thought that I could introduce another man as my husband and absolutely no one involved would so much as blink.

I never thought I’d live in this world.

And it’s twenty years later today. I wonder how our line buddies are doing. Those babies who were running around the wide open rooms playing tag will have graduated college by now. The kids whose parents the one line-buddy was worried would see him are probably married too now. Some of them to others of the same gender.

I don’t have some greater message to make with all this. Other then, culture can shift suddenly in ways you can’t predict. For good or ill. Mainly this is just me remembering the craziest fucking 36 hours of my life twenty years after the fact and sharing them with all of you.

The future we’re resigned to doesn’t have to be the one we live in. Society can shift faster than you think. The unimaginable of twenty years ago is the baseline reality of today.

And always remember that the people who want to get married will show up by the thousands in rain that none of those who’re against it will brave.

[dashcon-two]

DashCon 2 Venue Announcement, Vendor's Hall, and More!

The DashCon 2 team is thrilled to announce the concrete answers to all your biggest questions. Where it is, when it is, how to buy tickets, and more. You ready?

TL;DR

Where: DashCon 2 will be held at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in North York, Toronto

When: July 5th, 2025

What: Tickets will go live on February 22nd. Vendor Applications will be open on February 1st, and Panelist Applications on February 10th.

Our Venue!!

[6 Sakura Way, North York, ON M3C 1Z5]

Image belongs to Bartman905 on Wordpress

The JCCC has previously hosted plenty of other fan conventions, notably the Anime North Halloween Event and Pretty Heroes. Given their experience with convention hosting and gorgeous venue space, we think they’re the perfect fit.

So, why did this take so long?

Well… the JCCC wasn’t our first pick. Our first pick, who we won’t name, dropped us unexpectedly after months of negotiations. Why? Original DashCon’s reputation. We literally got DashCon’d before the convention had even started!!

While we were expecting this and had backup plans, we were blindsided by a rejection this late into the negotiation process. After reaching out to our other contacts, we settled on the JCCC, but we had to restart the entire process. So much of our planning had to be restarted or paused, which set us way behind schedule. Naturally, we didn’t want to say anything about losing our venue spot until we’d adequately replaced it.

We’re happy to say that the Classic DashCon Venue Struggle is over and done with - and our rental with the JCCC is paid in advance. No $17k hostage situation necessary.

However, all this provokes another obvious question: why did you go public with the project when you hadn’t signed with the venue yet? In short: Strange Aeons’ DashCon: An Extensive Oral History video. We were already knee-deep in the project behind the scenes before finding out she was making a YouTube video about DashCon, pushing the story into the public eye again. The team was concerned that declaring we were organizing DashCon 2 soon after Strange Aeons’ video would imply it was a rush-job inspired by her video. We were far enough along in the initial venue negotiations that we decided to go public with the video rather than after it.

Date & Time

DashCon 2 will be held for one day: Saturday, 5th July 2025. We alluded to using the same weekend as the original DashCon when we first went public, but unfortunately this date wasn’t available at our venue. This does mean it’s pretty close to the American 4th of July - in our defense, we didn’t really think of that, we’re Canadian.

The convention will open to the public at 9:30 AM and close at 9:30 PM. All this information and more will be available on our website.

(These hours may be subject to minor changes, please always check our website for our most recent info!)

Admission

Ticket sales to in-person DashCon 2 will open on Feb 22nd! Mark your calendars…

We’ll be processing ticket sales through Simpli Events, an all-Canadian competitor to Eventbrite. You can click here to find the events page.

We’re working on the feasibility of expanding DashCon 2 into a hybrid event, with live-streams of the most anticipated panels/events and some other informal online panels hosted on a private Discord. More information on those will come at a later date.

Vendor and Panel Applications

DashCon 2’s Artist Alley/Vendor's Hall is a space for independent artisans who create print media, handmade crafts, or other merchandise. If you want the opportunity to sell your merchandise at DashCon 2, then you’ll be excited to learn that vendor applications will open on February 1st!

Please see www.dashcontwo.com/dealers-hall/ for more details about tables, prices, and merchandise. The link to the application form will be posted there.

We’re also happy to say that we’re opening panel applications on February 10th! We have a few guest panellists already lined up (including a few we can’t talk about yet), but we’re excited to open applications to everyone with a good idea! All DashCon 2 panels will be moderated by our volunteer team, and we’ll put out more info soon about volunteer sign-ups!

[copperbadge]

I think maybe I got married to a museum this morning. Boy is this a long weird story.

I was standing in line to get into the Museum of Natural History this morning when an older woman near me in line gestured for me to take out my headphones. She was clearly a little agitated, and she asked me if I was American, if I spoke English, in a pretty pronounced English accent. I said I'm from Chicago, and she looked relieved and said, "Can you help me find out if I can pay for my ticket with my credit card inside? It wouldn't register when I tried to buy a ticket on the internet this morning."

I said I didn't know how we'd find out, but I opened up the website on my phone to check. While I poked around the site she didn't stop talking once, telling me that she's in New York to look after her daughter who just had major surgery and she's very stressed and her daughter asked her to go out and distract herself for a while which....having spent some time in this woman's company, she's very sweet but I can see why her kid needed a break.

Anyway, I think this might actually be a lie on the website, but it says there that you HAVE to buy tickets online and you have to have an email address to get them delivered. She couldn't do the former and didn't have a smartphone she could use to access the latter.

So I said, why don't I buy your ticket on my phone while we're here in line? I can send it to my email, and you can come in with me. She fretted about fraud but I said nah, I'll just tell them your ticket's on my phone because I helped you buy it, they won't care.

Now, this sounds like she was running some kind of wild scam, but who the hell scams their way into the Museum of Natural History? Like lady if you love natural history that much and haven't got $24 to your name, let me buy you a ticket, you've earned it.

Anyway, I bought the ticket in about 30 seconds, and we had about ten minutes to wait, which she filled with a nonstop monologue about her daughter's medical problems, her husband's job, her attempts to get into a gym to swim, the crowdedness of New York, it was just...so much talking. And I had dire visions of possibly having to take her around the museum with me simply because I was so friendly and helped her get in. I wished to silently contemplate the taxidermy, thanks.

Inside, I took her to the customer service desk because she wanted a printed copy of her ticket, and while they were printing it she counted out the cash to pay me back. Then I ruthlessly unloaded her on one of the customer services agents, saying, "He'll explain what you can do with your ticket and give you a map -- you have a good time now and I'll be thinking of your daughter," and did my best to disappear. I rounded a corner, dashed into an elevator, and fled to the fourth floor where I was headed anyway.

That's enough of a misadventure just trying to get into the museum, but I put it from my mind and enjoyed the dinosaurs and dioramas...until I slipped on something black, on the black floor of the dimly lit Hall Of Mammals, and almost fell.

There, under my boot, in front of the stuffed rhinos, was a black-and-gold silicone ring.

If it had been any other kind of ring I'd have turned it in to lost and found, but I wear silicone rings myself -- they're very cheap and meant to be worn in place of a real ring while you're doing tool work (they tear away under pressure unlike metal rings that'll take your finger with) or if you're afraid you'll lose the real thing. I have several thin ones I wear on top of my normal rings to keep them from falling off when my fingers change size in the cold. It's not the kind of thing one would even go to Lost and Found for; you can replace it for $5.

I think the museum gave me a wedding band.

It's a little big but the spirit is there.

So yeah, much like how the Rijksmuseum and I are sworn enemies, the American Museum of Natural History is now my bride. Well, she saw that I know how to look after my elders. As spouses that are actually large cultural institutions in the middle of New York City go, could be worse.

[ID: The middle and index finger of my left hand, showing several rings -- the middle finger has a silver ring with a kokopelli motif (a gift from my maternal grandmother), a gold ring with a knotwork motif (the wedding ring I inherited from my stepfather's parents), and a thin silicone band to hold them in place. My index finger has the new ring, gold with a border of black, looking slightly loose.]

[lalo0]

INSIDE AESPA EP. 1 ┃ The Wrong Door

Male reader x Giselle

Word Count: 6.5k

Tags: squirting, dom/sub, rough sex, dirty talk, teasing

I didn’t even want to be here.

Concerts aren’t my thing. Screaming fans? Crowds packed shoulder to shoulder, sweating, pulsing to the bass of some pop anthem? No thanks. I like silence. I like my own space. And I sure as hell don’t like being herded like livestock through a stadium entrance just to watch people I’ve never even heard of pretend to sing over backing tracks.

But Jackson insisted. And Dev had already bought the tickets. “It’s not about the music,” they said. “It’s about the experience.”

The experience. Right.

Now here I was, drowning in noise and neon and perfume and sweat, trying to keep my breathing steady while Korean girls I didn't care about danced like their lives depended on it. The crowd—mostly teenage girls and a few dangerously enthusiastic fanboys—screamed every time one of them so much as flipped their hair. Phones were everywhere. Lights blinked like strobes. It was a full-on sensory assault.

And I? I wasn't interested. I was one wrong beat away from walking out.

I got lucky. The screen overhead blinked INTERMISSION — 15:00 and the music stopped. The crowd didn’t exactly calm down, but they started shifting, standing, stretching, running for merch and bathrooms and selfies. I used the opportunity to slip out the side aisle and into the nearest hallway marked RESTROOMS + VIP SUITES.

It was quiet almost immediately. Blessedly so.

The noise of the stadium dropped behind me like a curtain, replaced by sterile lighting and the low thrum of vents overhead. I passed the bathrooms but kept walking. I needed a breather more than anything, a second to think, to feel like myself again. I checked my phone—no signal—and kept walking down the hall.

That’s when I saw it: a door left ajar. Soft light spilled out.

I should’ve turned around. I should’ve thought, Maybe this is someone’s private space. But something about the glow—the hush, the mystery of it—pulled at me. I was curious. And when I get curious, I don’t stop.

So I pushed it open.

It took me a second to realize I wasn’t alone. The room was dim, expensive, quiet. Everything in soft gold tones and warm leather. A mirrored vanity glowed along one wall, surrounded by bulbs. The scent hit me next—perfume, heady and rich, wrapped around the chill of champagne. I was halfway through processing the velvet couch and the untouched strawberries on crystal glassware when I saw HER.

She was standing barefoot in front of the mirror, half-turned, her back to me. Her outfit was more lingerie than clothing—black mesh, sequins, leather straps. Her pink hair was up but imperfectly, pieces falling like silk down her neck. She was in the middle of unclasping something at the back of her neck, unaware of—or ignoring—me.

And then she spoke.

“You’re early.”

Her voice was smooth, low. American accent. A little amused.

I froze.

“I’m sorry,” I said, instinctively. “I think I’m—uh, lost.”

She didn’t turn right away. Just paused with her fingers on the clasp. Then she looked at me over her shoulder—one eye catching the light, sharp as a blade.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think you are.”

I blinked. “I really am. I was looking for the bathroom and I guess I just—”

“You opened a marked door.”

“I didn’t see any signs—”

“There were signs,” she said, finally facing me.

She was beautiful. I’m not saying that in the way people do when they meet a celebrity. I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t recognize her. I wasn’t starstruck. I was just... caught.

She had presence. Poise. Her body was slim but curved in all the places that made it impossible not to look. Her eyes didn’t smile, but they weren’t cold. They were calculating. Like she was building a character around me, testing how I’d react.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Mylo.”

Her head tilted slightly. “Is that real?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“You don’t look like a Mylo.”

I smirked despite myself. “What do I look like?”

She thought for a bit. “Like someone who doesn’t belong here.”

“Believe me, I don’t. I was just leaving—”

“No,” she said again, softly. “Stay.”

That word—that tone—should’ve sent me walking. But it didn’t. I stayed.

She moved toward me slowly, a kind of predatory grace in her bare feet and parted lips. Her body language was relaxed, but deliberate. Every step said she was in charge. Not of the room. Of me.

And I let her.

I couldn’t explain why, not then. Maybe it was the way she looked at me—not like I was a stranger, but like I was hers. Like she already knew what she wanted to do with me and was just deciding whether I’d be worth the effort.

“You’re not one of the staff,” she said, mostly to herself.

“No.”

“You’re not with the crew. And you didn’t come with security.”

“No.”

She smiled. “Then what are you doing here, Mylo?”

“Wrong door,” I said again, but it sounded less convincing this time.

She took one more step, close enough now for me to feel the heat of her skin. Her eyes traveled down my body, not shy, not rushed. She lingered on my chest, my hips, the tension in my fingers.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?” she asked.

“No.” I hesitated. “Should I?”

That amused her. I could see the moment her mask cracked and something real flickered beneath it—surprise, maybe. Or interest. Or something darker.

“No,” she said finally as if she didn't believe me. “That makes this easier.”

She didn’t move for a long time.

Just stood there in front of me, arms loose at her sides, one foot slightly forward like she was deciding whether to get closer or make me come to her. She didn’t blink much. She watched me like she was reading, not listening. And somehow, I was the one who felt exposed, even though I still had all my clothes on and she… didn’t, really.

There was a quiet sort of violence in the air. Not danger exactly. More like potential. She hadn’t said what she wanted. But I knew she wanted something.

She turned back to the mirror without another word and picked up a square of folded tissue, wiping under one eye with careful precision. Glitter dusted onto her collarbone like something expensive and accidental. The strap of her outfit was still hanging loose, but she made no move to fix it.

I wasn’t sure if I should speak. So I didn’t.

“You said your name’s Mylo,” she said, her voice low again, casual. “Where are you from?”

“Long Beach.”

“Not local, then.”

“Close enough.”

She nodded, then looked at me in the mirror.

“What are you doing now?”

“Wrong turn.”

“No.” She tilted her head. “Now. In life.”

I let out a breath, almost a laugh. “That’s a hell of a question.”

“I’m serious.”

“Right now I’m… working freelance. Web development. Bit of UX. It’s not exciting.”

She turned. “Then why did you say it like it’s a secret?”

I didn’t have an answer.

She stepped closer, slowly, like she was making sure I didn’t spook. And I didn’t. I stayed exactly where I was.

Her perfume hit me again—soft, floral, expensive. I still didn’t recognize her, but that was starting to feel irrelevant. She could’ve been an actress, a singer, a rich girl playing pretend. None of it would have changed the way she looked at me.

Like she was curious about how far she could push me before I’d say no.

“You’re nervous,” she said.

“I’m not.”

She smiled. “That’s cute.”

“I’m not cute.”

“No,” she said. “You’re not.”

Her hand brushed the front of her thigh, fingers trailing slowly along her skin, just shy of deliberate. My brain scrambled for something to say, something to anchor me to reality. I was in a stadium. There was a concert happening. There were fifteen thousand people and a very real possibility that someone would walk in and see this.

I didn’t care.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“You’ll find out when you’ve earned it.”

“Is this a game to you?”

“No.” She tilted her head. “But you’re fun to play with.”

Her foot arched slightly against the rug as she took another step forward. Close now. Close enough that I could feel the warmth of her skin, could see the light sheen of sweat at the hollow of her throat. I wanted to touch her. Just one fingertip. Just to know she was real.

“Don’t,” she said softly, like she’d read my mind.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Liar.”

A pause.

She looked down at the front of my shirt, then up again. “You don’t look like the type who follows orders.”

“I’m not.”

Her smile was slow and private. “Good.”

She reached for the strap still hanging loose on her shoulder. Slid it back into place. Not to hide. Just to reset the board.

“Sit,” she said, nodding toward the velvet loveseat.

I hesitated.

“I said sit.”

So I did.

She crossed the room without looking at me again, poured a fresh glass of champagne, dropped a single strawberry in like a garnish. Then she sat on the couch—opposite to me, one leg tucked under the other, facing me directly. Like we were equals. Like this wasn’t her room and I wasn’t the one trespassing.

“You ever break into places, Mylo?”

“No.”

“Shame. You’re good at it.”

I watched her run a finger down the side of her glass. Slow. Rhythmic.

“You think this is a mistake?” I asked.

She looked up. “Do you?”

“Yes.”

She grinned. “Me too.”

Neither of us moved.

She didn’t touch me.

Not at first.

“You’re being quiet,” she said.

“You’re being... a lot.”

Her smile curled slightly. “Too much?”

“No.” I shifted. “Not enough.”

She tilted her head, pleased. Her eyes dropped to my hands. I didn’t realize I’d been clenching them. She noticed everything.

“You like following orders,” she said.

I shook my head. “No. Not usually.”

Her smile didn’t fade. “But you’re not leaving.”

“I’m not.”

“Why?”

“I guess I want to see what happens next,” I said.

That seemed to satisfy her. She leaned back into the couch, legs crossed, and looked me over like I was both trespasser and specimen.

“Take off your jacket,” she said.

I didn’t move.

She gave me a look—subtle, expectant.

I took off my jacket.

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was intentional. Like she was seeing how comfortable I could get under pressure.

“You ever think about what it would be like,” she said, “to be told what to do?”

“I’ve had bosses before.”

She laughed. “That’s not what I mean.”

“I know.”

A pause.

She stood. Walked over to me—slow, barefoot, measured—and knelt in front of the chair I was sitting in. Her knees brushed mine. She didn’t reach for me. Just looked up, eyes steady, close enough that I could see the darker ring around her irises.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said.

“I know.”

“But I am going to take you apart.”

My breath caught.

“And when I do,” she added, brushing her fingers just barely against the inside of my thigh, “I’ll expect you to say thank you.”

Still, I didn’t move.

Her eyes stayed on me.

She watched the way I exhaled. The way I shifted in my seat. She could feel the tension building, and she didn’t need to do a damn thing to feed it.

“You like restraint,” she said, almost to herself.

“You’ve seen me for ten minutes.”

“I don’t need more.”

I smirked. “And what do you like?”

“Control.”

“That’s obvious.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “Not power. Not winning. Just control.”

“Is there a difference?”

“One makes you loud. The other makes you patient.”

She stood again and walked past me toward the mirrored vanity to admire herself. This time, she didn’t check to see if I was watching.

She knew I was.

“I don’t usually let people in here,” she said.

“I don’t usually wander into strangers’ rooms.”

“Yet here we are.”

She turned, walking back—slow, sure, calculated. There was nothing casual about it. Her bare feet made no sound on the rug, but she moved with the intention of heels. Stopping just in front of me, she leaned in and placed both palms on the arms of the chair. She didn’t touch me. Not quite.

But her body was close enough that I could feel the heat coming off her skin. Her breath was just below my mouth. Her perfume wrapped around me like a second atmosphere.

“You want to kiss me right now, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Say please.”

I hesitated.

And she smiled—knowing, satisfied.

“Thought so,” she whispered, and pulled back before I could say anything at all.

She sat on the edge of the couch again, back straight, watching me like a tiger lounging just out of reach.

“What do you do,” I asked, voice a little hoarse, “when you get bored?”

Her smile was a slow burn. “Get un-bored.”

She tapped the empty cushion beside her.

“Come here.”

I did.

She turned to face me fully, legs folding under her again, this time closer. Her thigh touched mine. Her hand landed on my knee.

“You’ve been good so far,” she said. “I think I’ll keep going.”

The air in the room tightened.

She moved slowly—her hand trailing up my thigh, featherlight. Her nails grazed the fabric of my pants. Her fingers reached the crease at my hip and paused.

“You can stop me at any time,” she said.

I didn’t stop her.

I didn’t want to.

She leaned in. Her lips were glossy and full and tasted like strawberries and something darker. The kiss was slow. Not greedy. Not desperate.

Commanding.

She kissed me like she was showing me how. Like I’d do it wrong if she didn’t teach me.

Her hand kept moving—along the inside of my thigh, up, then over. She didn’t grip me yet. Just touched. Just explored. The anticipation was maddening.

And then she whispered it, low against my mouth:

“Undo your pants.”

Her voice wasn’t loud. Didn’t need to be. It threaded into me like static. I looked at her—half disbelieving, half burning.

She arched one eyebrow, still calm. Still collected. Like we were discussing dinner options, not sex.

My fingers moved before I could overthink it.

Button. Zipper. The sound was deafening in the quiet. Her eyes never left my hands. She watched the reveal like it was a gift she already knew she’d earned.

“Good,” she murmured.

Her hand slid under my waistband, nails grazing skin, and that was the first real contact that made my breath catch. Her fingers were warm, deliberate. She wasn’t shy. She wrapped them around me like she’d done it a thousand times—but wanted to relearn this exact shape.

She exhaled softly, pleased. “You’re hard.”

“Of course I am.”

“Because I told you to be?”

“No.”

She smirked. “Liar.”

Her thumb dragged slowly over the head of my cock. I flinched—too much, too sensitive, too not-in-control—and that just made her smile widen. She leaned in again, kissed me with that same slow, claiming heat, and her hand stroked lazily, like she had all the time in the world and knew exactly how fast not to go.

I kissed her harder.

Tried to take some ground back. Hands moving to her hips, her waist, her lower back. But she broke the kiss and pulled back an inch.

“No hands.”

I froze.

She held my gaze, waiting.

And I let go.

Her smile told me exactly what that gave her.

She leaned in again and bit my bottom lip—just enough to leave a sting.

“You’ll touch me when I say you can.”

And then she dropped to her knees.

My breath left me all at once. I didn’t move. Didn’t dare.

Her hands slid my pants down further, then my boxers, freeing me completely. Her eyes stayed locked on mine as she lowered her head and pressed the flat of her tongue against the base of my shaft.

Slow.

Upward.

Warm, deliberate pressure that sent a jolt through my whole body.

She didn’t rush. She licked. She tasted. She dragged her mouth along me like she was memorizing the shape of my shaft. Then, with the faintest hum of satisfaction, she took me into her mouth—just the head, just enough to make me want to shove my hips forward, just enough to make me hold still.

She knew.

She was watching for the twitch of my thigh. The clench of my jaw. Her hand stroked in time with her mouth, lazy, devastating, a rhythm designed to drive a man out of his body without ever letting him finish.

And she wasn't letting me finish.

Every time my breath caught, she stopped. Pulled back. Let her tongue flick once, twice, too lightly to give me relief. She kissed the tip like she was thanking me for the privilege. Then started again.

And again.

And again.

Until I was panting, fists clenched at my sides, every part of me straining not to move. Not to grab her. Not to fuck her mouth the way I wanted to.

She pulled back completely.

Wiped her mouth with her thumb.

Then looked up at me with those sharp, unfazed eyes and said, “Good boy.”

She stayed on her knees.

Not because she had to. Because she liked the angle. She liked the view. She liked that I was still sitting there, pants around my thighs, chest rising like I’d just finished a workout—and she wasn't letting me cum.

She dragged the back of her fingers up the length of my thigh, the touch so light it barely existed, like she was testing whether I was ticklish. I wasn’t. But I was sensitive. Every nerve tuned to her. Every inch of me vibrating from her touch.

She looked pleased with herself. No—she looked composed. Like she could’ve done that to anyone and stayed perfectly unaffected.

That bothered me.

Not enough to stop. Not yet.

“Still with me?” she asked, smiling like we were just chatting over coffee.

“Barely.”

“Good.” She stood. Slow again. Unbothered. She stepped out of the loose arc of my pants on the floor, hands smoothing down her sides as she crossed the room.

She didn’t go far. Just to the mirror again. Touched up her lips. Adjusted a strap. Like this was an intermission in her show.

She glanced at me through the mirror. “You’ve got a nice mouth when you’re quiet.”

“Thought you liked control.”

“I do.”

“Don't get used to it.” I said with a slight smile

That earned me a sharper look. But no protest. She let the tension sit.

Then she walked back to me, bent over, and kissed me again—harder this time. Her tongue pushed into my mouth with zero hesitation, and she moaned softly when I kissed her back like I meant it.

She tasted like strawberries.

Her body moved against mine—shoulders, chest, hips—grinding down slow as she pushed me back into the cushions. She swung a leg over and straddled me, her outfit brushing bare skin in all the right ways and none of the convenient ones.

She reached behind her, grabbed both my wrists, and pulled them up over my head.

“Don’t move,” she whispered.

I didn’t.

Her hips rolled against me once, then again. Her breath caught—just slightly—and I caught it, too. Her control wasn’t an act. But it had cracks. Beautiful ones. And I liked finding them.

She leaned down, mouth at my ear.

“You’re going to fuck me.”

I swallowed. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

“Not yet,” she said. “You’ll wait.”

Her hips shifted again—slow, deep grind, no friction where I needed it, just enough heat to scramble every thought in my skull.

“I’m going to ride you,” she said, like it was a lecture. “Until I’m done with you.”

I met her eyes.

“And what happens after that?”

She smiled.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

She reached between us, tugging the crotch of her bodysuit to the side with practiced ease. I heard the slick stretch of fabric, the shift in her breath as her fingers slid down—coating her inner thighs, spreading herself open right above me.

She was wet.

Not fake-moaning wet. Not porn-scene wet.

Dripping.

She held me in place, pressed the head of my cock against her entrance, and then—

She sank down, inch by inch.

No rush. No pause. Just steady descent, her heat swallowing me whole, her breath catching, then stuttering out in a quiet, barely-there gasp. My hands gripped the sides of the chair so hard I thought the frame might crack. Her walls clenched around me like velvet and vice, her thighs tightening at my hips, her nails raking lightly over my chest as she adjusted to the full stretch.

She didn’t move right away. She stayed seated on me, full and still, like the moment itself was enough.

And then she whispered:

“There.”

Her hips began to move—smooth, controlled rolls, grinding down into me like she wanted to leave a bruise. Every time she shifted, I could feel how deep I was inside her. I could see the concentration on her face. This wasn’t for me. Not yet. This was her rhythm, her pressure, her high.

And god, watching her take it was better than any porn I’d ever seen.

Her hair came loose as she moved. Her head tilted back. She bit her bottom lip hard, and I wanted to suck it out from between her teeth. Her body flexed, sweat starting to bead at her chest, and I couldn’t decide where to look—her tits, bouncing just under the thin mesh of her bodysuit, or her face as she came closer and closer to the edge.

I held still. Let her use me.

And then she started talking.

“Harder,” she whispered, mostly to herself. “Faster—fuck—just like that.”

Her hands slid up my chest, to my shoulders, and she grabbed tight. Used me for leverage. Started bouncing, not gently now—driven, messy, beautiful. She moaned, cursed, clenched tighter with every bounce, until—

“Don’t stop,” she gasped, over and over. “Don’t fucking stop—”

She was riding me like she owned me.

And in that moment, I let her. I fucking loved it.

Her pussy was unreal—tight, soaked, gripping me like she wanted to wring every drop out of my body. Her thighs slapped down against me with each stroke, and the sound of it—wet, hot, shameless—made it impossible to think. I was deep inside her, over and over, my cock pulsing every time she ground down and stayed there just long enough to clench.

I looked up at her—body arching, lips parted, eyes half-shut—and I swear I could’ve come just watching her move.

She was into it.

Head thrown back. Moaning with every bounce. Fingernails dragging across my chest. Riding like she needed it, like she was getting off on the fact that I wasn’t allowed to move.

And I wasn’t. I didn’t grab her hips. I didn’t flip her. I held still and let her take it.

Because watching her unravel like this?

Fucking addicting.

Her hands found the back of the chair, bracing. She leaned forward and the change in angle made me groan—deeper now, tighter. Her tits bounced right in front of me, barely covered by her bodysuit. I leaned up, took a nipple in my mouth through the mesh, sucked hard.

She gasped. Bucked.

“Fuck—don’t stop—don’t stop,” she begged, riding harder, fucking me like her orgasm was right on the edge and I was the last thing holding it in.

I bit her. Just a little.

She lost it.

“Ahh! O.. Oh!... Aghh! AAAH!”

Her body locked down around me—tight, hot, pulsing as she came. Her moan was sharp, sudden, desperate. She grinded through it, wringing herself out on my cock until she was panting against my neck, shaking.

And then, breathless—still straddling me—she laughed.

Low. Lazy. Satisfied.

“God,” she murmured, “you fuck like you’re broke.”

That word hit different.

I blinked.

“What?”

She looked at me, smiling. Still high off it. “I mean it as a compliment,” she said. “You fuck like you need it.”

The air shifted.

She leaned in, playful, mouth against my ear. “Do you want me to take care of you?”

No answer.

“I could,” she purred. “You wouldn’t have to worry about anything. You could just do this—stay hard, stay pretty—let me keep you. I have a lot of mon-” 

My hand shot up, wrapping around her throat—not hard, not dangerous, just enough to shock her system.

Her breath caught. Her eyes widened.

“Ah—!”

I shoved her back, flat on the couch, my grip still snug around her throat, and she gasped again, this time sharper. Her legs twitched around me. Her mouth opened like she wanted to say something clever—but no words came.

“You think you can buy me?” I said, voice low, rough.

She shook her head slightly, lips parted.

“I was just teasing—”

“Bullshit.”

“Mylo…” Her voice cracked, breathy and high. “Wait—”

“No,” I growled. “You don’t get to lead anymore.”

Her pupils blew wide. Her chest rose faster.

But she didn’t push me off. Didn’t tell me to stop.

She wanted to know what it felt like when I wasn’t pretending.

I grabbed her wrists, pressed them hard above her head, and crashed my mouth down onto hers—biting, taking, tasting the gloss off her lips like punishment.

She moaned against me.

“Mmnh—fuck—!”

My hips slammed forward. She gasped again, eyes flying wide as I pushed back into her in one deep, hard stroke.

“Oh! Ohhh—f-fuck—!”

Her body jerked. Her legs reflexively wrapped around my waist, but I wasn’t gentle. I slammed into her again, holding her down, making her feel it.

“AHH—ah—Mylo!”

“You wanted this,” I snarled. “So take it.”

She whimpered.

“Yes—yes—fuck, don’t stop—!”

I gripped her hips and rolled them up, shifting the angle, and slammed in again, deeper this time. Her back arched and she screamed.

“OHHH! GOD—AAAH!”

Her whole body was starting to fall apart. Her voice was shaky, her hands scrambling for anything to hold. Her hair stuck to her flushed cheeks. Her tits bounced wildly beneath me with every thrust.

She bit her lip. Hard.

“Don’t hold back,” I growled. “I want to hear it.”

Her eyes fluttered.

And then she let go.

“…more…”

Her voice was barely a whisper, like it had to claw its way up from deep inside her.

But I heard it.

And I fucking delivered.

I grabbed her by the thighs, yanked her body to the edge of the couch, and stood up just enough to drive into her with my full weight.

“AHHH—!”

Her scream echoed.

She clawed at the cushions, gasping, moaning, totally undone.

Her pussy was soaked—wrecked—from her orgasm, still fluttering around my cock, begging for mercy it wasn’t going to get. I pounded into her, fast and deep, hips snapping against her ass, and the sound of it was obscene—wet and hot and perfect.

“FUCK—! Mylo—ohmygod—ohmygod!”

“You’re still talking?” I growled. “I thought you gave that up.”

“Ah—ahh—! I—I can’t—fuck—I can’t—”

“You’re taking every inch,” I said. “Don’t pretend you can’t.”

I pinned her thighs wide with one arm and leaned down, dragging my teeth across her chest before I sucked one of her nipples deep into my mouth. Her body arched.

“OHHH—oh fuck! Fuck—Mylo—yes!”

Her hands flew to my hair, pulling, scratching, grounding herself while I sucked hard, my hips never stopping. I bit down—just enough to make her cry out again—and switched sides, teeth grazing, tongue teasing, wet and relentless.

She was panting. Moaning. Whimpering.

Completely gone.

“Ahh! Oh—ohh fuck—I’m—I’m gonna—again—”

“Good,” I grunted. “Give it to me.”

I reached down, thumb circling her clit, tight and fast, no mercy.

���No—no no no—fuuuck!”

Her thighs clenched around me, hips bucking wildly, and then her whole body snapped. She screamed—

“AHHH—AAAHHH—OH MY FUCKING GOD—!”

Her pussy clamped down on me like a vice, her second orgasm crashing through her like it caught her off guard. She sobbed my name, twisting underneath me, heels pounding the couch, eyes squeezed shut as her whole body convulsed.

I didn’t stop.

I grinned.

“You’re not done.”

She whimpered—shaky, broken, breathless. “M-Mylo—please—!”

I pulled out.

She gasped at the sudden emptiness.

But I didn’t give her time to think. I grabbed her by the hips, flipped her over, and shoved her onto her knees.

Her hair spilled over her shoulders. Her back arched. Her ass was round, high, perfect—and dripping.

I lined up behind her.

“You’re gonna remember this,” I said.

And I slammed back inside her.

“AAAHHH! OH FUCK!”

Her hands clawed at the couch, knuckles white.

I gripped her hips and drove into her like I wanted to split her in half. Her pussy was tighter like this, deeper, hotter—perfect. She was shaking already, moaning like she couldn’t stop.

“F-fuck—yes—yes! HARDER—!”

“Like this?” I growled, slamming in faster.

“AHHH! FUCK YES—!”

Her ass slapped against my hips with every thrust, her breath coming in broken gasps, her cries bouncing off the walls.

“You love being used,” I said.

“YES—!”

“You love when I fuck you like this.”

“YES! YES—fuck—I’m yours—!”

My hand tangled in her hair, yanked her head back. I leaned over, chest against her back, lips at her ear.

“Say it again.”

“I’m yours,” she gasped. “Fuck—Mylo—I’m yours!”

And then she broke.

Her whole body tensed, thighs shaking, pussy clenching so tight I nearly lost it.

“Ohhh—oh fuck—I’m gonna—gonna—AAAHHHH!”

She came again, louder than before, her voice hoarse from screaming, tears in her eyes, body jerking against mine like she couldn’t control it anymore.

I wrapped my arms around her and kept thrusting.

Long.

Deep.

Cruel.

She sobbed my name like a prayer. Like she meant it.

“Ahh… Mylo… ohhh—fuck—fuck—”

And I was still inside her.

Still pounding her. Still filling her. Still using her.

But slower now.

Crueler.

Each thrust was long, deep, deliberate. Dragging along every inch of her, making her whimper and gasp as her whole body melted forward against the cushions.

Her thighs were twitching. Her hands limp. She was trying to stay upright, trying to catch her breath—but I didn’t stop.

I wanted her at the edge. I wanted to fuck her into something wordless.

So I grabbed her hips and slammed into her again, harder than before.

“AHHH! Aghh—ohmygod—Mylo!”

She nearly collapsed. Her forehead hit the cushion. Her ass quivered with the shock of it. Her pussy clenched like she was trying to hold me in.

“You hear that?” I growled, pulling almost all the way out—then driving back in, fast, loud, wet.

Slap.

“F-fuck! Ahhh—yes—yes—!”

I kept going. Hard. Brutal.

My balls slapped against her with every thrust, heavy and obscene. Her moans pitched higher and higher—raw now, broken, no rhythm or performance left.

“AHH! AH! I-I can’t—! Mylo—I—”

“You can,” I snapped.

She tried to shake her head but her body betrayed her.

And then she started crying out.

Short, fast, choked cries between gasps.

“Ahh! Oh! O.. Oh! M-Mylo—I’m gonna—I’m gonna fucking—AAAHHH!”

I leaned forward, wrapped my arm around her waist, and hauled her up to her knees.

“Not yet.”

She sobbed. Literally sobbed.

“Mylo—I c-can’t—please—I’m gonna—”

I reached down and rubbed her clit. Just once.

That’s all it took.

She exploded.

Her whole body locked. Her mouth dropped open and a noise came out that wasn’t even human.

“AHHH! OHH! AAAHH—MYLO—FUCK—FUCK—FUUUCK!”

Her pussy milked my cock, hard. Over and over. Her orgasm ripped through her like lightning, twisting her body into mine, skin to skin, sweat to sweat. She was panting, trembling, completely wrecked.

I didn’t stop.

I pulled out—slowly, watching her body shake.

Then I flipped her over and dragged her down onto the rug in front of me.

On her knees.

Her face was red, glowing, dazed. Her lips were parted, shining with spit. Her chest rose and fell fast, tits marked from where I’d sucked them raw. Her thighs were trembling uncontrollably.

I grabbed my cock—wet, slick, twitching—and jerked it in front of her.

Her eyes fluttered open.

“I want you to see it,” I said.

She nodded. Barely.

I stroked. Hard. Fast.

She stuck her tongue out. Just a little. Just enough.

I groaned—fuck—I was close.

“Touch yourself,” I ordered.

Her hand slid between her legs instantly.

She moaned.

“Ahh… ah—fuck…”

Her fingers rubbed frantically against her clit, still sensitive, still soaked. She didn’t even try to play it cool anymore. She moaned like a whore—desperate, breathy, begging for it.

“Cum with me,” I said.

And we did.

I growled, jerked hard—and exploded.

Hot ropes splattered her lips, her chin, her tongue. She gasped, eyes closing, moaning as her own orgasm took her again—so raw she didn’t even scream this time, just shook, body twitching as I painted her skin.

She came without a word. Just noise.

“Mmhh… ahh… ahhh…”

She swallowed. Licked her lips. Eyes glazed, face ruined.

I dropped to my knees in front of her.

She leaned into my chest, breath hitching, heartbeat stuttering.

And for the first time that night—

She was quiet.

Curled up against me, silent, skin hot and flushed, her breath still uneven. I could feel her heartbeat through her chest, fast and light, ticking against my ribs like a metronome that hadn’t slowed down yet.

Neither of us spoke.

She didn’t need to.

Her body was saying everything.

The way she clung to me—legs tangled with mine, face tucked into the curve of my shoulder, one arm draped across my stomach like she couldn’t let go even if she wanted to. She felt small like that. Breakable. Even though five minutes ago, she was grinding on top of me like she was trying to kill me.

Now she was soft. Quiet. Bare.

My hand ran lazily up and down her back. Just skin and slow movement. Every few seconds she twitched, her hips jolting just a little—oversensitive, still riding out the shockwaves.

She made a little sound into my chest.

“Mmh…”

“You good?”

She nodded against my skin. “Mhm.”

“You sure?”

She laughed under her breath, barely more than a whisper. “I don’t think my legs work.”

I smiled.

“I can’t feel my face, either,” she added.

I reached up and ran my fingers through her hair, brushing it off her forehead.

“Cute,” I said.

“Shut up,” she mumbled, nudging me with her nose.

But she smiled. I felt it.

We stayed like that for a while. Breathing. Cooling off. The tension between us had gone slack, melted down into something warmer. Calmer. Her body fit against mine like it was supposed to be there.

I looked down and kissed the top of her head.

She shifted, nuzzling against my chest like a sleepy cat.

“Seriously though,” she said after a while, voice scratchy and small. “That was…”

She didn’t finish.

“That was,” I agreed.

She laughed again, then yawned, and her leg slid between mine.

“God,” she said. “You’re kind of dangerous.”

“Kinda?”

“Yeah. You fucked someone you don't even know the name of.”

“I asked. It also didn't seem that important at the time.”

“Still doesn’t?”

I glanced down. “I suppose it does. Your name?”

She looked up at me, half-lidded.

“Giselle.”

We just stared at each other for a second. Neither of us smiling now. Just… seeing each other.

“I liked when you didn’t know,” she whispered.

“I liked it too.”

She rested her cheek on my chest again. Slower now. Breathing deeper.

“Just… don’t get weird about it.”

I blinked. “Weird?”

“Yeah. Like…” Her voice softened. “Don’t start acting different now that you know.”

I hesitated. “Know what?”

She lifted her head, squinting slightly. “You know… that I’m… in Aespa?”

I blinked. “What’s Aespa?”

She stared at me. Silent. Waiting for the punchline.

“…Are you serious?”

“Dead serious.”

She blinked. Twice.

“Oh my God,” she breathed, half-laughing. “You really don't know!”

“Nope.”

“You came to our concert.”

“My friends dragged me.”

“Jesus.” She flopped back down on my chest, stunned. “I think I just came harder.”

We stayed like that for another few minutes. Her body pressed against mine, skin warm, lips still curled in that breathless little smirk. Every so often, she’d hum, or shift slightly, or let out this content, melted sigh like she still hadn’t landed yet.

“You’re insane, you know,” she murmured, tracing a lazy circle on my chest.

“Because I don't know who you were?”

“Because you don't care.”

I smiled, eyes closed. “Still don’t.”

Her fingers stopped moving. For a second I thought I’d said the wrong thing.

But then she whispered, “That’s probably the hottest thing you’ve said all night.”

I cracked one eye open. “That’s saying something.”

“Oh, I know. I was there.”

She leaned up and kissed me, slow and unhurried. I kissed her back, brushing my thumb along her jaw, letting her taste linger. She pulled back just an inch.

“So what happens now?” she asked, voice small.

I paused.

“Whatever you want.”

Her lips pressed together. Not uncertain. Just… thoughtful.

But then—

Knock knock knock.

Her entire body froze.

I lifted my head.

There it was again—three clean knocks, firm and casual.

“Giselle?” a voice called through the door. Female. Confident. “They’re waiting on us for the group shot.”

She swore under her breath and rolled off me, grabbing at the nearest sheet.

“Shit, shit—fuck, that’s Karina.”

“Karina?”

She gave me a wild look. “One of the girls. From the group.”

I blinked. “Oh.”

She scrambled for her phone and grabbed a tissue box off the vanity. I watched her wipe her inner thighs, dab under her eyes, fix her lips in the mirror. She still looked flushed. Hair tangled. But some of the damage was masked.

“Jesus,” she muttered. “I can’t walk out there looking like I just got wrecked.”

“You did,” I said.

“Don’t be proud of that.”

She shoved me toward the closet. “Hide. Please.”

I hesitated. She pushed again.

“Unless you want to get recognized and tossed off the balcony.”

That was enough.

I ducked into the small walk-in just as she called out, “Be right there!”

From inside, I heard the door unlock. Hinges creaking. Light footsteps.

“Everything okay?” Karina asked. Closer now. Her voice smooth. A little suspicious.

“Yeah,” Giselle replied, now perfectly calm. “Just needed a minute.”

A pause.

“You look like a mess.”

Giselle laughed, and it was almost too good. “Tried a new lash glue. Bad idea.”

Karina snorted. “It looks like you cried in a club bathroom.”

“I kind of did.”

“You want me to stall them?”

“No. I’m good now.”

Silence.

And then, just as the door started to close—

“You sure you were alone in here?”

My heart stopped.

Giselle didn’t flinch. “Of course I was,” she said, smooth as ever. “Why?”

Karina didn’t answer right away.

Then: “No reason.”

The door shut.

A lock clicked.

A few seconds later, the closet opened.

Giselle stood there—still glowing, still breathless, eyes sparkling with mischief.

“You’re lucky I like you,” she whispered.

I pulled her in for a kiss.

TO BE CONTINUED...

PART 2

[prettydaisygirl]

please more streamer james!! maybe he flies her out to meet in person and she’s off camera behind him during one of his streams and he can’t focus :)

Hello, my love! Thank you so much for taking the time to send me a request, I appreciate it! I am OBSESSED with streamer!James <3333 I changed it up a bit to have reader surprise James because I had an idea, hope you enjoy it lovie! :)

streamer!James Potter x fem!superfan!reader who surprises James at a convention ✿ 1.2k words

cw: fem reader, marauders as live-streamers, reader is obsessed with Prongs/James, James is in love with reader, established relationship, suggestive

james potter masterlist

°˖✧✿✧˖°

previous part | next part

Your whole body is shaking. Not from fear or adrenaline. From excitement.

You had just gotten off of your plane, landing in Los Angeles. Your boyfriend didn’t know, but you had bought tickets to his favorite convention to surprise him in person. James, as well as the other Marauders, have their own panel and meet and greet set up there. James doesn’t know that you bought tickets…

But Remus does. Since you and James have become more official, you’ve gotten to know the other Marauders more personally. When you came up with your brilliant idea to surprise James, you knew Remus was the one to go to. He helped arrange your flight, discussed the plan, and even arranged another room for you and James tonight so you don’t have to sleep with the four of them. He’s very sweet, and you understand why he has such a big audience. 

You get your things settled in your hotel room, checking your appearance in the mirror. You feel extra pretty today, and you’re relieved. You’re practically bouncing off the wall with excitement. Honestly, you’re worried you might have to hold yourself back from jumping James’ bones. 

You make your way to the convention hall, in awe of the different panels and booths. There are thousands of people here, some in costumes, some you recognize from their videos or streams. It’s amazing and overwhelming at the same time. 

Your heart stops when you spot it. The Marauders panel stage. You see the line of people waiting for the meet and greet, a small area to the side of the main stage for fans to stand with the Marauders, say hello and get pictures. Remus told you to wait to be last in line, that way you could get a few extra minutes with James. Remus really thought of everything. 

You wait in line, hood pulled up just to make sure James doesn’t see you before you reach the front. You watch the other fans in front of you, some of them girls that seem very excited to meet your boyfriend. You would feel jealous except you know James only has eyes for you, he’s very open with his feelings and affection for you.

The line moves slowly, but you don’t mind. You watch James interact with fans, adoring the way he smiles brightly for every single photo. The four of them really seem to care about their fans and supporters, you admire that. The closer you get to the front of the line, the more nervous you are. Your body trembles lightly with anticipation. 

You finally reach the front of the line, only for James to step away for a drink of water. You shrug at the other boys, who laugh brightly. Sirius even throws an arm around your shoulder. 

“You come all the way here, and he doesn’t even look at you!” Sirius calls out loudly to get James’ attention, but he seems focused on gulping water from his excessively large water bottle. He probably assumes you’re just another eager fan waiting for him, thinking you can wait a moment. 

“I know!” You say back to Sirius in jest, “Ridiculous!” 

It’s your voice that gets his attention. James’ head snaps in your direction, water spilling down his chin and over his shirt. He doesn’t waste another moment even closing his water bottle, tossing it down onto the table and running at you. He throws his arms around you, picking you up and spinning you around. You giggle happily, hugging him back tightly. 

“Oh my God,” James is breathless, and he leans down to kiss you for the first time. It’s perfect, it takes your breath away, and he tightens his arms around you like he can’t believe you’re really wrapped up in them. “Bloody hell, angel.” His words are muffled between kisses and the other Marauders wolf whistle at the two of you. You’re sure other fans notice, that they are taking pictures or recording, but in this moment neither of you care. 

He lets out soft moans into your mouth as he kisses you, his hands feeling anywhere and everywhere they can on your body. When he seems to finally be able to control himself again, placing several pecks on your lips before pulling away, he is completely lovestruck. 

“What are you doing here?” He asks, cupping your cheek with both hands before one slides through your hair. His eyes take in all of you, and your arms are still wrapped around his back tightly. 

“Remus helped me get tickets,” You tell him, and James shoots Remus a thankful grin. “He got us a hotel room too.”

James’ lips part and he looks down at you. He tugs you close, brushing his lips over your cheek before he’s whispering in your ear. “I can’t wait to see what your boobs look like in person.”

You laugh out loud at his words, and James grins but his eyes shine with an obvious hint of desire. His lips are on yours again and you know the two of you are probably already trending.

You stay wrapped up in James’ arms, whispering sweet nothings to each other until he has to go on stage for the Marauders panel. He presses his lips to yours over and over again, not wanting to pull away. He keeps his fingers linked with yours until the very last second and as he steps on stage he calls out to you “sit in the front row!”

You do sit in the front row. 

James watches you with heart eyes full of adoration for the entire panel. The audience laughs when he gets distracted by you while answering a question. A few of the fans ask about you and James spends far too long answering those questions that Sirius or Remus have to cut him off. 

The internet is already shipping the two of you, it’s obvious how in love you are with each other. There are pictures of the two of you kissing and hugging that are trending, and girls are swooning at the way ‘Prongs’ looks at you. 

James hops off the stage the moment the panel comes to an end, gathering you in his arms again. His lips are all over your skin, his hands grasping at you. You wrap your arms around his shoulders, relishing in the physical feel of him actually here in front of you. 

“Let’s go back to the hotel,” James says softly, and you nod. He slides a hand down to take yours, interlacing your fingers. He tugs you toward the door but pauses when Remus calls out for him. 

“Prongs!” James stops, turning back to look at his friend. Remus has a knowing look in his eyes and James grins brightly. “Don’t forget we have another panel in the morning.”

“Okay, Moony!” James calls back with a thumbs up, tugging you closer. He laughs loudly when Sirius calls out this time, his voice behind the two of you as you head toward the exit, hand in hand.

“Don’t stay up too late shagging!”

°˖✧✿✧˖°

© prettydaisygirl

[clockwayswrites]

Birb in a box Part 14

masterpost

By Thursday Danny was feeling much more human, or at least closer to human as he ever felt. Had tonight been anything more active than sitting in a seat and watching a ballet, Danny would have had to beg off. He figured this much he could manage. Besides, pushing it a little so not as to disappoint Cass on her big night was worth it. She was a sweet girl and Danny had the feeling that she could use more people celebrating her.

Not that Danny expected to actually see Cass that night beyond her time on the stage.

Still, Danny figured he should at least look the part of a ballet patron and dug the cobalt blue suit that he had gotten for Jazz’s wedding out of its bag in the back of his closet. He might as well be presentable, even if his hair never quite behaved. He kept it much shorter now, mostly so that it was out of the way, and hoped that tonight a shower and some hair gel would be enough. At least the little start shaped sapphire studs Tucker and Sam had gotten him for passing his dissertation looked good. (Bless his piercings never seeming to close fully up.)

A quick pat of his coat pockets to make sure he had everything and Danny was off. Gotham was thankfully quiet that night— or as quiet as Gotham ever was— and Danny even managed to catch an earlier connecting train. It left him enough time for a leisurely walk to the the opera house.

The lobby of the grand building was buzzing with excited patrons that Danny did his best to slip through. He really just wanted to find his seat. Which was apparently was upstairs and all the way down a hall that became narrower than expected as he continued. There was another ticket check, which Danny thought as odd until he realized as he passed by an open curtain that these were the theater’s box seats.

Which was odd.

Danny glanced down at his phone. Was he in the wrong place?

“Ah, Danny, I see you found us alright.”

Apparently not, because that was definitely Bruce Wayne’s voice. Yep, and that was Bruce Wayne himself, looking far too handsome in a deep grey suit. Danny really hoped he wasn’t blushing because damn did the man cut a dashing figure. A little part of Danny wanted to reach out and run his fingers across one of those impressively broad shoulders.

“I did,” Danny said, head ducked down slightly as he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Though honestly, I didn’t expect this to be what you meant when you offered to get the ticket for me. I don’t mean to intrude on your family.”

Bruce chuckled and Danny felt he might melt a little. “Nonsense. It will be a relief to have another adult around.”

“Hey, some of us are adults!” Someone from in the booth said. A moment later Dick Grayson appeared with a large smile and wearing a suit that was the brightest magenta that Danny had ever seen.

“That remains to be seen,” Bruce said dryly, though his mouth was quirked in a smile.

His son ignored him.

“Hi, I’m Dick Grayson, Bruce’s oldest and totally an adult,” Dick said, offering his hand. “Bruce was practically a teen dad when he adopted me.”

“Please don’t spread rumors like that,” Bruce said with the long suffering sigh of a tired father.

“Luckily, I think it’s all pretty easy to fact check,” Danny said before he thought better of it and shook the offered hand. “Nice to meet you Dick, I’m Danny Fenton.”

“It’s good to meet you. I think Cass really liked meeting someone who could sign with her just out in the wild.”

“I just wish I wasn’t so rusty,” Danny said, feeling mildly embarrassed at the praise over his poor skills. “I’ll have to brush up on some things.”

“I’m sure that would mean a lot to her,” Bruce replied. “The family knows how to sign, of course, but sadly she isn’t so lucky mostly places. It’s nice for her to have others to talk to on days where her voice isn’t around.”

“I can only imagine. I wish that it was taught in schools. You’d think with all the advancement and proof of concept with baby sign language they would—” He cut himself off with a flustered little laugh. “Sorry, my sister is a behavioral psychiatrist with a two year old daughter. I get to hear a lot about things like baby sign language and color perception and the stages of personality growth.”

Luckily Bruce just laughed and motioned for Danny to enter the box. “A stage I’ve sadly missed with all my children. So your sister is another doctor Fenton in the family?”

“Fourth, actually. Both my parents are also Doctor Fentons. It’s five if you count my sister-in-law, but she kept her last name for publication reasons. I guess you looked me up if you know about my phd?” Danny wasn’t offended at that. If he had a daughter who befriended a random older man at work, he would sure as hell look them up too.

Bruce, however, smiled apologetically. “I asked Lucius about you. You’ve made quite an impression on him. He’s promised to have my head on a platter if I, or my horde of children, do anything to drive you away.”

Danny laughed at that and gratefully sunk into the seat that Bruce indicated. He was starting to feel the walk here now. “Knowing Lucius, he’d get it too. I think he always gets his way eventually, at least if my work-life balance has anything to say about it.”

“Not good at that?” Dick asked.

He sat down catty-corner to Danny. Danny turned carefully to look at him, ignoring the twinge in his back as best as he could. Danny would have shrugged if he thought he could have.

“Classic engineer with ADHD problems. I can lose track of time a little too easily.” Danny glanced to Bruce with a wry little smile. “Apparently WE is big on us not spending all our time at work.”

“Not really,” Bruce said with a little quirked smile. “You all work hard, but work shouldn’t be everything. It’s something that I’ve had to learn myself.”

“No kidding,” Dick said.

Bruce gave a little snort. “As if you aren’t as bad as I am.”

Dick just smiled serenely at his father before turning back to Danny. “No one for you to go home to then? No partner or pets?”

“Just too many plants,” Danny admitted. “One of my oldest friends is a botanist doing medical research and every time I see her I end up with another one. They’ve sort of taken over my apartment now that I’ve been in one place for a few years. Some of them are drama queens about getting watered, but I have a little system rigged up for the really thirsty ones. It helps if I need to be away for more than a day or two. And that is probably way more about my plants than you needed or wanted to know. Sorry.”

Bruce’s low rumble of a chuckle felt like it settled warmly in Danny’s chest. There was no way that he wasn’t blushing a least a bit now.

Why was Bruce affecting him so much? Yes, it had been a rather long time since Danny had been on a date much less more. Yes, Bruce was Gotham’s eternal most handsome bachelor, which wow does the city have that right. Yes, other than a handshake, Danny hadn’t touched another human since waking up in the still so weird cuddle pile of superheroes. Yes to all that, but really, Danny should not be blushing like a he was still in his twenties at a chuckle.

“It sounds to me like your friend picked the right person to give plants to. It’s obvious that you care for them,” Bruce said with a soft smile that Danny tried not to look at.

Danny glanced out over the edge of the balcony and down into the crowd. “Ah, well, I try. They’re living things, you know? They deserve the best chance I can reasonably give them.”

“A very nice way to look at it. I—”

“Shit,” Dick said suddenly, softly, and with conviction.

Danny twisted around quickly to look back at Dick, wincing as his back vehemently protested the motion.

“Sorry,” Dick said quickly. “It’s just that it seems the elevator is down so Babs won’t be able to make it up here.”

“It’s down?” Bruce asked with a confused frown.

“Apparently. I’m going to go sit down on the ground floor with her,” Dick said. He tucked his phone into his coat as he stood. “Sorry for bailing on you, Danny. It was nice to meet you.”

“No, go, spare yourself anymore plant talk,” Danny joked at his own expense.

“If any of the others aren’t too settled, I’ll send them up,” Dick said to his father. “But you know how they are.”

“All too well,” Bruce said dryly.

Dick squeezed Bruce’s shoulder and vanished back through the curtain.

---

AN: This part had me real caught up for some reason, but hopefully it's all good (enough) now!

[swordsandholly]

Cherry Bomb - tattoo parlor anthology

MDNI | poly 141 x fem fat reader | masterlist

Part Nine: The Expo

Your eyes widen to saucers as you climb out of John’s work van. The event hall in front of you is huge - the largest in the city. A big, glass dome with a high-end hotel attached. It glows in the morning sun. Lines of people have already formed out front. You passed them on your way around to the vendor entrance. It’s the twentieth anniversary for the Tattoo Expo, apparently, which means they expect massive crowds.

“I hate that Kyle couldn’t come.” You frown as a security worker hands over your badge. It’s fancy - heavy weight with brightly colored, neo-traditional graphics. Something about having the word VENDOR hanging around your neck makes your heart skip.

John sighs, heaving one of the boxes of his books onto your dolly. “Yeah. He tried but he couldn’t get his head out of the toilet long enough to do much of anythin’.”

You wrinkle your nose. Apparently he had caught some nasty stomach bug, poor guy. You thought about calling and checking in on him, but you worried that was too clingy. After… everything, you don’t want to come off as anything other than normal about it. Which you are. Totally normal.

At least Johnny was home for the day to help him out.

“Has Simon ever come?” You ask, titling the dolly pack to push into the convention hall.

John’s arms flex as he fights with his rolling tool box to get the handle back out so he can pull it. He just had to wear a sleeveless muscle tee, didn’t he? It’s rude, frankly. You look over his more rarely exposed shoulder and upper arm pieces - some more faded than others. Some more colorful, some better crafted. Part of you wants to reach out - to trace them the same way you want to with Simon. You want to ask him in detail about each one. Maybe he’ll let you, someday.

“Can you actually picture Simon in a convention hall?” He chuckles eventually, finally getting the toolbox rolling properly.

You laugh. “Guess not.”

The 141 booth sits in the center of the floor, surrounded by a few other big-name shops and figures in the community. You glance around at them, only recognizing a few. You don’t get much time to look around. There are only a couple hours designated for set up and you have to help hang all the flash options, get the cash box sorted, and be ready for the flood when it comes. You’ve mentally prepared for chaos, reading through pretty much every reddit and twitter thread you could find about convention disasters. You know that won’t happen here, and even if something did, John wouldn’t abandon you to it. Still, you feel better being mentally prepared for anything - no matter how unrealistic.

“Why do you still do these?” You ask, pinning one of the large flash sheets to the display board. “I mean - you don’t exactly have to get your name out there.”

“I enjoy them- the community. I was here when this was still bein’ held underground in an old warehouse.” John looks around, eyes scanning the rows of artists. He doesn’t share his thoughts, just stands there quietly for a moment with his hands on his hips. After a few beats he grumbles quietly, “Gettin’ old…”

You focus on setting up the front table where you’ll be stationed. John brought a few prints of work as well as several copies of his book. He brought a few signed ones as well, only selling them for about twenty more bucks than the usual price. You asked why he doesn’t mark them up more, but he just shrugged you off with a mutter of ‘I’m not all that’ before moving on to another task. You decided it was best not to argue that he is, indeed, all that. His books are literally filled until the late fall.

Maybe you shouldn’t be so proud of setting up a decently aesthetically pleasing display all on your own when you’re surrounded by real artists, but you still grin wide with your hands on your hips. It’s simple, with cards for each of the boys lining one sit and a roll of tattoo tickets for the day beside the cash box. The table cloth with the shop’s name looks nearly identical to the sign. One might call it lazy marketing, you find it charming.

“Somethin’ happen with you and Kyle?” John asks suddenly, back turned as he messes with something in his rolling tool box full of supplies.

You freeze, eyes wide and mouth dry. Did Kyle say something? You thought you’d been normal about it. Kyle hadn’t acted any differently - which shouldn’t have hurt your feelings - and you were sure you’d met him with the same level of normalcy. The past weeks race through your mind. Every moment, every interaction, picking each apart into threads in milliseconds.

“Uh, no? Why?” It comes out squeaky. Unsure. Lord, you really are a terrible liar.

John hums. He’s quiet for barely a beat, a moment that seems to stretch for lifetimes. You can almost feel your cells aging while you wait. “You’ve been quieter than usual around him. Just wanted t’make sure.”

“Oh.” Had you? You thought you’d been the same as always. Both of you totally moved on from… the incident. Well, except for those few times you caught yourself staring - zoning out while thinking about the way his lips pressed to yours. Imagining Kyle pulling you into the back room again. Another kiss with less nervousness and more heat. Actually bending you over the desk properly-

“Y’with me, love?” John snaps you back to reality.

“Yeah!” You jump and stutter. “Yeah. No. We’re fine. I’m… fine.”

You wonder if the giant guy in the weird homemade mask at the booth across from yours would smash your head in if you paid him. Let him free you from the torment of embarrassment. It had been eating away at you, if you’re honest with yourself, and now lying right to John’s face just feels… awful. He’ll find out. You know he will. Maybe he already knows as that was a test. Fuck if it was, you totally just failed.

The clock turns to nine, and you have no choice but to let that be a problem for your future self.

Something you realize rather quickly as the attendees begin to flood the hall is that John is a god here. People don’t meet his eye. They speak meekly, even to you, with voices low and faces flushed. The line for your booth stretches down the walkway as soon as the doors open - appointment tickets practically flying out of your hands. You overhear a pair of friends muttering about sleeping outside overnight to get in early enough for John’s booth. It makes your head spin.

You wonder if they’d still act that way if they saw him snoring open-mouthed at the desk in the back room mid-afternoon.

“Thought I heard 141 got a new front desk girl.” A syrupy southern accident lilts above you just as you finish selling tickets. He’s handsome. Blonde and blue eyed with a little scar gracing his cheekbone. Not much younger than John, you don’t think. Probably around Simon’s age.

You slip on your usual customer service smile. “Hello! How can I-”

“Graves.” John grunts behind you, not even looking up from the work in front of him. “What d’you want?”

“Just wanted to come see how you were.” The man - Graves - grins wide. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “And to meet your new front of house. Philip.”

You take the hand he holds out, giving a perfunctory shake and your name. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that John doesn’t like this guy, whoever he is, and you’re inclined to trust his judgement. You opt for basic small talk. “Are you an artist?”

Graves nods. “I own Shadow & Co. It’s a few blocks over from your place.”

Oh. You’d heard of them. They came highly recommended when you were looking for artists in the area initially. In the end you opted for John based entirely on vibes. The Shadow building is far too modern - to minimalist - for your liking. Too corporate.

“Y’know, we’re looking for a new desk girl as well.” Graves smiles. You do your best not to sneer at his use of desk girl. “We’re growing pretty quick - even if you wanted to split your time-”

“She’s full time with us.” John snaps - blatant irritation lining the edges of his voice. He still doesn’t turn around.

The blonde man pauses, glancing between you. Something passes over his eyes - some implicit knowing that you don’t quite get - but it’s gone just as fast as it came. He digs into his pocket, flipping open a too-new wallet and pulling out a business card. “Well, if you ever want to work somewhere more exciting-” you nearly laugh at that. “-give us a call, hm?”

You glance up to his face, then back down at the card. John’s tattoo gun continues to buzz behind you, but you can tell he’s slowed down. He’s listening. Before even really thinking you extend your hand, pushing the card he holds away from you.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’m very happy here.”

Philip scoffs, dropping the card on the table. “Keep us in mind, yeah?”

He disappears into the crowd easily - blending in just like his shop’s namesake. Your nose wrinkles. You snatch up the card and tear it in two. “Dickhead.”

You think you hear John chuckling behind you, but can’t be sure over the roar of the convention.

The day flies by - people bustle by your booth. You run out of signed books just over halfway through - prints not long after. Your voice feels hoarse from talking to so many people. The hall has grown quite hot and you’re sure that your hair looks insane at this point. Either way, you’re having a great time. You get to talk to a with full body trash polka that you like for some reason. You get to meet one of the people involved in the stage competition - her massive thigh piece holding some of the best color work you’ve ever seen. All in all, despite the discomfort, you think this ranks in your top ten favorite days. Maybe top five.

“Excuse me?” Murmurs a voice so soft you almost miss it entirely over the roar of the convention. When you look up, you’re met with a painfully young face. Definitely not old enough for the 17+ entrance requirement.

“Hi!” You put on your warmest smile. “How can I help you?”

“I, uh, I was just…” They stutter, shifting in place. “I- Are there any signed copies left?”

You look them over, a too-familiar pang in your chest. You know those eyes, that anxiety. The jumpy way they look around at the people passing by and tug at their sleeves. Your teeth sink into your lip and you look over at the three blanks that make up your entire left over stock. Glancing over your shoulder, you see John finishing with his current client - giving the man a firm handshake before turning to clean up his station. There’s a fifteen minute break until the next one - his last for the night - and as much as you don’t want to take up his precious little time to set up…

“Let me check!” You squeak, shaky as you grab one of the blanks with all the subtlety of a brick over the head and cross the few feet over to where John sits. You lean over to speak in his ear, low enough that the kid won’t hear you. “John?”

“Hm?” He hums, turning slightly on his stool.

“Can you sign this one?” You chew your lip. “I know you had a set amount but this kid looks so…”

He glances behind you at the teenager in question, bashfully staring at their feet.

“I’m sorry, I know you need to set up for the next-”

John cuts you off by taking the book from your hands and standing.

“Thanks, dove.” He gives you that lovely, warm smile and rolls his shoulders before making his way over to the front table.

The teenager’s eyes go so wide you think they might pop out of their head. You decide to hang back and not interrupt their moment. John sets the book on the table and grabs a sharpie from your back up stash of pens. The kid mumbles something you can’t understand. John’s voice lowers as well. You can’t hear them, but you watch John scrawl something in the book and hand it over. He pushes away the crumpled, messy wad of cash the teenager tries to give him, shaking his head and saying something else that you don’t catch. The kid looks like they’re about to cry, a wide, wet grin splitting their face as they say goodbye and practically prance away.

You melt, shoulders slouching and what you’re sure is a very stupid smile breaking out across your lips. You don’t know why you doubted him for even a moment.

“What’s that face?” John scoffs, cocking a brow at you.

“Nothing.” You shake your head and re-take your spot at the table.

The ending of the convention is rather uneventful. Some of the other booths begin clearing up early. You take the time to count the cash box - which is absolutely stuffed to the brim. John rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck about five times in the span of a few minutes. Maybe you could convince them to do a company yoga class. It’s easy to see how tense and tired they get. You file that idea away for later.

Luckily most of the booth set up belonged to the venue and, since you sold out of books and prints, you don’t have haul those back to the van. All you have to take is John’s rolling toolbox and tattooing table. All things that easily fit in your bag and dolly. Thank god. Neither of you speak much on the drive back to the shop - opting for comfortable silence. Your ears ring ever so slightly from the noise of the convention hall. When you were in it, you hadn’t realized just how loud it was. John’s eyes are locked on the road, the slight glow from the setting sun warming his skin.

The sun just disappears over the horizon as you put the last of the equipment in the backroom - stacked rather messily but that’s another problem for future you. You’ve been working for a grand total of fourteen hours and, somehow, it still has yet to hit you. Adrenaline and excited energy still pulse under your skin.

John sighs loudly, crossing each arm over his chest to stretch them out. “Could really go for a scotch right now. You want a nightcap?”

Your cheeks warm, still riding high from the excitement of the day you agree easily. “Yeah, that sounds nice.”

He gives you a gentle smile, softened further by the low street lights. “Let me show you a spot.”

The place John leads you to is small. Local. You sit at the bar and take a moment to look around. Three pool tables take up half the floor space. It looks like a small tournament is going on - a white board showing the matches and who will go against who next. Two ski-ball machines are tucked in a corner beside the bathroom, currently taken up by two younger men who you aren’t completely sure are drinking age. The lights and music are both low. One of the bartenders is posted up on the opposite end of the bar with two other people watching Shin Godzilla on the mounted television. It’s cozy and oh-so very John Price.

You get an easy sipper, something fruity and sweet as a treat for the long day you’ve had. It’s nice against the warmth of the summer evening. A heat that’s only aggravated by the one that settles in your spine whenever the guys are around. John especially.

“Think that kid was a little young for the event…” You blurt in a poor attempt to make conversation.

John nods along. “Definitely.”

“That was really nice of you. I didn’t want to… I don’t know.” You murmur, unsure why exactly the words won’t stop. You blame the drinks and exhaustion. Seems realistic enough. “They just seemed so sad.”

“Wasn’t nice. Just the right thing t’do.” John shrugs. His words come slow, almost as if he’s unsure if he should say them. Though, you find it hard to believe he has ever been unsure about anything in his life. “I know what its like… to need t’escape. Lied about my age just to enlist.”

Your eyes widen. “R-really?”

He hums. “They didn’t care much back then.”

For some reason you never thought about John’s childhood - his homelife. You know he has a mom somewhere. Kyle let it slip a couple of times - said she’s a really good cook. John doesn’t volunteer information about himself often, you gathered that much. He’s worse than Simon, somehow, which says a fucking lot.

“Did-” you mull over your words. “You didn’t grow up around here, yeah?”

It’s a clumsy attempt at getting him to talk, but it works well enough. He nods. “Hereford. My mum’s still out there.”

Score. “Do you visit her much?”

John shrugs, chuckling. “When I can. I could move back home and it wouldn’t be enough for her.”

You snicker.

“She’s the best woman I’ve ever known…” He murmurs, eyes far away. It’s only for a moment, but they look past you. Defocused in a way that seems to out of character for the hyper-aware man.

Your faces are close. Hunched in like school kids exchanging secrets and gossip during recess. Your eyes dart from his to his lips and back. It’s confusing. All of this. The intimacy you have with each of them in these moments is overwhelming. You like Kyle - you liked kissing Kyle - you really shouldn’t be wanting that from your boss, though. A co-worker is bad enough but John… John is off limits. You know that. Even so, you find yourself subconsciously leaning just a bit closer, eyes roving over the freckles you don’t see standing further away and the grey flecks in his eyes. You think, for barely a millisecond, that he leans in too.

Until he sits up straight, tossing back what little is left of his drink. “Let’s head out. Could go for a smoke.”

You nod, swallowing down your thoughts and following him out of the bar like a lost puppy. You’d follow him to the end of the earth, you think. Even if it hurts that you can’t get as close as you want, you’d go anywhere for him. Yeah, that’s definitely the drink and tiredness talking. Part of you also knows that it is undoubtedly true.

John rounds a corner to the side of the bar. It’s moderately lit, a single street lamp just down the way giving you just enough light to see. You lean against the wall beside John, the exhaustion beginning to cling to your eyes.

“Are you?” John asks suddenly.

“Hm?” You hum, unsure of what he’s asking about.

“Happy here?” He cuts the end off a cigar he pulled from the silver box that lives in his back pocket.

In the low light of the alley, his pupils overtake most of his irises. Dark and intense as he looks you over from head to toe. You see it, suddenly. The god that the others do. He’s not as physically large as Simon, or as loud as Johnny, but he fills every inch of any space he enters regardless. You suppose you became so used to being in that radius that you forgot just how much presence he carries. You’ve wrapped yourself in it like a blanket. A shield.

Your cheeks warm and you shuffle your feet. “I… yeah.”

“Good.” John sighs out a cloud of smoke. “It’d be a pain in the arse to replace you. The boys care about you too much.”

You stare up at him. You can feel something on the edge of his tone - some weight that you don’t understand. There always seems to be another layer to the things he says. Implications that you can’t understand, context that you’re missing. Part of you wants to ask, needs to ask, but the words get stuck in your throat. What would you say? You’re not even entirely sure what you need to ask. You know they care about you, and you care for them in turn, so why does it feel like there’s something missing?

“Does the boys include you?” You blurt, one again wishing that big guy from the convention was here to smash your head in like wile e. cayote and the anvil.

He looks you up and down, slightly taken aback while you debate on bolting. “Thought that was obvious.”

You scoff, still flustered. “You’re hard to read.”

“Am I, now?”

You nod. A comfortable silence falls over you, despite the awkwardness surely emanating from you. Your lip catches between your teeth, eyes on your feet. “John?”

“Dove?” He tilts his head, once again leaning ever so slightly closer to you.

“Thank you. For everything.” You murmur, voice low and unsure. “It’s… it’s really good here.”

“Think nothin’ of it, love.”

You look up at those pretty blue eyes. They always make your chest ache with some deep hole you haven’t been able to pin down. At first you could blame it on wanting to do well - to be a good employee. It’s more than that, though. It starts in your chest and seeps it’s way through the rest of you. A want. A craving. That’s the word. You crave those eyes on you. The weight of his hands, the fortitude of him.

You’re not sure who closes the gap - whether it’s you or him - but either way it closes. It’s too natural for the context of your relationship. You slot together too well. It’s not like with Kyle. John carries an intensity with him that Kyle never could. His beard scratches not unpleasantly. His lips are warm - you can taste hints of scotch and his cigar. He smells of spice and earth. Your hands rest on his broad shoulders - unsure of where to put them.

This is wrong. It’s messy. You already lied about Kyle, which he’ll surely find out. If he hasn’t already. What about Johnny? Or Simon? Will they think less of you? Are you less for this? For impulsively kissing your boss in some back alley? Will Kyle be angry if he finds out? Your thoughts surge, all chaotic waves crashing against each other in an attempt to make sense of this situation you find yourself in.

John’s arm wraps around your waist, pulling you closer into him. Your arms drape around his neck as you push onto your tips toes to meet him.

That’s a problem for future you.

A/N: Sorry this part took so long, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to escalate it or not but I want to get a move on with these boys

[ozzgin]

Yandere! Circus

I've been wanting to draw some of my dolls for the longest time and this turned out to be my most detailed artwork so far :') And since I really love the circus, I thought I could turn this into an interactive story, too. Let me know what you think! Based on classic stock characters from Italian theatre, Commedia dell'arte. Content: gender neutral reader, horror, dark comedy, human and monster romance

You're finally here! Come on in, don't be afraid. Where is everyone else, you ask? Why, you're our only special guest, Darling (Y/N). This is all for you. Come, do not upset the Ringmaster. We will show you everything.

A night carnival? You've never heard of such a thing. Nonetheless, curiosity got the better of you when you found the trampled poster on your way back home. The actual message almost escaped your attention; you'd been too focused on the thick, ornate border, and the colorful, swirling patterns intricately filling the page.

"Last night in town! 'Wizard of Ozz' Night Circus, a mesmerizing show that will keep you glued to your seat. We're still searching for our Columbina. Perhaps you could become part of our story?"

Might as well check it out. Which is why you're currently here, in the outskirts, trying to find a walkable path among the weeds. It's dark and you can barely see anything in front of you. They're not trying very hard to provide an inviting atmosphere, you think to yourself.

Eventually, you discern a glimmer of light in the distance. You have found the circus tents.

The campsite is quiet and still, causing you to hesitate in your decision. Is it truly open?

There's a faint murmur coming from the main entrance. A small, melancholic Pierrot - when did he show up? - awaits by the heavy curtain, pale hands stretched out.

"Your ticket, Columbina", he announces with decorum. "Me and Arlecchino will show you any tent you want to visit. We are here to entertain you."

He ponders for a moment, before adding:

"I'm sure you'll like him more. He's a very alluring fellow. Me, on the other hand...Oh, forget it", he mumbles through pouting lips, ushering you inside.

"Aha! There's the star of our night! Our Columbina!"

A tall man in a pompous, glittery costume bounces towards you and lowers himself with a theatrical bow, giving your fingers a quick kiss. You pull your hand away, visibly bothered by the odd gesture.

"You keep calling me that. I'm (Y/N)", you argue.

"Yes, yes, of course we know that. Do ya take us for fools?" the Harlequin asks, kicking one foot in the air. The jingle of the bells at the tip of his shoe echoes across the hall. "You have, however - you must understand, yes? - you've entered Ringmaster's Circus. From now on, you are the Columbina to our play."

You raise your eyebrows in disbelief.

"Just like that? Why me, and not someone else?" you scan the surroundings, pursing your lips. "Where are the others?"

"Others?"

Harlequin makes an exaggeratedly shocked face and tilts his head towards Pierrot.

"What are they saying? You're the only one here, Columbina darling. After tonight, we-"

Pierrot's hand lands firmly on his friend's lips.

"You always talk too much. Always, always! And yet, you're the favorite. Of course you are. Oh, what pity, what misfortune", the pale young man laments. "We're wasting precious time."

They both burst into a little dance; a rather silly one, you think with an amused smile. Then, they place themselves besides the entrance, each one standing at one end, back straight and chins raised.

"Go on, go ahead, Columbina darling. This is your carnival. Choose any tent you'd like."

Pulcinella's Tent

The stage is pitch black, save for one spotlight contouring a patch of ground. You can see a large, colorful ball, and two feet clumsily rolling their way atop of it.

You chuckle at the sight. This must be the clown.

"No one can compete with Pulcinella's juggling", Pierrot declares somewhat monotonously. "His acrobatic spectacle has left many guests speechless, acting with such dexterity that one must wonder: is this truly the work of two hands?"

Lights flicker, allowing you to catch glimpses of smaller balls being thrown around. Juggling so many balls while bouncing around is indeed impressive.

"Rest assured, this is the art of one single man. Although four eyes are better than two."

The shadows are abruptly swallowed by spotlights, and you squint your eyes, adjusting to the brightness. A two-headed man continues his performance, throwing you the occasional cheeky smile.

"Ah, that is..." you place a hand over your mouth.

"A bother, truly", the Pierrot remarks, sitting next to you. "They're complete opposites."

He observes as both Pulcinella's heads tilt in your direction, visibly entranced. He sighs deeply:

"You'll love them either way. They're funny and entertaining, unlike me...A pathetic miser. Oh, if only I had half their charm!" he bemoans with a soft sob.

"Hey! Don't sadden my beloved like that", Pulcinella barks, jumping off the ball and running towards your seating with a comically merry jingle to accompany him.

You cannot help but marvel at the man in front of you.

"Enough of this, I've had enough! You don't get to decide yet, Pulcinella", Pierrot exclaims in sudden panic. He claws your wrist tightly and pulls you after him. "It's time to see other tents."

Sandrone's Tent

You peek behind the heavy curtain and freeze. Are your eyes deceiving you? Someone is idly resting at the bottom of a large aquarium, showing no struggle despite being underwater. The mysterious man senses your presence and emerges to the surface.

"Would you look at that! I can't remember the last time I had a visitor."

He gestures for you to come closer.

"Are you the new guest? Our Columbina?"

"I don't know what you're talking about", you speak up with hesitation, eyes glued to the scaly tail that seems eerily genuine. "I think I'll be leaving now."

"Leaving? Didn't the Ringmaster already tell you?" The merman claps his hands, amused. "You're naïve, I like that a lot. Perhaps this time I'll be the one to have you."

He abruptly grabs your wrist, and you jolt at the feeling. His hands are ice-cold and moist.

"Let me have a look at you, won't you? I'll help you hide from the others if you're good and listen to me."

You feel a pair of hands sinking into your shoulders, and you're ripped away from the merman. Harlequin's voice rumbles deeply across the room.

"You're being a fox again, aren't you, Sandrone? Hands off our guest! You don't get to pick yet", he scolds in a low growl. "Ringmaster won't be happy about it."

"Go on then, tell on me! Ringmaster's good boy, eh?" the dark-skinned man smirks mockingly and slams his tail against the glass. "Put a collar on that one, Columbina. See how well he barks", he snarls, then slides back underwater and promptly vanishes.

Harlequin's grip on your shoulders becomes tighter for a brief moment. You can tell he's tense.

"Let's get you out of here. Don't listen to a word he says, Columbina darling. He lies, you see? No one trusts him. You should rely on me."

Pantalone's Tent

You gawk at the impressive height of this tent, head nearly spinning from tilting yourself all the way back. Ah, this must be the trapeze artist. Indeed, one of the two handles is dangling above you, and it occurs to you there's no safety net. A tall, lean man swiftly pounces across, reaching for the trapeze. His movements are slow, yet calculated, and you can't help but wonder if he might actually be flying instead.

Upon closer inspection, it appears he has no arms.

"Madness", you find yourself shouting. "Stop this nonsense!"

He gracefully wraps his legs around the bar, swinging back and forth with a confident smile.

"You doubt me, Pantalone himself?"

With another thrust, he lets himself go, spiraling down against your terrified protests. His heeled shoes clack against the hard tile. Lastly, he stretches out his bandaged stumps, as if signaling his successful landing.

You find yourself bowing to the grand gesture.

"Yes, yes, it's rather impressive, isn't it?" Pierrot follows behind you in his usual dull tone. "Pantalone is our master acrobat."

He lifts his gaze and notices that the man didn't bother waiting for a full introduction; he's already standing before you with a flirty grin.

"...and a charmer, I suppose. What, you're already doing your tricks?"

The sallow clown squeezes himself behind you two protectively.

"Shoo, shoo! Columbina is merely visiting."

He lightly pushes you away, towards the exit. You throw one final glance at the mysterious individual; he waves with his residual limb, and winks.

"You know where to find me, love."

Il Capitano's Tent

You feel a radiant heat coming from this tent. In the middle of the ring stands a grand cage. An animal of sorts? You keep your distance, observing from the benches.

A monstrous giant stumbles within your view with heavy steps. A thick, scaly tail rattles the bars of the cage, swinging itself with the precision of a bullwhip.

"Il Capitano himself!" the Harelquin announces theatrically, bending his arms in the direction of the blue beast. "The strongman, the fire-spitting artist, a most devilish creature captured and chained by our Ringmaster."

"Is this one mine?" the monstrous man pins you down with a predatory gaze.

"Perhaps", Harlequin spits out bitterly. "They decide, not you."

You squirm in your seat, suddenly much smaller under his intense stare. The charismatic guide's smile falters for a brief second, replaced by an envious grimace.

Il Capitano inhales deeply, expanding his torso and contracting his muscles. His fanged mouth then unhinges, releasing a great flame which spreads all the way to you. You're almost tempted to reach towards it, feeling the sting with your very fingers.

"Amazing", you mumble, still mesmerized by the spectacle.

This was no cheap trickery. Capitano is truly a one-of-a-kind artist. No human could replicate such a feat.

The beastly creature holds onto the bars of his cage, shoving his snout outside and grinning. Puffs of smoke escape between his teeth.

"Come down here and I can do even more, little one."

Harlequin gasps and gestures for you to stand up.

"Outrageous! How dare you-!"

He urges you to follow him outside. Enough monstrous sights for now.

"Shall we head towards the other tents, darling?"

Harlequin walks ahead, deep in contemplation. Pierrot scurries after him, whispering the remaining choices. Your shoulders are heavy, and you're quite tired from the eventful night.

You notice a little opening between the lavish curtain folds and decide to sneak away. They needn't know about your departure. You stumble around dark halls, following the cool breeze of the outside, until you're met with the starry sky.

Your path is blocked by two large poles, so you step to the right. Your body freezes in terror when they move with you. Slowly, you raise your head and follow the black shapes, and realize they're legs.

Far, far above ground, towering over the entire circus, you see two glowing eyes.

It's the Ringmaster.

"Bad, bad Columbina", he reproaches.

The voice is off, like an old, broken record reverberating against your eardrums. A cold shiver runs across your spine.

"I'm sorry", you blurt out in fear.

A long, bony hand appears before you, twitching with a loud pop. You wrap your hands around a finger, desperate to not anger this unholy creation.

"Let's take you to your caravan. We're leaving tomorrow."

Oh, God. What have you done?

Now, now, don't fret. There's nothing to be afraid of. Come, put that frown aside. Everyone loves you here. After all, you're their most precious Columbina. What's a Circus without its treasure?

[mandalhoerian]

(4) 🦭 signed, sealed, delivery pending...

Raf doesn't take well to you leaving for university. Shenanigans ensue. Congratulations on giving a literal seal separation anxiety.

genre: fluff, comedy | word count: 7K | read on ao3

< previous | next >

note: i'm sorry this is late but i hope you enjoy that it's a bit longer in the word count! we will be back to the present in the next chapter with THE REVEAL! YAYYYY

It’s your last evening on the island.

Your bags are already packed. Two suitcases, a duffel, and now a fourth carry-on — one Mom insisted on adding last minute. It's half-insulated, stuffed with three Tupperwares of home-cooked rice and frozen stew andthree packs of marinated something-or-other wrapped with ice packs and to be put into the dorm fridge ASAP, jars and jars full of pickled vegetables, frozen dumplings layered in foil, a suspiciously heavy thermos labeled 'for emergencies only,' and god knows how many packs of your favorite snacks. There’s even a loaf of bread wedged on top like an afterthought. It’s less of a bag and more of a portable pantry. She’d kept slipping things into it all morning, muttering about how the dorm won’t have "any real food and you have to cook your own" and you’ll thank her when you’re freezing and tired and want something warm.

The other bags are crammed tight, zippers barely holding, the fabric stiff from years of use. One of the suitcases is missing a wheel. It screeches whenever you drag it across the floor, like it knows this is the last time it’ll scrape across this house.

Your ferry ticket is tucked into your wallet, itinerary triple-checked, outfit for the next morning already laid out on the back of a chair. Tomorrow, you’ll board the ferry not to work it, not to haul crates or wrangle tourists, not with your shirt tucked into old cargo shorts and your name on a patch, but to leave. For good, or for long enough that it might as well be.

University waits on the mainland. City air. Dorms. Cafeteria food. The smell of dry-erase markers and hand sanitizer and too many strangers crammed into a lecture hall. Your name printed on a laminated student ID that looks nothing like you.

Your parents had gotten a bit emotional, naturally. Mom kept touching your face like it might disappear, brushing your hair off your forehead with a smile that twitched at the corners. Dad had retreated to the garage, insisting he needed to reorganize the fishing tackle, though nothing had changed in that cabinet since you were ten. You’d caught him wiping his eyes with an oily rag.

Your friends had made plans for one last group call the night you arrived. Someone had promised to mail you festival candy every year. Someone else swore they'd visit, though you all knew they wouldn’t. Everyone was being kind. Everyone was pretending not to notice the knot in your throat.

Except — you hadn’t seen him.

Not really. Not in days.

You’d caught glimpses of him at a distance, once from the second-story window of your school during lunch, his sleek shape out past the reef where the sea meets the cliffs, another time while biking past the overlook near the old radio tower, just a head bobbing in the shallows.

But not at the cove. Not where you always found him.

Not since the day you skidded onto the sand beside him and babbled about your university housing being confirmed, about the dorm you'd picked and how it had real hardwood floors and a communal kitchen. You’d talked too much, too fast, nervous energy bleeding into every word, and he just sat there. Still, as if his body had forgotten movement. His eyes had gone wide, not cartoonish or expressive, just strange. The way some animals look when lightning cracks the sky — more instinct than comprehension.

He’d made a faint sound, something between a chirp and a cough, and then rolled away to show you his back with this stiff, resigned shuffle. Like air leaving a balloon.

You hadn’t thought much of it at first. You thought maybe he was bored. Maybe full. Maybe the tide was too low and he didn’t want to move again.

He had just stared out at the horizon.

And then hadn’t shown up the next day.

Or the one after that.

You’d started going by the cove each evening just in case, each time finding nothing but waves and rockweed and the ghost of where he used to be.

So now, with your heart thick and your sandals in hand, you leave the house to seek him out for one last time. The sky has gone soft and lilac with the last light of day, bruising gently at the edges like an old plum. The wind brushes against your cheek like breath, carrying the distant scent of salt and something faintly metallic, seaweed sun-warmed and half dried. The sand is still warm under your feet, tender from the afternoon sun, and each step feels both too slow and too fast.

Your dress is plain this time, something old, soft and familiar, already wrinkled, smelling faintly of lavender detergent and ferry salt. There's a safety pin holding the hem where you never got around to mending it properly. The pattern’s nothing special, just a scatter of flame lilies across soft white cotton, but Raf’s always been weirdly drawn to it. You’d caught him staring at it more than once, eyes fixed not on you, but the bright, strange flowers trailing down the side of the skirt. Maybe it was the shape, the color, the unfamiliar way it moved in the wind like flickering candle fires. You’d decided, in a half-laughing sort of way, that it made sense. He was a seal. He’d probably never seen a flower before.

And it's a cheap way of trying to hold his attention now. 

You wind your way around the tidepools, stepping over seaweed-slick rocks, squinting into the breeze as gulls wheel overhead, screeching their approval of the approaching twilight. The cove is quiet. The way it always is this time of day — tide low, sky deepening, water turning to silver glass, like someone poured a breathless hush over the entire shoreline.

And here he is, completing the painting.

Raf.

He’s lying at the edge of the rocks, lumped in a pile of his own sulk, flippers tucked close and head turned toward the horizon where the sun is beginning to dip. He looks like a statue someone forgot to carve the face onto—still, slow-breathing, stubbornly present.

You stop a few feet away and raise your brows. "Hi, hi, hi, my cutie pie," you call, in the same rhythm you've always used—the sing-song greeting that once had him springing upright, barking like he'd been summoned by royalty.

He doesn’t move.

Doesn’t even look startled. Like he knew you’d come. Like he’s been lying there for hours, maybe all day, waiting for you and doing a terrible job pretending he hasn’t.

"Raaaaf," you whine. "Don’t do this."

You inch closer, navigating the rocks with practiced hopping, one foot bracing while the other leaps forward, the soles of your feet stinging from the uneven stone. He shifts slightly as you approach, but only enough to angle away from you, offering you nothing but the slope of his back and the faint twitch of one earless head.

You sigh, easing yourself down beside him, careful to keep a respectful distance. You wrap your arms around your knees and let the silence stretch, like a long breath held between waves.

"Seriously? You’re gonna be like this?" you mutter. "I’m not dying, you know. I’ll be back."

He flicks his tail once, like punctuation. Noncommittal. Moody.

"You know," you go on, voice softening, "most seals would’ve at least looked sad. Maybe whimpered a little. Instead, I get full passive aggression. Complete stonewall."

Still nothing.

You rest your chin on your knees. The wind plays with your hair, threading it across your face. It smells like dried kelp and brine, and the faint sweetness of crushed beach plum.

He’s still watching the horizon. Pretending you’re not there.

You remember not being able to sit still on the beach without Raf nosing at your backpack, tugging it half into the water just to get your attention. Once, he dragged your towel three meters down the shore while you were diving, then looked genuinely offended when you got angry.

He brought gifts, too — bits of sea glass, shells worn smooth, a shiny bottle cap once that you’d still kept in your drawer. Once, he rolled up with a perfectly intact Gucci sandal that definitely wasn’t yours and dropped it in your lap like an offering. Always a treasure. Always for you. You always joked that he had a hoarding problem, but deep down you wondered if he just liked seeing you surprised.

You also dove together. Or rather, you dove while he spiraled around you like a corkscrewed comet, all fins and glee, sometimes vanishing below you only to burst up like a shadow chasing light. He liked playing chicken with your bubbles, popping up right in front of your goggles with a bark that echoed through your mask and made you choke from laughing.

But lately, none of that.

"You’re the only one I didn’t get to say goodbye to," you murmur. "And I thought — well. I don’t know. I thought you might at least come see me off."

He doesn’t respond. But his curled whiskers twitch. Barely. Maybe it's just the wind. Maybe not.

You don’t blame him. Animals know. Cats sit in suitcases. Dogs vanish when the leash comes out. You just didn’t think a seal could tell. But then again, Raf was never just a seal.

"I’ll be back during holidays," you promise. "And I’ll bring snacks. The good kind. They have so much variety in the mainland. None of the soggy fish fries. I’ll get those crunchy things you liked. You remember those?"

He lets out a soft, resigned noise. Less a huff, more a breath held too long. For all the ignoring and sulking, the usual dramatics of his is missing, and it’s making your heart clench.

You smile, a little. "Okay, okay. I’ll try harder. You’re so high maintenance."

Still, he doesn’t come closer. Doesn’t nudge your hand or toss something shiny at you. He just lies there, quiet and distant and solid as stone.

You stay until the sun slips behind the sea, until the sky turns to bruised blue and the stars begin to appear. One by one, the cove starts to change, growing cool and strange under moonlight. Your legs ache. Your eyes sting. You’ve said goodbye in your head a dozen times now, but it still hasn’t landed.

Eventually, you rise. Sand clings to your toes. Your dress rustles in the wind.

But you pause before you go. Just once. Just long enough to glance back.

He’s watching you.

You smile, small and wobbly. "I'm going to miss you the most, you know."

The morning of your departure is mostly quiet. The island is smaller than it has ever felt before. Or maybe you’ve just grown too big for it.

Mom wakes you with gentle hands and a bowl of warm congee, topped with a perfectly jammy egg, and as you’re washing up, the sight of your bags lined up neatly by the door of your family home feels unreal, like it belongs to someone else’s life. The ferry you’ve spent your whole life working on will be taking you away this time, but not just across the water to another island. This time, it’s the mainland. This time, you won’t be coming back in a few hours.

Dad loads the last of your stuff into the trunk as you’re having breakfast while muttering about ferry times like it's not him who gets the final say about them. You’re wearing the outfit you picked three days ago: practical, still slightly wrinkled, but something that makes you look like someone who has a plan.

Your dress from yesterday hangs near the door, flame lilies fluttering in the breeze each time someone opens it.

There are only a few things left to pack into your backpack, your charger, your toothbrush. Mom tucks a flat envelope into your duffel when she thinks you’re not looking. You let her.

“Are you sure you have everything?” she asks, and you know she’s not really talking about the bags.

“Yeah,” you say, shifting the strap of your carry-on over your shoulder. “I triple-checked.”

There’s a silence that settles between the three of you — not uncomfortable, just heavy with the weight of change.

Dad clears his throat. “You know, if you need anything—”

“I know.” You smile, trying to keep things light. “You’ll have me on the next ferry back before I even finish a sentence.”

Mom huffs a soft laugh, shaking her head. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

The joke lands, but the truth sits beneath it. Leaving feels impossible even as you stand at the threshold of it.

The ride to the dock is short, too short, the windows slightly fogged from the still-chilly morning. The conversation in the car starts with Mom nagging before the seatbelt even clicks. "You triple-checked your toothbrush? You always forget your toothbrush. And your charger—the thing with the thing—the long plug one? And a rain jacket. You didn’t pack a rain jacket, did you?"

You're already dissociating. She takes that as permission to continue.

"And don’t wait too long to buy your textbooks, because the good copies go fast. And when you run out of what we packed, don’t just live on instant noodles. You need real food. You need greens. Do you even know where to buy produce? Ask someone. And don’t sleep with your hair wet. You’ll get headaches. You will."

Dad doesn’t say a word. He drives like he’s praying for tunnels.

"And don’t put your laptop on your bed," she adds. "It overheats. You do that. You do that all the time."

You sigh. "I’ll be fine."

"You won’t be fine if you fry your hard drive again. I don’t want a crying phone call from the mainland at two a.m., asking if we backed up your files. We didn’t. Don’t do that to me again."

You nod. Because if you speak again, you’ll laugh or cry or scream, and none of those are safe. You nod, promise, nod again.

Everything’s been arranged: they’ll drop you on the mainland and spend the day in town, just to stretch the goodbye a little longer. Mom has already named three restaurants she wants to try. Dad has said “we’ll see” to all of them.

The dock is alive with movement — vendors dragging ice chests into place, deckhands coiling ropes, early commuters standing in quiet lines. The ferry waits at the end, squat and familiar, ropes taut and mist clinging to its sides. Somebody’s playing music through a phone speaker too loud, and it echoes between the beams of the terminal.

You stand with your parents near the loading ramp. Dad double-checks your ID for the fourth time. Mom tugs your sleeve down over your wrist, then back up again. She smooths the back of your collar like it’s a goodbye ritual—like maybe if the fold is just right, you’ll be protected from everything.

Then—

“Wait,” Mom says, sharp and alert. “Where’s the red suitcase?”

You blink. Scan the stack beside you. Duffel. Suitcase. Food carry-on.

Three.

There were supposed to be four.

“The red one,” she says again, louder now. “The one with your bedding. The toiletries. The extension cord! And your skin care—do you know how expensive that serum is?”

You turn slowly.

And then you see it.

Out in the harbor. A bright, bobbing flash of red. Moving steadily away from the dock.

Being dragged.

By something large, round, and unmistakably gray.

“RAAAAFFF!”

There’s a pause on the dock, like the hush that comes over a herd upon a loud noise. Then someone nearby laughs like it’s a sitcom.

He’s paddling like he has all the time in the world, flippers slicing through the water with purpose. The red suitcase is clamped in his jaws, handle caught like a leash.

“Oh my god,” Mom gasps, slapping Dad’s arm. “He’s stealing the luggage! He’s actually — he’s taking it!”

“Relax,” Dad says, shielding his eyes with one hand. “It’s fine. They’re waterproof.”

“Not animal-proof!” she hisses. “What if he unzips it with his teeth? What if the sunscreen pops open? It’ll be like an oil spill in there!”

You stagger forward. “Raf! What the hell! Get back here!”

The dock crowd thickens — fishermen with crates half-unloaded, tourists with raised cameras. Two kids shriek with laughter. A woman in a floral bucket hat whispers, "Is that trained? Like one of those therapy dolphins?"

Your entire head is on fire.

“Raf!” you shout again.

He swims like a parade float, silent and committed, red suitcase bobbing behind him like an accusatory balloon.

“I swear to god, Raf, this is not a bit! This is NOT CUTE!”

He pauses. Just long enough to make eye contact.

Then gives the suitcase a little tug and keeps going.

“Do something!” Mom cries, pacing in tight frantic circles.

“I am,” you snap, yanking off your shoes.

“WHAT? No, you’re not—don’t get in the—!”

Too late. You’ve dropped your backpack along with your jacket and mentally said goodbye to your cute outfit, and are halfway down the dock ladder.

The water bites immediately. Icy and dense, winding its way into your clothes with zero mercy. You grunt, teeth clacking. "Raf," you sputter, dog-paddling furiously, "if you don’t drop that suitcase right now, I will bite you back."

Your arms ache. Your dress — your going-away outfit chosen specifically to make an impression on your dorm mates — is plastered to your skin, heavy as a sack. You slip once, crash forward, get a mouthful of salt and indignity.

“Come here, you kleptomaniac!”

His fin splashes. Not too far away, but not within grabbing distance either. He makes it look effortless — long body cutting through the waters without a hitch, flippers paddling leisurely, his precious stolen luggage swinging to and fro in tow like the tail end of a comet.

He barks at you once, quick and clear above the slap of waves. Taunting you, almost. Calling you back. Come catch me. If you think you can.

"Yooooouuuu," you growl, dragging your freezing, seawater-logged self forward, arms stiff and dress dragging like annoyingly behind you. "You absolute menace. After days of ghosting me like a moody little shit, this is your grand finale? This? This is what you pull the morning I’m leaving?"

It happens quickly — the cold has slowed your reaction times and made you clumsy. An uneven wave buffets you from below and sends you lurching sideways. There's a confused second before your head sinks under the surface and icy black closes around you. You kick automatically, heart pounding, lungs burning with sudden terror. But it's only seconds before you bob up again, gasping and spitting out seawater.

And he’s right there.

Raf floats beside you, nose hovering near your shoulder, eyes wide and black as obsidian. His nose nudges at you, first one side, then the other, gentle, inquisitive pushes against your shoulders like he's testing the give of you. It should be funny, a seal checking in on you like this. 

You blink at him, dazed. His expression — if a seal can even have one — is alarmingly innocent. No trace of mischief. Just concern. That wide-eyed, alien kind of worry that somehow reads so clearly across a face that isn't built to show it.

A laugh escapes you, helpless and watery. It’s all too much: the cold, the shouting, the absurdity of nearly drowning because your emotionally unwell sea-friend decided to hijack your journey.

From the dock, someone’s yelling your name. You can hear Mom now, shrill with worry. The sound of boots clattering. The unmistakable click of a camera shutter.

"Aw!" someone coos. "He’s helping her swim!"

"Silly boy," you chide fondly, reaching out carefully with one stiff hand. "Trying to play savior after kidnapping my belongings."

But Raf remains where he is, letting your fingers brush briefly across the top of his slick head, his whiskers tickling at your inner forearm in soft bristles. The intent he has in looking at your face with those deep, unfathomable twin dark mirrors that reflect your own image back to you tells you he means something by it. Something significant. He whines quietly in the back of his throat, low and rasping. You hear something in him in that moment, something mournful. The sound seems to travel directly through water to nest itself inside your ribs.

"I'm very angry at you," you murmur, patting him gently one final time on the nose before pulling away. "Give it back."

He noses at your shoulder. As if asking for another stroke. As if he hasn’t done anything wrong. As if this is just another normal day in paradise and there isn't chaos unfolding overhead, nor witnesses observing the weirdest act of petty theft ever witnessed in these parts.

You wrestle the handle free from his surprisingly tight grasp and glare at him reproachfully, pushing the suitcase back towards shore like a surfer sending her board off on its own mission. You hear cheers from the direction of the ferry. More than likely, they assume you got whatever had attracted the seal's interest away safely and are celebrating accordingly. But Raf's cries behind you sound plaintive rather than victorious at having succesfully delayed your departure, almost apologetic. You ignore them stubbornly, instead focusing on getting yourself and the suitcase back ashore in one piece.

He's the better swimmer of course, so it doesn't take long for him to catch up with ease. His giant bulk bumps you repeatedly in the side like he's trying to help keep your head above water in case the weight of the luggage drags you down. He makes an obvious attempt at stealing it from you mid-stroke every so often, but he seems more interested in keeping you company rather than any real attempt at further sabotage, content enough to simply be nearby rather than running off again with his ill-gotten prize.

You reach the dock ladder exhausted and out of breath, Dad lifting you up bodily by your armpits onto the dock as though you weigh nothing while Raf circles below in clear agitation at not being allowed up onto dry land himself. Mom's clearly been fretting this whole time judging from her frazzled appearance when you finally make it to the surface again, wrapping a thick blanket around your shoulders with the urgency of someone trying to contain a small explosion and clucking over you like an anxious hen as Dad attempts to lure the wayward suitcase closer in order to fish it back in.

“You spoiled him,” she snaps, pointing an accusatory finger at the gray head still bobbing below. “He thinks he’s family. This is what happens when you let wild animals eat from your hands and sleep next to you. I told you this would happen. I told you.”

You know she's upset and concerned, but still it irks you to have someone else talk about Raf that way. Even if the trouble's been caused due to his bad temperament for the day. "I know he's not a pet," you snap. "He's just playing, Mom."

Dad looks up from his attempts at retrieval. "Have you noticed him becoming aggressive recently?"

You shake your head immediately, remembering the tenderness of Raf's worried attentions moments prior when you both had been alone together. The same worries which Mom is currently expressing aloud. "Not at all, no, and even if he were, we'd know because we've seen the signs long before it became a problem, Dad. Don't treat him like he's sick or rabid. That's just cruel. He's doing great."

Dad lifts both hands in defeat, giving up on making any sense of the situation.

"C'mon, let's get you changed," Mom decides finally, guiding you away towards the family ferry with one of your carry-ons trailing behind her.

You twist around to look for Raf — who hasn't seemed to realize yet that the two of you have abandoned their efforts — only to feel your chest clench painfully when you find him gone completely from sight, as though he never existed in the first place.

It begins the moment the dock recedes, the ropes unwinding from their cleats like threads unraveling from the hem of a shirt you can’t stop wearing, even when it no longer fits. The ferry groans forward. Beneath the swell and churn of propellers, your mother is still murmuring into the lid of her thermos, rehearsing the list of things she’s convinced you’ll forget the moment you step foot into the dorms, though she’s already said it twice, maybe three times.

You don’t register the splash. Not over the drone of the engine, the high, desolate cries of gulls circling overhead like winged punctuation marks. But others do. There’s a shift in the air — an intake, a thrum, a ripple of attention moving across the deck.

“Is that the same seal?” someone says, the words caught halfway between delight and disbelief.

You know before you turn.

There’s a charge in your chest, a tightening beneath your ribs, the inexplicable weight of knowing you’re being seen.

Raf.

Not basking on the rocks. Not lurking near the moorings. He’s in the open now, out in the deep, and he’s keeping pace.

A streak of mottled gray slicing through the wake. Each curve of his body surfaces, glistens, then vanishes again. Unerring. Tireless. As if the ocean were built to part for him.

It’s not a game. It’s not curiosity. He’s following.

“Like a dolphin,” someone breathes.

You fold your hands into your coat pockets as if you could anchor yourself there, contain the vertigo rising in your chest. He’s never followed the ferry, never even crossed the cove’s border over to the populated areas. He was fine in the open sea. He liked the quiet vastness of it, the way the water stretched wide and unpeopled. What rattled him was the presence of others. People. Crowds. The tight concentration of noise and motion. Places where voices bounced off concrete and metal, where strangers reached and pointed and lingered too long with their eyes. He'd always skirted the edges of such spaces, drawn but wary, inching closer only to vanish when attention turned sharp.

He'd avoid the fishing boats, the ports, the children with their bright towels and sticky hands. You’d seen it — how the jerk in his posture came quick and absolute, how he slipped into the water like a breath held underwater the moment someone raised a voice. His world had rules, unspoken but absolute: stay hidden, stay safe, stay away.

And now — he is here. In the thick of it. Among the diesel-smudged air and the spectacle of faces. Moving with intention, not accident.

The meaning of that hits you hard, sharp beneath the ribs.

This isn’t a lapse. It’s a decision.

And now, here he is. Out where it’s loud, unpredictable and unkind.

The significance lands with a weight that makes your knees ache. This isn’t just a fluke. It’s not momentary courage or curiosity. It’s will. It’s devotion dressed in salt.

You’d never thought him capable of that kind of leap, of forsaking instinct for longing.

And maybe that’s what stings most. That he would go where even people haven’t. That he would follow when others chose not to. That he would brave something that once made his whole body flinch.

For you.

The ferry’s path threads the archipelago, a slow, ceremonial glide from island to island, each stop familiar and hollow. Wind-worn docks. Sun-cooked ropes. The same children pulling at their parents’ sleeves, the same vendors stacking crates of sugar fruit and bread. But everything feels warped now, longer, thinner, stretched too tight.

At the first island, you almost allow yourself relief when he doesn’t appear right away. But as the horn sounds and the ferry pushes off again, he surfaces in the wake.

At the second, he’s waiting. Still. Still as stone, except for the water whispering over his back.

By the third, a crowd has gathered. Children at the rails. Teens with phones out. Someone throws a cracker. Raf doesn’t so much as twitch. His eyes don’t leave you.

You sit pressed against the window, arms crossed so tightly across your stomach it aches. And still your gaze drifts, pulled to the edge again and again.

By the fourth island, you feel it in your shoulders — the pressure, the strain. Every dock feels harder to leave.

By the fifth, you’re standing, wind tangling your hair, your eyes burning.

By the sixth—

Your hands are clenched on the railing. Your eyes overflow without warning. There’s no noise to it. Just a slow descent of tears, tracking over your cheeks, falling onto the scarf your mother insisted you bring.

Most animals understand human patterns to an extent, even intelligent mammals like dolphins have been studied for their social intellec t, but seals operate on different cognitive mechanisms altogether compared to the more popularly researched sea animals, and whether Raf could comprehend anything beyond being a nuisance at best for most folk still remained unclear.

But. He’s still there.

He shouldn’t be.

But he is. A small, relentless shape. Never flagging.

And something about that undoes you.

What kind of creature follows you this far? Not for food. Not for spectacle. Just because it cannot fathom not following.

Not even people do that. Not even the ones who promised to.

There is something about his persistence, mute, unwavering, ferocious in its simplicity, that hollows out your chest. It’s devotion in its rawest form. Without language. Without demand. And it devastates you.

He follows without knowing where you’re going. That’s what shatters you. That he has no map, no endpoint, no idea of how far or how long, or what he'll be encountering. 

He doesn’t follow the route. He follows you. And even that is too simple.

He follows the grief of your absence before it’s fully formed. He follows the outline of goodbye.

And it undoes you. That kind of devotion. That kind of belief.

You press your knuckles to your eyes, heat blooming beneath your lids, something bitter and unwelcome tightening behind your sternum. The shame swells in the silence, low and heavy and undeniable. You were unkind. Too sharp. You treated him like he was something ordinary like a kid throwing a tantrum.

He's following, of course he is. Because you're all he knows. Because you taught him connection, safety, love, companionship unique to humanity. He thought you to be permanent. Stable. And trusted that no matter what happened to you, even if something took you away from him temporarily, you would return. That's how it had always been like for three years now. And instead of saying your goodbyes properly, like friends would, like friends ought to, like he deserves, you had cut things short by storming off.

He was a fucking seal for god's sake, you wouldn't be able to text him later or call to apologize, or invite him around yours once you've settled down properly at school. What does he know about distance and change, time passing, plans changing, responsibilities?

What does he know about leaving, period?

The mainland bleeds into view like a wound stitched from concrete and steel. 

Steel-gray docks yawning out across the harbor, cranes like rusting skeletons, the skyline stacked with buildings and noise. The water darkens here, churned by hulls too large and too many, and everything smells like salt drowned in engine grease.

People swarm the terminal, dockhands shouting over backup alarms, tourists fumbling with overstuffed bags, someone loudly asking where the restrooms are in a dialect not meant for shouting.

You feel it before you see it, the grit in the air, the way the water thickens under the ferry’s weight, the scent shifting from brine and seaweed to engine oil and burnt plastic. The sky flattens. The noise rises. It’s too bright here, too many sharp edges. The city swells toward you with its teeth showing.

A break in the noise.

A wave of sound fractures across the dock, screams, laughter, confusion honed to a blade’s edge.

He breaches the harbor like a rupture. Like something breaking the surface that was never meant to be seen.

Back home in the archipelago, it would’ve been met with little more than a glance. A hum of acknowledgment. Maybe a laugh, if he bumped into someone’s net or made a mess of a drying line. Seals weren’t miracles, they were a fact of the shoreline. They barked at low tide, hauled out on back porches like they owned them, draped themselves across sun-warmed stones under strict observation and firm protection. The archipelago didn’t just live alongside them, it carved space for them. Regulations kept their beaches clear, nets modified, engines slowed. Raf wouldn’t have been strange there. Just another wet face in the crowd. Maybe even invisible.

But not here.

But here—

Here he is spectacle. Alien. Out of place and unallowed.

Their fascination curdles fast. Not wonder, not even confusion, but that wide-eyed, teeth-baring kind of hunger. The city doesn’t know how to love a wild thing unless it can be packaged. Catalogued. Consumed. And Raf, still panting and soaked, has become a glitch in the script they thought they were following.

Raf, soaked and singular, rising from the water as if the sea itself is offering him up is a slick blur of grey and glinting salt. He’s already on the ramp. Not floundering — no. He throws his body forward with that stubborn, undignified determination only he can wear like majesty.

Phones raise like weapons. Fingers twitch with the instinct to reach. No one touches him, but it’s not restraint. It’s restraint like a child watching flame, longing to burn their fingers just to see if it will scar.

He knows. You can see it in the set of his shoulders, the too-wide stance of his flippers, the way he never once turns his back. He’s pressed taut with it, the knowledge of being watched by a crowd that doesn’t believe he should exist in their space.

He’s never looked more out of place.

Never smaller.

His flippers slap against the aluminum. He grunts. He screams. He galumphs. There aren't any docks here, no rocks for him to perch on, none of the old familiar salty scent of ocean he's so accustomed to. There are strangers. Scents and sounds that frighten him. There is nowhere else to go but onward.

People scatter in the ferry. A cup of coffee drops. A camera flashes. Somewhere, a child claps.

He disappears for a moment, past the threshold, into the ferry’s belly.

By the time you reach him, he’s tucked himself into the far corner of the lower deck, pressed against the vending machine like it’s the last safe place on earth, chest still heaving, whiskers trembling, his flippers flush to his sides like some strange version of a hug. He doesn't respond immediately despite seeing you, seeming more stunned than anything else as if trying to make sense of this new environment.

"Raf, holy shit, I am so sorry." The words spill out all at once, almost clumsy in your hurry to get them out. The floor hums under your knees as you sink to them, the metal cold through your jeans. "Look at you, oh god, I'm so sorry I left you behind—"

Your name hangs between you, threaded through with things unsaid, the gravity of a thousand shared days suddenly coiled too tight.

When he moves, it feels like something unsticking — a bone sliding back in place, a bruise blossoming, a slow surrendering of distance. It shudders up his entire body, a tremble that works its way from toes to fins until his tail slaps the ground once, hard, a final, reluctant release of control.

And then he’s on you, squirming close and eager. Lumbering with relief and excitement, almost knocking you flat as he nuzzles and paws at your shoulder insistently with those giant paddles, still somewhat damp, shaking so hard his whiskers quiver. He huffs softly against you as if still having trouble believing you're truly here now after following the ferry all the way from home.

"Oh, my cutie pie, yes hi hello," you mutter quickly, attempting pet him while simultaneously keeping both your bodies from toppling over backwards. "I'm right here. No need to panic anymore."

After several minutes of vigorous cuddling, Raf finally settles a little when you continue scratching soothingly down his side, leaning into it like he's finally allowing himself to believe you're really in front of him now.

You sigh quietly through your nose, carding gentle fingers through his furry head as his rumbling squeaks resumes again within his chest.

"Yes, you were so brave. I promise you we won't do this ever again. You're amazing for making it this far and sticking with me the whole way. Good boy."

He flops against you bonelessly as if finally feeling safe enough to let his guard down now that you're both aboard together and seemingly alone for now. With no witnesses around to react negatively or try touching him without your approval first, he relaxes more and lets his eyelids droop, his snoring soft and pleasant.

"God, you're silly. Look at this... you think I've forgotten about you stealing my stuff? Oh no, honey, not today."

Raf sighs gustily, nudging your cheek with his nose in halfhearted protest.

You stare fondly down at him and consider what the hell you're supposed to do now. He can't remain here like he would be able to back home -- his home. Wildlife restoration would undoubtedly send someone to relocate him immediately if they got wind of it, and there's also the risk of getting cornered by animal control services who would come and take him away for fear he might bite or attack people if provoked. Not to mention the dangers of either being hunted or caught in a fishing net while being too tired to swim to freedom... The thought of either happening fills you with dread.

No, Raf can't stay here, this place isn't made for him.

It's good that he's currently in the ferry. Dad can take him back on board, since he'll have to turn around anyway to go home; surely, the crew won't mind another passenger along with them back across the channel.

"I'm sorry I made you push yourself," you say, even though it's just you and him and an empty, humming hallway. "And I'm sorry for not telling you goodbye properly. That wasn't fair of me. I was just so. So..." You shake your head, throat pinching dangerously. "I don't know why it didn't occur to me that leaving wouldn't be something like just going next door and I could come out and spend time with you when I wasn't so angry anymore. How could I think I'd see you everyday still?"

He offers only silence, save for the faint whistling in and out of his nostrils. His warmth steadies you, despite everything. Like standing knee-deep in an ocean that hasn’t decided yet which way to shift.

"This has to be animal abuse, right," you blurt, scrubbing roughly at your face.

He chuffs at you impatiently, bumping your elbow with his nose. When you look down, you catch the flash of one black eye gleaming in the low light of the ferry's hallways while the other is buried in the shadow of your coat. If he understands or not, you can never quite tell. But the look he gives you is oddly patient — tender, almost, the same gentleness that draws seabirds to follow ships, the instinctual tug of home and kin.

His chest puffs like he's inhaling a great lungful of something, then sags again, sputtering. It's impossible to tell whether he means to answer or just exhale noisily to distract you, but it does draw your attention nonetheless.

“Yeah, okay, thank you, heard loud and clear,” you continue, falling silent for a while. “You gotta leave though, Raf, you can’t stay here.”

He wiggles as if refusing, and you double down. “You can’t. You saw outside, people don't—it's not like home, there are more people living on this city than on the rest of the archipelago combined. And most of them haven’t seen animals like you doing what you did today before, and certainly not so closely... If word gets out, people might try to capture you, take photos of you, stuff you away inside a glass case... And it's gonna happen no matter where you go here because they don't have any wildlife landmarks like we have at home. At least there you're in open space. Here, if anyone catches you, you'd be taken away from me one way or the other."

He goes very still. Still like water before a wave breaks. There is a hush to him. A quality to his attention you recognize now — focus, not fear. Attentiveness, not alarm.

He's so smart. Impossibly perceptive and sharp. Clever as he comes. An animal with the intelligence of a human child twice their age. He looks up at you now as if trying to convey that he understands perfectly what you mean with the threat of danger inseparable from your explanation, and isn’t pleased by this.

"That’s why you have to be a good boy and let Mom and Dad drop you off back home, okay? You just need to stay where you are and let the ferry carry you away, okay? You'll be safe and sound. And I—"

Raf lets out an agitated squeal and begins pawing frantically at you, startling you badly as his flippers smack repeatedly at your sides. He scrabbles onto your lap with his awkward gait until you give him your hands and then, using them as a grip, squeezes your forearms urgently. There are sounds you don’t understand but recognize — indignant clicks, low croaks, mournful huffs. They thrum through his body as if through a flute. The noises vibrate somewhere between anger and distress, each one higher than the last.

“I’m not leaving you forever,” you breathe. Your voice is torn silk. “I’m not.”

He digs his claws harder into your forearms like an admonishing kitten, making insistent warbling calls back at you. He's upset, afraid; his vocalizations grow frantic, almost desperate, seeking reassurance.

"You can trust me on this one," you say, petting him gently, soothingly. "I'll come back. Promise. Okay?"

He whines pitifully against you, sounding unconvinced by the notion.

"For breaks and holidays, yeah, plus visits too. Just because I won't be around as much doesn't mean I've disappeared completely or abandoned you. I'll just be a little farther away for awhile and there will be more time between the trips to see each other."

And when Raf merely grumbles louder rather than showing any sign of having understood, you pull him closer into you, tucking his head under your chin protectively and hold him tight for as long as you dare, ignoring the ache beginning to blossom in your knees from squatting here on the cold floor, letting your pulse slow and fall in time with his own steady breathing. You run your hand down his smooth pelt one final time, savoring the sensation and imprinting it deep within your memory.

"I love you, you know that right?" You mumble into his silky fur, knowing he likely couldn't actually understand or process what that particular phrase meant aside from recognizing it as something he's heard countless times before and which calms you significantly every time it passes your lips, yet perhaps he does, or maybe there's the barest hint of comprehension from whatever he takes away from the emotional subtext rather than the literal meaning of your words. "I won't go ahead and forget you that easily. Never could."

In response, Raf shifts just enough so he can meet your stare, eyes like glossy ink drops blinking up at you slowly. Then he licks your cheek very firmly in an approximation of affection, prompting you to wipe your saliva stained skin with your sleeve.

[sunrizef1]

Lost in Japan

Pairing: Oscar Piastri x Reader

Warnings: None, cursing

Authors Note: I was almost done with a max fic and this song overtook my mind until I finished this. Also trust, I will be using bear as a nickname for Oscar in every fic from now on.

Summary: Lost in Japan by Shawn Mendes

Word Count: 5.1k (this was supposed to be short)

Oscar was bored. Lando was off celebrating a successful weekend somewhere out in the city of Shanghai while Oscar was sat alone in his hotel room waiting for the flight McLaren has organized to get him back to England. He hadn’t won. He hadn’t even gotten a podium. So there wasn’t much for him to be exactly thrilled about. So instead, he was just scrolling through his phone, checking various social media apps before he finally landed on Instagram.

He clicked on the first Instagram story at the top of his page, which happened to be Lando’s. He ignored the pictures of him celebrating at some party, tapping through the various shots of him getting more and more inebriated. He was with Max and Charles at the party so Oscar wasn’t too concerned. He clicks through a few more people stories before landing on a specific one that makes him slow down.

Oscar stares at his phone screen, eyes glazing over your Instagram story. He’s clicking through passively, pausing as he gets to one of you at dinner the night before. He lets it play out but quickly clicks back when he notices the Tokyo, Japan tag that you’ve placed near the top of the screen.

As Oscar stares at the picture, trying to take in every detail, he’s struck by an idea. He clicks out of the app, opens up his messages and navigates to your contact, already standing up from his hotel room bed to grab his already packed suitcase.

It didn’t look like he’d be using that plane ticket back to England after all. He clicks the call button under your name, holding the phone between his shoulder and his cheek as he grabs his things, exiting the room after he slides his backpack on.

The phone rings for a bit too long, making Oscar slightly worried that you wouldn’t pick up but it does eventually connect and Oscar is met with the sound of your voice filtering through the phone speaker. The door shuts with a soft click behind the Aussie as he steps into the hallway.

“Hello, Oscar,” you hum through the phone. Oscar can practically hear the smirk on your lips even through the low quality iPhone speaker.

Oscar huffs a laugh at your tone, dragging his suitcase behind him as he walks down the hall, “Hi, y/n.”

"What can I do for you?” you ask and Oscar can hear shuffling from your end of the call. As the words leave your lips, he reaches the elevator, tapping the button on the wall to call it to his floor.

“Do you have plans tonight?” Oscar reaches the point quickly, trapping the phone back between his shoulder and ear as the elevator opens and he steps in, tapping the lobby button.

You pause for a second, proccessing the question and contemplating your answer, “Besides falling asleep in a few hours? Nope.”

Oscar hums, pulling the phone into his hands and typing impatiently into google as you speak. He finds the soonest, and nicest, flight to Japan he could, purchasing the ticket without a second thought.

“Why?”

Oscar freezes for a moment, looking up from the ticket he'd just bought to narrow his eyes at the elevator door, “I saw you're in Japan-”

“Oh, so you're stalking me now?” Oscar rolls his eyes as you laugh through your question, painting the image of your grinning face in the Aussies mind.

“Shut up, no, anyway-,” Oscar sighs, dragging his suitcase out of the elevator as it reaches the lobby, “Im in Shanghai, I thought I'd fly over to see you.”

Your silence on the other end of the line is deafening. Oscar even checks to make sure the call is still connected due to how quiet you were. Taking your lack of response as a bad sign, Oscar starts to ramble, hoping to do a bit of damage control, “Just because I'm only a couple hundred miles away and the race is over and I'm bored. Its just been so long since we were so close, especially during the season and I miss y-”

“When does your flight leave?”

Oscar, who’d frozen on the sidewalk outside the hotel, unfreezes to gesture for a taxi. It was only a five-minute drive to the airport from the place Mclaren had been staying so he hoped this wouldn't take too long. He mutes for a moment to tell the driver to take him to the airport. The driver nods, pulling away from the curb.

“Uhhhh-” Oscar navigates through his phone to check his flight details as he sits back in his seat, “Half an hour?”

“Ooh, you better hurry then,” You hum, a playful tone laced through your words, “Dont want to miss it.”

Oscar laughs happily, just glad to hear you joking along. He does find some reality in your words though, doing the math to see if he even had enough time to make his flight. He was honestly running on hopes and prayers at this point.

“What made you suddenly so inclined to fly to Japan on a random Sunday?” Your voice pulls Oscar out of his thoughts and he pauses, smiling abashedly as the answer comes to his head.

“Just can't get you off my mind.”

Oscar can’t see you. But if he could, he'd see a warm smile carved onto your face due to the warmth his statement had caused.

“I don't know Osc, I'm actually pretty tired. Might just head to bed,” Oscar rolls his eyes as you try and stifle your giggle.

“Do I need to convince you to stay awake, then?”

You huff a laugh, humming in affirmation, “I’d love to hear it.”

“Well,” Oscar starts, racking his mind for some suggestions of what to say to get you to agree to this, “You don't miss me?”

“I never said that,” You reply quickly. Oscar raises an eyebrow, head falling back against the seat as he trys not to groan.

“So you do miss me?”

You hum quietly, the sound almost too low for Oscar to hear it through the phone, “Maybe a little bit.”

The Aussie chuckles, “I thought so.”

“Can you blame me? It's been a while. I miss my favourite koala bear,” Oscar gets the sense that the words were meant to come out teasing but he can't help but notice how genuine they sound. He laughs nonetheless.

He's about to respond when the cab comes to a sudden stop and he looks out the window to see the airport in front of him.

“Shit, I'm here.”

Oscar swings his backpack onto his shoulders, rifling through a pocket to find enough cash to hand to the driver, not really considering an exact amount and, instead, just asking the driver if that was enough. When the driver tries to hand change back, Oscar leans away, grasping the door handle to swing the door open to get out. He grabs his suitcase as well, leaning down to shout back into the car.

“Keep the change, thanks mate!” Oscar shuts the door, dragging his suitcase behind him as the cab drives away.

“Such a gentleman, I take it you're at the airport now?” you tease him, a genuine questioning tilt laced in your words.

Oscar nods before remembering you can't see him, “Yeah, just got out of the car.”

Oscar rushes through the large door, holding it open for an older woman to walk through before he steps in past her. He glances around the room, trying to find airport security so he could get to his gate.

“You gonna make your flight?” you seem to be finding a lot of amusement in his frantic rushing.

Oscar huffs, pinning his phone between his cheek and shoulder to check his watch. He still had about twenty-five minutes to get to his plane.

“Twenty minutes,” he responds, walking quickly down the hall when he spots a sign directing him that way.

“Ooh! Ah, I have faith in you. If you're anywhere near as fast as you are on the track I'm sure you'll be fine.”

Oscars eyes trail over the hall, locking onto the security gates and causing him to walk a little quicker, “You watch the race today?”

You don't respond for a few minutes but when you do, your voice is a lot more calm than it had been a few moments before, “Mhm. You did good Os.”

Oscar lets out a sigh, shaking his head as a grin fights its way into his lips, “Thanks, I'm glad you think so.”

Oscar steps into the security line, grateful for the fact that there are only a few people in front of him. He ignores the weird glance the old lady in front of him sends his way as he rushes to a stop behind her, replying with a tight smile.

“Its not just me, Osc,” you reply, sensing his disdain for the days race through the phone, “Everyone thinks you did well.”

Oscar hums, stepping up a few steps as a couple of people pass through, leaving just the old lady in front of him. As he reaches the bag scanners, he pins his phone on his shoulder again to lift his bag up onto the conveyor belt, tossing his bag down beside it.

“One second,” Oscar responds, muting his phone to drop it into a bowl along with his airpods, sending them through along with his bags.

After he's put all his things on the belt, he steps away, walking through the metal detector when the agent signals for him to go.

It takes a few moments for the agents to check his bags but when they come through he pulls the suitcase off and sets it beside him, turning back to slide his backpack over his shoulders. He slides his AirPods into his hoodie pocket and picks up his phone, unmuting the call before walking away, his suitcase in tow.

“Im back,” Oscar clicks away from the call for a few seconds to check his flight details before putting the phone back to his ear.

“Did I just get sent through a security scanner?” you sound amused and Oscar can practically see your smirk just from the tone of your voice.

“Didnt want to hang up,” he grumbles, searching the signs above him for his gate, walking quickly when he spots it. A clock on the wall indicates that he's still got 15 minutes to get to his flight. He thinks about it for a few moments, quickly realizing that it was 15 minutes until scheduled takeoff and boarding would actually end in five minutes.

“Im honored-”

“Fuck!” Oscar cuts you off, too busy now sprinting down the airport corridor to think about that fact, “Shit! I'm gonna miss it!”

You don't respond for a few seconds but you eventually do, a loud laugh echoing from your throat as you take in his situation.

“Oh my god, are you late for boarding? Osc!” you laugh, the image of the driver sprinting down the hall engrained in your head.

He doesn't reply, the phone now down near his hip as he runs to his gate. The run feels like an hour but, in reality, was only actually a few minutes, the clocks on the walls ticking down as if mocking the Aussies poor planning.

He finds some kind of respite, though, as he finally gets to the gate, slowing down as he steps up to the gate agent. The lady seems surprised to see him run up but she doesn't turn away, instead glancing him up and down with a concerned look before responding.

“Hi! Do you have your ticket?” the woman is surprisingly kind about the question, especially considering she had been preparing to leave as he'd rocked up.

Oscar nods, still trying to catch his breath. He pulls his phone open to navigate to the ticket, facing the QR code forward for the agent to scan. She does so before nodding politely and leading him down the path toward the plane.

Oscar lets out a sight of relief and lifts the phone back up to his face, “I made it.”

Your laugh has calmed down but you snort at his almost war-torn sounding voice, his strife obvious due to his lack of breath, “Congrats, man.”

He gets lead onto the plane, thanking the woman who'd brought him and smiling at the flight attendants as he walks a few steps past them. He finds his seat, dropping his phone onto it to lift his phone and stow it away in the overhead bin. He grabs his phone and sits down, relaxing into the seat after setting his backpack on the ground.

“I’ll be in Japan in a few hours,” He says, running hand over his face, “See you there, yeah?”

You hum, “See you there, bear.”

Oscar ignores the nickname, pretending it didn't make him smile, “Im gonna hang up now, promise you won't be asleep when I land?”

You laugh, “I promise, Oscar. I'll even go get a red bull for some extra energ-”

“Yeah, nope. Goodbye.” Oscar interrupts before you can endorse the rival team.

“Bye koala bear,” you respond and the phone clicks softly as you hang up. Oscar sets the phone down to pull his airpods out of his pocket, connecting them in order to watch some movie for the flight.

The flights only a few hours long but it feels a lot longer than that to Oscar. It's a haze of random Netflix shows and bagged pretzels, the monotony of the flight boring Oscar out of his mind.

He's relieved when the plane touches down, his proximity to the front of the plane allowing him to stand up and grab his things fairly quickly. Its about 9 pm local time, the sky outside not shedding any light through the plane windows.

Oscar walks out into the airport, grateful to be off the cramped plane and finally move his legs again. He stops at one of the few shops still open to buy an overpriced bottle of water, pausing as he spots a bag of those haribo peach rings you like so much. He doesn't think much as he grabs the bag, throwing it onto the counter beside his bottle and offering the cashier a polite smile.

After paying, he grabs the bottle and the bag, grasping them in the same hand as he pulls his suitcase along with the other one.

He strolls through the airport, trying to rid himself of the fatigue from the race and the plane ride. The only thing keeping him from falling asleep was the thought of seeing you again.

Speaking of you, Oscar doesn't realize he has no idea where you were staying or where you were until he's stepped out of the airport doors, standing on the sidewalk with his suitcase sat next to him. He tries to recall if you'd told him anything about your Japan trip or even if he'd seen anything on your story but he comes up empty.

He clicks on your contact, pressing the phone to his ear as the call rings. He frowns as you decline, confused as to why you'd hang up.

He's just about to walk back inside to wait when a car horn honks, causing Oscar to look up in front of him.

His eyes widen as they lock onto an orange Mclaren 570s Coupe, the car shining beautifully under the street lights. As he stands and admires the car ahead of him, the window closest to him rolls down and he sees your head duck down to lock eyes with him.

“You getting in?”

He laughs incredulously, opening the passenger side door and carefully sliding his suitcase into the small storage space behind the seats.

He sets his backpack on the floor below him, flopping back into the sear and sliding his seatbelt on. He sets his water down and tosses the bag of peach rings into your lap, “Nice car.”

“Thanks,” you reply brightly, eyes widening as you observe the bag of candy before moving it into your hoodie pocket, “Thought id go all out with the rental for the few days I'm here.”

Oscar hums, glancing around the nice car, coincidentally a Papaya McLaren. He refused the urge to ask you if you'd been thinking of him when you'd picked the vehicle.

After you make sure his seatbelts on, you pull away from the airport terminal and navigate onto the main road, pressing play on your playlist to let music filter quietly through the speakers.

The car glides smoothly down the streets of Tokyo, bright lights reflecting off the sides of your face. Oscar looks your way, completely aware that your attention was locked on the road, giving him the free pass to admire you.

Your eyes dart around the road in front of you, neon lights reflected in your irises. Your teeth dig at your lower lip, chewing lightly as turn the car. You’ve got one hand on the wheel, the other one moving around between the center console and the fraying edge of your shorts. You're wearing a quadrant hoodie and Oscar can't tell if its his or if you both just owned the same hoodie. The fit didn't help, he knew you bought your hoodies oversized anyway.

You glance over as you come to a stop at a red light, grinning when you see his eyes on you.

“What?” You ask, laughing slightly as you lean back from the wheel, splitting your attention between the road and Oscars face.

Oscar shakes his head with a small smile, his own attention turning out the window as you drive through the green light.

“Have you eaten?”

Oscar shakes his head, “Nah.”

You nod, taking the next turn to pull into a parking lot, stopping the car after you find a spot. You step out and Oscar takes this as his cue to get out as well, shutting the car door gently behind him.

When Oscar gets around the car, he finds you leaning against the edge, your feet crossed as you wait for him. He steps to your side and you push off the car, the familiar beep of it locking ringing out as you walk away.

As you both walk toward the restaurant, you step into Oscar's side and he’s quick to swing an arm over your shoulder. You wrap an arm around his torso, reaching the other up to tangle your fingers with his.

He's only slightly disappointed when you have to drop his hand in order to open the door. But you keep your hand against his ribs and he keeps his arm around your shoulders, not ready to let you go yet.

The second his feet pass the threshold of the building, he's hit with some of the most delicious scents he'd smelled in his life. This late at night there isn't much action apart from a few stragglers who Oscar assumes had just gotten off work and needed a bite to eat.

An older man swings around the corner from the kitchen, faint food stains gracing his otherwise white apron. He has a huge grin on his face and it only increases when he sees you. He pushes his glasses up on his nose, wiping off the steam that had accumulated on the lenses.

“Ah! You're back again!” The man calls out to the pair of you. Although his words do make Oscar assume the man was mostly talking to you, “And you brought your boyfriend!”

You don't correct the man and after seeing the grin on your face, Oscar doesn't either.

“Yeah, he just got in from Shanghai. Haven't had dinner yet.”

“Go, go,” the man smiles, pointing toward the dining room, “Sit where you want, ill get to you in a second.”

The man waves you both toward the tables and you step out of Oscar’s grasp. He doesn't have to be disappointed for long as you wrap your hand in his to lead him through the restaurant, stopping at a booth before sliding in. Oscar slides in the seat opposite of you, his legs knocking against yours under the table.

Quickly, the man, who Oscar now assumes is the owner, comes over to the table, setting down two glasses of water and a pair of menus in front of the both of you.

“You know what you want?” The man grins as he gestures toward you, seemingly familiar to you. Oscar takes a sip of his water, letting the coop liquid run down his throat.

You nod happily, “Yeah, I think so.”

The man pulls out a small notebook to write down whatever you say and you continue by saying a few different dishes, the only one Oscar having had before being sushi. He doesn't say anything, knowing that you knew more about this place and the menu than he did.

After you're done ordering, the man walks away and strolls into the kitchen, handing the order to the woman behind the counter before placing a small kiss on her cheek.

Oscar looks back to you, a small smile on his face after seeing the couple who seemed to be running the restaurant themselves, “You’ve been here before, then?”

You nod, leaning over to take a sip from your glass, “Yeah, came here yesterday for lunch.”

Oscar hums, glancing out of the booth to look around the room. Paintings and neon signs decorate the walls and what seems to be photographs taken in the restaurant all line the wall by the entrance. Oscar can vaguely see that the photos of are different people posing, all with happy looks on their faces. He huffs a breathy laugh when he sees one of you with your friends.

The time spent waiting for your food is filled with casual conversation, Oscar asking a lot of questions about how your Tokyo trip had been so far.

You don't ask about the race. There's some kind of unspoken understanding that Oscar had run to Japan to get away from racing for once. Here, with you, Oscar wasn't Mclaren racing driver, Oscar Piastri, he was just Oscar. Or “Bear”, as you called him. A nickname that you seemed unable to let go of. Oscar pretended to be annoyed every time you said it but he couldn't deny the smile that formed every time he heard the Australia-themed moniker.

“Bear?” There it is. Oscar looks up with a raised eyebrow, deducing that you'd asked a question he hadn't answered.

“I asked if you're staying with me tonight.”

Oscar snorts before smirking, shaking his head as he locks eyes with you, “Yeah, wouldn't dream of being anywhere else.”

You blush, looking down toward the table, past meals having left vague food stains on the wood.

Before you can respond, the man returns, plates and bowls balancing in his hands. You look up politely, smiling as the man starts to place the food on the table, “Thank you so much.”

The man grins as he places down the last plate, “Of course. Enjoy.”

He walks away and you turn toward Oscar who stares vaguely at the food in front of him, “Dig in.”

You make a move for your chopsticks, looking over the food before taking a bite of whatever is immediately in front of you. Oscar glances around, not sure where to start.

Noticing his hesitancy, you pick up a piece of what you'd been eating and bring it up toward his lips, pulling back after Oscar bites into it.

“What is this?” Oscar asks as he chews, covering his mouth as he speaks. Whatever it is, it's pretty good, having a light and slightly sweet flavour. Its also a bit more rubbery than chicken, but its pretty good nonetheless.

You swallow your own bite, having scooped up some rice along with it, “Unagi. Grilled eel.”

The only indication of Oscar's surprise is his widened eyes but after a few seconds, he reaches over to take another bite, humming as he chews on the eel. You smile, moving on to grab some kind of skewer.

You slowly move through the foods, explaining each one to Oscar as he tries them.

They're all good but Oscar's favourite is the yakitori, the skewers of grilled chicken. By the time you've finished the food on the table, Oscar is about ready to pass out.

So you pay as soon as you can, Oscar grumbling about his inability to pay for the meal, lacking the proper currency. He does Venmo you when you put your phone down, though.

The owner makes playful conversation with you, thanking you for coming around and telling you you're welcome back anytime. Oscar just stands with his head on top of yours, trying not to fall asleep.

You're about to leave when the man calls you back and you turn around to see him holding a camera in his hands, “For the wall? Need to remember the happy couple.”

You laugh, glancing around to see the many many photos of various friend groups on the wall behind you, turning back around with a soft look as you nod. You lean into Oscar who wraps an arm around you, tilting his head toward you. You tangle your hand with the one on your shoulder, holding up a peace sign with your other one.

The familiar click of a camera sounds and the man smiles warmly, waving you both out the door, “Have a great time! Thank you for coming!”

You wave goodbye, stepping out of the restaurant and pulling out your keys to unlock the car. Oscar untangles from you to walk to the passenger's side and step in. You drop in as well, setting your phone down in the centre console. Oscar is staring out the window when he feels something drop in his lap and he glances down to see the bag of peach rings he'd bought you.

“Can you open that?” You ask, starting the car and putting it in reverse. You glance over your shoulder as you pull backward, one arm behind Oscars seat and the other on the wheel.

Oscar, at risk of getting caught staring, turns his attention to the candy, ripping the edge and grabbing a few pieces to throw in his mouth.

Once you've got onto the main road, you hold out a hand and Oscar drops a couple pieces which you proceed to eat.

The drive is quiet, the both of you feeling the exhaustion of the day catch up to you. You eventually pull up to the hotel, stopping the car and stepping out. Not before grabbing more candy from Oscar, though.

Oscar leans over to grab his suitcase, stepping out of the car and sliding his backpack on. He grabs his water bottle from the airport, stuffing it into the bottle compartment on the side of the bag. He looks up and starts walking, stepping by your side as you enter the hotel. You stroll through the lobby, leading both of you to the elevator.

As the elevator starts moving up, you both lean against the wall, letting the quiet music be the only sound beside a couple yawns.

The elevator dings as it passes each floor. Oscar watches as you dig your key card out of your pocket, running your fingers along the edge absently.

The doors slide open, leading you to walk out, Oscar in tow. You drift down the hall, humming along to whatever song was playing in your head. Oscar vaguely recognizes it as Taylor Swift.

When you reach your room, you scan your card and push the door open, holding it to let Oscar pass through.

He does, pushing his suitcase next to the far side of the bed. He can hear you setting your things down, the familiar clink of keys on glass ringing out in the otherwise quiet room.

“I’m gonna use the bathroom,” he says lowly, sliding past you and into the attached bathroom. He can hear you hum in affirmation just before he shuts the door.

When he emerges, you're sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling off your shoes before tossing them on the floor. You’ve taken off your hoodie (or Oscars) and its not lain over the chair across the room.

You glance up, smiling as you see the Aussie walk out, “Hi.”

Oscar huffs amusedly, sliding off his own shoes as he walks toward you, “Hi.”

You hum, looking up as he walks closer to you before leaning slightly to angle his face toward yours. You both pause for a few moments, waiting to see who'd break the stand-off first.

It ends up being you, as you pull his face down towards yours, your kiss almost searing. The kiss feels like it lasts a lifetime and Oscar almost wishes it could. He does pull away, though, just to move you away from the edge of the bed, smiling when he hears your laugh ring out after he's practically tossed you onto the mattress.

He moves up as well and before he can even get his bearings, you're pulling him back down again, hands in his hair and your lips on his.

The next morning, Oscars awoken by the sound of your quiet laugh. He rolls over with a tired groan, wrapping his other arm around your torso.

“What are you laughing at?” he grumbles, tiredness clear in his voice.

You turn to face him, looking impossibly beautiful for having just woken up. You hold your phone toward him and Oscar glances down at the screen before looking back up at your face with a questioning glance.

“Lando sent me a video this morning,” you start, closing your phone and tossing it aside to grasp his tired face between your hands, “Its quite funny.”

“What was it?” Oscar mumbles, leaning to press a small kiss on your forehead.

You lean back, looking him in the eyes and seemingly trying to hide your smirk, “It's a video of his teammate sprinting through the Shanghai airport.”

Oscar groans, trying to ignore your warm laugh, “Fuck.”

He's not really mad, not when the video was the source of your happiness right now.

There were a lot worse sights to wake up to than your happy face beside him.

——————————————————

Tags: @casperlikej @evie-119

[alaia777]

neighbor! isagi who moved across from your apartment, and the first time you saw him, you couldn’t help but notice how different he was from your usual neighbors—quiet, yet a little intense, and the way he awkwardly smiled when you waved, it felt like an unspoken understanding passed between you two.

neighbor! isagi who, after a few days of awkwardly passing by in the hall, decided to try and strike up a conversation with you. he casually asked about your plants, but ended up stumbling over his words, making the whole exchange feel like a weird mix of forced small talk and him trying way too hard to seem normal, leaving both of you standing there in uncomfortable silence until you finally waved and ran off.

neighbor! isagi who accidentally dropped his bag while greeting you as you got home at the same time, you helping him pick his things up from the floor and the first thing you picked was a “how to talk to girls when you’re a wimp,” his teammates gave it to him after hearing how he couldn’t strike up a conversation with you.

neighbor! isagi who now always checks his peephole to make sure you’re not leaving your apartment at the same time as him, the embarrassment from what happened earlier keeping him up at night.

neighbor! isagi who was surprised when you knocked on his door, offering him some chocolate chip cookies you’d made too many of. a few days later, he showed up at your door, holding a ticket to his next football match, quietly handing it to you with a small, almost hesitant smile, like he wasn’t sure how you’d react.

neighbor! isagi who was pleasantly surprised when you showed up, promised himself that he would play his best game yet, determined to make that night unforgettable. by the end of the match, his only goal was clear: to win the most important thing that day — a date with you.

[ferrarifinnick]

THE WOLF | CHO SANG-WOO (PLAYER 218)

pairing: perv!sang-woo x fem!reader summary: it's the ones you least expect that will pray on you. warnings: implied but undescribed smut, manipulation, sexual coercion, perversion, dark themes, age gap (legal! reader in early 20s), naïve reader, father figure as a manipulation tactic. word count: 0.9k

sang-woo sat on the edge of your bunk bed. he followed you back into the hall after the end of the first game, red light green light, without realising, so focussed on your little frame that trembled at every bark of the guards. even now he was towering over your little frame as he sat beside you. he settled into the silence between you. normally he enjoyed silence, but he didn’t want it with the pretty stranger he’d just taken an interest in.

but he didn’t take it personally. you’d each witnessed so many bullets pierce over half of the bodies you’d woken up in the hall with earlier this morning, so it wasn’t surprising that you weren’t feeling chipper.

he glanced down at your lap. your fidgeting hands were trembling, and he wondered if the blood on your skin was yours. he didn’t really care either way, but he wanted you to think he did. so he took your discarded jacket from under your lap and wiped your hands as clean as he could get them.

he didn’t want to stain his own jacket with the blood of strangers.

when he finished doting on you, he hooked your jacket over the side of the bed and only then did he notice the blood on his own hands. it certainly wasn’t his, so he quickly checked your head was still hung before wiping his palms on your jacket, too.

sang-woo then leaned back beside you.

“hey,” he said quietly, as if he didn’t care if you heard him.

you glanced up at him and his heart nearly split in two just like that. your pupils were blown wide, eyebrows knitted together with your bottom lip pouted out. “yes, mister?” he barely caught the squeak of your frightened little voice.

he didn’t fight the urge to scooch closer and wrap an arm around your shoulder, pulling you into his side. “it’s alright, it’s over now. you’re okay,” he cooed, heat rushing into your skin as he rubbed your arm comfortingly.

you immediately melted under his touch and clung onto his shirt, nestling impossibly closer. “i want to go home, sir. i want to see my mother,” you cried into his chest, and he held you tighter.

“you’ll see your mother soon.” he didn’t know why he promised you, only that he did. you relaxed into his touch further and he couldn’t help but add, “i’ve got you for now, til you get home to her safe.”

he worried why you pulled away from his embrace, but his nerves eased as you gazed into his eyes like he’d promised you the world. “really, sir? you’ll look after me?”

sang-woo swallowed the lump forming in his throat. he knew it was wrong, and he blinked and looked away to try to stop it, but all he could think about was you on your knees looking up at him like this. like your saviour. like your ticket out of this nightmare.

he steadied his breathing and glanced back at you. “i will,” he agreed, and wondered if you could sense the battle in his head. so he lied, and he didn’t know why, but he settled on easing any suspicion about his motives by telling you, “you remind me of my daughter.”

your eyes widened and you rested a hand on top of his. he looked down at your entwined fingers, his comically larger than yours.

“oh, sir,” you sighed sympathetically. “you must be really worried about her.”

sang woo nodded, a tight lipped smile forming to please your concern. “yes, i…” he sighed for effect, and continued. “i worry about her a lot,” he said, and glanced from your hands to your face. “if she were in these games, i’d want somebody to be looking out for her.”

the smile spread across your face slowly, lighting up your eyes and suddenly you were glowing. sang-woo thought you looked much more beautiful like this, like you weren’t traumatised.

“just like you’re looking out for me,” you finished his thought, squeezing his hands reassuringly, as if to say you’re such a good man.

but he wasn’t. sang-woo was anything but a good man. he knew it to be true because he didn’t even have a daughter, and if he did, he wouldn’t want her running into a man like him. a man who only wanted one thing.

sang-woo didn’t let himself dwell on what he was or wasn’t. he squeezed your hand and looked you in the eye, channeling all the warmth he could feign as he told you, “why don’t you share my bunk with me tonight? i worry what the men in the room might think to do to a young girl like you when it gets dark.”

if anyone else had said it, maybe you wouldn’t have agreed. maybe you wouldn’t have said, “that’s very kind of you, mister.” and maybe then you wouldn’t have been trapped under his body when the lights went out that night.

and maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t be walking funny when the lights came on in the morning.

in every girl’s life, there comes a day where she learns that men with honeyed words are the ones to trust the least. but not you. the sweet words roll off sang-woo’s tongue like a river, and you drank every drop he gave you.

and every night, when the lights went off, you followed him into his bunk and believed him when he told you he only wanted to keep you safe from the dirty men in the bunks around you. that he was only making sure no man got any sick ideas about you. that he was only slipping himself inside your hole to distract you from your worries of the next games.

that he was only looking after you, just like he’d hope another man would do for his daughter.

i would let this man manipulate me any day of the week with PLEASURE !!! like, comment, and reblog please. love <3

[chronicowboy]

Eddie calls Chris after the kitchen incident. Buck locks himself away in his room, and Eddie can't blame him for it really. Wishes he had a door he could close on himself. Wishes he could pack it all away into one room and let it drown him. Just for a little while. But he doesn't. Because this isn't his house anymore. It hasn't been for a while.

Instead, he sits on the couch in the dark, hunched over with his elbows resting on his knees, and he tries to pinpoint the exact moment it all went wrong. Like he doesn't know. Like he didn't walk into the kitchen itching for it. Wanting to feel something, anything but the grief and the guilt and the desolate helplessness he hasn't been able to escape since the call came in.

He'd just wanted—and maybe it was unfair, but Bobby was gone, so what the fuck was fair?—he'd just wanted Buck to hold him. To ask him what it was like finding out over the phone, so Eddie could fall apart. And Buck would pick up his pieces and stitch them all back together. Fix it the way he always fixes things. And then Eddie would have been solid enough to do the same for Buck.

But no. The blunt, bludgeoning stones of their grief had caught each other, sparking in the charged air of the kitchen and catching light. Neither of them stood a chance.

Eddie sighs. Scrubs a rough hand down his face. Glances back at the hallway. He could get up, go knock on Buck's door and say he's sorry, say they can figure this out together. He could. Except Eddie's not sure he can. He's not sure he knows how to fix this. Can it even be fixed? They lost Bobby. And instead of finding comfort in shared grief, they used the sharp edge of it to sever their bond, rip a chasm in the ground between them.

He doesn't know how to fix this, and for once, he thinks Buck has no idea either.

Eddie catches sight of the time on his watch, curses as he lunges for his phone on the coffee table. It's an hour past the time he normally calls Christopher to check-in. Fuck. He can only hope his parents haven't herded Chris up to bed yet. He hits the call button and brings it up to his ear, leg bouncing as he waits for—

"Hey, Dad." His voice is so soft, so steady it brings tears to Eddie's eyes almost instantly. He squeezes his eyes shut, screws up his face, takes a deep breath.

"Hey, Chris." His voice, however, is rough and trembling, broken.

"You okay?" Chris asks, sweet baby, Eddie wishes he was here, wishes he could send Chris down the hall to knock on Buck's door and give him the hug Eddie so wishes he was gentle enough to offer. But no, his hands were made for pushing and shoving and hurting.

"Eh." Eddie laughs wetly. "Been better, kid."

"Want to talk about it?" God. Yeah. Yeah, he does. Except, this is another thing he's not sure he knows how to do. Doesn't know how he ended up on this couch alone in the dark and desperate for something he can't even put a name to.

"I messed up." He sighs, sniffs, shakes his head. "I really messed up with Buck, bud."

"He'll forgive you." And it's immediate. So goddamn sure. There's a faith to it that Eddie thinks he's never felt in his whole life. If he was standing, it would have brought him to his knees. "What happened?"

"I told Hen I finally got hired by EPFD, and she told Chimney, and Chimney told Ravi, and he let it slip to Buck before I had chance to tell him." Eddie should have known. A family of fucking loose lips. "He was hurt, and then he brought Bobby into it, and I just... Snapped." He huffs out a breath, bites down on the lump in his throat, lets it bleed bitter guilt down his esophagus.

And that was it really. That was why it had taken him two weeks to book a planet ticket. Because he couldn't face coming home—back to LA—just to look in the eyes of the people who were there. He knew he'd find no blame there, but still. He wondered if somewhere inside themselves they'd think he didn't deserve his grief half as much as they did because he was the one who left.

He'd hoped when he got to the airport, when Buck had got him home, when all was said and done, Buck would read the guilt on him plain as day. Would wrap him up and tell him that it was okay, that he was allowed to feel it, that this grief was theirs, and they'd shoulder it together. But Buck had been bouncing around houses carrying out psych evals and holding himself together with that shitty off-brand tape that never stays down at the corners. And Eddie's hands were only made for breaking, so what the hell was he supposed to do about it?

"I don't know how to fix this, Chris." Eddie bites at his lip, sits back, looks up at the ceiling to stop the tears from rolling. "I wish you were here. I think you'd be able to fix him with just a hug."

The silence that comes down the line has Eddie's heart leaping. He's pushed too far. Too soon. This is still the city he left. Still the house Eddie tarnished forever.

"Actually, I've been thinking..." Christopher clears his throat and gets quiet in that mousy way that means he's not quite sure how to say it. "I thought, maybe, maybe I could come home?"

And Chris starts rambling about how Buck and Eddie need him and how he misses Bobby and everyone else and how he'd like to see them again, but Eddie's back on the floor of his bedroom with a hand pressed over his mouth, choking on silent sobs.

Home.

"And I know you're pretty broke right now and plane tickets are super expensive and you'd never let me fly on my own but—"

"Chris," he croaks. Christopher's mouth snaps shut. "Chris, do you mean it?"

"Yeah, Dad. You were there for me when Buck was in his coma. Now, I want to be there for Buck now Bobby's—gone."

"God, kid, what the hell did we do to deserve you?"

"Beats me," Chris mumbles cheekily. Eddie barks a laugh.

"I love you, you know that?"

"I love you too."

God. He's never gonna get used to that.

"Pepa's still visiting Abuela, right?" Chris hums in assent. "Right, okay, so I-I'll call her and see if she wouldn't mind flying home with you tomorrow and then I'll book you tickets and we'll figure it out, okay?"

"The three of us will figure it out," Chris tells him. And somehow Eddie knows that he's not talking about Pepa.

[pucksandpower]

It Started With an Appendix

Carlos Sainz x nurse!Reader

Summary: in which an inflamed appendix turns out to be the ultimate matchmaker

Warnings: medical ethics are basically thrown out the window

“Y/N, the patient in room 312 is awake,” a voice calls from the hall outside the nurses’ station.

You make your way down the bright, sterile corridor toward the private room, the scent of antiseptic lingering in the air. Taking a breath, you rap your knuckles lightly on the door before entering.

Carlos Sainz Jr. is propped up in the hospital bed, blinking slowly as the anesthesia wears off. His tousled hair and grogginess make him look adorably vulnerable.

“Hola, señorita,” he slurs with a lopsided grin as you approach. “Are you an angel? You must have fallen from heaven.”

You can’t help but giggle at his cheesy line, shaking your head in amusement. “No, Mr. Sainz, I’m your nurse. You just had your appendix removed.”

“Call me Carlos,” he insists, his Spanish accent thick and velvety. “And you’re definitely an angel to me.”

Suppressing another laugh, you check his vitals and make a note on his chart. “How are you feeling, Carlos? Any pain or nausea?”

“I feel ... floaty,” he murmurs, blinking slowly as he looks you up and down. “But you’re making me feel much better already.”

You bite your lip to contain your smile. This man is incorrigible, even fresh out of surgery. “That’s the pain medication talking, I’m afraid.”

“No, no ...” Carlos protests weakly. “You’re just ... muy bonita. So beautiful.”

His boldness makes warmth bloom in your cheeks. You clear your throat. “Why don’t you try to get some rest? The anesthesia can make people loopy for a while.”

“Don’t go,” he pouts, trying and failing to grab your hand from the bed. “Stay and keep me company, hermosa.”

You gently lay his hand back at his side. “I’ll be just down the hall if you need anything, okay?”

Carlos levels you with a look that could melt glaciers. “At least tell me your name, ángel?”

Holding his smoldering gaze, you reply softly, “It’s Y/N.”

“Y/N,” he echoes, savoring each syllable. “What a beautiful name. Maybe I’ll dream of you, Y/N ...”

With a flustered smile, you turn and exit the room, his flirtatious words still ringing in your ears. This man is going to be the death of you.

Over the next few hours, you check on Carlos periodically, each time greeted by a fresh cheesy line or thinly-veiled compliment. He’s relentless, but also strangely endearing in his drug-addled state.

“Did the sun come out or did you just smile at me?”

“Are you a parking ticket? Because you’ve got fine written all over you.”

“I must be in a museum, because you truly are a work of art.”

You roll your eyes at each one, but can’t deny the little thrill it sends through you. Despite his grogginess, Carlos’ charisma still shines through effortlessly.

By the time your shift ends, you’re almost disappointed you won’t get to hear any more of his terrible pickup lines. You linger a moment in his doorway after bringing him his evening dose of medication.

“Feeling any better?” You ask kindly.

Carlos gives you a crooked smile. “I feel a lot better when you’re around, querida.”

You shake your head in playful exasperation. “Get some rest. I’m off for the night.”

His expression turns almost ... wistful? “Will I see you again?”

Something warm blooms in your chest at his hopeful tone. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” you assure him. “Same time.”

The bright grin that stretches across his face is worth a million cheesy lines. “Buenas noches, mi ángel.”

You don’t bother holding back your smile this time. “Good night, Carlos.”

As you make your way home, his handsome face and melted chocolate voice keep popping into your mind unbidden.

You try to push thoughts of Carlos from your mind as you cook yourself dinner and get ready for bed. He’s just a patient — a ridiculously charming one, yes, but a patient all the same.

Still, as you drift off to sleep, his teasing grin and warm brown eyes seem seared into the back of your mind ...

The next morning, you arrive at the hospital with a new spring in your step. You can’t help but look forward to seeing Carlos again, newly appendix-less or no.

When you enter his room with his breakfast tray, the sleepy Spaniard perks up instantly at the sight of you. “Y/N! Buenos dias, hermosa!”

You chuckle at his enthusiasm. “Good morning, Carlos. How are you feeling today?”

“Much better now that mi ángel has arrived,” he declares boldly.

As you check his vitals, he continues to bat those ridiculously long eyelashes at you. “You must be a hell of a thief, because you stole my heart from across the hospital room.”

You snort at the line, rolling your eyes in amusement. “You do realize those cheesy pick-up lines aren’t going to work on me, right?”

“Not cheesy ... poetic,” Carlos argues with an impish grin. “Poetry for a woman of your beauty.”

You raise an eyebrow in mock skepticism. “Is that so?”

“Of course,” he nods matter-of-factly. “Here, let me demonstrate ...”

Carlos clears his throat dramatically. “Your eyes shame the brilliance of the desert sun, while your lips put roses to shame with their beauty. A sculptor could study your face for a lifetime and never capture its perfection in marble.”

Despite yourself, you can feel heat rising to your cheeks at his earnest compliments. “I ... you can’t just-”

But he’s not done. “While bandits would slay and sack entire cities for even a glimpse of your splendor. Why, the gods themselves weep at being outdone by such a radiant vision of loveliness!”

By now, your face is burning scarlet as he gazes up at you, eyes sparkling impishly. “Th-that’s enough, Carlos,” you manage, turning away and busying yourself straightening his blankets to hide your flustered expression.

You can hear the grin in his voice. “Too much for you, hermosa? I haven’t even gotten to the part about your luscious ti-”

“Carlos!” You squeak, spinning back around with wide eyes.

His mischievous laughter fills the room, head thrown back in pure delight at your scandalized reaction. The melodic sound is utterly infectious — soon you find yourself giggling helplessly along despite your embarrassment.

“You’re terrible, you know that?” You admonish once you’ve caught your breath, trying and failing to look stern.

He winks unapologetically. “I’m just being honest, ángel.”

You shake your head in feigned exasperation, trying to ignore the little thrill his flirtations still send through you. “I should get going before you corrupt me further.”

As you turn to leave, Carlos calls after you. “Until later, mi amor! Don’t forget my poetry books for next time!”

His infectious laughter follows you into the hallway, that bright sound certain to play on a loop in your mind all day ...

Over the next few days, Carlos’ recovery progresses smoothly — maybe a little too smoothly, you think with a private smirk. His cheesy compliments and relentless flirting show no signs of letting up, much to your mingled embarrassment and secret delight.

“For you, hermosa, I would wrestle bulls and paint sunsets!”

“Mother Nature herself must be jealous of your radiant beauty.”

“Careful, or you’ll put the Arabian sun to shame with your smile!”

You somehow manage to roll your eyes and blush simultaneously each time he unleashes a new line. Part of you wishes he would just give it a rest already. But an even bigger part never wants this game you two have going to end.

On your third day caring for Carlos post-op, you arrive to find a small bouquet of red roses sitting on his bedside table. “These are for you, querida!” He announces happily when you enter.

You blink in surprise, taking in the brilliant flowers. “Carlos, you didn’t have to-”

“Of course I did,” he cuts you off dismissively. “An ángel as dazzling as you deserves all the flowers in the world.”

A pleased smile tugs at your lips despite yourself as you inhale their sweet fragrance. “They’re lovely, Carlos ... thank you.”

“Anything for you, mi amor,” he grins impishly. “Though it pains me to give a rose to one who outshines it so effortlessly.”

You shake your head, fighting a blush yet again. “Are you always this much of a shameless flirt?”

His eyes dance with impish delight. “Only to beautiful nurses who make my heart race faster than any lap around the fastest street circuit on the calendar.” Carlos pauses, expression turning serious. “Truthfully Y/N ... I know I’m a patient, but I feel a connection with you. Something deeper than just pretty words.”

You regard him carefully, caught off guard by his sudden earnestness. Part of you wants to laugh it off, dismiss his words like all the cheesy lines before. But something in his warm and open gaze gives you pause.

“I ... feel it too,” you admit quietly after a moment. “I don’t know why, it’s just ... a spark. Like we’ve known each other for years.”

Carlos’s face breaks into a brilliant smile that makes your heart skip a beat. “Exactly, ángel! A connection of the soul — that is what it feels like to me.”

He holds out a hand in invitation, eyes soft yet intense. “Come over here? Let me get a closer look at mi amor’s beautiful face.”

You move toward the bed instinctively, taking his hand as he guides you to sit at the edge. His touch sends little electric tingles coursing through you that raise goosebumps along your arms. Even when you’re seated, Carlos has to look up slightly from where he’s reclining on a pile of pillows to meet your eyes, his thumb caressing your knuckles tenderly.

“So lovely,” he murmurs huskily, eyes tracing your features reverently. “A woman more beautiful than Aphrodite herself. And just as captivating ...”

Slowly, carefully, he lifts your joined hands to brush his lips along your knuckles in a feather-light kiss. The simple, intimate gesture steals the breath from your lungs.

“Carlos ...” you start breathlessly, hardly daring to move lest you break the hypnotic spell between you two.

He gives you that crooked, heart-melting grin. “Let me take you to dinner when I’m out of here, mi ángel? So I can woo you properly like you deserve.”

Despite the warm tingles his attention still sends through you, you nibble your lip uncertainly. “I ... I don’t think that would be appropriate. You’re my patient-”

“Just dinner,” he interjects smoothly. “As a thank you for taking such wonderful care of me. I insist on repaying you somehow.”

You search his face, wanting so badly to throw caution to the wind and say yes. He could charm the feathers off a bird, this man.

“Just dinner,” he reiterates in a low, sincere tone. “And if nothing else ... maybe we both make a new friend, yes?”

A slow smile spreads across your face, anticipation blooming in your chest. “Alright then. Just dinner.”

The boyish grin he gives you makes your breath catch. “Excellent! I’ll wine and dine you like a true gentleman, you’ll see.”

You roll your eyes, even as a giggle escapes you. “I’ll hold you to that.”

With a gentle squeeze of your hand, Carlos lifts it once more to brush his lips across your knuckles, holding your gaze intently.

“I cannot wait, mi amor.”

***

The luxurious restaurant that Carlos chose for your dinner date is dimly lit by ornate lanterns and alive with the sounds of traditional music. You can’t help but let your eyes linger on him as you’re shown to your private table tucked away in a secluded corner.

Even in a simple shirt and slacks, Carlos looks effortlessly dashing. His warm eyes crinkle at the corners when he catches you staring, rewarding you with that heart-melting smile.

“See something you like, querida?” He teases once you’re seated across from him.

You feel heat rush to your cheeks at being so brazenly caught out. Recovering quickly, you arch an eyebrow cooly. “You just look different out of that hospital gown, that’s all.”

Carlos throws back his head with a rich laugh. “Ah, so you prefer me in my natural state then? Bueno, no complaints here!”

You shake your head in amusement, trying not to smile too widely. “Is that ego really as big as they say?”

“What ego?” He asks innocently, shrugging broad shoulders. “This is merely healthy self-confidence, mi ángel.”

The banter comes so effortlessly between you two, like going back-and-forth with an old friend rather than a man you just met days ago. Carlos reaches across the table to take your hand, calloused fingers stroking your knuckles gently.

“Truthfully? I’m just thrilled you agreed to have dinner with me tonight,” he admits in a low tone. “I wasn’t sure if all my flirting was too much.”

You chuckle softly, gazing at him through the glow of the lantern between you. “It was definitely ... persistent. But also strangely charming, if I’m being honest.”

A pleased grin stretches across Carlos’ face, lighting up his handsome features. His thumb caresses your knuckles tenderly as he holds your eyes.

“I meant what I said, Y/N ... I felt an unexplainable connection with you from the moment I woke up in that hospital bed.” His expression turns almost wondering. “Despite my joking and terrible pick-up lines, there was something deeper drawing me to you. Like my soul recognized yours, si?”

You nod slowly, inexplicably understanding exactly what he means. That spark, that feeling of having known him for years — it’s indescribable and yet so real at the same time.

“I felt it too,” you murmur. “A pull, like I was meant to meet you.” You give a soft, self-conscious laugh. “It sounds silly saying it out loud.”

But Carlos shakes his head adamantly. “Not silly at all, cariño. Spiritual, cosmic, whatever you want to call it — I felt it too, and I don’t question these things anymore.”

He leans in conspiratorially. “Do you know what the nomadic Bedouin peoples of Arabia call that? Finding your namiah.”

You can’t help the way your heart flutters at the unfamiliar word and the enchanted look on his face. “What does it mean?” You breathe.

“It translates roughly to your twin soul,’" Carlos explains in a hushed tone. “Two souls destined to connect in this life. Bound together across lifetimes, finally reunited.”

He gives your hand a meaningful squeeze, utterly transfixed. “The Bedouins believe when you encounter your namiah, it’s sacred — a reunion that must be honored and embraced, regardless of what life may throw your way. Because you’ve been given a second chance with your twin soul.”

His words seem to reverberate somewhere deep within you, ringing with an ancient truth you can’t fully grasp but feel with your entire being. Impulsively, you lift Carlos’s hand to your cheek, holding it there as you bathe in his wonder-filled gaze.

For a long, charged moment, the whole world narrows to just the two of you sharing this cosmic revelation. Then the spell breaks as you let out a breathless laugh, eyes shining with amazed delight.

“You believe in destined soulmates? I never would have guessed,” you tease gently.

He chuckles warmly in return, leaning back but keeping your hand pressed tenderly against his cheek. “The universe works in mysterious ways, querida. I’ve learned not to question things my heart recognizes as true.”

A comfortable silence stretches between you, filled with unspoken understanding and newfound intimacy. He grazes his thumb along your cheekbone reverently.

“That’s why I couldn’t stop myself from flirting with you, you know,” Carlos muses in that rumbly tone. “You captivated me from the first moment I laid eyes on you. I knew I had to at least try winning your heart, mi ángel.”

You shake your head in fond exasperation, fighting a smile. “Carlos Sainz, actually a hopeless romantic? Who would have thought ...”

His playful grin is back in full force. “Only for you, hermosa.” Then his eyes take on a hint of hesitant hopefulness. “Speaking of ... there’s actually another reason I wanted to take you to dinner.”

You regard him curiously as the waiter arrives to fill your glasses with water. “Oh? Do tell.”

Carlos takes a fortifying sip before fixing you with those warm, earnest eyes again. “I would be honored if you came to Australia with me in a few weeks. As my guest for the race in Melbourne.”

Your eyes widen in surprise, mouth falling open slightly. “The ... the Grand Prix? In Australia?”

He nods eagerly. “It’s at the end of the month. I will arrange for your travel, put you up in the plushest hotel, everything. My treat.”

Carlos leans in closer, an impish gleam dancing in his eyes. “It would give me the perfect chance to keep wooing you properly, mi amor.”

You let out a disbelieving laugh, barely able to wrap your mind around the unexpected invitation. “Carlos, I ... I can’t just fly across the world like that! I have work, responsibilities-”

“Ah, but you’d only need to take a week or so off,” he counters smoothly. “I’ll handle all the details. You just need to relax and be my honored guest for the weekend.”

He gives you that smoldering look that makes your heart skip a beat. “Let me spoil you, mi ángel. Just say the word and it’s yours.”

Part of you is tempted — so, so tempted by the enthralling prospect. A luxurious vacation with this enchanting man who is already well on his way to sweeping you off your feet? It sounds utterly magical.

But the practical part of you holds you back, brow furrowing with uncertainty. “I don’t know ... even taking time off for a trip like that would be difficult.”

Carlos regards you intently for a moment, reading your hesitation. Then he gives your hand a gentle squeeze, voice turning softer yet insistent.

“Y/N, when was the last time you took a real vacation? Away from the hospital, away from responsibility for a little while ... to just breathe and enjoy life?”

You open your mouth automatically, then pause. Truthfully, you can’t even remember. Life has become an endless cycle of work and sleep with little room for anything else.

“Exactly,” Carlos nods knowingly at your silence. “Everyone needs to get away sometimes, querida. To recharge their soul before the daily grind drains them completely. Even an ángel like you.”

He fixes you with those molten brown eyes again. “Let me give that to you, mi amor. A week to relax, to be spoiled and carefree in one of the most beautiful corners of your world.” One side of his mouth quirks up teasingly. “And with a ruggedly handsome Formula 1 driver to keep you company, of course ...”

You chuckle in spite of yourself, warmth blooming in your chest. He has a point — when was the last time you allowed yourself to have fun and truly unwind? You certainly can’t remember. And if there’s anyone who seems like the ideal travel companion ...

Carlos notices your resolve softening and presses his advantage. “I promise you, it will be an experience you’ll never forget. Put yourself in my hands for just one week — let me take care of everything so you don’t have to lift a finger. What do you say, hermosa?”

His gaze is so open and full of restrained yearning that your breath hitches. You search those bewitching eyes for one more long moment, feeling yourself teetering on the edge of a decision.

Then, with a breathless laugh, you give in to impulse.

“Okay! You win. I’m yours for a week in Australia. Show me what you have in store.”

The smile that slowly spreads across his face is brighter and more radiant than the high desert sun. Carlos lifts your hand to his lips to brush a lingering kiss across your knuckles, sending delicious sparks dancing along your skin.

“Your wish is my command, mi ángel,” he murmurs fervently against your fingers, holding your breathless gaze. “I’ll make sure it’s a trip you’ll never forget.”

***

The bright Australian sun feels glorious on your skin as you relax on the private rooftop terrace of Ferrari’s plush motorhome. Leaning back on the cushioned lounger, you close your eyes and inhale the first deep breath you’ve taken in ... well, you can’t remember how long.

For just this fleeting moment, all the stresses of everyday life as a hardworking nurse seem to melt away into the balmy afternoon air. You’re worlds away from the frenetic hospital routine, from the bright fluorescent lights and permeating smell of antiseptic. Here, surrounded by towering palms swaying lazily in the breeze, you can almost imagine you’re at a lavish resort rather than the Albert Park paddock.

Almost.

A fond smile tugs at your lips as the roar of engines echoes across the circuit. That unmistakable sound is your reminder of just how enchantingly surreal this entire experience has been.

When Carlos first invited you to be his guest at the race, you expected some form of VIP experience to watch the Formula 1 action up close. But you never could have imagined the level of extravagance and pampering he had planned.

From the moment you landed, you’ve been put up at a five-star hotel in the lap of luxury — a stunning penthouse suite, complete with a butler at your beck and call plus a private concierge team to arrange anything you may need. Not that you’ve had time to need anything, with Carlos’s personal assistant, Elena, catering to your every whim.

You had tried to object at first, insisting this level of opulence wasn’t necessary. But Carlos merely placed a finger over your lips with a mischievous grin.

“Ah ah ah, mi ángel — you agreed to let me spoil you for a week, remember?” He chided playfully. “No objections!”

Before you could protest further, he pulled you into his arms, warm and solid and smelling faintly of bergamot. “Just relax and enjoy la buena vida for once. That’s my only condition.”

Looking into those warm brown eyes, you found yourself getting deliciously lost as his breath fanned across your lips. What choice did you have but to nod breathlessly and let yourself be whisked away into his lavish wonderland?

And it has been nothing short of wondrous so far. After being settled into your palatial suite with its giant marble bathroom and wall-to-wall windows, Elena escorted you into the exclusive world of Formula 1.

The Grand Prix itself is certainly glamorous — the electric atmosphere, roar of the cars driving at breath-taking speeds, and prestigious crowds dripping in finery and jewels. But it’s the behind-the-scenes action in the paddock that truly left you dazzled.

Elena led you through a dizzying labyrinth of state-of-the-art motorhomes and garage bays with cutting-edge equipment full of personnel bustling about in a flurry of coordinated movements. She introduced you to a mind-boggling array of mechanics, aerodynamicists, race strategists, hospitality workers, and more.

The entire operation felt like the world’s most organized theatrical production playing out before your very eyes. And at the center of it all? A beacon in red drawing all eyes to where he’s leaning against a metal wall towards the side of the garage? None other than Carlos himself.

Seeing him in this element, commanding the hushed and reverent attention of dozens of crew members with an intense yet unhurried confidence ... there was something almost unbearably sexy about it. His typical warmth and charm were overshadowed by a blazing intensity and poise more potent than any poem he could compose under the haze of painkillers.

Between briefings and warm ups, you managed to steal a few stolen moments with Carlos. Whether brushing a clandestine kiss to the back of your hand or pulling you aside for a heated embrace out of view, he always reaffirmed this sublime fantasy was for you … and you alone.

“Having fun so far, mi ángel?” He would murmur, lips brushing your ear as his hands skimmed teasingly down your sides.

You shivered at the gravelly timbre of his voice, rendered speechless by the fire flickering in his eyes. How could anyone put the depths of your experience into words?

So you simply answered by pulling him into a searing kiss, fingers tangling in those sinfully tousled locks. By the time you parted, Carlos’ pupils were blown wide, chest rising and falling heavily against yours.

“Save some of that fire for after the race, cariño,” he’d say thickly with a wolfish grin. “You may just be the greatest distraction I’ve ever had to overcome.”

With one last smoldering look, he rejoined his crew, leaving you flustered yet utterly euphoric. Yes, Carlos Sainz had managed to spirit you away into an all-encompassing dream — one you never wanted to wake up from.

The sound of a nearby door opening brings you back to the present with a contented sigh. You let your eyes drift open again, blinking against the brilliant sunlight as a familiar figure emerges onto the terrace.

“There’s my hermosa,” Carlos greets you warmly, slipping off his cap to run a hand through his ridiculously perfect hair. The simple gesture makes your breath catch as always.

You feel a smile stretch across your face as he approaches. “Hi there, stranger. Taking a break?”

“Something like that,” he chuckles, dropping into the lounger beside you with a groan. “Just a quick respite from the crowd.”

Carlos turns toward you with poorly concealed mischief dancing in his eyes. “Though ... I may have also needed an excuse to see this beautiful sight again.”

You roll your eyes in exaggerated exasperation to hide your giddiness at his flattery. He’s been adorably smooth this entire trip. “Save your lines, Casanova. You already got me here, remember?”

“Ah, but a man can never compliment his lady enough,” Carlos objects smoothly, grasping your hand in his calloused one to press a soft kiss to your knuckles. “Starting with how radiant you look basking in the Australian sun, mi ángel. A lesser man would get jealous.”

You shake your head, even as tingles race across your skin from his gesture. “Is flattery how you butter up any pretty girl who catches your eye?”

“Just the especially gorgeous ones,” he winks unapologetically. “But there’s only one who’s made me want to be a hopeless romantic.”

With dizzying ease, he leverages himself across the narrow space between you, caging you in on all sides with his toned arms. Your breath catches at his sudden proximity, pulse quickening from the heated look in his eyes.

“Perhaps I should stop with pretty words ...” Carlos rumbles in that velvety accent, closing the remaining distance until you can feel the heat radiating from his body. “And use actions instead.”

His mouth captures yours in a slow, smoldering kiss that has you melting bonelessly against the plush cushions. Large hands splay across the dip of your waist, firm yet intoxicatingly gentle. You melt into the unhurried caress of his lips, addicted to the way he sets your entire body deliciously alight.

When you finally part, you’re flushed and breathless, gazing up dazedly at his twinkling eyes. “You’re ... terribly persuasive, Mr. Sainz,” you manage.

He rewards you with a wolfish grin and another toe-curling kiss. “Only for you, mi amor,” he growls against your lips, pulling you flush against the hard planes of his chest. “Only for you ...”

A tiny gasp of surprise parts your lips as Carlos suddenly freezes, mouth going taut. You tilt your head back slightly to meet his gaze questioningly.

“What’s wrong?”

He drops his darkened eyes down toward his palm sheepishly. It’s then you notice the tiny trickle of red seeping from a paper cut across his skin.

“Oh no, it seems our ... passion got a bit too rough,” Carlos grins cheekily. “Gave myself a battle wound.”

Rolling your eyes, you gingerly take his hand to inspect the miniscule wound. Just a thin cut that was reopened, likely from reviewing telemetry packets between briefings.

“It’s nothing serious,” you chide. “Though I suppose I could play nurse for you one more time.”

He gives you a devilish look from under his inky lashes. “Please do, mi ángel. I’ll need your ... very special care.”

You level an unimpressed glare at him, slipping off the lounger toward the rooftop bathroom to grab the first aid kit inside. By the time you return, Carlos has the audacity to be sitting patiently with his lightly bleeding palm extended in offering. Like a king awaiting tribute from his loyal subjects.

“It’s a good thing you’re pretty,” you scoff, cracking open the kit and perching on the edge of his lounger. With the utmost care and tenderness, you gently apply antibacterial ointment and wrap the cut with an oversized adhesive bandage.

“There, all better, your Highness,” you announce with a solemn nod.

But rather than releasing your hand, Carlos envelops it fully in both of his. His warm eyes search yours impishly.

“Actually, hermosa ... there is one last thing that could help it heal even faster.”

You quirk a skeptical brow at him, already thoroughly endeared by whatever outrageous thing is about to come out of his mouth. “Oh? And what’s that?”

The corner of his lips twitches up in that rakish half-smirk you adore. “A magical, healing ... kiss.”

Of course. Of bloody course.

“You can’t be serious,” you laugh, trying in vain to tug your hand back. Carlos simply holds it fast, fervently earnest despite the devilish twinkle dancing in his eyes.

“Completely serious, mi amor! The power of a beautiful woman’s kiss has incredible healing properties.” He pulls your hand close. “Especially from an ángel like you ...”

Warmth blooms across your cheeks at his antics, head shaking in amusement. Even after weeks of witnessing Carlos’ particular brand of cheeky charisma up close, he can still catch you off-guard and leave you deliciously flustered.

“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” The reprimand lacks any bite as you can’t help but grin back at him, captivated as always.

His answering look is all playful innocence — one you know better than to trust for a single second. “Does that mean you won’t bless me with your magic?”

Brown eyes beg at you over your trapped knuckles, full lower lip jutting out in a pout far too enticing to resist. With a shaky laugh, you finally acquiesce and bend forward to press a slow, petal-soft kiss over the bandage.

A grin stretches across Carlos’ face once you pull back. “My hero!” He exclaims, catching your hand in both of his to nuzzle the inside of your wrist adoringly. “See, querida? Already I can feel the enchanted restorative properties working wonders.”

“You’re utterly shameless!” You let out another breathless laugh.

“Only because you make me crazy, mi ángel,” Carlos retorts with an exaggerated groan, tugging you closer until you half-cover his toned body.

You go easily, resting comfortably against the solid wall of his chest. Strong arms wrap around your waist, securing you in place as Carlos pillows his cheek atop your head with a contented sigh.

“You render me nonsensical and utterly bewitched. I’m powerless against your effortless magic.”

The words rumble through you in that low timbre you’ve become addicted to, spreading warmth from the crown of your head to the very tips of your toes. With a quiet hum of contentment, you tuck yourself tighter into his side and watch the swaying of the palms framed against the brilliant blue sky.

In this moment, the entire world seems to shrink away into insignificance — nothing but you and Carlos tangled in this serene haven apart from all space and time. Nothing but the steady thrum of his heartbeat against your cheek, the cocooning circle of arms that sets you ablaze and soothes you in equal measure.

Just as you feel yourself being lulled into a state of blissful relaxation, Carlos presses a lingering kiss to your hair. His chest vibrates with quiet yet fervent words.

“Thank you, amor ... for giving me a chance to make you mine.”

Pure affection blooms golden in your chest at the reverent sincerity of his tone. You tilt your head up to find his warm brown eyes already trained on you. Filled with adoration yet still flickering with that insuppressible spark of mischief and zest you adore so much.

With an impulsive hand curling around the nape of his neck, you pull his mouth down toward yours. As you part, twin smiles linger on your swollen lips.

“And thank you,” you smile wryly. “For having an appendix that decided to take matters into its own hands so we could meet.”

[scremogirl]

✪⁂✫彡𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐓✵ミ★✥

𝐁𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬

Yandere! Childhood friend x Hyper aware! Reader

Slight⚠︎︎warning. The reader is slightlllyyy narcissistic, you gotta squint to see it. Like always check the end for a note. Enjoy!

It wasn’t more than a day that you you two weren’t together. From third grade all the way to your senior year in high school; he was always there. To think it all started from simply sharing your colored pencils.

Micah was your best friend, you’ve done everything together. All your first were together too. Your first kiss for example.

“I-I don’t know about this Micah, just don’t want things to be weird after this,” you hesitated.

“It’s fineee, I promise. Besides, you're my best friend; nothing could ever be weird between us,” you cringed a little at the fact that your first kiss was calling you his best friend. Not that it wasn’t true, it just wasn't as romantic as middle school you thought a first kiss would be. Your first date.

You held your head in your hands staring at the floor and heaved a big sigh. Your date had just stood you up. This wasn’t the first time this happened either, guys would ask you out and then just end up flaking. When you tried to talk to him earlier in the day he was sporting a big bruise on his jaw and cussed you out. You weren’t gonna let that slide tho, so when you called Micah to come help he hurley apologized and scurried off.

“I promise it’s not you beautiful, besides, he doesn’t know what he’s missing,” it goes silent for a bit before he perks up with a loud gasp.

“I know! How about we go see the movie together? He still let you keep the tickets right?”

You even had your first together. I mean, if that isn't true friendship I don’t know what is. So, why is it starting to feel not so friendly between you two anymore? He’s been acting a little weird as of late. He’s been more handsy lately; arm always around your shoulder or waist. He’s always been like this, and you guys did have sex once, but… this is different. His grip is a little tighter and his hands fall a little lower. He comes up behind you while you stand at the vending machine down the hall from the cafeteria, burying his face in your neck. When you told him to stop because you’re in school and people will start thinking things about you two, he just shrugs and says, “Nothing that they haven’t seen before,” with a dismissive wave of his hand. He even tried to kiss you yesterday when you left his house from a sleepover, claiming that it would keep you safe on your journey home (which is literally and I mean literally, right next door).

You’re not dumb. You know he likes you. In love with you. Everyone knows that. You know that he was the one that beat up your crush. You know why he wanted to have all his firsts with you. You noticed all the panties going missing every time he would visit. You noticed all your chewed pens and leftover food being taken out of the trash. You noticed his hard-on every time you’d wear a low-cut shirt or too short of a skirt. You noticed the box of your stuff tucked away under his bed when you dropped your pen whilst you were over-studying. You saw the photo album pushed into the corner of his basement. You saw the bloody rags and knives in the bathroom cabinet. You saw the way he would look at you when he thought you weren’t paying attention. You liked the attention and the way he made you feel. But, you just couldn’t bring yourself to actually pursue him. He was your best friend and that was that. It’s not that you weren’t open to the idea of the two of you getting together, you were practically made for each other. Courtesy of him studying your insides ;) and outs. It's just the fact you know if you have him the time of day, you wouldn’t have time for anything else. Completely suffocated by his overwhelming love and attention.

That leads you to now. This is the first date you’ve been on since that incident in the beginning of your high school career. You met him in your psych class, thankfully one of the only ones you and Micah don’t share. Sure, you’ve had a couple one one-night stands and summer flings but as it denotes, they were all short-lived. This guy was different, he was sweet, funny, and paid attention when you talked; the whole package. But of course, this wouldn’t last long either. Prom was supposed to be the most exciting night for a senior. A big party with all your friends, dancing, laughing, the whole nine yards. That was until you saw your date tongue fucking another girl when you came back from getting the punch he requested. You sighed. Taking note of the not-so-discreetly placed $100 dollar bill in his suit's pocket. Of course. Just then you feel a tap on your shoulder. As you turn around you see him in all his glory. A y’all figure with his hair slicked back, one strategically placed string in the front. The dark blue suit perfectly matched your dress no matter how much you insisted that it was inappropriate because of your date. Green eyes peering down into yours with a mock of pity and astonishment. The scar on his cheek barley noticeable. He got it in an accident he had when you two were younger. He would always try to make you kiss it better, saying that it eased the pain from literally ages ago.

Micah.

“How about you and I go grab some dinner instead, hm?” The drive to the diner is silent. You two stuck out like a sore thumb in the cozy setting of the mom-and-pop shop. They’ve come to recognize you both. Ms. Dané, one of the owners of the shop would always question why you two weren’t together yet as her husband would chastise her for being so bold. Though, you could see it in his eyes just how curious he was.

You pull up to the mountain you two discovered on one of your long car rides to nowhere last summer. You spent most of it building a comfy place for the two of you to have your deep and emotional conversations. As you sit on the hill, looking down at the city and taking a bite of your burger, he turns to you. Before he could speak to you, you held up your hand effectively stopping him.

“I know,” he looks at you with wide eyes full of confusion. You take a handful of fries this time, chew, and swallow again before speaking.

“I don’t need you to lie to me.”

“He wasn’t good for you anyways,” he abruptly replies, it came out harsher than he attended it too.

“Besides, what kind of a guy would ask a girl out and then kiss another one a day later?” He huffs out an irritated laugh.

“That’s not what I meant, Michael,” the use of his full name struck a bit of fear in his heart. And pleasure to his pants.

“I know it was you,” he tries to speak but you put your fingers to his lips. Chewing on your burger and taking a sip of your soda to help push it down. The time it takes you to respond kills him, he tapping his leg and picking at the scar on his cheek anticipation. A habit he’s always had when he’s nervous or anxious.

“You know what I mean. I saw the money in his pocket,” He doesn’t wait for an explanation or care how you found out it was him. He pushes his food to the side before climbing over your outstretched legs. You’ve taken your heels off at his point, too uncomfortable to be walking up a mountain with. Micah insisted on carrying you anyways, saying that your dress was too expensive to get dirty but he gravel mud.

“I can’t stand the thought of someone else being by your side. I’m the one who's been here for you throughout everything. I'm the one who laughs with you when you're happy, cries with you when you're sad, and calms you down when you're mad. Not him. Not your parents. Not anyone. It’s always been you and me. Ever since the third grade you’ve been the one I wanted. I love (Y/n), nothing and no one can change that,” at this point his hands have a firm grip on your shoulders. Knees firmly planted into the hard ground beside you, surely his nice pants are fitted and scuffed but right now he couldn't care less. He stares deep into your eyes waiting for you to say something; anything.

For what seems like the millionth time you sighed since you met him, your gaze drops from your half-eaten burger to his frantic ones.

“Okay, Micah,” you say rubbing your thumb along the scar on his cheek. whose whole demeanor suddenly changes, this is the happiest you’ve ever seen him. Well since that day *if you know what I mean ^*. This time he grabs your food and pushes it away. You're a little sad, you wanted to finish the rest of that. You had no time to think, however, as he lays you down in the makeshift fort you’ve created. He lowers his head down, placing kisses on the column of your neck. He makes his way up to behind your ear, smelling his favorite of your perfumes. In his delusion, he can’t help to think that you wanted him to kiss you here. Placing it there to entice him in all the ways he wants you to. He rubs his cock against you, trying to get as much friction as he can. Even though it’s dark out and his suit is even darker, but the fairly lights strings up in the tiny fort help you see the pre-cum staining the front of the soft, thin material of his pants.

“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for you to say that. I promise this’ll be even better than the first. He could never compare to how I’m gonna make you feel,” he runs his hands up your waist, kissing the corner of your lips.

“Besides,” he starts. Eyes lowering down to your dress that has now risen to just above your lace panties

“I’m the only one who gets to see you full and dripping with cum”.

I don’t think I’m gonna turn Micah the into a full OC. If you liked it however, maybe I’ll make a couple headcanons or something. For the most part this was just a one shot. Again make sure to go check out my friends twist on the idea. ^the at is mentioned in the note above. Bye loves!

-Love, Sos❤️

[mianexil]

◇ POV: He heard/saw how someone was planning to harm you ◇

(pt. 1)

◇ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ◇ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ◇

💫 [ The reaction of the Windbreaker boys when they heard/saw that someone was going to harass you. Don't worry, cutie, you're under the protection of these boys ]

💫 [ I hope someone will check out the Easter Egg I left here ]

◇ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ◇ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ◇

ㅡ Umemiya, Kaji, Nirei, Kiryu

Umemiya

A long-awaited weekend. How pleasant it becomes with the onset of spring. There is even a desire to go out on warm evenings, not to sit at home in a plaid.

And so, one of these evenings. You took your boyfriend out to hang out at a club with great music.

Umemiya stood leaning on the bar and watched with a smile as you enjoyed the music on the dance floor.

Those two jerks were also standing there.

《 Hey, look at the girlie in a black dress on the dance floor there. She has pretty legs... I bet I'm going to give her a good slap 》

The guy rushed towards you, but a step before the unsuspecting you, someone grabbed him tightly by the scruff of the neck. And then he noticed how several pairs of eyes were staring at him rapaciously, and Hajime towered behind him. It seemed that he was about to crush the boy with his menacing gaze full of contempt.

The poor guys did not suspect that if you hang out in a club, then you are surrounded by your boyfriend and at least two Heavenly Kings of Bofurin.

After 10 minutes, this idiot and his friend were already kneeling outside the clubhouse in front of Umemiya and Hiragi, and swore that they would never even look at girls askance again in their lives. While you, without suspecting anything, continued to dance in the club with Tsubakino.

After this incident, Umemiya increased patrols around such places.

Kaji

The other day, Kaji got 2 tickets to a rock concert by some aspiring band "Kessoku Band". This boy loved noisy places, and you didn't mind. So in the evening you went to the semi-basement concert hall together.

You had a great time enjoying the sound of rock music, and then there was a 10-minute break between songs, during which everyone bought drinks, talked, and so on. Kaji was buying 2 glasses of fruit juice for you when he heard a strange guy talking on the phone next to him.

《 Yes, I have already found the right chick. I'm going to give her alcohol to drink and have fun with her tonight. Huh, yeah, as usual, dude. All right, bye, I'm off 》

The vein on Kaji's forehead had already started to swell from hearing the disgusting idea, and when that asshole moved in your direction, Ren lost all control. The glasses of juice he bought for you crashed loudly on the floor.

You heard a loud noise from the crowd, but when you came up, the guy lying on the floor under Kaji already looked more like minced meat than a person. You had to pull your boyfriend away from that guy so Ren wouldn't kill him.

Is it worth saying that you are now banned from that concert hall? However, Kaji has never regretted what he did. He's ready to kill anyone who's going to hurt you.

Nirei

After the exams, the Furin members decided to celebrate at the club. You were relaxing with them, finishing off a sweet milkshake. After active brain work and a little stress, you wanted more sweets.

《 One more milkshake, please 》

After making a request to the bartender, you were distracted by some noise from your group. It looks like Sakura and Sugishita started showing their fangs to each other again and you headed towards them before this catfight blew up the whole club.

At this time, the bartender placed your order on the countertop and your sweet drink, decorated with whipped cream and a cherry on top, was waiting for your return.

At this moment, Nirey, who was actively writing something down in his notebook, looked up and there was such a picture in front of him: two strange guys approach the steam counter and one of them quickly pours some powder into a glass, and then both retire from the crime scene.

Nirei immediately tensed up. For this young collector of information, bandit tricks were known, which are popular for industry in places such as clubs and bars. The yellow-haired boy was already heading towards the bar to inform the bartender about what had happened, but when he saw you coming up and taking the drink in your hands, his hair stood on end and he rushed towards you with all speed.

Akihiko literally put his hand between your lips and the glass at the last moment.

《 Y/N, DON'T DRINK!! 》

He was noticeably nervous at that moment. You had to calm him down, and then Nirey told you and the guys from Furin what happened.

Of course, the guys quickly found these scum and handed them over to the guards, not forgetting to leave them a couple of bruises for prevention.

For the rest of the evening, Nirey did not leave your side and brought you drinks himself, carefully watching how they were prepared.

Kiryu

Kiryu invited you to a street fair. There were various counters and stands with geek themes: from games to anime and manga. Different lanterns and garlands, illuminating the evening street with warm light, created a sweet atmosphere. You both enjoyed spending time buying different stuff like key chains with paired characters, stickers, etc.

At some point, Mitsuki went to the bathroom, leaving you at the stand with "Love Is Hard For Otaku"

Standing at the sink, he heard some guys talking from the far corner.

《 Did you see that girl in the blue and white striped skirt? She's pretty. Let's buy her a drink and offer her a ride on a bike. Maybe we'll get something tonight 》

They were definitely talking about the very skirt that Kiryu helped you choose this morning. When these guys came out of the bathroom, he finished washing his hands and followed right behind them.

Making his way through the crowd, Mitsuki saw you with some kind of glass of juice in your hands, talking to those idiots. It seemed like you were trying to politely refuse, but they kept pressing hard.

Suddenly, someone's warm arms wrapped around your waist from behind and Kiryu leaned over your shoulder, drinking from the glass in your hand through a straw.

《 I'm back, love 》

Then he looked up at the annoying guys from under his brows. Mitsuki had the same relaxed expression when viewed at first glance. But your boyfriend wasn't smiling at those two idiots. It was a silent warning.

A cold light flashed in his green eyes.

The two guys hesitated slightly, muttered something, and left dejectedly. You still didn't understand what it was, but after that, you calmly continued your date, enjoying the rest of the evening.

◇ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ◇ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ◇