#and him STILL feeling horrible about how he acted in the end of time to a point where he starts breaking down in front of wilf . wtf :((

[halfbaked00q]

thinking about, like... the exploration of James Bond × the tangled messy web of complications he'd pick up around sex given like past relationships and also the inherently fucky sexual politics of honeypot missions and etc.

it's like. when your body is as much a tool in your aresenal as any of your skills so you're able to handle/tolerate/work through levels of what, in another context, may be considered personal violations, that would be overwhelming to untrained civvies-- but at the same time that very training that gives you some level of divide/partition/insulation from said trespasses on your person, also rather inherently creates bifurcations in your autonomy which then conversely and maybe ironically, still unavoidably act as violations against your personhood

the interesting added layer to that is to go deeper into exploring how honeypotting is/can be inherently traumatic not just to the victim but also the perpetrator, and the resulting psychological effects on the honeypotting agent

anyway here are some fics that I either reread recently, or I remember noting about, that go into these topics

-----------

Further Reading / Web-Weaving / "You May Also Like":

This fic imo does a great job of exploring/interweaving PTSD through the narration in an organic-feeling, believable, and very visceral way. Towards the end-ish of the currently available chaps there's a section where Bond is thinking about sex and like doomspiraling cuz he's assuming what Q would want and having a crisis about it because he's like, I can't provide that without panicking or dissociating - which I find suuuuuper interesting and complex, and it's especially interesting to have this level of exploration on the subject from Bond's POV.

the specific aspect I find really interesting about this is the way I can see this Bond as becoming, like.... desensitized? in a sense, to sex, on a more emotional level, but also how it becomes even in general sort of a trauma in itself, with his concerns about either reacting violently to a trigger, or dissociating during the act and how he worries if that happens that Q will find it hollow and falling short.

the dissociating bit really sticks out to me because it reminds me of an anecdote my high school psych teacher told about a friend of hers who through therapy realized that she was dissociating during sex with her husband and like mentally taking a walk down.. some sidewalk or other, but basically I can't remember if any other fic had this like, aspect of explicitly mentioning dissociating (others do talk about like him going a bit dead-eyed when putting on his TM Seduction act which is like adjacent to this, but not like specifically from inside Bond's head reflecting on this specific type of trauma response)

---

Has this banger section that, like, puts the *points above* into words from a third party's POV:

“Part of what makes it work -- with Scar and me -- is that I have no expectations on that front, so she doesn’t have to... perform. It’s second nature to them, to figure out what you want and give it to you…” The pause was horrible, and her expression deeply sad. “Whether it’s what they want or not.” Q felt a little sick. People sometimes joked about the honeypot missions, calling them ‘plush’ or talking as though they were somehow easier. Q had never really thought about it, except to think that it wouldn’t be easy for him. But now…

---

the warmth of your doorways:

has whole sections of James reflecting introspectively on honeypot missions. also has the added spicy layer of James being tapped to train/guide the guy who is meant to replace him for honeypot missions, and the added turbulance of all that (this fic also has a lot going for it on other levels that I enjoy a lot- this post us just specifically about JB × his fucked up sex politics stuff)

---

Bond and Q talk about sex stuff and Q is horrified to realize how bad Bond's training for honeypotting male targets was, which eventually leads to them talking about sexualuties, which leads to Q introducing Bond to the Kinsey scale lmao, and etc. also this banger from the author in the comments:

Craig has this one facial expression that makes me think, as Q put it in my fic, like Bond's soul has wandered off and left him behind. We see it occasionally when he's laying in wait to kill but most commonly when he's seducing a female mark. The best example of the face I mean is when he's seducing the widow in Spectre. It's a little dispassionate, a lot distant and it really makes me think very hard about what that means. To me, that facial expression makes me think perhaps Bond has a certain distance from his own actions. His body belongs to England, he is Her weapon and he will do as She needs.

[mimi-fy]

Why these scenes are so important to understand the relationship between j*mmy and curly

(Ik the quality is shit, sue me.)

In another theory i wrote there is a re-up game of mouthwashing called how fish is made, there is a special relationship between a fish and a parasite. There is a dying fish as seen above, the thing in its mouth isn’t its tounge it’s a louse. The dying fish being curly and the louse being jimmy, what the louse does is that it attaches itself to a fish. It eats away the fishes tongue and becomes the new tongue for the fish, it basically now freeloads off the fish. Eating all of the food for the fish and leaving only scraps for the main body/fish to eat causing the fish to slowly die. This can easily be interpreted as the true friendship of curly and jimmy. Curly is responsible has good reputation, got the job for jimmy, but jimmy just freeloads off of curly. And takes advantage of the fact that they’ve known each other for along time. Jimmy becomes curlys tongue because jimmy can easily manipulate curly and put words in his mouth, his manipulation is proved successful when curly still trusts him after what jimmy did, and trusts him to take care of it. Jimmy becomes curlys new tongue after curly is unable to be captain. He puts words in curlys mouth and gives the words to others ‘hes the one who crashed the ship’ ‘he’d want me to be captain’ so jimmy steps in as captain. But hes just a tongue, hes all say and no do. And the things he says are horrible and not even kind or comforting to anyone. The fish and parasite are seen as friends and go way back (said by the parasite) that the parasite ate his tounge and they’ve been coworkers ever since. Also jimmy and curly have known each other for a lengthy time. The eating of another tongue, can mean that the parasite now acts for the body that the parasite is incharge and the fish doesn’t know it. Meaning that, jimmy is incharge, its jimmy world and not curlys. This is a very logical relationship as we get a scene where we are crawling through curlys mouth, meaning that we (jimmy) are a parasite that latched onto curlys mouth and have came out after along time. To the point where jimmy has ruined his mouth and curly can no longer talk or choose something for himself. He has came out to finally take charge and responsibility and can no longer free load. He came out and now sees the rotting corpse of the fish (rotting body of curly) and sees how he deprived curly, how he caused this. So why did Jimmy become curlys ‘tongue’? At the end of the first part of how fish is made we get a unique dialogue that can be assumed as jimmy talking. ‘I always hated hearing.(jimmy)’ ‘Alot of people are going through the same thing. You’re not alone.(curly)’This is possible that curly is comforting jimmy after jimmy committed a crime/has addiction problems. To which jimmy replies ‘no! My pain is more tragic, grander! Deeper! If only you knew.’ Jimmy acting like a victim. Then follows up in his own head or in voice ‘that’s not true of course. I hate talking about it. Because i hate people who talk about it. And that’s not very nice, that’s not okay, that’s not how you can be about all this (this crime or mistakes)’ jimmy hates people who talks about his mistakes. That can be curly. Curly knows about jimmys mistakes but still sees him as his friend. But curly comforts him and talks to him about it to which jimmy hates. So jimmy uses it to his advantage and acts like a victim, clinging to curly. And curly who feels too bad to let him go after seeing jimmys ‘struggle of a life’. Jimmy became curlys tongue, so curly couldn’t speak about his mistakes. To also take power over others and make curly take responsibility instead of jimmy taking responsibility. Which explains why he snaps as curly can no longer take charge for him after the crash.

Thx for reading if you like my content i have another analysis’s about other characters and symbols about mouthwashing! (The ending also mentioned something about a usp but i cant find out what i stands for)

[wtfaniii]

The Other Woman

Summary: The personification of the dream in love with the angel of death, it sounds lovely until a new girl appears in the Grim Reaper's life, forcing the beautiful dream to turn into a nightmare.

Warnings: Obsession, some things are not canon, I will only use the main characters, angst, drama.

N/A: Why is there so little of Grim Reaper??? I wanted to read something about him but in the end I wanted to write something to get rid of this dream I have about him, I haven't checked this yet so sorry for any spelling mistakes

The Grim Reaper x fem reader Cosmic entity

The soft sound of the wind blowing the leaves of the trees was like a lullaby for the deep sleep in which the city was immersed.

In the midst of the silence of a room, you were standing at the foot of a bed with a soft smile adorning your lips.

—¿You know? —Kim Shin's sudden voice almost made you jump in fright —Some people find it creepy to be watched at night while they sleep.

You brought a finger to your lips indicating for him to remain silent, you looked towards the grim reaper's bed and let out a sigh when you saw that he hadn't moved at all.

That man slept like a rock, completely covered by the sheet and the position in which he slept almost looked like a corpse and that generated genuine interest in you.

—¿What are you doing awake? You should be enjoying the dream I made for you —You said with a mischievous smile.

As the creator of dreams, you were in charge of making each and every one of the fantasies that anyone has while sleeping, sometimes were beautiful, other times were horrible, that depended on your mood and in this case, how much affection you had for them.

You liked the goblin, but sometimes he drove you crazy, that's why now him woke up from nightmares in which he fell into the void over and over again.

The complete opposite of the angel who slept peacefully in the bed in front of you, you prepared beautiful dreams for him every day for centuries.

—I don't know why you're trying so hard, he'll forget about it as soon as he wakes up anyway —Kim Shin said before returning to his room.

Maybe he was right, your beautiful angel sometimes forgot about your work as soon as he woke up but for you it was enough to feel him happiness and peace every night.

You laughed internally at the thought that God had been wrong about your supposed punishment.

This was not a punishment for you.

It was a perfect immortal life, you didn't know how but ever since you can remember you were captivated by him, it was impossible to stop smiling like a fool every time he was in front of you.

You smiled once more before turning into golden dust and fluttering above him head, entering his dream.

It was a beautiful meadow full of flowers, the soft sunlight passed through the trees leaving a beautiful scene.

But your eyes fell on the man standing a few steps ahead of you, feeding a deer with a soft smile.

—I thank you for this dream... —He said sincerely turning to look at you.

—It's not a big deal —You said making a carefree gesture with your hand but he approached you and took it —I like making these dreams for you...

—And that's why I thank you —he added, leaving a soft kiss on the back of your hand.

That act almost made your legs weak.

He knew everything you did for him and he adored it, only you were able to transmit to him the peace he longed for without needing to go to heaven, your dreams were a gift every night and no, he never forgot them.

The feeling between you was almost mutual.

The angel of death appreciated you, more than he would like to admit, sometimes he thought about how it would feel to kiss you but he still didn't know when or how to do it.

For him, dreams were even more beautiful when you were in them, the night was the only time when the two of you could talk without being bothered by Kim Shin or Deok Hwa.

It was perfect, even the grim reaper thought he was ready to take the next step and kiss you, tell you everything he felt.

But she appeared.

—¿What's wrong? —You asked curiously when the angel stood up from the table irritated after having frozen until he broke the plate of his food.

Deok Hwa was startled when you suddenly appeared next to him.

—¿Why don't you walk? ¡That would be much better than just appearing and disappearing!

—¿What's wrong? —You asked once again ignoring him complaint.

—He is confused because he cried in front of a woman for no apparent reason.

—¿Did he cry? ¿Why did he cry? ¿Did she do something to him? ¿Who is she?

Your questions came out one after another, you didn't want him to feel that way, you had put so much effort into making him immortality more beautiful for someone to come and make him cry for no apparent reason.

Deok Hwa didn't notice your concern so he continued telling you about the little he knew, he even made that movement with his lips that the grim reaper had made before referring to that girl.

A kiss.

That girl had shamelessly sent him a kiss.

You pressed your lips into a straight line and disappeared into the golden sparkles.

From that day on you felt something different between you and the angel, you didn't know what it was, but you knew who was causing it, you were quite sensitive and before knew it, you were already tormenting that poor girl with nightmares.

It wasn't on purpose, you just let yourself be blinded by your own jealousy, you had worked hard to win him over and now another woman came along to catch him attention.

You felt it was unfair.

And every night it only got worse, for her the nights of nightmares and insomnia were eternal, for him were nights in which he took pills to sleep deeply and not dream and for you, for you it was as if your heart was breaking every moment.

You stopped talking to him and occasionally you would appear in his room to try to make him dream but it was impossible, with the pills he was taking it was very difficult to introduce your beautiful dreams that you had made for him.

Until one day your heart broke completely.

You didn't know why but you decided to follow him, rarely did it but this time your instinct told you to do it.

However, you deeply wished you hadn't, he had been looking for that girl and then taking her out for coffee.

She was beautiful, you had to admit that, ¿what did she have that you didn't?

When you saw him smile genuinely at that girl's laughter, you knew immediately that the only one left out there was you.

So without saying a word you let out a tear that ran down your cheek and then you disappeared.

He sensed your presence and turned his head towards the cafe window, only managing to see small golden flashes fading away.

—¿And how have you been? —Sunny asked curiously —I hope better than me, I haven't been able to sleep lately, I always have nightmares.

Her words caught him attention.

—¿Nightmares?

—Of all kinds —Her complained regretfully.

He swallowed and looked back at the window, he knew it was you and he also knew the reason but refused to accept it.

[...]

Korea was chaos.

The sleeping pills in all the pharmacies were out of stock, and all because the nightmares were more recurrent than usual; no one could sleep without waking up screaming or crying in the middle of the night.

—You must do something to stop her —Kim Shin spoke complaining for the third time as he took his drink away from the grim reaper —Get up, go and tell your little girlfriend to solve her problems.

—She's not my girlfriend —He said seriously, sighing.

—¡Whatever! Just talk to her —the Goblin insisted, almost pleading for not having had a good dream as he should have.

—¡Please! Hallway uncle, I want to sleep —Deok Hwa said now, dramatizing his crying.

Finally he gave in and stood up to go find you.

It wasn't difficult for him, he knew you well enough to know your favorite place where you made dreams.

Arriving at that small abandoned library, he saw you sitting on the floor with a crystal sphere in front of you.

—¿What are you doing here? —You asked without taking your eyes off that sphere.

The grim reaper evaded your question and approached you cautiously, he knew the reason for your current mood and felt somewhat bad about it but he was also confused about his feelings and hoped that you could understand him.

—The nightmares must stop —He said seriously, looking down at that sphere that so tempted you to be trapped —You are causing disappointments, accidents and problems among mortals.

—Well... they have to understand that not everything will be rainbows and good news.

He watched you silently as you lifted the crystal sphere and placed it on one of the shelves.

—¿What is this?

—A dream about my past life... —You whispered.

—¿Can you know who you were before this time? —The Grim Reaper asked in surprise and disbelief —¿As?

The angel was more than impressed, he wanted to know about his past life, his name, his date of birth, everything and seeing you having a possible answer to his doubts was incredible.

—I just did it... but I don't want to see it —When you turned on your heels he was already right behind you, making you jump a little in fright —¡¿What's wrong with you?! ¡You should wear a bell!

—¿Aren't you curious to know who you were before this?

—¡No! ¡I don't want to know anything about that!, ¡or this! ¡or you!

He kept quiet and let you yell at him until you got tired, he truly hated himself for doing this to you and that was why he felt so frustrated, maybe if he knew more about his past he would know why that girl named Sunny had a big effect on him just like you.

You kept screaming and moving in circles in front of him, you were angry and sad, it was noticeable but he didn't hear anything you said until the words "I loved you" left your lips.

—¿Did you... love me? —What a stupid question, of course you did, it was always clear but he refused to see it.

—¡And I thought it was mutual! —You shouted at him one last time with tears held back in your eyes —But that pretty girl with light hair and a beautiful smile did what haven't been able to do in years except in my dreams.

—¿What?

—Make you smile.

It was torture, you made him smile several times in his dreams and with a lot of work but she, she could do it just by laughing.

—Just go away please —You asked in a low and broken voice, and before he could stop you, you had already vanished among golden sparkles.

[snailsgoingdowntown]

Small idea thing may or may not be canon to my story

Yan! Dion agriche x fem! Reader

Arranged marriage

Warnings: slightly implied slight codependent behavior, jealousy, mention of murder attempt(s), mention of past murder, toxic familial (?)relationships, toxic marriage/relationship, some yandere themes probably. Please tell me if I missed any.

NSFW kind of warnings: suggestive and implied dub-con-ish, and definitely a sexually frustrated Dion

Can be read as it's own thing not sure if I'll include this in main story so POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR 'HELP I REINCARNATED AS THE FEMALE LEAD'S SISTER-IN-LAW"

MINORS/BLANK BLOGS/BLOGS THAT DON'T INTERACT WITH FANDOM RELATED THINGS DNI

I couldn't get this out of my head and I just needed to share it so bad it was eating me up alive.

==

Lowkey think Roxana would pour affection (platonic) at you just to annoy Dion aka small bouts of revenge once she realizes he has a soft spot for you (aka stealing your time, smiling sweetly at you, maybe even make physical contact via pushing your hair back or the very rare looping her arm around yours as you walk in the garden together. Inviting you to dinner sometimes when Dion returns from a mission, getting in his way of his own little goal of spending time with you. Basically becomes your 'bestie' (she denies she cares about you but we all know that's a lie) and enjoys the glares Dion sends her way whenever you're having fun with her and not him.

And truthfully, despite knowing she's using you for something, you enjoy her company after a while. However, you're unable to fully give in and become essentially a sister to her or a 'bestie' because at the end of the day, she is still Roxana Agriche, an Agriche and general and you genuinely cannot see yourself becoming an important person to her or anyone else, still thinking everything is a test to see if they should dispose of you or not.

And while you're aware your husband has a 'thing' for you or even 'love's' you, he's still an imposing figure, still a man who didn't blink twice at killing his own half-brother and would gladly kill one of his step-mothers just to see Roxana cry. So, really, despite your smiles directed at the blond and your sparse forms of 'affection' to your husband, you don't really accept what they show you. Because at the end of the day, you grew up in two very different environments and you are not meant to be here. Your definition of 'love' is vastly different from their own and while Roxana knows how healthy 'love' is supposed to be, it's been so long since she's received it properly. Meanwhile Dion has a hard time understanding it still.

The story has been changed enough. And you're not sure if it should change some more.

And maybe it's because of that you unknowingly refuse to see just how soft Dion Agriche is with others (no where by much, just by like 00.6% since they're not you. ) had become ever since you entered the scene. Because if you acknowledge it then you'll start to see him as a decent person - everything he is not.

Also Jeremy would literally crash any alone time you have with Dion out of both spite for him (he's too weak to fight him just yet + Roxana probably doesn't want them to fight and he's her #2 fan - Cassis takes 1st place and you 3rd.) And some werid younger brother like affection he has for you.

And Dion would definitely steal you away once the opportunity arises and if they were normal siblings he would stick his tongue out at Roxana but since they're traumatized af they just glare at each other so sharply it could cut skin. Proceeds to awkwardly show you affection that both makes you uncomfortable and feel some pity for him because damn, Maria and Lant are horrible parents. If he acts nice enough he might get a kiss on the cheek before you scamper away otherwise (from experience) a make out session you really shouldn't enjoy breaks out but he still gets cock blocked by someone OR you stop him once his fingers start to undo the strings on your dress or his kisses travel to your neck instead, and his excitement is very much noticeable via his actions and the budge in his pants he doesn't even bother trying to hide. Sure, he's very attractive. However, pushing the fact you're still wary and/or 100-80% scared of him aside, he's big and it hurt badly the first time and you really, really like having working reproductive parts and the ability to walk + your gut tells you that there's a chance he won't stop at one (1) round.

Every night you stay up questioning if you're actually in a coma and not reincarnated.

After all, why else would these people concern themselves with you? Why else would they start to get closer to you? Why else would Dion Agriche proclaim that he's your dog?

[silverselfshippingchaos]

I fucking HATE how the fandom treats m.ine. it's so bad 😭

[dunmesh]

okay i don't have anything smart to add i just genuinely love that these seemingly trivial jokes are actually an important part of his character. we see it throughout the entire manga, how he pushes aside his own frustration and discomfort to accommodate everyone else's and avoid needless confrontation- another example off the top of my head would be the barometz chapter in which he slowly gets frustrated with izutsumi but still tries his best to talk some sense into her calmly and soundly.

and in contrast, there are very few times he expresses his anger and hurt towards others, and it usually takes a lot for him to finally lose his patience and control.

i mean, even with kabru he tried to be polite despite the circumstances until the guy said the one thing that triggers an immense sense of shame, hurt and rage in laios. and you know, the manga does say it quite clearly early on. when we are introduced to namari and then to shuro, laios acts all friendly and shows his respect and trust in them despite how things ended between them, and everyone else gets frustrated with him for acting so strange- why are you the one who tries so hard to pacify the rest when you should be the angriest?

and they don't understand him. they don't know him well enough to be able to understand, but we as readers get to see during the manga that they aren't wrong to question him- he does, in fact, feel all those ugly emotions. and it's when the winged lion finally confronts him that we see to what extent these feelings he buried so deep go, and suddenly all those funny little moments where he sometimes pretends to be mr nice guy speak volumes about his character. honestly, ryoko kui is a master at using jokes in order to define important character traits and this one doesn't fail to amaze me.

and laios's hatred and rage and deep scars he can't get over aren't shown explicitly during most of these moments i mentioned before, but now you realize there are 26 years of emotional baggage to all of them and they sting. he is angry but he can't say shit, what difference would it make? it won't make his friends choose him instead of themselves when he needed them most, and it won't help his party get any farther. of course, this logic doesn't apply to them- they are absolutely allowed to get angry and it's fine to get mad at him, he can take that.

so after finishing the series it's so clear that he tries his best to avoid clashing with others not just due to the current circumstances and him needing to be a reliable leader but also because he knows that people don't even like him when he tries to show his good sides and hide all the rest, so who the hell would tolerate his rage and despair? who would stay after realizing that he is so deeply flawed he doesn't even like his own being?

but he does get mad. he can't help it, and sometimes it gets out of control and now everyone knows. and it's funny, isn't it? that most of those moments ended up bringing him closer to others. shuro admitting he is envy of him and actually becoming the friend laios thought he was all along, fighting for his sake and waiting for him to come back- believing in him even after he turned into a monster and searching for him the way he couldn't bring himself to do for falin when he learned of what became of her- or kabru being pushed to just let it all out because he couldn't bluff his way out of this one and get to laios any other way, so now they are even. they are both horribly honest with each other and they both choose to stay. a weird way of getting to know each other, but it is what it is.

it's simply... the more laios let himself just be, the deeper his relationships grew. and there's intimacy in being your ugly, weak and furious self around someone and them not leaving you. feeling safe enough to let it be known you are hurt and angry. and he knows that now, too.

[scarlettmurphy]

STARCROSSED +ੈ✩‧₊˚ LOGAN HOWLETT.

logan and y/n — where you are completely in love with a man older then your father by a good 100 years.. and whose in love with another.

- content warning age gap. nsfw. sh. angst. not really happy endings! pairings: older!logan howlett x xaiver!reader

spoiler: horrible yearning!

note this is my first piece of work so i hope it’s okay! i love logan sm i had to write something for him — and this is really angsty :) pls ignore if there’s any bad grammar! i’m a bit lazy rn, also with the timeline for this fic i have no idea when im going for. im saying 2000s-2010s just remember its a bit scrambled timeline wise cos i wanted my favs here!🤭 enjoy!

you hated when he was around. you couldn’t stand it anymore. your longing glances to him, the yearning looks you gave him which were never returned and only thrown back into your face when you saw how he was looking at jean the way you looked at him.. it had all been getting too much. at first you acted like it didn’t bother you and part of your school-girl crush deluded brain pretend you were just seeing things but as the weeks / months had passed you realised that was the furthest thing from the truth.

recently you couldn’t even bring yourself to glance at him because it hurt too much and that wasn’t even being dramatic, the aching feeling in your heart wasn’t worth getting a glimpse of his timeless beauty so every time he was around you bit down the urges swallowed your pride and acted as if he was nobody to you, just a good friend. a father figure, a teammate.

it felt rude at first, to you since you were the only one noticing it, how you just stopped all those little things you were doing but you couldn’t help it or stop yourself from being like that because it was too hard to deal with — loving someone so much with all your heart but you knew you couldn’t have them. you hated to admit it but it destroyed you and that little part of you right now was falling into a full blown rage as you sat on the sofa alongside logan and wade — charles, hank, scott and rogue being present in the room too.

“i just don’t get her.” scott said out, repeating the same line over again, still bitching about the fight him and jean had after they all got back from the mission — everyone could hear the screaming and scott’s harsh gaze when he entered the room just confirmed it all and the second,of course, logan asked a question after wade made a snarky comment that set off scott and he hadn’t stopped mansplaining it since.

“yea’ well certain people don’t.” logan gruffly spoke out as y/n couldn’t stop her eyes from moving over to him at his words, feeling a sense of hurt coarse through her like it usually did whenever he spoke about jean or implied her. everyone knew what logan’s comment meant and y/n could see how scott was biting his tongue, clearly pissed off like he always was around logan. for good reason.

the tension only grew worse when scott couldn’t help himself and made a comment right back at him, his eyebrows raised as he stood from his seat. charles attention turning right to scott instead of logan, “and what’s that supposed to mean, asshole?” scott spat out like his words were venom.

rogue rolling her eyes at his words as hank shared a little glance with y/n who was cursing the entire situation in her brain as she couldn’t stop herself from looking at logan — those very same feelings boiling in her body as she saw the way his mouth twitched and his jaw clenched. how protective he was getting over jean, a feeling y/n couldn’t help have been wishing for the past two years of knowing the man he would get like over her — sure in a friends way he might’ve done it before, at least that’s how she saw but it never like this.

y/n swore she could physically feel her heart aching.

“pretty sure you know what that means pal.” logan bit back harshly, his words falling to the same tone as scott’s did as scott scoffed at what he said as he bit back with full frustration as charles clearly wanted to get involved - a little grimance pictured on his face as y/n studied her fathers expression, him clearly knowing what jean meant to logan, as y/n looked away before her dad could catch her staring her eyes falling onto a pissed off scott who downed the drink he had in his hand, placing it on the table.

“she picked me.” was all scott needed to say as the weight in the room shifted heavily on logan’s end as everyone could see the way logan’s face dropped a little, that comment taking the little coy expression he had right away but y/n didn’t even bring herself to look, scott’s eyes taking her in as if he knew what she was feeling in this moment. his eyes meeting her own as y/n felt a lump form her throat — the tightness almost burning — as he tutted at how silent logan was before he walked out the room without another word.

with this the room fell silent. everyone knowing the feelings logan must’ve been harbouring right now, y/n especially, as she glanced over to him not expecting to be met with his brown eyes looking back at her as he took in her expression before he roughly got up without another word — going right over to the door.

chaeles couldn’t help himself as he spoke up firmly the second he watched logan head for the door, “logan—“

“just goin’ for a piss, wheels.” he roughly said back before the door shut right behind him.

“more like a bitchless weaping session.” wade couldn’t help say as he had left the room, hank and rogue not being able to help their little laughs from coming out as y/n bit down on the inside of her cheek limiting the feelings she was experiencing as much as she could before she stood up.

“—i’m going to shower.” y/n said out lowly, her words slipping out quickly as the others nodded or hummed in agreement, wades eyebrows furrowing as he clearly felt he knew more of the situation then the rest did but he kept that to himself.

“take some pics for me!” wade called back to her, earning a little look from charles as hank scoffed in reply.

— +ੈ✩‧₊˚

that shower was more like watching a re run of singing in the rain which y/n couldn’t help watch the entirety of for no specific reason before she eventually hoped in the shower. the faint sounds of her speakers being heard as she hummed along to the lyrics of the specific song as she felt the cold water glide down her naked body.

swallowing the pain-filled whimpers that were aching to escape her wet lips as she acted as if the water gracing against all those marks and burns on her skin wasn’t killing her inside despite her ‘little’ case of immortality. immortality sadly didn’t mean you never experienced pain and y/n was clearly the leading case proving that matter as she soon got out the shower after washing her hair and her body.

wrapping the towel around her dainty body as she took in herself in the mirror, the thoughts forming in her brain being within the ���self loathing’ category as she exited her bathroom. her face falling once she was met with the gruff expression on logans face which turned to one of shock as his eyes scanned over y/n immediately. him swallowing his own spit as y/n hands immediately wrapped around her towel just to make sure it wouldn’t fall.

“lo— shit, i didn’t know you were here.” she quickly managed out, her face a bright shade of red as she watched as logan didn’t move his gaze off her figure.

“—wait.” not a single word escaping his lips as y/n walked over to her bed where her clothes were laid out for her.

y/n’s breath was hitched and she swore she felt all the heat rush to her face as she took in the way logan was just staring at her as she grabbed her clothes with her other hand, taking a few steps back into the bathroom before she swiftly shut the door. her mind a mess as she quickly put on her pajamas before she sprung over to the mirror to double check her appearance before she walked back out to her bedroom.

logan being in the exact same place she had left him — not a single word had left his lips and his facial expression was the exact same as y/n nervously smiled at him.

“what are you doing— uh, here?” y/n asked him swiftly, her words rushed as she swore she could hear her heartbeat in her ears as she saw logan slowly seem to come back to reality, scratching the back of his neck as his lips parted as he tried to say something.

yet it took a little for something to come out as y/n swore she felt something growing in the air as logan finally spoke, his gruff tone a little knocked back then usual, “was coming here to bitch about scott. didn’t mean to see anything i shouldn’t have.”

his words sent a little chill through y/n’s spine as she managed a little smile on her lips, no matter how fake it was she still managed it, as she looked at him. his first words being all the confirmation her heart needed in this moment as she held back her feelings as she felt her heart tense.

“it’s okay.” y/n rolled out quietly, her attention falling over to her bed as she walked over to the foot off it — sitting down on the edge of the bed as logan stayed in place, his arms crossed as he leaned against the fireplace in her room now.

“so scott, you wanna bitch?” y/n trailed off into as logan looked out the window, seemingly lost in his thoughts as he shrugged his shoulders.

“nah, not anymore.” he said, his voice low as y/n took in his hush voice — his words only adding to the building up tension that was making the air thick as y/n looked at him. her eyes taking in every inch off him and how he looked, her mind wondering how he’d feel.. how’d he’d taste.

yet her thoughts were immediately cut short.

“—you seen jean about?”

his words were like a harsh hit round the face as she felt a lump for her in throat, her mind tingling a little as she glanced over to the door. she hated this, every inch of this. she wanted to scream, punch him in the face. confess right there and there at him but she didn’t. she couldn’t.

no matter how much it killed her inside. every second without him being like a gun shot to the heart as she plainly looked back at him, a soft smile growing on her face which was so fake it was indescribable as she nodded to her bedroom door.

“her room, i guess.”

her low words were enough to make anyone know she was hurt yet of course logan didn’t, or he didn’t show he knew as he gave her a playful wink.

“thanks bub.” he said with a nod as he went to walk out the room — his hand on the door when y/n heard his muttered words.

“sleep well y/n.”

his words fell into silence as y/n watched him leave, the door closing behind him being the utmost reminder of how her feelings will probably never be acknowledged. and that harsh reality left her alone in her bedroom for the entire night and with every toss and turn her mind was on one thing and one thing only. him.

— +ੈ✩‧₊˚

[obsessedwithceleste]

Til It’s Gone

Theodore Nott x reader

Based on this cute lil request 🤗

Summary: It seemed like they’d always been there. An ever-growing thorn in Theodore’s side. He really didn’t realize what he’d had until it was gone. (Happy ending I swear)

word count: 3.2k

©️ obsessedwithceleste. all works posted here belong to me and should not be reposted or copied in any way or form.

Theo let out a heavy sigh as he slumped into his seat, ignoring the cheery smile on your face as you turned to face him.

“Hi Theodore!” You chirped brightly, gaze landing on the tall brunette boy coming to sit next to you.

Salazar, here we go, Theo thought bitterly.

“Theo.”

“Right. Theo. How was your day?” You continued on, seemingly oblivious to his indifference as you scribbled mindlessly on your parchment.

Theodore wasn’t stupid. Quite the opposite in fact. He knew you liked him. That much you’d made rather obvious. Especially as of late. If saving him a seat everyday in this miserable class didn’t make it clear to everyone that you had a certain affection for the boy, then the notes dropped in his bag, or kisses blown from across the Great Hall certainly did.

The only reason Theo even accepted sitting next to you was because the seat was positioned perfectly to be just outside of Professor Binns’ field of vision, saving him the work of pretending to care about whatever topic the professor was rattling on about.

“I don’t see why you even put up with it all,” Mattheo often said. “Just reject them and move on with it.”

“Or at least stop sitting with them. You’re only encouraging them,” Enzo would add.

Yet, here he was, still sat lazily in the seat next to you. Theo didn’t particularly care that you fancied him to be quite honest. He’d gotten used to the same pattern of stoically ignoring your chatter, copying your carefully organized notes, and leaving. So long as you weren’t too annoying, he didn’t see the harm in sticking around. Besides it’s not like you weren’t easy on the eyes. And he supposed there was something to be said about the confidence with which you acted that set you apart from the general hoard of girls harboring similar feelings.

“Theo?”

Your voice snapped him out of his thoughts as he glances at you out of the corner of his eye.

“Fine.” He replied tersely before turning once more to stare blankly ahead.

He’d changed his mind. Absolutely not. This was horrible. At this point, Theo wasn’t even sure if you actually liked him, or were only claiming you did as an excuse to see how much you could embarrass him.

“Mate, this is getting to be Weaselette levels of weird,” Draco said as their group stared in horror at the third year who had approached them warily in the halls with a poem to read aloud in hand.

Theo visibly shuddered, remembering the awful valentine the youngest Weasley had sent Saint Potter a few years prior.

“Save everyone the embarrassment and walk away now, kid,” Draco told the boy. “Go on. Scram.”

The third year didn’t need to be told twice and quickly darted off, away from the group of Slytherin boys.

“It isn’t even 8am mate. Where does that girl get the time to do all this?” Enzo grumbles as they made their way into the Great Hall for breakfast.

Theo simply ignores his friend’s comments, something he was getting used to doing, as they all sat down at their usual table.

They’d all seemed to have an opinion on you as soon as it became apparent that you had developed a crush on him, and Theo had just about had enough of his friend’s seemingly endless comments regarding his not so secret admirer.

The familiar small parcel tied neatly with a white ribbon that sat waiting for Theodore in his usual spot didn’t go unnoticed, starting the whole thing up again.

“For Salazar’s sake Theo, do you not find it creepy?” Draco asks, eyeing the package.

Theo rolled his eyes at his dramatic friend.

“I don’t care. You all seem to be more interested in y/n’s little stunts than I am, and I’m the one they’re intended for. They’re harmless. Just leave it and they’ll probably get bored eventually.”

“Yeah, or they’ll just keep it up thinking you’re playing all hard to get or what not,” Mattheo snorts.

Theo just glares at his friend, stabbing a sausage with his fork. Just behind Matt’s head, seated at a table with your own friends, Theo sees you blow a kiss his way, winking cheekily.

“Aw, they growing on you? Who would’ve thought dark and broody would be into golden girl herself,” Mattheo teases, earning him a sharp kick from under the table.

“Morning Theodore,” you greet, as the brooding boy once again took his seat beside you, this time in potions.

“It’s Theo.”

“That’s what I said.”

You hear the boy let out a small snort and you smile to yourself. That was one of the biggest reactions you’d been able to get out of the boy.

Your friends often wondered why you so insistently pursued the grumpy Slytherin boy, despite his general apathy towards you, and honestly, it was as simple as the fact that you enjoyed the challenge.

It was like your own little game of cat and mouse. Constantly finding little ways to make the boy smile, even if he didn’t realize it was you. And the rush of excitement you got anytime you were able to elicit any sort of reaction from the boy was like a drug that kept you coming back for more.

You’d found that the best way to elicit such reactions was by staging little acts of public affection whether it be a kiss sent his way or an origami note perched on his desk. Each time, you could see the heat rise softly in the boy’s cheeks as he tried desperately to keep it at bay, sometimes even fighting back a small smile.

Today you had come to class a bit early in order to set up both you and Theo’s potion stations before the brown haired Slytherin arrived, taking extra care to gather enough ingredients for each of your potions. You weren’t even sure he realized that you were doing all this for him, but watching his satisfied smile as he brewed away made it worth it.

That was another thing you had grown to appreciate about the boy. While his friends were all rather light-minded and rowdy, his wit and level-headedness balanced out the group. Theo was smart, and didn't feel the need to make a point about it, flying under the radar of many of your classmates when it came to who had the best marks. Sure it was fun to tease the boy, but you also had a certain admiration for him that went deeper then the nonserious way you often conducted yourself around him.

The rest of the class passed in a sort of agreed upon silence as you worked on your potions. Of course you’d like to talk to Theo a bit, but you’d found he’d preferred the silence, usually not uttering more than a few words to you per class. It was something you could work on eventually you supposed.

“See you later Theodore,” you said brightly once you had finished gathering up your things. Joining your group of friends, you toss one last wave over your shoulder at the boy, smiling to yourself. He hadn’t bothered to correct you for once.

The last thing Theo expected while roaming the dusty shelves of the library was to hear his own name being whispered from deeper within the maze of books he was searching through. The library was where he went to escape his friend’s incessant gossip about the rest of the school’s population, yet he was interested in what was being said about him. He didn’t often venture outside his usual group of Slytherins, so he didn’t know exactly what he expected to hear.

Following the loud whispers, Theo stopped, looming in the shadows once he was able to make out the dark figures of students huddled in one of the many rows of books.

“Sure Theo might be one of the most attractive boys in our year, but his head is so far up his own arse, it’s a wonder he can see straight.” A voice practically snarled as its owner leaned lazily against one of the shelves.

Theo felt himself immediately tense. Is that what they thought now? His fists clenched as he refrained from crashing through the shelves to give these snots a piece of his mind.

“Honestly, being an arrogant prick isn’t something to be proud of. He’s just like every other Slytherin who makes being a pure blood their only personality trait.” Another voice adds.

“Oh fuck off you two.”

Theo’s ears perk up, surprised to hear your voice join the chatter.

“Please, like you’re one to talk y/n. You’re practically blinded by desperation. Theo Nott is an utter prat and he treats you like shit. Have some bloody self respect.”

“I’m not desperate, you git. And Theodore isn’t an arrogant prick. There’s nothing wrong with having a little bit of pride. It’s not like you see him going around bragging about how amazing he is. If you’re going to talk about arrogant pricks, talk about Cormac. Or Draco even.”

“Whatever. That still doesn’t excuse his behavior towards you. I don’t understand why you insist on embarrassing yourself when he clearly has no interest in you. But he’s too much of a coward to say anything.”

“Oh for the love of- Theodore doesn’t owe anyone anything. Me included. I do the things I do because I can and I want to, and quite frankly it isn’t anyone else’s business but my own. So why don’t you two get your heads out of your own arses and stop worrying about me, and stop worrying about Theodore.”

With that, Theo listened as your footsteps slowly got quieter as you stomped away, your words ringing in his head.

Theo had never been in love before. But in that moment, he was beginning to see the appeal. Fuck that was hot as hell.

For Theo, it all spiraled down from there as he finally began to see you. Really see you. And not just as some girl who had a silly crush on him.

It started with the notes. He hadn’t noticed before, but it wasn’t just him that you’d slip a note to in the hallway. After one particularly difficult transfiguration exam, Theo watched as you dropped a note with a chocolate candy attached into the bags of your friends.

Another day, he arrived to potions early to find you carefully setting up his station as he hovered in the doorway. After class, he didn’t rush out like he normally would and instead watched as you quietly slipped an extra copy of your notes to a student he knew struggled with the class.

And while you weren’t exactly blowing kisses to all of your friends across the Great Hall, Theo began to notice the way you didn’t hesitate to throw your arms around your friends, hugging them tightly when you got excited. Or grasping onto a hand as you wandered through Hogsmeade, arms swinging in carefree bliss.

It was about a month after Theo had begun his silent observations that he began to feel it. The slow pull away as your presence began to fade from his life. He almost didn’t notice at first. It had been about a week since he’d last found a note in his bag, or parcel waiting for him on his seat. You still smiled brightly at him if your eyes met from across the Great Hall, but now that he thought about it, Theo couldn’t remember the last time you’d blown a kiss his way.

It all came to a head the day Theo walked into History of Magic to see one of your friends sitting next to you in his usual seat, chattering away.

“Nice mate, they finally get the message?” Mattheo asks with a grin, elbowing him in the ribs.

Theo remained silent as he followed his friend to a seat in the back, eyes not leaving the spot where he should be sitting.

It continued on like this for what Theo thought was eternity. Salazar he missed you. Weeks passed filled with sleepless nights where he would stare at the ceiling contemplating where he had gone wrong. At the very beginning really, he thought dryly, remembering his initial feelings of agitation and annoyance. He wished he could go back and give himself a good smack upside the head.

The day Theo passed you in the hall and you didn’t even spare him a passing glance was the day Theo finally broke.

“Lorenzo.” He said, slamming the door of their dormitory open, startling his roommate.

“Theodore?”

Theo glares at the use of the name.

“You’re the romantic type. How do I do it?” Theo asked as he stomped his way over to his bed.

With a bemused look, Enzo swings around to look at his roommate, wondering if one of the ghosts had somehow possessed him.

“You want to know. How to do romance?” Enzo asks slowly, not fully believing he’d heard his friend correctly. Theo was probably one of the most emotionally detached people he’d ever met.

“Yes. Y/n. I want to make it up to her.”

"I thought we didn't like her?" Enzo said, growing more concerned for his friend's mental state by the minute.

"We didn't. But now we do, and I want to make things right."

Enzo blinked. Oh this was not going to be easy.

As you sat in the court yard with a group of your friends, textbooks in hand as you attempted to study for the charms test the next day, your eyes flickered momentarily as a sea of green wandered by. Quickly you look away before your eyes could meet Theo’s and you try to turn your attention back to your friend’s idle chatter.

It had been what? A month since you’d stopped actively seeking out the boy’s attention. Maybe more. And you missed him. His sarcastic smiles and pretty eyes that seemed to be fixed in a permanent glare.

But you were also tired. Mostly tired of the snarky comments. “Have some self respect.” “So desperate.” The voices of your classmates echoed in your head, and eventually you began to draw back. You knew he’d noticed. You’d seen his eyebrows furrow in confusion that day you’d let your friend sit beside you in class. A pang of guilt washing over you. But it’s not like he showed any signs of wanting things to go back to the way they were. So you simply stayed away. Maybe that’s what he’d wanted all along.

Your thoughts followed you as you eventually made your way back to your dormitory, wanting nothing more than to wrap yourself up in a warm blanket and disappear. As you approach your bed however, you make out something that definitely wasn’t there when you’d left that morning. A gorgeous bouquet of little white flowers wrapped in thick brown paper, tied off with a silky emerald green ribbon. Stamped on the corner of one of the brown folds, the letters TN shown at you in gold curls.

“Oh those are beautiful!” Your roommate gasps when she sees the flowers. “Lily of the valley! Those can symbolize renewal ya know. Usually they’re given as like, an apology of sorts, or if someone wants to start over.” She tells you. Ever the herbology buff. “Who are they from?”

A smile grows on your lips as her words sink in and you press the flowers close to your chest.

“Just a special friend,” you reply.

After all the months of Theo's coldness towards you, you'd never quite allowed yourself to truly believe the boy would ever return your affection, but maybe things were beginning to look up.

Over the course of the next several days, you begin to notice little things that had Theodore’s name written all over them.

After the charms exam the following day, you find a note of encouragement written in Theo’s familiar scrawl dropped in your bag along with a bag of your favorite toffees. How he’d managed to get it there without you noticing was beyond you.

There were little things too. Your stations in herbology and astronomy were always set up and waiting for you when you walked into class. The book on ancient runes that you’d been searching for showed up on your bedside table. (You weren’t sure how he was doing that either, but you weren’t about to question it.) And there always seemed to be a comfortable smirk on Theodore’s face whenever your eyes wandered over to where he sat with his friends, eyes seemingly boring into you.

Now, you sat quietly in your own little nook of the library, quill in hand as you scribbled away at your ancient runes essay, the book Theo left you being quite helpful.

You were happy he'd found his way back into your life, happier still that he was actually making a point to be included in your life.

“You don’t mind do you?” A voice asks, startling you and causing ink to splatter against the parchment.

With shocked eyes, you look up to see Theodore standing next your table as if your thoughts had summoned him there. He sets his books down, frowning at your now ruined paper.

With a flick of his wand, the mess is gone.

“Sorry bout that,” he mutters, sitting down across from you.

You blink, not entirely convinced you’re not hallucinating.

“You know, I remember you being much more talkative,” he says, a sly smirk reaching across his face as you realize you’ve yet to say anything to the boy.

“I remember you being significantly less talkative,” you blurt out before quickly covering your mouth with your hand in horror.

To your relief, the boy in front of you lets out a low laugh.

"Fair enough. See you've been liking the book," he says, gesturing towards the open text.

"Oh yeah, I've been meaning to say something, thank you."

"Don't worry bout it. I never said thank you for all the things you did. Probably should've." He replies, looking down as he pulls out his own quill and parchment. "I am sorry by the way."

"For?" You ask, head tilting to the side in curiosity.

"Everything. Or for doing nothing is probably more accurate," he says, flipping open his text book.

You can tell that he's nervous as he fidgets with the corners of the book's pages, and you desperately want to ease the tension between the two of you.

A moment of silence passes between the two of you as you debate whether or not to say anything more, or go back to your essay. Finally, you look up at the boy that you had been chasing after for all these months, and remind yourself that he had actually been the one to go through all the trouble of seeking you out tonight.

Gathering your courage, you open your mouth to speak. "Theodore?"

"Yes, Bella?" he replies, eyes carefully following the lines of next.

"Would you like to join me in Hogsmeade this weekend?"

His eyes snap up at this, and you see the familiar hint of red make it's way into his cheeks once more.

"Only if I can have my seat back in History of Magic." The boy replies.

"I think I can have that arranged."

Hi hi hi! I hope this lives up to all of your hopes and dreams, anon 🫶🏽

[qqueenofhades]

I just feel like even if we all vote and Biden wins, Trump won't accept the loss, and eventually they'll just put him in anyway. And then there won't be another real election. Even if Biden wins and somehow is actually confirmed (which again, I think is unlikely) we're going to have to do this for 30 more years because of the SC, and that isn't at all sustainable.

All this isn't to say I won't vote but I just think people are being way too optimistic about what happens if Biden wins. I don't think him winning will keep Trump out or the horrible fascist future at bay.

Look, I get the fear. I do, I do... but this is also one of the times when you have to ask if it's actually telling you something true, or if it's just preying on that generalized feeling of doom to make everything seem hopeless even if we win again. And that is... there is absolutely no actual mechanism for Trump to be installed as president if Biden wins the Electoral College (since as we have repeatedly seen, the popular vote is immaterial). SCOTUS is horrible and evil and are trying to interfere as much ahead of time for Trump as they can, but part of that is because they can't simply issue an order for Biden to be removed and Trump to become God King By Fiat. That is not how it works. If Biden wins in November, he will be president until his term ends, he steps down, Kamala takes over, or anything else.

Trump tried a coup with all the entire overwhelming might of the US government as the sitting president last time; fortunately, it failed. Reforms to the Electoral Count Act have been made to prevent another January 6. The Department of Defense and the military are still under (and would be on another January 6) Biden's command, not Trump's. That's not to say that Trump won't try some shit with his insane cult followers, but he is just a late 70s conman from Queens out on bail and under sentence for a criminal trial, who is already the biggest and most disgraced loser and asshole in American political history. He is so desperate to cheat his way back into power because in a real sense, this IS the last-chance saloon for him. He can't put off the legal proceedings, however long they take, for another four years. He's losing his marbles at a rapid rate. I'm just saying: we don't know what or when, but there will be (and already have been) real consequences for him. That is why he is scrabbling so hard.

"Even if we vote, nothing matters and Trump will win anyway" is another of those insidious lies that works to make you feel as if the battle is endless and pointless and none of its victories matter. Of course it will not all be magically fixed forever if Biden wins. We will still have to figure some godforsaken fucking way to expand SCOTUS or kick Alito and Thomas off it. But we will have bought ourselves, our democracy, our country, and the world time to do that, and put another nail in Trump's coffin. That matters. It matters a lot.

Fascism wants to present itself as overwhelming, irresistible, inevitable, and ready to happen no matter what you do, and that's what your brain wants you to buy in now. But that's not the case, Trump is not inevitable or some all-powerful monolith (in fact, another of the debate takeaways seemed to be that Biden looked bad but people still hate Trump too much for it to really shift anything). He is a loser, a fraud, a conman, a liar, and a crook, and he WANTS you to fear him like an almighty god. Don't give him or the MAGAGOP the satisfaction.

Frankly, having to endure another four months of this might kill us all, and I know that we are tired and scared (me too). But IT IS NOT INEVITABLE THAT WE ARE DOOMED. Not at all. Let's hang onto that and tell that anxiety doom voice to shove it.

Hugs.

[pencil-n-pen]

SPILL YOUR GUTS

˚₊‧꒰ა . ——— ˗ˏˋ ✮ ˎˊ˗ ——— ˖ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

practice boyfriend! eddie x fem! reader

summary: eddie’s your practice boyfriend. you’re positive he’s upset at you and you’re waiting for him to get mad. however, he has a different response in mind.

cw: references/allusions to past child abuse but extremely vague, references/allusions to bad relationships (also pretty vague), reader acts on a learned response and assumes the worst about Eddie, anxiety

tags/tropes: angst, hurt/comfort (my brand!) sappy sappy romantic idiots, they kiss and figure their mess out at the end

a/n: this came to me in a vision

summary makes this sound smutty but i promise it’s not. this accidentally became disgustingly romantic. read at your own risk :)

࣪˖ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ˖

You’re positive Eddie’s mad at you.

Okay. Maybe positive is a strong word. But still.

You’ve only been fake/pretend/practice dating Eddie for about two weeks now. He’s the one who approached you with the offer— when you were in the Upside Down together, you’d made an off-hand comment about how you might die without ever having a real boyfriend- not one that mattered, anyway. It’s always kind of been a sore spot for you for a good portion of your life. Growing up, you didn’t really have the best relationship with your dad (Robin likes to call that “The understatement of the year, and we almost died.”) and out of the incredibly small handful of guys you’ve gone out with, none stuck around longer than a month and all ended in such equally, specifically, and uniquely horrific ways, you finally came to the conclusion you had to be fucking something up. What are the chances of all them ended so completely horribly?

After you all had decidedly not died in the Upside Down, Eddie approached you with an offer: pretend date him. You’re popular and well known enough that it’ll help get people off his back about the whole Chrissy/murders thing —even though he’s been absolved of all charges, the people of Hawkins hold grudges— and in exchange, you get a trial run of a relationship that won’t end unless you both agree too— you get to figure out what you’re doing wrong.

You feel bad about it, because even though you spend so much time together, you feel like a nervous wreck. All. The. Time.

You’re constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop— waiting for him to tell you that you’re too weird, that you’re not considerate enough, that you’re selfish, or that you talk too much.

But he never says any of it. All he ever tells you is the good things. He tells you how sympathetic you are, how kind you are, how good you are at remembering little details that matter. He tells you that you’re a good kisser.

(Yeah. Your first kiss, even after those failed relationships, ended up being with Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson. You’re not quite sure you’ll ever forget how you felt when his lips —just a little cracked, but not rough— met yours; when his hair tickled your face and you could faintly smell the cigarette smoke that stubbornly clings to all of his clothes, no matter how many times he washes them. You didn’t tell him he was your first. That’s something you decided you couldn’t bear to share.

You kind of have a feeling he knows anyway, though.)

It all sets you on edge. You’re under no reassurance that you’re perfect. You’re currently questioning if you’re tolerable, from a romantic standpoint.

You know how you are. You’re clinging and you drink up reassurance like a dying man in the desert. You linger in his casual touches like it’s the first and last time you’ll ever feel them. You know you’re a lot. You know. You know that guys in a relationship don’t want ‘a lot’, they want a pretty thing to hang off their arm and laugh at what they say.

But you just… can’t.

You tried, and you tried, and you tried. But you always ended up being too much, or it didn’t work out for some other reason. You want more. You want to feel safe, and happy, and cherished and loved and all those things that only happen in the movies.

The ironic part of all of this is that when you first started setting out terms for your arrangement, Eddie had told you flat out: “This will only work if you are completely and one-hundred percent yourself. You gotta lay it all on me, angel.”

And so you had, and now you regret it because he’s upset about something.

You’d come over to his trailer at his request to ‘hang out’ while he went over DND stuff for his next campaign. Eddie does this a lot— he calls them ‘Neutral Dates’ where you’re not really doing anything in particular- most of the time, you’re both doing seperate things, but still just being in each other’s presence.

It’s nice. The majority of your friend circle consists of everyone involved with the Upside Down and that entire mess. You two are no Steve and Robin (you’re convinced those two have the kind of bond no one can replicate or break. Like the kind of bond stray cats get and then they have to be adopted together) but it’s still nice. To just be with someone.

Even if you feel like you’re walking on eggshells.

It’s not always eggshells. Sometimes, for a a few moments, you forget. You forget it’s all pretend. You forget he’s just a friend helping a friend fulfill a goal. That’s all.

You’ve almost forgotten just now, too— you’re too concerned about what you might’ve done.

He’s not acting angry, per-se, but he’s definitely upset. You tend to pick up on this kind of thing: small changes in someone’s personality or body language. Most of the time it’s not a conscious habit.

Most of the time.

Right now, he’s run his hands through his hair about a million times. It’s become a frizzy mess behind him, and when you’d made an offhand joke about it —an attempt to lighten the mood— all he’d done was scowl. Not at you, really, but the message was there. You’d snapped your jaw shut so fast you’re pretty sure he heard your teeth click.

After that he’d frustratedly made tea for the both of you, which consisted of opening the cupboards faster than he usually did, closing them slightly louder than he usually does, and drumming his fingers impatiently on the stove-top while he waited for the kettle to boil.

All of this you observed from the corner of your eye while ‘reading’ on the couch.

And if all of that wasn’t bad enough, when you’d finally mustered up the courage to speak again, a little joke about a part in the book you were reading, all he’d said was a flat:

“That’s great, babe.”

You’re starting to get antsy. Nervous. Maybe you should go? Unless he gets upset at you leaving. That would be bad. But he’s clearly upset with you being here, so maybe you should go.

While you’re debating the pros and cons of leaving, you try to remain as still and silent as possible. No need to upset him anymore by moving too much or being too loud.

You flip a page in the book you’re no longer reading (he might notice you’re not paying attention to it anymore) and decide to test the waters again.

“The author just spelled restaurant wrong. That’s the third spelling mistake I’ve caught in this book.”

“Hmm.”

Okay. So that was worse. Talking to him is out of the question, then. It must be something you did, to warrant this kind of reaction.

You wrack your brain, trying to think of anything you could’ve done in recent hours to make him upset, but you can’t think of anything.

You glance slightly to the right— not far enough that he’ll see you looking at him, but far enough to get a better look at him in your peripheral. He’s glaring down at his campaign notebook. Shit, he looks so angry.

Unbidden, tears begin to well in your eyes and you try to shift, trying to angle yourself away from him enough that he can’t see the tears in your eyes.

But your hand shifts, knocking into his leg.

Fuck. “Sorry!”

You yank you arm back as if burned, jolting back on the couch so you’re in no danger of touching him. “I’m sorry!”

He sits up, immediately snapping to attention at the desperation coloring your voice. “Woah woah, hey. Hey, what’s going on? Are you okay?”

You take a steadying breath. “Did I do something wrong?”

He blinks blankly at you. Oh shit, you’re supposed to know that you’ve done something wrong.

“I mean,” You hurry to correct, “I know I— Can you tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it?”

Understanding floods his features and you brace yourself, ready for the reprimand.

“Can I touch you?”

Now it’s your turn to stare with confusion. You nod once, briefly thinking about how weird it is to ask for permission first.

He sits up on the couch, facing you with his legs crossed, the couch springs squeaking loudly at his movement. You resist the urge to wince. He reaches out with a slow hand, taking the hand that’s still clenched, held away from him and up near your chest.

He stares down at your hand, holding it with his left hand and tracing delicate shapes on it with his right. His ringed fingers drag lines around your knuckles and veins, lingering occasionally over the odd, old scar.

“How long did you think I was upset with you?”

Your heart is racing, muscles tensed and ready to bolt. “Um. A few hours? Maybe?”

You’re hyper-aware of the grip he has on your hand, and how quickly and easy it could become crushing.

It doesn’t.

“Bug,” He says slowly after a moment. At first he used to use pet names as a joke— it was something you’d laugh at, between the two of you, since the relationship wasn’t real.

But recently, he’s been saying them with a different inflection in his tone. A little less teasing, a lot more fond.

“Have you spent the past few hours afraid that I was mad at you?”

He sounds… sad. Which is confusing. It doesn’t— he was. He was.

“But you were,” You say, suddenly unsure about anything and everything. “You were upset.”

“I was upset because I couldn’t work this part of the campaign out, and i’m dramatic. I was never mad at you, honey. I was never mad at you.”

You frown, gears turning in your head. “When I made that joke about your hair, you glared at me. And then when I tried to talk to you, you were upset. You didn’t want to talk.”

“I was jokingly glaring at you, I’m so sorry you thought I was serious. I wasn’t, I promise. I didn’t mean to be dismissive, I was really focusing on writing.”

You’re both silent for a moment. A beat too long. You want to squirm in the unwelcome space the silence has created.

“What did you think I was going to do?”

That is a loaded question.

“I don’t know,” You pick at a loose thread on the couch cushion. “I don’t— I don’t know. That’s the problem. You don’t yell at me, or get angry, or tell me when i’ve made you upset. I don’t know what you’ll do.”

He makes a wounded noise in his throat.

“I know you get angry,” You bulldoze on, “I’ve seen it. You’re so… loud, in everything you do. I know you get angry. But you never get that same kind of loud angry at me and I don’t know what to do because that means that I upset you and you don’t tell me about it and then I don’t know how to fix it. I have to fix it, Eddie.”

His eyes, deep and brown, search your face. He reaches up a hand, painfully slow, to cup your face. Your eyelids flutter shut, and you tip your head to the side, leaning into the job.

“I’m gonna tell you something, Bug. Are you listening?” He waits for you to hum in confirmation before continuing. “You’re not responsible for my moods. Or anyone else’s for that matter. That’s not your job. You don’t have to fix it.”

He reaches his second hand up to cup the other side of your face. “You know why I don’t get angry at you? Not all loud and dramatic like that? Because I’ve seen how you react when people do. And I never, ever want to be the reason you get that look in your eye. I never want to make you afraid. I never want you to believe, with proof and confidence, that I’ve grown sick of you.”

You open your eyes, eyes darting across the planes of his face. Searching for even the smallest hint, the smallest giveaway that he might be lying.

You can’t find any. In its place, you find eyes, shining with pure determination. You find lips parted ever so slightly, a sad-sort of smile being etched into being. You find two hands on your face, thumbs delicately sweeping across the skin of your under-eye, of your cheekbone. Smoothing away the steady tears that had begun falling, wiping away the hot trails they leave on your face.

And you realize all at once that love isn’t like the movies. It isn’t picture-perfect kisses. It isn’t ball gowns and dresses and kisses in the rain. It isn’t like the love you thought you were supposed to have: empty and hollow; a life of hanging off of arms and praying your next slip-up didn’t cost you your relationship.

It was this.

It was just being. Just being and knowing the other person is there for just that— for you. It was not raising your voice. It was carrying extra hair-ties. It was making two cups of coffee. It was steeping tea for an extra couple of minutes, just the way he liked it. It was playing your favorite music in the car, and looking over at each other during the bridge, belting the lyrics with the same, toothy-smile. So full and so happy you just keep screaming the lyrics, because you’re filled with so much you don’t know where to put it all.

Your tears begin to fall in earnest now. Your heart is thudding in your chest, but for a different reason now. You’re struck with the need to convey all of this to him— to tell him you understand, you know, you feel the same.

“These hair ties,” You shove your wrist up to his eye-line. “They’re for you. Because you always forget your own. And— and I steep the tea for a few extra minutes, because you like your tea strong, and you didn’t just find that tape in your van, I bought it ‘cause I know you lost the old one in the Upside Down, ‘cause it felt out of your pocket.”

You’re babbling, nearly choking on your tears and your words, rushing them all out of your mouth in an aching wish to be understood, in this very moment.

“I know,” He says, voice a little hysteric and eyes a little too bright. His lip wobbles. He presses your face tighter in his hands. “I know. I know. I see you. I see you.”

You stay like that for a little while. At some point, your hands find his wrists, and then you’re just two fools, smiling like idiots with tears streaming down your faces, staring into each others eyes.

Eventually, Eddie clears his throat. “The next time you think I’m upset at you, you tell me, okay? You can ask. You can ask me and I pinky promise I won’t get mad.”

You giggle wetly. “Pinky swear?”

“Pinky swear,” He says, taking his left hand away from your face to hold up his pinky. You intertwine yours and his together, the both of you laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.

He gets quiet for a moment; removes his hands from your face and instead clasps, your hands together, resting in your lap.

“You know why I never tell you when you’re being a bad practice girlfriend?” He says, his voice low and soft.

“How come?”

He smiles, full and good. “Because you’re not. You’re so sweet and kind and loving. And if you’d let me, I’d really like to kiss you right now.”

You furrow your brows. “The real kind? The I-love-you kind?”

Your face flushes over the words ‘I love you.’

“I’ve always kissed you for real,” He says, words laden with fondness. “Ever since the day we met and you slapped the shit out of me for being stupid. I’ve been hopelessly obsessed ever since. I’ve just been waiting for you to notice.”

You suck in a breath. “So all of this— the, the dates and the hanging out and the kissing— that’s all been real?”

“Every last bit.”

“Then in that case,” You say, squeezing his hands. “I would very much like you to kiss me.”

He leans in, slotting your lips together and everything just clicks. Like this is where you’re meant to be. Maybe it’s puppy love. Maybe it’s not.

All you know is that Eddie Munson is kissing you for real, and he always has been. You couldn’t ask for anything better.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

[avocado-writing]

being the worst wolverine’s wife and one day you get zapped by the TVA for whatever reason, and it looks like you completely disappeared, this is what leads logan to become depressed, start drinking and ultimately ignore the x men when they die etc etc

he goes with wade purely bc he would if you were alive- he couldn’t give less of a shit about wade’s universe but he can feel you over his shoulder like an angel telling him he needs to do this (i imagine it’s like the jean hallucinations he had in the wolverine movie)

what if you’re in the void and he finds you with the rest of the group, like being unable to believe you’re really here?

hehe i love angst and ily avo <3

I already did a “Logan meets you in the void” fic here so I didn’t wanna make this too long or I’d just end up hitting the same beats!

1.4k. rated m for excessive use of the word “fuck”

The day you disappeared you took his fucking soul with him. 

You had been out shopping. Nothing weird about that, he wasn’t some overbearing husband who demanded to know your location every single hour. But then afternoon had turned into evening had turned into night and nobody had heard from you. The unfamiliar sensation of panic had risen, queasy, from his stomach into his chest. They sent out a search party and looked for days. Not a trace of you to be found. Logan couldn’t smell you. Fuck, he’d never not been able to smell you before.

He would hunt for you every day, hoping to find you alive but trying to level with the idea of you being cold and dead because at least then he’d have closure; he’d stay awake for hours on end until he collapsed from exhaustion… then he’d wake up and repeat the whole horrible affair. Nothing. After weeks of searching, Charles had laid a hand on his arm. Logan can still remember the look of pity on his face, like a bomb to the gut. 

“I’m so sorry, Logan.”

They had to assume you were abducted and killed. Your body never turned up. And Logan just had to… keep going. How was he meant to keep going? You were his entire fucking life and then you were just…

Gone. 

To say he was left empty was the biggest understatement of his fucking life. He was a shell of the man he once was. He never laughed any more, never smiled, always trying to plug the hole your absence left in him with whatever alcohol he could get his hands on. Drink himself to a place where he could forget you.

It never really worked. At least it made him numb to the pain though. 

When he staggers home one evening, eyes bleary and head spinning, and finds the whole mansion torched? Everyone left that he loved fucking dead? Well, it takes the last vestiges of his existence and crushes them into dust. 

Oh, Logan, he hears in the back of his mind. Your voice. It breaks him. He falls to his knees, hands buried in the burning timbers, and wails. 

He survives. He does not live. Thinking about everyone he’s lost, with you haunting the corners of his consciousness, always reaching out to comfort him - but when he goes to nuzzle into the warmth of your palm he is overcome with rage and bitterness to find it’s just his own imagination playing tricks on him. 

Then a fucking idiot in red dragged him away from the shambles which was his life and forced him to be functional again, if only barely. He’s angry, so angry all of the goddamn time, even when in the back of his mind he can hear you speaking sweet, calming words to him. 

And then he hears your voice for real. 

Sees you standing across the base this pathetic resistance has made. You look older, sure, he does too - but there’s no mistaking the fire in those eyes. You’re even wearing the same fucking shirt you went missing in, he remembers it, it has a picture of your favourite band. 

His heart stops dead in his chest as you whisper his name. 

“Logan?”

“Oh shit!” says Wade, and Logan has never wanted to kill him more, “Oh shit! Is this your refrigeratored wife, coming back to throw in a third act character arc?”

Logan finishes the bourbon bottle and throws the empty at Wade’s head, where it shatters and knocks him flat. You wince at the violence and he feels like pure shit. 

“I’m fine,” Wade calls from the ground, sticking a thumbs-up into the air. 

“Logan, I…” you clearly want to say something, but you have not been met with the Logan you knew. That Logan would have spent no time running to pick you up and hold you in his arms. This one half-snarls at the man he bloodied on the floor. 

There is an agonising silence, both of you wanting to speak but not being sure how. You take a hesitant step forward. 

“I never thought I’d…”

“How do I know it’s you?”

You recoil like he’s stabbed you with his claws, confusion and hurt flooding your face. Goddamn. He is the worst man alive. He’s not sure if he’s saying it because he just wants to lash out at the nearest person, or…

… or if, because he gets his hopes up, it might just kill him to have them crash down again. 

“What?”

“All these fuckin’ timelines. How do I know? How can I be sure that you’re you?”

The sadness in your face melts away into anger. When you step forward this time, you’re on the warpath. He sees the others in the room cringe, trapped now in this caustic reunion. 

“How can you be sure it’s me? Fuck, Logan, I knew it was you, didn’t I? What do you want? You want me to show you the shitty tattoo I got after we first started dating and we were both drunk?” You lift your sleeve to reveal a little design on your shoulder. “Want me to tell you how an eighteen-year-old Marie was my bridesmaid and she cried because she didn’t think anyone would ever be that kind to her after living as a mutant again? Want me to fucking remind you that in my vows I said I would be by your side, for fucking ever, no matter what - and how when that TVA agent zapped me when I was out for the day and I ended up here, it was only the thought of fulfilling those vows which kept me going? How about all that, or do I fucking need to humiliate myself more?” At this, you gesture to the others who have lined up at the side of the room, trying to look scarce but utterly failing. 

Your shoulders are heaving with emotions, tears hot and heavy in your eyes but not yet spilling over. Logan grits his jaw. Yeah. It’s you. 

“I…” he starts, but trails off when he realises there’s nothing he can say. You shake your head, numb. 

“Fuck you, Logan Howlett,” you spit, words you’ve never ever thrown his way before, and run out of the room. 

“Wow. Aced that one, peanut,” says Wade, and Logan rips off one of his legs. 

He finds you several hours later at a campfire outside the rundown building which makes up headquarters. LeBeau has clearly been kind enough to part with some of his liquor, because you’re gulping down whiskey like it’s air. You stare at him, embers dancing in bitter eyes. 

“What do you want?” you snap. He grunts as he sits down opposite you, either from age or exertion. Stares into the flames. 

“I never stopped looking,” he manages. 

You blink. 

“What?”

“I never…” he shifts uncomfortably. It’s been a long time since he bared this much of his soul. “I never stopped. Even when the others told me to give up, that I would only make it worse for myself, I’d still search. Couldn’t face the idea you weren’t there any more.”

It’s true. If he was twelve bottles deep he’d be looking, if he was hungover as a dog he’d be looking. When the rest of the X-Men were still there and even after they weren’t. If he wasn’t sitting at a bar he was on the streets, ever a bloodhound trying to catch your scent again. 

For the first time you soften. 

“Oh.”

“So… when I asked if it was you… ah, fuck. I didn’t mean to come off as an asshole. Just couldn’t live with it if it wasn't true. Wasn’t real.”

When you stand he expects a slap. He deserves it. What he doesn’t count on is you sitting down - not on the log next to him, but in his lap. He hasn’t felt you do that for so long, and it’s so good. Your warmth on his thigh. You grab one of his hands, still larger than yours, and press it to your chest so he can feel your beating heart. 

“I’m real, Logan. I’m right here, baby,” you whisper, eyes dewy. Fuck. His are as well; he can’t help it. He’s overwhelmed by you, your feel, your gaze, your smell. He’d forgotten how much he loved it. 

Logan noses upwards against you, searching for your lips, and you let him find them. When you stroke his hair he can feel the wedding ring on your left hand. The kiss is desperate, longing, and the best one he’s ever had. 

“Right here,” you repeat, forehead against his. He grips you so tightly that it’s possible he’ll never let go again. 

[avelera]

Man, there’s all these little beats in OFMD S2 1-3 where people keep EXPECTING Stede to be upset or horrified about Ed’s actions and then he’s just. Not. In a way that reminded me of how a lot of fanon kept softening Stede into someone who doesn’t swear and is horrified at Ed for setting those ships on fire when imo to my eyes he was horrified for Ed because Ed was still so clearly distressed about it.

- Zheng Yi Sao asks Stede how he’s doing now that he knows Ed did horrible things to his crew and there’s this beat and Stede just pivots to, oh yeah, sometimes Ed is troubled. Like it didn’t occur to him to be upset on the crew’s behalf he’s worried about Ed.

- Izzy keeps trying to spare Stede’s feelings and cover up Ed’s spiral, but Stede clocked what was going on with Ed immediately and wasn’t the least bit intimidated or bothered. The knives brought the room together. Of course Ed’s trying to burn the world down or die trying. Duh. And I genuinely don’t think the STUFF in the Revenge mattered even a fraction to Stede as much as the signs of Ed’s breakdown broke his heart. It’s just STUFF, who cares.

- Lucius had to SPECIFICALLY call out Stede for not being surprised or bothered by what happened to him. What Ed did. Stede has to almost consciously remind himself to express polite concern. He just doesn’t actually care, instinctively or automatically, about what happened to Lucius. Part of it is he blames himself more than Ed. Part of it is he just doesn’t care, Ed is the priority.

They’re little blink and you’ll miss it pauses in some cases. Micro-expressions. The absence of a reaction. But honestly, I will scream it to the end of time, Stede is not some nonviolent creampuff scared or upset by Ed’s evil ways. He wants to join Ed in the atrocities. The man ran away to become a pirate. He asked if Lucius was taking notes during a murderous raid.

Stede’s at least a little on some kind of whackadoodle pirate comedy neurodivergence spectrum to the point where he actually really actually struggles to empathize with people, even people he cares about!, if their feelings conflict with his hyperfixation (piracy) and the love of his life (Ed Teach). He’s always, ALWAYS going to pick Ed over Lucius or Izzy or his crew or even his own feelings, if the option is there. He will literally throw himself overboard to get to Ed’s side. No pause. No consideration of anyone else or even his own safety.

Stede sometimes seems to have to consciously remind himself things like, oh yeah, the crew, I need to see to them. Not because he’s heartless or doesn’t care, but because it takes a bit of conscious effort for him to see beyond the laser-focused spotlight of what and who he does care most about, he has to remind himself of social niceties and other people’s feelings (just see him running away in the first place!) when he gets an idea in his head. It’s as if he had to train himself to consciously care about some things other people care about and as a neurodivergent person myself, that felt very familiar in a comedically writ large sort of way. I’d even argue that’s where all his aristocratic social niceties come from. They were his guidebook for how to do things “right” in a world that otherwise made no sense to him outside his hyperfixations. He practiced being a person through the aristocratic training because it was all so foreign to him from the start, including caring, actually caring, about the needs of others. Not because he’s consciously evil or consciously a jerk. The instinct just isn’t there unless he practices at it until it becomes reflex to ask how others are doing, because on his own his brain just doesn’t really notice or care.

I just… hope the fandom notes and has as much FUN as I do noticing all the little moments where even people inside the story of OFMD expect Stede to act in a normal way and instead he remains unhinged, laser-focused on Ed.

Stede’s not just an Ed apologist, he truly doesn’t blame Ed for any of it. He blames only himself. He doesn’t always voice this but he really really only cares about anyone else including the crew as a DISTANT second and he has to consciously REMIND himself to do so. He is able to rally to take action, to care about their physical needs like safety during the rescue, but he still struggles, deeply struggles, to remember to show empathy in a non-performative way for anyone except his special person, Ed.

Stede’s not a creampuff, not a nice guy, not some emotionally or morally perfect angel. He has to consciously practice caring about literally anything else but what he wants to do and his special person. And to me that’s a thousand times more interesting than shoving him in a box labeled “the blond, pacifist do-gooder good guy” in their relationship.

[landopoet]

devotion.

pairing teammate!lando x sainz!reader

warnings smut, alcohol mentions

synopsis things change between you and your teammate. you’re not sure if it’s a change you like.

part two of a two part series

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Clandestine meetings soon became you two’s most trusted secret.

The gentle touches, quiet whispers, longing glances and warm smiles were something you had grown to love. And your favourite part about it being secret? It was all about you.

In public, you’d pay no mind to Lando. During races, you’d still act like you hate him, still try and cause trouble on the track. But in private, where the only set of eyes on you were the green irises of the man you love, you’d be the centre of attention.

Lando’s hands wouldn’t touch you the same way in public as they do in the enclosed space of his driver room, hotel room, or your home. And that excited you.

You liked being secret. It was something sacred just between the two of you.

You liked it so much, you started to hate it. Maybe it was just the fact that Lando took you being a secret a bit too far. Or maybe it was just his way of hiding your relationship, if you’d even call it that.

You just couldn’t understand him going out with another girl, but still ending up in your bed at the end of the day.

Especially when you had deleted every dating app, got rid of every memory of any guy you were talking to, all because you and Lando have the chance to become something.

Your hope of that lessens everytime you see rumours of him going out with girls. It’s never anything romantic, just him at a table with a new girl every other week, so it didn’t bother you as much.

The bubbles in your hotel bathtub were softly caressing your skin when you saw the picture.

Casually scrolling on your phone in the bath as you waited for the conditioner to absorb into your hair, you made the horrible decision of clicking on that tempting X icon in the top left corner of your homescreen.

The first post? A picture of Lando’s tongue down a girl’s throat.

For the first time in a long time, Lando was the reason for that burning and disgusted feeling in your stomach. It felt like it was making its way up, the feeling getting caught in your throat as you type something out into a tweet, shut your phone off and drop it to the floor.

Even when you weren’t looking at it, the picture was burned into the back of your eyelids.

The mere image of his hands on her waist— the same hands he touched you with— was enough to make you feel that hatred crawling back.

As if on cue, your phone started ringing and the contact was none other than Lando himself.

“Hey, darling.”

You rolled your eyes at the familiar pet name. “Hi, Lando.”

Shuffling was heard on the other side of the call, you could only assume Lando was still in bed with the girl from that picture. “What’s with the tone? No ‘Lan’, no ‘baby’?”

“Sorry,” you pinched the bridge of your nose. “Stressful day.”

Lando chuckled. “Baby, we work at the same place. I’d know if you were off because of a stressful day. What’s wrong?”

You hated how he knew you inside and out, yet to you he had glued himself shut and you can’t pry yourself in.

“I don’t know.”

A sigh brushed past Lando’s lips. He knew why you were in a mood, and it didn’t exactly excite him to do that to you. In all honesty, he didn’t even know why he did it. It just happened, and you’re technically not together, so he thought it wasn’t a big deal.

The call stays silent for a minute or two, both of you trying to come up with what to say. Lando speaks first. “Come to my room. 304.”

“Lan, I’m no-” He hung up before you could even respond.

You finished your bath, hoping the water washes away whatever feeling was brewing in your chest.

The view of yourself in the mirror made you feel pathetic— why were you sulking over some guy?

It wasn’t even anyone special. Just the guy you’ve been in love with for about as long as you’d known him. The guy, who confuses you beyond words. You can’t help but try to decode whatever lies in the gaps and the silence, yet having no luck.

Despite being confused and frustrated, you dried your hair and changed into your PJs, and locked the hotel room behind yourself.

Lando’s room was just across the hall, the fourth door from yours.

This all felt too familiar, only fuelling the confusion and fear in your chest. It suffocated you, the notion that despite you being Lando’s, he wasn’t entirely yours.

Yet you still spent the night with him— slow and borderline loving, careful hands travelling your body and hungry lips trailing your neck.

And in the morning, the sun just above the horizon, you slipped from Lando’s grasp and found yourself crying away your mascara before it’s properly dried.

The black taint stained your cheeks, dripping down your chin and onto your sweatpants. You felt partly relieved to know Lando’s having fun. You’d hate to be the one to stop him from going out and finding other girls.

But that’s also what made you partly heartbroken.

It’s not even about you being hurt, it’s about other girls being replacements for each other, not knowing that you’re just like them— aching and breaking for someone that doesn’t see you the same way.

Your phone dings with a message as you wipe your tears away.

Lando: Don’t like morning cuddles anymore?

A giggle slipped past your lips before you thought to catch it, and you quickly typed up a reply.

You: I have a breakfast thing with Carlos.

You: Knew I’d probably ditch it if I were to cuddle you awake.

Lando: Will I see you at the party tonight?

Lando: DJs booth, just the place to be :))

You: I’ll think about it.

Except that you already had. You decided to go, more so for yourself than for Lando, but the thought that you’d get to spend more time with him sure was a bonus.

You continued on with getting ready as you called your brother and asked if he wanted to get breakfast. He instantly agreed, and you changed into something more casual and comfortable than the tear stained sweatshirt and mascara stained sweatpants.

Carlos was waiting for you in his car.

When you got in, he immediately felt something was off. Ever since you were little, it seemed like he had some sort of telepathy with you. Whenever you were sad, Carlos was there and comforting you.

He’s not sure what exactly is wrong right now, but he knows you need your big brother.

Carlos presses a few buttons on the control panel of the car and the sound of your favourite song plays. Your head turns to look at Carlos with an appreciative look on your face, a small smile adorning your lips.

You watch as he starts driving and turns the volume up, slowly beginning to dance along to the song as he mouths the lyrics. Soon, you broke out of your sadness and sang along with your brother.

This was exactly why you never gave up. Him.

Carlos has always been a great brother. You were still very small when you realised that. And everyday, every year, he proves that to be more and more true. Like when you were fourteen.

That year, the taste of heartache became familiar on your tongue.

It was the first time you had felt the touch of a male. It still lingered weeks after it happened. You felt loved and cared for, until you didn’t. Carlos was there through all of it, comforting you and threatening to beat that guy up for you.

Even though he was as protective as he could be, your heart kept breaking. It fixed itself, glued each broken shard back together, only to shatter again.

The flavour of love soon tasted more bitter than sweet. And you’re starting to feel the same way at twenty-four.

Minus the heart breaking and fixing itself part, but the flavour of bitterness still lingered on your tongue as you tried to wash it down with orange juice.

“Is it good?” Carlos points to your caesar salad with his fork, mouthful of scrambled eggs muffling his voice.

You poke at your food with a fork and shrug. “A bit bitter, but it’s fine.”

Carlos laughs at that, as he grabs your plate and switches it with his own. “The scrambled eggs are a bit… difficult to chew. But it’s better than croutons and whatever else is in this.”

You watch your brother take a bite of the salad, immediately making a face and trying his best not to spit it out. “You okay?”

“Mhm,” he says, through a faux pained expression. “It’s delicious.”

“I bet it is.”

Laughter came so easily when you were with your brother.

Carlos made you laugh so much you’d feel your abdomen grow sore with every giggle and laugh that escaped your lips. And Carlos loved seeing your eyes form into crescent moons, knowing that he’s still able to somehow make you feel better.

“Are you going to the party?” Carlos asks as you get out of his car, back at the hotel.

“Yep,” you shrug. “I don’t see why not.”

Carlos gives you a look as if he knew something, but said nothing about it. You brushed it off and made your way to the lobby. You ask for your key at reception, take the elevator to the fourth floor and as you’re about to unlock room 301, Lando’s hotel room door opens.

You don’t turn around to look, because you expect it to be Lando and you’re not sure if you want to talk to him right now. But what makes you whip your head to the left is the sound of a female giggle.

There she was. Same brown hair, same tan skin, same beautiful figure. Identical to the picture you had seen on twitter.

It made you sick to your stomach. Especially when you could see Lando’s head peeking out to kiss her goodbye, and you swore you could see his eyes focused on you. Though you can’t be sure, because as soon as you saw his curly brown hair, you were stepping into your hotel room.

It takes about fifteen minutes for you to calm down and for Lando to knock on your door.

You opened it expecting it to be room service, but Lando slipped inside before you could close the door on him. “You’re avoiding me.”

“I’d have no reason to, even if I was.” You shrug as you take a seat on the bed. Lando squats down in front of you, the palms of his hands flattening on your knees.

He rests his bearded chin on the top of his hand. “What’s wrong?”

“I already told you,” you shrug, before leaning back to push yourself up on the palms of your hands. “I’m stressed with the races starting up again.”

“You’ve been doing just fine, baby.” Lando reassures you. “You got second place, remember?”

“That’s the problem. I’m always in second place.” You’re not sure if you’re talking about the race or not anymore, but you mean whatever you said.

Lando leaned up to try and kiss you, but you turned away.

“And I think it’s best if we stay friends.”

That hit Lando right in the gut. He felt his chest constricting under the weight of your words, all the air being squeezed out of his lungs as each word plugged his airways.

“What? What do you mean?”

You shrug. “I want to focus on my career.”

Lando runs the palms of his hands across his face. He’s not sure why, but he has a feeling it’s got to do with the girl who left his hotel earlier. “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”

“I guess.” You shrug, sitting up and looking at him. Lando now stood on his feet, looking down at you as his fingers softly grabbed your chin.

He lifted your face up to look at him, thumb softly brushing past your bottom lip. As if it’s a habit, your lips parted and he smirked.

Lando knows you don’t mean it. You know it, too. You just needed a reason to get a break from him, even though you really don’t fucking want to.

Lando sits beside you, the familiar warmth of his hands wrapping around your waist and next thing you know, you’re on his lap. His lips don’t hesitate to kiss away any thought of you two staying just friends.

As much as this relationship hurt you, it was irresistible.

You longed for the lingering taste of Lando’s saliva mixing with yours, the warmth of his hands perfectly slotted on your waist, the lasting vibration of his moans in your mouth.

And Lando longed for it just the same.

He couldn’t tell you why he was going out with a different girl every other night, for the past two weeks of you two being… something.

Lando’s not even sure himself. It’s just something he was used to, but these times around it just felt so wrong. Yet he couldn’t say no to those girls, until he’s sure you feel the same overwhelming feeling of love he has for you.

When you fall asleep in his arms, Lando fights the internal battle to stay with you. But he knows it’s for the better if he leaves before you wake up.

The warmth of his body still cradles the sheets he laid in when you get woken up by a call.

You swallow down the bittersweet feeling in your throat before picking up, slumber still lingering on your tongue. “Hello?”

“Morning, lil’ Sainz.” Daniel’s cheery tone tickles your ear as you turn on your side. “You hungry?”

You check the clock on the wall. Six in the evening never looked so bright, but again, you’re in Las Vegas and it’s never dark in the city that never sleeps.

“Sure, what do you have in mind?”

Daniel’s smile can be heard from a mile away when he talks and it warms you up inside. “Sushi or pizza, your pick.”

“Hm,” you sit up and stretch, finally letting Lando’s warmth slip away from your skin. “I’m feeling like sushi, to be honest.”

“Sushi it is! See you in twenty.”

And in twenty minutes, you were sitting on your hotel room bed, Daniel telling you stories about Max and you stuffing sushi into your mouth, trying not to choke as you laughed.

“Are you going to the party?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” You ask, noticing how it’s the third time you’ve heard the same question.

Daniel shrugs. “I’m just wondering,” he explains. “Don’t know if I would’ve gone without you.”

Over the last few weeks, you and Daniel have become close. So close that he’s probably the only one on the grid that knows about the little situationship you have going on with Lando.

But Daniel never brings him up, not unless you want to talk about it.

“I’m going,” you answer his previous question. “I bought a dress for this specific occasion.”

“Care to show it?”

You bounced to your feet at his question and made your way to your suitcase, not noticing how Daniel’s eyes followed each of your moves. You pulled out a black dress before making your way to your bathroom and trying it on.

Daniel waited patiently as you got dressed, the sushi entertaining him until the bathroom door opened.

The sushi he held up with his chopsticks never made it to his mouth, stuck mid-air as he gaped at the image in front of him — a long, silk dress with a slit deep enough to reveal the tender flesh of your left thigh, your shoulders adorned by thin and delicate straps.

You giggle at Daniel’s reaction. “It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

The aussie briefly nods. “It’s gorgeous.”

You roll your eyes, leaning against the doorway with your arms crossed over your chest. “Now, without pretending to be Lando?”

“It’s beautiful on you. Gonna make him drool,” Daniel grins at you. “My impression’s spot on and you know it.”

You giggle as you roll your eyes again, turning back around to the bathroom. The door doesn’t close shut this time, which prompts Daniel to rise to his feet and investigate what you were up to.

Leaning against the doorway, his golden eyes carefully watched as you dabbed on makeup. “Do you really need all that?”

“Yeah, you could use some, too.” You tease, leaning against the bathroom cabinet to get closer to the mirror.

“I mean,” you turn to Daniel when he shrugs. “You’ll be crying it off anyway.”

A used wet-wipe lands on Daniel’s crossed arms, him laughing and you threatening to throw another one. “Get out.”

“Alright, alright.” He raises his hands in defeat. “I’m picking you up in an hour, hopefully you’re done caking yourself in makeup by then.”

“Bye, Daniel.” You raise your voice as if to urge him to leave.

“See you, love.”

The hotel room door closes and you’re left alone again, thoughts of Lando quickly seeping back into your mind.

It’s like every time you tried to get rid of him, he found a way back in. And who are you to say no to him?

When you fell asleep in his arms earlier, the familiar scent of him clouding your mind, you felt it again. And as much as you cursed yourself for feeling it, you couldn’t help but let the feeling bloom in your chest.

Lando felt it too, and he felt it full force when he saw you walking into the club with Daniel’s arm around your waist. Yet the feeling of love in his chest was mixed with a tinge of jealousy. Or maybe more than a tinge, because his jaw clenched at the mere sight of your little dress swaying with every step you took.

“Everything alright, Lan?” Lando’s armcandy of the night mumbles against his neck.

His green eyes track you from across the club, narrowing in on you when you spot him and give him a small wink. “Perfect.”

You felt sick to your stomach at the sight of Lando and the same girl from earlier. His arm was gripping her waist in a way you thought was special to you and it made your skin crawl.

“You think he believed it?”

You turn to Daniel as he asks, sitting back in the booth you two shared. “I think so.”

“I can keep the act going, if you’d like.” He offers with a cheeky grin decorating his face.

You sip the margarita he had ordered for you, before smiling softly. “I’ll take you up on that, then.”

The night seems to pass you by as you get occupied in a conversation with your brother and his friends. Soon, the blasting music and fluorescent lights began to bore you, so you chose to scan the club for something to do.

When the dance floor catches your eye, you grab Daniel’s wrist. “Get up.”

The golden eyed man doesn’t utter a word as he gets up and follows you like a lost puppy, ready to go wherever you take him. He quickly realises what you want to do, his arm snaking around your waist in an incredibly familiar way.

Daniel feels your hand find the back of his neck as he pulls you in from behind, slowly moving your hips against his. It’s a platonic act, both of you know it, but at the moment, Daniel feels like it’s more than just a ruse to make Lando jealous.

Maybe, for the night, he could let loose and show you what a good man is. Maybe, if it all goes right, he’d get to take you back to the hotel, too.

He loses all hope for that when he notices your eyes scanning the room again, looking for the one and only man in your heart.

The man stood at the bar, green eyes carefully narrowed at the hand that’s slowly moving closer to your inner thighs.

He’s not sure why he’s so fucking jealous. It’s not like he wasn’t doing the same damn thing twenty minutes ago, hands exploring parts of the armcandy’s body they’ve never touched before. Lando feels like its fine only when he does it.

A gentle tug on his arm averts his attention elsewhere. Natalie, or whatever her name was, looked up at Lando with her big brown eyes. “Do you want to leave?”

Lando’s curls bounced when he shook his head. “No, baby.” You watch as he kisses her head, arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders. “You having fun?”

“Mhm,” she grins up at him, noses touching and the image slowly burns into your memory. You feel a spark of something inside of you, something that caused you to be more handsy with Daniel.

The sight of Daniel’s hands grabbing your ass, your arms tracing the outline of his pecs and Daniel grinning down at you with a look only you could get out of a man, made Lando’s blood boil.

The party turned less into a celebration for the race and more of a competition between you and Lando— both of you were trying to see how much the other could take until one of you inevitably had enough.

Lando didn’t seem to be phased at all, instead waiting for the moment you looked his way. His fingers curled around the short brunette’s jaw as he pulled her in, his tongue exploring her vodka flavoured mouth.

You watched them make out, anger and envy filling your system. You felt it pulse through your veins and it stopped the second Daniel spoke. “You might not like this idea, but maybe-”

“Kiss me.”

The australian blinks a few times, as if to try and make sense of what you just said. “What?”

“When Lando looks at us, I need you to kiss me.” You explained, arms wrapping around Daniel’s warm neck. You saw the blush creeping onto his cheeks. “Friends kiss, don’t they?”

“I mean, yeah.” He shrugs, an awkward grin decorating his pretty lips. “Sure.”

The song changes and you start dancing again, untangling yourself from Daniel and letting your own hands travel your body and raise your dress slightly, ass facing Daniel as he tries his best not to look at you too much.

But he couldn’t help it. His eyes seemed to be drawn to your figure, hands glued to your hips as you grinded on him again, back against his chest and faces inches apart. Daniel wasn’t even sure if Lando was looking, but he kissed you anyway.

His whiskey flavoured lips perfectly matched the taste of the margarita on yours, tongues fighting a battle neither of you will win. The kiss felt like something new, something you’ve never felt before and want to feel again, and again, and again.

To your luck, Lando was looking. He wasn’t just looking— he was burning holes into the back of your head with the intense stare he had on the image in front of him— his ex-teammate kissing his fucking girl.

Lando wouldn’t have that.

The brunette girl he was making out with earlier stands confused as her date peels himself away from her, making his way to the middle of the dance floor.

Daniel feels the warmth of your breath being torn away and the last thing he sees is Lando’s tight grip on your waist and your body following him into the bathroom.

The slam of the bathroom door is loud enough to scare whoever might’ve been in the neighbouring room.

You didn’t have enough time to comprehend what happened until you see Lando’s hungry eyes trailing your face.

“Hey, Lando.” A teasing smirk plays on your lips as you button up the third button on his shirt. “Button up, you look like a whore.”

The alcohol was obviously still twirling in your brain, but Lando didn’t care. “You’re one to talk, princess.”

You shrug. “I dunno what you’re talking about.”

“Oh yeah?” Lando stares at you, a fire so bright in his eyes that it burns you before he’s even touched you. “I’m sure you know exactly what I’m fucking talking about.”

The anger in his tone made you melt. You felt how much your teasing had rubbed off on him and the thought of him letting his anger out on you made you excited.

The bathroom door lock snaps when Lando’s fingers turn it, and the anticipation burns in your chest. It doesn’t take long for him to kiss you, lips attacking your mouth in a way you’ve never felt before.

Lando brings his hands to your hips, pulling you to sit on the edge of the marble countertop next to the sink. He traces his tongue along your jaw and neck, finding all the sensitive spots he had already memorised.

A loud whimper leaves your lips when he bites right above your collarbone, the tender skin turning red and teeth marks indenting it. Lando laps at the skin, groaning against it as if the taste of you was pleasure to him.

Lando slipped the straps of your little black dress off your shoulders, revealing your bare chest. He didn’t hesitate, tongue finding your left nipple and twirling around it.

“You lose yourself, darling.” He growls against your skin, pushing you further against the cabinet as your thighs dig into the edge of it. “Every time I’m not there to control you, you misbehave.”

“Mmm,” you groan as his hand wraps around your neck, softly applying pressure with his fingertips. You feel the air softly escape your lungs and the exhale is slow when you say, “misbehave?”

Lando bites back what he initially wants to say, a smirk decorating his soft lips when he notices the glimmer of lust in your eyes. “Little sluts like you never know when they misbehave, hm? Rubbing yourself all over my ex-teammate, kissing him… You thought I wouldn’t do anything about it?”

“I knew you would,” you smile, canines shining in the white glow of the bathroom lights. “I wanted you to.”

Lando narrows his eyes at you. “Is that so, pretty girl?” His fingers curl around your neck tighter, air hitching in your throat.

With one swift move, Lando pulls you off the cabinet and turns you around to face the mirror on the wall. It’s big enough that you can see your entire body and Lando standing behind you.

You’re too focused on the hunger in Lando’s eyes to notice him practically tearing your dress upwards, pulling your drenched panties to the side and slipping himself into you with ease.

“So fucking wet,” he moans, fingers digging into your hips so painfully that it feels good. “Was it me or was it Daniel that got you this wet, baby?”

A quiet moan leaves your lips as he stretches you out. You’d answer truthfully, but it’s too much fun seeing Lando so worked up knowing damn well he’s the only one who gets you soaked like this. “Mmh, fuck.”

“What was that?”

“He,” you huff, hissing when he slams into you a bit rougher this time. “Daniel got me, fuck,” the words get caught in your throat when Lando’s palm makes contact with your bare asscheek.

“Stop fucking lying to me.” He says through gritted teeth. “I know he can’t make you feel the same way I can.”

You hate that he’s right.

As fun as Daniel was, he could never have you be a whimpering mess underneath him. You’re sure he’s great and you know any woman that ends up with him will be lucky, but it won’t be you.

Lando pulls you back into the moment with a tug on the fistfull of your hair in his palm. “Look at me when I speak to you, darling.” Your eyes lock onto him in the reflection of the mirror. “Good girl.”

A weird feeling settles in your belly when he says that phrase. He’s never used it for you before and you realise you fucking love it. The grin on your face and half-lidded eyes show it, too.

Your head drops down onto the cabinet as Lando grips your hips again, pulling you into him as he basks in the melodical moans coming from your pretty lips.

“Look at yourself,” his veiny hand wraps around your neck and fingers dig into the base of your jaw, lifting your head up to face the mirror. “Such a fucking slut.”

Lando’s still pounding into you when the door handle twists and someone tries to get in.

The skin-to-skin noise doesn’t stop as Lando shouts. “Occupied!” all while his hand covers your mouth. He’s purposefully digging his cock deep into you, trying to fish out any loud noise he can get.

You’re drooling all over his fingers when your mouth parts and he slips two of them past your lips. Lando can feel your high approaching and he fucks deeper into you, surprising you with an orgasm.

You half expected him to leave you without one, but the pleasure washes over you as you moan his name. “Fuck, Lando!” He’s groaning when your walls close around him, and he’s spilling into you, his warm cum burning you from the inside.

Before you can even open your eyes, Lando’s flipping you around and pulling you off the cabinet. Your legs give out and Lando’s hands wrap around your waist before you fall to your knees, instead bringing you down slowly.

You look up at him, lashes fluttering as he pumps his cock a couple times. “Open your mouth, doll.”

Lucky you, not only did your pussy get filled to the brim and graciously given an orgasm, you get to feel his veins burn into the back of your throat, too.

Your soft lips part, closer to the base of his cock. As hot as it was the first time you did this, and the numerous times after, Lando wasn’t in the mood for any teasing.

“I told you to open your mouth, not to lick my dick and act as if you’re not desperate to have me down your throat.”

That statement alone was enough to make you open your mouth, greedily taking his whole cock down your throat.

You’re lucky the club was blasting music, perfectly drowning out your moans and whimpering as your nose brushed against Lando’s pubes.

Lando’s known for being loud, so his moans were probably heard from the hallway. For some odd reason, that turned you on.

His dick dug into your throat and you felt your eyes prick with tears, whimpers bouncing off his shaft and struggling to get past your lips. With basically no warning, Lando’s dick twitched and warm liquid ran down your throat. And you swallowed it without a word from Lando.

Lando wipes your bottom lip with his thumb. “Get up.”

You do as told, fixing the edge of your dress to lay flat against your thighs. You’re hiding yourself from him as if he wasn’t just in you a few minutes ago.

Lando buckles his belt up and watches as you look at yourself in the mirror. Your fingers softly dab at your face and you try your best to fix the mascara that runs down your cheeks.

His warm arms wrap around your waist and his face finds your neck. “You’re beautiful.”

“Did you just leave the girl by herself?” You ask, looking at him in the reflection of the mirror.

Lando shrugs behind you. “I’m sure she found her way home, or at least some company.”

“You’re a dickhead, Norris.”

“And you love it.”

The playful grin on his lips caused you to break out in a smile.

Lando follows you out of the bathroom, hand tightly wrapped around yours, fingers intertwined. Daniel’s eyes meet you across the club and he feels his heart sink to his feet at the sight of Lando so closely entwined with you.

“Hey,” the aussie says to you when you walk up to the table you two sat at. He’s accompanied by Charles and Max, who look at you with warm and welcoming smiles. “You okay?”

“Mhm,” you smile at him and place your knee on the seat next to his thigh. You lean over him, completely unaware that your dress rides up and shows the smallest bit of your ass. Daniel softly tugs the dress down so it covers you up as you grab what you need. “Forgot my handbag.”

The men at the table watch you walk away, hips swaying like they usually do, and Lando’s arm wraps around your waist again as he leads you out the club.

Through blurred vision and quiet laughs, you somehow make it back to the hotel. As if it’s a habit, you made a beeline to Lando’s hotel room as soon as the elevator door opened.

Lando watched as you grabbed his keycard and swiped it to open the room.

When the light turned on, Lando’s messy hotel room came into your blurry sight. It was neatly messy, some clothes in piles and his perfumes and skincare scattered across the coffee table.

A giggle slipped past your lips when you saw Dior Sauvage amongst the many tubes and bottles. Of course he’d use that cologne.

You feel warm arms slip around your waist for the nth time this night and you lean back into his embrace. The smell of his cologne mixed with the alcohol lingering on him made your head dizzy. Lando’s lips find your neck and he softly kisses you, leaving a trail of love filled pecks down your shoulder.

“Lando?”

He holds his movements for a moment. “Yes, baby?”

“What is this?” You ask, voice trailing. The item in your hands is something that is so oddly familiar, yet you can’t put your finger on it.

Lando takes the keychain from your hands, fingers smoothing over the yellowing plastic. It’s pretty old, considering he got it when he was still in karting. “It’s the keychain you gave me. When we were like… Eight? After you sabotaged my race.”

At the mention of your karting days, your stomach turns. The memories of how disgustingly you had treated each other flood your brain and you don’t even hide the goosebumps infecting your skin.

Lando’s fingers softly wrap around your wrist and he turns you to face him before pulling you into his chest. The smell of his cologne mixes with the air as you inhale him deeply, trying to cling onto the feeling of comfort you can’t seem to ever hold onto.

For some reason, that tinge of guilt overtook any other emotion in your body and you felt your limbs grow flaccid at the mere thought of your past, and future, with Lando.

The hues in his eyes slowly disappear as he blinks. “You okay?”

“Tired.” The lie slips past your lips so easily, but it’s simpler to lie than to admit that your mind is going at a million miles an hour with thoughts of what you might never be.

Lando’s gentle hands tour your body and he carefully undoes your zipper, slipping the dress off your delicate skin with his fingertips trailing behind. You’re standing in front of him, and even though he’s already seen every part of you, you feel bare. Raw. Exposed.

It doesn’t take an idiot to notice when you’re off, but Lando felt it coming even before you two got to the hotel.

“Here,” he hands you a t-shirt and you nod your head as a thank you. Yet even before you begin putting the shirt on, Lando takes it from your hands again. “Let me help.”

Your curious eyes watch as he pulls the shirt open from the bottom and his eyes lock onto yours, “arms up,” he mumbles and you obey. He tugs the shirt over your head, the smell of his detergent stilling in your sinuses and making you dizzier than you already were.

Warm fingers softly cup your cheek and you lean into the touch, as his other hand fixes the hair that falls on your face. Lando doesn’t talk, you don’t need him to, instead he gently leads you to the bed and lifts the sheets up as you get in.

Your gaze follows his figure as he walks around to the other side of the bed and sits down at the foot of it. An annoyed grumble leaves his mouth as he fumbles with the buttons, but gives up when he can’t manage to undo them. The muscles on his back flex as he raises his arms to tug off the shirt, and not an inch of his skin goes unnoticed by your gaze.

You connect the dots on his back and draw constellations from them, far more beautiful than the ones you’ve observed in the night sky.

He lays his curls down on the soft pillow, facing you and his hazel eyes carefully study your face. Lando forced himself to stay on his side of the bed, despite every cell in his body practically begging to touch you.

“Come closer.” You whisper and he scoots over even before the words fully leave your mouth. You feel his arms gently wrap around your waist as he pulls you in with your back to his bare chest.

When his lips press against your neck, then your collarbone, and then your shoulder, you expect him to slip his hands into your underwear, how he would every single night you’d end up like this. Your legs subconsciously move apart as you push yourself onto your back.

Lando doesn’t do what you expected him to, though. He continues placing gentle kisses on your shoulder, not moving any closer to your chest and his hands still wrapped around you. “Not tonight, baby.” He mumbles against your skin, the warmth of his breath causing goosebumps to erupt.

“Why not?”

Lando pulls away looking at you. “That's all we do.”

You feel a certain warmth in your belly and a piercing feeling in your chest. “Yeah.”

He lays back down, curls bouncing as he gets more comfortable. You notice his green, piercing gaze softly studying your face as you look up at the ceiling. Lando knows something’s wrong. Nothing’s been right since he left you and Carlos’ home.

“Can we watch something?” You ask, eyes examining Lando’s face before he softly nods and reaches for the remote. The TV turns on to some random rom-com, and that’s what you settle on watching.

It’s one of the most clichè movies you’ve watched, and you can’t help but let a small smile decorate your face. Your eyes were on the screen, and Lando’s eyes were on you.

He adored the curve of your nose, the shape of your lips, the lashes that sat atop your gorgeous eyes. Lando’s been trying to ignore the feelings growing in his heart, but seeing you this close, being able to just watch you, he decides not to.

“Do you remember the first time we kissed?” Lando’s low and gravelly voice tickles your ears. You turn your head a little towards him, watching how his eyes flickered with something close to what you felt.

“Like, at my house?” You ask, a bit confused by his sudden question. “What about it, Lan?”

He quickly shakes his head. “No, the very first time, when we were sixteen.”

As the words leave his lips, you notice the familiar look of anxiety on his face. The same look he gave you right before his lips touched yours, in that parking lot you soon found to be your favourite place.

That race was proven to be the worst of both of you’s careers— high speed corners, oversteer, crash.

You remember the anticipation of a race weekend brewing in your stomach, hands shaking and heart palpitating as you got into your race car. Lando was right ahead of you, his helmet bright as he got into his own car.

The race started as every other one, you felt confident and proud to have gotten this far. The corners were easy enough to turn, the car felt smooth and you had no doubt you’d land a podium that day or maybe even win the race.

The mind of a sixteen year old girl is more naive and confident than anyone else.

You felt the excitement in your chest as the next corner was easy enough to turn, and it’d let you be even further ahead of your teammate. But, as if it was on purpose, Lando’s car rear ended yours and both of you spun out.

Lando never felt such embarrassment and guilt, especially when he saw you get out of the car with clenched fists and angry strides.

You’re not sure what happened after that, but you remember ditching the briefing with your team after saying you felt ill and hiding in the parking lot, behind a car parked next to the curb.

The humming of the approaching evening managed to calm you down. You felt cold, reminding you that you can, in fact, feel and you’re not just a machine that’s expected to do amazing all the time.

Your silence was interrupted, because even if you were on the other side of the world, Lando would somehow find you.

“Want some?” He appeared from behind the car and startled you, a bottle of champagne in hand.

Your eyebrows furrowed. “How’d you get that?”

The brunet simply shrugged and sat down beside you, taking a large gulp of the champagne before handing it to you. You didn’t hesitate to take it and chug some.

“Listen, I’m sorry-“

“It’s fine.” You shut his apology down. “I wouldn’t have won anyway.”

Lando shook his head, clearly dismissing whatever you just said. “You’re stupid if you think that.”

“Gee, thanks.” You roll your eyes and take another swing of the champagne bottle. “Did you only come here to apologise?”

Lando shrugged. “Kinda, yeah.” You couldn’t help but laugh slightly at his expression. “I honestly feel bad, you would have definitely won today if I didn’t fuck up.”

“I heard it was a car issue.” You looked at him for the first time that evening. He looked genuinely upset, which was unusual behaviour for him, especially when it was something to do with you.

“Yeah,” he looked up at the darkening sky. “I could’ve reported it earlier, but I thought I could get in a few more laps before doing that.”

A laugh escaped your lips before you’d thought to catch it. “Was it that or did you plan to sabotage my race? As some sort of revenge, or something.”

“No,” he admits, looking back to the ground. He was nervous and scared, and wasn’t in the mood to tease you. “I wouldn’t do that. Not to you.”

Your curious and confused eyes met his. “What?” Your voice cracked and some form of anger laced your words. “Last time I checked, you fucking hated me.”

“I could never hate you, Y/N.”

“That’s bullshit, you’ve only ever tried to sabotage my races and you’ve been a dick to me for as long as I’ve known you.”

Lando sighs, not sure how to convince you or explain what he means. “I don’t know what changed, but I’m not like that anymore. I’ve tried to be nice to you, but you never take it seriously and you act mean instead of accepting it.”

“Are you trying to make me pity you so I forgive you for that stunt you pulled today?” You huff, a disappointed laugh leaving your lips. “You’re unbelievable, Norris. Don’t act like you actually like m-“

That’s when he kissed you.

You felt his breath brushing against your skin as his lips crashed against yours, chapped and rough, but it felt just right.

For a minute or two, you didn’t pull away. You let him kiss you and you kissed him back, and it was exactly what you needed. It wasn’t the champagne swirling in your tummy that made you all warm inside, but instead the soft touch of his fingers to your jaw.

It’s almost like it snapped you into reality.

You pulled away and scooted further from him, watching him with widened eyes. “What the fuck…”

“I’m not acting.” Is all Lando said, before he got up and left you alone, on the curb, just like he found you ten minutes before.

You felt awful for how you handled it, because after his confession, he went back to being cold and mean to you. He wouldn’t utter a word your way unless he absolutely had to, and the teasing remarks were gone.

It all changed from then, until about three years after, when both of you got into Formula One.

You blink and look back at Lando, the memory replaying in your mind multiple times as you nod. “Yeah, I remember it, why?”

“I did mean it.” He hums, fingers softly tugging a piece of your hair behind your ear after you’d turned around to face him. “I liked you back then. I was an idiot for not telling you.”

“Lando-“

“Let me talk, baby.” Lando’s green eyes reassure you and you urge him to speak.

“I was sixteen and stupid, and not persistent in getting what I wanted. I shut those feelings down until pretty recently, when I realised that I never really hated you. I was intrigued and interested.”

He takes a pause, mind sorting through the plethora of thoughts circling his mind in that moment.

“I’ve been yours since I kissed you.” You felt his words weigh on your chest. And you’re not sure if you can trust him.

“Then why did you do that? You can’t imagine how awful it felt seeing pictures of you and all those girls, while I laid in my bed and waited for you to call me and repeat the same routine.”

“I don’t know.” He admits, sounding as genuine as he is. “I was trying to ignore the feelings, in fear of rejection again, even though I knew I had you.”

“Yeah.” You agreed, not sure what to say. It feels awkward talking your feelings out with him, since you’ve never really done that before.

“It’s always been you.” Your eyes find his face again when he speaks. “Even though you hated me, it’s always been you.”

A small, bittersweet grin spread across your cheeks. “I used to hate you with everything I had in me.”

“I know.” It pains Lando to hear it, but he needed the reminder that the mutual hate you two have gone through for him to have you in his arms right now was too much to lose. He can’t risk that. “I felt it.”

“I’m sorry. About everything.” Lando felt the sincerity in your voice as you spoke. It’s the first time he’s actually hearing you speak about your feelings and he’s scared. He’s not sure if it’s the fear of rejection or the fear of losing you, but it shakes him to his core and he’s not sure how to handle it.

“It’s okay.” He says, eyes glimmering with a mixture of anxiety and desperation in them. “Get some sleep, we have a flight tomorrow.”

You nod softly, turning on your side but still facing him. There’s no amount of words you could say to him that would fully explain what’s exactly going on in your mind. It’s running at the speed of light with thoughts, and you can’t seem to grab ahold of a single one.

Lando lays on his back, shutting the TV off and placing the remote on the nightstand. You heard his quick breath as he moved closer to you, scooping you up and pulling you into his chest.

The warmth of his chest soothed you to sleep. Lando listened to your breathing, waiting for it to slow down and the exact moment when you’d fall to slumber.

His own mind was going haywire. There was so much he just said, still dodging the direct confession, and he cursed himself for it. He could have just told you instead of bringing up the worst night you two had ever experienced. Idiot.

Your face nuzzled further into his skin and he felt your arms snake around his torso, taking ahold of the beating drum in the middle of his chest. He was sure you could hear the rapid heartbeat shaking him, and you could.

The warmth and sound of his heartbeat lulled you to sleep faster than any other sound. When Lando was sure you had fallen asleep, he softly played with your hair. It’ll be a while before he can say this to you when you’re awake, and you won’t hear it now, but he says it anyway.

“I love you.”

It takes a moment for you to recollect yourself, the act of falling asleep that you’ve perfected since childhood finally coming to play. You bit back a small grin, ignoring the pitter patter in your own chest.

Lando felt uneasy when you shifted your position, lying on your stomach and partially on him, lips so close to his neck.

You placed a gentle kiss on his collarbone, eyes closed and breath steady.

“I love you, too.”

© landopoet

[cressidagrey]

It's a Love Story - Chapter 5

Summary:

Azriel's shadows find their master a wife.

Azriel would just really like his heart not to get broken again.

And Sky...well, she's just really surprised that that far too handsome male is interested in her at all.

Warning:

Rhys Bashing (as usual), I classified this as Azriel x OC, even when it't technically Azriel x Sellyn Drake (but we kinda know nothing about Sellyn Drake other than that she writes books so Sky is kinda an OC), Cassian is kinda a good guy for once, Azriel has a horrible time, as usual... Stuttering, toxic families (For once I do not mean the IC), Self-Esteem Issues, Secret Identity, Body Image Issues, Fat Shaming, People being utterly horrible.

If any of this triggers you or makes you uncomfortable, please take care of your own mental health and don't read it.

“Where’s Az?” Mor asked as Nesta and Cassian entered the dining room at the River House.

“Busy,” Cassian said with a shrug, as he pulled out the chair for his mate, greeting the rest of their family with a smile. 

Mor cocked her head, a small frown appearing on her face. "Busy?" she repeated, a note of curiosity in her voice. "What's he up to?"

Busy. That had been Azriel’s answer to nearly everything after Koshei. Busy.

Even quieter than usual. Keeping away from all of them…and Cassian still heard that one sentence echo in his head. Better me than you. Like somehow Cassians life was worth more than Azriel’s.

Azriel was just being noble and self-sacrificing as usual, right? Cassian knew that his brother didn't really think that way, didn't really believe that his life was worth less than anyone else's. But still, the words haunted him. He couldn't shake the feeling that somehow, somewhere, he had let Azriel down. That he hadn't been there when his brother had needed him the most.

Maybe he should have tried to talk to him...when it all went down… but then he hadn't realised what exactly was even going on, until Nesta had flatly laid it out for him one evening. Azriel had gotten over Mor only to fall in love with Elain...and that hadn't ended in his favour either.

Cassian grimaced just thinking about it. Azriel deserved to be happy. Azriel deserved a mate that loved him, a female that fucking adored him…and instead his brother had fallen not just for one, but two unavailable females. 

And Azriel hadn’t complained. Not once. He had never let it show.

He always kept his emotions hidden under that stoic mask of his, like he was afraid of letting anyone see how much he was hurting. Cassian knew that Azriel would never ask for help, that he would never admit that he needed someone to talk to. But that didn't mean that he didn't need it. 

Cassian just wished that he could find a way to get Azriel to open up, to let him in…that wouldn’t involve beating him to a bloody pulp. 

Azriel acted like everything was fine. Azriel acted like he didn't care. Cassian knew that it was a mask, knew that it wasn't the truth...but Azriel liked to pretend it was...and maybe it was better to let him pretend. 

It wasn't like he was hurting anybody with it, right? He was doing his work just as well as he always did...and if he wanted to spend his free time reading Sellyn Drake books, maybe they should just let him do that…maybe it made him feel better. 

"Maybe he's seeing his secret girlfriend," Cassian drawled.

Mor snorted at that suggestion. "Please," she said with a roll of her eyes. "As if Azriel would ever have time for a girlfriend, let alone a secret one."

"You would be surprised," Cassian muttered under his breath. Apparently Azriel had time for reading Sellyn Drake novels while locked into his room, after all. 

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mor wondered. "He has been...distant lately," she said with a pout.

Cassian could only stare at her. Mor couldn't be serious right now, could she?

Of course, Azriel was distant to her. Mor had fucking broken his heart and trampled on it to top it off. And Cassian had helped her with through the years. He probably owed Azriel an apology for that as well.

And still, Azriel hadn’t complained. Azriel hadn’t called them out. Azriel had taken it silently. Had even congratulated Mor when her Mating Bond with Emerie had snapped. Had been painfully polite, making painfully sure that he didn’t cross any lines, didn’t make Emerie uncomfortable in any way. 

"Just leave him be," Cassian said with a shrug. "He's reading Sellyn Drake novels, he'll be fine,” he waved her off. 

Rhys nearly spit his wine over the table and instead started coughing violently. "Azriel is reading Sellyn Drake novels?!" he asked Cassian with an incredious stare.

"Apparently he has trust in Nesta's taste of literature," Cassian answered easily.

Mor raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Sellyn Drake novels?" she repeated, eyeing Cassian like he had gone mad. "Since when does Azriel read those kinds of books? He's not exactly the...romantic type."

Or maybe there just never had been a single person that had appreciated that side of his brother. Who knew what Azriel actually was into. 

Elain and Mor weren’t similar in the slightest after all. 

Cassian shrugged. "Maybe he's expanding his horizons," he said with a grin. "Or maybe he just wants to see what the fuss is all about. After all, Sellyn Drake is...surprisingly good. Or so I've heard, anyway." He gave a sidelong glance to Nesta, who simply rolled her eyes at him.

Still, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rhys play absentmindedly with the stem of the wine glass. There was something there...between Rhys and Azriel that Cassian couldn't quite put his finger on. Some kind of tension...some kind of...something.

But lately, it had seemed like that tension had only been getting worse. Like they were both holding something back, like they were both waiting for the other shoe to drop. Cassian couldn't help wondering what would happen when that tension finally snapped.

***

"Winnowing or flying?" Azriel asked Sky as they stepped out into the icy early winter air.

"I...I can't...fly?" Sky answered haltingly, looking at him with these devastating blue eyes. They were beautiful. Not a light blue, not a teal, not bordering on violet…just beautiful near cobalt blue. She probably would match his siphons, he reflected weakly. 

"I'll fly, I'll carry you," he gave back with a chuckle. She stared at him like he was insane, her cheeks reddening.

"I...I...you...can...can't carry me. I am too...heavy," she mumbled. Now it was his turn to stare at her.

Azriel couldn't help but scoff at that. "Too heavy?" he repeated, shaking his head in disbelief. "I'm an Illyrian warrior,” he told her drily. “I could carry a full-grown male into battle if I had to,and I have dragged full-grown males off the battlefield…I can carry you.” 

Azriel couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. Was she...was she seriously trying to tell him that she was too heavy for him to carry? She just so reached the middle of his chest! She definitely wasn't thin...her body was covered with soft flesh and lush curves, every inch of it soft and inviting...but even if she weighed twice her weight, he would easily be able to carry her. She would probably weigh next to nothing to him.

And yet, he could sense the insecurity in her voice, the way she didn't quite believe that he could carry her.

He stepped closer to her, placing his hand gently under her chin and tilting her head up so that she was looking directly into his eyes. "You are beautiful," he said softly, his voice full of warmth and sincerity. "And I don't care how much you weigh, I can carry you. I want to carry you. Because you are mine and I will always protect you, no matter what."

Her breath hitched at that, and he could see the warmth spreading through her cheeks as her heart began to race. She looked up at him with those stunning blue eyes of hers, her lips parted slightly in surprise and wonder. "You...you really mean that?" she whispered, her voice soft and shaky. "You...you don't mind how big I am?"

Azriel chuckled softly, shaking his head. "No, sweetheart, I don't mind," he said gently. "I think you are absolutely perfect just the way you are. And if I have to carry you to prove it, then that is what I will do." And without another word, he scooped her up into his arms, cradling her against his chest as easily.

She squeaked as they shot up in the sky and then she laughed, the sound bright and beautiful

They soared through the sky together, the wind blowing through their hair and clothes as they flew. The City of Starlight sprawled out beneath them, a beautiful tapestry of color and light. Azriel held her close, feeling the warmth of her body against his, the sound of her heartbeat pulsing in rhythm with his own. He knew that he could never tire of this feeling, of having her in his arms like this.

Sky looked up at him with a smile, her eyes shining with happiness and excitement. "I love this," she breathed.

How very fitting it was for the female that called herself Sky to love flying.

"Good," Azriel said softly, his voice full of warmth. "Because we can do this anytime you want, sweetheart."

They soared higher and higher, until the city below them was nothing but a sparkling sea of lights. Azriel was in his element up here, his wings powerful and graceful as they sliced through the air. He could feel the wind whipping through his hair, the cold night air stinging his skin. But he didn't mind, not with her in his arms. In fact, he felt more alive than he had in months. Years, even.

He flew a loping circle over Velaris, towards the Lake House the shadows had purchased and he thanked them mentally for their foresight. He couldn't very well bring Sky home to the House of Wind...but here...he could take her. It was private and safe...and if the expression of her face was anything to go by, she loved it.

He angled his body towards the Lake House, gliding towards it with expert precision. As they approached, Azriel saw the soft glow of the lights in the windows, the gentle sway of the curtains in the breeze. The lake glittered in the moonlight, the surface of the water undisturbed and serene. It was the perfect place to bring her, a place that he felt she would love just as much as he did.

"You live here?" she wondered, wonder in her voice as she took in the sight.

Azriel felt a warm swell of pride in his chest as he landed smoothly on the deck of the house. "Yes," he said simply, his eyes fixed on her face, watching as she marveled at the house. "I wanted a private place," he admitted. "Somewhere quiet and peaceful, where I could escape from the chaos of my life for a little while.I haven't been there long though, it’s still a work in progress…" he warned her. More like 2 hours before he had met her. "But I love it."

He set her down gently, his hands lingering on her waist for a moment before he stepped back. "Come on," he said softly, holding out his hand to her. "Let me show you inside."

The shadows skittered inside as soon as he opened the door, like a bunch of little busybodies, rightening the curtains there, fluffing pillows on the couch...It seemed to amuse Sky though. "You must ne...never have to deal with a mes...messy kitchen," she teased him

Azriel chuckled at that. "No, the shadows don't like when things are out of place,”  he admitted.

It wasn't a lie. But then he didn't like it either. 

Like a moth pulled to the flame, Sky was pulled towards his bookcases, fingertips tripping over the spines as she hungrily read the titles.

Azriel suddenly hoped that the shadows had put something other than Sellyn Drake novels in the bookcase, because otherwise he was going to look like a fucking stalker.

He watched with a mix of amusement and apprehension as she examined the bookshelves, his heart pounding in his chest. *Please,* he silently pleaded to the shadows, *please tell me you didn't leave those Sellyn Drake novels on the shelf.* Because if she saw those, it would be disastrous.

The shadows seemed weirdly frozen in place.

"You read Sel...Sellyn Drake?" Sky asked him, sounding delighted and shocked at the same time.

Azriel groaned inwardly, feeling his face flush with embarrassment. "I...yes, I do," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "I...There is...I...I need to tell you something."

"Te...Tell me som...something?" Sky asked, turning towards him, these big beautiful eyes staring at him.

"I...It wasn't a coincidence that I was in that bar tonight," he told her, watching as she stared at him. "The shadows told me to go."

"The...The shad...shadows?" she asked him, looking utterly shocked.

"I...I told them...a few weeks ago...to...find me somebody that....that I could love...somebody that I could make happy. A wife," Azriel admitted. "You were the one they picked."

She stared at him, her mouth falling open slightly. Azriel braced himself for her reaction, not sure what to expect. Would she be angry? Scandalized? Horrified that he had sent his shadows to find him a wife?

She stared at him wide-eyed. "You...You as…asked yo…your sha..shadows to fi…find you a wi…wife?!" she asked him, repeating his words back at him.

He could feel his cheeks reddening but nodded nonetheless. "...are you angry?" he asked her weakly.

Sky stared at him for a moment, but then she shook her head. "No, No...no, I'm not," she repeated again, her voice trembling slightly. "I'm...I'm flat…flattered, actually...Though...though I am cu..curious what it…what it was about me that...made…made them pick me," she admitted.

For the first time in his life, his shadows talked to somebody other than Azriel. *We thought you would treat Master like you treat your cat,* the shadows told her brightly.

She blinked at the bunch of shadows that had gathered in front of her.

"You...You...You want me to...treat Az..Azriel like...like a cat?" she asked them incrediously.

Azriel spluttered, his cheeks burning with mortification. He hadn't expected the shadows to be so blunt, and the idea of her treating him like a cat was...well, it was absurd, to say the least. He wanted her to be his mate, his equal, not to treat him as if he were some kind of pet.

"No, no," he quickly interjected, trying to salvage the situation. "They...they don't mean it like that, Sky. The shadows have their own...unique way of looking at things. Please just...just forget they ever said that."

Sky fixed him with a look. "What do you mean?" she asked the shadows.

*You love your cat,* the shadows said quickly. *You buy him ridiculous overpriced Tuna, and you let him sleep in your bed and you scratch him behind the ears. You even knitted him a sweater!*

Azriel winced, feeling his embarrassment and mortification rising even further. 

"That...thats not important," he mumbled, feeling like he was on the verge of spontaneously combusting from embarrassment. "The shadows...they have a habit of exaggerating things. Just...please, don't take them too seriously. I'm not expecting you to treat me like a cat, I swear."

Sky looked at him, then at the Shadows, then at Azriel again. She seemed to be lost in thought, clearly trying to decipher what the shadows meant.

"You..You want your mas…master to be tre…treated...well?" Sky finally asked the shadows, her tone of voice serious. "You pick…picked me because I...be..because I was nice to my cat?" she asked them curiously.

*You are so kind,* the shadows said softly. And so pretty. And we knew you would treat Master well and wouldn't judge him.*

Sky blushed at the compliment.

Azriel felt a sense of relief wash over him as the conversation shifted away from the whole "cat" thing. He had to admit, the shadows were right. Sky had been nothing but kind and considerate towards him since they met, and he was grateful for that. Still, he couldn't help but feel a bit embarrassed by the whole situation.

"Look...I apologize for the shadows' behavior," he said to Sky, his voice soft. "They can be a bit...blunt, sometimes."

"I…I un…understand where they are com…coming from," she said nearly thoughtfully. "They just...want to see you hap…happy?" she said carefully and he nodded.

"Yes."

"Though they…they don't seem to have much of a sense of boun…boundaries," Sky said with a laugh. "You hid in my apartment didn't you?" she asked the shadows.

Azriel cringed as the shadows seemed to twirl in agreement. He had hoped that particular detail would have gone unnoticed, but he should have known better. Sky was too observant for her own good.

"Yes, they did," he admitted reluctantly. "I'm sorry about that. They...they have a tendency to go where they please."

Sky still mustered the shadows that were twitching in front of her

"I…I prom…promise to t…treat your ma…master well." Sky said seriously. "He's my mate."

Azriel felt his heart skip a beat at her words. The sound of that word coming from her lips made his knees weak.

He stepped forward, closing the distance between them and taking her hands in his. "And I promise to treat you well too," he swore fervently. 

"And I'll…I’ll even knit him a swea…sweater," Sky continued, looking at the shadows.. "I…I don't know if he likes Tu…tuna, but I'll…buy him some… sweets."

He couldn’t help but laugh at her words, feeling a surge of affection for her that was almost overwhelming. "Sky," he said softly, looking into her eyes. "You don't have to do any of that for me. Just being with you is more than I could ever ask for.But...if you are willing to knit me a sweater, I surely won't say no to it," he added with a laugh. "And maybe you could try scratching me behind the ears too, just in case the shadows are right."

He meant it as a joke, but there was a part of him that was secretly delighted by the idea of her spoiling and doting on him. Maybe, just maybe, the shadows were onto something after all.

"And...who knows, maybe I'll develop a taste for Tuna," he added, grinning playfully. "As long as it's the fancy kind, that is."

He kissed her forehead gently, holding her close for a moment longer before finally pulling away. "But Sky…you don’t have to do all of that…Just being with you is enough."

She smiled up at him, beautiful and blinding and he couldn't help but kiss her.

As his lips met hers, Azriel felt a wave of warmth and tenderness wash over him. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close as he deepened the kiss. In that moment, nothing else mattered. Not the shadows, not the world outside, nothing but her.

He broke the kiss reluctantly, resting his forehead against hers as he caught his breath. 

"You…You can absolutely sleep in my bed with me," she whispered. "Or I'll sleep in yours," she offered, a grin on her face... and that was all he needed to hear, as he picked her up again.

[bucks-babe]

Virgin Bucky Gets His First Blowjob

Paring: Virgin!Bucky x f!reader

Summary: You give your boyfriend his first blowjob

Word Count: 2,148

Warnings: Established relationship, smut (Oral m!receiving), kind of sub!Bucky, Bucky is a nervous boy and gets a hard on during a movie, Bucky has a praise kink, Virgin!Bucky, No use of Y/N

A/N: Should I make a part 2 where Bucky loses his virginity to reader?

“Okay, doll, I’ve got everything set up. You pick a movie yet?” Bucky settles down next to you in his bed, making sure that there is no space separating the two of you. He wraps his right arm around your shoulder and you snuggle up into his side.

Your laptop is resting on both of your laps, your left thigh and his right thigh hold it in place. “Yes, and it’s one of my favorites!” You bounce in place just a little. “You’re gonna love it, Buck! It’s When Harry Met Sally.” Bucky chuckles at your excitement. Steve has his book of things to catch up with in the 21st century, and Bucky has you. 

“We’ll see, doll. You haven’t let me down yet.” In all honesty, Bucky was thoroughly enjoying the movie, Harry wasn’t the type of guy Bucky thought girls would go for, but most of his enjoyment came from how happy the movie seemed to be making you.

A few times you would catch Bucky staring at you instead of the movie; each time you would look back up at him he would pretend that he was immersed in the movie the whole time and you would nudge his side. It just made him so happy to see how much you were enjoying the movie, going so far as to mouth the lines alone with the actors.

“Yes it is! You are a human affront to all women, and I am a woman.” 

“Hey, I don’t feel great about this, but I don’t hear anyone complaining.”

Unbeknownst to you, Bucky is having the time of his life watching you act out the conversations, his heart never feeling so full in all his life. He truly doesn’t know what he did to deserve you, after all the horrible things he’s done in his life, he gets blessed with the most wonderful and understanding woman to call his.

His doll, his girl, who hasn’t even pressured him into anything. He felt bad at first, when he told you that he wanted to take things slow, thinking that you wouldn’t want to have a boyfriend who had no experience in the sexual realm. Of course, he’s kissed women, having his fair share of dames back in the 40’s, but he was a gentleman. He would take them out dancing, maybe make out in his car a little bit, but he never went farther than that. 

Now, after waking up after 80 some years, the last thing on his mind was having sex. That was until he met you, the minx who has awoken something inside of him, but he’s never acted on any of these feelings, too scared that he would disappoint you.

Ashamed that he was still a virgin, Bucky always stopped you before anything would get too heated, and you respected that. It didn’t make Bucky feel any better when he had to go to the ‘bathroom’ after a make-out session, but you never teased him about it, the both of you pretending that he really did need to go to the bathroom.

What the fuck?! Bucky’s attention is back on the movie when Sally has an ‘orgasm’ in the restaurant. Next to him, you’re giggling while watching her fake an orgasm, but Bucky, he’s not laughing. 

Bucky’s never seen a woman have an orgasm. Back in his day, the most accessible type of porn were dirty magazines that he used to hide under his bed so his ma wouldn’t find them. He tried to watch modern day porn after his not so mini sexual re-awakening, but after seeing some of the video titles, decided that porn was a no go for him, so this was sending all of the blood in his head straight to his dick. If it was over dramatized, he couldn’t tell, but his cock didn’t care. 

He felt it twitching in his sweats and he tried to subtly shift so you wouldn’t be able to see the bulge under the covers. Closing his eyes, Bucky tried to will his erection away; however, the scene seemed to never end and his cock got even harder at the thought of what you would look like when you came, how you would moan his name, how you would feel around him. 

He bets that you would look fucking spectacular spread out on this very bed with his cock burried deep inside of you. How your pussy would look swallowing him as he–

“Bucky, are you okay? You’re moving around a lot.” Shit! Bucky knows that he’s been caught. There is nothing he can do to hide the tent in his sweatpants; he curses himself for even wearing pants with so much give to them. 

“Uh…yeah, I’m good. My back’s a little stiff from the bed is all.” With how red his face and chest are, it’s a surprise that there is enough blood going to his dick to have it be as hard as it is.

“Your back? Are you sure? Cause I think I see the problem.” Double Shit!

“Doll, I’m sorry. It’s just that…” Your giggle cuts him off.

“Bucky, it’s okay. If you want I can give you a minute to sort,” you glance at his crotch, making it twitch in need, “that out.”

Bucky wishes that the bed could swallow him up whole so he wouldn’t have to deal with this. He’s a grown man for God’s sake and he’s popping wood at the first sign of something sexual!

“Or…” You drag on, “I could help you with that.” Bucky gulps, finding his throat to be drier than a desert.

“Doll, y-you don’t have to.” There’s a spark in your eye that you only have when you’re up to no good, like when you set Steve and Sharron up on a blind date after being sick of the pining between the two of them.

“But I want to, Bucky. Only if you’re okay with it.” His heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest, but he is so hard, and he trusts you with his body and soul.You know that he’s never done anything; you would be the last person on the planet to make fun of him. 

“O-okay. What do you want me to do, doll?” You close the laptop, effectively ending the movie; Bucky couldn’t give less of a shit what happens to Harry or Sally right now, not when you’re looking at him like he is a full course meal and you're starving.

“Absolutely nothing. I want you to lay right there and let me make you feel good. Can you do that for me, hmm?” Pulling the covers back, you settle between his thick thighs, resting your head on one and looking up at him.

“I-I can do that. Yeah.” He shifts so that his back is against the headboard. Bucky isn’t used to just laying back while someone else does the work, has never been like that, but for you he would do just about anything if you asked.

Your hands go to the waistband of his sweats and boxers while you give small kisses to the outline of his cock through both layers. “Good boy,” you whisper on his cock, chuckling when it jerks under your mouth and he whines. Ooh, he’s a vocal one, you think as you look up at his flush face.

Bucky lifts his hips off the bed when you tug at his waistband, and his cock smacks against his clothed stomach, precum leaking onto his shirt. With his cock and balls on display, Bucky fights the urge to close his legs and cover himself up; no woman, or man, had ever seen him like this, but he wants this so bad. He trusts you; if he wants to stop, you’ll stop, but heaven forbid if you stop now.

He’s fucking big, too. You don’t know if you’re going to be able to fit his entire length in your mouth, but you’re sure as hell gonna try! Starting at his thighs, you give wet, open mouth kisses, leaving beautiful bruises on his skin. Whimpering, Bucky tries to get your mouth on his cock; all of your teasing is only making his balls fuller than he thought was possible and more precum ruin his shirt.

“Please, doll. Suck it.” His toned hips leave the bed in chase of your mouth. He can’t count how many times he’s fucked his fist thinking about how the tight heat of your mouth would feel wrapped around his cock. Even now, with you kissing up and down his length, tracing his most prominent vein, it’s not enough.

“Shh, big boy, I’m getting there. You’re just so pretty I have to paint you.” His cock bounces from the force of its throbbing and another whine leaves his plump lips.

Eventually, you take pity on him and his begging, and you take the tip in your mouth and give it a harsh suck. “Oh Fuck! Do that again, doll!” He throws his head back, making contact with the headboard with a loud thunk. Hands flying to the sheets, and hips chasing your mouth, Bucky damn near chokes on his own spit.Christ, you’ve barely touched him and he’s about to burst.

Loving his reaction, you grab the base of him and spit on his tip, watching it roll down to where your hand rests, only to use your spit as lube to drag your hand up and down, feeling him pulse and throb in your hand. “Come on, doll. Please! I need more.” 

He was fisting the sheets, not wanting to force your head down, but wanting you to take him down your throat at the same time. Deciding not to torture him anymore, you licked your lips before taking as much length in you mouth as possible.

“GOD, FUCK!” His hips flew up to meet your mouth, making you gag. He was trying his hardest to stay in control and not force your pace, but fuck, he wasn’t expecting it to feel this good. You quickly found a steady pace, hollowing your cheeks and using your tongue to lap at his dick. Salavia coated his entire dick and was leaking down to his balls, making your movements that much easier.“What the fuck! Doll, that feels fucking incredible. More, please. Give me more! Shit! That feels so good!” Such a needy little thing.

There were still a few inches of his dick that you couldn’t fit in your mouth, so you used one hand to work the remaining length and the other hand to massage his balls. His cock was leaking precum and you could feel his heavy sack tense up in your hand; you knew he was about to cum, even before he did.

Bucky pulled you off his cock. “Doll! I’m gonna cum!” It took you a second to register why he pulled you off when he was about to cum, but you then realized, he didn’t think you wanted to swallow - How wrong he was.

“If you’re gonna cum, baby, I want you to cum in my mouth.” Not waiting for a response, you took his cock back into your mouth, taking him all the way to the base, letting him fuck your mouth with the little jerks of his hips. The sounds leaving his mouth were almost akin to sobs, making you clench your thighs together to quell the ache between your legs.

“Fuck, I’m cumming!”  His cum shot out in thick streams and you tried to swallow around his cock, but more and more cum would shoot out. You lapped up every single drop of his cum that you could, some of it dripping down to his balls. When his hips tried to jerk away, you pulled off his cock to lick his balls clean and tuck his softening cock back into his pants.

With a dopey look on his face, Bucky gave you the prettiest smile, having experienced the best orgasm of his overextended life. “I really liked the movie, doll.” He laughed after you giggled. After coming back down to reality, Bucky frowned, “doll, I wanna make you cum, too.”

“Oh, Buck, I didn’t do that because I wanted anything in return,” you repositioned yourself next to him in bed, ignoring the throbbing of your pussy, “I did it because I wanted to make you feel good.”

There’s still a pout on his lips, wanting you to feel good as well. “Another day, Bucky. I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much in one day, okay?” Eventually, he agrees, becoming compliant after getting his soul sucked out of his body.

“Next time, doll, you’re gonna teach me how to make you cum.” God, you love this man.

“Oh, I look forward to it.” This man is going to wreck you and you can’t wait.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Broken Mind | Josh Washington x Reader

......

Another day, another Until Dawn rewrite by yours truly <3

I've got Rami Malek on the brain again so I decided to revise this old 2016 fic I wrote about Josh being accompanied by Reader in the shed (after his prank reveal). Changed a few things around and added stuff from the prologue, but all in all the plot's the same (except they're together)

Anyways enjoy!

......

"Hey, [y/n]. Got a special delivery for you."

Hearing the quiet giggles of the Washington sisters, you looked up from your phone and smiled upon seeing your boyfriend being held up by the two of them.

He looked plastered as hell and half-asleep, but his eyes were slightly open. The moment they landed on you, lopsided grin spread across his lips.

"[Y/n]...baby...?"

"Yes. It's me, Josh." With a chuckle, you put down your phone and assisted the girls in helping him lay on the sofa. You decided to let him rest on top of you, seeing as he already had his arms wrapped around your torso. "Jeez, so clingy, huh? How much did you drink?"

"Mhm...I forgot.." His words were slurred.

"Of course you did." Putting your arms around him, you lightly scratched at his scalp with your fingertips, hearing his hums of content as he looked to his sisters.

While Hannah left, Beth smiled back and took a picture of him being all cuddly with you, reminding herself to send to you later. After that, she finally left you both alone.

"They take good care of you."

"Yeah..they're..the best." Josh mumbled tiredly into your chest, hugging you tighter. "But 'm glad you're here...thank you for being by my side. I love you sooooooooooo much."

"Of course, Joshie. I love you, too." You chuckled, holding him close until he dozed off again, before you ended up falling asleep yourself, enveloped by the warmth of the cabin fire and the one you loved most.

He probably won't remember much of this in the morning, but that was fine.

For once, everything felt right in the world.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"[Y/n], honey? Baby? Sweetheart?"

Blinking, you returned to the cold and cruel present, looking to the man tied to the post.

"Yes, Josh?" You sighed tiredly, wiping the blood from the corner of your lip.

"I'm pretty cold. How 'bout we loosen these restraints a little and-?"

"I'm sorry, but...I don't think that's a good idea right now."

"What? I....I can't believe it. You would let those jerks do this to me?!! Your boyfriend? After all I've done for you?!!" Angrily, Josh tugged at his restraints, gnashing his teeth at you like some animal. "I feel hurt. Who does this to someone they love?!"

"First of all, I didn't tie you up. And second...you're not the only one who's gotten hurt tonight."

"If anyone deserves to feel hurt, it should be me! After what they did to my sisters..they had it coming."

As much as you wanted to snap at him for acting this way, you knew that he wasn't well, and getting angry right back wasn't going to make anything better.

Instead, you opted to look outside the shed, observing the snowfall while trying to ignore the sounds of him whining and struggling with the ropes.

Such sights used to calm your nerves, but now...it was nothing more than a grim reminder of how long and unforgiving this night has been, and how there's still a few hours until sunlight and rescue arrived.

How did you get here?

Well, it was supposed to be a reunion between friends.

You and Josh were still together after the horrible tragedy that befell his sisters exactly one year prior, and you were with him through the long days he spent trying to isolate himself, and the difficult nights he spent wishing he didn't wake up at all.

You stayed with him no matter what.

No matter how many times he tried pushing you away...you always stayed. And while he didn't express it as much as he wanted to, he appreciated it.

That's the only reason why he didn't subject you to the "prank" he had laid out for the rest of the group.

You knew his passion for film projects, having helped him with some small YouTube ones yourself. You knew that this year, he wanted to do something to "really bring the gang back together", and you let him be when he insisted on working alone.

God, why didn't you press him on what exactly this prank entailed?

Why didn't you pick up the signs that he was off his meds?

What he enacted was horrific beyond measure--a prank that you didn't even think he was capable of carrying out.

One that seemed so real that you were almost convinced that you lost him to a murderer.

When Chris came to you sobbing in remorse over how the "Psycho" tricked him into killing your boyfriend, you didn't know what to feel. You wanted to see the body to confirm it, but given his and Ashley's reactions..it wasn't worth scarring your eyes or mind over.

It left you unbelievably sad and numb, although you were left confused when through his blubbering, he admitted that the saw blade was rigged to kill Josh despite choosing to save him.

That was the first sign that you knew something was off.

You didn't know anybody that held a massive grudge against him to the point of rigging a trap to murder him only.

But only after Josh revealed everything to Chris, Ashley, Sam, Mike, and you....that's when it all made sense.

And you felt betrayed.

You couldn't believe he'd orchestrate this whole scheme behind your back.

How could you have been so naive and trusting?

You felt like you should have known what he was up to. The others gave you suspicious looks and even Mike wondered for a moment if you were an accomplice...but you weren't.

That was the truth.

You had no idea.

Now all you felt was lingering guilt and festering anger that this was Josh's twisted idea of "revenge" against the people who didn't even kill his sisters. Against people like Chris who didn't even know what happened until he woke up.

And in a way, you felt like it was against you for not waking him up in time to stop the prank that led to Hannah and Beth running out of the cabin.

No matter how many times he claimed you had nothing to do with it, you felt like he was punishing you, too.

So now, you, Chris, and Mike have taken him away from the others, to a shed where he couldn't hurt anybody. Apparently Jess was dead, and despite his insistence that he didn't kill her....Mike didn't believe a word he said, having seen her body firsthand in some mining elevator.

Then when he started making lewd comments about Chris and Ashley, both of the men were growing agitated, debating on whether to make him shut up by force or not.

Finally, you intervened before they could decide, offering to watch over him until sunrise. You're the only one who had a small chance to talk some sense into him and make him realize his mistakes.

Mike was reluctant to leave you alone with him, thinking he'll guilt trip you into letting him go, but you convinced him and Chris you'll be fine.

There were some...scary things you've seen out in the woods earlier, and the last thing you wanna do is leave Josh alone with them nearby.

Even after all the shitty things he did, even after faking his own death...you still loved him.

You didn't believe he murdered Jess.

That's not what Josh would do.

"Your sisters wouldn't have wanted this." You quietly said, looking back at the wide-eyed man. "I wish things were different that night. I wish they didn't get humiliated. God, I wish Hannah had talked to me instead. But this...all of this was wrong, Josh. What happened doesn't justify-"

"But it worked, didn't it? Listen, I...I-I didn't want anyone dead." He stammered. "I just wanted to see that same terror on their faces. And I got them good! I got you all!!"

"...did you have to give Ash a black eye, though?"

"Look, she stabbed me with scissors! And it still hurts like a motherfucker."

You just gave him an expression that read "well I would have too if a killer was chasing me", and he seemed to understand...given how his shoulders slumped with defeat.

"Baby, 'm sorry..this...was not how our night's supposed to go. But you know what? I'm glad I was the only one laughing! Because NOW THEY KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE ON THE OTHER SIDE!!" Tears of anger pricked his eyes as his voice unexpectedly rose.

You whole body tensed, but you stayed calm, knowing he's only lashing out. "Josh, I know they hurt you. And hurting them back might feel good..but you hurt me too by faking your own death and not telling me how far you intended to take this prank."

"..you would've stopped me if I told you." He mumbled.

"Well maybe I should've been more persistent." You huffed. "If I was, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't have to talk about why Jess died and why you seem to be the prime suspect-"

"I swear to god, it wasn't me! I don't even know where she is!" Josh snapped, before he curled up, like a child in timeout. "Mike..he wouldn't explain the wheres and whens. He just kept hitting me, pushing me..telling me to shut up...but I didn't do it...I swear. Please, please believe me, [y/n]. I'm sorry that you got roped into this. I-It's..the..the last thing I wanted.." His voice softened. "I'm sorry I've been bad..."

Slowly, you could see bits and pieces of the Josh you once knew coming back. His mind wasn't all there, of course, but you've known him forever.

You should be thinking with your brain and not your heart.

But....

You still love him, and believe in second chances.

"Joshua."

He perked up, anticipating the worst as you pulled up a chair to sit in front of him. For you to say his name like that couldn't have been good.

Maybe you were gonna side with all the rest of them and spit on him.

Maybe you were gonna say that you're leaving him alone here, as Dr. Hill had warned would happen.

Maybe you were finally going to tell him what an unforgivable monster he wa-

"I believe you're innocent. You're not one to take a life. No matter what they say." You suddenly spoke, putting a hand to his soot-coated cheek

Almost immediately, his twitching stopped, and he stared straight at you.

It's like you put him in a trance.

"I'm not gonna leave you."

"..e-even though I've been..all messed up?" He asked cautiously. "I-I mean..I haven't been a good boyfriend lately..."

"That hasn't stopped me from being there for you before." You chuckled. "We're gonna work through this. Even if it's just you and I."

"............"

"I believe you when you say you didn't kill her. Do you believe me?"

It took him a few moments to study your expression, seeing the genuine care and warmth in your eyes. Despite all the horrors you've seen tonight, there was still a spark of hope in them.

That was the light he needed.

"...I-I do..I really do." He sniffled, resting his head on your shoulder, grateful that you didn't push him away despite being covered in dirt and fake blood. "'m sorry...I-I don't deserve you."

"Oh, honey..." You put your arms around him, sighing softly as you felt him tremble against you, tears slowly dampening your jacket. At this point, you knew you got him back, and you were so relieved. "We'll figure something out. Just stay with me."

"You don't think I'm a monster..?" He asked through his sobs. "I mean, everyone treated me like one...you've seen them.."

"....I know. Neither of us can change how they feel. But listen, the only monster here is-"

All of the sudden, a shrill inhumane screech echoed from somewhere outside, deep in the woods, interrupting the tender moment between you two.

Josh sat up with a start, his tearful eyes wide and terrified as he looked to you. "Wh-What was that?"

"That's the real monster I was gonna mention. They call it the Wendigo. Hang on." Crouching down, you managed to find a small pocketknife on his toolbelt, using it to cut the ropes binding him. "It's fast. But it's blind as fuck. We need to get out of here."

Nodding, he got up as quickly as he could, having no time to rub his aching wrists as you grabbed his hand.

The shrieks became louder, forcing you two to hide further inside the shed, sticking close to the back wall where the shadows were darkest. "Shit. Don't move a muscle, okay?"

His breath hitched as the wendigo dropped down in front of the entrance, creeping inside the small building to look for prey. But he took your advice and tried staying still.

You could practically hear you own heartbeat as you held your breath, thumping louder and louder as the creature wandered around. Josh watched it scrape its claws along the wall, creating a sound most unpleasant in an attempt to make him flinch.

It then made direct eye contact with you both.

While you managed to keep perfectly still, you could hear Josh's quiet whimpers, indicating he had a much harder time considering how jittery he was earlier.

All you could do was hope and pray it would leave.

Otherwise...both of you were dead.

Just when you thought your boyfriend was going to lose it completely, the distant snapping of a branch caused the wendigo to turn at blinding speed and sprint out of the shed, returning to the surrounding woods.

"Okay...thank christ.." Letting his hand go, you took a breather, only to see that he was still standing rigid. His eyes showed nothing but pure terror, as he began mumbling something like "was it real" under his breath.

"Josh? Baby?" You shook his shoulders a bit, and he blinked several times, coming back to reality. Relief immediately crossed his face as he realized you were still here. "It's okay. It's gone."

"Tha....That thing w-was real?"

"Yes. I know how to outsmart it. But we can't stay here. We'll be safer at the lodge with the others. We just gotta keep our heads down until then."

"But..what about the-?"

"Don't worry about them. Let's worry about getting out of here, alright?"

Wordlessly, Josh nodded, practically clinging to your arm as you both headed outside and down the snowy trail. He kept mumbling incoherent things, reassuring himself that he was safe with you.

Obviously, he seemed pretty shellshocked, considering the monster he just encountered was real and not a product of his imagination.

He didn't know whether that was better or worse.

Either way, you allowed him to hold onto you, knowing he needed someone--anyone--to lean on right now. And fortunately you were exactly the person he needed.

The only one who could help him come back to his senses.

You swore to never abandon him, and you intend to keep that promise even after all that happened tonight.

You still loved him, and he loved you.

That hasn't changed.