#I love making typos in long tags :

[moe-broey]

GOD I would HATE to be stuck at a family dinner with them 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 I would NOT fucking survive, the vibes alone would do 1000 points poison damage to me 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Also JUST. JUST.

THE VIBES. ARE RANCID. SHARENA DARLING YOU DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THIS (ALFPNSE TOO BUT DEAR LORD. Sharena LITERALLY was just told to Don't Speak Unless Spoken To RANCID. RANCID FUCKING FAMILY)

[yannaryartside]

The table scene: I will hold the world for you

Promises and friends with insecurities

This scene was the culmination of their arcs in this season; their arcs, in some senses, had nothing to do with each other but everything about wanting each other and figuring out how this partnership was essential to each other. Another long one.

Under the table is their relationship, trying not to collapse under the burden of the table, the world, and their trauma. 

Sydney had started the season wanting to be a partner to Carmy and finding a partner with him; he was, for her, a vehicle/support to tackle the big wolf of her insecurities, thinking her failures were her own fault, her burden. She was tired of feeling alone and not enough to walk the path of hurt, trials, and disappointments that her life has been. Carmy was also tired of feeling alone, of feeling unlovable. He saw a way to heal that in Claire and took it. In the process, he disappointed Sydney in his lack of commitment to the restaurant (and her); both were jet to decipher the true feelings they hold for each other, a truth that was to be set in the background, simmer and simmer, and then explode.

The explosion for Sydney occurs inside; she realizes little by little how much Carmy reveals to Claire. The explosion for Carmy went the inside out, the panic attack scene showing him what he had suspected all along. He was forced to confront the fact that his bond with Claire, even if he had feelings for her, was not enough to push away his fears and trauma (this was not a secure attachment; it was never based on two people actually knowing each other, or healthily supporting each other). I LOVE Carmy's face in this scene btw; he is so happy to see her in his mind; the fucker is like, "Oh, there you are; wtf can you do this to me? But thank god you do"

Sydney experienced Carmy pushing her away more and more as the season advanced, all while Carmy grew in discomfort with his "relationship" with Claire. Carmy and Syd tried their ways to make the situation more bearable. Sydney tried to communicate her needs for support in this scary process of creating a restaurant (trying to ignore her feelings); Carmy, being a clautrofuck of emotions for getting what he wanted for so long, to still feeling shit about it, was terrified of losing Sydney and tried to create a menu "for her" instead of "with her." But they never reached each other truthfully, even after this point, because they were so afraid to lose that glimpse of security they provided each other that they never went to the core of their fears. (they abused the "I am sorry" sign, made assumptions, and held to reservations and resentment).

They are walking on shifting sands, uneven terrytiory=uneven table.

AND THEN, THE TABLE SCENE

The blocking of this scene is phenomenal. They changed positions when they were changing about subjects in the conversation. All while they are trying to fix an uneven table. It is uneven because neither of them knows where they truly stand as partners, and yet, the scene manages not to be about partnership, but about relasionship, and frienship.

In the beginning, when Carmy shares his "burden" for this season: his relationship with Claire, the fact that she is excellent, but he cannot separate his trauma from her, not knowing what even a secure attachment is. Carmy is lying on the ground, his being exposed and vulnerable, resting. Sydney is holding the table when he explains all this to her while he is fixing "his side" of the table, his trauma, and his mistakes that had damaged their harmony. He acknowledges it and promises his entire focus from now on. Sydney also takes a moment to recognize that whatever Carmy has with Claire is something that he needs at some level, regardless of how that makes her feel (helathy or not, she sees that at some level, he wants it). She is holding the other side of the table. She is preventing it from collapsing on him, like he is giving him a space to feel his feelings, regardless of the pressure they both endure, as she has done with her actions all season. 

This is not about why she is carrying the restaurant herself, and neither is a way to imply she had to do it in order to be a good friend, of course not, but that is not what this scene is about. I think the conclusion of service in Service in Friends and Family is a more appropriate conclusion for Carmy's absence, and a better "punishment" even if she has yet not expressed how abandoned she felt by him, and all the ways he failed her, and let his trauma handle his time and his partnership with Sydney like shit. They may not be ready to be able to talk about that, nor do they know how to fix it. The service scene served for him to understand how badly he was not around. Decorated with the fact Sydney was able to guide the kitchen relying on others, being the true leader the restaurant needed.

The table scene, for me, is not about resolving any of that, it is about promises. Promises to find answers and realizing what they provide for each other.

The table scene is about two friends talking about their insecurities.

She holds the table while he confesses something he has never said out loud to anybody. Sydney is providing Carmy in this scene something he has never had: "a person to trust, to understand and to understand him, a person to know everything about, a best friend," anybody that he tried to form this with has hurt him at some point, Mickey being the most painful example, whatever he has wit Nat, or even Richie, doesn't come close by miles, he still carries reservations around them. He seems to have tried to establish that with Claire, surprised at how empty it left him anyway.

But when Carmy says "say more," asking her to change positions, now she is the one underneath, fixing her side of the table, laying on the ground, vulnerable, while he holds the other side. She lays down her fears of her past failures collapsing on her all at once, all the reasons she has always suspected she is not good enough for this, and he is the one reassuring her, holding the other side of the table, preventing the world (the pressure/trauma) from collapsing on her, giving her a space to confess without judgment. He gives her exactly what she needs; not only is she good enough for this, but not only does he know the desire to help people that drives her, but if fear creeps in, whatever obstacle or failure they face, he will hold her, and "they" will work on it. All this, all the things he gets from her too, he sees her, understands her, believes in her, and promises to be there for her, a best friend.

If anything, regardless of the context of what they need to do this in the first place, particularly on Carmy's part, even if is only promises for the momment, the table scene is a beautiful description of a partnership: you are not on uneven territory anymore; I will be the ground you walk on, I will build you up, I will give you a space to feel your feellings.

I couldn't do this without you I wouldn't even wanna do it without you You make me better at this I wound't let you (fail)

The harmony is restored, the ground of trust is settled, the table (the world/the trauma) is not collapsing on anybody, they both are compromised on a goal: supporting each other, whatever that leads them. Whatever that will mean in the future, finding new boundaries, ways to complement and help each other, maturing emotionally. These feelings? I don't know how to deal with them, but I will stand beside you.

Most importantly, they both realized that this security they give each other...they want it; they only had an idea of what their partnership could be at the beginning of the season, and now it has been revealed to them, just a taste, enough to get their hearts...wanting for more. 

You are not alone

[kingslionheart]

I was wondering, do you think alfred and uhtred had feelings for each other in canon?

ALRIGHT SO. I'm so extremely sorry for taking so long to answer, life has been messy for a while now and I think it has been almost 3 months since you sent this. I have basically written this entire answer little by little every single day since I first received the ask and I have only just now finished reading it again.

EVEN MORE APOLOGIES BECAUSE IT TURNED OUT TO BE EXTREMELY LONG, I'll keep it under the cut!!

Please bear in mind that there are spoilers for the entire show and film and please forgive any possible typo.

OFF WE GO NOW!!

In general I think it is important to note that the last kingdom is a show FULL of queer characters (and I will die on that hill), mostly because there's just so much subtext in the whole show, and Alfred is 100% queercoded.

There are so many aspects of his character that just betray his queerness and the first thing that does that is literally the thing so many blame him for: the way he treats Uhtred.

NOW.

Let's look at Alfred's first scene ever. Alfred appears in 1x02 and he's introduced as someone who considers himself a sinner because of his inability to control his lust. When Beocca speaks to him about the girl he’s currently feeling guilty about, Alfred's immediate first reaction is to banish her, but instead he's presented with the option of bringing her into his service. Now the reason why it is proposed by Beocca is to keep her close to show God that he's able to resist temptation and, when he does resist, to thank this higher being he so desperately believes in. This is something that comes again in 1x03 when Beocca tells him to pray for strenght the moment he almost fails again.

In brief we know that there are two moments when Alfred has to pray: when he resists temptation and when he's tempted.

After he becomes king he reserves a very particular treatment for this girl who tempted him. In 1×04 we can see, for example, that soon after washing his hands, he basically throws a towel at her without a single glance. The treatment he gives her is a cold and distant one and that's the exact same way he treats Uhtred.

Indeed, as he did when he accepted Beocca's suggestion about the servant girl, I actually believe that proving God that he could resist temptation is one of the two reasons why Alfred has brought Uhtred into his service in the first place. The only other important use he had was his knowledge of the Danes, because, at least at this point of the story, the reason of him being such a fantastic sword genuinely does not stand.

In S1 it is very obvious that Uhtred isn't that much of a great warrior, and that makes sense because he's still very young, and at the end of the day he only first made his reputation when he killed Ubba, which, by Uhtred's own admission in the books, was entirely by luck, since he was actually the one who was about to get killed. Of course it is absolutely clear why he would have never admitted such thing, he needed that reputation and that was the first significant chance he got, but the thing is that he had been in Alfred's service for a few years already when that happened.

Alfred gave lands and a title of ealdorman to someone who was a 18 years old who came from Northumbria, a some guy who had absolutely nothing and no reputation whatsover, and that he himself barely knew, even worse a man who looked like a dane and that was a pagan. If you ignore Uhtred's point of view, that's absolutely insane of someone who just became a king who didn't even have that much support from his nobles yet.

It was serving Alfred that granted Uhtred to become an actual warrior with reputation, before that he wasn't one, as Uhtred himself told Alfred in 1×02.

As I said, the only good reason for Alfred to take such a man into his service was to have danish knowledge in court, but even that could have been something quick, you know, learning the basics and then just keeping contact with him as a spy, exactly as he did with Haesten at the end of S2 and at the beginning of S3, but no. Alfred tried his very best to tie him down to Wessex and make sure that he would remain. Why is that? It is to prove that he was able to resist temptation and being in control of his own body.

Alfred was an extremely pious man as many say throughout the whole show and even in the film. He needed to prove himself to God so that he would have had favour from his part and back then there was also the whole concept of "a king who's not able to control his body is not able to control his kingdom". Resisting temptation with a man would have proven it even more than resisting temptation with a woman, especially because, compared to the other servants, Alfred genuinely arrives to a point where he's actually and sort of obviously in love with Uhtred, so it isn't any longer just a body thing but a mind/heart thing, so even worse because that would cause his judgement to be clouded, Alfred himself admits this in 2x06, where he also says that Uhtred is a temptation to him.

The word temptation is an interesting one because Alfred always uses it with a sexual connotation, we saw that in s1 especially, but I want to talk about the episode I just mentioned. Here Alfred talks about Uhtred to Aelswith and he says:

What if all this time, it has been the work of the Devil tempting me? Offering me this warrior, this seemingly loyal and brave man, who piece by small piece, is eating at my soul and clouding what I believe to be right and wrong.

Alfred here, as I said already, explicitly says that he considers Uhtred a temptation sent by the devil, which, with the knowledge of his specific use of that word, can only mean one thing. The fact itself that Aelswith then replies that "this is what the devil would do" is noteworthy because that is a topic once called to attention by Asser in 1x06 when talking about Iseult he tells Uhtred "I know the devil exists, hiding within beauty is a trick he will use often, I'm sure". Aelswith gives Alfred a solution to the problem by telling him to get rid of him, and that's what does, he banishes Uhtred. Alfred talked of Uhtred as a temptation and then he chose to banish him for a while, does it by any chance remind you of something? His first instict in 1x02 about the servant.

Another thing that is very important to point out is that, as I said before, Alfred is considered a pious christian, so we know that Alfred prays daily and a lot, he even uses prayers to establish a political connection most of the times, but that can't prove his piety because many did too. The only times Alfred proves his piety are those when he prays alone and that happens 3 times in 3 seasons, which is funny since we could have expected way more for his reputation, but since it happens so little there has to be a meaning. As we said, we know that Alfred has to pray in two specific moments: when he has to thank God for resisting temptation and when he's tempted.

So very casually the times where he prays alone are always connected to Uhtred.

The first moment it happens is in 2x06, before the scene when Alfred admits that Uhtred tempts him and after the scene when Alfred screams at Uhtred "I do not know you and I could never know you", which is totally "know" as the biblical meaning of the word, if we consider everything that I have said before. The two other times are in s3, when Alfred's love for Uhtred is way more obvious and rather in a more romantic way than just attraction. The first time in that season is in 3x03 when he's there praying, with tears in his eyes, a few weeks (perhaps even a month) after Uhtred has betrayed him, and there he speaks of him and we see that he's hurt and wants to hurt Uhtred in return, so there's an element of heartbreak. The second time is in 3x06, after he has seen Uhtred again for the first time since his betrayal, and there we can find something close to worry for Uhtred's condition as a pagan, because he says that "He is a man in great need of the guidance of God". In 3x08 there's also an interesting hint about his prayers when Beocca hypothyses that Alfred prays for Uhtred's return and the truth behind it is written plainly on Alfred's face. His prayers shifted from a physical attraction type of temptation to something that could very clearly be recognised as love.

S3 is THE proof that Alfred was in love with Uhtred and, while you can already see it in the first episode of it when he watched Uhtred ride away from the city (which he also did in 1×02), that love becomes more obvious immediately after Uhtred betrays him in 3x02, YES THAT SCENE WHEN HE’S CRYING ALONE IN THE ROOM. While I do realise that it could be interpred as crying because his dream of an england was in danger, STILL you know that it is not just that, that man was heartbroken and the worst thing about it is that Alfred totally knew that he had no one to blame but himself, because Alfred is always perfectly aware of the way he treats Uhtred, think about the “I do not, I cannot” in 2x06 when Aelswith asks him if he trusts him, Alfred cannot trust Uhtred because if he did then he would totally fall into temptation, I MEAN LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENED TO AETHELSTAN WITH INGILMUNDR.

From that episode onward Alfred is on another level of misery, and that’s truly an achievement considering how miserable that man always is. First of all he’s angrier than ever and that anger reaches levels of revenge, confirmed by Alfred himself in 3×09 when he says this:

It was done to damn you. To inflict pain, possibly. I try to make decisions rationally. However, taking your children was not a rational decision. It was thoughtless. It was selfish.

Here Alfred admits that he wanted to hurt Uhtred and why did he do that? Because he wasn’t thinking rationally, and why wasn’t he thinking rationally? Because it concerned Uhtred. This literally always goes back to 2x06, because Alfred did say there that Uhtred clouded his judgment and that is the proof. When it comes to Uhtred, when Uhtred is around, he just can’t think rationally. That’s literally some romantic shit there.

I made the example of Aethelstan and Ingilmundr earlier and that truly fits this whole part really well, because in the film Aethelstan is portrayed as someone who’s blind and acting in a completely irrational way because he’s in love with Ingilmundr, his oathman. I would also love to point out how Aethelstan is portrayed as a pious christian king who prays and acts only for his own salvation, since he considers himself a sinner for his queerness. There’s so much guilt in that boy and, especially, more than once he’s compared to Alfred: first by Ingilmundr who tells him that he has to be pious so that men would speak of him as they spoke of his grandfather, and second when Aethelstan talks to Uhtred and indirectly compares his sins as worse than the ones of Alfred, so the connection between them is not only about piety, but also sins. Then, no less important, I think it is quiet obvious who Ingilmundr reminds of considering how he was “born a dane but raised saxon”. The parallels are right there and have never been louder.

Another parallel that I want to point out is the connotation between homosexuality and England, that’s particularly connected to the film because in SKMD Aethelstan wants to unite it simply to redeem himself for having a male lover:

Ingilmundr: Perhaps return to your grandfather’s vision for England. Perhaps now there is an urgency to bring the pagans to light.

Aethelstan: Will that cleanse me? Us?

Ingilmundr: Well, surely the greater the lands, the greater the faith. Go beyond what Alfred dreamed of. Look to the islands God made, not the countries ordained by men, and bring all to Christianity. So when you are judged, you will be found in balance. And thus may accept both the sin… and the conquest against it.

Notice how even in this whole thing Alfred sort of remains the greatest sinner of them all, because Ingilmundr here says to bring to christianity the lands that God created and not the ones that men, Alfred, wanted to make, it almost feels as if he’s saying that his sin would only be accepted if he does what God offers him in lands and therefore if he doesn’t put himself above God by being the one who decides which parts to unite and which not. Here Alfred is truly portrayed as someone who has put himself above God in his decisions and thus England would have never cleansed him for his sins, because he was directly sinning while planning it and actually, always back in 2x06, Alfred too considered himself a sinner for the way he was laying the fundations of the country, but not in the way Ingilimundr meant but because “I am reaching out for an England, all in the name of God, yet I am relying upon the strength of a heathen”, so what made him a sinner was his connection to Uhtred.

The thing is that as a consequence in the film England is connected to carnal sins and, indeed, as you have probably realised already when you watched the show, that country has ALWAYS been put in some sexual way, you may call it Alfred’s fav kink. That seriously begins in 1x03 when Alfred is making out with that servant (the same one we have talked about before) and he literally goes like “I will defend you with my life, you stand as everything that is precious, you are Wessex, England, always to be cherished, never to be violated, only to be loved, vigorously”, therefore Alfred arrived to the point of seeing someone as a personification of England and that happens only another time in the show and that is in 2x03 when he says to Uhtred “You are a Saxon who is also a Dane, The very embodiment of the England that must emerge”.

THE VERY EMBODIMENT.

To him Uhtred was the personification of England and now this might be a bittttt too much from me, but even in 3x09 when Alfred is dying his last conversation is about Uhtred and the role he will have in the formation of England, and there Aelswith is trying to make Alfred see that it is wrong because being guided (SO RELYING) by a pagan means straying from God’s rightenous path, but what does Alfred do? He literally defends Uhtred and those are his last few breaths, what has Alfred said to that servant? “I will defend you with my life, […] you are […] England”, and look at Alfred’s final words:

Aelswith: Why are the Danes forever at our door? Because we are being punished, Lord, for the presence of this heathen.

Alfred: He is for England.

Aelswith: He is an outlaw.

Alfred: My England... my love.

Alfred basically dies defending Uhtred and while “My England” could be interpreted as him thinking about the actual country, the whole conversation and the whole parallels both between 1x03 and 2x03, so with the knowledge that to him Uhtred is England, I DON’T KNOW I JUST CAN’T HELP BUT THINK “HMM YOU KNOW WHAT, PERHAPS HE WASN'T TALKING ABOUT ENGLAND ENGLAND”

As you have probably understood, I believe that the moment when Alfred confessed his feelings for Uhtred was in 2x06 and he literally confessed them to Aelswith, so at beginning of S3 she has been knowing it for years.

Now let’s see all of S3 from Aelswith’s point of view. In this season her beloved husband is dying and she's painfully aware he is, even more after Alfred confirms it in 3x02. She knows it will happen, thus she tries to stay at his side as much as possible because Aelswith loved Alfred so much and despite everything (cough cough despite his cheating cough cough), then at some point she witnesses her husband's life be put in danger when he is taken as a hostage by the same man she knows he has feelings for. That man escapes and her husband is abandoned by him and, instead of seeing the anger he's showing to everyone, she sees how broken he is because of that, because she knows that Uhtred did not only break his oath but wholeheartedly broke Alfred’s heart. She has to witness not only her husband’s suffering because of his illness, but also the pain he feels because that man he loves has left him. The nearer her husband gets to his death, the nearer she notices the way he wants to forgive that same man who has made him suffer for years now (s3 starts in 891/892 and Alfred’s death happens in 899), then right before her husband’s passing she finds them together in his study, completely alone. She tries to make her husband reason (indirectly even trying to remind him of how much pain he went through because of him) but instead her husband orders her to leave, she probably hasn’t even seen Uhtred return from the room until late in the evening. Her husband dies not long after and she’s hurt because she has lost the man she's stood by and loved for most of her life, but in all of this… Who’s the one who left her husband? Who’s the one who broke his heart? Who’s the one who in a way could have worsed his condition because of the mental pain he had to go through because of him? Uhtred. So she imprisons Uhtred, threatens to kill him, but then accepts to just exile him, but then, in front of the whole of Winchester, Uhtred gives an entire speech about his relationship with her husband arriving to a point in which he even says that he loved Alfred. This is worsened by the fact that, in her last conversation with him, Alfred was going against her just to defend him.

Aelswith’s anger towards Uhtred is the most understandable reaction ever.

A very interesting scene to me, with the knowledge that Aelswith has this insight of Alfred’s feelings for Uhtred, is the scene where she prays in 3x08, because... THE THINGS SHE SAYS!!

Lord God, give me strength and guidance to do your work. If it is right and proper to rely upon a heathen, albeit for violence, then I beg you... show me a sign. Help me. I want my son to remain untarnished by heathen ways. I wish him to be God's king. Pure.

Here she’s praying for Edward in the prospect of a possible connection to Uhtred in case the latter becomes his oathman once he’s king, but it is the last part of the whole prayer that is fascinating, because in this moment she says what a king is if he’s connected to him and, therefore, the reference to Alfred is undeniable: the king had to be “untarnished by heathen ways” so that he could be “God’s king” and “pure”.

Alfred was connected to Uhtred so he was tarnished by heathen ways, he was not God’s king and he was not pure, all because of it.

Alfred eveasdropped this whole thing and when Aelswith noticed him, they both understood exactly what she was truly talking about and the expression on Alfred’s face was one of someone who actually believed those things about himself as well, and indeed you see that a lot in S3 when he shows more than once that he’s scared that he won’t end up in heaven. In 2x06 there's also another hint at that when he says “I am reaching out for an England, all in the name of God, yet I am relying upon the strength of a heathen, the iron of a pagan”, and when Aelswith tells him “You are God's king, lord" his answer is "Yet at my right hand is a pagan”.

Alfred has always been terrified at the possibility of not ending up in heaven because of what he had with Uhtred, but despite all of that he's always defended him and saved his life multiple times, just as Uhtred did with him.

Since Uhtred arrived in Wessex he has risked death more than once in every season, and Alfred has always tried to find a way to save his life:

1x03, Ubba offered Alfred a peace for silver and Uhtred’s head, Alfred refused and told him that he would have returned to the sword if he didn’t accept only to be paid.

1x05, Uhtred unleashed a sword in front of Alfred during prayers, while screaming at him in front of many people of Winchester. That’s a crime that is supposed to be punished with death, Alfred made him crawl instead.

1x06/1x07, Uhtred, claiming to do Alfred’s business, plundered Cornwall and sided with a Dane against a christian king, Alfred was supposed to kill him immediately, even more when Uhtred, supposed to beg for forgiveness, decided to scream in his face that he would never kneel neither to him nor to his God, but instead Alfred accepted Leofric’s proposal of a fight to the death so that “God would decide”, that means he left the possibility of Uhtred’s survival, even more because he chose the exact day for that fight to happen, which, casually, was on the day of a saint he liked a lot, and indeed the day after he called Uhtred and told him that he didn't like the thought of someone dying on that day. He tried to save him by offering him the option of giving everything back and resuming the debt (since it was with the plunder that he paid it), but Uhtred didn’t want to leave Iseult, so he refused.

2x03, he sent Ragnar to rescue Uhtred from slavery.

3x02, first, he was most likely going to forgive Uhtred for desecrating the cemetery; second, he should have senteced Uhtred to death for killing a monk in front of the whole witan and then escaping (thus worsening his actions), but instead he asked for an oath and spared his life; third, after he threatened his life Alfred did order for him to be killed, but as soon as he escaped he simply banished him from Wessex, he could have made someone follow him, but he didn’t.

3x05, Uhtred was an outlaw, while he was in Mercia Alfred could have still had him killed, since at the end of the day he was one of his enemies, but instead he used the excuse of him having Aethelflaed’s protection. Alfred could have killed him and no one would have said anything about it, but he did not.

3x08/3x09 Uhtred was still an outlaw here and Alfred claimed before that he would have killed him if stepped foot into Wessex, but he did not, instead he even assured his protection for when he knew he wouldn’t have been alive anymore to protect him.

Now, I feel like Alfred has a sort of codependency when it comes to Uhtred. That man constantly wants him next to him and he almost needs him to be there, the fact itself that in 2x05 Odda mentions that Alfred always says the same thing about Uhtred’s hall in Coccham “every time we visit”, hints at them being there quite ofter and there was only a 3 years time jump between the first and second half of S2, so Uhtred has had those lands for 3 years, probably even less, so… Exactly how many times have you visited this man in 3 years, Alfred? But, whether there's actually an element of codependency or not, there's certainly something that pulls them together, and indeed it is explicitly said that Uhtred and Alfred are “bonded" and that for that fact alone they can't kill each other even when they should.

In 3×09 Alfred points a sword to Uhtred's throat and asks him if he believes he could kill him, and to that Uhtred answers “we are bonded, you cannot kill me just as I cannot kill you”, and it’s really fascinating because there's a parallel between that scene and the scene in 5x07 when Uhtred and Brida are fighting and, when she tells him to kill her, he screams at her that they “are bound as one, killing you would be like killing a part of myself”, and Brida and Uhtred were romantically involved.

My point is that it is for this exact reason that Alfred was never able to look at Uhtred and excute him as he was supposed to do so many times, even the only time it very nearly happened (1x07) he left before he could see it, and whenever Uhtred was hit by Leofric during the fight, if you look specifically at Alfred, it almost seems as if he couldn't breathe, so you know there’s a kind of “without you I would be lost and I wouldn’t be myself anymore” for the both of them, and you can see that especially in the one who had to live further when the other actually died: Uhtred.

Uhtred very much always clings onto a few things and people, but the more he loses those he cares for the most, the more he loses himself. S3 is truly the start of Uhtred’s sort of radical change, indeed the man in SKMD is almost nothing like the man in S1, and what made it possible was that season.

In S3 Uhtred faces many losses: first he loses Gisela, so literally the love of his life (she was and I will die on that hill), second his brother Ragnar, then he loses Alfred, and not even a few days after his sister Thyra dies.

Gisela’s death has started Uhtred’s fall, and since he got cursed and was, very understandbly, in so much pain, everything escalated very quickly.

He killed Godwin to defend Gisela’s honour and he was obviously hurt by what he perceived as Alfred’s disinterest in defending Gisela, as he himself in 3x04 complains about in a very hurt way that Alfred “allowed her to be called a whore” (even though Alfred did try to make Godwin stop, but Uhtred simply couldn’t hear it because he was too enraged), therefore he betrays him and then subsequentially feels absolutely so guilty about it that he arrives to the point where Leofric, as the personification of his conscience, lets us know that he believed he deserved to died because of what he did to Alfred. As soon as the first occasion arises (Aethelflaed is in danger) he immediately leaves, which you can see was already on his mind as soon as Brida suggested him destroying Alfred, thus he abandons his brother. He then finds out that Ragnar died and he thinks it’s his fault because he left him (though there could have probably been little he could have done to prevent it even if he stayed there), then he suddenly meets Alfred again and he sees how much he's hated by him, or so Uhtred believes, so he falls in an even worse emotional state than before. After some time, Beocca asks him to meet Alfred and Uhtred himself wonders “what makes you think he would speak with me?”, which just shows how much he truly thought that Alfred despised him, but he goes to meet him anyway and he speaks to him. For the first time since they have met they are honest to each other and Alfred shows him actual trust and even love in a way, but then Alfred dies not even a week after (probably the day after they talked actually), so even if they were finally at peace with each other, Alfred still died and they had no way to enjoy that tranquility.

Now all of this took a very obvious emotional toll on Uhtred and I believe that Alfred is one of the biggest because he knew that he going to die, and yet, because of Skade's curse as Uhtred believed it to be, he wasted those final years they could have had together. That man meant a lot to Uhtred and in the books there's this quote that always gets me:

I stood beside Alfred’s coffin and thought how life slipped by, and how, for nearly all my life, Alfred had been there like a great landmark.

And that’s so terribly true because, compared to all the deaths before, it is important to notice that Alfred was the one who was there the most, more than Gisela and even more than Ragnar himself, since the latter left for Ireland right before Uhtred became Earl Ragnar’s son. Indeed when Alfred dies you can immediately see a change in demanor in Uhtred, which is striking because compared to many other deaths he went through, Uhtred remains silent in face of many things, for example during Alfred’s funeral he's imprisoned but doesn’t say a word, the only time he utters something is to tell Finan to do nothing. S1 Uhtred would have never reacted in such a way.

Still in prison, you can see that he goes near a very dangerous edge when he finds out that Thyra died, and that edge is finally overstepped in 4x03 with Beocca’s death, and it is from this death onwards that Uhtred is a completely different person. The process started with Gisela's death, culminated with Alfred’s and exploded with Beocca’s.

As I said Uhtred always clings to people and Uhtred has always been sort of in denial for Alfred’s death. He always dismissed the actual possibility of him dying, even when he himself noticed the signs, even when Alfred himself told him that he was about to and yet that man was still there like “Skade preys on men's fears, Lord”, says the man who at that time believed every single word she said. The thing is that I believe Uhtred remained in denial even after Alfred died, because yes he was with his God, but there was a part of Alfred that still lived: his dream.

From Alfred's death onwards, Uhtred works both directly and indirectly for the dream of an England, indeed he actually proves his loyalty to that man more after he died than when he was alive, and that has a lot to do with the fact that it was the last connection he had with him, as in a way it was also for Aelswith if you think about it, but also there was the aspect that, before dying, Alfred entrusted it in his hands and, since Uhtred spent the whole of S3 considering himself a traitor and blaming himself for it, if that man shows you one last trust, a trust you have yearned for your whole life, even more with the thing you know is most precious to him, what do you do? You are willing to do anything you can to make sure that that dream happens, to make sure that you can prove your loyalty, to show that you can keep one last oath to him and make it up for the one you broke.

That is painfully obvious in the film.

In the film Uhtred has made Northumbria an unified place, and it is actually the first time the whole of it is under one single king (even if Uhtred doesn’t call himself that), which was what Alfred has wanted all along, because he knew that the main problem would have been that particular kingdom, so with this action Uhtred has paved the way for the upcoming unification of England.

In 3x09 Alfred told him that his last act as king was to make sure that good men held power and that's one of the main things Uhtred was doing. Uhtred has known Alfred for 28 years of his life, he spent countless times with him, so he knew what Alfred would have wanted and every single decision he took in the film was so obviously made with the thought in mind of Alfred's wishes, and indeed Uhtred held the reins until he knew there was someone fitting to rule, a good man, just as his king would have wanted.

One of the most beautiful things to me is that Uhtred was lord of Bebbanburg at the time, so lord of the fortress he has waited his whole life to get back to, and yet he was mostly and more concerned about Alfred’s dream dying rather than the survival of that. Uhtred was also in a situation where he didn’t want to fight anymore, he didn’t even particularly believed he was still a warrior, and yet as soon as that dream was threatened, he didn’t hesitate once. That man was even forbidden to take part of the battle, since it would have been too dangerous for him, but he didn’t trust anyone else to protect Alfred’s dream and thus Uhtred went and died for it.

That man would have never died if he listened to Aethelstan's commands, but he defied them to not betray the little trust Alfred put in him right before he passed.

When he went back to Bebbanburg he didn’t even allow himself to die until he knew that there was an England out there and that Alfred’s lineage was on the throne of it, and during that scene he says that all he wanted was to be honoured in valhalla for “standing by an oath”, which yes can be interpreted as the oath of protecting Aethelstan, but remember that in S3, in Uhtred's mind, he did the most terrible thing of them all by breaking his oath to Alfred. Making England happen was the only way he could have forgiven himself for it, absolutely striking is the moment when the dream is fulfilled and you can how Uhtred is on the verge of tears and I think that has to do with two main reasons: first, he knew that with that Alfred would have finally known and understood how he could have never have betrayed him, and second, Alfred’s work was finished and there was nothing that kept him alive in his mind anymore.

Uhtred died soon after that so, in my mind, he totally met Alfred again at some point. In the show, for Thyra who was in a situation where she still believed in valhalla but was actually a christian, it was accepted the view of being in both places, therefore it is most likely the same for Uhtred, you know, a whole concept of peace rather than an actual place.

Dying for England is the most obvious declaration of love from Uhtred’s part, but if we want to point out actual words, Uhtred in 3x10 says that Alfred was “a man I loved and despised”, and he even calls him “my king”, which is something Uhtred will never do again for anyone. For the other kings he always just refers to them as “our”, therefore he speaks for his people and not for himself, but for Alfred? Oh, that’s a “my”.

For Alfred the thing was different because the man was a christian with so much guilt inside, it would have been way more difficult for him to say out loud that he loved Uhtred.

I do believe though that he did say it in subtext when he told him that “I should have closed my eyes and rattled at Heaven’s gate some time ago, it was the hope of this meeting that has kept me alive”, which is a lot, considering that the man was suffering like hell because of his illness, and yet he held onto life just for the purpose of seeing Uhtred one last time. It is also very interesting that on his deathbed he asked Uhtred “are you here or is it my sickness?”, because it hints at the possibility of Alfred having hallucinatione of Uhtred in the past when he was ill and WHY WOULD YOU EVER SEE SOME MAN WHEN YOU FEEL UNWELL? AND ESPECIALLY WHY ARE YOU NOT EVEN SURPRISED THAT YOUR MIND COULD HAVE CONJURED UHTRED COMING TO YOUR CHAMBERS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT? There’s only one answer to that:

You are gay for that man and you are in love with him.

They both were.

So anon, the answer to your question is: Yes, I do believe that they had feelings for each other.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk!

[thedrotter]

I have a gift for y'all today !!! 😊 Ever wanted to find a line in Re:Kinder in a single place for the sake of reference?? How about multiple chunks of lines. how about all the little variations that arise in the text with it's many endings, item descriptions, text that comes from interacting with the enviroment, and character info from the menu without having to boot up the game and go through it at long minutes!!???

well i sure did😊 Since I do a lot of fanart and think up my own silly theories and thoughts that need me to reference the game lines a lot, i have made a transcript for it for convenience's sake. A weirdly thorough transcript handwritten and proofread by me including all character lines available in-game. And I'm sharing it with you all today for anyone that wants it !!! :3 To use as a reference for creative fanworks or a quick search for a line in-game, whatever you wish to use it for!!

It uses the english translation of the game by vgperson. So naturally all credit for the game lines available in here is to her and Parun who made the game.

I did my best to organize it in a way easy to digest. Do note that I'm still human, and there's still the chance for mistake in it no matter how much I've proofread it, since I'm not even an english native speaker ^^. But I hope it serves you well nonetheless if you wish to use it.

That's my gift for today!!! Not the usual art, but still a project I'm proud of. Enjoy!!! 😊

[lover-of-mine]

i’m always interested in your analyses of the blue-green thing! colour is such a cool way of expressing themes or parallels and when you look at it laid out with all the couples, it’s so clear and non coincidental lol

“up until 6b they were really careful with this particular implication of romantic undertones with buddie and that's out the window now” is this in reference to how they carefully set up buddie’s themes and storylines over 5 seasons and then fucked it up in just a few 6b episodes? 😅

because honestly that’s part of the reason why i don’t have much hope for canon in season 7, i feel like they’ve suddenly backtracked on their relationship for some reason and are gonna go all no homo and/or just ruin them completely

post about the blue and green thing

Okay, I'm gonna go conspiracy theorist here, and I may be giving the showrunners too much credit, but here's the thing, we know the threat of cancellation made them change things around during 6b, there's a very clear tone shift, they changed episode names, called actor back for reshoots, so they changed the way the season was supposed to go so it would work as a nice packaged little happy ending if they got cancelled. Personally, I believe that there is some higher plan with Buck and Eddie going on here, I think they are a slowburn that is still burning, and personally, that needs to burn a little bit more until they can have a relationship that would work (getting Buck back in therapy and letting them talk would be ideal) and if you wanna jump ship go for it, I don't blame you, this shit is frustrating. But the thing is, they are very careful about how characters are constructed, and Buck and Eddie exist as mirrors of each other, and they also mirror canon romantic couple, bathena being the most blatant one. And they make a point to make sure that if you look at it closely, you can pick up on some romantic undertone, most major buddie scenes have that feeling that leaves you wondering. And it's not like the show doesn't know how to write friendships, because they do, so... choices. But going back to season 6, it might just be me, but I don't want them to get together for the sake of them getting together, there's a lot of build-up surrounding them for me to be satisfied with "and they kissed roll credits" (i love you *falls to gay superhell*, oh he had complicated feelings over the jeep) so I don't think they fucked it up, I think they didn't have the time to playout what they wanted to do with buddie in the space they had in season 6 and voted against rushing it since there was a chance the show was going to get picked up by someone else. Because it is still very easy to write off both Natalia and Marisol and keep whatever plan they might have and if they didn't get picked up just shoving them together would be unsatisfying. (In the end, it was unsatisfying anyway because the way they wrote the season makes a real effort into painting Buck, Eddie, and Chris as a family unity, so most things that don't end with them acknowledging this are unsatisfying, but it's an easy fix because the show didn't end, so)

Because, in the end, they are purposely writing Buck and Eddie as mirrors of each other, and it goes down to the first death on the job for both of them being someone falling to their death. You have the first love that ran away from them and came back without giving them real closure, you have the rocky relationship with their parents, you have the relationship they were pushed into by other people (Eddie and Ana and Buck and Ali if that's not clear), you have the way that Shannon is introduced and the next episode Buck gets a girlfriend, Shannon dies? Next episode, byebye Ali, Eddie starts dating Ana? Next episode, let's bring Taylor back into the mix, Buck is dating Natalia? What a wonderful time to have Eddie decide he's ready to put himself out there. You have the late confirmation they are the same age. You have the way they both escaped home, the way they found themselves in firefighting. You have the pretty blunt parallels between the shooting and the lightning and the well and the lightning, you have Eddie's will and the way Eddie decided to hide it (because they could have Eddie talk to Buck before changing and I've seen this playout between friends in other shows, but the choice to hide it gives a different feeling), you have multiple confirmations that Buck sees Christopher as his own, you have Eddie being hurt being Buck's berzerker button. One or two things are an accident, this many? They're on purpose, and I chose to believe there is some bigger, longer plan in action here. Sometimes I feel like there's a large percentage of the fandom who doesn't understand the stakes behind a network slowburn. Even shows like castle or the mentalist, where you KNOW they are gonna end up together, took like? 6 seasons? of build-up for something to happen? And like, I want them together, but with everything we have around them, I want them together in the right way, and yes, I think the show is delaying them because the stakes keep getting higher so it's harder to make it work, but I do have faith they can make something good work, just look at everything about them from 6x10 to 6x13.

Also, that particular statement was just about the blue and green thing because I actually looked at every scene where they are together, and they are never in those colors except for those two scenes, and the choice of shades of blue and green is very on purpose to be on accident, you know what I mean? And Buck and Taylor have multiple blue and green scenes, to pick the shades from the shooting is insane really.

Everything is on purpose, but a tv show is not like a book or a movie where everything is gonna be contained, you need to let the story evolve and adapt to the circumstances in which is being aired, and personally, I think 6x16-6x18 are just a detour, some construction on sunset lol, I think they had a choice to keep the season the way it was supposed to go and risk leaving the show feeling unfinished or shift things around and just leave Buck and Eddie feeling unfinished and they went with the second option, because it had less consequences.

Season 7 could absolutely go just kidding, no homo, but the thing is, you have two characters whose storylines are deeply tangled together, you can just sit them down, have them talk, say "you're my brother, dude" and goodbye, they're platonic best buddies. But I also don't think they would draw such a hard line because us crazy buddie shippers keep watching the show in the hopes of seeing them in the same frame together, and I feel like a significant part of people could give up the show altogether if they make such a blunt statement. And the showrunners know that, keeping us in the will they won't they thing helps their numbers and we are a significant enough portion of the viewers to make a difference. The hope of buddie brings audience to the show so I wouldn't expect a no homo thing. Or any hard line between them really.

But what do I know? I'm just a girl with a blog and a hyperfixation lol

[cherry-bomb-ships]

Ok I need to get this ramble out or its gonna kill me but like. Was listening to the opening track of the PPG movie's OST and there's a part around 23 seconds in where they use half the notes from Mojo's theme, and then use the FULL theme in the next measure and that stuff is SO COOL it makes me scream, but also like. Ok we're gonna ignore the fact that yes, irl its a terrible idea to have a chimpanzee as a "lab assistant", this is a cartoon and things can get sillay and that feels very Fictional Science of the show to do, and we're also gonna ignore the fact that pre-mutation Mojo was a wild animal outside his natural environment and shouldn't be held accountable for behaving like one. IGNORING ALL THAT.

I feel like one aspect of Mojo's character that they rly try to hammer home in that opening is the idea of Nature over Nurture, and the fact that from the very start, before the mutation and intelligence and evil plans, he was always a force of destruction and is always going to be as such. His only instinct as a normal chimp was to cause damage 24/7 and generally be a crazy little bastard, so going by that logic it makes total sense that even after gaining intelligence surpassing most humans, he's still following that instinct of destruction. I mean, why didn't he ACTUALLY use his heightened mind to help humanity like he said he was going to do when he was LYING? What better way to gain humanity's respect and admiration than inventing things that would benefit everyone?

Well obviously there's the resentment he feels now that he's intelligent and sees humanity as the oppressive species (resentment that Utonium is partially and indirectly responsible for but thats a discussion for another time), there's also the greed and arrogance he has of not wanting to work FOR or under anyone, seeing himself as more intelligent than any living creature on Earth. These things are not excuses by any means, but I do think that deep down, despite all of these reasons, it still boils down to him following that destructive instinct and just wanting to cause mayhem for his own enjoyment.

I feel like this is supported by a lot of his evil plans in the show, because as often as he's trying to "take over" Townsville, the other half of the time he's just out to destroy it altogether with no further end goal, once again just being a destructive force because it's what he likes and wants to do. But there's really nowhere where this is shown to be more obvious than the 10th anniversary special, The Powerpuff Girls Rule!!! In that special, after all, he actually SUCCEEDS in what he's been trying to do for so long, he wins in the end, Mojo Jojo rules the world! And at first he goes with what his intelligence tells him to do logically, succeeding in so many places where humanity has failed itself and basically netting eternal bragging rights for solving all problems with the world, and people love him for it!! But in the end, it's... peaceful. Quiet. Boring. And he comes to absolutely HATE it. The special ends with him giving all of that up, giving up RULING THE WORLD, because he cannot help but follow that destructive instinct and just starts blowing shit up for fun again, and even if he gets stopped by the Powerpuff Girls once again, he couldn't be happier to be back to doing what he does best!!

This was super rambly but TLDR No matter how intelligent Mojo is and how complicated his plans may get, at the very root of his character he will almost always just be following those destructive animal instincts that have been inside him since long before the effects of Chemical X affected him, thank you for coming to my TedTalk 🤓🤓🤓

[arctic-bookclub]

after seeing this amazing post by @the-purest i felt compelled to create this so enjoy :] jurgen leitner rant [code monster edition] under the cut because it’s long:

Ph1LzA: THE CODE MONSTER?

STUPID IDIOT MOTHERFUCKING CODE MONSTER? GODDAMN FOOL PICTURE TAKING EGG KILLING CORRUPTED BINARY BASTARD SHITHEAD IDIOT AVATAR OF THE WHORE BIGGEST CLOWN IN THE CIRCUS LAUGHED OUT OF TOWN COWBOY MOTHERFUCKING CODE MONSTER

STOP PINNING ME WHEN I TALK ABOUT THE CODE MONSTER I HATE IT SO MUCH WHY DOES IT HAVE SO MANY FUCKED UP WEAPONS WHY DID IT DECIDE TO FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT ONLY TO REFUSE TO FIGHT ME IS IT AN EGG? IS IT A BASTARD? BINARY BITCH HAS SUCH A VISCERAL EFFECT ON ME NOT EVEN ON THE SERVER NEVER SEEN THIS CODES FACE AND I KNOW IT HAS THE WORLDS SHITTIEST HAIRCUT GET AWAY FROM ME

if i wanted to get into heaven and god said the code monster is waiting inside i would piss on gods feet for the sole purpose of getting sent back down

if i have to deal with the code monster dropping one item in person on quesadilla island in minecraft not only will i close the game i will delete my launcher out of spite and have to redownload all the mods again for the experience of being able to miss all the times when its mentioned or alive

i don't even know why i hate it so much. it takes pictures but i am just mad because i am angy

it better have some fucked up backstory to explain this if it’s just some federation shithead who’s a fan of angst and wanted the eggs dead i'll go ham

better have had a been a failed corrupted egg because if it isn’t i'm going to make it

paypal.com/IFuckingHateTheCodeMonster

servers not even about it. vaguely mentioned what is supposed to be maybe its purpose and i lost it

where the fuck is the code monster if it’s still alive i'm going to so deeply wish it wasn't

weak creative mode code

i'll punch the code and its sad cowardly creative mode binary numbers will simply flake apart under my epic huge meat fist and it will disintegrate until all that's left is one final picture it kept on it at all times titled Now You Fucked Up in ancient morsecode

i'm not breathing i'm hyperventilating at this point

i hope there's a date given for when the code died or will die so i can make it a reminder on my phone

everyday once a year i will see it and do anything but pay respects to the code who had so many fucked up if true theories about it

[maulfucker]

not resisting the urge to create the weirdoest starwar ocs possible. I need to create a horde of jedi of black and white species

[annabylers]

Not to be sappy on main but Alexa what are you supposed to do when the boy you've been deeply madly crazily in love with for 3+ years starts giving hints(or maybe im just looking too much into it) that he maybe probably likes you too??????

[indecisive-dizzy]

Ramble about Eddie to your heart’s content, bestie :D

I’m honestly very interested in your ideas :3

Again, don’t be scared to just ramble in my ask box, I love hearing peoples ideas

AJDKKAGAJAKAK- THANK YOU <3 <3

I'm wailing rn /pos

My AU! Disabled Eddie!! Ok so he wasn't born with his disability, it came about later.

My Current story is that he had stroke in late middle/early high school! I have done research and Yes it is possible for teens and younger to have strokes. From what I recall it can be significantly worse for them compared to adult strokes

Eddie was left with permanent complications and is disabled bc of it. He has coordination, balance, and general mobility complications among a list of other post stroke effects. I just found the word I was looking for a few days ago to describe his mobility issues, it's Ataxia!

Eddie has to deal with bouts of muscle weakness on his right side which can effect his vision. He also gets vertigo a Lot and at this point dizziness is expected every time he stands.

He uses forearm crutches when he needs extra help walking bc he does have good days where he may not need them! But for longer distances he brings them bc he's better safe than sorry. He also has cane but he doesn't use it As much.

He also has a wheelchair that he Hates. He hates having to use it. But his Really horrible days leave him unable to stand, much less walk. He wishes he could just hide it somewhere and never think about it but alas. it's important.

He dislikes the wheelchair so much bc it makes him feel useless. He is Not! I want to clarify that wheelchair users are perfectly Capable and Independent! Eddie just has an issue with overachieving and working himself too hard. He wants to be helpful and do So Much but there are some things he can't do while in his wheelchair. He was stuck in a chair for months after his stroke and it was devastating back then. He has No good memories with a wheelchair so he continues to dislike using it.

Ok putting a read more bc I am not shutting up for a While

Relationships with the neighbors! Generally the same. Barnaby doesn't chase him bc that would be mean (? I can't think of a better way to describe it)

Sally is still Sally but she's specific on her mailman hate (lmao) to make sure Eddie and everyone else knows she's not faulting him for his disability.

Hmm yeah everything else is pretty much the same. I guess everyone is also more open about offering Eddie help from time to time if he looks like he needs an extra hand. They're not persistent or anything, but if they see him struggling to carry a package or two they're more inclined to help.

I still don't know how Howdy gets his shit. Honestly If Eddie is having a crutch or chair day,, Howdy just won't get his stock unless he gets it himself. I can't think of a way for Eddie to deliver all those heavy ass boxes.

He does ask people to pick up their packages occasionally too. He tries to deliver them all himself but it's not always possible. He offers a trolley they can use.

I want to talk about angst. So this is very specific, I'll try to keep it short. growing up, Eddie lived in a four bedroom house. two downstairs master bedrooms and two upstairs normal bedrooms. Before his stroke he was upstairs, his older brother in the other room, and his older sister in the bedroom downstairs.

Afterwards he had to move downstairs. His sister Hated this. She loved her room and her private bathroom and she was very prissy about it.

This snowballed into her just,, taking all her frustrations out on Eddie. He took Her Bedroom. He's getting all the attention. Her little brother was ruining everything.

Eddie was devastated by this. He went as far as to attempt to convince his parents to let them switch rooms again. He couldn't physically walk up the stairs most days but he just wanted his big sister to not hate him anymore.

Their relationship never fully recovered. As an adult Eddie will still find ways to blame himself and feel guilty. But he just can't bring himself to talk to her.

They used to be so close. She let Eddie experiment with her makeup, they talked about fashion and boys and she helped him so so much when he was questioning his sexuality.

and then it just, fell apart. But not quietly like a loose thread but rather a house that wasn't built quite right and the screws came loose one by one.

Eddie's memory gets really fuzzy when thinking that far back. but some of those memories are burned into his mind and he wishes he could forget them like he does everything else.

[everymlmhybrid]

This is awesome just remembered I get to write the frottage scene soon assuming I actually write more than 4 words this week.

[just-some-random-blogger]

Losing Dogs

Neither you or Aegon wanted to get married. Neither you or Aegon wanted to marry each other. But at some point, you figured you should make the most of what you had, and so you offer your husband a deal he cannot refuse.

Aegon Targaryen x Reader | 6k+ | cw: fem!reader, wife!reader, arranged marriage/loveless marriage, smut (piv, virginity loss, rough/loveless sex) DD:DNE, alcoholism, violence, suicide/suicidal thoughts & ideation, mentions of domestic/child abuse, death, pregnancy/miscarriage, aegon's mommy issues, insecurities, angst, typos, etc.

A/N: ... i had something to say about this fic but i forgot... maybe ill remember later???? edit: i did not remember. i thought of mitski while entitling this so go play i bet on losing dogs ig?

Tagging: @pinksirensong @aralezinspace @deniixlovezelda @azperja @sloanexx @risefallrise

You don't know what you have until it's gone.

Aegon only truly understood what this meant the day he was married and he was forbidden to drink a drop of alcohol.

As if it wasn't painful enough that he was going to be married to a complete stranger from some house he's never fucking heard of, he was erratic and uneasy the whole day because of the withdrawal. He loathes the preparation, the ceremony, the fucking pageantry of it all.

He thinks it was worse that you seemed to be so chipper the entire time. You smiled with a halo, skin shining with the light. You also seemingly did no wrong, judging by the praises you received from his mother and grandfather. But, who was he kidding, of course they fucking loved you, they chose you to be his prison keeper.

You did not press him once, not when you were preparing for the ceremony, not when you were at the feast, not even after the Queen encouraged you to dance.

Anyone with eyes could see from how he slumped on his chair during dinner that Aegon would rather die than circle around the room to this grating noise echoing in the chamber.

The band begins to play another song and another round of dancing ensues.

He stares at the food on the table. Oh, to be a suckling pig.

The relief that coursed through him when he could finally leave was enough to knock him out. Except, he really wanted, no, needed a drink.

He crashes on his bed, belly down, and reaches for the cabinet door on his bedside table. He feels for his bottle, hand knocking into the corners of the compartment, but he sits up when he finds nothing.

He growls in frustration upon realizing this was definitely his mother's doing. Thief!

"I managed a cup."

Aegon struggles to look over his shoulder from his position. He rolls on his back as you walk to the side of the bed.

He stares at you. You offer a glass holding burgundy liquid. Your voice is soft and kind as you explain, "your mother would suspect me if I took a whole bottle."

Aegon pushes himself up and sits on the edge of the bed, facing you. He gulps at the wine you were offering.

Sure, he may not be the brightest, but anyone could tell this scene was the epitome of ulterior motives. Aegon leans on his thighs, "why are you doing this?"

You stare a moment. You clutch the cup in both hands and examine it. Again, your voice is gentle, "you are clearly in torment. It hurts my heart."

His eye twitches.

I see. It seems you were a fucking saint.

Aegon rips the glass out of your hands, some of the wine spills over. He downs the contents in one go, then chucks the glass across the room once he finished.

He looks back at you, glaring with watery eyes. He was exhausted, he was angry, and he wanted you to know it. But you don't flinch at the sound of the glass breaking. You didn't flinch at all when he showed aggression. Why didn't you flinch?

You press your lips and sigh. You step towards him and reach out.

He nervously straightens up and tilts his head back as you approach. His breath hitches when your warm hand touches his cheek. He blinks rapidly.

"It's been a long day. Would you like me to help you change?"

Again, his eye twitches.

And then he realizes what you mean.

Ah. So, this is what you wanted?

He releases a breath, eyes lowering. Your face falls into a slight frown.

He thinks about it for a moment. I mean, sex was sex and he was game. It didn't matter how he performed, his completion was all that mattered, really. And you were pretty enough, albeit irritatingly good.

When you stroke his hair, Aegon pulls at your skirts, causing you to squeak and topple, hands flying to his shoulders for support. Your faces are inches apart. He pulls you down until you have no other choice than to sit on his lap.

You can smell the remnants of the wine he just drank on his breath. Aegon brings his face closer to yours, and you let out a soft 'hmp'. You mutter, "I gather you don't want to change, but want to get out of your clothes."

He narrows his eyes as you shift on his lap and undo the buttons by his chest. He mutters dumbly, "this is what you wanted."

With knit brows, you retort, "I've not yet told you what I wanted." You shift on his lap again as you peel his top off. Amidst it, he asks, "what do you want?"

You grunt after ridding him of his top. You fold it in your arms then set it aside on the bed. You turn back to him. Aegon's breath hitches when you fondle with strings of his undershirt. He watches your lips as you mumble, "I want you to give me a ride on your dragon."

He furrows his brows. But that's what he just said.

You stand, only to lift your skirt and take your place back on his lap. This time, you straddle him.

Aegon gulps, hands coming to your hips like a magnet. He feels you grind on him; shaky breaths leave his lips in response. His hands scratch up your back and a moan escapes him when your nails trace his collarbones.

"Allow me one trip on Sunfyre, and in return, I'll be your magic lamp," you whisper, taking one of his hands, bringing it to the side of your ribs, "you may rub me where you like-"

His heart skips when you kiss his cheek.

"-and I will grant you all your wishes."

Aegon ticks.

The next moment, he pushes you down on the bed. He doesn't bother getting either of you naked, nor does he prepare you at all in fact. Thankfully, you were already wet.

You don't have the opportunity to ask him to be gentle, to explain you were a bride after all, and it was your wedding night.

Aegon grips your skirts as he fucks you like he means to prove a point. He snaps his hips roughly into you to assert dominance, to exemplify control. Sure, you offered yourself to him, but he was the one doing the work, and you were the one beneath him.

In truth, the pace he set gave you more pain rather than pleasure. And with how pent up he was, the rough tempo he set burnt him out way too quickly before it could make any of you feel good. And when he begins to lag, you start to feel good.

You notice this change and rub your nose against his. He recoils, unused to affection when fucking. It snaps him back into an aggressive trance.

You yelp. Aegon convinced himself it was a sound of bliss.

You kiss his jaw and work your way to his ear, hoping to calm him down. He tenses at the feel of your tongue on his lobe. It stokes flames in his belly and makes him involuntarily roll his hips slower to focus on the attention you're giving. In return, his pace is just enough for him to hit that spot that makes you throw your head back.

Aegon is startled by the scratchy groan that leaves your throat. He finds himself lifting his head to spectate, but you pull him into you by the nape and groan, "like that. Please- gods - that feels good."

His brows tense and he rolls his hips again, finding the same reaction.

You wrap your arms and legs around him, uncaring of how hot and sweaty you were getting. In the heat of the moment, you reach for his lips, needing them, needing something to wrap your own on.

Aegon kisses you. He kisses you with a strange twinge in his chest. He kisses you until he has to pull away and reposition himself to catch his building climax.

In a second, he's back to his fuck-loving self, only self-serving and lustful. As he gazes upon your writhing body, catching the beads of sweat on your skin, the concentration on your face, and the way you chant his name as you part your legs for him, he's overcome by another spirit. To watch you break, to watch you coil and collapse around him felt just as urgent as his need to come.

And so Aegon rubs your clit and forces you to peak first; you do it so well he curses loudly and comes after.

He lays on top of you for a moment, the overwhelming need to be held ripples through his body. He recalls how his whores shoo him away after he's done fucking them though. Before you can cradle him in your arms, he rolls off you.

You close your legs and and watch him strip himself and sequentially change. You watch him get back in bed and bring himself underneath the covers. He goes to sleep.

He fucking goes to sleep.

You feel hollow after this, but tell yourself it's nothing personal. You repeat this as you, yourself, get up and change, sequentially sleeping too. Or at least you try. You have fight the urge to cry for hours before you do.

The next morning, you bring up dragon riding to Aegon, and disappointed as you are, you are unsurprised to find that he was unwilling to give you such a thing.

It was a plain thing you were asking for, you explain. And it's exactly why he doesn't want to do it. It's clearly some trick, something to trap him, something he's going to regret. It was probably some ploy orchestrated by his mother.

Oh gods, he thinks, it's worse. It's a bonding experience so you can make him into your puppet. Fuck. No.

So, he does what he does best, and makes an excuse, "I don't feel like riding today. I'm still exhausted from the festivities."

You purse your lips and nod, "that's understandable. Would you like for me to get you something?"

Wait. You weren't going to argue about him not keeping his end of the deal?

You seem to catch this, considering your response and the way you take his hand. You place his palm on your chest. He can feel your pulse quicken as you mutter, "I am your magic lamp, husband. I wish to please you. I will prove this until you trust me enough to grant me a ride on dragonback."

He narrows his eyes, "you would grant me wishes, all in return for a ride on Sunfyre?"

You smile softly at him, "in return for respite, yes."

He doesn't trust your smile.

"I want to visit the Grey Cliffs. I have for a years now. I went there once as a child and long to go again."

"Why?" he knits his brows at your explanation, "what's there?"

You lower his hand and rub his skin, "respite, my prince."

Aegon pulls his hand away.

Very well. If that is what you want, then he will wear your wishes dry until you find it no longer worth the trouble.

Aegon wishes on his lamp everyday, and his wife sequentially plays entertainer, jester, servant, and slave.

He makes you bring a bottle of wine with you everywhere, and pour him a cup when he wishes. He loathes how you seem unbothered by it. He loathes how you don't even correct a visiting Lord who mistakes you for a cupbearer and simply serve him some wine. The Lord is mortified when he realizes you are his wife, a fucking princess. Aegon hates how you tell the man you were unbothered because you spent your whole life being a cupbearer to your father anyway.

He makes you do trivial tasks as well, sometimes tasks meant for more than one person at a time, and yet you still manage to do them, annoyingly better than the maids. When he demanded you cook him a full course meal, you did so all by yourself, and had the servants looking at you like you were some goddess.

He ripped a hole in his clothes then made you mend it. You covered the hole so seamlessly that he poked a bigger one right in front of you. And even then you don't give him the satisfaction of getting angry. You tell him you will embroider something on top of the hole and he storms off. He overhears you telling the servants, who applaud your level-headedness, that you were used to angry men, because your father was just the same.

You use each of these moments to somehow tell him you were the perfect wife and he had to oblige your stupid request at some point.

But then he found your flaw.

Aegon asked you to play the harpsichord for him, and you told him you did not know how. The woman who knew all did not know something? He would then proceed to hang this over your head. When he asked you for food, he'd tell you how much better it'd taste if he had entertainment. If he asked you to do something physically taxing for him, he's say that he wouldn't have asked you to do it, had you known how to play his 'favorite' instrument. He would use this as the reason why he could never bring you to Grey Cliffs.

It was all fun and games, but then you had to snitch, hadn't you?

"What are you doing to that poor girl!" Queen Alicent barked, making his ears ring.

Aegon groans from where he lies in bed. His mother rips the blankets off him, making him wake in a sour mood.

"She is your wife!" Alicent yells, "not your slave! Fine, you wish her to do tasks for you, tasks for your betterment. But to insult her standing by treating her like a maid is beneath a prince, Aegon!"

Aegon feels his throat tighten at the sight of his angry mother's face, "she is my wife," he growls, "I do with her as I please."

She strikes his cheek.

Aegon's head whips to the side. He doesn't have the energy to look back at her.

"You will no longer parade her as a cupbearer. I will have it decreed you are not ever served a drop of wine if you don't."

Alicent leaves after this. Aegon's anger explodes when the door closes.

He screams and rips at his hair. He kicks furniture around and eventually drops to the floor, exhausted, furious, and hurt. This was all your fault.

He screams again and claws the tears on his face. He slowly exhales through tight lips. His cheek is hot with saltwater. Who was he joking, this was all him.

This was all Aegon's doing.

His breathing is impeded by snot. He walks over to his window and stares at the ground below. If he jumps head first, not even the best maester in Westeros could fix him.

Before he can lean on the ledge, he is paralyzed in his spot by the sound of the door opening.

"I did not know she would be angry with you," you say.

Aegon looks back.

You see his red eyes and wet skin. He is a mirror to your younger self. You feel sick to your stomach. You try to explain, "I only asked if she could find a harpsichord teacher. I did not realize she would take offense in wanting to learn to play for you."

Aegon's heart aches at your naïve response. You were a stupid, perfect wife, and he, a stupid, petulant husband.

"I'm better off dead," he mumbles, looking back out the window. The call of the fall felt inviting, "want to push me, wife?"

You don't respond.

Aegon looks back at you, and suddenly you're only inches away. He tries to evade you, but you manage to catch his hand.

"We could jump together."

"What?"

Your face is blank. You part your lips, and for a moment, your eyes seem desperate, but then it's gone. You sigh, "dying is quite lonely," looking down, "I could keep you company."

Aegon stares at you. Tears stream down his face. "You're mad," he sniffles, yanking his hand away.

He walks over to his bed and collapses on it. He wraps himself in a blanket and feels sorry for himself, and angry at you for suggesting such a thing. Even now you want to be perfect by dying with him?

"I am," you mutter.

Aegon watches as you walk over to him. You sit on the floor beside his bed and look at your hands as you rub them.

"I cannot play the harpsichord, because my father does not like noise," you explain, "I was not allowed to make a sound or else I would be punished."

Aegon covers his head with a blanket but keeps his face visible, "he beat you, didn't he?"

You look at him, eyes melancholy, but still, he is the only one crying, "he beat everyone."

Aegon does not respond.

"I can sing though."

His brow raises, "how can you sing?"

"I would practice whenever he was gone, and sing for my mother in secret. It made her happy... happy enough."

He knew there was more to this confession, but he was too tired to ask about it, too tired to shed more tears.

"Would you like me to sing for you?"

"No."

"..."

"..."

"Would you like me to hold you?"

"..."

"..."

"..."

You stand from where you sat and get on the edge of the bed. Aegon watches as you slowly lie beside him. You bring an arm over him and pull him close. Aegon closes his eyes as you bring him into your chest.

You hold him until he falls asleep. Later that night, he asks you to hold him again. He also asks you to sing to him.

Aegon nestles his face in the crook of your neck. He wraps his arms around your torso, digging his fingers between your flesh and the bed. Your hushed voice reverberates in the bedroom, the song you sing is haunting and soothing. The vibrations from your chest lull him to sleep. You feel wetness pool by your clavicle but you make no note of it.

Aegon asks you to hold him the next morning after breaking fast. He asks you to stay with him in bed and to sing to him some more. When you have to leave his side, he asks to join you and waits until he can have you in his arms again.

Aegon becomes your shadow, and follows you around, under the promise of getting to share in your embrace. As you read and review letters or ledgers, your seat becomes Aegon's lap. He sleeps against you while you work without a fuss, cheek pressed against your back, arms fastened around your waist.

Sometimes, he notices the line that forms between your brows while you read and at some point, asks about it. You explain what causes it, and he is unmoved, as he is uninterested in politics that stress you. But when you read out to him, he finds comfort in your voice and asks you to read some. He falls asleep to your calm droning of circumstances he could not care less about. He groans and groggily awakens when you stop. He mumbles against your skin that you continue, pleadingly so.

When you had to leave the Keep for business, Aegon insisted that he joined you. When you brushed his cheek and explained to him why he could not go and that you would not be long, Aegon pushed you away and stormed off. You left without him anyway, and the treachery he felt was so great, he realized then how he could no longer go day to day without you. What was there to do, if you were not there?

And so Aegon desperately rubs his magic lamp and wishes upon you.

He wishes that you never leave without him again once you return.

He wishes that you promise to no longer make plans without him.

He traps you beneath him on your shared bed and wishes to be inside you. He kisses you and wishes to see you completely bared to him.

Aegon's mind is dizzy as he gazes upon the glory of your skin. He kisses your thighs, your hips, your breast, your lips.

Aegon wishes to surrender to you. He wishes that you undress him. He wishes to pull you on his body like a blanket. He wishes to see you take control. He wishes to see you cast your eyes upon him and lay your weight on his body.

He wishes to see you use him, to take what you need from him, to pleasure yourself, and to make him yours. He squeezes your thighs desperately when you moan out his name. This was much more maddening that what he imagined it would be.

He wishes to feel you come undone around him. He wishes he could forever feel the pleasure he did when he comes right after you do.

He wishes to hold you after. And when he holds you, when you lay on his chest and kiss him there, he wishes to never leave this moment ever again. He wishes to sing to you like you've sung to him.

"What are your plans tomorrow," Aegon asks as he draws nothings on your back.

You lift your head from his chest. He looks at you. You smile, "whatever you wish them to be."

He rubs your back and smiles, "I wish to take you to the Grey Cliffs."

Your expression drops, "what?"

He raises a brow at your reaction. You shift on your place. You straddle him again.

He looks up at you, noticing the line between your brows. He rubs your thighs, "you've granted me all my wishes. It's time I grant you yours." He shifts on his elbows and sits himself up, "it's time you meet my mount and-"

"We don't have to," you cut him off, placing your hands on his shoulders.

Aegon examines your expression. He listens to you sigh.

"I'd like to keep you-- wish to keep you..." you correct yourself, pushing him back down.

He looks up at you, feeling your hands rake up his body.

"...just like this," you finish, eyes solemn, lips curving into a soft smile, "I've not felt a thing like this in my entire life."

Aegon takes one of your hands and places it on his cheek. He whispers it like a secret, "neither have I."

You lean down to kiss him, "I wish to keep like this."

He kisses you back.

He is blindsided by how his wishes came to bite him in the arse. It's all crashing down on him. Suddenly, he wishes he didn't actually do any of those things with you.

He most of all wishes he heard you wrong. He wishes you didn't repeat yourself when he stupidly said, "what?"

"I'm with child," you speak slower, less excited yet excited still.

Aegon wishes you didn't look so excited. He wishes he fucking pulled out, but gods, you felt so good-- you feel so good around him, he felt so good inside you.

He realized the next moment, it couldn't be helped. You were going to have to bear his spawn at one point or another. He wishes you didn't have to. He wishes his seed wouldn't take completely. He wishes you don't take it to term. He wishes he won't have to be a father. Fuck.

He realizes he's been too quiet and you were waiting for a response from him. Your face began to twist. Your smile fades.

"Congratulations," Aegon musters. He feels like he swallowed a metal ball. His eyes wander to your belly. He mumbles mindlessly, "I suppose."

Your face falls.

Aegon looks back at you. Your face is devoid of any semblance of the glow it normally holds. You look sick. You feel sick.

"I see," you say, unintentionally allowing him to hear your voice break. Aegon's brows furrow at it.

He shakes his head, "you will be a great mother," he chuckles dryly, "you mother me so well."

You offer him a smile, but Aegon can see how disconnected it was from your eyes. You say, "thank you."

When you leave him after this, he wishes he hadn't said a word. He wishes he just left it at congratulations. He wishes he just pretended like the idea of having a child didn't mortify him and make him sick to his stomach. He wishes he wasn't so ill-suited to be a father.

Ageon no longer wishes for anything after this.

He no longer wishes to hold you, though he so badly wanted to. He no longer wishes to hear you sing, nor does he wish to hear you read to him. He no longer wishes to be around you, though his body urged him to follow you around like the lost soul he was.

He wishes he didn't wonder what you were doing at every moment of the day. He so desperately wishes to rid you from his mind completely that he drowns himself in his first and only true love, alcohol.

Fuck. He wishes he hadn't taken this route to his room. He wishes you hadn't taken this route to wherever it was you were going. He wishes he just turned around and fled like the coward he was, because then, you wouldn't have spoken to him.

"Husband," you curtsey.

Aegon stiffens and uncomfortably avoids your eyes.

You catch it, feeling your chest tighten painfully. You clear your throat and take a deep breath to steel yourself, "I thought you should know that I will be travelling."

Aegon looks at you.

"I have a ship ready and I'll be visiting the Grey Cliffs. Do not wait up for me."

His face falls. He opens his mouth, but doesn't have an opportunity to speak.

"I thought you should also know that I am no longer carrying."

His eyes widen.

"It's not an uncommon occurrence the first few months," you say simply, "I suppose the gods do not wish me to be a mother."

Aegon feels like a murderer. He wants to say something, to apologize, to comfort you, but he can't. He's too taken aback to do a single thing.

He turns into stone when you take his hand. You step forward and place his palm on your chest. Your heart is slow as you speak, "you won't have to worry about anything anymore, Aegon. Today is the end of our shared torment."

Aegon's stomach drops when you kiss him.

His eyes are glassy. You pull away before he can kiss you back. He wants to hold you, but the sadness in your eyes reminds him he is undeserving. You kiss his wrist, "goodbye, my love. I love you."

His heart thumps as you walk away.

Aegon is manic. He basks in the mess he's made and feels crushed by it all.

He finally acts after wasting so much time feeling sorry for himself. You were long out of his sight by the time he started running. This is why he headed to the dragonpit and got on Sunfyre.

"WAIT!" he screams, just as your boat leaves the dock.

Aegon watches as you run to the edge of the boat. He lands Sunfyre and runs as far to the edge of the docks as he could.

"Aegon-"

"Take me with you!" he pleads, "let me be the one to take you to where you must go!"

You look back. The ship stops. The crew brings down a boat and on it, you are rowed back to the dock.

He crushes you in his arms once he reaches you.

"Aegon," you mutter.

"Forgive me," he shudders, "I... I wish you let me do this for you."

"Aegon," your voice croaks. You push him away, "go home."

His heart drops. He breaks away to look at you. Your words feel like a stab at his thorax. It was presumptuous of him to assume you'd want him back, but it doesn't kill him inside any less.

"I've come to realize this is a trip I must go on myself," you mutter.

He shakes his head, "no. Please." He motions an arm out to his mount, "one wish. That I grant you one wish before you throw me away forever is... is--"

Your throat constricts at his words. Tears rush down your eyes, "I'm not throwing you away--"

"Please," he squeezes both your hands in his, "please, let me do this for you."

The flight to the Grey Cliffs is quiet, save for the whoosh of winds and the roars of the golden dragon you both rode. You always imagined it would be freeing, but only now did you know how it freeing it truly felt to fly. You knew now you'd forever chase the euphoric crush of air against your skin.

Aegon, who sat behind you, looks at your form as you outstretch your arms and close your eyes. Your body presses against him, and in this moment, he is unable to hold back from wrapping an arm around you and sparing a kiss on your shoulder. You are snapped out of your trance because of this.

The Grey Cliffs are dark and gloomy when you get there. Aegon realizes when you land that it got its name from the weather conditions.

He helps you down and surveys the area, trying to make out which part of this drear land was so special to you that you wished to go here.

You catch his expression and squeeze his hand.

Aegon turns to you.

You give a solemn look, "the view is better on the edge."

Aegon strokes Sunfyre's cheek, commanding him to stay before you lead him by the hand to the edge of the cliff. Once you get there, he feels queasy looking down at the crashing waves far beneath him. In contrast, you seem comforted by the view. His brows furrow at the deep breath you give out.

When you look at him, his stomach feels it, the comfort you felt upon witnessing the violent waves. Whatever it was that compelled you to this place was the same force that compelled him to kiss you.

He reaches out for your cheek, his other hand coming to you back. He pulls you close. His heart twinges when you stop him from kissing you.

"Aegon-"

"Forgive me," he cuts, "I beg."

You gawk at him. He brushes your hair which was wildly flinging with the breeze.

"You must know by now that I am craven. I lack the spine and the wit to be of any use to you."

Your eyes water. Your lips quiver.

"I would be a hopeless father, worse than my own, no doubt."

"Aegon," you babble as sobs overtake you.

Aegon, himself, succumbs to tears. He wipes the ones streaming down your face before taking a breath, "but you made me feel a love I do not deserve."

You swallow a heavy lump in your throat.

"I love you," he confesses.

"No," you pierce his heart. You shake your head in disagreement, "Aegon, this is a mistake. Bringing you here was a mistake."

"No!" he blurts louder than needed, "this was a choice," he looks down, "I choose to rip my insides out for you to devour. I am miserable, much more in the heat of your hate, but most of all without you."

His downturned eyes land on your face when you grab his wrists. You croak, "I do not hate you."

Aegon is not relieved by the admission, but he chooses to believe you mean it. He smiles softly, "good."

"But I do hate this life I live."

He clenches his jaw. Of course you do.

"You saved me," you press a hand on his cheek, taking your turn to wipe his tears, "even if for a moment."

"I made you miserable."

You chuckle. The sound makes his heart skip.

"You filled my life with purpose," you smile softly, "even when you did not mean to."

Aegon knits his brows deeply and takes your hands. He brings them to his lips and kisses them.

"But accidents happen. You must remember that accidents happen all the time."

Aegon shakes his head, "this is not an accident. Believe me when I say I chose to do this, I- ... I choose to love you."

You sob and turn to your feet.

"Please... believe me."

You sniffle and nod, slowly looking up at him, "I believe you."

You lunge into his arms and seal him into a tight hug. He hugs you back like it's his only way of surviving.

A crack of thunder startles Sunfyre. He becomes restless and steals away Aegon's attention, panicked that he might flee and leave them here.

He pulls away and takes a step towards her. He holds your hand, urging you to follow, "we should go before it rains."

You hug him from behind and press your face into his back, "thank you for taking me on Sunfyre."

"It was a long time coming."

"I've always wondered what it would be like to fly. And now that I know how peaceful it is, I'm ready to fly one last time."

He turns to you as you slowly come to his side. You hold his hand. He looks at you as you turn to Sunfyre. He promises, "I will take you on dragonback as many times as you wish."

You smile, but your eyes are fixed on his dragon. You release his hand and wrap your arms around yourself, "he is beautiful. You must never tire looking at him."

Aegon gazes upon Sunfyre. He takes in his golden scales and has newfound appreciation.

You take a step back.

"He is. To be honest, it's been long since I, myself, took him out of the pit. He must enjoy this day as much as you do."

"Aegon, you must understand that what I have to say has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me."

Aegon turns to you. He watches you tighten your arms around yourself. You must be cold. He rubs your shoulders.

You shake your head and turn him back to his dragon, "look at Sunfyre."

He knits his brows, "I'm looking."

"For so long," you release him, "I've wanted to fly free, to find my peace here in the cliffs. This was before I even met you." You point at the golden dragon, "I choose to love you too, but accidents happen, like if Sunfyre were to fly away, and you were to be left here alone."

Aegon stares at his ride for a moment as you lower your hand. He tries to makes sense of your words, but he cannot for the life of him understand.

He sighs, "what accident? Why do you keep-"

Aegon is flooded by confusion when he turns and finds you nowhere behind him. A split second later, he lets a horrified scream and the fear that claws into him makes his knees buckle. He crumbles to the ground and crawls to the edge of the cliff. He screams so loud that Sunfyre roars back and comes towards him.

Aegon watches as the red seafoam bubbles at the foot of the cliff. He watches as the crimson waves slowly slosh back into its original tint.

Rain begins to pour, and his tears taste no longer salty.

Was this the flying you ached for? Was this the relief you sought?

When he returns to King's Landing, dripping wet, he breaks down in front of his mother, weeping as he clutched his skirts.

Queen Alicent is obviously disturbed. She instructs her servants to get his son a change of clothes and some towels. She looks down at him, "what's happened? What's wrong, Aegon?"

"An accident-" he barely manages to say, "there's been an accident."

"An accident?!"

Aegon's mind goes blank. A bitter taste

You don't know what you have until it's gone.

[libraryofgage]

Good Vibrations Part One

Hello, it's me, back at it again with another Steddie AU.

Anyway, if I were tagging this AU, these would be the most important ones: Deaf Steve Harrington; Tooth-rotting Fluff; Getting Together

If you wanna be tagged in future parts, just let me know!

As always, if you see any typos, no you didn't ;)

----

Steve has blown through three pairs of hearing aids in the past year. The first pair had lasted a few years and needed replacement because of normal wear and tear. The second pair was sacrificed during that fight with Jonathan. He hadn't been wearing them, but they'd been in Steve's pocket, and he'd landed at just the right angle to feel them shatter. The third pair was taken by the Russians because, despite Robin's shouting and cursing at them for being dumbasses (and this was before she actually knew what they were for), they accused him of recording their kidnapping and torture.

Honestly, he wouldn't recommend fighting Russians and Billy and Mind Flayers and driving while nearly totally deaf.

The funniest part of it all, though, is that Steve doesn't even use hearing aids regularly. He normally only wears them at home. The pair lost to Jonathan were present because, well, that whole day had been a lot for Steve, and he needed the comfort of knowing he could stop reading lips the moment it became too exhausting for him. The pair lost to the Russians was because he'd been getting ready to tell Robin about being deaf. She'd already clocked the weird things he does (well, weird to her, normal to Steve), and he figured letting her in on the big secret would bring them a little closer.

Of course, that didn't go the way he expected. Robin thought he was confessing love and decided to beat him to the punch. That's how he learned Robin is a lesbian, and Steve couldn't let her be the only one admitting to something like that, so he told her about being bi and his long-standing, hopeless crush. And being deaf. But the bi with a crush thing seemed more important in the moment. She took it in stride, it brought them closer, and then Robin asked if Steve could teach her sign language.

Which meant that Steve had to learn sign language because he never had. Between not wanting to feel even more different than he already did and trying to convince his parents that, really, everything was fine and he didn't need to go to a special school for deaf and hard-of-hearing kids, he'd never learned. Learning it had somehow felt like an admission of weakness, and that was the last thing he wanted. But he learned for Robin, and they stumbled through sign language together, creating new signs only they knew.

But that's all in the past now, and Steve is working his ass off at Family Video to afford a new pair because he refuses to ask his parents for money. If he asks them, they'll come back, and that's the last thing he wants. They don't need to have all their worries confirmed that Steve is helpless, and he doesn't want them anywhere near Hawkins "Hellscape" Indiana.

So. Working his ass off, taking extra shifts, and babysitting the kids as much as he can to make up for the whole Friends and Family Discount he gives their parents. He's exhausted, but he gets to recharge somewhat during his lunch break.

About a ten-minute walk from the Family Video is a record store, which Steve has started visiting daily to just breathe. The lone worker in the store is usually too busy listening to her own music to pay Steve any attention, letting him wander and try to determine which records will best serve him.

Steve drifts over to the rock and heavy metal section, hoping to find a new album but unsurprised when he doesn't. He browses through them anyway, moving past Metallica and Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. He already has all of these albums on his shelf at home. He has the cassette tapes for them, too.

But he really wants something new. He likes the novelty of experiencing unfamiliar vibrations through the speaker, letting them thrum through his fingertips and into his bones. It's fun and relaxing, and after all the bullshit he's been through lately, he probably deserves something relaxing.

After glancing over a few more familiar albums, Steve sighs and glances at the counter by the door. The lone worker is standing there, headphones over her ears, and idly flipping through a magazine. She's chewing gum, and Steve braces himself for the sheer hell of trying to read her lips without making it obvious he's reading her lips while she's got something in her mouth to disrupt the normal shape of words and sounds.

But he has to try. Steve takes one more deep breath before walking over, shoving his hands into his pockets when he comes to a stop at the counter. The girl raises a hand, motioning for him to wait, so he stays quiet as she finishes reading her page. She flips to the next one before looking up, not making any move to pull her headphones off.

"Hi. Do you have any new rock or metal albums coming in soon," Steve asks, feeling the vibrations of speech in his throat and hoping his words aren't too loud.

They don't seem to be. The girl doesn't flinch or pull back. She just looks him up and down, taking in the polo shirt and the nice khakis and the Family Video vest he forgot to take off before leaving. Finally, her neck and shoulders jerk slightly, and Steve knows she's huffed in annoyance. "No," she says, the word clear enough in the shape of her lips for Steve to know it immediately.

He frowns slightly, his fingernails digging into his palms. Steve wouldn't mind just leaving now, but something keeps him there. He just...he really wants new music. He needs something new. "Are there gonna be any shows nearby?" he asks.

The girl rolls her eyes and says something, her mouth distorted by gum-chewing. Steve can barely make out the words "you" and "check" from her response. Thankfully, it's accompanied by a vague gesture at something behind him. Steve looks over his shoulder to see a bulletin board with flyers plastered across it.

"Right. Thanks," he says, nodding to her before walking over. The flyers are all different colors with various fonts that scream for Steve's attention. Some of them are for bands, some are advertisements of garage sales or instruments in need of a new home, and others are just business flyers from stores nearby.

He's seen the bulletin board before, but he's never actually paid attention to it. Steve has always been laser-focused on browsing the records. But now, Steve carefully reviews each flyer advertising shows. Some are for comedy shows, which he immediately dismisses. One seems promising, but then he sees how far it is, and Steve definitely can't do an overnight trip like that.

Finally, Steve sees a flyer advertising a show at the Hideout later that week. It's close enough that he won't be out overnight. The place is kind of seedy, but Steve figures he can find some corner near the stage to hide. Or he can bring Robin and let her help him navigate any potential social situations. He tugs the flyer off the board, gaze lingering on the "Corroded Coffin" emblazoned across the top.

He knows the band. Of course, he knows the band. He's extremely familiar with their singer. From a distance. Honestly, Eddie Munson probably doesn't have the best impression of him, but Steve's heart never really cared about that. Because Eddie is like everything Steve wants to be: he's loud and unafraid of being so, he doesn't care about his image and how others perceive him, and he looks like his laugh sounds beautiful. Steve wouldn't know if he's actually right about that last point, but Eddie throws his head back when he laughs, eyes crinkled and hand over his stomach like his muscles ache.

His mouth suddenly feels dry, but he's also filled with unprecedented courage. Steve has graduated (barely), and that means a significantly lower chance of running into Eddie during the day if watching the show somehow goes wrong.

Steve folds the flyer into quarters and stuffs it into his back pocket. He'll be overly aware of it being there until Robin starts her shift and he can show it to her, but that's okay. He throws a quick thanks over his shoulder as he leaves the shop, glancing up at the bell he can't hear that signals the door's opening. He vaguely remembers what bells are supposed to sound like (he'd heard a few before losing the ability to hear them), but he doesn't let himself dwell on it.

Instead, he focuses on the trip back to Family Video, keeping an eye on the road to watch for any cars he wouldn't notice otherwise.

----

When the final bell rings, Eddie Munson can't get out of class fast enough. He'd been packed for the last five minutes, and he slid out of his seat the moment that first peal rang out. He has a gig to prepare for, and every second counts. At least, each second counts until he notices something (or someone) that could prove entertaining for a while.

He spots Dustin alone near one of the exits, and Eddie decides to relieve the kid of his isolation. He waits until he's behind Dustin to shout, "Henderson!" and throw his arm over the kid's shoulders, ignoring the way he jumps like he'd been expecting an attack.

"Holy shit!" Dustin shrieks, jerking back to look up at Eddie. "Don't do that, man, you're gonna give me a heart attack."

Eddie snorts, waving away Dustin's concern as he continues toward the exit. The general flow of students trying to get out helps him along, and Dustin doesn't seem to realize they're actually moving until they've gotten into direct sunlight. "You're fine," Eddie says, "Anyway, whatcha doing all alone, Henderson? Lose your way?"

"No, I have...stuff to do today," Dustin says, shrugging as he blinks to acclimate to the sunlight.

Oh, yeah, way too cryptic for Eddie to not dig for more. "Stuff? What kinda stuff? Got a hot date? Going shopping with your mom?" he asks, and then he gasps dramatically and moves to stand in Dustin's way. He puts both hands on his shoulders and very seriously says, "Be honest, Henderson, you're seeing another DM, aren't you?"

Dustin stares at him for a few seconds before rolling his eyes and shrugging his hands off. "Who else in this town DMs?" he asks, "Other than Will, I guess, but he's still working on a campaign."

"Fair," Eddie concedes, "so, whatcha really doing?"

After a few seconds of getting nudged by the students around them, Dustin sighs and says, "I have chores, okay? But that doesn't sound cool to say, does it?"

Fair. Eddie nods in agreement and moves out of Dustin's way, continuing to follow him. "So, what, your mom picking you up today?" he asks.

"No, Steve."

"Oh, the famous Steve."

Dustin nods, looking over the parking lot before pointing to one end. "Yeah, he's awesome," Dustin says as Eddie follows the direction of his finger.

And standing there, leaning against the hood of his car and looking to the side where a group of trees is swaying in the breeze, is Steve Harrington. Steve "The Hair" Harrington. King Steve. The worst thing, Eddie thinks, is that Steve looks good. His hair is still perfect, of course, and his stupid little striped shirt is pulling against his biceps and riding up just enough for Eddie to see a tiny sliver of tanned skin above his jeans. He looks a little tense, but Eddie chalks that up to him being back on the campus after already graduating.

"Harrington? You've been talking about Steve Harrington this whole time?" Eddie asks, his voice a little strained, "How the fuck do you know Steve Harrington?"

"He's my babysitter," Dustin says, his voice implying that much should have been obvious, but Eddie wants to grab his shoulders and shake until his head rolls off.

Steve Harrington doesn't babysit. He doesn't know nerds that talk about D&D. He doesn't drive nerds around. At least, he never did in high school. Granted, Eddie never actually talked to Steve, but everybody knew that Steve Harrington was too cool for, well, anything that wasn't the typical jock and popular guy shit.

As he's thinking about the last time he saw Steve Harrington (in the halls, while the guy had bruises and looked worse for wear), they get within shouting distance. And Eddie has zero impulse control when Wayne isn't around, so he doesn't think before shouting, "Hey, Harrington!"

Next to him, Dustin whips his head to glare at Eddie. And Steve Harrington doesn't fucking react. He just keeps staring at that group of trees like it's the most fascinating thing in the world. "Dude," Dustin says, grabbing Eddie's arm and yanking harshly, "don't shout like that."

Eddie frowns, anger beginning to simmer in his stomach at the complete lack of acknowledgment. "Why are you upset with me?" he asks, gesturing at Steve as he continues, "I'm not the one being a douchebag here."

Dustin opens his mouth, about to say something, only to snap it shut once more. He frowns like he's just realized he can't say something, and huffs with frustration. "Just...just don't do that," he finally says, keeping a hand on Eddie's arm and dragging him across the parking lot. And, yeah, something is definitely weird here.

Instead of just walking up to Steve, they make a large arch until they're within Steve's line of sight.

Eddie watches as Steve notices them, seeing Dustin first and pushing off the car. He relaxes for a split second until he sees Eddie and his shoulders tense again.

Great.

Once they're close enough for Eddie to count the moles above the collar of Steve's shirt, Dustin grins and says, "Hey, Steve." But it's odd, because Eddie has never heard Dustin talk this slow or this carefully, like he's doing his best to enunciate his words.

Steve flashes a grin and ruffles Dustin's hair. "Hey, twerp, you're late," he says. He then glances at Eddie, his grin becoming a little smaller, and says, "Hey, Munson."

Wait. Steve Harrington knows Eddie's name? And he called him by it? He said Munson, not Freak. Eddie stares at Steve for a few seconds before nodding. "Harrington," he says, "how the fuck did you become a babysitter?"

Is he just imagining things, or is Steve looking at his mouth? Like, really intensely. He's definitely not, because Steve looks up after a few seconds with a raised eyebrow. "I needed some extra cash. Also, don't swear around Dustin. I'm the one who gets in trouble when he curses in front of his mom."

Something about the words makes Eddie grin. Never in a million years would he have guessed that he'd be talking to Steve Harrington. And he would have laughed you into Mordor itself if you suggested their conversation would be about Dustin Henderson swearing in front of his mother. "What's his mom do when he swears?" he asks.

Because he can feel the conversation veering into something potentially embarrassing for him, Dustin lets go of Eddie and starts pushing Steve toward the driver's side of his car. "Okay, we gotta go. So many chores, so little time," he says, his voice back to that normal speed and enunciation.

Steve frowns slightly, looking down at Dustin and tilting his head just slightly. "What?" he asks. Instead of actually answering, Dustin just makes some vague gesture with his hand and looks at the car. "Oh, right. Go ahead and get in the car. And, uh, see you later, Munson."

"Is that a promise?" Eddie asks before he can think better of it.

Steve pauses, looking at Eddie's mouth with a slight scrunch to his nose. He seems to be considering something as Dustin scrambles into the passenger seat, watching them with narrowed eyes. Honestly, Eddie is surprised he's not blasting the horn to hurry Steve up. Finally, Steve comes to a decision and meets Eddie's eyes again. "Your band has a show tonight, right? At the Hideout? I was planning to go. So, yeah, I'll see you then, I guess."

And with that, like he hasn't just fucking rocked Eddie's world, Steve Harrington gets into his car. He makes sure Dustin is buckled before waving at Eddie and pulling out of the parking spot.

Eddie finds himself waving back, staring dumbly at the car as it pulls onto the street. It only hits him a few seconds later that Steve Harrington is coming to his show. At the Hideout. His metal show. A Corroded Coffin gig at the Hideout.

Holy. Shit.

[celestie0]

gojo satoru x reader | college au [18+]

kickoff ch.7 to lose someone you love

ᰔ pairing. college au - soccer player! gojo x film major! reader

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is the most popular guy on your college campus. he's tall, funny, hot, not to mention he's the most talented soccer forward the school has seen in years. but he's also a frat dude, which puts him in a world very different from your own, as he spends most of his nights partying & drinking while you spend most of yours working on your annoying film major assignments. but when he reaches out to you for a favor, you realize that helping him out might have something in it for you too.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fem reader, fluff, angst, smut, college au, fraternities, sororities, partying, drinking/alcohol, mentions of weed, romance, jealousy, pining, slow burn, opposites to lovers, friends to lovers, she falls first he falls harder, gojo being an idiot

ᰔ chapter. 7/x (probably 12)

ᰔ words. 8.5k

a/n. sighhh i'm rly sorry for the wait. and thank you sooo much to the love for the last chapter omg :') this chapter is gojo pov and it's a bit different than the rest, but i still hope you enjoy and that it was worth the wait. if there are typos, they're not typos they're actually 100% intentional and you are the silly one

nav. masterlist

☾·̩͙꙳ moodboard no.1

♬.*ﾟplaylist

When Gojo was just four years old, he called for the paramedics for the very first time. 

He had wandered around the house, wide and innocent blue eyes searching the room for the landline in the dim light of the evening, his lip quivering in a pout. His small arm reached up to pet around at the top of his parents’ dresser before his fingers wrapped around the phone. He couldn’t remember what the number was at first, the one his mother always told him to call in case of an emergency, but he remembered he scribbled it down somewhere with red crayon in one of his coloring books. By the time Gojo first realized he needed to call for help, located the landline, looked through all of his little portraits of dinosaurs and spaceships sprawled across the carpet of his room, found those three numbers, and then finally dialed them, his father had already been seizing and shaking on the bathroom floor for longer than twenty-four minutes.  

He was just a child. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know any better.

Gojo spent the remainder of that night hugging his mom in the hospital’s emergency room, his tears soaking through her shirt as she gently rocked him back and forth in her lap while whispering soothing words in his ear. His father lay motionless on the hospital bed before them, eyes shut, and Gojo will never forget the haunting sounds of the machinery that was keeping his father alive. It was a sudden onset seizure, likely stemming from the traumatic brain injury his father had suffered a few years ago, and the prolonged convulsions he experienced on the bathroom floor that night had resulted in severe brain damage. Gojo could still hear the echo of his mother’s silent cry when the doctors informed them that it’s unlikely his father would ever fully recover from this.

No reasonable adult would ever look a four-year-old in the eyes and say if you had called for help sooner or knew what to do, maybe your father would’ve still had the chance to live a long life. Yet, even at his young age, Gojo was aware of the energy in the room, and that explanation was the only truth his mind could grasp onto to make sense of what he had just witnessed.

After two weeks of clinging to life, his father miraculously woke up from his coma and persevered for the sake of his wife and son. Shortly after the incident, he began to have recurring seizures but fought through them each time. Without fail, he made Gojo breakfast in the mornings, even if it meant having to clean up the spilt orange juice on the counter every now and then because of how his hands could not stop trembling. He always walked Gojo to the bus stop, waving him goodbye, despite how troublesome and embarrassing he found it to use his cane. The love he had for his son was so palpable that it eclipsed the bitterness over how his life had ended up because of the blessing it had brought him.

In his prime, Gojo’s father was a renowned soccer player, so incredibly talented at the sport that he left a lasting mark on the way teams strategized, his presence on the field commanding respect, and he was one of the greatest talents the entire college division had ever seen.

He met Gojo’s mother at one of his freshman year games, a pretty lady in the stands that caught his eye from the sight of her laughter among her friends, her radiance drawing him to her from the field, and that’s how their love began. Exactly one year following that day, he stole one of his grandmother’s thrifted rings from her jewelry collection and that was what he used to propose. Gojo’s mother had accepted it with so many tears and so much snot running down her face, and he had never found her more beautiful. They married young and sweet, like most people back then.

During the thrilling semifinal match between Keio Uni, Gojo’s father’s team, and Yokohama Uni during the end of his senior year, spectators witnessed a game that most college soccer enthusiasts would deem was a once-in-a-lifetime watch. Both teams engaged in relentless offense, and Gojo’s father was on his way to shatter the record of the most goals scored in a single championship match within the history of the league, but when he received a call from his wife during a timeout with the most life-altering news he could have ever heard, he abandoned everything on the field that day to go home and be with her. Grainy footage from the televised broadcast still exists online today—the moment he sprinted across the field, confused players glancing in his direction, amidst the uproar of the crowd. She called to let him know she was pregnant. 

No one knew that would be the last game of soccer he would ever play.  

It was a freak accident, a distracted driver behind the wheel of a gray Chevy on a dark and rainy night, veered straight towards Gojo’s parents car to avoid a branch on the road. In a moment that could only be described as his instinct to protect, he quickly swerved his vehicle, taking the brunt of the impact on his side. His family surrounded him at his hospital bedside as they grappled with the news that he would be unable to play the sport ever again due to his traumatic brain injury that would lead to lifelong motor function loss. According to the doctors and police, had he not swerved to shield his wife and unborn child, the outcome would have been far more disastrous. After months of rehabilitation, he regained enough ability to walk and just enough function in his extremities to welcome his newborn son in his arms.

When Gojo was just six years old, two years after witnessing his father’s first seizure, he stumbled upon a dusty, forgotten soccer ball tucked away in the corner of the garage. When he eagerly presented it to his father, excitement gleaming in his eyes, he was only met with a scowl and the demand to discard it, to never bring such things like that to him ever again. His mother protested, ensuing in an argument, and as Gojo lowered his gaze to the ball in his hands, he noticed his father’s faded signature adorned with a heart and message of love for his mother. The ink, once vibrant, now faded with time.

It wasn’t until Gojo turned seven that his father finally relented to teach him more about the sport, knowing it was all his son wanted for his birthday. With determination in his heart, Gojo pleaded for his father’s guidance, eager to kick around a nearly deflated, weathered ball. His father watched his son, expression morphing from reserved and stoic, softening to surprise, then hopeful, and he found himself cheering on his son’s clumsy endeavors on the field despite how many times he tumbled and fell. Because that was his son, his pride and joy, reminiscent of him embracing the sport that he himself had cherished so many years ago. 

As Gojo grew older and excelled at the sport, securing victory after victory in every youth league, his father’s health steadily declined. The recurring seizures caused by the brain damage from his prolonged convulsions on that fateful night exacerbated over the years and started to take an increasing toll on his body. Yet still, he never missed even a single one of his son’s games. Whenever Gojo swiftly sent the ball flying through the net, the first person his eyes would search for on the field was his father, the joy in his eyes being all he cared about in the world. Gojo lived to make his father proud, because it was the only thing that made him feel like he could make up for what little he had done to protect his father that night.

You were just a child. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know any better.

The day following Gojo’s eleventh birthday, his father had his second major seizure, falling into another coma, but this time he never woke up. Two years later, his mother made the tough decision to end his life-support, and then he was gone from their lives. Gojo’s mother was inconsolable, and he knew that his father took a piece of her soul with him to heaven that night. The piece that allowed her to smile. 

one day, you’ll lose someone you love. and everything following will fail to have meaning. 

But why was he remembering all of that now? 

The shrill of Gojo’s alarm clock woke him up from the intrusive memories that were washing through the fore-front of his mind, and he grumbled to himself before whacking at his nightstand haphazardly to shut the thing off. He ran a hand across his face in an attempt to wipe the sleepiness away, features instantly settling into an annoyed scowl as he blinked his eyes open and the filtering sunlight through the windows harassed his vision. 

He laid there for a few seconds, mending to the pounding headache at his temples with his fingers rubbing circles, and then he finally sat up in bed. Blinking at his sheets, the images of last night start to flash through his mind. The heavy music, the dim lighting of the bathroom, the dizzying jealousy, and the taste of you on his tongue–

The memory is supposed to arouse him, and would on any normal day, but because you had left him standing there stunned with no release of his own at all, he instead just feels a pulsing, soul-deep throbbing pain at his crotch that could really only be due to the fact he was left high and dry by you last night. He groans at the sensation, palm pushing down on his lower abdomen to try and relax the torture, which barely helped. It’s either he jerks off or takes a cold shower, and given the former was likely not possible for him right now since his god-forsaken brain decided to push the traumatizing experiences of his childhood to the forefront of his headspace first thing in the morning, meaning it’s unlikely he’ll be able to settle into the memory of you bent over that bathroom counter for him, he decides on the cold shower. And it’s safe to say that today already fucking sucked.

The moment the chill water hits the skin of his body, he recollects the look you had on your face right before you walked out on him. Soft, searching, to him almost seraphic, but you also looked wounded. And something from your anger with him since before he even had you in that bathroom, to the agonizing moment you left him in there by himself, told him he’d messed up big time with you somewhere along the lines. 

He knew he had been a jerk last night. He didn’t really have much of a right to be seethingly possessive of you, but the sight of you kissing another guy had him seeing red and his knuckles turning white. He finds himself clenching his jaw at the unwelcome memory even now. He figured he probably ruined what would’ve otherwise been an enjoyable night for you, and so you decided to get revenge by walking out on him. However, he can’t shake the feeling that things are messy and complicated now, primarily because of him, and he felt like he needed to apologize for dragging you into his weird, confusing emotions.

He gets himself dry and dressed, grateful for the barely sufficient relief he had down south, and sighs as he grabs his phone and taps on your name, thinking about what to say to you, and just settles on typing out Hey, can we talk? and then presses send. He turns the ringer of his phone off, tosses the device onto his bed and then heads out the door. 

Geto was sitting on the couch in the loft, rubbing an ice cube across his forehead as he sprawled on the cushions and let out low and consistent groans to himself. Gojo flopped down on the armchair across from him and assumed a similar position, rubbing at his temples to nurse his own headache. Geto opens an eye to look at him.

“Morning,” he grumbles. 

“I take it I’m not the only one that feels like they’ve been hit by a truck?” Gojo asks.

Geto makes a disgruntled noise and throws his head back on the cushion. “I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. God knows how much I had last night.” He reaches over to the console table in the center for the bottle of Ibuprofen and tosses it to Gojo, who catches it and stares down at the label. “I didn’t really see you drink that much though. Don’t know why you’re hungover.”

Gojo sighs. He wasn’t hungover. His headache was from the fact that had a lot on his mind. Like the feeling of your skin last night. And then the pain of being blue-balled. And also for some reason his father’s death. Very exhausting to juggle those thoughts at once. 

Gojo twists the cap off the bottle of Ibuprofen and pops two pills, drowning them in his mouth with Geto’s glass of water, then runs a frustrated hand through his hair. The man across from him raises an eyebrow.

“You good?” he asks.

“Super peachy,” Gojo replies.

He sighs. “Well, whatever it is, just make sure it doesn’t affect your play today,” Geto warns him, sinking further down into the couch. Gojo lets out an exhale through his nose. Geto usually pushed further for answers whenever he was in a mood, so the fact that he didn’t this time meant that hangover was bad.

“I’m more worried about you. You think you’ll be fine in a few hours?” Gojo asks. Geto just waves his hand in the air in response as he grabs the hand towel on his chest and drags it up over his face, shielding himself from the light of the room.

“I have no choice but to be fine. We have to win this game,” is all he says through muffling cloth.

Gojo nods, resting his elbows on his knees and looking down at the carpet. It was finally the game of the 28th, arguably the second-most important game of the season. If they take home the win, they’re automatically seeded into top sixteen teams, which means they’ll only have to win four more matches after today to take home the championship. But if they lose, they’re seeded to the bottom, and then four turns into a daunting eight. In the history of the league, not a single team has ever lost their pre-seed game and still continued to win the playoff championship. So Geto was right, they have no choice but to win today. Otherwise, they could kiss goodbye to a 12-year UTokyo championship streak.

“Not going for your run?” Geto asks, interrupting his thoughts.

“Nah, not feeling up for it,” Gojo replies.

He clicks his tongue. “Never skip the pre-game ritual, man.”

Gojo groans, knowing that he’s right, and so he reluctantly gets up off the chair and heads back into his room. His phone lay there on the bed, facing down, and he felt so tragically taunted by it that he weighed the options of whether or not he should check if you replied back before his run or after his run. And then he’s wondering why you affect him this much in the first place.

He resolves to check after his run, and only gets one arm through his shirt before his hands betray him and he snatches his phone, eagerly tapping the screen to turn it on. 

He sees your name at the top, where you had just replied barely a minute ago. Sure, we can talk. He blinks at his phone when he sees the polite period at the end of your message, and the proper capitalization, not to mention a vocative comma? He was starting to feel really nervous.

He didn’t care that you had only replied a minute ago, he quickly typed out his response and sent it.

|| 10:35am Gojo: Do you know how to get onto the stadium field today?

He sees you typing, and he’s holding his breath.

|| 10:36am you: yes, I do. I’m going in w the newsletter journalists. Was this what you wanted to talk about?

What did he want to talk to you about exactly? Something like I’m sorry about being an ass last night, totally not cool for me to be that territorial over you, although I can’t say I wouldn’t do it again because seeing you kiss someone other than me kind of made me want to die. Also, I’m sorry for acting like you’re just someone I know, I don’t know why I did it. I guess it’s because I didn’t know if you thought of me as any more than just someone you know either, and that thought was frightening. Did I mention I hated seeing you kiss someone that wasn’t me?

He’s never really been good with words. Or feelings. 

10:37am Gojo: No, it’s not, it’s something else. I’ll come find you on the field before the game starts

He stands there, gaze fixed on his phone screen for the minute-long pause you took to respond, that for him felt like tortured eons, just for you to send-

10:39am you: k

Gojo finishes getting dressed for his run, anxiety brewing in his stomach drearily, and when he heads out the door of the house, the fresh morning air doesn’t help calm him down like it usually does. Of course, as he’s running, his thoughts wander to you. He’s thinking about the smell of your hair–or was it the perfume on your skin?–either way, it was intoxicating. The curve of your neck, that spot that made you whimper– fuck. Think of other things. Like the sound of your voice, soft and sometimes needy, but he enjoys it that way–makes his head spin. Or when you’re being sweet and thanking him for something you shouldn’t, because to him everything about you was a privilege and never a task. Even in the hot spring sun of the late morning, he finds himself missing the warmth from your body, and that look. That goddamn look in your eyes when you’re peering into his like you want him to–

“I’m sure he’s really proud of you.”

His legs stop him on their own, like they know something about the feelings in his chest that he doesn’t, and he’s standing still on the sidewalk of the neighborhood now. Short puffs of air escape his lips from his blood pumping fast through his body, and he could physically hear the sound of you in his head. Intimate enough to where he turns to the side slightly facing his surroundings, like there was no way it was just a memory and you weren’t actually near. He finds himself swallowing hard and having to consciously keep moving forward.

Gojo makes it back to the house, freshens up for the second time today, and gets dressed into his UTokyo soccer uniform with his signature #10 jersey. He leaves with Geto to campus, where all his teammates gather before eventually boarding the bus to the UTokyo stadium field ten minutes away. Coach Yaga yells their ears off in the locker rooms in an attempt to get their plays for today through their brains, and the exhilarating noises from the stands as they make their formal entrance through to the field fills Gojo’s senses, along with the obnoxiously loud music playing as pre-game rituals settle in. Gojo sets his bag down on the bench and joins the others in warm-ups for about fifteen minutes, before catching a chance to sneak away and look for you across the expansive pristine grass.

After lightly jogging around the perimeter of the field for a couple of minutes, he finally spots you, his raised eyebrows now flattening under the fringe of his hair as he relaxes. He didn’t realize he was tensing his shoulders until now. You were just beyond the sidelines near a hydration station, fidgeting with something in your camera case, lips pressed together in a frustrated expression, and he saw your body sulk with the sigh you let out as you must’ve realized you had forgotten something. The corner of his mouth twitches upwards into a slight smile, an unconscious reaction to seeing you look so damn cute from your troubled face decorated with a pout. And then he remembered he had been looking for you, and he had found you, and the only thing to do next was to be near you. 

He ambles up to you, and you only catch sight of him when he’s just a few feet away and finally standing in front of you. He sees your eyes widen slightly, lashes blinking once, twice, and then there’s a blush of color to your cheeks as you fidget with the stadium access badge hung around your neck. He noticed there were grass stains on your jeans over your knees when he looked down.

“Hey,” Gojo greets you over the loud music playing on the field.

“Hi,” he sees you say, and he realizes he can barely hear you.

“Let’s go over there,” Gojo yells, jerking his head over to the side.

He leads you over to an area tucked near the east side entrance, a corner slightly underneath one of the sectioned stands where the loud cheers of the stadium somehow reflected off less. It was about as private or silent of a place that the two of you could manage to have a conversation on a soccer field before a match, if you could just ignore the dressed up school mascots rehearsing their walk-ins and walk-outs through the entryway.

You take a few steps backwards until your back hits the concrete slab wall, and he’s in front of you as he watches you study him for a second, taking in the sight of his uniform, before your eyes finally meet his.

“Are you ready to take your photos today?” he asks you, poorly attempting to make small talk despite the images of you with him in that bathroom last night flashing through his memory. Now was seriously not the time to be turned on.

You nod, and respond “I am”, giving him absolutely nothing to work with.

He sighs. “Listen, about last night, I just wanted to apologize. For dragging you into that bathroom with me, although you did ask me to-” He sees you narrow your eyes and cross your arms across your chest. “Sorry,” he sighs, “Seriously, I just…I don’t know what got over me then.”

“You don’t know? Or you just don’t want to tell me?” you prod at him. He briefly considers pretending he doesn’t hear your question over the sound of the stadium, but he knows he wouldn't get away with that, not with the way you’re looking at him like he’s just one more fuck-up away from making you storm off.

He looks at your lips. “I guess the only thing I know is that I didn’t like seeing you kiss someone else.”

You shake your head and close your eyes. “I know you didn’t, Satoru. Otherwise last night wouldn’t have happened. What I’m asking is why.”

He’s struggling now, searching his head for answers, like he’s fighting for his life on a test that he didn’t study for. When he looks down, he notices your foot has been tapping impatiently. And when he looks back up, there’s that wounded expression from last night again. “I don’t know,” is all he can offer.

You uncross your arms from your chest, lips parting slightly as your eyebrows pinch upwards with a disheartened look. He sees your gaze shift slowly across the features of his face, searching, and he wonders if you can see something within him that he can’t. The thought terrifies him. “Fine. It’s my turn to speak.”

He nods slowly. He wasn’t sure what you wanted to say to him. He imagined you would just cuss him out with a few choice words for being a raging asshole last night and then you’d be on your merry way. But he senses sincerity in your voice. Not that he was phenomenal at reading people, though.

He watches as you clench and unclench your fists at your sides nervously, then twiddle with the strap of your camera, then tuck your hair behind your ears, then blink rapidly as you look up at him, then worry your bottom lip between your teeth, then open your mouth to speak just to close it again.

“Do you need me here for any of this?” he says in an attempt at a joke to ease you, but when all you give him is a glare, he’s fearful enough to be serious again.

“I like you.”

He blinks. “Thanks? I like you, too.”

“No, no. I like you as in I have feelings for you,” you clarify. Gojo’s eyes widen at the confession, and he stands up straighter. 

“Oh,” he finally replies when he realizes he hasn’t said anything yet, “I…I wouldn’t have guessed that.” Holy shit, if that was how you felt, then he really has been a raging asshole this entire time. 

You roll your eyes. “I know. You’re a hopelessly dense, menacingly flirty, sleazy frat dude college athlete,” you sigh, “But I still like you. Unfortunately, tragically, annoyingly, much to my dismay, against my better judgment,”

“Okay, I get it-”

“I think it started that night you stayed with me when I was stranded with my flat,” you confess suddenly, your chest rising a little bit faster, and his expression softened. “I just really appreciated you being there for me.”

His voice is gentle when he speaks next. “You don’t have to thank me for that. I would’ve been there if it happened ten times over,” he pauses, “although I’d seriously question your ability to drive if it happened that many times.”

“And I think it started when you walked me out to the practice field for the first time, and you told me you cared about my dreams,” you say with a slight step forwards to him, unable to acknowledge his words at all, as if there was a script you needed to stick to that was the only thing keeping you from falling apart in front of him. 

He finds himself instinctively leaning towards you, close enough to where he notices you’re wearing a different perfume today. “But that was before the night of your car incident,” he reminds you.

“I know,” you nod, and there’s that look in your eyes that he loves, “and I also think it started that first night we met and you looked sad when I said we weren’t friends.”

Gojo’s eyes widen, his heart skipping a beat in his chest, and he finds himself breathing shallowly as he listens to your words. “y/n…I think you’re working backwards here.”

“I’m trying to say I’ve had feelings for you this whole time,” you say to him, “they were tiny at first, I didn’t really see them, but now they’re too big for me to hold all by myself.”

Gojo nods slowly, and he already knows what you’re going to ask of him next.

“I like you in a way that makes me want more from you,” you admit, eyes steadily on his with resolve, “I don’t want to be just someone you know, or someone only for sex-”

“y/n-” he tries to interrupt you.

“And I certainly won’t be someone that sits around to wait for a guy if he doesn’t want me back,” you say, but there’s an apprehensive look in your eyes when you speak next, “so, I need you to answer to my feelings.”

Gojo blinks at you, his heart beating fast in his chest from your confession, and he feels like with every testing second that he fails to answer you back, you slip further and further away from him.

He knew he had affection for you. He always wanted to be close to you, even when he already was, as if he couldn’t get close enough. He wanted to take care of you, and see that softness in your expression when he knew you felt safe and happy. He couldn’t stand the thought of you with someone else, and it took him this damn long to realize as he stood in front of you that he had no interest in being with anyone else either. So then why did his chest feel so tight? And why was he struggling so much to give you an answer?

one day, you’ll lose someone you love. and everything following will fail to have meaning. 

Gojo’s eyes widened as the memories of his life flashed through his mind, a chill running down his spine as they knock the wind from his lungs and he feels that same sense of dread that has been following him like a ghost since that day when he was just four years old, standing in the hallway, wondering why his father was having a nightmare on the bathroom floor when he should’ve known it was something far worse than that.

Gojo blames himself for so much that had gone wrong in his life. And he should know that it’s not his fault, but all of his grief was greedy to breathe and live, desperate to find a reason for why he had to lose someone he loved, and his grief found a home in all of his guilt.

And he was terrified to lose someone close to him again. Even if he decided to see what could become with you, even if he thought for a moment that he was allowed to feel any sort of happiness with you, the thought of falling short and failing frightened him. He was so tired of adding to a long list of regrets in his life. And he knew he wasn’t what you needed— what you deserved.

“I…” he starts, swallowing the lump in his throat, “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel the same way about you.” He knows he sounds convincing enough from the way the light in your eyes dimmed, anticipation faltering and replaced with a sad expression over your features. He needs to take a shaky breath to continue speaking. “It seems I’ve led you on in a lot of ways, and I apologize for that. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen anymore.”

You’re silent for a long moment, twiddling with your fingers as you look up at him. “I see…” you say, and when he sees your lower lip quiver slightly, he feels sick. His instinct is to reach out for you, pull you closer to him, but he knows that’s not a luxury you would allow for him, and he knew it wasn’t one he deserved either. 

Your voice is trembling when you speak next. “I appreciate you letting me know. And you don’t have to worry about not leading me on anymore, because this will be the last time you see me.”

His entire body runs rigid. 

“Why?” It’s a stupid question, but he asks it anyway.

“So I can get over you.”

All he can do is stand with the feeling of a chill in his bones.

“And I ask that you’ll respect my space while I do,” you add on at the end.

He’s silent for a long moment, then lets out the breath he was holding in. “I will,” he says, the promise leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.

There’s a moment where you both just look at each other, as though the two of you were trying to hold onto the moment, but you’re the one to break out of it first, and he’s the one to wish it would’ve lasted a little longer.

“I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me.” The words already sounded like goodbye. “I’ll make sure you look nice in your photos,” you say with a small smile, holding your camera up slightly, “and good luck today.” 

He wonders if he’ll regret this moment.

“Thanks.”

He steps aside so that you can walk past him and back out to the field. Gojo takes a deep breath, releasing it slowly, and relaxes his shoulders. Well, that was intense. Definitely not the direction he thought that conversation was going to go in at all, but that’s fine. He handled it fine. Totally fine. Things were going to be totally fine. He just has to play the match now.

The first step he takes back towards the field, he feels his uneasiness return, with the second step the feeling of his heart beating becomes violent in his head, with the third step he swears he can’t feel the tips of his fingers, with the fourth he feels severely nauseous, and with his fifth- was he seriously about to throw up?

He barely makes it back onto the grassy field cutting across the obstacles of people at the sidelines, using all his strength to not double over before he reaches a table and grabs one of the water bottles. He sees a group of men, all dressed in suits and loitering near the team manager’s station, perk their heads up at the sight of him and he’s groaning internally. The last thing he wanted to do right now was talk to any damn recruiters, but he sees one of them bold enough to approach him in his periphery. He sighs, taking one last gulp of water, and tries to stand up straight and look like he wasn’t going insane.

“Hi, I’m Jousuke Tsuda, recruiter for Tokyo Metropolitan’s national league team,” he says and stretches his hand out for Gojo to shake. The man looked aged, with thick creases to his forehead that could only mean he’s witnessed a hell of a lot of life and he has the soul to prove it.

Gojo’s eyes widen at the mention of Tokyo-Met’s team, and he grabs onto the man’s hand in as firm of a handshake he could manage. “Gojo Satoru.”

The man laughs. It’s deep with a slight crackle. “I know your name, son. Every recruiter in the country does. You’ve got a lot of eyes on you right now.”

“I’m flattered.”

The man raises an eyebrow at him. “Surely you feel pressured.”

Gojo only hums to himself.

The man glances at his watch. “I know the match starts in a few, but if I could have a moment of your time. Take a walk with me?”

“Sure.”

The two trail down the line of the field. “I’ll get straight to the point, kid. Tokyo-Met’s really keen on scouting you for the national league following your graduation,” he says.

Gojo feels like he should be excited about that news, actually, he should be ecstatic and groveling at this man’s feet, but instead he just feels empty and hollow inside. 

“Forget the fact that you’ll be playing in the nation’s most revered team,” the man continues, “but compensation is high, too.” He pulls his phone out from his front suit pocket, tapping away at his calculator app, then turns the screen towards Gojo. Holy shit. “I’m talking about a 350 million yen per year contract here. I could advocate for higher based on how well you perform the rest of the season.”

“I…I don’t know what to say,” Gojo responds.

The man is silent for a second then sighs. When the two of them reach a somewhat secluded bench near the corner of the field, he sits down on it and expects Gojo to do the same, to which he complies.

“You know, I’m used to much more enthusiastic reactions from players that hear this kind of news, although they’re usually ecstatic for barely a hundred million a year compared to what I’ve just offered you,” the man says.

“I guess it’s the pressure,” Gojo says to him, “it’s got my emotional response circuit all fried up, y’know?” He was pulling excuses out of his ass. 

A small hmph noise is heard beside him before he sees the man pulling a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his slacks. “I know your father has left big shoes to fill, kid. I can’t imagine the fear of feeling like you’ll fail, or the anxiety of an injury taking you out any time you’re on the field, not wanting history to repeat itself.”

Gojo’s eye twitches and he narrows his eyes at the man seated beside him. “My dad got injured in a car accident, not while playing the sport.”

“I know,” he responds, finally pulling a cigarette out of the pack, holding it between his two fingers as he rests his wrist on his knee. “The story touched the hearts of everyone in Tokyo, and the entire soccer community in general. I remember reading about it in the school newspaper. Back in the day when they still printed those things out.” Gojo’s surprised, and he’s only given a sideways smile before the man continues. “I knew your father, went to the same college as him.”

“I don’t think he ever mentioned you,” Gojo says.

He lets out a hearty laugh. “He despised me. I was a money-hungry finance major that saw a huge opportunity in mediator sports recruitment agencies. Figured if I could sign a player like your father to my start-up, I’d be set for life. He was a smart man not to sign, regardless of how things turned out.” He shakes his head musingly. “I gave up after that and got a real job. You’ll find a lot of your hopes and dreams die in college.”

“I see,” Gojo says.

The man leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees, and looks over with a serious expression on his face. “Tell me, son, what does this sport mean to you? Why have you dedicated your entire life to playing it?”

Gojo only gives him a cursory glance.

“Is it the fame and attention? The pride? The thrill? The prospect of earning millions and then retiring at thirty, and you get to watch your wife and kids playing in your grand estate’s pool on a sunny summer Sunday while you’re swirling around a glass of ‘90s scotch in your hand?” he asks, tone derisive but luring. “Or does it mean something more to you?”

Gojo looks down at his hands that were clenched tightly into fists. He relaxes them so that his fingers fall open weakly and his palms face the sky. He remembers the feeling of being a kid, the smell of freshly cut grass consuming his senses, the sight of bruises on his knees from how many times he fell on the field chasing after the ball, and the admiration in his father’s eyes every single time he stood back up. “It’s a chance to prove myself,” he finally says.

“Prove yourself of what?” the man pushes.

“That I’m capable of greatness,” Gojo admits, “like my father.”

The man nods slowly in acknowledgment. “Yes, your father was a great man. But not because of how he played the game. He was a great man because he knew which sacrifices were truly important.”

Gojo looks at him wearily. “Are you trying to tell a player you’re attempting to recruit that the sport isn’t important?”

He shakes his head, looking straight ahead. “No, it’s important. But it’s the meaning you give to your life outside of it that gives it importance.”

Gojo raises an eyebrow at him, not really sure what to make of the cryptic sentiment.

The man claps his hands together and stands up. “Alright, I’m sure that’s all the time you’ve got for me. Think about my offer, and if any other recruiters approach you with better ones, just know I’ll push for higher.” He hands Gojo his business card and brings his cigarette to mouth, balancing it between his lips. “Reach out if you have any questions.”

Gojo looks down at the card, his finger tracing the edge of it as he studies the shimmering gold lettering. “Why not just hit me with your best offer and leave? Why bother having this kind of conversation with me?”

The man pulls his cigarette from his mouth, pinching it between his two fingers once again. “We’ve all got regrets we want to make right, kid,” he says. And with his hands in his pockets, he walks away. 

Gojo watches the man as he makes his way down the sidelines back to the cluster of men in suits. When he hears the referee whistle, he shoves the business card in the pocket of his uniform shorts, and makes his way towards the center of the sidelines.

His teammates instantly come up to him with optimistic smiles and encouraging pats on his chest and back, trying to keep the energy high to manifest a win for today, but Gojo just feels exhausted and like he’s drowning. He has so many thoughts swimming around in his head, he can’t even begin to explain, and he just wants someone to see through him at this moment. 

The teams stand on the field for the national anthem, and then Osaka Uni’s team disperses while UTokyo’s alma mater plays. Coach Yaga yells for all the players to huddle before the coin toss and reminds them of their plays for the afternoon.

Nanami pulls his sweatbands onto his wrists, Geto pulls his hair back up into a bun, Chosou pulls tightly on the straps of his goalie gloves, and Gojo pushes his hair up off his forehead to snap his headband onto his face. He looks around to his other teammates and that sense of pride he feels to be a part of this team swells dully despite his emotions.

UTokyo wins the coin toss, choosing to kick, and Gojo finds his place in the center of the field. The crowd is already cheering preemptively, their pride in their home team evident in the passion of the filled stands, and Gojo peers across the large expanse of the field as he rests his foot on top of the soccer ball. It’s a scene he’s seen a hundred times in his life, but the sight is daunting today. He takes his foot off the ball when he hears the referee signal the start of the match with a short piercing shrill of his whistle, and the second Gojo draws his leg back and his foot makes contact with the ball, sending it flying forward, he can already feel that something feels very off.

Every single time he had the ball in his possession, his footwork felt heavy and delayed. His teammates had set up more than three chances for him to score, and he shot wide every single time. The crowd’s cheers started to diminish, and he could feel the growing discontent and exasperation from all eyes on the field. Ten minutes before halftime, they were down 1-0, and stakes were starting to feel high. 

One of his teammates passes a ball right to Gojo’s favored foot, the crowd instantly erupting with noise and stands to their feet as Gojo shuffles the ball past the penalty line, through Osaka’s defenders, eyes locked with the perfect opportunity to strike. This was good, he had his rhythm back, even if just for a moment, and he can see it, clear as day–the trajectory to the goal. With the feeling of slick sweat on his face and determination in his veins, he withdraws his leg back to kick the ball. The world went silent in his head, the only sound being the beating of his heart, and-

“this will be the last time you see me.”

When he recalls your voice, everything moves in slow-motion as his ankle slips slightly on the grass from his moment of hesitation, and then the ball is swiftly stolen by an opposing team player and maneuvered past him. 

“Fuck!” he hisses, immediately turning his head around as he helplessly watches the opponents players move with fervor in pursuit of another goal. The crowd hushed in horror as Osaka passed the ball through UTokyo’s defense, swiftly steadying down the side and sending the ball flying through Chosou’s outstretched arms. 2-0, and the lead ref calls for halftime. 

“Dude,” one of his teammates comes up to him as they walk back towards the benches and throws his arms up in the air, “what the hell is wrong with you today?”

“Seriously, man, not a single goal in the first half? You know how many times I’ve set up a shot for you?" another one of his teammates chimes in, nudging Gojo’s shoulder way harder than he’d usually warrant, and shortly after, a blaming fest begins among the players.

“Enough!” Coach Yaga yells out. All of the players quiet down and look at him, some grudgingly gulping down water while others just try to regain their breath. Gojo’s arms just hang at his sides in defeat. “We’re pushing everything on offense now, we can’t afford to miss any more shots,” Coach Yaga says, his fear of losing the match evident too despite his rough tone, “Satoru, I’m switching you out. Dai, take his place.”

“What?” Gojo asks incredulously, charging forward so he’s in front of the older man. “I’m not getting benched.”

“You will, because I say so,” Coach Yaga says sternly, “you’re distracted, boy. I can see it all over your face.”

“I’m n-”

“Just sit down,” Coach Yaga lets out a disgruntled noise. “When players are distracted, they get injured. Have faith in your teammates.”

“Coach,” Gojo asks again, this time almost pleading. He hardly ever questioned Coach Yaga’s calls, he had a great deal of respect for the man. But something within him just absolutely refused to get benched today.

Coach Yaga stares at him for a long moment, and it’s only when one of the refs chirps their whistle that he finally exhales and gives him a reluctant jerk of his head towards the field.

Geto sets up the perfect shot for Nanami to sweep for a kick that barely lands through the goalie’s lunge for the ball, and then on the next play, secures another goal himself. The score is tied, 2-2, with eight minutes left on the clock. Gojo manages to steal the ball on a defensive play, and it’s only really a stroke of luck that he manages in one solid pass the entire game, straight to Geto’s foot, crowd roaring, and he watches his best friend shoot and sink within the last minute and a half of the game. 

3-2. UTokyo’s win. 

Gojo sighs, exhausted as he makes his way to the bench, crouching down and zipping open his duffle bag. Spirits are low among the team despite the excitement from the crowd over their win because of how hauntingly close the loss felt during the last moments of the match, disinterested in celebrating at all as they meekly dispersed across the field. Gojo knew he was going to get a massive yelling-to from Coach Yaga and he could feel the searing disappointment from his teammates for not carrying the game more. This was just a bare win, could’ve gone either way, and his performance today wasn’t a good look for any recruiters either. He felt so emotionally and physically drained from this entire day, and he wasn’t sure how the hell he could feel any better.

Shuffling through his bag for a water bottle, his knuckles hit something cold and metallic-sounding tucked away inside. He hums to himself curiously before grabbing it and pulling it out.

strawberry vanilla soda.

Hm. This wasn’t the one you gave him a couple of days ago. He already drank that one. Did you sneak this into his bag? His brow furrows, and he stares at the sparkling smiling sloth on the label. When he turns the can in his hand, he sees a little note messily scribbled in black ink. 

good luck today! u got this :) ur a star

His eyes widened.

And putting his heart through a shredder would’ve hurt less than when he realizes what an idiot he’s been this entire time.

He’s instantly searching the field, peering through crowds of people, mascots, banners, flags, for any sight of you. He’s not sure how or why he goes in the direction that he does, but deep down it’s because he knows you like taking millions of pictures of flowers, and the west side exit has endless blooms of them. And so when he runs out that way, cleats tapping against the concrete pavement that leads out into the courtyard in the front of the stadium, and spots you standing there, he finally lets out the breath of air he feels like he’s been holding in his chest all day.

You’re aiming your camera at teal and orange petals scattered across the decorative florals lining the raised concrete planters, then pull it down from your face and twiddle with the settings, tilting your head to the side. You then pluck at one of the blooms that was spilling over the edges, bringing it to the tip of your nose curiously. And he just watches, chest heaving from the urgency that he rushed to get to you, heart aching from the desperation of wanting to be near you. He wanted to ask you how you were feeling, he wanted to know how your pictures came along, he wanted to know what you were doing after this, and he wanted you to be with him. But most importantly, he wanted to make sure that this wasn’t the last time he ever saw you again. 

It isn’t until a minute after that you seem keen on his presence too, and you swiftly turn your head in his direction, surprised. “Satoru?” you say. He wonders if he’ll melt. He wonders if those ice-cold barriers he’s built over the years could thaw just from the way you say his name.

But when he takes a step forward, you take a step back. And he halts. The expression on your face was unfamiliar to him. Once soft, curious, trusting. Now you looked at him like you were guarding something, keeping it safe from him, and he no longer had the right to intrude. And then he realizes the hell he’s put you through all this time.

He regrets pushing you away.

“I know I said I’d respect the fact that you want space,” he says through bated breath, “but I…I just can’t stand the thought of never seeing you again.”

You’re solemn when you look at him, reading the plea in his eyes, and then slowly shake your head. He feels like he can’t breathe. 

“I’m sorry. Goodbye.”

And then you walk out of his life.

a/n. thank you for reading! i have a few more author notes that explain a few things that i couldn't really find a way to fit into the chapter organically, but wanted to address before moving on, if you're curious you can find them here. hope to see you in the next one! pls lemme know if i missed any tags i'm sorry if i did :')

➸ take me to chapter eight!

taglist: @who-can-touch-my-boob @lost-resonance @foulprincesscycle @purplehallow11 @tsukikourito @getitsatoru @erencvlt @slut-4-gojo @cactisjuice @kissofife @tiredflame132 @cliosunshine @ethereally-lyann @prince-wyiilder @semra4 @gojosimp26 @hojoslutoru @drthymby @ninitoru @btszn @bbyxxm @fvsm4x @sadmonke @zoinks1010 @bakuhoethotski @fvsm4x @colouringfrogssittinginleaves @ri-sa20 @cierocanteat (thank you to everyone <3)

[candlewaxandp0lar0ids]

hoodie season || Chan x Reader

Summary: You're not stealing Chan's hoodies. He's not happy about it.

Word count: 1.4k

Warnings & Tags: Tooth-rutting fluff, established relationship, that should be it.

A/N: Wrote a silly lil one-shot for an idea I got tonight! This was literally written in under two hours, so, uh, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did lol and I apologize for any typos.

Reblogs, feedback and comments are welcome and encouraged!

It starts, without you being aware of it, on a July evening. You and Chan have only been dating for a couple weeks then, and you feel like you’re on cloud nine. For the better half of the night, which you’re spending with his friend group, you’re in his arms, your back against his chest, his chin comfortably resting on your shoulder. Changbin and Jisung tease him about it, but he shrugs it off like it means nothing. He’s got you now, and he likes showing you off, so why wouldn’t he?

It does take you aback when he lets go of you and the cold hits you. It was hot outside all day, and you hadn’t realized that the temperature had dropped by this much. A shiver shakes you to your core, which Chan doesn’t miss, even if he’s being called away to play the guitar.

“You want my hoodie?” he asks, eyes filled with concern.

“No, I’m okay, babe,” you say with a smile. “I’ve brought a jacket.”

He nods, and that’s all there is to it.

It comes back on a night the two of you are spending out. Chan takes you out to this fancy restaurant, and you dress accordingly, always pleased when you get a chance to impress him — and impress him you do. He does that thing that you think is adorable, where he keeps giggling throughout the meal. Under the table, your knees keep touching, and every time, without fail, his ears turn bright red. You love that you still have that effect on your boyfriend of three months.

After that, because you’re near a park, you decide to go for a walk in the night air. It doesn’t take long before you’re shivering in your small, tight dress.

“I’ve got a hoodie in my car,” Chan says, ever the gentleman. “Want me to go get it for you?”

You’re not keen on being left alone in the dark, and your high heels mean that if you go with him, it’ll take much longer than it should. Plus, it would ruin your outfit.

“It’s fine,” you say, arranging your scarf so it wraps around your shoulders. “We’ll be heading home soon anyway, right?”

“Sure,” he nods quickly, and it’s your turn to giggle, because it’s so cute, how Chan always indulges you.

He ends up picking you up when you’re walking back too slowly for his taste, and you protest, but you’re no longer cold when you get to his car.

 The subject — which, by the way, you still haven’t realized is a subject — comes back yet again on a night you’re spending in his apartment. You’re coming out of the shower, a towel wrapped around you, and you’re going through your bag to find the clothes you’d planned on wearing for the night when something lands on the bed in front of you. You glance up to find Chan looking at you, leaning against the door frame.

“Just in case you get cold.”

You have, slowly but surely, made your way into November, but Chan’s place is warm, and you know you’ll have a human radiator, so you grin at him.

“I have a feeling I won’t be needing it tonight.”

Chan grins — but his ears turn red, even now.

 You do a Secret Santa, a few days before Christmas, with Chan and his friend group, at Changbin’s place. It’s an incredibly nice house, but it’s big and it’s old, and you soon find yourself huddling against Chan for warm. It makes him laugh at first, and he presses a kiss into your hair, arm solidly wrapped around you as he rubs your arm. When you don’t appear to warm up as the night keeps going, he disappears for a few minutes, ignoring your protests.

He comes back from his car and hands you one of his signature black hoodies.

“You’re my savior, babe,” you sigh as you pull it over your head.

Chan beams.

His victory is short-lived, though, because you pull away from him after that — with the hoodie, cuddling makes you too hot.

You leave the hoodie neatly folded in his car when you both go back to your place for the night.

It’s just a few days later that you meet Chan’s family for the first time. You’re all dressed-up, determined to do your best so that they’ll like you, even if Chan’s promised you that they would, no matter what, because he loves you, and that’s all they care about.

He dropped the word so easily, and you were left speechless. You haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

Even now, when you’re sitting next to him, making small talk with his mom and listening to his sister tease him playfully, you have butterflies in your stomach. The hand he’s placed over yours on the table, again making it look so natural, so easy for him, isn’t helping.

“Wanna go for a midnight walk?” he offers, later that night. “It’s kind of a family tradition.”

“Sure,” you say, voice squeakier than usual, and he tilts his head as he studies you, but he doesn’t comment on it.

“You’re not dressed warm enough,” he warns you, and before you can say that you’ve brought appropriate clothing, he’s taking off his hoodie and pulling it down over your head. “There. All good.”

It’s late when you come back, so you both wish his parents a goodnight before Chan drives you back to your apartment. You wait until you’ve made it up the stairs and you’ve opened the door to put your arms around him and pull him down for a kiss. It’s soft, slow, and filled with all of your emotions.

“What’s that for?” Chan whispers against your lips. He’s warm against you, his hands on your hips, and you feel so grounded by him. You always do.

“I love you too,” you whisper back.

The hoodie ends up forgotten on the floor.

You celebrate New Year’s Day with Chan’s friends, again, but really, they’re your friends by now. You get at Changbin’s house early so you can help with the cooking and decorating the place, and end up teaming up with Felix and Minho in the cooking department, while Hyunjin takes over the decorations and forbids everyone from approaching him while he works.

It’s not because he’s shy. It’s because he thinks you’re all terrible.

Chan arrives kind of late minute, busy working on songs, as always, while you’re putting out the drinks you’d brought with you. You greet him with a quick kiss. You still have a million things to do.

“I’ve got your hoodie in my bag, you should put it back in your car,” you just tell him as you rush back into the kitchen.

You miss the way he pouts at you.

It’s later that night, but still with a couple hours to go until midnight, that he approaches you while you’re outside, staring up at the night sky and enjoying the fresh air after hours cooped up inside. He wraps his arms around your waist, buries his head in your neck. You lean back into the familiar touch with a satisfied sigh — until he mumbles something unintelligible.

“What was that?” you ask with a frown.

Even with the only light coming through the windows of Changbin’s house, you can tell he’s blushing when he pulls away from you.

“Why aren’t you keeping my hoodies?”

You blink at him.

“…because they’re your hoodies?”

He opens his mouth, closes it.

“Yeah, but they’re kinda… your hoodies too, y’know?”

You tilt your head slowly, and soon, you’re unable to fight the grin that’s spreading on your lips as you watch him get increasingly pouty.

“Do you want me to steal your hoodies?”

The blush spreads.

“Do you like it when I wear them?”

You’re just having fun now.

“Yeah,” he answers, before cocking an eyebrow at you. “Think it’s hot, by the way.”

You burst out laughing, and he tightens his hold around you when that takes you away from him. God, do you love that man. Once you’ve collected yourself, you reach a hand up to gently cup his cheek.

“Okay, I’ll steal your hoodies. Anything for you, love.”

He smiles, satisfied, and kisses you softly. He brings a hand to cover yours, entangles his fingers with yours.

You don’t tell him, but the truth is, you feel warm and fuzzy all over inside whenever he’s around.

So you don’t see the point in having a hoodie when you can have him instead.

taglist: @lethallyprotected @jisuperboard

Masterlist

[23victoria]

off the table

pairings: lewis hamilton x fem!reader

word count: 13k

warnings: SMUT (wrap it before you tap it), toxic relationship, cheating, miscommunication, cussing, best friends to lovers, idiots in love, mentions of educational burnout, semi-double pov

authors note: listen to off the table by ariana grande ft. the weeknd 13k words is insane to me, this is the most i’ve ever wrote, i had so much fun writing this honestly, i pray it’s not shit…cause that would be embarrassing, ignore any typos please, also a little self indulgent (not all the way, trust)okay i’m done, hope you enjoy!!

want to be tagged in my works?! CLICK HERE

f1 masterlist 1k celebration

You met Lewis when you were just seven years old. It was a typical summer day, the sun high in the sky, casting a golden glow over the park. You were new to the neighborhood, shy and unsure of yourself, clutching the handles of your bike as if it were your lifeline. The other kids seemed so confident, racing around on their bikes, laughing and shouting as they sped down the dirt paths. You stood on the sidelines, watching, wishing you could join in but not quite brave enough to take the first step.

That's when you noticed him—a boy with wild curls and a bright smile, his bike skidding to a stop in front of you. "Hey, do you want to race?" he asked, his voice filled with enthusiasm. You hesitated, glancing down at your bike, then back at him. He must have sensed your uncertainty because he grinned and added, "I'll go easy on you, I promise."

Something about his easy confidence made you smile, and before you knew it, you were racing side by side with him, the wind whipping through your hair as you pedaled as fast as you could. You didn't win—Lewis was too fast for that—but it didn't matter. For the first time since moving, you felt like you belonged.

From that day on, you and Lewis were inseparable. Every afternoon after school, you'd meet at the park, racing your bikes until the sun dipped below the horizon. He told you about his love for karting, his eyes lighting up as he described the thrill of speeding around the track, the roar of the engine in his ears. You didn't understand it entirely—karts seemed like a bigger, scarier version of your bike—but you loved listening to him talk about it, the way his passion seemed to pour out of him.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

As the years went by, your friendship with Lewis deepened. You became each other's confidants, sharing your dreams and fears late into the night. You told him about your dream of becoming a doctor, and he listened with the same intensity he showed on the track. In return, he confided in you about his aspirations in racing, how he wanted to be the best, to make his family proud.

There were moments, though, where something unspoken lingered between you—moments where his gaze seemed to linger a little too long, where his touch seemed a little too tender. But you never noticed, too caught up in your own world to see the way his feelings for you were evolving.

One day, when you were both fourteen, you were sitting in your room, studying for a biology test. Lewis had come over to help you with your homework, but you ended up talking about everything except schoolwork. "Do you ever think about the future?" you asked, lying on your bed with a textbook open in front of you.

"All the time," he admitted, glancing over at you. "I think about racing, where I'll be, who I'll be with."

You smiled, oblivious to the hint of something more in his words. "I bet you'll be famous," you teased, nudging him playfully. "I'll be able to say I knew you before you were cool."

He laughed, but there was a wistfulness in his eyes. "What about you? Where do you see yourself?"

You shrugged, turning your attention back to your textbook. "Hopefully in med school, maybe even Harvard if I can get in. Saving lives and all that."

There was a pause, and when you looked back at him, you saw something flicker in his expression, something you couldn't quite place. But before you could ask, he smiled and said, "You'll get in. I know you will."

You didn't know it then, but that was one of the many moments where he almost told you how he felt. But your casual mention of Harvard, of a future that seemed so far from his own, made him hesitate. How could he confess his feelings when it seemed like your dreams were leading you in opposite directions?

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

When you were sixteen, Lewis's karting career began to take off even more. He was spending more time at the track, traveling for races, and you were busy with school. But despite the distance, you stayed close, texting each other daily, finding time to hang out whenever he was home.

One evening, after one of his races, he invited you to a celebratory dinner with his family. You were honored, knowing how important these moments were to him. As you sat across from him at the table, laughing and talking with his family, you felt a warmth in your chest, a sense of belonging that you couldn't quite explain.

After dinner, as you walked back to your car, Lewis caught your arm, stopping you. "Hey, can we talk for a minute?" he asked, his voice unusually serious.

"Of course," you replied, a little surprised by his tone. You turned to face him, and for a moment, you just stood there, looking at each other in the dim light of the streetlamp.

He seemed to struggle with his words, his hands fidgeting in his pockets. "I've been meaning to tell you something," he began, his voice low. "It's just... we've known each other for so long, and you've always been there for me. I don't know what I'd do without you."

Your heart swelled at his words, and you smiled, completely missing the deeper meaning behind them. "You're my best friend, Lewis. I'll always be there for you, no matter what."

He looked down, a slight frown tugging at his lips. "Yeah, best friends," he repeated, his voice softer now. "But what if—"

Just then, your phone buzzed in your pocket, interrupting the moment. You pulled it out, glancing at the screen, and saw a text from a boy in your class that you'd been talking to. "Sorry, it's just Josh," you said, quickly typing a response.

When you looked back up, Lewis's expression had shifted, the vulnerability from moments before gone. "No worries," he said, forcing a smile. "I just wanted to say that I'm really proud of you. For everything."

You felt a pang of guilt, sensing that you had missed something important, but you pushed it aside, giving him a quick hug. "Thanks, Lewis. That means a lot."

As you drove home that night, you couldn't shake the feeling that something had changed, but you couldn't quite put your finger on it. Meanwhile, Lewis watched you leave, the words he had almost said hanging heavy in the air. He had been so close to telling you how he felt, but your mention of Josh had stopped him. How could he compete with someone who was already making you smile in ways he only dreamed of?

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

As you started high school, you started dating Josh. He was sweet, attentive, and everything you thought you wanted in a boyfriend. Lewis, ever the supportive friend, smiled and encouraged you, even as his heart ached every time he saw you with someone else.

He watched from the sidelines as your relationship with Josh blossomed, always there to lend a listening ear when things got tough. And when Josh broke your heart, leaving you devastated just before prom, Lewis was the first person you called.

"I can't believe he did this," you sobbed into the phone, your voice thick with tears.

"I'll be right there," Lewis replied without hesitation. Within minutes, he was at your door, pulling you into a comforting embrace. He held you as you cried, his hand gently stroking your hair, murmuring soothing words into your ear.

"You deserve so much better," he whispered, his heart breaking alongside yours. "Anyone who can't see how amazing you are doesn't deserve you."

You pulled back slightly, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes. "Why can't all guys be like you, Lewis?"

He smiled sadly, wishing he could tell you that he would never hurt you the way Josh did, that he would cherish you and make you feel loved every day. But instead, he just said, "Because they're not smart enough to realize what they have."

In that moment, you realized how much you had taken Lewis for granted, how he had always been there for you, even when you didn't deserve it. But you still didn't see the depth of his feelings for you, too caught up in your own heartbreak to notice the way he looked at you, as if you were the most precious thing in the world.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

When it came time to apply for college, you were determined to go to the one with the best medical program, whether it was Harvard, Yale, Duke, or John Hopkins. You had worked so hard throughout high school, dedicating countless hours to your studies, extracurriculars, and volunteer work. It was your dream, and you weren't going to let anything stand in your way.

Lewis, on the other hand, was focused on his racing career. He had already been scouted by several teams, and it was clear that his future was on the track. You were both proud of each other's accomplishments, but there was an unspoken tension between you as the reality of your diverging paths began to sink in.

The day you received your acceptance letter from Harvard was bittersweet. You were overjoyed to have achieved your dream, but the thought of leaving Lewis behind filled you with a sense of loss. You had always imagined that you would be there for each other through everything, but now it seemed like your lives were pulling you in different directions.

"I got in," you told Lewis when you saw him later that day, your voice filled with a mix of excitement and sadness.

He smiled, pulling you into a tight hug. "I knew you would," he said, his voice proud but tinged with something else. "You're going to do amazing things, Y/N/N."

"But I'll miss you," you admitted, your heart aching at the thought of being so far away from him.

"I'll miss you too," he replied, his voice quiet. "But we'll stay in touch, right? It's not like we're never going to see each other again."

You nodded, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over. "Of course. We'll text and call all the time. And I'll visit whenever I can."

He smiled, but there was a sadness in his eyes that you couldn't ignore. "Yeah, we'll make it work."

As the summer passed, you and Lewis spent as much time together as possible, trying to make the most of your remaining days before you both went off to pursue your dreams. There were moments of laughter and joy, but also moments of quiet reflection, as you both grappled with the reality of what was to come.

On your last night before leaving for college, you and Lewis sat on the roof of his house, staring up at the stars. It was a tradition you had started when you were kids, a way to escape the world and just be together in the silence of the night.

"I'm really going to miss this," you said softly, your voice barely above a whisper.

"Me too," he replied, his gaze fixed on the sky.

You turned to look at him, your heart heavy with a mix of emotions. "Promise me we'll stay close, no matter what."

He finally looked at you, his eyes filled with a depth of emotion that took your breath away. "I promise," he said, his voice steady and sincere.

You smiled, reaching out to take his hand. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Lewis."

He squeezed your hand gently, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. "You'll never have to find out," he said, his voice filled with a quiet determination.

As you sat there together, the weight of unspoken words hung between you, but neither of you said anything more. There was a part of Lewis that wanted to tell you everything—to confess his feelings, to ask you to stay—but he knew it wouldn't be fair. You had your own dreams to chase, and he couldn't ask you to give them up for him.

So instead, he kept his promise, supporting you from afar as you embarked on the next chapter of your life. You texted and called as often as you could, sharing stories of your experiences at Harvard, while he told you about his progress in racing. The distance was hard, but you both did your best to stay connected.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

College was everything you had hoped it would be. You excelled in your classes, made new friends, and even started dating again. But no matter how busy you were, there was always a part of you that missed Lewis. You missed the way he made you laugh, the way he could always make you feel better no matter what was going on in your life.

You visited home during the holidays, and every time you saw Lewis, it was like no time had passed at all. You fell back into your old routines, spending hours talking and laughing, as if the distance between you had never existed.

But there were moments when you noticed a change in him—moments when he seemed quieter, more reserved. You didn't think much of it at first, chalking it up to the stress of his racing career. But as time went on, you began to wonder if there was something more.

One night, during your winter break, you and Lewis went for a drive, just like you used to do when you were younger. The streets were quiet, the city lights reflecting off the snow-covered ground. You talked about everything and nothing, enjoying the comfort of each other's presence.

As you drove past your old high school, memories flooded back, and you found yourself laughing at the thought of how much had changed since then. "Can you believe it's been four years since we graduated?" you asked, glancing over at Lewis.

He smiled, but there was a hint of sadness in his eyes. "Yeah, it's crazy how time flies."

You sighed, your smile fading as you thought about how much your lives had diverged since high school. "Do you ever miss the way things used to be?" you asked, your voice filled with a touch of nostalgia.

"All the time," he admitted, his voice quiet.

There was a moment of silence as you both reflected on the past, and for a brief second, you thought you saw something in his expression that made your heart skip a beat. But before you could say anything, he turned away, his gaze fixed on the road ahead.

"I've been thinking," he began, his voice hesitant, "about how different our lives are now. You're at college, I'm racing in F2... it's like we're living in two separate worlds."

You frowned, unsure of where he was going with this. "But we're still friends, Lewis. That hasn't changed."

"I know," he said quickly, "but sometimes I wonder if..." He trailed off, as if struggling to find the right words.

"If what?" you prompted, your heart pounding in your chest.

He shook his head, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "Nothing. Forget I said anything."

You wanted to push him, to ask him what he was really thinking, but something in his tone made you stop. Instead, you just nodded, deciding to let it go.

As the night wore on, you found yourself growing more and more frustrated with your inability to understand what was going on with Lewis. You had always been able to read him like a book, but now it felt like there was a wall between you, something unspoken that neither of you could break through.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

The next few years passed in a blur of classes, exams, and racing events. You and Lewis remained close, but the distance between you became more pronounced as time went on. You both pursued your dreams with a single-minded determination, but in the process, you began to drift further apart.

There were moments when you wondered if you had made the right choice, if maybe you should have stayed closer to home, closer to Lewis. But every time you thought about it, you pushed the thoughts aside, telling yourself that you were doing what you were meant to do.

Lewis, on the other hand, struggled with his feelings for you more than ever. He watched from afar as you continued to excel in your studies, as you dated other people, as you lived a life that seemed so different from his own. But he never stopped caring about you, never stopped being there for you whenever you needed him.

And though he never told you, he knew deep down that he would always love you, even if you never felt the same way about him.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

Your life took a different turn when you least expected it. You had always been focused, driven, and passionate about becoming a doctor. The years of studying, the late nights in the library, the relentless pursuit of knowledge—it all felt like it was leading you toward a future you had envisioned since childhood. But as time went on, something inside you began to shift.

It started subtly at first, a creeping sense of exhaustion that no amount of sleep seemed to cure. The long hours in the lab, the constant pressure to excel, the never-ending cycle of exams and practicals—it all began to weigh on you. You could feel the burnout setting in, the stress gnawing away at your enthusiasm. You told yourself that it was normal, that every med student went through this phase, that it was just another hurdle to overcome. But deep down, you knew something was wrong.

Your friends noticed it too. They saw the dark circles under your eyes, the way you seemed to retreat into yourself, the way your laughter had become rare, replaced by a quiet, pervasive anxiety. One of your closest friends at the time, a fellow student who had always been attuned to your moods, suggested something radical: "Why don't you try something different for a while? Just to take the pressure off."

You were taken aback by the suggestion. "Like what?" you asked, genuinely curious. You couldn't imagine stepping away from your studies, even for a moment. But the exhaustion was so overwhelming that you were willing to entertain any idea that might offer some relief.

"Have you ever thought about acting?" your friend asked, a mischievous smile playing on their lips. "You've always had a flair for drama, and you're great at expressing yourself. It could be fun, and who knows? It might help you recharge."

The idea was so out of left field that you laughed. Acting? You had never seriously considered it. Sure, you had participated in a few school plays when you were younger, but it was always just for fun, never something you thought of as a career. But the more you thought about it, the more the idea intrigued you. Maybe stepping away from the rigid structure of medical school could be exactly what you needed. Maybe exploring a different side of yourself could reignite the passion that had been dwindling for medicine.

On a whim, you decided to give it a try. You signed up for an acting workshop, just to see if you had any talent or interest in it. To your surprise, you loved it. The freedom of expression, the creativity, the way you could lose yourself in a character and forget about the stress of your real life—it was exhilarating. For the first time in months, you felt genuinely happy, like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders.

Encouraged by the positive experience, you started attending more workshops, getting involved in local theater productions, and even taking a few acting classes on the side. It was all just for fun at first, a way to balance out the intensity of your studies. But the more you immersed yourself in the world of acting, the more you realized how much you enjoyed it.

Then came the fateful day when everything changed. One of your acting instructors, who had been impressed by your natural talent, mentioned that a casting call was being held for a new movie. It was a big-budget production, with a well-known director at the helm, and they were looking for fresh faces to fill the lead roles. Your instructor encouraged you to audition, insisting that you had the potential to land the part.

At first, you hesitated. The idea of auditioning for a major film seemed absurd. You were a med student, not a professional actress. But something inside you, that same part that had pushed you to explore acting in the first place, urged you to go for it. What did you have to lose?

So, with a mix of nerves and excitement, you prepared for the audition. You worked on your lines, practiced your delivery, and did your best to channel the emotions of the character you were auditioning for. The day of the audition arrived, and you walked into the casting room with your heart pounding in your chest.

To your amazement, the audition went better than you could have imagined. You felt a connection with the character, a sense of ease in front of the camera that surprised even you. The casting directors seemed impressed, and you left the audition feeling a strange mix of exhilaration and disbelief.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

A few weeks later, you received the call that would change your life. You had landed the lead role in the movie. You couldn't believe it. This was supposed to be a temporary distraction, a way to relieve stress—not the start of a new career. But here you were, about to step into the world of professional acting.

The decision to accept the role was not an easy one. It meant putting your medical studies on hold, something that terrified you. You had worked so hard to get where you were, and the thought of stepping away felt like abandoning a part of yourself. But there was also a part of you that was excited, that saw this as an incredible opportunity, a chance to do something completely different.

You’re pacing your dorm apartment, the walls suddenly feeling too close, the air too thick. You can’t breathe. The call is stuck in your mind, you’ve been offered the lead role in a major movie—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But the timing couldn’t be worse. You’re just a year away from completing your medical degree. A year. After all the sleepless nights, endless studying, and grueling rotations, it’s all so close to paying off. And yet…

You drop onto your bed, head in your hands, and your thoughts spiral out of control. What if you’re making a mistake? What if you take the role and regret it? What if you stay in medicine and never know what could have been? You feel your chest tightening, panic creeping in. You need to talk to someone. You need to talk to him.

Without thinking, you reach for your phone and press Lewis’s contact. As the phone rings, you silently beg for him to pick up. “Please, Lewis, pick up. Please, please, please…”

The call connects, and you hear a groggy voice on the other end. “Y/N/N? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” His voice is laced with concern, but there’s a hint of sleep still clinging to his words.

Your heart drops. You forgot. You completely forgot that he’s in Belgium for the race at Spa. You glance at the clock, realizing just how late it is over there. “Oh my God, Lewis, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I completely forgot about the time difference and your race tomorrow…”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he says, his voice softening. “I’m awake now. Are you alright? What’s going on?”

You take a deep breath, trying to steady yourself, but the words tumble out in a rush. “I got offered the lead in a major movie, and I don’t know if I should take it. I’m just a year away from finishing med school, and it feels insane to stop now. But at the same time, this is such a huge opportunity, and I’m spiraling, and you were the first person I thought of to call.”

There’s a pause on the other end, and you can almost hear him processing what you’ve just said. “Lead role in a movie? Acting? You’re an actress? When did this happen?”

You blink, realizing you’ve never told him. Your heart sinks a little further. “Oh… yeah, I guess we haven’t talked in a while, have we?”

Silence hangs between you for a moment, heavy with unspoken words. “Yeah,” he finally says, the word carrying more weight than it should. “We haven’t.”

You clear your throat, trying to push past the awkwardness. “I was feeling burned out with all the studying, and a friend suggested I try something new to take my mind off it. I took an acting class, just for fun, but then one class turned into two, and before I knew it, I was hooked. And now… now I’m being offered a lead role in a movie. Crazy, right? How things change so fast…”

He exhales slowly, as if trying to absorb everything you’ve just told him. “Yeah… yeah, it is crazy.” There’s another pause, but this time it feels different—more contemplative. “Look, Y/N/N, I know this is a huge decision, and it’s not one you can take lightly. But I also know you. You’re not someone who backs down from a challenge. You’ve got this incredible intuition, this ability to know what’s right for you, even if it’s terrifying. If acting is something that excites you, something that makes you feel alive, then maybe it’s worth exploring. You’re not giving up on medicine; you’re just… taking a detour. Following your heart. And whatever you decide, I’ll be here to support you. I believe in you.”

His words wash over you, calming the storm inside your mind. You feel a warmth spread through your chest, easing the tightness that had gripped you just moments before. “Thank you, Lewis. I really needed to hear that.”

“Of course,” he replies softly. “I’m glad I could help.”

You smile, feeling a sense of peace settle over you. “Good luck with your race tomorrow. I’m sorry again for disturbing you.”

“Don’t be,” he says, his voice tinged with affection. “I’m always here for you, no matter what. And thanks—I’ll need that luck.”

A comfortable silence falls between you, the kind that only exists between people who’ve known each other for years. You can almost picture him on the other end of the line, smiling that soft, reassuring smile of his.

“It’s really good to hear your voice,” you say, your tone almost wistful.

“Yeah,” he echoes, a hint of something unspoken in his voice. “It is.”

You close your eyes, letting the moment linger, not wanting it to end. But eventually, you know it must. “Goodnight, Lewis.”

“Goodnight, Y/N/N.”

The call ends, and you’re left in the quiet of your dorm room, the weight of the decision still pressing on you, but somehow, it feels a little lighter now. You sit on your bed, staring at the wall, thinking about the offer, about your career, but mostly about him—about how much you miss him, miss his voice, his presence in your life.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

In the end, you decided to take the leap. You paused your medical studies, packed your bags, and flew out to the film's shooting location. It was a whirlwind experience—long hours on set, learning the ins and outs of the industry, working alongside seasoned actors who had been doing this for years. It was challenging, but also incredibly rewarding. You discovered a new side of yourself, a side that loved the thrill of performing, the camaraderie of the cast and crew, the magic of bringing a story to life on screen.

When the movie was released, it became an unexpected hit. Critics praised your performance, calling you a "rising star" and predicting a bright future for you in the industry. Offers for other roles began to pour in, and before you knew it, you were being whisked off to auditions, meetings with agents, and photo shoots for magazines. Your life had completely changed, and you were caught up in the whirlwind of it all.

As your acting career took off, your medical aspirations took a backseat. You told yourself it was just temporary, that you would return to your studies once things settled down. But the more time you spent in the acting world, the more you realized how much you loved it. Acting allowed you to explore different aspects of your personality, to tell stories that resonated with people, to connect with audiences in a way that was deeply fulfilling.

But with success came new challenges. The pressure to maintain your newfound fame, the scrutiny from the media, the constant demands on your time—it was all overwhelming. There were moments when you questioned whether you had made the right choice, moments when you longed for the stability and sense of purpose that medicine had provided. But then you would step onto a set, feel the rush of excitement as the cameras rolled, and you would remember why you had chosen this path.

You also had to navigate the complexities of your relationships. Some of your friends and family were supportive, thrilled to see you succeeding in a new field. But others were skeptical, worried that you were throwing away years of hard work for a career that was far less stable and predictable. You had long conversations with your parents, trying to reassure them that you hadn't abandoned your dreams of becoming a doctor, that you were just exploring a different side of yourself for now.

And then there was Lewis. His racing career turned out to be everything you imagined it would be. He’s a four-time Formula 1 World Champion, and despite all the fame and glory, he always made time for you. He had always been your biggest supporter, no matter what you decided to do. But even he had his doubts. "Are you sure this is what you want?" he asked one day, as you sat together in your apartment, reviewing the script for your next film.

"I think so," you replied, uncertainty creeping into your voice. "I never expected this to happen, but now that it has, I can't imagine walking away."

He studied you for a long moment, his expression unreadable. "I just want you to be happy, Y/N. Whatever that looks like."

His words stuck with you, a reminder of the person you had always been, the person you were still trying to figure out. You loved acting, but there was a part of you that missed the structure, the challenge, and the sense of purpose that medicine had provided.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

As your acting career continued to flourish, you made a promise to yourself: you wouldn't close the door on medicine entirely. The years of hard work and late nights studying had shaped you, and you were determined to find a way to honor that journey, even as new opportunities emerged in the entertainment world. It was during one of those opportunities that you first met Jensen. The encounter happened at a charity gala, an event you never imagined attending before your acting career took off.

You stood quietly in a corner, nursing a glass of champagne, your eyes scanning the room filled with celebrities and high-profile individuals. You had been invited because of your rising status in the industry, a status that still felt surreal at times. The room buzzed with energy, laughter, and the clinking of glasses, but it was Jensen’s presence that captivated you. He had an effortless charisma, a magnetism that drew you in from across the room.

Jensen, with his boyish charm and magnetic charisma, made his way through the crowd effortlessly. When his eyes locked onto yours, it was as if the world had stopped. He approached you with a confidence that was both alluring and intimidating.

"Hello beautiful, I'm Jensen," he said, his smile dazzling.

"Hi, I'm Y/N," you replied, trying to match his confidence but feeling your heart race.

From that moment on, your life transformed into a whirlwind romance. Jensen's world was intoxicating—red carpet events, glamorous parties, and moments that seemed too perfect to be real. He was attentive, always making you feel like the center of his universe. The late-night phone calls, surprise visits, and stolen moments of affection made you believe that you had found your fairy tale.

Your relationship with Jensen was the epitome of Hollywood glamour. Photographers captured your every move, and tabloids buzzed with stories of your romance. At first, the attention was thrilling. You felt special, adored, and on top of the world.

But as the months passed, the cracks began to show. Jensen's demanding schedule meant that he was often away on set, leaving you feeling lonely and neglected. The glamour started to fade, replaced by the harsh realities of a high-profile relationship.

Jensen's charm, which once made you feel special, started to feel suffocating. His possessiveness grew, and he began to dictate your choices. What you wore, where you went, who you spoke to—all became subjects of his control. At first, you brushed it off as his way of caring, but soon it became clear that his love was conditional.

The late-night arguments became frequent. Jensen's temper, once hidden behind his charming facade, surfaced. He would lash out, accusing you of not understanding his pressures and responsibilities. You tried to be supportive, to be the perfect partner, but nothing seemed to be enough.

You began to feel like a prisoner in your own life, trapped by the expectations and scrutiny of the public eye. The relationship that once made you feel alive now drained you of your happiness.

The turning point came one night when you discovered Jensen's infidelity. You found messages on his phone from a woman named Claire. The words were explicit, leaving no room for misinterpretation. Your heart shattered as you realized that the man you thought you knew had betrayed you.

Confronting Jensen was one of the hardest things you had ever done. He denied it at first, then tried to downplay it. But the evidence was irrefutable. The betrayal cut deep, leaving scars that would take years to heal.

Despite the heartbreak, you tried to salvage the relationship. You didn't want to believe that the fairy tale was over. You attended couples therapy, made compromises, and tried to forgive. But the trust was gone, and without it, the relationship was a shadow of what it once was.

The final straw came when another woman, Lisa, contacted you. She had photos and videos of Jensen with her, and she was threatening to expose them to the media unless you paid her a significant amount of money. You were truly at your breaking point.

The humiliation, the betrayal, and the constant pressure became too much to bear. You decided to expose Jensen and the women who had been involved with him. You gathered all the evidence, and with a heavy heart, you released it to the public.

The reaction was immediate and explosive. Social media was ablaze with shock and outrage. Jensen's image, once so pristine, was shattered. The world saw him for who he truly was—a man who had deceived and manipulated those closest to him.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

Your phone buzzes incessantly on the nightstand, the screen lighting up with each incoming call, text, and notification. It’s been going on for hours now, ever since the news broke. The media is in a frenzy, and your family and friends are no different. Everyone wants to know if it’s true, if the rumors about Jensen’s infidelity are real. But you can’t bring yourself to face it. You’ve been lying in bed, numb and drained, staring at the ceiling as if you could will the world away.

Each buzz feels like a jolt, a painful reminder of the life you thought you had, the relationship you thought was solid. Jensen had been controlling, isolating you from everyone you cared about, but you never imagined it would come to this. The betrayal cuts deeper than you ever thought possible, and the pain is almost numbing in its intensity.

You roll over, burying your face in the pillow, trying to block out the noise, the world, everything. But then, amidst the endless stream of messages and calls, a name flashes across your screen that makes you freeze. Lewis.

You haven’t spoken to him in what feels like forever. Jensen had made sure of that, keeping you away from your friends, especially Lewis. But seeing his name now stirs something inside you, a mix of longing, relief, and an overwhelming sense of loss. You reach for the phone with trembling hands and answer, but you can’t bring yourself to say anything. The words are stuck in your throat, your heart pounding painfully in your chest.

“Y/N/N?” Lewis’s voice is soft, laced with concern, and just hearing it makes the tears you’ve been holding back start to fall. “Y/N/N, are you there?”

“Hi, Lewis,” you manage to choke out, your voice cracking as you try to keep the sobs at bay.

“Y/N/N…” He says your name again, but this time, it’s different. It’s like he’s trying to reach out and hold you, even though you’re miles apart. “Where are you? I’ll fly to you right now. Just tell me where you are, sweetheart.”

You close your eyes, the endearment hitting you like a wave. It’s been so long since someone called you that with genuine care. “I just… I just want to be alone,” you whisper, barely audible.

“Y/N/N, no,” he says, his voice more urgent now. “You’ve been through so much, and I’ve been worried about you for the longest time. Please, don’t shut me out.”

“Lewis, please…” You’re crying again, harder this time, the words coming out between broken sobs. “I’m… I’ll be okay. I just… I need time. I need to be alone. And I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry for not staying in contact with you. I should have…”

“Shhh, shhh, no, no, Y/N/N,” Lewis interrupts, his voice firm but gentle. “It’s not your fault, okay? It’s not.”

“But it is,” you protest weakly, your guilt and shame threatening to swallow you whole. “It is, Lewis. I pushed you away. I let him push you away.”

“Y/N/N, listen to me,” he says, his tone softer now, soothing. “It’s not your fault. You don’t have to carry that. I’m just so sorry you’ve had to go through this.”

You’re silent, your chest heaving with the effort of trying to breathe through the pain. You want to believe him, to let go of the guilt, but it’s so hard. Everything feels so heavy, so overwhelming.

“Y/N/N?” Lewis’s voice breaks through your thoughts, anchoring you. “Talk to me. Please.”

You swallow hard, trying to find the words, but all you can manage is a whisper. “I have to go.”

“No, Y/N/N, don’t…” He sounds desperate now, almost pleading. “Please don’t hang up.”

“Lewis, it’s okay,” you say, though your voice is shaking. “I just… I need to turn my phone off and go away for a while. I just wanted to hear your voice before I go.”

“Go?” Lewis’s voice is strained with worry. “Y/N/N, you’re scaring me. Please, don’t do anything—”

“I’m not going to harm myself, Lewis,” you quickly reassure him, though you can hear the fear in his voice. “I just need to be away from everything—the phone, social media, the public. All of it. I need space. I need silence. I need some peace.”

There’s a long pause on the other end, and you can almost feel his struggle, his desire to reach through the phone and hold you, to keep you from slipping away. “Okay, Y/N/N,” he finally says, his voice soft, filled with a tenderness that makes your heart ache. “I just want you to know that I care about you so much. I’m here for you, no matter what. Always.”

Your throat tightens again, and you fight to keep your voice steady. “I know, Lew. I know.”

The silence that follows is both comforting and painful, a shared moment of understanding and loss. You can almost see him, the way he would look at you with those concerned eyes, the way he would hold you until the pain wasn’t so suffocating.

“Goodbye, Lewis,” you whisper, your voice breaking.

“I’ll talk to you later, Y/N/N,” he replies, a quiet determination in his tone that you know so well.

The call ends, and you’re left staring at the screen, feeling the weight of everything pressing down on you. The hurt is still there, raw and painful, but there’s a small sliver of warmth now, too. Hearing his voice again, knowing he’s still there for you, gives you a fragile sense of comfort.

You turn off your phone, letting the silence envelop you. The world outside fades away, and for a moment, it’s just you in the quiet, trying to piece together the shattered fragments of your heart.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

For the past year and a half, you distanced yourself from everyone, including Lewis. You buried yourself in work, traveled alone, and avoided any situation that might bring back memories of what you lost. Your heart ached, but you told yourself it was better this way. Safer.

You threw yourself into your career, taking on projects that challenged and inspired you. You even went back to school. You traveled to places you had always dreamed of visiting, finding solace in the beauty of the world. You spent time in nature, hiking, meditating, and rediscovering yourself.

The media had a field day with your disappearance. Speculations ran wild, but you remained silent, focusing on your healing. You took up new hobbies, learned new skills, and invested in yourself. Slowly, you began to rebuild your confidence and sense of self-worth.

You emerged from the shadows stronger, wiser, and more determined than ever. Your hard work paid off, and you made a name for yourself. Your projects received critical acclaim, and your name was on everyone's lips for all the right reasons.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

Tonight was your first public appearance since exposing Jensen. The Met Gala was the event of the year, and you had been meticulously preparing for it. Your stylist had outdone herself, and when you looked in the mirror, you saw a vision of elegance and strength.

As you stepped onto the red carpet, the flashes of cameras and the shouts of fans filled the air. You walked with confidence, your head held high, and a smile that spoke of triumph and resilience.

"Y/N, you look stunning!" the photographers called out.

"Over here, Y/N! Give us a smile!"

You obliged, posing for the cameras and greeting the fans. It felt good to be back, to be seen and appreciated for who you had become.

The crowded after-party buzzed with energy, laughter, and the clinking of glasses. People mingled, dressed to the nines, chatting and dancing in the dimly lit room. The atmosphere was electric, but you found yourself standing still, feeling a mix of excitement and trepidation. You hadn't seen Lewis in years, and the sight of him now, just a few feet away, sent a shiver down your spine.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

Lewis Hamilton, your former best friend. Lewis had been your rock, your confidant, and your best friend. He had been there through thick and thin, always ready with a comforting word or a warm embrace. It had been years since you last spoke to him, even longer since you last saw him, and the sight of him brought back a flood of memories. You hesitated, unsure of what to do.

Lewis spotted you and made his way over. His presence was as comforting as ever, and when he reached you, he placed his hand on your arm and leaned in close.

"Hi, Y/N," he said softly, his voice a soothing balm to your nerves.

"Hi, Lewis," you replied, trying to steady your racing heart.

His eyes held a mix of emotions—concern, relief, and something deeper. His presence was both comforting and disconcerting. The familiar warmth of his hand on your arm, the concern in his eyes, and the gentle tone of his voice—all of it felt like home. And yet, there was something else, something new, stirring within you. It was an unfamiliar sensation, one that made your chest feel light and your heart beat loudly in your ears.

You stood there, staring into his eyes, and your mind began to drift back to the countless moments you had shared with Lewis. The late-night conversations, the laughter, the shared dreams and hopes. He had always been your anchor, grounding you when the world felt too overwhelming. You remembered the way he would listen to you, truly listen, making you feel heard and understood. No one else had ever made you feel that way.

Lewis had been there during some of the darkest times in your life. When you first broke into the entertainment industry and faced the pressures of fame, he was the one who kept you grounded. He had a way of making you see the bigger picture, of reminding you of your worth and potential. His encouragement had been a constant source of strength for you.

As your mind wandered, you recalled the moments of pure joy you had shared with him. The spontaneous road trips, the late-night drives, the silly arguments that always ended in laughter. Lewis had a way of making even the mundane feel magical. He brought a sense of adventure and excitement into your life, and you cherished every moment you spent with him.

And then there were the quieter moments, the times when words weren't needed. Sitting in comfortable silence, watching the sunset, or simply being in each other's presence. Those moments had a depth and intimacy that you hadn't experienced with anyone else. It was in those moments that you felt truly seen and understood.

But as your relationship with Jensen took over, you had drifted away from Lewis. The demands of your high-profile romance consumed you, and you found yourself distancing from the people who mattered most. Lewis had tried to be there for you, but you were too caught up in the whirlwind to notice. You regretted that now, more than anything.

Standing here, face to face with Lewis, you felt a pang of guilt. You had shut him out, pushed him away when you needed him the most. And yet, here he was, looking at you with the same warmth and concern as always. It was a testament to the kind of person he was, loyal and kind.

But there was something else in his eyes tonight, something that made your heart race. It was a look you hadn't seen before, a depth of emotion that went beyond friendship. It made you feel vulnerable, exposed, and yet strangely exhilarated. You weren't sure what it was, but it made your chest feel light and your heart beat loudly in your ears.

You tried to make sense of this new feeling. It was a mix of longing, anticipation, and a hint of fear. Longing for the connection you once had, anticipation for what could be, and fear of the unknown. You had spent so long guarding your heart, protecting yourself from more pain, that this new sensation was both thrilling and terrifying.

As you stood there, lost in your thoughts, Lewis gently guided you to a quieter corner of the room. The noise and chaos of the party faded into the background as you focused on him, on the way his presence made you feel safe and cherished.

"How have you been?" he asked, his voice filled with genuine concern.

You took a deep breath, trying to find the words to convey everything you had been through. "It's been... challenging," you admitted. "But I'm doing better now. I've been healing, focusing on myself."

He nodded, his eyes never leaving yours. "I'm glad to hear that. I've missed you, Y/N/N."

Those words hit you like a punch to the gut. You had missed him too, more than you could ever express. The realization made your heart ache with a mix of regret and hope.

"I've missed you too, Lewis," you said softly, your voice tinged with emotion.

There was a moment of silence as you both took in each other's presence. It was as if time had stopped, and all that mattered was this moment, this connection between you. You felt a spark, a flicker of something more, and it both excited and scared you.

Lewis reached out and gently took your hand in his. The simple gesture sent a jolt of electricity through you. His touch was familiar, comforting, and yet it ignited a new flame within you. You felt a warmth spread through your chest, a sense of belonging that you hadn't felt in a long time.

"I know things have been tough," he said, his voice low and earnest. "But you're stronger than you think, Y/N/N. You've always been strong."

Tears welled up in your eyes as his words touched a deep part of you. You had been trying to be strong for so long, to prove to yourself and the world that you could rise above the pain. Hearing Lewis acknowledge that strength made you feel seen and validated.

"Thank you, Lewis," you whispered, your voice breaking. "I don't know what I would have done without your support."

He squeezed your hand gently, his eyes filled with a mix of pride and affection. "You've always had it in you, Y/N. You just needed to believe in yourself."

His words resonated with you, echoing the journey you had been on over the past year and a half. You had fought hard to rebuild your life, to find yourself again. And now, standing here with Lewis, you felt a renewed sense of hope.

As the night went on, you found yourself drawn to Lewis in a way you hadn't expected. There was a new layer to your connection, something deeper and more profound. It was as if the time apart had only strengthened the bond between you, and now it was evolving into something more.

You couldn't deny the way your heart raced when he looked at you, the way his touch sent shivers down your spine. It was a feeling you hadn't experienced in a long time, and it scared you. But it also filled you with a sense of excitement and possibility.

You spent the rest of the evening talking, reminiscing about old times and catching up on each other's lives. The conversation flowed effortlessly, just like it always had. And yet, there was an undercurrent of something new, something that made your heart flutter.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

As the night drew to a close, you found yourself standing outside the venue, the cool night air a welcome contrast to the warmth of the party. Lewis stood beside you, his presence a comforting anchor in the midst of everything you were feeling. The two of you had talked throughout the evening, catching up in a way that felt familiar yet distant. There had been laughter, shared memories, and a surface-level exchange about how your lives were going. But there was something deeper weighing on your heart, something you couldn’t ignore any longer.

“Lewis,” you began, your voice soft and hesitant, “I’m sorry.”

He turned to you, his expression shifting from the relaxed smile he’d worn all evening to something more serious, more concerned. “What for?”

You swallowed hard, gathering your thoughts, knowing this was going to be difficult but feeling an overwhelming need to say it. “I know tonight we talked a little bit about our lives and how we’re doing, but I just wanted to say… I’m sorry. For not staying in contact with you throughout college as much as I should have.”

Lewis frowned, his eyes searching your face as if trying to understand where this was coming from. “Y/N, that wasn’t—”

“No, please, let me finish,” you interrupted, your voice shaking slightly as you pushed forward. “And then, when my career took off… You were there for me, supporting me, and I was with Jensen, and I cut you off.”

“Y/N, that wasn’t your fault,” he said quickly, his tone gentle but firm.

“I know,” you nodded, tears welling in your eyes. “But after everything that happened, I didn’t speak to you at all. It’s been three years, Lewis. Three years since it all fell apart, and tonight was the first time I’ve talked to you in years. And we didn’t even really talk. We just… surface talked. And you deserve more than that. So… I’m sorry.”

Lewis looked at you, his eyes filled with a mix of emotions—shock, hurt, confusion. Your words had opened up old wounds, bringing to the surface feelings he’d buried deep down. He was struggling to process it all, his heart racing as he tried to find something to say, to make sense of the flood of emotions you’d just unleashed. But before he could respond, you suddenly seemed to panic.

Your breath hitched as you realized the weight of what you’d just said, the vulnerability you’d exposed. “I—I shouldn’t have brought this up. Not here. Not now,” you stammered, your voice trembling. Without waiting for him to say anything, you turned and walked away, your steps quickening as you headed for your car. “I’m sorry,” you whispered again, but it was barely audible.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

Lewis stood there, frozen, watching as you slipped away into the night. His heart ached, the apology you’d left him with echoing in his mind. “She’s sorry?” he murmured to himself, the words feeling hollow and incomplete. There was so much more to say, so much more he wanted to understand, but you were gone before he could even begin to process it.

As you sat in your car, your hands gripping your purse, you felt a wave of regret wash over you. “What did I just do?” you whispered, your voice laced with self-recrimination. “That wasn’t the time or place… I’m such an idiot.” You stared blankly ahead, the headlights of passing cars blurring as your mind replayed the scene over and over. You couldn’t believe you’d brought up something so deep, so personal, in such a casual setting. And then, you didn’t even give him a chance to respond. You just walked away. Again.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

Meanwhile, Lewis remained rooted to the spot, his thoughts a chaotic swirl of confusion and hurt. Your words had ripped open old scars, bringing back all the pain of losing you, the ache of your absence in his life. And now, you’d said you were sorry, but what did that mean? Was that it? Was that all you had to say after years of silence?

“She’s sorry…” Lewis repeated, his voice barely a whisper. It wasn’t enough. It didn’t explain why you’d cut him off, why you’d let so much time pass without a word, and why you’d left him standing there without so much as an explanation.

As the chauffeur approached him, telling him his car was ready, Lewis felt a sudden rush of determination. He couldn’t let it end like this. Not again. He couldn’t let you walk away without at least trying to understand, without at least saying something—anything—that might bridge the gap that had grown between you over the years.

“Follow that black SUV that just pulled off,” Lewis instructed the driver as he climbed into the car.

“Okay, sir,” the driver responded, nodding as he pulled away from the curb, keeping the distance between the cars minimal.

Lewis leaned back in his seat, his mind racing. He didn’t know what he was going to say when he caught up with you, but he knew he had to try. He couldn’t let you disappear from his life again, not after everything you’d just unearthed, not after the years of silence and buried feelings that were now clawing their way to the surface.

He watched the road ahead, his heart pounding, as the chauffeur followed closely behind your car. He didn’t care how long it took, or what he had to do—he wasn’t going to let you slip away again. Not this time.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

You had just returned to your penthouse after the Met Gala after-party, exhausted yet exhilarated by the night's events. The gown you had worn now lay draped over a chair, and you had just managed to slip into a comfortable pair of sweatpants and a loose-fitting t-shirt. The clock on your bedside table blinked 3:40 AM. You were about to crawl into bed when a knock on the door startled you.

"Who the fuck?" you muttered to yourself, rubbing your eyes as you made your way to the door.

Opening it, you were met with the sight of Lewis, looking disheveled and intense. You blinked, trying to process the unexpected visitor.

"Lewis? What are you doing here?" you asked, your voice a mix of confusion and concern.

He didn't say a word, just walked past you into the penthouse and sat down heavily on your couch. You stood there for a moment, stunned. This was not like Lewis. Closing the door behind you, you walked over to him, trying to understand what was happening.

"Uh, okay. What's going on?" you asked, your voice tentative.

Before you could say anything else, Lewis turned to you, his eyes blazing with a mix of hurt and frustration.

"You're sorry... Sorry, Y/N? After all these years of not speaking to each other and being best friends, that's all you have to say to me? Sorry? I deserve more than that. No, fuck that, I need more from you," he said, his voice trembling with emotion.

Your confusion deepened, and you took a step back, trying to gather your thoughts. "Lewis, I—what do you want me to say? I mean, friends drift apart, a lot of shit happened" you began, but he cut you off.

"Friends?! Friends, Y/N? I've known you since we were kids. I know your favorite movie, your favorite color, your favorite flowers—yeah, flowers, because you have three. I know how you like your eggs cooked, I know you love ketchup but hate tomatoes on anything. I know you're allergic to mosquito bites, and you hate when people say something and then say 'never mind'. I know you, Y/N, everything about you. You're my person, my Y/N. We are not just friends, Y/N. At least not in my eyes."

You stood there, speechless, as his words washed over you. He continued, his voice growing more desperate. "So yes, I'm mad at your 'I'm sorry' after three years of not hearing from you, having to call your parents, friends, your siblings, hell, even your assistant to know how you are doing. So, sorry if I feel like the girl I've been in love with since forever deserves to give me more of a conversation."

His words hung in the air, heavy and charged with emotion. You stared at him, your mind racing to comprehend everything he had just said. There was a silence, thick and palpable, stretching between you both.

"You... love me?" you finally managed to whisper, your voice barely audible.

The room seemed to close in around you as you waited for his response, your heart pounding loudly in your ears.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

Lewis’s silence was deafening. He stared at you with a mixture of vulnerability and determination, his usual confidence stripped away by raw emotion. You could see the pain etched in his features, and it mirrored the tumultuous feelings inside you.

"Yes, Y/N," he said finally, his voice hoarse. "I love you. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. And it’s not just some fleeting feeling or a phase. It’s been there, in the background, every day, every moment we’ve been apart. I’ve watched you build your life, your career, and I’ve cheered you on from a distance. But it was never enough for me to just be on the sidelines. I wanted more, I needed more, and I didn’t know how to make you see that."

You took a deep breath, your mind reeling from his confession. The realization that Lewis’s feelings for you were not just platonic but something deeper, something that had been lingering all these years, was overwhelming. It made you feel exposed and vulnerable in ways you hadn’t anticipated.

"I... I didn’t know," you said softly, your voice trembling. "I had no idea you felt this way."

Lewis’s eyes softened slightly, but the pain was still evident. "How could you? I kept it hidden, buried under layers of friendship and missed opportunities. I thought maybe if I stayed out of the way, you’d figure it out on your own. But the longer I stayed silent, the more I realized that I was just hurting myself. And when you disappeared, I thought I’d lost my chance forever."

Your mind flashed back to those moments when you were close, when you shared everything with him. You remembered how he always seemed to be just a step away from being more than a friend, but you had never let yourself acknowledge it. Your focus had been on your own life, your career, and Jensen. Now, standing in front of Lewis, you saw the depth of what you had missed.

"I was so caught up in everything that happened with Jensen," you said, tears welling up in your eyes. "I pushed everyone away, including you. And now... now I’m not sure what to do with all of this. I didn’t know how much I missed you until you were back here, but I’m still trying to understand what this means."

Lewis stood up and walked towards you, his gaze never leaving yours. "What it means, Y/N, is that I’m here, laying it all out for you. I’m not asking for anything other than the chance to be honest with you. I need you to know how I feel, and I need you to decide if there’s a place for me in your life—beyond just friends."

The emotion in his voice was almost palpable, and you could feel the weight of his words pressing down on you. Your heart ached with the complexity of the situation. You had been through so much, and now faced with this raw, unfiltered declaration of love, you felt torn.

As the silence stretched between you and Lewis, you felt a tumult of emotions roiling within you. The weight of his confession had struck a chord deep inside, stirring feelings that had long been buried. His words had opened a floodgate, and as you stood there, the realization that you had harbored a deep love for him all along became crystal clear.

"I love you," you said softly, the words escaping your lips almost as a whisper but carrying the weight of years of unspoken emotion.

Lewis’s eyes widened in shock, his mouth slightly open as he struggled to process what he had just heard. "W-What?" he stuttered, his voice barely above a whisper. The disbelief in his tone was palpable, and for a moment, he seemed frozen, as if he couldn’t quite grasp the reality of the situation.

You took a deep breath, trying to steady your racing heart and the tears that threatened to spill over. You locked eyes with him, your gaze unwavering. "The recent years apart made me realize just how much I truly missed you. I was so naïve and stupid when we were younger. I didn’t see how you looked at me or how you treated me. You were always there for me, through the good and the bad days. Even when I wanted to rot away, you were there, holding me up."

Tears began to slip down your cheeks, and you reached up to wipe them away with trembling fingers. "Tonight, seeing you again after all these years, my whole mind and body were flooded with emotions. It made me realize what I knew deep down: that I love you. I’ve always loved you more than a friend. I’m so sorry for all the pain I’ve put you through. I know I can’t make it up to you, and you have every right not to forgive me. But I am so sorry, Lewis. I love you. I really do. I’m in love with you."

Your voice broke as you spoke, and the tears you had been trying to hold back began to fall freely. The intensity of your emotions was overwhelming, and you felt a mixture of relief and sorrow as you poured out your heart.

Lewis’s eyes were wide with disbelief, and his own tears began to form as he processed your confession. He stood up slowly, the gravity of the moment clearly affecting him. Without a word, he walked towards you, his steps filled with purpose and urgency.

When he reached you, he cupped your face gently in his hands, his touch both tender and fervent. He leaned in, closing the gap between you, and his lips met yours in a passionate, urgent kiss. The kiss was filled with all the longing, love, and frustration that had been building up over the years. It was a kiss that spoke of pain and hope, of dreams lost and found.

When he finally pulled away, his eyes were filled with a mix of wonder and joy. "You have no fucking idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say those words to me," he said, his voice choked with emotion. "I’m not even sure if this is real or if my mind is just playing tricks on me."

You managed a soft, tearful laugh, the joy and relief mingling with the sadness of your confession. You reached up, gently cradling his face in your hands. His hands were still on your face, his touch grounding and reassuring. "It’s real, Lewis," you said with a trembling smile. "I love you, Lewis Hamilton. I always have."

Lewis’s expression softened, and he returned your smile with a mixture of adoration and relief. "And I love you, Y/N L/N. Always have, always will."

With that, the intensity of the moment took over, he closed the distance between you, his lips crashing onto yours in a fervent, passionate kiss. The kiss was deep and urgent, fueled by the years of longing and unspoken feelings that had been bottled up. Your bodies pressed together, the heat of the moment making you both lose track of everything but the electric connection between you.

As the kiss continued, Lewis’s hands roamed over your back, pulling you closer to him. You could feel the strength of his arms around you, and the warmth of his body pressed against yours. The kiss was a dance of passion and tenderness, each of you exploring the newfound closeness with a mix of fervor and delicacy.

With a sudden surge of energy, Lewis lifted you off the ground, his arms strong and steady as he cradled you against him. A surprised yelp of joy escaped your lips, but it was quickly swallowed by another deep kiss. You wrapped your legs around his waist, feeling the thrill of being held so securely.

Lewis pulled away briefly, his breath mingling with yours as he looked into your eyes with a mix of desire and determination. "Bedroom," he murmured, his voice rough with emotion.

You nodded, guiding him towards the bedroom with a sense of excitement and anticipation. "It's this way," you whispered, your voice breathless. As he carried you through the penthouse, his lips never left your neck, trailing kisses that sent shivers down your spine.

When you reached the bedroom, Lewis gently laid you down on the bed, his gaze never leaving yours. The room was dimly lit, casting soft shadows that danced along the walls. The atmosphere was charged with a mixture of passion and vulnerability, the culmination of years of unspoken emotions.

As you lay on the bed, Lewis’s hands roamed over your body with a mixture of reverence and eagerness. He kissed your neck, moving slowly down towards your collarbone, his lips brushing against your skin with a tenderness that made your heart race. His touch was both soothing and electrifying, igniting every nerve in your body.

You reached up, your hands working on the buttons of his shirt with a sense of urgency. The fabric fell away, revealing his well-defined chest. You traced your fingers over his skin, savoring the warmth and strength beneath your fingertips. Lewis responded with a soft, appreciative murmur, his hands continuing their exploration of your body.

You continued to undress him, your movements growing more confident as you removed his pants and underwear. Each layer of clothing that fell away seemed to bring you both closer, the physical closeness mirroring the emotional connection that had finally been acknowledged.

His kisses were searing, each one more urgent than the last. His hands roaming your body with a hunger that left you breathless, igniting a fire wherever they touched. His mouth moved from your lips to your neck, kissing, nipping, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. You arched into him, the need for more overwhelming.

Without breaking contact, he settled between your legs, his hands sliding under your shirt, lifting it over your head. As you unclasped your bra, Lewis’s eyes were filled with adoration and desire. "You’re beautiful," he whispered, his voice husky with emotion. He leaned down, capturing one of your nipples in his mouth, his tongue swirling around it while his fingers teased the other. You moaned, your back arching off the bed, the sensation sending jolts of pleasure straight to your core.

Lewis trailed kisses down your body, his mouth hot against your skin, until he reached the waistband of your panties. He looked up at you, his eyes locking with yours as he slowly pulled them down, the anticipation building with every second. He spread your legs wider, his breath hot against your most sensitive area. When his tongue finally made contact, you cried out, your hands gripping the sheets. He licked and sucked, his tongue exploring every inch, driving you wild with need.

"Fuck, you taste so good," he murmured against your skin, his voice husky with desire. "I can't get enough of you."

You gasped, the sensation of his mouth on you too much and not enough all at once. "Lewis, please," you begged, your voice trembling with need.

"Patience, love," he whispered, his breath hot against your skin. "I want to savor every moment."

He looked up, his eyes dark with lust, before diving back in, his tongue working in tandem with his fingers. He slid one, then two fingers inside you, curling them just right, hitting that perfect spot over and over again. Your body responded immediately, the pressure building, your breaths coming in short, ragged gasps. When the first orgasm hit, it was like a wave crashing over you, your body tensing, then shuddering as the pleasure rolled through you.

But Lewis wasn't done. He continued working his fingers in and out of you, relentlessly, not giving you a moment to come down from your high. His tongue flicked over your clit as his fingers worked you, the sensation almost too much. You could feel another orgasm building, the intensity of it taking your breath away. When it hit, it was even more powerful than the first, your body convulsing with the force of it. You screamed his name, your vision going white with the sheer pleasure of it.

"You taste so sweet," he murmured, his voice thick with desire. "I could do this all night."

He pulled back slightly, his eyes locked on yours. "Are you okay?" he asked, his voice soft with concern.

You nodded, still trying to catch your breath. "More than okay," you managed to say, your voice hoarse with pleasure.

He smiled, a wicked glint in his eye. "Good. Because I'm not done with you yet."

He climbed back up your body, capturing your lips in another searing kiss. You could feel his erection pressing against you, the need in him just as fierce as your own. Without breaking the kiss, you flipped him onto his back, straddling him, your hands running over his chest, feeling the hard muscles beneath your fingers.

"You’re so sexy," you murmured against his skin, your voice thick with desire. "I can't get enough of you."

You kissed him, your lips trailing down his neck, over his chest, worshipping his body. You moved lower, taking his thick cock into your mouth, your tongue swirling around the tip before taking it deeper, your hand stroking what your mouth couldn't reach. He groaned, his hands tangling in your hair, his control slipping.

"God, Y/N," he groaned, his voice rough with need. "Feels so fuckin’ good, sweetheart."

You continued sucking his cock, taking your time to pleasure him until he was teetering on the edge.

But he didn't let you finish. He pulled you up, his eyes burning with lust. "I want to come in you," he said, his voice rough. He flipped you over, positioning himself at your entrance. He pushed in slowly, the sensation of him filling you making you gasp.

He moved with a steady rhythm at first, his thrusts deep and powerful. The pleasure built quickly, the sensation of him inside you driving you wild. "Who's my good girl?" he whispered in your ear, his voice sending shivers down your spine. "You like that, right?"

You could only moan in response, the pleasure too intense for words. He moved faster, his thrusts harder, each one hitting that perfect spot inside you. He leaned down, taking one of your nipples into his mouth, sucking and biting gently. The combination of sensations was overwhelming, and you felt another orgasm building, the pressure intense. When it hit, it was like an explosion, your body shaking with the force of it.

But Lewis didn't stop. This time he put a pillow under your lower back, throwing your legs over his shoulders. His thrusts were relentless, powerful, driving you to the edge again and again. You could feel another orgasm building, the intensity of it almost too much to bear. When it finally hit, it was like a tidal wave, crashing over you, leaving you breathless, dizzy with pleasure.

Even though you had come, Lewis hadn't. He continued to move, his thrusts never losing their rhythm, overwhelming you with pleasure. You could feel another orgasm building, the sensation almost too much. When it hit, it was like a white-hot explosion, your body convulsing with the force of it.

"Lewis, I can't... it's too much," you gasped, your body trembling with the intensity of the pleasure.

"You can take it, baby," he whispered, his husky voice filled with love and lust. "You're a good girl, right baby. Take it for me.

Lewis finally let himself go, his thrusts becoming erratic as he chased his own release. When he came, it was with a deep groan, his body tensing, then shuddering as he emptied himself inside you. He collapsed on top of you, his breath hot against your skin, his body trembling with the aftermath.

He rolled off you, pulling you close, his arms wrapping around you. He pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead, his fingers tracing patterns on your back. "Are you okay?" he asked, his voice soft, concern lacing his tone.

You nodded, still trying to catch your breath. "That was... incredible," you managed to say, your voice hoarse.

Lewis smiled, his eyes softening. "You were incredible," he said, his hand cupping your cheek, his thumb stroking your skin. He kissed you gently, his lips soft against yours, a stark contrast to the rough passion from earlier.

He got up, disappearing into the bathroom for a moment before returning with a warm, damp cloth. He cleaned you up gently, his touch tender, his eyes never leaving yours. He tossed the cloth in the damper and climbed back into bed, pulling you into his arms.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked again, his voice filled with genuine concern.

"I'm perfect," you said, snuggling closer to him, your body still humming with the afterglow of your multiple orgasms.

Lewis’s fingers traced gentle patterns on your skin, his touch soothing and tender. He looked at you with a smile, his eyes filled with a mixture of contentment and adoration. "I never imagined this would happen," he said softly, his voice filled with wonder. "But I’m so glad it did."

You smiled back at him, your heart full and your soul at peace. "Me too," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper. "I’ve never felt so complete."

He continued to hold you, his fingers tracing gentle patterns on your back. "You're everything to me," he said quietly. "I want you to know that."

Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes, the depth of his words touching you deeply. You had always known that there was something special between you, but hearing it aloud made it all the more real.

"You mean everything to me too, Lewis," you whispered, your voice thick with emotion.

Lewis smiled, pressing another kiss to your forehead. "Good," he said, his voice soft. "I want you to feel safe and loved, always."

You looked up at him, your heart swelling with emotion. "I do," you said, your voice thick with feeling. "I love you, Lewis."

He looked at you, his eyes shining with emotion. "I love you too," he said, his voice steady and sincere.

You lay there in each other's arms, the tension and passion of the night giving way to a comfortable silence, the only sound the soft beat of your hearts in sync. The world outside ceased to exist, and in that moment, there was only the two of you, wrapped up in each other's love and warmth.

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