#I will not tag I will not explain anything

[verstappensrealwife]

Pinch me - Charles Leclerc x fem!Reader

[ charles leclerc masterlist  /  f1 masterlist]

ʚɞ in which... max's infedelity leads to charles' dream come true. ʚɞ angst, smut, fluff  ⋆⭒˚.⋆ 3200 words ʚɞ warnings: not exactly smutty per-say but they have sex and thats obvious, max cheats on the reader, mon chéri. lovesick!charles.

Click here to be tagged in my works.

-୨♡୧-

Nothing in this world was perfect. But Max Verstappen… he was closest to it.

Around him you were a love-sick puppy, ready to do anything he asked of you. You’re friends told you being with him was silly and that you should ‘really be with someone who’s not so… hot headed, like Charles!’

Pfft! As if.

Max Verstappen, cold and aggressive on track, gentle and caring off the track. He held your hair back when you were throwing up, opened every door for you, pulled out your chair.

And yet still, that bastard fucking cheated!

You were ready to surprise him after he had won once again in Japan, only his assistant knew you were coming, prepping you with a spare keycard and a big smile on her face as she led you to the room, before disappearing back down the lift.

You pushed the card into the slot, waiting a moment before the green light flickered and a quick beep sounded as the door unlocked with a click.

“Max~” You sang, walking into the room. You couldn’t see the bed yet, but you heard the banging and hushed whispers of rushing around. God, did you feel your lungs collapse inwards. There he was, barely dressed while some woman you couldn’t see the face of under the covers hid herself.

“I- Baby let me explain because-”

“Because it’s not what it looks like? Because I think this looks like you are fucking someone else!”

He stuttered, not really having any words, he just kept looking at you, then at the woman in the bed who still hadn’t sat up, then at you again. No words, just mumbles on incoherence tumbling from his lips.

“Fuck you.” Is all you said, walking out the room without a second glance. Taking a deep, shaky breath as you slammed the door shut and walked towards the elevator, tapping your foot impatiently, adrenaline rushing through you. You had to get away from him. Like, now.

Your heart was pounding so loudly it felt like it might burst out of your chest. The glossy hotel corridor stretched endlessly in both directions, dimly lit and eerily quiet. Each second waiting for the elevator dragged like an eternity, the weight of what you'd just seen pressing down on you like a physical force. The mirrored doors reflected your tear-streaked face, and you quickly wiped at your cheeks, willing yourself not to break down just yet. Not here.

“Are you okay?” Someone was standing next to you, you barely registered it, you didn’t even bother to look who when you heard the voice again, “mon chéri?”

You didn’t think. You couldn’t think. In the whirlwind of betrayal and heartbreak, logic wasn’t your guide—it was pure instinct. Without a second thought, you turned and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him close, and pressed your lips to his.

And, to this day, he won’t lie that that moment was better than winning any grand prix- yes even Monaco. He loved you, and had done since he saw you wander around the paddock, confused where red bull was, and why you were near Alfa Romeo. 2018.

6 years of loving you, loving you in complete silence. 

it was so completely obvious, except to you.

Charles was the cause of plenty of yours, and Max’s arguments, if you even lingered near the Monegasque, Max threw a hissy fit.

Charles stood stiff at first but he came to his senses very swiftly. You, the most amazing woman he’d laid eyes on, was holding him by the nape of his neck and pulling him impossibly close. It was a dream come true- literally. He dreamed about you alot more than he’d care to admit.

He couldn’t think straight, his thoughts plagued by your lips, your hands that were scratching into his neck, your boobs which were squished against his chest.  When you pulled away, he looked completely euphoric. His eyes were still closed, his lips parted and his face bright red. He didn’t move until he felt a sharp sting on his arm—his own pinch. He’d done it to make sure this wasn’t another dream, and when he finally opened his eyes, you were still there. You were watching him, your head tilted in concern as you noticed the red marks on his skin.

He smiled shyly, “Sorry.” He then quickly mumbled as reality crept in, remembering Max was your boyfriend. He wasn’t sure why he apologised, you kissed him.

“He cheated.” You said, voice raw with emotion.

“Oh.” Charles frowned, though the slight twitch at the corner of his lips betrayed him. He tried to stifle the surge of joy bubbling inside him, knowing it was wrong to feel this way when you were hurting. But he couldn’t help it. His heart thudded in his chest, and he struggled to suppress the giddy feeling threatening to consume him. “Sorry again then… about the break up.” he added quickly, his voice soft and full of poorly disguised excitement.

Sorry? No, he wasn’t sorry. Not even a little.

“Sorry I kissed you,” you mumbled, the weight of everything catching up to you. Maybe you shouldn’t have done that. Maybe you’d just complicated things even more.

“Don’t be, please,” Charles said, his voice cracking slightly. He sounded so vulnerable, so raw, a little pathetic. “I love kissing you.”

That made you laugh, a quiet, shaky sound that felt almost foreign coming from you in the moment. You reached up, your thumb gently brushing over his lips to clean off the faint smear of your lip gloss. He leaned into your touch ever so slightly, like he couldn’t help himself.

“Wanna go somewhere?” you asked softly, your voice barely above a whisper.

His eyes widened for a split second before he nodded, his smile tentative but genuine. “Anywhere you want,” he said, his tone full of unspoken promises.

Inside Max’s hotel room, chaos reigned. He was frantically throwing clothes at the woman still tangled in the sheets, barking at her to get dressed. His own appearance was a disaster—boxers pulled on backwards, his t-shirt inside out, and his joggers nowhere to be found. He swore under his breath, his hands shaking as he struggled to get himself presentable enough to run after you.

Finally, he wrenched the door open, stepping into the hallway. His eyes darted down the corridor—and then he saw you.

You were standing with Charles at the elevator, the two of you close, your body language unmistakable. Charles was looking at you with an intensity that made Max’s chest tighten—a look filled with pure adoration, the kind Max couldn’t remember ever giving you. You, on the other hand, seemed shy, your gaze flickering down to the floor before peeking up at Charles when he coughed awkwardly.

The elevator doors began to close, and Max finally snapped out of his stupor. “Wait!” he called out, stepping forward, but it was too late. The heavy metal doors slid shut with a final clang, cutting off his view of you and Charles.

He stood there, frozen, his blank stare fixed on the now-empty space at the end of the corridor. The reality of what had just happened—and what he’d lost—sank in with a crushing weight.

Charles was undeniably needy, his every touch and look giving him away completely. He had no problem with the way you grinded against him on the dance floor, your bodies moving in perfect sync as if no one else existed in the crowded club. The whispers you breathed into his ear sent shivers down his spine, his hands tightening on your hips instinctively.

Maybe it was cruel, using him as a rebound. But even if it was, Charles didn’t care—not even a little. He would have let you break his heart a hundred times if it meant you’d let him kiss you again, taste the sweetness of your lips, and feel the heat of your touch.

He had zero protests when your lips found his over and over again. Kissing him in the club, kissing him in the backseat of the taxi as it sped through the neon-lit streets of Suzuka. And certainly no protests when your drunken giggles and unsteady footsteps carried you both toward his hotel room, which, by a cruel twist of fate, was just one floor above Max’s.

The elevator cameras would have plenty to show. The way your nails dragged down the back of Charles’ neck, just shy of breaking skin. The way his hands roamed your body with an almost desperate reverence, like he couldn’t believe this was real. Both of you were lost in each other, oblivious to the world beyond the bubble you’d created.

When the door to his room finally clicked shut behind you, it only took seconds for you to stumble onto the bed, your laughter filling the quiet room. Charles landed above you, bracing himself on his forearms as he looked down at you, his cheeks flushed, his hair messy, and his eyes glassy from the alcohol—but more than that, from the way you made him feel.

The laughter slowly subsided, leaving only the sound of your heavy breathing. Your chest rose and fell as you looked up at him, a small smile playing on your lips. His gaze flickered from your eyes to your lips, lingering there like he couldn’t resist.

“You’re so perf—” Charles started, his voice soft and full of wonder.

You quickly clapped your hand over his mouth, cutting him off. “Not perfect,” you corrected firmly, though a small smile tugged at your lips.

He nodded, his lips curving against your palm. When you removed your hand, he tried again, “You’re so… ideal?”

His attempt made you laugh, a sound that felt so genuine and lighthearted, a sound you hadn’t heard from yourself in far too long—certainly not with Max. The moment lingered for just a second before you pulled him back down to you, your lips meeting his in a kiss that deepened, a kiss that felt like escape and discovery all at once.

Slowly, the two of you undressed, taking your time as if savoring each reveal, every touch, and every inch of each other. Charles’ hands were warm and reverent, exploring the shape of you like he wanted to memorize every curve. His attention was unwavering, his gaze soft yet searing, and his touch a perfect balance of gentle and demanding. You couldn’t help but notice the little things, like the slight asymmetry of his abs or the way his lips quirked into a small smile whenever you traced your fingers over his skin.

Charles was mostly quiet, save for the soft whispers that passed between you. His words weren’t meant to be reciprocated; he didn’t care if you didn’t feel the same way. For him, it was enough that he had you in this moment. In this moment, you were his, and he was yours.

He moved with a mix of tenderness and passion, always attuned to you. Every sound you made was like a symphony to him—your gasps, your moans, the way you whispered his name. He cherished every reaction, making it his mission to learn exactly what made you tick, what made you come undone.

For you, it was overwhelming, the way he touched you, the way he looked at you, the way he made you feel. You couldn’t get enough of him—his body, his voice, the way his movements felt like they were made just for you.

The night stretched on endlessly, filled with shared laughter, whispered praises, and stolen breaths. By the time you both succumbed to exhaustion, you were lying on top of him, your head resting against his chest, your leg draped over his waist. His hand traced absent patterns on your back as he stared at the ceiling, listening to your soft breathing.

Even after you drifted off, Charles stayed awake for a while longer, his eyes fixed on you. He admired the peaceful expression on your face, the gentle rise and fall of your chest. He didn’t want the moment to end. He knew it was fleeting, but he couldn’t help hoping it wouldn’t be the last time.

When he woke, the first thing he noticed was the sunlight streaming through the curtains. The second thing was you, still there. You were lying on your side, scrolling through your phone, the glow of the screen reflecting off your face.

“Good morning, mon chéri,” he murmured, his voice still heavy with sleep.

You turned to him, meeting his gaze with a soft smile. He said nothing for a moment, just stared at you like he was trying to commit every detail of your face to memory. His eyes darted over your freckles, the curve of your lips, the way your messy morning-hair framed your face.

“Hi,” you replied quietly, your cheeks warming under his adoring stare.

For a moment, everything felt perfect, but then the weight of reality settled in. The guilt crept in, cold and unwelcome. You’d just slept with one of Max’s friends, and co-workers. Yes, Max had cheated, and yes, he deserved every ounce of karma, but still. You weren’t someone who hurt people. This wasn’t who you were—or at least, who you thought you were.

Your smile faltered as the conflict brewed inside you.

Charles noticed the shift in your expression almost instantly. His brows furrowed slightly as he propped himself up on one elbow, concern flashing in his eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked softly, his voice laced with genuine care.

You hesitated, biting your lip as you stared at the sheets tangled between your fingers. “I… I don’t know,” you admitted, your voice barely audible. “I feel… guilty. About everything.”

“Guilty?” Charles echoed, his hand reaching out to rest gently on your arm. “Why? You did nothing wrong.”

You looked up at him, your eyes searching his face for answers you weren’t even sure you wanted. “Didn’t I? Max cheated, yeah, but… I just slept with one of his friends. I feel like I’ve stooped to his level. And you… I used you, Charles. That’s not fair to you.”

Charles shook his head, a soft smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “You didn’t use me,” he said firmly. “I wanted this, more than you know. If this is what you needed, then I’m glad I could be here for you.”

“But—” you started, but he cut you off, his hand gently cradling your cheek.

“No buts,” he said, his thumb brushing over your skin. “You’ve been hurt, mon chéri. It’s okay to want comfort, to want someone who will treat you the way you deserve. If that’s all this is, I’m okay with that.”

His words made your chest tighten. The sincerity in his voice was disarming, and the way he looked at you—it was so different from Max. Where Max had been possessive, Charles was supportive. Where Max had been quick to anger, Charles was calm and understanding.

You let out a shaky breath, leaning into his touch. “You’re too good for me,” you whispered.

Charles chuckled softly, shaking his head. “No, I’m not. I just see you for what you are: an amazing woman who deserves more than she’s been given.”

The vulnerability in his words left you speechless. You didn’t know what to say, so instead, you leaned in and pressed your forehead to his. The two of you stayed like that for a moment, the silence filled with unspoken emotions.

Finally, you pulled back, a small smile breaking through your conflicted expression. “Thank you,” you said softly.

“For what?”

“For being you.”

Charles smiled in return, his hand still resting on your cheek. “Always.”

The morning carried on quietly. You both got dressed, sharing little touches and smiles that felt intimate but light. The guilt lingered at the edges of your mind, but so did a strange sense of peace. Charles made you feel safe, cherished, and for the first time in a long time, you didn’t feel like you were walking on eggshells.

As you slipped on your shoes, you glanced over at Charles, who was leaning against the desk, watching you with a soft expression. “I should go,” you said, though the words felt heavy.

He nodded, his smile bittersweet. “If that’s what you want.”

“It’s not,” you admitted, standing and walking toward him. “But I think I need to figure out what to do next.”

“I understand.” He hesitated before reaching for your hand, squeezing it gently. “If you need anything—anything at all—you know where to find me.”

You smiled, squeezing his hand in return. “Thank you.”

As you left the room and stepped into the hallway, your thoughts were a jumble.

The next few weeks at the paddock were... tense, to say the least. Charles found himself hyper aware of Max’s presence at all times. The Dutchman, with his usual confidence bordering on arrogance, seemed oblivious to the anxiety brewing under the surface of the Monegasque driver’s composed demeanor.

Charles avoided him like the plague. If Max was walking down the pit lane, Charles would conveniently busy himself with his engineers or slip into the Ferrari motorhome. If they were in the driver’s briefing, Charles kept his responses short and avoided eye contact. The mere thought of what had happened—what Max might suspect—had Charles living on edge. He wasn’t exactly guilty, but he wasn’t entirely innocent either. And the last thing he wanted was a confrontation.

But more than anything, he yearned for you.

Each weekend, as the Grand Prix circus traveled from one city to the next, Charles found himself scanning the paddock, hoping—no, desperately hoping—that you’d show up. He knew it was selfish, but even just a glimpse of you would settle his nerves, even if it was from afar.

At the drivers’ parade, his eyes wandered to the crowd, scanning faces without meaning to. He barely heard the questions thrown at him by reporters, his thoughts always drifting back to you.

He was distracted, no doubt about it. His performance on track was fine—he could drive fast even in his sleep—but his mind wasn’t entirely on racing. In quiet moments, he replayed that night over and over, the way you’d looked at him, the way you’d touched him, the way you’d laughed. It was both his greatest comfort and his greatest torment.

-୨♡୧-

Winter break 2024.

he’d finally begun to accept that maybe it was time to let go. Maybe you wouldn’t come back, not to him. Maybe that night was all he’d ever have, and he should be grateful for it. His thoughts consumed him so entirely that he didn’t notice the figure coming around the corner until it was too late.

He collided with someone—hard.

“Merde!” he muttered, stumbling back. His hands instinctively reached out to steady the person he’d bumped into. “I’m so sorry—”

His words caught in his throat as he looked up and realised who it was.

He pinched himself. 

Ow.

-୨♡୧-

:D :D :D pls like+reblog plsplspls i thrive off of attention.

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tags: @i-wish-this-was-me @alex-wotton @yasdiazepam @ricciardosheart @random-fanfiction @hales-in-universe @lexy9716 @canyonmoon-2 @nichmeddar @carlossainzapologist @elieanana @cherry-piee @ethereal0810 @tallrock35 @montanajgbn @redivyvivi @Ellie24_20 @evie-119 @fadingcloudballoon-blog @jadelovesyou00 @lexy9716 @bibblemiluvr @Lili4n @Blakesbearsblog @Armystay89 @jnicole_44_4 @yasdiazepam @jewel_diva @maymustdie @Sarakay-gvf @lilypat @sturmatt @angstynasty @nina-or-anna-or-nora @thatredcar @stylesmoonlight12 @justaf1girl @wishesofficial @Coolcalmandc0llected

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[mixed-messages]

Chip and Dip

Lando Norris x snowboarder!reader

Author’s Note: In honor of where I live getting around 11 inches (28 cm) of snow over two days, here’s a little social media au about an Olympic snowboarder, who also happens to be sponsored by Monster Energy. Just like Lando. None of these IG stories are real. I made them with my need for detail

I haven’t done an smau in so long, so please bear with me and the fact it doesn’t really have a plot

General Notes: no use of yn, a nickname is used instead. no faceclaim, but there’s some skin showing in a few images! swearing, she/her pronouns used, yc is your country but you can pretend it’s just a snowboarding team or smth!

Liked by mclaren, lando, chipnflip, and 567,832 others

monsterenergy Two of our favorite snowboarders will be heading out with a few other Monster Energy athletes for a snowy getaway. Stay tuned for clips, tricks, and videos

Tagged: chloekim, chipnflip

user02 stfuuuuuuu omg omg who are the other athletes???

user78 CHIP AND CHLOE MY FAVE DUO 👹

user34 wait can someone please explain why she goes by chip???

↳ chipfan omg it’s so stupid (affectionately). years ago she was a guest on a youtube channel (forget which one) and she tried to do a trick and fucking ATE it (not the good ate) and chipped her front tooth. everyone just calls her chip now

↳ user04 it was that one trickshot channel

chipnflip let’s get ittttt 🏂 Liked by author

chloekim So excited! We’ll have to teach these skiers how to snowboard 🥱 Liked by author

user18 I SEE MCLAREN LIKED. PLSSSSS TELL ME LANDOSCAR WILL BE THERE

�� monsterenergy we can neither confirm nor deny 👀

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Liked by mclaren, chipnflip, oscarpiastri, and 1.3m others

lando the boys on the slopes

Tagged: oscarpiastri, patriciooward, nolansiegel, monsterenergy

user167 PATO IS THERE TOO? IM GONNA COMBUST

user16 is it just mclaren and the two snowboarders?? 🏃🏻‍♀️

↳ monsterenergy We can assure you there are more than just the five of them! There are ten in total!

user74 Not them becoming a clique 😭

user55 have they taught you guys snowboarding yet???

↳ chipnflip I fear we haven’t been able to teach them yet! We wanted to get to know each other first! Hopefully tomorrow 🤞

↳ lando @.chipnflip If it’s like anything today, I’m worried I’m gonna become scared of the snow

↳ user67 LANDO WHAT HAPPENED TODAY?

↳ lando @.user67 snowballs to the face 😔💔

user178 so you’re telling me 10 athletes had a snowball fight and no one posted about it???

↳ chipnflip I gotchu!

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Liked by nolansiegel, patriciooward, lando, and 678,438 others

chipnflip The snowball fight that occurred between 10 professional athletes last night. To our managers, no one got injured 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

Tagged: lando, chloekim, patriciooward, and 6 others

lando Speak for yourself 👎🏻👎🏻

↳ chipnflip dude, be so for real, it wasn’t even packing snow. it was as light as a feather

↳ lando MATE YOU LIFT

user137 LANDO GETTING HIT IN THE FACE JQICNDOW BYEEE

oscarpiastri As Lando’s teammate, I must say, I do believe there was a small piece of ice in one of the snowballs

↳ chipnflip Ope— uhhh I was unaware of that one

ycnowboarding We’d like to formally apologize to McLaren for any harm our athlete may have caused to your very expensive driver

↳ mclaren we accept the apology. Liked by author

↳ lando says WHO?

user33 not her bullying Lando 2 days after they met 😭😭

↳ user77 and him clapping back 🏃🏼‍♀️

user88 OFFICIAL YC SNOWBOARDING ACCOUNT APOLOGIZING IS SENDING ME

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12,458 likes

f1gossipupdates Some of Chip���s recent IG stories! There are lots of theories after Monster Energy uploaded a video of the winter getaway/vacation. While other athletes were being interviewed and Chip or Lando could be seen in the background, the other was always close behind. Leading some fans to suggest that there might be something going on between the two of them.

user009 omg can’t two people just be friends?? even if they’re more than friends should we even care??

hater17 i get a weird vibe from her. idk. i dont like her

↳ hater62 no bc i totally agree. there’s something about her that bugs me and i can’t put my finger on it. i hope she doesn’t take advantage of lando 💔

↳ user72 “take advantage of lando” 🥱 puhhh-lease you’re saying that like she’s not an incredibly successful athlete that has 3 Olympic gold medals and is as well known, if not more, than lando

user90 does anyone know why she rarely shows her face??? I wanna know what she looks like so badly

↳ user108 I mean… did you not watch the video monster put out?? Her face is clearly in that 😭😭

user779 chip and lando this, chip and lando that. but we should talk about the sibling-like banter between her and pato. they’re kind of iconic 💔😔

↳ user028 PLEASE. when Pato was “bullying” her and then she just… pushed him off his snowmobile??? 😭😭 and then Nolan and Chloe started to chant “fight, fight, fight” ???

hater59 she’s actually so annoying. she can’t stay away from any of them and it’s so cringe

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Liked by chipnflip, chloekim, maxverstappen, and 1.6m others

lando Truly an awesome experience! Huge thank you to @.monsterenergy for hosting this event, will forever remember it!

Tagged: chipnflip, oscarpiastri, chloekim, patriciooward, and 5 others

annika.overtomorrow It was great meeting everyone!! We’ll have to do something again! Liked by author.

↳ lando gotta get the gang back together sometime soon!

↳ user2 THE GANG. ARE THEY ALL BESTIES NOW??!!

user14 SEVENTH SLIDE. SEVENTH SLIDE

chloekim You weren’t a horrible snowboarder, I’ll give you that.

↳ lando You honor me greatly

user85 call me crazy, but is that chip in the seventh slide???

↳ user23 I was thinking the same thing but she doesn’t wear those types of goggles 💔💔

chipnflip Will forever laugh at your hair in pics 1 and 4 🫵🏻🤣

↳ lando You’re just jealous 🥱🥱

↳ chipnflip whatever helps you sleep at night!!

user65 Still obsessed with the fact Nolan casually pulled 10 McLaren lego sets out of his suitcase

↳ user17 No bc I cackled when that happened

↳ nolansiegel what can I say? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I come prepared

hater9 Praying seventh slide isn’t… her. Was literally hard for me to watch the videos they posted bc of how obnoxious I found her. like wtf even is that nickname???

↳ user56 that’s not very girls-girl of you like your bio says. Liked by author

↳ user56 LANDO?????

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Liked by lando, nolansiegel, maxfewtrell, and 578,491 others

chipnflip Was definitely a fun time! Met so many new people and was able to catch up with some longtime friends :,) My runs weren’t too bad either 🥱🥱

user92 max f in the likes????

↳ user10 RIGHHHHTTT???

chloekim she’s an icon, she’s a legend, and she is the moment 😍

↳ chipnflip i’m gonna kiss u

↳ lando @chipnflip eh? 🤨

↳ user6 lando 💀

patriciooward It was great meeting you! Even if you did kick me off of a snowmobile!

↳ chipnflip booooo 👎 you’re making me sound aggressive

↳ patriciooward @chipnflip Good!

↳ user65 helpppo i love their friendship

oscarpiastri Pretty sure Lily has been attempting to subtly ask to meet you

↳ chipnflip Oh my gosh that’s so sweet 😭😭 text me!!

lando bet i could do the trick on the second slide

↳ chipnflip omg I bet you could 🤩🤩 bet I could win a grand prix in less than 110 races

↳ lando @chipnflip low blow :(

hater8 gosh, she’s so fucking rude.

↳ user14 girl, I think she was joking Liked by author

↳ hater8 but how are we supposed to know that??

↳ user14 as long as lando knew it was a joke why does it matter???

↳ lando I knew it was a joke. I was sitting right next to her.

user54 hold. lando and chip. hanging out. together. alone???? 👀

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+ stories from lando and chip during the trip

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okay, so I’m thinking of doing a part 2, maybe with some writing. just because I think the ending to this as of now is a little bland and I want chip and lando to do the classic soft launch photos (I have some cute ones).

Please let me know if you’d like another part!

[eicsferrari]

my dilemma - ln4 smau

summary: lando and yn have an on and off relationship. he's seen with another woman

inspired by: my dilemma - selena gomez

face claim: maia reficco

f1rumors lando norris is caught with mysterious blonde after rumors of relationship with singer yn

view all comments

user5 oh lando

user8 i can't believe him

user2 i hope yn is ok :(

user23 can someone explain why everyone's mad?

user18 basically lando and yn have been dating (sort of on and off) for months. everyone knows it but they never confirmed anything and now this happened

ynupdates yn was spotted with friend and f1 driver oscar piastri. witnesses claim she was seen crying

view all comments

user9 i love their friendship they are always there for each other

user13 lando norris when i find you-

user1 noooo yn :(

user5 oscar next race hit him with your car

f1rumors: lando norris' mysterious girl has been found and her latest instagram dump includes this picture. fans are speculating this is lando, what do you think?

view all comments

user7 this is definitely him

user4 they both suck

user10 yn deserves better

yn my dilemma is out now

♡liked by iamrebeccad, alexandrasaintmleux, carmenmmundt, flavy.barla & others

view all comments

user3 SURPRISE DROP??

user16 "i heard the rumors but you won't come clean, i guess i'm hoping it's because of me" baby💔

user5 all the wags in the likes👀 this is serious

oscarpiastri so proud of you

yn ❤️

oscar→lando

yn posted a story

caption 🥰

yn thank u for your support🌹

♡liked by oscarpiastri, lilyzneimer, lando & others

view all comments

user62 streaming nonstop ♡liked by author

user17 the most beautiful girl in the world

user19 lando in the likes

user3 someone heard the song and knows he fucked up

alexandrasaintmleux my girl😍

yn 🥰

yn→lando

lando posted a story

caption 1 guess who won

replies

↪ francocolapinto if this is something cheesy-

↪ user7 IS THAT YN??

caption 2 i did❤️ tagged: yn

replies

↪ francocolapinto ffs

↪ oscarpiastri i'm watching you

↪user4 HARD LAUNCH

↪yn ❤️

ynupdates yn was seen on the paddock with lando norris

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user5 i.. didn't see this coming

user72 FINALLY

user2 he better have begged on his knees for another chance

user8 they look so cute together

lando posted a story

caption 1 good day at the office

caption 2 my good luck charm🧡

yn posted a story

caption 1 🤍

caption 2 wearing papaya for the day

caption 3 my winner🧡

yn don't embarrass me motherfucker (yes i made him beg)

tagged: lando

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lando 🛐🛐 ♡liked by author

user19 she's breathtaking

lando she is

user7 the last picture🥺 that's the princess treatment she deserves

charles_leclerc i can run him over with my car if you ever need me to

yn lol i'll keep it in mind

user8 i love how she's the paddock's protégé

user27 can lando fight?

lando yes👊🏼

oscarpiastri doesn't mean he will win

lando i could live without you but i don't wanna❤️

tagged: yn

[legalmente-loca]

The Witch Was Called

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Witch!Female Reader

Summary: You are a witch hunted by other witches. What is the reason? You don't know yet. But you will turn to the Winchesters for help and along the way the legend will become true.

The Witch Was Called Masterlist

Word Count: 1,969

Tags/Warnings: blood, injuries

Part 1: “The Shadow”

You stared at him, your breathing somewhat labored from the path you had taken and from the wound on the side of your abdomen. Your feet hurt, the boots not helping your condition.

It was an understatement to say that Dean was surprised. After all this time looking for you and knowing absolutely nothing about you, you showed up on his doorstep, making their job easier. He looked at your face, the same face he had seen so many times in the crime scene photos. The same hair, the same eyes, even the same lips.

“So… Are you going to let me in or what?”

Dean’s reaction was almost immediate. He grabbed your arm and pulled you inside. You almost lost your balance and pressed your lips together from the pain in your wound. He closed the door and turned to look at you, raising his gun and pointing it at you. Sam meanwhile stood up from his seat and looked at you intently, waiting for any sudden movement.

“Big mistake comin’ here.” Dean said.

“Listen, this isn’t what it seems.”

“Oh, I think it is.” Sam spoke up. “You killed those people and now you’re here to kill us.”

You shook your head.

“That’s not what happened.”

“Well, you better start explaining.”

You snorted and leaned against the table that was there.

“If that gun had witch-killing bullets in it, I wouldn’t be alive anymore.” The brothers looked at each other. You were right, but you didn’t have to know that. “And I could take that same guns away from you with a wave of my hand, but I won’t because I’m here to earn your trust.”

Dean laughed dryly.

“Yeah, good luck with that.”

You sighed and ran a hand over your sweaty forehead.

“Listen, you distrust me and you want to hunt me down, I get it. But you should really listen to me.”

“Why would we do that?” Sam asked.

“Because I wasn’t the one who killed those people.”

“You were at every crime scene.”

“‘Cause they were looking to kill me.”

You sat down in a chair under the watchful eyes of Sam and Dean.

“Explain yourself. How come they were looking for you?”

You sighed. You didn’t have time for this as you bled out. Your hand was already covered in the scarlet liquid and your clothes had already been stained. You could feel your vitality slowly leaving your body as more blood poured out of you.

“Look, help me with my wound and I’ll explain everything.”

They looked at each other again. Did they have to check everything with each other?

Sam started to approach you.

“Sammy.” His brother called out in a firm voice.

“We need answers, Dean.”

He didn’t even turn to look at him and knelt down beside you. He gently held your hand and pulled it away from your wound before lifting your shirt and inspecting it. Dean lowered his gun, but didn’t take his eyes off you. Now that you were close to his little brother, he wouldn’t stop watching you. You glanced around the motel room, but groaned in pain when Sam touched you.

“I’m sorry.” He gave you a small smile of comfort and stood up before disappearing into the bathroom.

Now you and Dean were alone and the tension was palpable.

“What?” You asked.

Dean just moved to the side and rummaged through his bag. He pulled out a small box that contained bullets and you knew what they were for, you could feel it. He removed the bullets that were already in his gun and put the new ones in.

He didn’t need to say anything, you understood everything.

Sam came back with some equipment to heal you and knelt down beside you again.

“Start talking.” Dean said from the other side, sitting up, his gun resting on his leg.

“You say you’re being chased by your kind and you don’t even know why?”

“That’s right.” You nodded.

Dean shook his head and ran a hand over his face. He had an amused smile, not believing a word of it.

“Yeah, ‘course, kid.”

“Hey, if I’m a kid, then you’re an old man.”

“At least I have more experience.”

“I’m twenty-two, idiot.”

“Just like me, Dean.” Sam spoke up.

“Oh, what? You’re on her side now?” He pointed the gun at you.

“No, just… Stating facts.” He muttered in a sigh.

A silence fell, your gaze watching Sam’s every move on your skin. He was focused, as if he’d done this before.

“Ready.” He said after a few moments and placed your shirt back in place.

“Thanks.” You muttered and stood back up, Dean pointing the gun at you immediately. “Really?”

“Still don’t trust you.”

“Well, you better do it because the other witches must be on their way and we have to move.”

They looked at each other and you snorted.

“I don’t have time for this. Either you’re with me or I’m leaving.”

“You really think we’re going to let you go after everything you did?”

“I didn’t do anything!” You exclaimed as you walked over to Dean.

“Okay, okay, we’re good.” Sam stepped in between you. “Let’s just calm down and make a plan.”

You and Dean looked at each other like you hated each other. Which was kind of true. It was more distrust than hate. He was supposed to kill your kind, and you were supposed to protect yourself from hunters like him. But here you were, both of you making a plan to get out of this alive and end the massacres.

“I need to get back to my shelter,” You began. “I still have my stuff there.”

“We’ll take you there.” Sam nodded, Dean looking at him disapprovingly. “And then we’ll leave.”

The walk to the car was short, but tense. When you noticed Sam opening the front door you went to open the back door, but Dean spoke up.

“No, you,” He pointed at you. “Go ahead. And you,” It was Sam’s turn to be pointed at. “Get back.”

You sighed and got into the car. You glanced at Dean as he started the engine. Minutes passed and the silence was deep, save for the few directions you gave. Upon arrival, you got out without saying a word and went into the small, ruined house to grab your only bag, Sam following behind you.

“So, how did you know about us?” He asked.

“I know when I’m being followed.” You answered briefly as you adjusted your bag on your shoulder.

“Do you have experience being followed or something?”

“I’m a witch, guess.”

You left the place and got back in the car. You decided to keep your bag instead of putting it in the trunk. You preferred to have your things with you.

“I don’t think we ever introduced ourselves.” Dean muttered without turning to look at you. “I’m Dean and this is my brother Sam.”

“Yeah, I figured.” You looked between the two of them. “You look like brothers.”

He shrugged and started the car.

“Yeah, only one of us got the good genes though.”

A few minutes passed in the car. You noticed that Sam had fallen asleep through the mirror. You just stared out the window. The road was dark, only illuminated by the car lights. The silence was so quiet, that it was even your decision to end it.

“I know why you wanted me to ride up front.” You muttered and turned to look at him. “You thought I could just kill you both from behind.”

Dean didn’t say anything, his gaze fixed on the road, but he was listening.

“I get it, I’m a witch and so I’m evil and all, but, Dean, I’m putting more trust in you two than you need to put in me.”

He glanced back at you briefly, studying your eyes, before returning his gaze to the road.

“I’m not taking any chances.”

You sighed.

“Okay, if I tell you my story, do you think you could trust me?”

“More than I already do? No.” He shrugged. “But I could try.”

You looked ahead.

“I’m a blood witch. My mother was one and she… Uhm… She met my father and made him a love potion.” Dean glanced over at you every now and then, perhaps wondering if you were making it up or if you were really determined to tell your story to gain his trust. “I was six months old when she died. And, since the potion wore off,” you shrugged. “I don’t know, my… My, uhm, father decided to leave me with a hunter.”

“A hunter?” That caught his attention.

“Family friend. I was raised by one. I’m probably more of a hunter than a witch on the outside. But he died recently on a hunt.”

Dean nodded slowly, sensing your pain.

“Huh, what would you call yourself? A Witch-Hunter? Hunter-Witch?”

You snorted.

“I think Witch-Hunter is fine.” You smiled and turned to look at him.

You decided to give him your name, the real one. Dean turned to look at you, this time for a longer time before looking away again. You noticed that his eyes were green, a detail you hadn’t noticed when you met him a short time ago.

“You know? My little brother and I called you The Shadow.”

“The Shadow?”

“Yeah, you know, uh…” He shrugged. “We didn’t know a damn thing about you and you kept running away from us. Like a shadow.”

You nodded slowly.

“Makes sense.”

You laid your head back on the seat.

“Listen, get some sleep.” Dean spoke up. “I can tell you’re tired.”

“Promise not to hunt me down while I’m sleeping?”

He smirked and nodded.

“I promise.”

Arriving at a motel Dean stopped the car and was going to wake you up when he decided to take a better look at you. You were pretty, beautiful even. Your lips were parted as small sighs left you. Part of your hair was over your face and his hand tickled with the desire to be able to move it out of the way to see your bangs rest softly on your skin.

He shook his head, pushing those thoughts away and woke you and Sam up and the three of you got out of the car. Dean was the one who chose the room; three single beds. The receptionist’s gaze went over the three of you, staying on you and your shirt with a blood stain that you tried to cover with your cape.

You entered the room and looked around. It wasn’t a luxurious place, but this would do.

“I’ll take a shower.” You said before entering the bathroom with your bag.

You hadn't heard them while you were showering, but you knew Dean had to be telling Sam about you already and they would probably be staying up in shifts to keep an eye on you.

You laid in your bed, the lights off, but you could feel it. As intense as it had been since you met him. His gaze. His gaze on you from where he pretended to sleep, watchful, guarded. Waiting for you to make any sudden move, like using your magic on them, to kill you.

A part of Dean that he didn’t want to see trusted you. There was something that told him that you needed his help more than you had shown. Maybe you weren’t used to being alone in this dangerous world, much less being hunted to death. I mean...

How could a beautiful young woman like you be the vessel for what's wrong with the world?

But despite his doubts, he chose to listen to the part that told him that you were something he had to hunt and take care of.

Dean Winchester Series/Mini Series

Dean Winchester Masterlist

Masterlist

Join my Tag List

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[harrywavycurly]

Handle With Care: Highly Recommended

Masterlist: here

CW: Frat Harry, language, Harry is a bit of an ass, bit of angst, your ex shows up and is a dick (this is the only time you’ll see him)

A/N: Honestly Harry is gonna be going through it in this mini series so just buckle in because he’s in for an emotional roller coaster, also Niall is in this because as if I can have frat Harry without frat Niall. Enjoy!✨

Tag List: @gmikaelson @ell0ra-br3kk3r @tulips4harry @mellamolayla @mads3502 @empathyroad @idk199o

Summary: You hire a company to help move you into your new apartment and someone ends up dropping a box and hurting your feelings📦✨

You let out a sigh as you stand in the middle of your small campus apartment that’s currently filled with boxes, finding it hard to believe that after almost four years this is the last morning you’ll ever spend in this space. You look around and smile as memories flood your mind of the various milestones that took place in this cramped space, such as when you got broken up with by who you thought at the time was the love of your life while sitting on the edge of your twin size bed or the time your friend got too drunk at a party and ended up falling asleep on your living room floor and woke up the next day with a piece of pizza stuck to her forehead. But the most recent one that comes to the surface of your mind is when you were sitting on your couch and got the call you’d been waiting for, that the job you applied for and wanted more than anything was yours.

You don’t get to reminisce for much longer as a loud knock on your door makes you let out a startled squeak as you jump a little at the noise. You quickly take a step towards the door and raise an eyebrow at the conversation happening on the other side of it.

“M’telling you her name was Jenny.”

“And I’m telling you her name was Jamie.”

“Oh fuck off Harry you’re shit with names and you know it.”

“Not the names of hot-”

The two men standing in the hallway immediately stop their conversation and turn to look at you as soon as you open your door, the one with blonde tips but darker colored roots and bright blue eyes gives you a smile and a small wave. But the one with a backwards SnapBack covering his brown curls and green almost emerald colored eyes doesn’t do anything but stand there and not so subtly allow his eyes to roam over your body for a moment before they dart back up to your face. You give them both a smile and step to the side letting them enter your apartment, it’s then that you notice how similar in age to you they appear to be and when you look at their attire you can’t help but wonder how long they’ve been doing this job because you’ve never seen movers arrive in skinny jeans or basketball shorts.

“Uh so I’m not sure-”

“Oh shit sorry where are my manners? I’m Niall.” The blonde one laughs as he holds his hand out for you to shake. “And that grumpy fuck over there is Harry and we are your hunks for this morning and you’ve got us for two-oh no sorry uh you’ve got us for three hours.” He explains as you reach out and shake his hand, you glance over to Harry who is eyeballing the amount of boxes in your living room, not paying any attention to the conversation going on between you and Niall.

“Lovely to meet you both.” You say as you introduce yourself and let go of Niall’s hand. “Do you two do this a lot?” You ask making Niall laugh while Harry just rolls his eyes as he walks into your small bedroom.

“You could say that.” Niall answers as he slides his phone into the pocket of his silver basketball shorts after he checks the time. “This is our summer gig and we’ve been doin it for a few years but seein’ as we graduate in a few weeks this is one of our last jobs as official college hunks.” You can’t help but smile at Niall’s Irish accent, it just makes everything sound so much more interesting.

“I graduate in a few weeks as well.” Niall just smiles at your announcement not wanting to tell you he figured as much giving the whole moving out of your on campus apartment, but he’s a gentleman so he just keeps that to himself.

“No shit.” You quirk a brow at the sound of a British accent making a mumbled comment from behind you in your kitchen. Niall’s face drops as he sends a glare over your shoulder making you turn your head only to find Harry leaning against your counter with his arms crossed over his chest, letting you get a quick view of the random tattoos scattered on his arms. When he catches your stare he raises a questioning eyebrow at you.

“What? I mean it’s obvious you graduate soon that’s why you have to move out which is the whole reason we’re here.”

“Right. Sorry.” You feel your cheeks get hot as you turn to look back at Niall who gives you a warm smile as you walk by him and into the living room where the majority of your boxes are. “Uhm it’s just boxes and my bed the rest-”

“The twin? That’s your actual bed?” Harry asks with a hint of shock mixed into his voice as he pushes himself off the counter and motions towards your bedroom.

“Uh yes that’s mine it was cheap and I didn’t need anything bigger-”

“That’s not surprising.” Harry mumbles as he pulls his phone out of his back pocket, Niall just rolls his eyes and shakes his head before he gives you his full attention.

“So the boxes and your bed is all we’re takin’?” Niall asks just to confirm what you were saying before Harry interrupted you.

“Yes and uhm some boxes I labeled with stickers so you’ll know which ones to be a little careful with.” You explain as you point to a box on your kitchen counter with a few red “fragile” stickers on it, Niall just nods and turns to look at Harry who is scrolling on his phone not listening to anything you’re saying.

“Hey asshole did you hear that?” Harry lifts his head up at the sound of Niall shouting at him and gives him a shrug.

“It’s boxes and a toddler sized bed frame Niall it’s not fucking rocket science.”

“You’re just so much fun to be around in the mornings Harry no wonder all your lady friends leave before the sun comes up.”

“I don’t cuddle. That’s why they leave. Now are we doing the bed first or the boxes?” Harry slides his phone into his back pocket as he waits for Niall to answer his question. You watch Niall look around your living room and then walk into your bedroom so he can get a better idea of how many boxes you have. But while Niall is busy doing that you feel as if someone is staring at you but when you turn to look at Harry he quickly looks away and down at his scuffed up boots, another thing you’ve never seen movers wear.

“Do you always dress like this to move people?” You don’t know why you ask him because you already can tell from the few things he’s said to you that he for some reason doesn’t like you. So it’s no surprise when he looks down at his white tank top and black skinny jeans with his scuffed brown boots that when he looks back up he has his eyes narrowed in a harsh glare aimed directly at you.

“Well if you really want to know.” You watch the corners of his mouth curl up into a smirk as he crosses his arms over his chest. “I forgot we had this job today so I didn’t sleep at my place last night” Only the last part of his confession takes you by surprise, seeing as you’re sort of used to being easily forgotten or pushed to the side for something or someone else so you don’t take it too personally you just take it as Harry isn’t very organized with his time.

“Oh uh well for not knowing you had work today I’m uhm glad you weren’t late.” You stumble through your sentence making Harry let out a quiet laugh that you know isn’t at what you said, it’s more so just him laughing at you.

“Let me guess this is how you always dress huh?” He asks in what you know is a teasing tone as his eyes travel down to your t shirt and black shorts with little flowers all over them before finally landing on your white slip on shoes making you feel extremely self conscious.

“Uh yes why-”

“Okay let’s load the bed first then just pile all the boxes around it.” You turn and face Niall as he walks out of your bedroom with his phone in his hand, he gives you a smile as he holds his phone out towards you. “Just need you to initial right here for me love, this says we are starting at nine fifteen and your three hours starts now.” He explains in a soft and friendly tone as you take his phone and put your initials next to where he’s pointing with his free hand.

“Okay great.” Niall just smiles as you hand him his phone while Harry heads into your bedroom to start grabbing your bed frame.

“Alight Styles let’s do this.” As soon as you hear Niall say the name Styles you’re hit with the realization that you know you’ve heard that name before, you just can’t remember where.

Harry doesn’t know what it is about you that irritates him, it could be the way you just seem too happy at nine in the morning or maybe it’s the way you smile every time you see Niall walk into the room but either way something about you rubs Harry wrong and has him acting in a way that’s not like himself. Now he’s not the sweetest person alive, not by a long shot but he’s known to be charming and maybe a bit cocky but still he’s never been called rude or a jerk by anyone unless maybe by a girl he turned down for a date or a fling he had to explain his lack of feelings for when it came time to end things but other than that Harry is known around campus to be a relatively nice guy. He figures you have to be nice in order to get the things you want, and in his case it might be a date to a party his fraternity was throwing or a quick hookup on a night out at a bar, being nice works quicker than being the typical douchey fraternity brother people assume he is but something about you has suddenly turned him into what he usually isn’t, an asshole.

He can’t be bothered to return any of your smiles, no matter how nice they are or how they make a weird little fluttering feeling start up in the pit of his stomach. He chooses to distract himself with a game on his phone or going to look around your boxed up apartment while you and Niall discuss the logistics of the move. He tries to ignore the way your room smells as if he just walked into a field of flowers on a warm summer day and he will absolutely deny the fact he quite likes it. So much so he finds himself taking a deep inhale as he walks towards your connected bathroom where it seems to be the strongest making him believe it might be the body wash or shampoo you use in the shower. He shakes his head in an attempt to clear his mind as he heads back into the living room, coming to the conclusion that the smell was just messing with his head a bit and he doesn’t at all want to be wrapped up in it for the rest of his life.

When he walks back into the living room he sees a box that’s open and since your back is facing him because Niall is going over the spiel about how they won’t be doing this job for much longer he takes the opportunity to take a little peak. He doesn’t expect to see much of anything really, maybe some random clothes or decorations you packed last minute so when he looks in and sees a photo of you and some guy hugging and smiling at each other like two idiots in love he has to stop himself from grabbing it and taking a closer look to see if he recognizes the man. Harry ignores the weird feeling in his chest as he sees a small teddy bear and some other items in the box with the photo and he wonders if this box is full of things the man in the picture gave to you, if it is then he has cheap taste because Harry knows for a fact the teddy bear looking up at him was a free gift with purchase at one of the campus stores last Valentine’s Day.

When he decides he’s seen enough he quietly makes his way into the kitchen and leans against the counter as he waits for instructions from Niall on how he wants to handle this move. When he hears you mention you’re graduating soon he doesn’t mean to let the words slip out of his mouth, truly he doesn’t. He meant to say it in his head but again, something about you has him knocked off balance so when you look at him with a raised brow he has no choice but to explain his sudden outburst and it doesn’t come out as nicely as he intended making him feel like an asshole when he sees your cheeks get pink out of embarrassment. But of course he can’t just simply stop there, no he has to go and make a comment about your bed as if it’s any of his business really because who is he to judge you for keeping a twin sized bed when in reality he just graduated to a queen size himself after moving out of his frat house two weeks ago.

It’s when you try to make small talk with him that has him thinking insane things such as the possibility you’ve got him under a spell or something because why can’t he stop himself before saying something rude like he normally can? It’s as if his mind and his mouth are having a battle and his mouth is winning causing him to really look like an absolute asshole. The look on your face when he says he forgot about the job today; which was a lie because he had it saved to the calendar on his phone and even set a reminder alarm and everything, is one that almost takes him out of his irritated state because it’s as if that’s something you’re used to hearing. Like people forgetting about things that pertain to you is a common occurrence and that has him instantly wishing he could take the whole interaction back but he can’t. And the worst part of it all is he knows what you’re thinking, that he spent last night with some girl or “lady friend” as Niall calls them but he didn’t, he spent it on his friend Tyler’s couch after he fell asleep at an embarrassingly early hour after one too many beers while watching a football game.

He’s never been happier to actually start a job before, because as long as he’s busy that means he won’t have to be near you for longer than the few minutes it takes for him to grab another box or two and head back down to the truck and the best part is, he simply wont have any time to stand there and talk to you. As soon as he’s in the hallway with your twin sized headboard and footboard in his arms it’s like he can finally breathe again, but he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t immediately miss the flower and sunshine smell but still, he feels at ease and even smiles to himself as he waits in the area the elevators and stairwells are at for Niall who has some pieces to your bed frame in his arms.

“Dude what the fuck is wrong with you?” Harry knew this was coming the moment he first let out a huff in front of you, Niall isn’t one to take being rude to someone for no reason very lightly especially someone who hasn’t been anything but nice since she opened her door. “Why are you being a ragging fuckin’ twat to the poor girl?”

“I don’t-I just can’t help it?” Niall glares at him for a moment before he just walks by him and puts the parts to the bed frame down so he can press the button for the elevator.

“Well figure it the hell out because she’s nice and I don’t want her leaving a shit review because you can’t get your head outta your ass.” Harry doesn’t say anything in response, he just looks down at the floor as they wait for the elevator doors to open.

Harry has two boxes in his arms and is half way to the truck parked on the street outside your campus apartment building when he hears someone calling his name. He looks around with a furrowed brow as he continues on his way to the truck not seeing anyone heading his way until his eyes land on someone he didn’t plan on seeing anytime soon since usually he only sees him trying to sneak his way back into house parties after being kicked out for getting too rowdy or just pissing the entire chapter off. The smile on the man’s face makes Harry want to roll his eyes at how fake it is, but he just gives him a simple nod of acknowledgment as he places the boxes on the floor of the truck and with one hard shove sends them sliding towards the back near your bed.

“What’s up Styles? You helping someone move?” Cody asks as he takes a quick glance into the back of the truck, Harry just turns around and leans against the truck as he crosses his arms over his chest.

“It’s kinda my job so yeah.” He answers with shrug which for some reason makes Cody laugh as he runs a hand through his short dirty blonde hair. “What are you doing here? It’s a bit early for you to be awake isn’t it?” Harry is lucky that Cody isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed because his tone is anything but teasing but it seems the man doesn’t notice as he just turns and looks at the building behind him and then back to Harry with a simple shrug of one of his shoulders.

“I’m just here to get some stuff from someone.” He answers and Harry just nods expecting that to be the end of it but Cody lets out a sigh as he shoves a hand in his back pocket to grab his phone. “You know how crazy ex girlfriends can be. Always coming up with dramatic reasons to make you come over.” Harry in fact doesn’t know, having ended his only two serious relationships in a very civil manner so he’s never had to deal with anything close to a crazy ex.

“Oh got it.” With that Harry uncrosses his arms and takes a few steps towards the building and away from Cody who is looking down at his phone with a furrowed brow. “Good luck mate.” He sarcastically calls over his shoulder with a shake of his head as he thinks of the poor girl who’s about to have to deal with that jackass.

“Okay so just these boxes left?” Niall is pointing to a stack of boxes on your kitchen counter when Harry walks back into your apartment, and for a moment he thinks he’s finally out of whatever weird daze he’s been in over the past hour while helping you move because he doesn’t find himself being hit with the overwhelming smell of flowers and sunshine. He walks into the kitchen and stands near your sink waiting to hear what’s left for the two of them to take to the truck.

“Yes and those are the ones with-”

“What the hell is going on in here? Are you-you’re actually moving?” A loud voice coming from your front door startles you as you make the tiniest little squeak and bring your hand up to your chest.

Now Harry has been good for the last forty five minutes, he hasn’t looked in your direction or given himself too much time in the apartment alone with you to allow himself the opportunity to say something dumb or more importantly, rude. But at the sound of Cody’s voice he can’t stop himself from looking at you and the moment he does he regrets it because the look on your face is one of not only shock but Harry swears there’s also a hint of nervousness hidden behind your eyes and it’s all directed towards the man standing only a few feet away from where you’re standing in your living room.

“Uhm yes I-I told you remember? That’s why I asked you to come get-”

“I thought that was some bullshit lie to just get me over here so we could talk.”

“Oh uh well I asked you over here three-three weeks ago and you uhm ignored my texts.” Harry feels his hands clenching into fists at his sides as he watches Cody roll his eyes as he takes a step further into your small apartment.

“I mean we aren’t together so I don’t have to answer your texts or calls any-wait Styles? Oh shit Horan? She’s the one you’re helping move?” Niall looks at Harry over his shoulder and rolls his eyes before looking at Cody with a smile that only Harry would be able to tell is fake.

“Obviously.” Harry snaps making Cody look at him with a raised brow.

“How did you even hear about these guys?” Cody asks you while still staring at Harry, you look at Niall who gives you his signature warm smile as he walks towards the kitchen to grab a box off the counter.

“Oh uhm Monica recommended them.” Your answer makes Cody laugh as he finally looks away from Harry and over to you while Niall silently makes his exit with a box deciding he doesn’t want to be around Cody and his bullshit any longer.

“Monica?” You nod and Harry hasn’t ever wished the world would open up and swallow him whole until this very moment, as soon as you said the name of who told you about their company Harry knew exactly who you were talking about and he knows Cody does as well.

“She’s a friend of yours isn’t she Styles?” Harry acts like he doesn’t see the way your eyes dart over to him as Cody crosses his arms over his chest while turning to fully face Harry.

“I know her yeah. Helped move a couch to the dumpster for her. That’s all.” It’s only a partial lie, he very much didn’t just help her haul a couch to the dumpster but he really doesn’t want you to know about any of that because he knows it’ll just solidify the idea you have in your mind that he’s an asshole who sleeps around.

“Don’t be so modest it must’ve been a good time if she recommended your services to her friend.”

“I moved a couch that’s-”

“Oh you’re Styles. Harry Styles.” Your voice saying his name makes his jaw clench because the way you sound like pieces to a puzzle only you can see are being put together in your mind makes him want to punch a wall out of pure frustration. Learning Monica is your friend means you probably already know everything and he can’t do anything about it, and the most annoying part is he doesn’t know why he cares, he doesn’t even know you.

“You’ve heard of him?” Cody asks as he walks into the living room towards the open box full of stuff Harry took a look at earlier and of course he’s the one who got you the cheap teddy bear, what an asshole.

“Not uhm anything bad I just have heard your name around before like at uh parties and-”

“And Monica?” Harry questions and again he swears he didn’t mean for it sound so harsh and accusatory, he just wanted to know if she told you anything about what went on between them and of course it comes out rude and snappy.

“She just told me you were nice and helpful that’s all.” You look extremely overwhelmed as you answer him and Harry knows it’s partially his fault so he just does what he thinks is best and gives you a small nod and goes to grab a box from the kitchen counter.

“What is all this shit?” You turn to give Cody your attention as he stands there going through the box of stuff. “Why would I want any of this? Is the bear I got you?”

“It’s everything you ever gave me I uh well-uhm didn’t know if you’d want it back?”

“You called me over here to give me a box of things that I gave you as gifts back to me? Are you serious?”

“I’m sorry I’ll just keep it then.” Harry can hear the uneasiness in your voice as Cody lets out a scoff as he grabs the box and brushes past you on his way to the door.

“You’ve always liked wasting my time.” Your shoulders slump as his harsh words hit you just as he reaches your door. “Delete my number.” Is the last thing he says before he walks through the open door and down the hallway towards the elevators.

One thing about Harry is he hasn’t ever had the best timing, he really thinks that’s the universe’s way of getting back at him for all the little wrongs he’s done in his life. So when he grabs the box off your counter he knows the moment he lifts it up that he’s going to drop it, not because it’s too heavy or because it’s not taped and securely closed but because just as he decides to lift it off the counter and take a step towards the door he allows his eyes to find you. Of course he would choose to look at you just as your asshole of an ex storms out of your apartment leaving you standing there looking like you’re one second away from breaking down, your eyes are big and your cheeks are pink from the embarrassment but it’s the way your hands are balled into little fists that tells Harry you’re trying to hold it together.

So in true Harry fashion that has to be the moment he lets a box slip out of his hold and land on the floor of your kitchen with a sound that has his eyes squeezing shut because he knows that was something glass that probably just broke. When he opens his eyes he lets out a sigh as he bends down to grab the box and he hates the sound it makes when he lifts it off the ground, but before he can take another step he sees your white shoes step in front of him making him pause his movements as he slowly lifts his eyes up from your feet to your face.

“Uhm did you just-”

“I didn’t do anything.” He wants to smack himself as soon as the words leave his mouth because you saw him drop the box, he knows you saw him drop the box and on the off chance you didn’t see it he knows you heard it.

“It’s okay it was just an accident.” Your voice is so soft and soothing it pisses him off because you should be yelling at him not reassuring him, especially after what he just saw and heard you have to deal with.

“It would be if something happened but nothing did. I’m just trying to finish getting your shit to the truck.” He doesn’t even recognize his own voice at this point because why is he still talking as if he didn’t drop your box right in front of you and if that’s not enough now he’s trying to act as if you’re holding him up from finishing his job, you’re going to hate him by the end of the morning he just knows it.

“Harry.” He lets out a sigh as his name falls from your lips just as he walks around you and towards the door. “It’s okay.” Harry doesn’t say anything as he’s suddenly surrounded by the familiar sunshine and flowers scent and then he feels you place a hand on his arm and he swears if he hadn’t already dropped the box in his hands he would’ve done it just then because the softness of your hand on his bare arm sends a weird kind of shockwave down to his fingertips. But he just adjusts his grip on the box and because he figures he’s already dug himself a decent grave he might as well make it a little deeper by acting like nothing happened as he walks out your front door and down the hallway.

“Shit shit shit.” He mumbles to himself after he places the box down by his feet along with the hat he had covering his hair once he makes it to the elevators and runs both hands through his hair as his heart starts pounding in his chest as if he just ran a marathon. “What the fuck is happening to me?” He asks himself as he tries to gain some sort of composure.

“You look like shit.” Niall states with a laugh as he steps off the elevator and gives Harry a once over, he glances down the hallway before looking back at Harry. “Please tell me the douchebag is gone.”

“Yeah yeah he’s-he’s gone.” His words come out breathy as if he’s still struggling to fully catch his breath and calm down. Niall gives Harry a weird look before he just shakes his head deciding it’s better to not ask, so instead he walks around him and down towards your apartment to grab the last two boxes.

“Get it together Harry. No more dropping boxes. You’re better than that. You’re a professional.” That’s as good of a pep talk he can muster at the moment before he grabs the box and steps into the elevator deciding he’s going to do everything in his power to avoid direct contact with you for the remainder of the hour and a half he has to spend moving your stuff.

[dailymanners]

#i think this is also good to remember bc a lot of us with trauma backgrounds (or at least i do)#associate anger with power in some way shape or form#like abusers with authority over you taking out their anger on you#and it can make us fearful of actually having power#because we assuming having power is the same as abusing it or having it makes us “bad people”#(i will not get into power vs privilege in the tags here but please know my intention is not to equate the two here)#but having power isnt inherently a bad thing and as this post says its about how you wield it#also i know this isnt what op is implying with this post but we are on the piss on the poor site so:#being angry isn't inherently a bad thing#feelings are morally neutral#they are tools#it is your response to the feeling tgjat makes it an issue (or not) for the people around you

Oh good points all around, and thank you for clarifying that. As someone with a trauma background as well, it took me almost a decade of therapy to stop feeling ashamed or like I was a bad person for ever feeling angry, and to accept that my anger exists to protect me, and specifically as a nudge (or a shove) to assert my boundaries when I need to.

It depends on how it's used and what you do with it. There are definitely people who will lash out when it's not called for or appropriate, and the people who do this would probably benefit from therapy.

I do know several people who I am convinced perpetually act angry and always find something to be angry about because they think it makes them look stronger, tougher, or smarter even to other people. It's hard to explain why I get this feeling. Maybe it's because I can't talk to them about anything without them turning the conversation into an angry rant (which is exhausting as is) but they always have their angry rants with a tone of smug triumph and superiority, and usually end the story with victory over whoever they were ranting about. ("someone made a dumb comment on Facebook, and then I TOTALLY told that person off and put them in their place because I'm not afraid to be an asshole!").

I think it's one thing if someone is struggling with mental health in a way that they have a lot of pent up rage. But having to turn any and all conversations into an angry rant with a smug tone of superiority and triumph feels like something different, they're desperately trying to look a certain way and give themselves a specific image, and it feels like they think their angry rants make them look strong or smart or something along those lines. Either way it's very exhausting to deal with, and they certainly lack the self awareness of how exhausting it is.

Anger and aggression are not the same thing as strength or power, by the way.

[buck-star]

I got your tag for drabble prompts...

What about Nick Fowler and something that has gone wrong?

could be a big thing or a little thing, wrong on purpose or wrong with some meddling, soft/soft dark/dark, smutty or not smutty... I just want mischief and Nick, if you're at all inspired.

Mobsters Princess

You’re giving the best hugs, but you also know the right words to assure Bucky the way he needs when he doesn’t see himself as the precious man he is.

Pairing: SoftDark (Ex-)Boss!Mob!Nick Fowler x Fem!Reader

Wordcount: 937 Words

Warnings/Tags: soft dark, manipulation, mention of threatening (not toward Reader), kind of love confession, bit fluff

Authors Note: Thank you for the request. Hope you enjoy it. It wasn't planned as fluffy, but somehow Nick wanted to confess his love, hehe. Dividers made by me.

Masterlist | Nick Fowler Masterlist

With an annoyed huff and angry expression, you slam the door of the office shut. You stomp through the hallway, glaring at everyone who dares to look your way before you finally leave the building of that dick.

You take a deep breath, the cool air feeling good in your lungs, especially after half an hour in that smoky office for literally nothing but a “sorry, we don’t look for a new employee.”

Of course, they don’t — they just publish their offer for a job everywhere to tell you they don’t really offer one.

And maybe it’s not what makes you angry, but the man who’s behind all that shit. Your former boss, Nick Fowler. Since you quit the job and tried to find a new one, every company offered you one until you were there for the interview, where they suddenly changed their mind.

“Mhm, was it not a job you liked, dragă?” The familiar voice of your ex-boss comes from next to you. You roll your eyes, turning to face him. “Smoky office, that’s what you considered. A smoky office over the fancy one you had?”

“What I had… what I had was a fucking lie, Fowler,” you growl. It wasn’t all a lie; that he works for the CSI underground systems wasn’t a lie at all. It’s just the fact that underground doesn’t mean anything legal when it comes to Nick.

“You’re still mad at me, dragă?” He asks, raising an eyebrow, and leans back against his car. Nick smirks at you, tilting his head slightly. “Tu îmi aparții. TU. ÎMI. APARȚII! Înțelegi asta, iubirea mea?”

“I don’t belong to you, so get that out of your head,” you growl low in your throat. Nick chuckles, taking a step closer to you. He reaches out, his big hands settling down on your hips and pulling you flush against his muscular chest.

“You still remember what it means.” He says with an amused expression on his face. Nick lowers his head to your ear, his breath warm and tickling against your soft skin. “You know, because you love it. You love being mine, dragă mea.”

You push away, your knees buckling, and you take a shaky breath to calm your nerves down. He knows damn well what he’s doing, and he loves it — the goosebumps as well as the butterflies in your stomach he’s causing.

“It’s not. I know it to remember that I punch every guy who says that,” you growl, glaring at him. You shake your head slightly before you look back into his ocean blue eyes. “What do you offer them that they don’t want me as an employee? Are you telling them I’m bad at my job?”

Nick laughs, leaning back against his car. “I don’t offer anything,” he explains, causing you to huff. Of course, Nick Fowler doesn’t offer anything to anyone; he’s a rich idiot and selfish too. “I dare them to do it if they want their companies to be burned to the ground… I mean not literally, but anyway.”

“You’re such a dick. Threatening people doesn't help you. You think you scare them? You might do that,” you growl, taking a deep breath before taking a step closer to him. You lift your hand to poke one of your fingers into his muscular chest. “I will find a job anyway, Nick.”

“Such a feisty one. That’s what I always liked about you; glad it didn’t change,” he chuckles, grabbing your wrist and pulling you closer. Within a moment he turns the two of you around and forces you with your back against his car.

Nick's free hand settles down on your waist. He pushes you against the car with his body, grinning at you.

“Now you’re all quiet, dragă mea?” He whispers, leaning down. His lips are only inches away from you. “Get in the car; you have a job. And you even got a promotion. Your office will be the one you know as mine. And your seat will be in my lap, or between my legs.”

“You wish—” Nick interrupts you when he presses his plump lips on yours. The kiss is soft, but he still shows who’s the dominant one, his tongue sliding into your mouth and devouring your sweet taste.

“No more discussing. Tu îmi aparții, dragă mea,” he grumbles. Your legs feel wobbly, and you grip his shirt tightly, making the smirk on his lips go wider. Nick's blue eyes glisten, and he chuckles low in his throat. “Now, get in the car, and we are going home.”

Home — your home. The house that belongs to Nick. The house he would renovate and put everything you want into so you will feel as at home in it as he feels around you.

“I love you. I’m sorry. But I can’t let you go, dragă. I might be ruthless and cold, but not with you. You're the only one that keeps me warm and loved, and you know that, don’t you?” He asks softly, waiting for you to nod, and for whatever reason, you nod.

You know that deep down he’s right, and deep down there are feelings for him too. He’s just so handsome and sweet — around you. And he has amazing tits and a biteable ass.

“Prepare your— my pussy to be destroyed. And don’t act all surprised; you think I didn’t read the books you read. Oh, I do.” Even if it's just so he knows what you like, what makes your pussy throb, and how he can get you all for himself, to have you as his mob princess.

Taglist: @rogersbarber @loki-laufeyson68 @etherealdisneyvillainness @winterschildren8 @kimmie113080 @sergeantbarnessdoll @sebastianstanisahotmf @mercurial-chuckles @holylulusworld @randomawesomeperson102 @looking1016 @multiversefanfics @kpopgirlbtssvt @disneyprincessbuffyannesummers@casa-boiardi @blackhawkfanatic @mrsalexstan @thesarcasmqueen-22 @kandis-mom @armystay89 @hisredheadedgoddess28 @queen-honeybee-stories @rnurse-kole [tag yourself]

[changelingsandothernonsense]

Character Sheets!

got tagged by @nyarevar and @sulphuricgrin Thankies <3

Tagging @skyrim-forever @archangelsunited no pressure tags!

Right I filled out my three mains so here we goooo

Erra likes sheep. Hence the sheep scribbles. Second Edit- The list of notes on Joshi's sheet!

Intelligence- Josh is smart in technicality (ends up being an authority on the Dwemer) but he obscures it by doing a lot of dumb and impulsive shit. He has a tendency to lean into everyone's assumption that he's dumb as a survival mechanism because he's found that it's easier than having to explain why he has such a discrepancy in action. (He's written to have AudHD that is more ADHD forward).

Happiness- He struggles to feel this emotion. Especially as he's aged.

Animals- He has no experience with them and dislikes the smell.

Confidence- Josh puts on a cocky act to hide the fact that he actually has very low self-confidence. If he's acting full of himself, it's because he's terrified people will find out that he's actually incompetent. He hates people thinking he's incompetent. Dumb is fine but not incompetence.

Empathy- This is highly affected by Joshi's complex ptsd. He can be highly empathetic but often goes through extreme compassion fatigue. This has also been affected by his merger with Nerevar's Revenge Tulpa who completely lacks it. It is unpredictable as a result. This is a guy who makes it his mission to take down Morrowind's Slave Trade but will kill a civilian for a watch and some pocket change if he's desperate.

Higher Power- Josh knows that the gods exist. He just doesn't believe any are worth his devotion. He's been there, he's tried and it's only ended in disaster. The one exception Josh makes is the Urshilaku Ancestor Cult, where he takes its rituals very seriously. It also causes him a huge amount of cognitive dissonance due to the very obvious necromancy practices.

Home- Josh longs for the concept of "home" but he doesn't really know what that means. Every time he thinks he's found it something happens that makes him flee. As a result, he's given up on the concept entirely.

Truth- This is circumstantial, he cares in theory but prying anything out of him about his past is like trying to squeeze blood from a stone. Truth matters to him when it comes to things that don't involve him. He stands by the idea that "truth is relative" and if it benefits him more to lie then he's going to do it. He doesn't like it being done to him, however. He places more value in Justice and Revenge, as they serve him more than the truth. Valuing truth would mean he'd need to face his own reflection.

Fame- Josh would rather eat a hunk of Corprus Flesh and praise Dagoth Ur than experience being recognised in public.

EDIT! Forgot the template under a cut!

[ckret2]

Chapter 82 of you can really tell the writer got a new art program this week and went apeshit with it instead of doing anything productive: the Mystery Shack is in terrible peril from the government and only one thing can save them:

Teaching Bill Cipher how to flirt with humans!!

####

The Stans explained the plan to Dipper and Mabel as briefly as possible—that Bill had to save them all by flirting with the head fed—and that was about as far as they got before Mabel started squealing. They wished her good luck with Bill, wished him good luck with Mabel, and beat a hasty retreat, with Dipper tagging along after Ford on the pretense of helping figure out how to get the flash drive out of Gompers.

"This is perfect!" Mabel slammed the door closed—and Bill had the sneaking suspicion she'd trapped him on purpose—then grabbed both his hands to drag him further into the room. "I can see it now! He'll fall in love with you, and then he'll realize that living in a small logging town is so much more emotionally fulfilling than his high-pressure fast-paced big city government job, and he'll see what a special, magical place Gravity Falls is and he won't wanna do anything that could change it, and Washington will call him like, 'Your report is late! Have you forgotten your mission?' And he'll go 'I have a new mission now: my WIFE!' And—"

"Hold on!" Bill pulled his hands back. "I think you skipped the part where you married me off to a government agent."

"No I didn't! Because he says that and everyone gasps and then he gets down on his knee in front of you and pulls out a ring and—"

"In your dreams, star girl." He dropped onto Mabel's bed and crossed his legs. "Think a little less cheesy Christmas romcom, and more noir spy movie with a double-crossing femme fatale."

Mabel measured that up against her limited spy movie knowledge, and asked dubiously, "You're gonna drop him in a tank of sharks?"

"Hey, if you have one...!" Bill laughed. "But, no. The plan is just for me to keep him distracted long enough for the nerd squad to get the flash drive, wipe any sensitive data, and leave it somewhere that'll make the agents think the goat dumped it naturally."

Mabel considered that. She inhaled deeply. "Okay," she said. "But. What if it's one of those movies where the evil girl spy has a change of heart because of the good guy's charm and you do fall in love."

"Do you remember who we're talking about?" Bill asked. "Fine! If we fall in love, you can be the ring bearer, best maid, and officiant—but don't start stapling together a white dress just yet."

Mabel completely skipped past his main point. She whispered, "You'd let me make your wedding dress?"

"I'd turn down every fashion designer in Milan, Paris, New York, and London combined."

Her eyes widened. "I've gotta start drawing wedding dresses." She rummaged around the floor for an unused piece of paper and the nearest crayon and/or marker box.

"Draw me as a triangle," Bill said automatically. "So there, you're caught up on the plan!" He slowly slid off Mabel's bed toward the door. "So if you'd let me out so I can prepare..."

"Ohh no. Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford brought you to me to learn how to flirt, and I'm going to teach you how to flirt."

He groaned, but plopped back down on Mabel's bed. "I don't need to be taught how to flirt! I'm a pro! While your universe was still gearing up for a Big Bang, I was fending off marriage proposals from lovelorn generation ships and sentient oceans."

"You're not seducing ships and oceans." Mabel had already flopped onto the floor and drawn a triangle with an eye, and was trying to figure out how to put a dress on it. "You're seducing a man."

"Which is even easier! You people barely last a century, you're desperate! Humans fling themselves at me left and right!"

"Then you'll have no trouble passing my love quiz."

Bill automatically frowned. There was a part of him that still tensed up at the word "quiz" even if he did know more about romance than the entire human race combined. "What, like the one you put the guys through on your dating show?"

"Yes, but with all new questions! So you can't just copy all of Soos's answers to get a perfect score!"

"Psh! Like I need to copy anyone's answers," said Bill, who had never taken a quiz in his life without copying someone else's answers and had been planning to do just that. "All right, hit me."

"Question one! Uh..." She tapped a crayon to her chin as she thought. "What's the best gift to give on a first date? Jewelry, chocolate, a wedding ring, or flowers?"

"Ooh, we're starting with bribery, huh?" When in doubt, the right answer was usually C; but "jewelry" and "wedding ring" seemed kinda redundant. Well—cheating had never failed him before, why stop now? "None of the above! I've got a better answer than all of them!"

Mabel lowered her crayon to give him a skeptical look. "Oh yeah? What?"

"Sneak into their dreams the night before, find out their heart's desire, and surprise 'em with that," Bill said. "That's not even a romantic move. It'll let you win over a human in any context! Birthday parties, baby showers, job interviews, criminal trials, hostage negotiations..."

"What if you don't know their heart's desire?"

"Then you're not me."

She set down her crayon, laced her hands under her chin, and said, "Okay, then. If you were trying to win me over, what's my dream birthday gift?"

"Replacing your bedroom with a bouncy castle with inflatable furniture."

"Ha! No it's n..." She trailed off. "Wait. Ohmigosh."

"Told ya."

"I've been dreaming too small," Mabel whispered. She shoved aside her first drawing and started drawing her fantasy bedroom.

Bill picked up one of Mabel's dolls—a floppy tiger—and started talking to it like he was lecturing it. Forget this whole "taking a quiz" thing; he was much more comfortable in the roll of the teacher than the student. "And if it's a blind date and I can't stalk 'em beforehand, nobody's ever disappointed by a solid gold brick," he told the doll.  "It's both practical and pretty, and it appeals to humans' natural greed without making them feel sleazy about accepting a wad of hundreds from their date."

"What's Agent Powers's heart's desire?"

Heck. He didn't actually know. He'd ducked in on the guy's life a handful of times, but he'd never needed to pay that close attention to him. What did boring people like? "A really nice leather wallet," Bill said.

"Okay, you're off to a strong start," Mabel said. "Question two: what's the ideal location for a first date?"

"What are my options?"

"Fooey to the options! I wanna hear your thoughts."

"Then that's easy: anywhere they can't escape from until they love you," Bill said. "Even better if you can serenade 'em."

Mabel nodded in approval. "Perfect answer, full points! Every Inkwell princess movie and vampire novel on the market agrees! Question three: best first date outfit?"

"Sexy."

"Okay—yeah," Mabel said, "But specifically, what does that look like?"

"Tallest hat you can find," Bill said.

Mabel waited. Bill didn't say anything else. Mabel said, "What about the rest of the outfit?"

"Bow tie. Outfit complete."

"That's just what you wear."

"And it's always sexy!" Bill insisted.

"Maybe in Flatworld, but this is earth! If you go out dressed in nothing but a hat and a bow tie, you'll be having your date in the back of a police car!"

"Fine," Bill huffed. "Fifty pairs of gloves—and the more of them you have hands to fill, the better! A dress made out of blank checks! Two snakes! A fur coat made out of live kittens!" Bill shook the stuffed doll emphatically with each point. "Good enough?!"

Mabel squinted thoughtfully at him. "The kitten coat has potential."

"Damn me with faint praise, why don't you."

"What about more traditional romantic outfits? Like... a red velvet suit with a leopard print shirt? Or short shorts that say 'too hot' on the butt?" Mabel asked. "Or a t-shirt with your date's face on it in a heart! That shows your date 'I'm here to focus on you!'"

"What if my date's face is ugly, did you think about that?" Bill asked, mainly to cover up the fact that he was chagrined he hadn't thought of the velvet suit himself. "Forget about fashion. Next question!"

"Okay, how would you prepare yourself for the perfect date? Aside from finding a tall hat and stalking your date's dreams."

"Hygiene's the most important thing," Bill said. "Humans are very attuned to pheromones. It's one of your base instincts."

A look of relief cross Mabel's face. "Yes! Good start. So we're talking a shower, or...?"

"Oh yeah, if you're going on a date in this country, you've gotta scrub that skin raw. There is no smell Americans hate more than the natural smell of other human beings." 

Mabel nodded enthusiastically. "Right!"

"And once you've gotten rid of your real scent you've got to make sure you smell appealing. And that means making sure you smell the most! Cover up any competing suitors' scents with your own!"

Mabel made an uncertain hum. "Okaaay, sooo... what would you call an appropriate fragrance for a first date?"

He wasn't sure he liked the sound of the hum. "First date? You've got to make a strong impression, and set the mood for romance," he told the doll, so he didn't have to watch Mabel pass judgment. "So, I'm thinking... decaying salmon, deer pee, and ambergris."

Mabel was silent for an uncomfortably long time. Bill glanced at her. She immediately pulled her sweater up to hide her mouth. Voice strained with suppressed laughter, she said, "You don't think, maybe... floral scents...?"

Who did she think she was laughing at! He directed his attention back to Mabel's doll. The tiger didn't judge him. The tiger thought all his ideas were brilliant. "Is this guy looking for a garden or a girlfriend? I know ninety percent of the soaps and shampoos on the market are designed to make you smell like a fruit salad on the beach, but you humans don't know the first thing about what activates your own monkey-brained reproductive urges! Trust me: decaying salmon, deer pee, and ambergris! They reek of raw sex appeal!"

"What's ambergris?"

"It's a staple fragrance in the perfume industry! Some of the most popular scents in Hollywood have ambergris base notes!"

"Okay," Mabel said, "but what is it?"

"Okay so," Bill said, "when a sperm whale gets so constipated it kills 'em, the rest of its body rots off while the turd floats to the surface, and after it's bobbed around baking in the sun for a few decades—"

Mabel lay a hand on Bill's knee and gently said, "No." 

"Hey, I'm not the one who invented ambergris, that's your species's idea!"

"Bill, I'm sorry. But you've got the best and worst romance ideas with no in between, and you don't know the difference," Mabel said. "But I promise you're in good hands! I'm the best matchmaker in Gravity Falls! I helped hook up Soos and Melody, Robbie and Tambry, Waddles and Gompers, the Hand Witch and that hunky hiker guy..."

He threw Mabel's doll down on the bed, slumped back against the wall, crossed his arms, and sulked. Then he muttered, "But I've got the best ideas?"

"Oh yeah. You're like an untrained romance prodigy! You just need a liiittle help filtering out the diamonds from the coal."

He grunted. Then he grudgingly admitted, "Getting Waddles and Gompers together is pretty impressive. They have complete opposite political opinions."

"See? I'll have you date ready in no time!"

Bill heaved a frustrated sigh. "Fine. But I'd better at least get a killer makeover out of this."

"Definitely! I'm getting an expert on the case!" She pulled out her phone to send a text. Plus, whatever you're wearing tomorrow? I'm bedazzling the crap out of it."

"Good!"

"But first," Mabel said, "Let's talk about your technique."

####

"Lesson one of Mabel's Guide to Flirting With Humans: pick-up lines! First impressions are super important!"

"Pick-up lines are easy," Bill said. "I know a million of them!"

"That's great! Then this should be easy." Mabel pointed at the picture of Creggy G in the middle of her Sev'ral Timez poster, whom she'd designated as their attractive human for Bill's flirting practice. "Try one out." 

Bill sized up Creggy calculatingly, and said, "You know, your eyeballs are so beautiful."

"Yes!" Mabel cheered. "It's romantic! I love it!"

"—and they'd look even better in my mouth."

Mabel stared at Bill.

"What?" Bill asked. "Too forward? Should I save that for the second date?"

The flirting lesson quickly switched track from teaching Bill how to use a pick-up lines, to teaching Bill what pick-up lines not to use.

And from there, the conversation drifted to a list of subjects Bill wasn't allowed to discuss with the federal agent, which necessitated relocating to the living room so Mabel could set up an easel pad and record all the banned topics. Partway through, Stan drifted in and started throwing in his two cents.

The list of banned flirtation topics included: eyeballs; cannibalism; squid kings; dragonfly mating habits; mandibles; the time and method of living people's future deaths; the cold and lonely heat death of the universe ("Why?! It's a perfect excuse to suggest cuddling for warmth!"); fun get-to-know-you questions like "would you rather kill your mother or your father" or "which conspiracy theories would you most hate to be true"; which conspiracy theories were true; the agent's embarrassing middle school secrets that Bill shouldn't have known about but did; the agent's bald spot; cancer flavors; pending global disasters...

Bill flung his hands in the air. "So what does that leave to talk about?!"

"Anything else," Stan snapped.

"The Chuquicamata open pit copper mine."

"Anything normal."

Bill gave him a look akin to that of a vegetarian who'd just been asked to discuss his favorite cuts of beef. "Have you metme?"

"Try topics that get him in the right mindset for romance," Mabel said. "Like, 'what do you want your future wife's favorite color to be?' Or 'you look like dad material!'"

Bill nodded slowly. "So we're aggressively leading him on. I can work with that. I've never been a fan of subtlety."

"And call him charming," Stan said. "Guys love hearing they're charming. Oh, and tell him his jokes are funny."

"What if he doesn't tell jokes."

"All guys tell jokes when they're flirting! If he's not telling jokes, you're doing something wrong."

"It's true," Mabel said. "Watch any high school romance!" Bill gave them both a dubious look.

Stan glanced up as Ford and Dipper walked by the doorway with Gompers. "Tell 'im, Ford."

"What?"

"All men tell jokes when we're flirting! It's probably in our DNA or something."

Dipper thought about that, and nodded. "I tell jokes when I'm flirting."

Mabel shouted, "You try to tell jokes when you're flirting! Heyooo!"

"Hey."

Ford grimaced. "Usually when I'm flirting, I forget every joke I've ever heard and start asking as many questions as I can think of."

Bill said, "That's because you only flirt with things you want to add to your bestiary!"

"The point still stands." 

Dipper had leaned into the room to read the banned topic list. "Why are conspiracy theories off-limits? He came to Gravity Falls in the first place because he was looking for a paranormal conspiracy."

"Dipper's right," Ford said, "he'd probably be interested in the topic."

Bill flung his hands in the air. "Thank you! That's what I was saying!"

Stan shook his head, "Too close to discussing politics. What if they believe in different conspiracies!"

"Plus, watch this," Mabel said. "Hey Bill, what do you think about Flat Earth theory."

Bill groaned. "I was drunk, those statements were taken out of context, and I can't be held responsible if some idiot with a boat misinterpreted me."

Mabel looked at Ford and Dipper.

Dipper grimaced. "Got it."

Ford nodded. "Conspiracy theories are off-limits."

"This is why you're all single," Bill said.

####

Stan said, "And if you're gonna lie about your job—"

"Which you always should," Bill cut in.

"Obviously! But make sure it's not something too easy to verify. Like, you can't claim to be the governor, what if your date actually voted and knows who the governor is?"

"That's a good point! Margaret was not impressed."

"You're telling me! My suit smelled like broccoli cheese soup for weeks!"

"You shoulda suggested she get the house salad."

"Yeah, I—" Stan cut off. "Wait. How do you know about Margaret? That was twenty years ago!"

Dipper and Ford were in the kitchen, looking for every ingredient they could find that might coax Gompers to release the flash drive the old-fashioned way and listening to the discussion in the living room. Gompers nibbled at a dish towel, oblivious to the fate awaiting him.

Mabel trotted in and patted him as she passed. "Hey, you! You're giving us major trouble, you rascal!"

He bleated at her.

Mabel pushed up to the open fridge next to Dipper, and when he stepped aside to make more room for her, she stepped into his personal space again and leaned into him with her shoulder. "Why are you in the way, bro, jeez!"

"You're in the way!" He leaned against her in turn. "What are you doing in here? Aren't you supposed to be training Bill?"

"Grunkle Stan's taking the lead right now," Mabel said. "My talent is helping people find true love! But his talent is suckering someone into liking you for a day. So I think he's better suited to the task at hand."

"Oh, yeah." Dipper chuckled wryly. "His advice will get you a first date, but not a second date."

Ford muttered, "His technique hasn't changed since high school, I see."

Dipper found the bottle of prune juice he'd been looking for, pulled it out, and stepped back. Mabel yelped when her counterweight disappeared and stumbled sideways into the fridge door.

As Dipper emptied the juice into a mixing bowl, he said, "I'm not sure about this plan. Even with both you and Stan helping. I know Bill's good at tricking people, but... he's so annoying. And not in a lovable way."

"Don't undersell him!" Mabel said. She'd retrieved a pitcher of Mabel Juice and was dumping a full bottle of sprinkles into it—hardcore romance training required high stamina. "He has the potential to be a dreamboat!"

Ford muttered, "He's a manipulative, murderous monster." He was searching through all the cans they'd moved to the kitchen counter for beans.

"Those don't have to be mutually exclusive," Mabel insisted. "Serial killers get girlfriends. Sometimes after they're arrested!"

"I'mmm not seeing a dreamboat," Dipper said. "More like a shipwreck. I mean, when you were trying to come up with a list of romantic date foods, he suggested blood licked off your date's teeth."

"And he was right!" Mabel said. "Vampires, bro-bro!"

"Okay, but I don't think he was talking about teeth that were still attached to his date's skull!"

"He didn't say they weren't attached," said Mabel, with flagging conviction that suggested she hadn't considered that and was realizing Dipper was probably right.

"And five minutes ago you and Stan told him he should pretend to be a princess, and he told you he'd be great at that because he started an Internet dating service that matches up lonely widows with overseas con artists pretending to be deposed princes."

"Well," Mabel said sheepishly.

"And then he tried to talk you two into investing in a pyramid scheme to fund his dating service."

"But we didn't invest!" Mabel said.

"Only because you looked it up on your phone and discovered he'd made it up!"

"I mean, until then, it sounded romantic!" Mabel flung her hands out in a wide shrug. (Something about the gesture looked strange to Ford.) "Finding a second chance at love with a mysterious foreign criminal with a glamorous false identity? That'd be great if it was real!"

"Mabel, it's a scam," Dipper said exasperatedly.

"And do scam artists not deserve love, too?!" Mabel pounded a fist on the table emphatically. "What about Grunkle Stan! He deserves love! A rich overseas widow would be perfect for him!"

"That's not— The point is, Bill's not romantic!" Dipper said. "This plan isn't going to work!"

Ford set half a dozen bean cans next to Dipper's mixing bowl. "He doesn't need to be romantic," he said. "He only needs to be charismatic. And for all his flaws, he's certainly that." Planets will orbit stars and black holes just the same—and not even realize the difference. "He doesn't have to actually win Agent Powers's heart. He only has to keep his attention for a few hours. By the time Bill stops dazzling Powers long enough for him to see the red flags, we'll have the flash drive." He nodded toward Gompers. "If we get it before the agents return with a warrant, we might not even need Bill to distract him."

Dipper sighed. "Then let's hope Gompers likes prunes."

"Come on! Show a little faith!" Mabel said.

Ford muttered, "The last time I put my faith in Bill..." Dipper gestured emphatically at Ford in agreement.

"Not in Bill! In me! Mark my words, Grunkle Ford—I'll get this Cinderella ready to meet his Prince Charming if I have to summon every mouse in Gravity Falls to help sew his ballgown!"

"Please don't summon the wildlife again," Dipper groaned. "The last time you did that, huge spiders kept appearing in our room for a week."

Mabel's pocket vibrated; she pulled out her phone and gasped. She chugged down the rest of her juice in three sickly sweet gulps and bolted from the room. "Biiill! Your personal style consultant texted back!"

"My who?"

She dragged him out of the living room by the wrist. "Come on!"

Ford watched them run up the stairs, then started searching through their cereal boxes for the high fiber one. Tentatively, he asked, "Mabel doesn't actually think we're trying to get Bill and the agent together, does she?" The Prince Charming comment was concerning.

"I don't know," Dipper sighed. "A few days ago she started talking about trying to get Bill a love life? Maybe she sees this as a practice round."

"Really? Why, did he say he wants to date people?" If he wanted to get out of the shack to emotionally prey on the locals one-on-one without supervision...

"I don't think she's even told him yet. It's part of her project to... reintegrate him into society? She probably thinks the power of love can rehabilitate him." Dipper sighed. "She's setting herself up for disappointment. He's been conning people into thinking he's a good guy for billions of years, right? If being loved could fix him, he'd be an angel by now."

"Instead, he's just gotten better at pretending to be an angel," Ford said ruefully. "I'm inclined to agree with you." He found the cereal he'd been looking for and set it on the table by Dipper. "But then... we let him live, didn't we? Because we all hope we're wrong. I suppose that doesn't make us that different from Mabel."

Dipper shook his head emphatically. "Not me." He dumped one of the cans of beans into the prune juice a little harder than necessary. "I let him live for two reasons: because of Mabel, and because of that prophecy. And he doesn't have to change to fulfill some prophecy to save us—when it comes, he might just be trying to save his own stupid butt, too."

"I suppose so." Right—of course, even if he'd agreed to spare Bill, Dipper still didn't have any real hope for him beyond his usefulness.

Over the past month, Ford hadn't seen anything more sympathetic out of Bill than Dipper had. He wondered at himself for even being willing to consider Bill might change. When had Ford changed enough to consider it? Or was he just more susceptible to Bill's same old tricks?

"You don't remember the whole prophecy yet, do you?" Ford asked. "What if this is what it was about? Saving our family from the government because he's the only person the lead agent finds attractive enough to distract him?"

Dipper pulled a face. "I hope not," he said. "After everything he put us through? He owes us a fight to the death with an interdimensional eldritch god."

"Now that's a sight I'd pay to see."

####

MABEL: Heyyy Paz, can I ask for a small favor. I have a friend that needs a MAJOR MAKEOVER!! 😿 Like the FULL PRINCESS TRANSFORMATION treatment!! Can you help him?

PACIFICA: Can't, I'm suuuper busy today. I have the lunch shift AND grooming day at the ranch.

PACIFICA: Plus, why would I help some total rando? 😒

MABEL: Because it's my friend with the beautiful golden hair.

PACIFICA: asldkfggh

PACIFICA: OK fine come by the ranch after work

PACIFICA: and send me a picture of his skin next to a white paper so I can grab some foundations to try out.

####

Bill took a piece of paper and a marker, wrote "Make me beautiful!" and dotted the I and the exclamation point with hearts, flopped the least sunburned part of his arm next to the paper for Mabel to take a picture, and leaned away to keep his face out of it.

As Mabel snapped a couple pictures, she said, "Okay, before we visit Pacifica, I have to warn you. She can be a liiittle bit mean when it comes to fashion. So don't get mad at her, okay? It's how she shows she cares!"

"No it's not," Bill said.

"No, it's not," Mabel conceded. "But it doesn't mean she doesn't care. That's just... how she relates to other people! By insulting their fashion, style, and body. And family. And finances."

"Don't worry, star girl. I can take it."

"But I mean, she might be really, really, super mean about your looks," Mabel said. "And you cannot curse her or threaten to turn her bones into flutes or do anything Bill-ish like that. Promise me."

"Hey, bone flutes! That sounds like a fun arts and crafts project, right?"

"Bill!"

"Re-lax, it'll be fine," Bill said. "She's just your garden-variety pageant girl with an overly-critical mom who tried to relive her glory years through her daughter! I can handle a teenage ex-beauty queen. I'm an expert on those types."

Skeptically, Mabel said, "Really?" She was slowly coming to realize that, in Bill's opinion, he was the expert on everything.

"Oh yeah. I spent years eyelid deep in the pageant scene."

"You did?" she said, surprised. "How come? Did you try to trick a beauty pageant into building your portal or something like that?"

Bill stared at Mabel.

####

Outside the flat hospital, it was a beautiful, peaceful morning. The air was clear, the unseen sun was shining brightly from some unknown dimension, and some 2D equivalent to a bird was chirping in some 2D equivalent to a tree.

And then the hospital doors crashed open with such force that passing shapes momentarily suspected that someone had set off a bomb.

"—don't give me that look, if you'd hustled your hypotenuse and had your birthday yesterday, we wouldn't be in such a rush! You're just lucky you came out so cute, or—" An exhausted, dull pinkish triangle charged out the doors with a very tiny, squishy yellow triangle in her trembling arm. She turned to shout behind her—"Hurry up! There's only two hours until the Best Baby Pageant and he is not going to miss it!"

—and was followed closely by a horrified blue triangle carrying a hat in one hand and a cane in the other. "But Scalene, the doctors still have to do those tests to check for—"

"They can test him later! If he's got some horrible birth defect, he'll still have it after he's won a trophy!" Without slowing, Scalene turned and held the baby out toward the other triangle. The squishy new shape gawked at him in mild befuddlement. "Look at this kid, Euclid! Most newborn brats look like cranky raisins, but he's less than an hour old and he's already bright-eyed and smooth-sided! He was born with the face of a pageant winner—"

Not looking where she was going, she ran into a tree. The bird flew off in a panic, Scalene lost her balance, and she nearly dropped the baby. Euclid caught him, caught her, and held her steady while she leaned dizzily against the tree. "Lene. You should be on bedrest right now. Maybe we should just, you know, take a moment to process..."

"Process what! We have our little angle. Am I supposed to sit in a hospital bed staring at the afterbirth?!"

While Euclid stared at her in shock, she snatched the child back, pushed him away, and wobbled back upright. "What kind of a lazy mother would I be if I was sleeping instead of making my child a winner! You want him to start off life on the right foot, don't you?"

Defeated, Euclid said, "All right. I'll take care of the... the paperwork. At least bring your cane."

"I don't need it. I'm fine."

"Fine?! You just..." He gestured at her, gestured at the brand-spanking-new baby, gestured at her again, then flung his hands up in defeat. "If you drop our baby, I'm divorcing you."

She sighed huffily. "You're so dramatic." But she snatched the cane out of his hand anyway and stormed away, declaring loudly enough that shapes on the other side of the street turned to stare: "If the mayor doesn't declare my Billy the greatest baby in the whole godforsaken world, I'm grabbing the biggest trophy in the room and bashing his eye in!"

####

Bill shrugged at Mabel. "Sure," he said. "Something like that."

####

Gompers stared down at the bowl set on the floor in front of him.

It contained black beans, broccoli, coffee grounds, fiber-enriched whole-grain cereal, oatmeal, and an avocado and half a sweet potato mashed together into an orange-green mush, all stewing in a prune juice soup.

Gompers looked up.

Dipper and Ford were crouched across from him, watching expectantly. 

Gompers bleated balefully at them.

"Go on!" Ford nudged the bowl closer. "It's good for you."

Gompers knew a lie when he heard one. He turned his nose up at the mix.

"I don't get it," Dipper said. "He eats everything. What's wrong with this stuff?"

"I haven't a clue."

"Maybe it's the broccoli?" 

Ford gave him a quizzical look. "Why broccoli?"

Dipper shrugged. "I don't like broccoli, I don't know why he would."

"Hmm." Mystified, Ford propped his chin in his hand and stared into Gompers's eyes. Gompers stared back. Gompers stared into his soul. Gompers didn't blink.

Ford was dragged from this session of nonconsensual soul-searching by the sound of footsteps and Mabel's voice drifting down the stairs: "Listen, you know I love your sense of fashion! All I'm saying is everyone loves kittens, but snakes? That's a pretty niche fashion market! You're not gonna get a lot of takers."

"No, hey, hear me out," Bill said. "I listened to your professional matchmaker advice, now you've got to listen to my professional heartbreaker advice. You'll thank me for this one day! This is my number one romance tip: if you wanna impress a date, strap cobras to your arms and call yourself 'Johnny Cobra-Arms.' It works every time. Guaranteed."

(Dipper snorted.)

"Whaaat? No way," Mabel said. "Seriously, what?"

"It's true! I workshopped this! I've experimented across parallel timelines! It works."

"Quit messing with me, Bill."

"You think I would ever mislead you? No. Picture this." As the pair turned the corner on the stairs, Bill was spreading his hands in front of himself as though gesturing to the scene he wanted Mabel to imagine. "You see a guy, maybe a year older than you, kinda cute but nothing to write home about, maybe a 6/10. Got him in your mind's eye?"

A look of intense concentration crossed Mabel's face as she engaged her Imagination. "Yeah?"

"Okay, now imagine he—" Bill reached the bottom of the stairs and looked around. "Where are my shoes." He raised his voice, "Who moved my fisshoes! I left them right— oh, there they are." He disappeared into the living room. "Imagine your 6/10 has two big snakes wrapped around his arms. And he catches your eye from across the club, comes up to you, and says..." Bill's voice dropped to a pitch that was nearly in the range of an average adult human male, "'Hey. Name's Johnny Cobra-Arms. What's yours?'"

Mabel thought about it. Her eyes slowly widened in amazement. "Oh my god, it would totally work on me."

Bill re-emerged into the entryway, fish shoes donned. "See?" 

"It made him hot! What the heck, how did that happen!"

"See?! It works every time!" He shouted toward the kitchen, "Hey, we're leaving for Alpaca's! I'm taking the car!"

"No you're not," Ford said.

Bill spread his hands in a shrug. "Worth a shot!" He grabbed his umbrella and the magic friendship bracelets from the coat rack and waited for Mabel to open the door. "See, it's the best possible first impression. It shows he's got a sense of humor, he's quirky, he's a little bit dangerous, he's got a great sense of fashion, he's a world traveler, he's good with animals..." The door swung shut behind them. 

The way Bill had shrugged stuck in Ford's mind. 

In his true form, Bill didn't have shoulders. His arms extended out of his sides like the trunks of saplings extending from the surface of flood waters, and they glided around his perimeter in a way that defied conventional physical biology. No joints. 

When he shrugged in his human body, sometimes he'd bob his shoulders up and down in a deliberate mimicry of how humans performed the gesture; and lately, as Bill got used to moving his new body, Ford had seen him sluggishly raise a shoulder when he was too exhausted to gesture more expressively. But most of the time, he shrugged like he still didn't have shoulders. He'd spread his arms, bend his elbows, usually forming a W shape but sometimes when he was particularly emphatic forming a shape like football goalposts, and if he really wanted to make his meaning clear he'd twitch his upturned palms up the way a human would twitch their shoulders.

He did it all the time. He'd done it just now. The gesture was so natural on Bill that Ford had never realized how unnaturalit was on a human—until he'd seen Mabel make the exact same gesture earlier.

She was copying Bill's body language. He wondered if she knew.

He'd have to keep an eye on that.

"Hope Agent Powers is into snakes," Dipper muttered.

Ford laughed—then wondered whether someone pulling the Johnny Cobra-Arms trick would've worked on him. If by now nothing had made him take an interest in a basic, garden-variety human being, he doubted anything could... but, admittedly, he'd at least consider hanging out with Johnny. He sounded like an intriguing character. "If that's the worst thing Bill subjects him to, he'll be getting off light."

With a twinge of guilt, Ford realized just how true that was. Ford was no stranger to having to turn down the volume on his conscience for the greater good—and there were few greater goods than protecting his family—but...

He might not know Powers, but he did know that, whether Bill succeeded in seducing him or not, the man didn't deserve what he was about to be subjected to.

####

Now that this chapter's finally out, may there be no further delays for a good long while, ugh.

Here's your "what was changed in the wake of TBOB" update: obviously, since we got five whole pages on Bill's beliefs about romance, a lot of that got incorporated into this chapter—the first and last scenes were basically written entirely in response to TBOB.

The scene with Scalene & Euclid, obviously, got their names & descriptions from TBOB & TINAWDC (and yeah, yeah, i'm eventually gonna go back to earlier chapters and edit out Bill's mom being a line so it matches up with canon), and it's obvious what the "best baby pageant" is a reference to (so you can guess whether Bill won)—but Bill being a pageant kid due to his mom was already part of the plans long before TBOB, so I just stuck a couple canon details into the story I was already writing. We were already gonna get into Bill's childhood this chapter & next (as you'll see next week).

Beyond that, most of the chapter was already in its present form before TBOB—up to & including Bill having a list of topics he thinks are acceptable for dates that no rational human would agree with—and all TBOB added was a couple tiny details (like... "mandibles".)

The fact that the list of things that were influenced by TBOB is so much longer than usual is part of the reason this chapter's two whole weeks late lmao.

Anyway, hope y'all enjoyed, happy new year, and I'm looking forward to (finally) hearing your thoughts on the first fresh chapter of 2025!

[ghostmoon1]

- Part One - Part Two - Part Three -

Price x Nikolai - Omegaverse - 1.8k words

CW : A/B/O, heat cycle mentions, suppressants (mentioned as pills), smoking, eventual smut, 18+

A/N: Hello guys :3 I decided to write this lil fic, it'll only be three parts. Let me know if you'd like to be tagged for the next two! There will be smut in the last part, so I'm flagging the whole fic as 18+. There's gonna be things I get wrong, but we're here for the gay men...

“Sir, I can not give you any more of those,”

The nurse's voice was sincere, and her apology for the situation was written all over her face, but that didn’t stop the anger from building in John’s chest. His heart felt like it was being gripped in a vice, those suppressants were his lifeline for this career that he had worked so hard for. Something he wouldn’t have if it weren’t for those suppressants. The higher-ups would have never let him stay if he had been through any heats during his missions. They would ruin everything, his scent would set off even the most controlled alphas in the base.

“You don’t understand- I need these. If I don’t have them, everything is fucked!” he growls, his scent blockers struggling to fight the horrific smell of ozone wafting off him. His hands were clenched into fists, struggling to contain his anger. But under the burning anger, there was something else he wouldn’t ever admit. 

Fear.

“Captain Price, you have been using these same suppressants for three years- the recommended time is only for two, you are going on four now. You must go through at least one heat, or the consequences can be horrible.”

He groans at the nurse's voice. He knew she was right, using suppressants for too long can go bad. The side effects of using them for too long can be horrible, including completely fucking up one's heat cycle, which in the long run leads to medical problems. He couldn’t afford those sorts of problems while captain of the task force, but he couldn’t afford to go into heat either. As soon as the higher-ups get the smallest whiff of his scent, he’d get demoted, or worse, kicked out completely. 

“Please, there’s got to be something. Anything-” A lump of fear and worry gets caught in his throat, making him unable to continue. 

The nurse’s expression softens, full of empathy. But empathy won’t help him in a situation like this. Nothing but those suppressants would help him. The nurse lets out a soft sigh, reaching for a clipboard on her desk. “The best thing I can offer you, sir, is natural medicines to help you get through your heat. If you don’t have a mate to help you get through it, without these medicines, the experience will be… very unpleasant.”

“Fuck… fine,” he mutters reluctantly, unpleased by the whole situation. He leans against the busted wooden desk as she files through the cabinets, grabbing a few small jars filled with herbs and other wonders of Mother Nature. She places some of the different herbs into some containers, humming as she maneuvers around with practised ease.

“Alright. This one’s here,” she murmurs, holding up the first container filled with small yellow flower buds of some sort. “These, you can make a tea out of. They will help with your symptoms before you go into heat. I recommend taking them a week before it starts. And now these, you can crush into a paste and put it with water or food, to help ease the symptoms during your heat. They are much stronger, only twice a day, no more,” she continues to explain, lifting up the other container which contained a bunch of dried, purple leaves. 

Price nods, only half listening and grumbling under his breath as he takes the containers and stuffs them into his coat pockets for no one to see. Natural substances were well known, especially between the alpha’s of the base, their ruts were easier to fend off compared to an omega’s heat. And their medications and suppressants were far less dangerous than the ones an omega has to take to control their heat. But these ones… if anyone was to see him with them, they’d know in an instant what he really is.

The nurse gives him her warm goodbye, in which he replies with as much fake politeness he can muster. The containers in his jacket felt like weights, weighing him down from which he could wish he was. Anything but an omega. A beta would be better even, at least they were allowed to join the army. They didn’t have what he did, they didn’t suffer through unbearable heats. Simon was the only alpha in his team, while Johnny and Kyle were betas. Just the thought of his own team being higher up than him in society as a whole, and their own biologies, made him bristle and want to hide away. He never could, never would. He had a job, to serve as the almighty captain of the Task Force 141. The only thing was, he wasn’t as almighty. His own biology betrayed him.

The trudge back to the barracks was horrible, the weight of his own identity weighing heavily on him. He didn’t feel like he was who he was supposed to be, an omega couldn’t be one of the best captains. But here he was. It all felt like a lie.

The whole barracks reeked of alpha, a scent so in your face it would normally make any omega drop to their knees in submission. He had learnt to control his instincts, one of the few reasons he was so good at what he did. It was normally the polite thing to do, wearing scent blockers in a place like this, but many didn’t. Too absorbed in their own world. Reasons why the betas often retreated to their rooms, or just a place away from the onslaught of alphas to get away from an alphas scent. It overwhelmed them, but it was nothing compared to what it can do to an omega.

His boots echoed through the hall, the walls plain and sterile, no light, no fun. War was never a place for fun. The plaster was peeling and had cracks all through it, it had been like that ever since he got here. Outside the halls, the sound of soldiers training and yelling at each other echoed through the barracks, what little fun they could make in a life like this. 

As he reached his room, the door was an unwelcoming sight as was the rest of it. The memories of sitting up late at the crappy desk, filling out paperwork. Sleepless nights, tossing and turning in his cot, staring up at the roof, eyes tracing each crack and blister in the plaster. Nights of falling asleep at his desk and waking up with a sore back and his once pristine paperwork scrunched up and over the floor—early hours of the morning, going through the same routine that he has grown accustomed to. Days of training and briefings are always the same. He was thankful for his boys, always throwing some colour into his dull days, even if it was listening to their snappy comebacks to each other or Simon’s dark jokes. At least there was always one thing to look forward to.

He yanked the containers out of his pockets, throwing them onto his desk to join the pile of papers and pens. He places his calloused palms against the rough wood, splintered and cracked over years of use and leans against his, eyes trailing over what his life has come to. Rubbing his hand over his face, he curses softly under his breath. This was not what he needed.

He kneels down next to his cot, checking underneath and scavenging through the pile of used suppressant bottles. He grabbed them by the handful, throwing the empty bottles onto the mattress, hoping to hear just one rattle of a pill inside one of the containers. Something that he can take, fend off the inevitable. He knew he couldn’t avoid it now. If he tried to reach out to anything else, anyone he’d be done for. Not even Laswell or Nikolai could help him now. He didn’t want them to know. Only the people that needed to know knew about this. Those who didn’t, would preferably never find out. He groans as he finds nothing, slamming a fist onto his desk, the pain dumbed by his desperation and pure panic. What was he going to do? He can’t do this. Not like this.

His emotions were becoming a haze, pulling him down as he struggled with what this all meant for him. This job was everything he had, he’d be nothing without it. He couldn’t imagine his team without him.

He couldn’t imagine himself without his team.

The thoughts pained him, crashing onto him until his legs felt weak, short panicked breathing, gasping for air. He felt like he was choking on his own fear and panic, knees buckling and giving out as he grasped the mattress, knuckles going white and a clatter of pill bottles against the floor. Hot ears flowed down his cheeks, getting lost in his beard. His eyes were stinging, the pain making him rub his eyes violently until he was seeing an array of colours. He couldn't do this. He can’t. He won’t.

The tears continued to fall, the flood had started and he couldn't stop it. He lets out a pained yell, slamming his fists into the desk again as he forces himself onto shakey legs to get to the window, pushing it open in desperate movements. The air felt cold and bitter, something else to choke him more and remind him of his situation. He felt embarrassed of himself, crying like some sort of pup over something like this. He was a captain. He was the captain of Task Force 141. He didn’t act like this.

He runs his hand over his face, trying to get rid of the tears. He reaches for his pack of cigars, lighting it and bringing it to his lips, letting the smoky haze fill his lungs, watching as he breaths out a plume of smoke and disappears into the sky, blending in with the dark clouds rolling in.

As he takes another drag of the cigar, a soft knock on his door drags his attention away. He didn’t want to deal with anyone right now. He didnt want anyone to see him like this. Clearing his throat, he replies, “Who is it?”

“It’s me, cap.” Kyle’s voice echoes into his room, a somewhat soothing thing to here right now.

“What is it, Kyle?”

“You told us yesterday, you’d run some drills at 1000… you’re bout’ half an hour late cap.”

He curses under his breath, putting out his cigar and placing it on the ashtray. “Yeah, yeah. Got caught up in paperwork. I’ll be out in a moment.” He grabs his gear, replacing his jacket with a tactical vest. He just needed to get through this, and everything will be okay. He’ll figure this out.

He needs to. 

[violetfairydust]

WIP Wednesday

I was tagged by the wonderful @eevylynn! Thank you my dear! We're getting angsty with this one.

-

The slam of the door rattled his bones and reverberated in his chest. He didn’t bother with closing his own door as he moved around the front and reached for Stiles’ shaky hands. The tremble spread through his body until it looked like he was shivering from the cold. It was May; it wasn’t cold. The only chill came from Stiles’ eyes.

“Stiles—”

“Don’t. Just don’t.”

“I’m sorry. I—”

Stiles’ fist slammed into the hood.

“You have every right to be upset.”

His mouth opened, but nothing came out. No words, no sighs, no screams, no profanities. He just shook his head and started toward the corner. He reached the stop sign before he spun around faster than Derek could blink.

“If you didn’t like me, you should have said so.”

Anger – or well-deserved rage – would have hurt less. Yelling would only hurt his ears, but the quiet behind the words splintered his heart.

“I do like you,” Derek managed in a whisper.

“No, you don’t, Derek.”

“Stiles, I—”

“You settled for me. You didn’t want me, you wanted him. Just like everyone else does. The only thing that could only possibly be better than being alone was being with me.”

He dared a step closer. Stiles didn’t retreat, but he found something in the distance he’d rather stare at.

“Please let me explain. I shouldn’t have lied, but I didn’t think Erica would go to you and ask you if you wanted—”

The words slipped out of his clenched jaw. “So it’s Erica’s fault?”

Derek gave a little sigh. “No. It’s my fault. I fucked up. I fucked up big time. Erica didn’t do anything wrong; I shouldn’t have lied to her, it’s my fault. But I really do like you. I got to see how funny you are and how smart you are and behind the sarcasm how kind you are. I really do like you. I want to be with you.”

The breath Stiles released was as shaky as his hands. “No. You don’t. You want him. I’m just the consolation prize.” He moved around the corner and Derek went after him, reaching for his hand. His fingertips brushed against his palm.

“Stiles, I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I’m so sorry.”

Stiles spared one glance as he mumbled, “Don’t talk to me.”

-

No pressure tags: @seaweed-water @demonicfaerie @endwersed

[stardustrebels]

More of You- Chapter 6

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

WC: 4.2k

Rating: 18+ for eventual smut, MDNI Series Masterlist | Blog Masterlist Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Tags: No outbreak!AU. Coffee shop meet-cute with a slow-ish burn. Sickly sweet fluff, some angst and eventual smut. Joel is 42, reader is mid 30s. Sarah is 19. No use of Y/N, minimal descriptions of reader. She has hair long enough to tie back, wears skirts and dresses, blushes and wears makeup. No warnings apply for this chapter.

A/N: If you are following along with this story, I am so unbelievably grateful- thank you a million times, you are so wonderful! This chapter is a couple of days later than I had planned because I spent the last week prepping for a job interview. Now that it’s over I’m celebrating by posting! This is a long one, but I hope you like Joel’s POV. It gets a touch angsty in places, but the man’s default setting is saddy daddy. I cannot wait to keep telling their little love story. Enjoy! 

Joel Miller didn’t believe in fate. 

It had always been too depressing a concept for him. If fate existed, then it meant that every bad thing that had ever happened to him was preordained, every mistake set in stone before he made it; that he had just been served the shitty end of the stick. No, Joel preferred to think of life as a long chain of cause and effect, that you got back what you put in to the world, and if good or bad things happened then you deserved them.

But now, as he watched you take a sip of your coffee a few tables away, exactly as you had been the day before, he couldn’t think of a single thing he might have done to have earned it. 

Yesterday, Joel had been reluctant to admit that you were the reason for his… well he wasn’t sure what to call it. By lunchtime he’d told himself it was something else entirely. The long hours and late nights weren’t as easy to recover from as they had been in his 20s, and it was all just catching up with him. 

But that night in bed, watching the red glowing numbers on his alarm clock tick from one late hour to the next, he couldn’t get you out of his mind. Thinking of the sight of you made his heart pound against his ribcage and his stomach flip. By the time 2am rolled around, he knew he couldn’t explain the source of the feelings as anything else. 

When he dragged himself out of bed in the morning having slept in fits and starts and gone to make a coffee, he’d glared at the empty spot in the cupboard where the coffee tin should be. The coffee tin he’d forgotten to replace. Again. 

He slammed the cabinet door shut, letting out a long string of curses. In the middle of his kitchen, fingers pinched hard around the bridge of his nose, somewhere between deep breath four and five, he figured he could just get coffee on his way to work. He could visit that coffee shop. Maybe you would be there again. The thought had made his heart flutter. 

He’d brought a book with him that morning- something to do with his hands and a half-baked excuse to linger for a while- but when he realised he’d forgotten his glasses he rolled his eyes and murmured a curse at his own forgetfulness. It didn’t matter, he was hardly able to focus on the words on the pages anyway. Every time his eyes flicked toward you, his chest tightened. It felt like he was straddling the line between anticipation and outright panic. 

And then you looked at him. 

When your eyes met his, something inside of him shifted. The tension in his chest unraveled, replaced by a warmth that spread through him like a shot of his favourite whiskey. A sense of grounding calm followed, smoothing out the jagged edges of his nerves; unfamiliar but not unwelcome. His lips curved in to a smile that came more naturally than he expected, and he held your gaze just a second longer than he probably should have. 

You smiled back. A small, shy grin- fleeting and lovely- before you looked away. The flushed tint across your cheeks, the way your tongue darted out to wet your lips, the way your eyes caught the sunlight shining through the window, that same sunlight reflecting the highlights of your hair. It was like someone had bottled the dawn on a crisp spring time morning and put it in a person. God, you were the sweetest thing he’d ever seen. 

Joel forced his eyes from you and stared back down at the pages of his book. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw you stealing another glance at him. It was quick, barely a turn of your head, but it was enough to send another wave of heat down his spine, and ignite a burning desire to drink you in. This time when his eyes snapped to you, he let them linger. 

He wondered what you were working on so intently, whether you came in here every day, what you did for work. Most importantly, he wondered if he came back here tomorrow, would he find you in the same spot again?

He watched as you chewed your lip in thought, brow furrowed in concentration, your fingers dancing over the keyboard. And when you looked up again, catching him mid-stare, all he could do was manage a sheepish smile at getting caught. He swore he saw the faintest hint of a smile tug at your lips again too. 

The shout of an order from behind the counter broke the moment and made him jump. With a huff of laughter at his own skittishness, he figured now was as good a time as any to head to the office. 

Joel pulled on his jacket, shoving his book in his back pocket. He checked the time and checked for his wallet and keys. He carried his empty cup to the counter and hesitated for the briefest moment at the door, resisting the urge to take one last look at you. He already knew he would be back tomorrow morning, and he hoped you would too. 

When he arrived at Harrison’s on the third morning earlier than he had the previous days, he told himself that the traffic hadn’t been as bad that morning, or maybe he was just managing his time a little better. It wasn’t because he was excited, and it definitely wasn’t to figure out what time in the morning you got there.

The barista winked at him when he ordered his coffee, and when she brought it over to him, there was a biscotti on his saucer he hadn’t asked for. 'On the house,' she’d said with a bat of her eyelashes, sliding the saucer toward him. He’d given her an awkward smile and a muttered thanks. 

He’d remembered his glasses today, but they weren’t improving his ability to read. He’d been staring at the same paragraph for fifteen minutes, rereading the words without really taking in any of them. He’d had to dig out his old canvas bag from the back of the closet this morning, realising he was going to run out of pockets if he kept carrying more and more things around every morning. 

He glanced at the time, and began to wonder if you would show at all. His coffee had gone lukewarm and he’d managed to make it to the next page when someone brushed past his table. The faint scent of perfume hit him and his heart stuttered when his eyes flicked up and watched you pass by and settle in to your usual spot. Your usual spot. He smirked to himself. He wondered how long it took to become a regular here. Did they have to know your name? Your order? He glanced at the uneaten biscotti on his saucer. Maybe he already was one.

Joel let his eyes flick up over to you as he took a sip of coffee before refocussing on the page in front of him, but he wasn’t even trying to read the words any more, too caught up in how his chest tightened at the lingering smell of perfume in the air around him, how his stomach flipped now that you were there. A little voice at the back of his mind toyed with the idea of speaking to you and his fingers twitched against the cover of his paperback at the thought. What would he say to you? “Come here often”?

Christ, Miller, he cringed. He wasn’t sure what was worse- the sheer cliché of it or the fact that it made him realise how old and out of practice he was. You deserved better than some lame pick-up line.

When his eyes darted up again and you were looking right at him, Joel felt that warm honey-like feeling spread through him again, soothing the harsh spike of self doubt that had begun to coil in his stomach. Before he could stop himself, he shot you the smallest smile. The way you blushed and looked away made Joel’s heart swell. It was cute- beyond cute- the way you seemed all flustered when he smiled at you. He wondered if you realised how endearing it was, how much it made him want to get your attention and say something. Anything. 

His fingers brushed the corner of the page as he wrestled with the idea. He may not be smooth these days, he was starting to worry he never had been, but maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe he could just introduce himself, ask what you were working on and see where the conversation went. Yeah, he thought, that didn’t sound too bad. 

Just as he decided his nerve had been sufficiently gathered, his phone buzzed loudly against the table. Joel flinched, muttering a quiet curse under his breath as he snatched it up and answered without looking at the screen. It was Tommy, sounding slightly harried. ‘It’s the Johnstone account’, he said, ‘they’re threatening to pull the whole thing unless they talk to you in person. You gotta get down here, Joel.’

“Yeah okay, I’ll be there soon,” was all he said in response before hanging up. He downed the last of his coffee and gathered up his things, disappointed that he had to leave so quickly after you arrived. It seemed things had gone a bit sideways at the office that morning and he didn’t want to leave his little brother to face the brunt of it alone. He considered trying to talk to you before he left, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to give you the time you were worthy of. He placed his cup and uneaten biscotti on the counter, ignoring the disappointed look from the barista. He was frustrated- at the account, sure, but mainly at himself for letting an opportunity to talk to you slip through his fingers because he was overthinking it. 

He promised himself that if you were there again tomorrow, he’d talk to you

The Johnstone account had spiralled in to a full-blown disaster that, apparently, only Joel could fix. Meetings had run on late last night and started early the next day, leaving him no time to do anything else. By mid-morning, his patience was wearing dangerously thin. He needed air. He needed coffee. He needed to know if you were still sitting in your usual spot at Harrison’s. 

When Tommy asked where he was going as Joel grabbed his jacket from the back of the conference room chair he’d been stuck in since 7am, “out” was the only response he had offered, his tone brooking no argument. 

Today was the day, he told himself as he dashed by people on the sidewalk. No more second-guessing, no more missed chances. If you were there today, he was going to speak to you. He had to. The thought of not doing it was worse than anything else at this point. He needed to know your name. He needed to hear how his name sounded when you said it. 

The sense of relief Joel felt when he walked in to Harrison’s and you were still there was palpable, despite the fact that his phone was pinging notifications at him. His forehead hurt from frowning so much and he responded to a message from Tommy as he ordered, frowning down at the screen. He felt a strange pang of guilt for not being able to get there earlier that morning, and the feeling multiplied tenfold when he spun round and you caught his eye, offering him a sweet little smile from across the room. He ran his hand through his hair for what felt like the millionth time that morning and fixed his face so he definitely wasn’t frowning at you. He took a beat when he reached his table, draped his jacket over the back of the seat, then took a couple of steps toward you. 

Only for someone to brush past him and head straight for you, a blur of brown curls and waving arms, her handbag bumping him in the side as she passed. He cleared his throat, turned around and sat down in his chair with a thud, feeling more than a little awkward. But then he heard your voice- soft, warm and lilting as you greeted the woman striding towards you. It felt like his heart missed a beat, then you smiled and it felt like it had stopped altogether. It wasn’t a shy, fleeting grin he’d caught glimpses of before, but a full, radiant smile that made everything around you shine- pure unguarded joy.

Joel had to remind himself to breathe. For a moment, he forgot where he was. Forgot about the Johnstone account and just about everything else. All he could think was that he wanted to be the reason you smiled like that. 

His reverie was broken by the barista bringing over his coffee. He muttered a thanks and took out his phone and opened his emails, thinking he should at least do something productive while he was there. After a few minutes, he became acutely aware of eyes on him and when he looked up it wasn’t you that was looking at him, it was your friend. She was fully turned in her seat staring straight at him. Joel’s stomach lurched- were you talking about him? When she twisted back around with a shrug, he had to swallow down a laugh at the expression on your face; you looked absolutely mortified.

He watched over the rim of his coffee cup as you both leaned in across the table to one another conspiratorially and felt suddenly guilty- like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. When he heard you cry out with a panicked ‘no!’, he jolted, his head snapping up to look at you. He watched as your friend held her hands up in surrender and decided it was time for him to head back to the office, if only to stop your friend teasing you. 

He chuckled to himself before he knocked back the rest of his coffee, shrugged on his jacket and made to leave, feeling the weight of two sets of eyes following him as he placed his empty cup on the counter and left the shop. 

By the time Joel made it to Harrison’s the next morning, he was resigned to the fact that they were going to lose the Johnstone account and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He figured he might as well stop in for a coffee before another long day of meetings. His phone still buzzed incessantly with emails and messages, each one more infuriating than the last, so he was distracted when he walked through the door and up to the counter. It wasn’t until he realised he couldn’t hear the barista confirm his order over the din of conversation that he looked up and realised it was busy. Busier than usual. So busy that there were no free tables. 

He sighed, turned back to the barista and changed his order to go, having to almost yell his name at her over the noise. The barista called out to her colleague as she scribbled the change of the order on his receipt. He leaned against the counter, phone in hand, scrolling through his schedule for the day. The sight of it made him wince. So this is how today’s gonna go, he thought.

He chanced a glimpse in your direction, flicked his eyes to the empty seat opposite you and was halfway through wondering whether he should try and talk to you again, when you raised your hand and waved. It was such a reserved gesture that he thought he’d imagined it at first. He blinked and checked to see if you were waving to someone else behind him, but when he turned back around, you nodded and beckoned him over.

Joel’s feet moved before his brain caught up, heart stuttering and a heat creeping up the back of his neck as he closed the distance between you. 

“Hi, uh…” you started. You faltered slightly, but your voice was like music to his ears. 

“You can sit here, if you like,” you said, gesturing to the chair opposite you. “Sorry your usual table’s taken.”

The warmth that spread through him this time wasn’t just like a shot of whiskey, it felt like he’d gulped down the whole damn bottle. It seeped down in to his core, soothing a chill he hadn’t known was there. A small flicker of nervousness crossed your face and he loosened up to try and put you at ease. 

“That’s awfully kind, Miss,” he said, managing to hide his nervousness well, “Thank you.” 

As he settled across from you, the heat rose up the back of his neck and in to his ears. He swallowed and gave you a small smile, reaching his hand out across the table.

“I’m Joel.” His voice may have been steady, but his pulse wasn’t, and he hoped you couldn’t feel how fast his heart was racing as you shook his hand and gave him your name. He repeated it, almost instinctively, savouring the way it rolled off his tongue. 

“It’s real nice to meet you,” 

He’d never meant anything more in his entire life.

Talking to you was easier than Joel could have ever imagined. You were bright, funny, interesting. He admired you- your bravery at leaving New York to come to Austin without a safety net, carving out a place for yourself in a city that didn’t know you. You hadn’t just survived; you were thriving. That much was clear in the way you talked about your life here. You weren’t bragging- you didn’t even seem to realise how impressive it all was. It took strength to start over like that, and he respected the hell out of it. 

He appreciated the way your eyes lit up when he answered your questions, like you were drinking him in. He could have talked to you all day. He could talk to you forever. 

When he’d looked at the time it felt as if his stomach had dropped through the floor. The morning had passed and he’d barely noticed. He panicked. He’d missed three meetings and had twelve missed calls. Tommy was going to have his head. 

When you looked up at him with a nervous smile and said ‘I’ll see you around, maybe?’,  he paused, reluctant to just run off and leave you. He wanted to hug you, hell, he wanted to kiss you. He settled for a touch on your arm and the promise of ‘same place, same time tomorrow.’ 

He was half way to the office before he realised that tomorrow was Saturday. 

Tommy had gone through him as soon as he’d stepped foot in his office, and Joel knew he deserved every second of it. 

“Just got caught up in somethin’,” Joel had muttered when he had asked where the hell he’d been.

“Told them you were sick and that’s why you missed their meeting. They rescheduled everything for Monday. You owe me.” Tommy said, not waiting for a response before stomping out the door.

He struggled to concentrate on anything else for the rest of the afternoon. He huffed a laugh when he realised he might as well have taken the day off sick- he wasn’t much use to anyone. His mind replayed your nervous smile, the way your voice had wavered when you’d said “I’ll see you around, maybe?”. The look in your eye when he’d touched your arm. 

He groaned and pressed his fingers against his brow bone. He’d panicked and run off and not even asked for your number. The more he thought about it, the worse he felt. You hadn’t asked for his either, although he realised with a sinking feeling that he hadn’t really given you much of a chance to. 

He told himself he’d have a chance to rectify his stupid mistake the next morning. Sure, it was Saturday and he had no other reason to travel in to the city, but you’d agreed to ‘same place, same time tomorrow’ enthusiastically and he wasn’t going to risk the chance of you sitting there waiting for him. He spent the rest of the night trying not to overthink it. It would be fine. 

Except it wasn’t fine. When he got there on Saturday morning, you weren’t there. Joel had lingered in the coffee shop longer than usual, sitting in the seat at your table he’d occupied the day before, sipping his coffee, glancing round to the door every time it opened, but you didn’t appear.

No big deal, he told himself as he left, I’ll come back again tomorrow. She might just be busy, have other plans she forgot about.

When Sunday came and went the same way, Joel tried to stay positive. He sat in your seat to feel a little closer to you; figured if you turned up and told him he was in your spot he could make a cute joke about it. But you didn’t. 

By Monday, Joel was a mess. When you weren’t there, he ordered his coffee to go, unable to sit in the space without you another day. He thought about asking the barista if she’d seen you, but he didn’t want to be a creep. 

He watched forlornly as a couple sat down at your table and held hands across it. That could have been you if you weren’t such an idiot, Miller, he thought.

He convinced himself that he’d done something wrong, that he’d absolutely blown his chance and you wanted nothing more to do with him. He spent the rest of the morning replaying his conversation with you over in his head, dissecting every word, every expression. Had he come on too strong? Not strong enough? Were you insulted that he’d left so quickly? Insulted that he didn’t ask for your number? 

“Joel,” Tommy said that afternoon, leaning against the door frame of his office. “You alright?” 

“‘M’fine.” He muttered, not looking up from the papers on his desk. 

“Don’t seem fine to me,” Tommy said, raising an eyebrow, “Did somethin’ happen? You wanna talk about it?” 

Joel glared at him. “Don’t you have work to do?” 

Tommy held up his hands in surrender. “Alright. Just askin’. Whatever it is, maybe you oughta deal with it before you scare off the entire work force.” 

Joel watched his brother leave and took a deep breath. Tommy was right, he’d been stalking the office like a bear with a sore head, but he couldn’t help it. He’d had a chance at something amazing and immediately ruined it.

By the time he got home that night, he’d reconciled with the fact that if you weren’t there tomorrow, he’d take the hint. He’d accept that what he’d felt with you had been fleeting; something he was allowed to hold but not keep. He’d buy his usual store-bought coffee and drink it at home by himself, go back to his old routine and try not to think of you any more. 

Joel pushed open the door to Harrison’s the next morning with the depressing thought that this was probably the last time he’d visit it. His chest felt tight; he forced his face in to a neutral expression and walked up to the counter without a sideways glance, steeling himself for the horrible possibility that you weren’t there. 

“Joel!”

He snapped his head towards the sound and froze. For a moment, his brain struggled to catch up with his eyes. There you were, at your usual table, as if you’d never been away. You waved at him and your joyful expression shifted in to something more sheepish. There were two coffees on the table in front of you and it took him a long moment to realise that one of them was for him. 

Shock battled against the rush of relief that hit him as he crossed the room. You gave him a little smile as he sat down across from you and he suddenly worried that wasn’t sure what expression was on his face.

“Hey. I, uh… I wasn’t sure if you’d be here, but…” you gestured to the cup in front of him. “I thought I’d try and make up for the days I missed if you were. I realised after you left that I didn’t ask for your number and I felt like such an idiot. I had to fly back to New York on Friday night last minute for… A family thing and I-”

“Hey, darlin’, don’t worry about it,” he let out a soft laugh, the tension that had been coiled in his chest for days unfurled itself, transforming in to a blooming warmth once more. “I’m just real glad to see you again.” 

He decided then, as he watched your face break in to a beautiful smile that maybe fate wasn’t such a hard thing to believe in after all. 

Next Chapter

[cassiel-celest]

I can't really explain this to you, but here is my Poseidon holding Odysseus by my roleplay partner @niisunf You will be probably seeing more of these sillies in HIS blog than mine, so go and give him a follow RN!!!

All the art will be probably connected somehow to our roleplay, so if you got any questions, you can probably ask. Me, not him tho. I will be very happy to answer anything and just make MORE silly stuff with them. We will use a tag for all of RP related art so it won't get lost :3

[109inthesky]

Look alive, sunshine.

This blog is a collection of all the canon info about the Danger Days universe, taken from the album, music videos, comics, concept art, advertising, and anything else I can get my hands on.

This is a work in progress and will likely be a long-term project.

If you have corrections or submissions, send them in an ask.

This post will eventually also have a masterlist of posts made.

Tags used:

“#spoilers” for anything that will spoil the comics “#music” for the album “#video” for the music videos and official clips “#comics” for the comics “#characters” for any characters “#fab four” for the main Killjoys (Poison, Kobra, Jet, Ghoul) “#ultra vs” for the Ultra V’s “#killjoys” for any rebels “#droids” for any droids (incl. Destroya) “#bli” for anything related to Better Living Industries and its workers “#world building” for any lore about the world “#band” for content about the band themselves

Hi! I’m Jordan (they/he), and I began listening to MCR in 2022, but became a proper fan in 2023 (right after they visited my city for Swarm Tour, but we don’t talk about that).

When I first joined the MCRmy, where was so much I was confused about, because everyone seemed to know things, and so they never got explained. This was especially true when it came to things about the Killjoys. It was especially difficult to separate the canon from the fanon.

So, to start my 2025, I’ve decided to make this blog as a resource for newcomers and old fans alike, recording as much canon as I can in an organised and accessible manner.

Keep your boots tight, keep your gun close, and die with your mask on if you’ve got to. Here, is the traffic.

[lotusishere]

People need to stop hating on Keefe in Unraveled with the Alvar nonsense. People make it seem like he invited Alvar to join him the entire time he was there. As we all remember Keefe SAW him. He was just there at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was with Alvar to watch him. We remember the desert seen. Yes the point of Keefe having Alvar tag was to make sure he wasn’t doing anything shady. But it’s not a crime either to enjoy someone’s company. Yes Alvar has done shit. I’m not defending that. Keefe hanging out with Alvar literally didn’t do anything. They didn’t do anything illegal to make people suffer. All they did was get attacked by spiders and eat pancakes. (And talk, mostly Alvar, about feelings). People want it seem like Keefe had this evil plan all along to team up with Alvar the moment he was there. Like girl no he didn’t…

I personally believe what happened in unraveled should stay with Keefe. It doesn’t benefit anyone if the information is shared nor does it if it’s never shared. The only thing that could be potentially dangerous is Eleanor’s information. What happened with Keefe and Alvar was not that serious. And if people found out obviously Fitz is gonna be mad. But I don’t necessarily think Sophie is going to be as crushed as yall make it seem. She’s a big girl and I’m sure if she saw everything and had Keefe explain it wouldn’t be crazy. Would she be upset he didn’t tell her? Possibly but I don’t think it’s for the reason of him hanging with Alvar. I think she would be more upset that Keefe didn’t have the heart to tell her.

[rina-teatia]

The Mirror of Erised can talk?! (18+)

Summary: AU Tom Riddle and Harry Potter attended Hogwarts at the same time, and both became professors after graduation. The two had always been quite close. Their rivalry didn't end in their school days and while Tom seemed to continue to see Harry as a mate and colleague, Potter had long since looked at Tom in a completely different way. In the middle of the year, the young teachers were given the task of replacing the Mirror of Erised to the basements of Hogwarts, and Harry had no way of expecting that his deepest desire would turn out to be like that...

Pairing: Tom Riddle × Harry Potter

Tags: Tom Riddle is Not Voldemort, Bottom Harry Potter, Professor Harry Potter, Top Tom Riddle, Professor Tom Riddle, Alternate Universe - Professors, Mirror Sex, Mirror of Erised (Harry Potter), Hand Jobs

Words: 1, 498

The halls of Hogwarts were deserted and lonely. Darkness thickened around as the two wizards slowly moved further into the depths, their footsteps echoing through the corridors. Right in the center of the procession, something elongated and large was moving like a beacon.

“Remind me again why are we doing this?” Harry puffed tiredly, tugging with both hands the edge of this object – a huge carved mirror. Tom walked ahead of him, his long professor’s robe was shining with luxury and magnificence.

“The students shouldn’t see the Mirror of Erised. We're taking it to the Hogwarts basements to hide it there,” Tom explained calmly. Surprisingly, he didn't sound out of breath at all, and it wasn't until a couple of minutes later that Harry realized he'd been using magic to move the mirror! Potter felt like a complete idiot. Dragging with his muscles was such a Muggle way of carrying anything that it was a wonder how Tom's face hadn't already gone white with disgust. Quickly orientating himself, Harry whispered a spell too, holding up his edge of the mirror.

“I see.” Harry sighed. He had dealt with the Mirror of Erised before when he was a student. Back then, the mirror had shown him surrounded by his family.... A lot of time had passed since then, and now Harry found himself curious once again of what the mirror might show him. However, there was no way to look – the dense canopy was safely covering the mirror’s surface.

They stopped in one of the cellars Tom had brought them to. Professors lowered the mirror to the floor and Harry was finally able to catch his breath.

“Shall we look into it one last time?” Tom grinned slightly, shifting his gaze to Potter. “I like this mirror. It's useless, but as a nice little trinket, it's charming in its own way.

“Have you looked in it yet?” Harry nodded, helping to remove the long canopy covering the mirror.

“Of course, I have.”

“And... What's in your reflection?”

They froze. Tom shifted his gaze to the mirror and smiled. He adjusted his robe and primped himself. Harry wasn't looking in the mirror, but at Riddle, eager to know what the other man was seeing. Tom thought for a moment, adorning himself in front of the mirror.

“Oh, I see myself as the greatest sorcerer of our time. An incredibly powerful Headmaster of Hogwarts and British Minister for Magic in one person.” Tom chuckled happily, and Harry's heart skipped a beat involuntarily. Well, he had expected this. Riddle had always been ambitious, what the mirror showed wasn't just the ‘most desperate desire’ that the Mirror of Erised always shows, it was something he had strived hard for all his life.

“No wonder you like the mirror.” Harry hummed, giving Tom a friendly little poke in the arm.

“What do you see, Harry?” The man squinted with interest. His red eyes flashed with fire, and Harry dared to shift his gaze to the mirror.

Almost nothing had changed there.

Harry pursed his lips together slightly, taking a closer look. He and Tom were standing quite close when Harry noticed movement in the mirror. Tom slowly stepped behind him. His hands gently travelled upwards, touching Harry's chin, trailing along his lower jaw...

“Well?”

Harry blushed and shuddered. There were no hands on his body. Tom was standing beside him, just as he had been a moment earlier. However, the mirror showed something completely different, and Harry quickly looked away.

“Ah, I seem to be a lot happier nowadays… I saw myself with a plate of treacle tart.” Dumbledore had fooled him in a similar way once before, but he was definitely more talented at it than Harry. “That's it.”

“That's it?” Tom snorted. It was unclear on his face whether he believed it or not. – How adorable. As far as I know, they serve pies like this at Hogwarts on Sundays and Wednesdays. Tomorrow is Sunday, your deepest wish is about to come true.” He patted Harry's shoulder gently as he walked past. “Shall we go?”

“Y-yeah... Let's go.” With a nod, Harry moved as well. The two covered the mirror back up with the cloth and headed back upstairs.

The night greeted Harry with restlessness. He couldn't sleep. As a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, he had his own room at Hogwarts, so he didn't have to be quiet to avoid waking his neighbours, and as a teacher, he could hang around the corridors after curfew as much as he liked. He could also scold the students if they wanted to do the same. Therefore, it wasn't long before Harry got dressed and left the room.

He was worried about the Mirror of Erised. What he'd seen in it today... It was embarrassingly awkward and almost unthinkable. Harry couldn't believe it. Maybe it had something to do with Riddle who was standing next to him? Was that the reason why that mirror had reacted the way it did? Harry was obliged to look into it again alone, for the purity of the experiment. Just for the sake of it, he convinced himself.

“Lumos.”

The basement, completely black, lit up with a spark of light from his wand. Harry looked around and approached the mirror. The canopy had been torn away with a determined gesture, and now Harry was looking at himself again through the reflective surface. He squinted.

There was nothing.

The door creaked open. Harry immediately turned round at the noise, but there was no one behind him either. Looking into the Mirror of Erised again, however, Harry saw him. Standing behind him was Tom Marvolo Riddle. Harry turned around again, then again and again. He felt a slight twinge of panic and madness. No, he wasn't imagining it. Tom was only in the mirror, but so real that Harry looked back every time, only to see nothing. Meanwhile, in the mirror, Tom slowly came closer.

“Stop spinning your head around like an owl.” A quiet voice, unmistakably Tom's, rustled the air near his ear. Harry froze. In the mirror, Riddle was standing right up close to him, pressed up against him from behind and whispering all this stuff, but in reality, there was only emptiness beside him.

“Tom...?” Harry wasn't sure if the mirror could talk to him, however that was exactly what was happening right now before his eyes.

Tom didn't answer. His hands traced the line of Harry's chin, a gesture that he had seen and felt during the first time. Now the touch seemed more real, Harry shuddered, gripping his wand with ‘Lumos’ incantation still glowing from it so he could see Tom's face better. Riddle was smiling slightly from the mirror, wrapping his arms around Harry's waist and kissing his neck seductively a few times. There was no one else around, but Harry felt his lips on his neck so real, like everything was genuinely happening right now. He involuntarily melted, relaxing and allowing the mirror to take him into a world of passion and secret hidden desires.

Tom was extremely gentle and careful. His fingers made their way into Harry's trousers to fumble for his member. With his other hand he pulled up his shirt and groped his nipples, pinching them lightly. Harry was afraid to close his eyes even for a second, he moaned in shock as he watched Tom fondle him. It was quiet, gentle and incredibly hot, Harry was melting. He tried to remind himself that it was all an illusion, but the arousal was speaking for him, he moaned and he felt how Tom's fingers were holding his cock in their sweaty warmth right now.

A low sigh escaped Harry's lips. Seeing someone he was secretly in love with in the mirror giving him pleasure was too maddening. Harry himself didn't remember how the arousal became unbearable. He came – so shamefully fast, his body slowly collapsing in other one’s arms, and he didn't want to think about anything else.

“Liked it”?

Harry shuddered. Wait a minute. In other one’s arms? He was most definitely being held firmly upright by someone, even though Harry blurred into an exhausted puddle from his climax. Potter shifted his gaze to the mirror. Tom was there, supporting him, and next to him, and in reality.... It was unmistakably someone else's invisible hands. Harry's insides went cold. It couldn't be...?

Suddenly, something twitched right next to his face, and when Harry turned around, he saw Tom's face. Real, not reflected. The man chuckled slightly. He was wearing an invisibility cloak.

“Aaaah!!!”

Harry's scream echoed throughout the corridor before Tom quickly covered his mouth.

“Oh shut up, stop yelling…”

“What in Merlin’s name are you doing here?!” Harry was absolutely terrified, questions swarming through his head.

“I'll explain later.” Tom chuckled, quickly putting a finger to his lips. “I'm sorry, I couldn't help but tease you.... It's just that you've so sweetly forgotten that I'm a Legilimens…”

ty for reading! this work originally written in Russian, but I want to thank my pookies Sasha, who translated it into English, and Olya, who edited it. It wouldn't have happened without them, although they both like to bully me for my talents as a translator. Fuck them.

P. S. SASHA @sashimj DOES A LOT FOR THIS WORK SO SUBSCRIBE HER AND LOVE HER ARTS AND FICS