#and i couldn't sleep for a second last night

[wosospacegirl]

Legally binding - Part 3

Summary: Alexia Putellas didn’t plan to become anyone’s legal guardian. But a very determined 12-year-old with a forged Barça contract has other ideas—and she’s already moved in.

Warnings: Alexia and the kid argue again; Alexia wishes she could just drop the kid off at her mom's house, and apparently, twelve-year-old kids are learning about reproduction in science class.

Word count: 6.8k

Legally binding masterlist here

Alexia woke to pressure at her feet. Something heavy and warm, she was still half-asleep when she shifted and kicked it gently, assuming one of her pillows.  

She frowned and opened her eyes, being hit by the morning light coming out of the windows. Then she lifted the duvet.

She saw a head.. A tiny and messy-haired head. 

The girl.

 She was wearing that familiar too tight pyjama top.

Alexia sat up slowly and stared, unsure if she was still dreaming. For a moment, she had even forgotten what happened, had forgotten about the girl, but there she was curled up at the foot of the bed.

Her position looked uncomfortable, she was lying sideways with one arm dangling off the edge of the bed, her head was turned into an awkward angle. 

She looked small. And for a few seconds, Alexia could only sit there, blankly trying to catch up to the sigh in front of her. Alexia just wasn’t expecting it to happen, although she had, and still did, get into her mother's bed when the world was too much to handle.

Although Eli, Alexia’s mom, had chosen to have her, Alexia didn’t appear in her mom's living room, saying she was now her guardian.

Alexia dropped back into the bed with a groan, burying her face in one of the pillows. Maybe she could sleep a bit more, forget this was all happening, pretend she was the only one living in the house.

But she just couldn't, her mind kept circling back to what was happening in her life.

There was a kid in her bed. Her bed.

Was she her kid? Alexia still wasn't sure. All she knew was that it was her real life now, she had to get used to it, just for a little while, at least.

The girl stirred and stretched her arms above her head, then she sat up like it was the most common thing in the world…waking up in the bed of Alexia Putellas.

“Buenos días,” [good morning] she mumbled.

Alexia turned her head slightly. 

“Hi,” Alexia said simply.

The girl rubbed her eyes and blinked at the other side of the room.

“That's your bathroom?” she asked, pointing at the door to the right of the bed.

“Uh... yeah?”

“Great,” the girl said, hopping off the bed and walking to the bathroom.

Alexia just lay there, still in her sheets and staring at the ceiling.  Her brain was trying to decide if she should laugh, scream, or go back to sleep.

She just lost her bathroom privacy to a child. Great.

Alexia should be getting up soon, she had training in two hours. Hell, she had a routine that she was supposed to be starting right now. 

First, she had to do her morning stretching and work out; after that, she had to drink a lot of water while listening to the news, then she had to go over some tactile stuff Romeu had sent her, all that before her morning training at the training ground.

But now she had a twelve-year-old in her en suite bathroom. And she didn’t know what to do with her. It was like her life had gone completely out of her control.

Even when she did her ACL and she had to rely on others for absolutely everything, she still had more control over her own life than right now.

As if the girl sensed Alexia's spiralling thoughts, she reappears from the bathroom, looking much more awake than Alexia, that was for sure.

The kid paused in the doorway, her eyes looking at the bed, at the spot she was sleeping minutes ago, then she looked at Alexia, eyes wide, waiting…like she wasn't sure she was allowed to speak.

“Do you need anything ?” Alexia asked, forcing a smile on her face.

“I... uh... slept in your bed last night,” she said, her voice low and unsure. “Sorry about that,”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Alexia said. “I didn’t see you coming in, or else I would have, hm, given you a pillow, I gue,ss.”

The girl looked at the floor. There was something in her, something that hadn't been there before. Or at least, Alexia hadn’t noticed before. As if the girl had grown nervous overnight..

Alexia watched her closely. Alexia wasn't the best at reading emotions, but it felt like the girl had a hint of embarrassment. on her face, but it was so subtle that it could have been missed.

The kid had never looked embarrassed before…Not when she broke into her apartment. Not when she revealed Alexia had ‘adopted her’

“Well…” the kid started, lifting her eyes to look at Alexia, her cheeks turning pink. “You turned off the lights.”

Alexia blinked, feeling slightly taken aback. “Oh, you don't like that? The dark, I mean.”

The girl shook her head. “It scares me,” she admitted. “I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't see anything. It felt like I was back at the orphanage.”

The words hit Alexia like a slap to the face. She hadn't expected that. She obviously didn't think when she left a kid in a completely dark room. Her mami would always light a night light for her and Alba when they were little, maybe Alexia could do the same next time?

“Oh,” Alexia said softly, “I didn't know. I'm sorry... hm, maybe we can keep them on if you like?”

The girl shrugged.

“It's okay,” she murmured. “I found your room, it wasn't so scary anymore.”

The kid said it like it was the most natural solution, as if going to Alexia’s bed in the middle of the night was the right thing to do when she felt scared

Alexia didn't know what to say. But something about it lingered. Alexia had never been the one people went to when they were scared; she was the one people went to when they needed a word of comfort (football-related) or when they needed to know in what area they needed to get better at to become a great player.

She had never been held to a standard of being someone's safe haven. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing; Alexia was happy that she could help the kid somehow, but it still felt like another weight she had to carry.

Was this weight normal? Did all parents feel that? Did her mom feel that when Alexia was born and she was suddenly responsible for a new life?

..

The omelette was in the pan, and the warm scent of butter and eggs was filling the kitchen with a smell Alexia knew very well. It had become one of her favourite scents. It meant a new day was starting, a new start over, a new beginning for Alexia.

Alexia loved mornings ever since she was a kid. She also always made omelette, so it was nice that at least one aspect of her life was still the same.

She hummed quietly under her breath and was focusing on not burning her breakfast...Well, their breakfasts.

But then Alexia heard it: footsteps in the hallway. They were very quick, as if in a hurry.

“Bye!” The word barely registered at first.

Bye?

Alexia she turned off the stove, and stepped out of the kitchen just in time to see the girl by the front door, one hand was already on the knob.

Alexia moved fast, stepping in front of it. Her arms were already crossed, and her jaw tensed. 

“Bye?”Alexia said in disbelief.. “Where exactly do you think you're going?”

“La Masia,” the girl replied, as if it was obvious. “I have training today…I can still only go once a week, but once you sign me up for the academy, I can go every day.”

And then, the kid just smiled and reached for the door again.

Alexia didn't budge. “No. You're not going anywhere.”

The girl blinked up at her. “Huuhh? Why not? I got my shoes and everything?”

“Because you're twelve,” Alexia said, brows raised. “You can't just walk out of the house like that.”

The girl tilted her head, looking confused. “I told you, Ale, you don't need to parent me. I just need a place to stay and someone to register me for La Masia. That's it.”

Ale. She had never called her that before. Just Alexia.

The girl just stood there, smiling like she couldn't possibly understand why Alexia wasn't going along with this plan, her plan.

Alexia rubbed her temples, trying to bring down an urge to scream.  The kid was stubborn. No, persistent. That was the word. Definitely better than stubborn.

When the girl tried the doorknob again, Alexia placed a hand on it, firm.

“No,” she said again. “Absolutely not. First of all, you can't just walk into La Masia with no guardian papers. Second, this city is dangerous. Third…”

She took a breath, trying not to lose her temper.

“....You're twelve. You don't even know where the nearest store is, let alone how to use public transportation by yourself.”

“But I have been on the metro before!” the girl said proudly. “Well, it was only once, but I know my way around, I can read those metro maps to find my way.”

“That’s not the point.”. Alexia raised her voice slightly, The kid couldn’t possibly think that the only survival skill she needed was to know how to read metro maps.

“The point is that you can't just go running off on your own, okay?” Alexia continued and began to walk around in the living room while the kid just stood there, watching her. “

“I'm responsible for you now. That means you don't leave this house without me knowing where you are, end of story.”

The girl immediately dropped herself onto the sofa dramatically, as if she had just been wounded by Alexia. Then she sat back and crossed her arms, a pouting on her face. “You're being overdramatic.”

Alexia froze.

Overdramatic?

Alexia slowly turned to face the girl, eyes narrowing.

“I'm being what?” she asked, voice dangerous, the same one her mom used to use on her when Alexia was the one sneaking out to play football with some neighbours. 

The girl shrugged, looking bored..

Alexia could feel it. Her patience was already wearing thin.

“You're being all 'parenty,'” the girl said as if Alexia wanting to protect her from getting abducted was some sort of overreaction. 

“I'm independent, Alexia, I’ve been on my own for a very long time, I know how to take care of myself.”

Alexia sighed. Right, yeah, of course, a little kid would know how to ‘take care of herself’.

“No, you don’t,” Alexia said sternly “I don’t care if you think you are street-smart enough to move around Barcelona alone. From now on, you aren’t leaving anywhere without an adult.”

“You are not the boss of me!” The girl said, her voice extremely angry, which matched the frown on her face. “You can’t just ruin my plans like that!!”

Alexia looked at the girl. Well, now who was overreacting?

The kids' cheeks were turning red, if she were a few decades older, Alexia would be concerned about her bursting a vein on her forehead.

For a second, Alexia genuinely considered letting her go. 

Just opening the door, waving goodbye, and letting the kid see for herself how much of a mess and unsafe the world could be.

 But no. She pulled herself together, took a deep breath through her nose. 

Guardian, she was a guardian. She was the responsible adult here, not the kid. The girl was too small and her feelings were just too big.

But if this kid thought she was old enough to manage everything, then fine. Alexia would be honest, at least.

“Look,” she said, kneeling in front of her. “I didn't ask for this either. I didn't ask for a kid to show up on my doorstep and make me responsible for her entire existence.”

The girl frowned even more, clearly not enjoying the direction the conversation was going.

“I was just getting home after training…”Alexia said, gesturing vaguely. “And then you showed up, and now I have a small human thinking she can go out and play football without so much as a lunchbox!”

The girl's expression changed.

“Okay, okay, ” the kid said. “We can get a lunch box and then I’ll go to La masia, how does that sound?”

Alexia blinked. Then dragged both hands down her face. It was going to be a long morning.

“Have you listened to anything I just told you?” Alexias asked tiredly.

“I did listen to you,” the girl replied, crossing her arms. “But I feel like you're the one not listening to me.”

Alexia started, exasperated. “How am I not listening to you? We’re having a conversation, I am talking to you.”

“You just don’t listen!” The kid said. “I have told you my plan, but when I try to do something about it, you are just like ‘no, no, no and no’... You don’t let me do anything!”

“I don’t let you do anything on your plan because it is not a plan.” Alexia snapped, sounding harsher than she meant, “Plans are realistic, they have reasonable steps you can take, what you have is a dream, dreams are not plans.”

The girl looked at Alexia, betrayed. 

“You said in that interview that you supported every child’s dream, and that you wished all of us kids would make our dreams come true! And now you’re saying my dreams are just dreams!” 

“I never said that your dreams are just dreams,” Alexia said slowly. “I said that dreams need realistic plans, and that your plan is not realistic.”

“You didn’t say that.” The girl rolled her eyes.

Briefly, Alexia imagined driving to her mother's house and just dropping the girl off. 

No explanation. No warning. Just let her mom think the kid had chosen her instead of Alexia. Maybe she would believe it. Well, Eli would be a way better mom, or guardian, than Alexia, that was for sure.

“Look, if you insist, you can drop me off, okay?” the girl offered. “I don't mind.”

Alexia was seconds from losing it.

“What part of 'you are not going to La Masia today' did you not understand?" she asked, rising to her full height, hands on her hips now. 

The whole gentle parenting attempt had clearly failed. Miserably. Maybe Alexia should try…rough parenting, instead? Was there such a thing? She should buy some parenting books, maybe that would help.

“You can’t just prohibit me from going,” the girl insisted. “I’m good enough, and, as much as you don’t like it, I have things figured out, you know? I just need you to register me full- time and things will work out.”

“Oh yeah,” Alexia muttered, throwing her arms in the air. “So you're telling me that you, a kid, have it all figured out. Meanwhile, I'm just a clueless adult trying to stop you from becoming the next missing child in Barcelona."

“You're not a clueless adult,” the girl replied, her face had a very innocent and cute expression that made Alexia almost forget why she was mad in the first place. “You're just getting in the way–I need to be there at nine.”

“I'm getting in the way??!” Alexia's blood pressure was spiking, and the kid was to blame.

The girl simply nodded and sat up straighter on the sofa.

“I know the contract said you have to care for my well-being and health and stuff, but really, you don't have to, I’m independent.

Alexia rolled her eyes. Not this conversation again. It was like the kid discovered the word independent and was running with it. They had spent the last thirty minutes going over and over the exact same thing.

“Oh, you're independent, huh?" Alexia said, challenging. “Have you brushed your teeth yet? Have you packed something to eat during training? If you get hurt, who will La Masia call? Do you know my phone number?”

The girl opened her mouth to respond, then paused and closed it again. Finally, realisation settling in her face, because right. She didn’t have it all figured out.

Alexia sighed, pressing two fingers to the bridge of her nose. “You're not going to La Masia,” Alexia said her voice firm. “Not today. We need to figure things out first.”

The girl's eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

“Yes”, Alexia said. “You don't have any school papers. You don't have a guardian note. You don't have– nothing! Not even a proper ID on you!”

The girl looked down, sadness growing on her face as she slowly realised that becoming a professional footballer wasn’t just about kicking a ball around.

When Alexia thought the girl had finally learned that her lesson, that this whole plan was not so easy, the girl opened her mouth again.

“So…can I go tomorrow, at least? I can take a taxi if you don’t want me taking the metro.” She looked up at Alexia, eyes big.

There was a moment of silence.

“You're going to give me grey hairs,” Alexia muttered finally, shaking her head and giving up on the whole parenting thing.

The girl didn't miss a beat. “You already have one.”

Alexia stared, deadpan. “Go set the table. Now.’

“Ughhh, fine.”

The girl pushed herself off the sofa and walked into the kitchen, grabbing two plates and setting them on the table. Alexia returned to the stove, her hands slightly trembling.

She stared down at the omelette.

Was this what parenting was? She had asked that question at least a thousand times, and it was barely nine am.

But is it? Is that what parenting is about? Explaining the obvious? Repeating yourself? Arguing with someone who thought you were the one being unreasonable?

She reached for the spatula with a sigh.

Apparently yes. Yes, it was.

As they sat down to eat, Alexia knew she had to take control of the situation. The morning had already spiralled far past her comfort zone, and if there was one thing she could do was set some rules.

“First rule,” she began as she served the omelette.

“Wait, wait!” the girl interrupted, hopping up from her chair and walking to her room, well, Alexia’s guest bedroom.

“I need to write it down, or else I’ll forget,” she called back. “Sister Maria always made me write rules like…fifty times.”

Well, Sister Maria didn’t sound very fun.

The girl returned moments later with crayons and a single piece of paper clutched in her hand.

Alexia leaned closer to inspect it and frowned.

“Hey!”  she said, taking the paper gently from the girl’s grip. “Where did you get this? This is a prescription slip...you can’t draw on this!”

The girl froze as Alexia held it up. “Oh,” she said, startled. “I didn’t know it was an important paper.”

Her eyes dropped to the floor. There was something in her posture that once again made Alexia's chest ache. Alexia sighed, then she got up and walked over to the coffee table, and sifted through the mess until she found some other paper.

“Here,” she said, handing it to her. “You can draw or write on this, alright? I need the other one.”

“Okay,” the girl replied.

“Now sit back, please.”

The girl did as she was told. 

She had a full plate of omelette in front of her, crayons on her left, and a glass of orange juice on her right. Alexia wasn’t sure how much vitamin C kids actually needed, but she made sure to fill the glass.

“Alright,” Alexia said, clearing her throat. “Back to the rules.”

She took a breath.

“Rule number one: Absolutely not leaving this house without me. Understand? You’re a kid, and this city is dangerous. I don’t care if you know the way to La Masia or not.”

The girl nodded reluctantly while writing it down in pink crayon.

“Rule two,” Alexia continued. “You can’t tell anyone about the guardianship. Not a single person. Okay? We need to keep this between us.”

“Why?” the girl asked, crayon paused mid-scribble.

Alexia hesitated, and her throat tightened. She couldn’t explain the truth, not yet. 

Couldn’t say that the arrangement was only temporary. That in four months, if all went well, she wouldn’t be the kid’s legal guardian anymore. Pedro had promised it was just for the season.

Alexia opened her mouth, but then closed it. The words felt too heavy.

“Because I said so,” she said finally, forcing a smile. “Just… trust me on this.”

The girl nodded without protest, and that only made Alexia feel worse.

“Rule three,” she added. “You’re not going to La Masia until you’re registered in a school. You can’t play football full-time until that’s sorted.”

The girl sat up straighter. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. She put her crayon down with a bit more force than necessary.

“How am I going to play football if I’m going to be in school?” she whined. “I need to focus on football”

Yeah, me too, Alexia thought. I also need to focus on football.

But now? She was going to have to skip training to find a school for this kid. 

Should Alexia choose the school with the best reputation or the one closest to home? What about a private one? Should she care more about the ambience of the school or how academically challenging it was? Her head already hurt.

“Look,” she said aloud. “Just because you want to play football doesn’t mean you can skip everything else. School’s part of everyone's life, and you’ll go, no arguing in that.”

“I’m not a kid!” the girl shot back, arms crossed tightly. “I’m twelve! I should be able to choose whether I want school or not.”

Alexia raised an eyebrow. This girl couldn't be serious right now.

“Twelve-year-olds are still kids,” Alexia said. “You get to choose a lot of stuff in life, school isn’t one of them.”

The girl slumped in her chair, grumbling under her breath. “That’s not fair.”

Alexia sighed again, leaning back. Alexia understood, she really did.  This kid had probably been forced to grow up too fast, and she was probably not treated like a kid back at the orphanage.

“You know,” Alexia said gently, “footballers don’t just wake up and become footballers. You don’t skip all the hard stuff, you know? It takes discipline, work, and sacrifices, which means doing stuff you don’t want to do, like going to school.”

She just pouted. “This isn’t going how I thought it would,” she complained. “This is worse! way worse than I thought.”

Alexia blinked. Oh this is not how she wanted?

“Oh, you think this is bad? Did you think I wanted a kid to look after?” Alexia snapped, unable to hold back. “You think I woke up and said, ‘today’s a great day to be a parent? Let me go look for some kids!”

The girl flinched, and her eyes widened, before narrowing again. 

“Well,” the girl said, “okay, no need to be harsh.”

Alexia rolled her eyes, but her chest softened. It wasn’t easy for the kid either, even if she was the one who put both of them in that situation. She did it out of despair, fearing she wouldn’t be able to follow her dream.

The kid--Y/n--as Pedro had told her, might act tough, but Alexia saw through it.

“Alright, alright, sorry” Alexia muttered, nudging the plate a little closer. “Now eat, and if you’re still hungry, take more.”

The girl stared at her, but then smiled in that cute way she did.

She picked up her fork and finally started eating, no more complaining about La Masia or school.

They didn't say anything during breakfast, but the silence wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable; it was nice, in some weird way. 

They just sat there and enjoyed their breakfast like they hadn’t just yelled at each other.

Like they were... figuring it out.

..

This was ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.

Y/n sat in the back seat of Alexia’s car with arms crossed tightly in front of her chest, her eyes fixed firmly on the window.

She had plans. Big plans. The kind of plans that ended with a Ballon d’Or by the time she turned fourteen. But getting dragged around to some school by Alexia wasn’t on her plans, absolutely not.

She was frustrated, and she barely knew what ‘frustrated’ meant.  Maybe she could still get away; she could sneak off under the La Masia bleachers and hide and sleep there. At least she would be close to training.

School? School was a complete waste of time. No matter how important Alexia said it was.

“You can be mad all you want,” Alexia said. “But you’ll go to school next Monday, either you go to school, or you just don’t train at all.”

Y/n didn’t respond. She lifted her chin higher.

“That little contract of yours? It says I have to put you in school, or else I’ll get arrested.” Alexia tried again, wanting to get the girl to say something. She had been quiet ever since she and Pedro had taken the kid to get signed up for the Spain Academy for Girls.

Y/n’s fingers curled into fists in her lap.

Arrested? Good.

Maybe if Alexia went to jail, she would stop interfering and trying to ruin everything Y/n had so carefully planned.

“If that means I’ll finally have the freedom I was promised,” Y/n snapped, turning her head just slightly, “then yes. Go ahead, get yourself arrested.”

The sharpness in her voice surprised even her. Y/b didn’t like being rude. Didn’t like being ungrateful. Especially not to someone who had let her eat as many servings of dinner as she wanted. 

But she was furious. No one was listening to her. No one understood that she didn’t want any of this. She just wanted to play football. That was it.

Alexia’s grip tightened around the steering wheel. Her gaze moved to the rearview mirror, locking eyes with Y/n for just a second before she looked away again.

“You weren’t promised any freedom,” Alexia said quietly. “You made that up in your head. Now you, well, we have to deal with the real consequences of this guardianship, Y/n.”

Y/n. There it was again. She hated it when Alexia used her name. Her real name. She preferred kid. But now? Now, Alexia had gone through her file, she knew her real name, and her story, possibly her medical records as well.

Y/n just wanted to get out of the orphanage and become something. That was her goal, her plan and her dream.

And it had been a good plan, too; it was structured. 

She had just picked the wrong adult to drag into it. She should have chosen someone who didn’t care if she was in school, someone who wouldn’t bother about paperwork or rules.

“I still don’t like it,” she muttered, turning her chin up stubbornly. “This whole school thing.”

Alexia didn’t miss a beat.

“It’s okay,” Alexia said, her voice dry. “You don’t have to like it, you just have to go.”

..

“I don’t want it,” Y/n said while shaking her head, her mouth in a pout, Alexia had come to recognise it as her normal response to being told what to do.

Alexia held up the strawberry-print pyjamas again, this time closer to the girl’s face, as if she could see the tiny fruits on it, she would like it. 

“Please? This is the fifth one I have shown you. You need clothes, ones that fit you.”

“No.”

Right after registering her for the school (a private school) Alexia had called Romeu to say she wouldn’t make it to training. He had sounded nervous, because she never missed training. But when Alexia said it was for ‘personal reasons’ he didn’t push.

Now here she was, in the middle of a kids’ clothing store in the mall, trying (and failing) to convince her twelve-year-old to pick out anything.

“Why not?” Alexia asked, exasperated. “This one is soft and cute. The one you have is too small, it barely covers your ankles!”

“Mine fits just fine,” Y/n said. “I can still wear it.”

“Por Dios, why are you so stubborn?” Alexia let out a quiet groan.

Then, a sales assistant appeared. “Hello! Can I help you two with anything today?”

It was kind of funny, actually, how fast Y/n transformed into a shy kid; she was ducking behind Alexia’s side like it was a safe place,

Apparently, she didn’t like strangers. Alexia wasn’t sure how she had managed to trust her so quickly.

“Hi!” Alexia greeted  “I’m just trying to get some clothes for this one,” she added, nodding at Y/n, “but she doesn’t seem to like anything. Do you have more options?”

Y/n pinched her in the side for that comment. Alexia ignored it.

“Of course,” the salesgirl said and gestured toward the other section of the store. “We’ve got some great stuff for preteens over here. That age is difficult, right…”

“Oh, you’re telling me,” Alexia muttered.

The woman led them to more clothing racks and then went away.

Alexia flipped through the rack and pulled out a navy-blue pyjama set with a whale on the front. It looked warm and cozy. Good.

“Look, this one’s cute…and it’s fleece-lined, so you would be warm.”

“I don’t want it,” Y/n snapped, this time sharper than before.

“Okay. What’s going on?” Alexia frowned and lowered the hanger.

Y/n looked down at her shoes and then to the side. “I just... I don’t have any money with me right now,” she whispered.

“What?” Alexia was so confused right now, she barely knew what to say or what to do.

Y/n moved her feet, not meeting Alexia’s eyes. “I said I don’t have money.”

“And?...”

“To pay for it,” Y/n mumbled. “I’m the one who’s gonna wear it.”

“Wait, you thought you had to pay for it?” If this were the case, then her attitude made sense. The kid wasn't just being grumpy.

Y/n shrugged like it was obvious. “Yeah?”

For a second, Alexia just looked at her. “Nena… you’re a kid, you don’t pay for things like this…It’s my job.”

“But I’m the one who needs it,” Y/n said quickly, arms crossing again. “So it should come from me.” 

Alexia crouched a little to meet her eye, holding the pyjamas gently between them.  “Look, I know you’re used to handling things on your own. I get it. But this? This isn’t one of those things, yeah? Taking care of you, it’s not some sort of favour.  It’s just... being responsible for someone, alright?”

Y/n’s eyes moved to hers for a split second before darting away again. 

“You don’t owe me anything for pyjamas, okay? Or food. Or school. That’s on me now.”

Y/n didn’t answer. But she didn’t argue either. She just stood there.

Alexia gave the pyjama a gentle wiggle. “So... do we hate the whales, or can I take this one to the register?”

Y/n rolled her eyes but didn’t move. 

“The strawberries were better,” she said shyly. 

Alexia grinned. “Good, I liked that one better, too.”

After the pyjamas, Alexia led her into another store, this one for everyday clothes. She was hoping that now that the ice had cracked a little, Y/n might actually help pick things out.

She wasn’t saying no to everything anymore, which was progress. But she wasn’t saying yes, either. Just quietly trailing behind, hands in her pockets, eyes darting across racks without landing on anything.

Alexia held up two jackets. One was a deep forest green, while the other was bright pink and puffy.

“Okay,” Alexia said. “So you like this one–” she shook the green one lightly, “-or this one?”

She looked over to find Y/n staring up at her with the biggest, roundest eyes. Then on the jackets. Then back at her.

She said nothing. Not a nod, not a shrug, just silence...again.

Alexia lowered both jackets slightly. “Nena? You can pick, you know. I’m not gonna be mad, it would actually help me a lot if you told me what you like.”

Then she finally spoke.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to want.”

The words hit harder than Alexia expected.

“You’re not supposed to want anything. Just… pick what you like, what you think is pretty.”

Y/n’s mouth pressed into a tight line. She didn’t answer,  but she did point at the pink one.

Alexia smiled. “Yayy!” she said, a little too enthusiastically. “Okay, this one’s warm, good for the weather this season.”

She folded the jacket over her arm and gently took Y/n’s hand, leading her toward the shirt section now. “I’ve never been in one of these,” the girl said suddenly.

Alexia glanced at her. “Where? This mall? Me neither–”

“No. A store,” Y/n clarified. “I’ve never been in a store.”

Alexia paused. “Wait, never?”

The girl shook her head. “It’s confusing. And big. And it has… a lot of stuff. At the orphanage, we just got clothes…we didn’t pick. I don’t know how to pick.”

Seeing her look so small, so unsure, did something strange to Alexia’s chest. She would take grumpy, stubborn Y/n over this quiet, unsure version of her any day.

“That’s okay,” Alexia said gently. “I’ll show you how to pick. Come here.”

Y/n took a step closer, watching her carefully.

“First, you think about what you need,” Alexia explained, flipping through hangers. “You need everything, but right now we’re looking for everyday shirts. It’s autumn, so we want clothes that are warm, but not too warm.”

The girl tilted her head slightly, paying attention, and for the first time since they had started this guardianship, Alexia felt like Y/n was really listening.

“This one’s a good example,” Alexia said, holding up a long-sleeved black shirt. “It’s simple, it goes with everything, and you can wear it when it’s chilly. If it gets colder, you can just put a jacket over.”

“So…” Y/n said slowly, “…think about the weather first?”

Alexia grinned. “Exactly. That’s a good place to start.”

Y/n nodded, then she pointed at another shirt, a navy blue one with, it had stars all over.

Alexia didn’t say anything; she just added it to the bag. They continued shopping, and it was easier now.

The girl was still quiet, but she started pointing at the things she liked. It wasn’t much, but it was something. And for Alexia, that was more than enough.

By the time they reached the checkout, they had managed to get seven shirts, two jackets, two pairs of pants, two pairs of shoes and one more pyjama set (thank God! This one had the barça logo in it) and some socks. 

It wasn’t everything the kid needed, not even close, but Alexia didn’t want to overwhelm her. Baby steps, maybe she could bring her back another day.

Afterwards, Alexia decided that they should eat. They sat down to eat at one of Alexia's favourite restaurants, and Alexia ordered her usual salad without even thinking, but then she looked at the girl.

“What do you want?”

Y/n stared up at the menu board confused. Her eyes darted from item to item.

“Hmm…” She looked at Alexia, then back at the menu . “I don’t know. hm… whatever you’re having?”

Alexia raised an eyebrow, amused. “Salad? You want salad?”

Y/n hesitated, then smiled sheepishly. “Not really.”

“I didn’t think so. What about some pasta?” Alexia smiled. “ And we’ll get a little salad on the side. Sounds good?”

The girl tilted her head like she was considering, but she nodded slowly. Alexia watched her as she turned her attention back to the table, running her finger along the edge. It struck Alexia again, like it had back in the store, just how much this girl had gone without what she needed.

Not just clothes or choices, but small things. Like being asked what she wanted for lunch.

And god, she was just a kid.

A kid who had forged a contract because she wanted to be a footballer so badly that she had  tricked a stranger into becoming her legal guardian.

Alexia still didn’t know what to do with that. Or how she was going to tell her the truth, that she wasn’t going to stay with Alexia much longer. 

The truth was: Alexia wasn’t fit to keep her.

Alexia knew nothing about raising a kid. She didn’t even remember to feed them properly; they were having lunch at 3 pm, because she had lost track of time and the girl hadn’t reminded her. 

Probably didn’t think she was allowed to?

Sure, Alexia had bought the girl clothes, but none of them actually matched, because she had just let the girl point at things, she didn’t have the heart to say no when an item looked…too much.

So now the sneakers didn’t go with the pants, the jackets didn’t match with half the shirts. But Y/n had looked… proud, almost, when she handed them over. And Alexia wasn’t going to ruin that.

And then…

Fuck

The books. The school book, and the uniform. 

Alexia’s stomach sank, and she even put her salad aside. She had forgotten to buy them. How was she supposed to be responsible for a child when she couldn’t even manage a damn shopping list?

She was a disaster. As a parent. As a guardian. Whatever label people wanted to put on it, she wasn’t cut out for it.

..

When they got home, Alexia was carrying what felt like a hundred shopping bags, her arms sore, and her fingers red from the handles digging into her skin. 

Not even the kid got away with it, Y/n was holding the stack of brand new schoolbooks, her body was slightly bent under the weight.

“Put them on the table,” Alexia said, closing the door behind them and dumping the bags on the sofa with a tired sigh.

Alexia stared at the mess for a moment: shirts, pants, jackets, shoes, socks…everywhere. She was going to have to organise it all. Probably fold it and fit it into the girl’s wardrobe somehow. 

It wasn’t even that much, not really, but Alexia had never folded clothes this small before.

Behind her, Y/n dropped the textbooks onto the dining table, groaning as she shook out her arms. “How much reading does this school want me to do?” she asked, staring down at the books.

“A lot, apparently,” Alexia muttered, rubbing her forehead.

Y/n flipped one of the books open, frowned at the text, then looked up at Alexia, her face scrunched.

“How am I supposed to play football with this many pages to do?”

Alexia rolled her eyes and walked past her toward the kitchen. 

“Forget about football for a moment, yeah? We have got other things to focus on.”

There was a pause, just a second. “You have other things to focus on. I don’t.” Y/n said sharply

Alexia stopped.

Turned halfway around.

She didn’t like that tone, not the words exactly. She also didn’t like that they were circling back to football again, for what felt like the seventh time that day.

“Alright,” Alexia said, voice tight. “Don’t use that tone. It’s not nice.”

Y/n didn’t say anything, she just stared at her, her arms were arms crossed in a very defiant way

Alexia took another deep breath. 

She wasn’t good at this, at talking to kids, at parenting, at figuring out when to push and when to let things go. And today? Today, she felt like she was doing everything wrong.

Alexia crossed the room slowly,and  rested a hand on the back of one of the chairs.

“I know football matters to you,” she said, more gently now. “But you’re still a kid. And school isn’t an enemy, it's not something that's in the way of your dream”

“But if I don’t work harder than everyone else at La Masia, I’ll fall behind, and be bad, bad at football! And then what?”

Alexia didn’t have an answer, at least not one the kid would accept. So instead, she pulled out the chair and sat down.

“Then we figure it out,” she said. “Together.”

Y/n looked at her for a moment, and for a second, Alexia thought she might say something. But instead, the girl just nodded once, and looked away.

Alexia let out a small sigh of relief..

“Good,” she said, voice firmer now. “Now you can start your homework.”

Y/n’s eyes went wide. “Homework??”

“Sí,” Alexia replied, already heading back to the pile of shopping bags. “Science. Page thirty. The school sent me an email, they said you could get a head start on the work you missed while you were at the orphanage.”

Y/n picked up the textbook and flipped to page thirty, putting it down at the table. 

She looked at the words for a moment, eyebrows knitting together, then she cleared her throat and began to read aloud.

“In this section, we are going to study how reproduction works and–”

Alexia’s face went completely red as she ran forward, snatched the book from Y/n’s hands and slammed it shut.

“Actually,” she stammered, trying to put the science book aside, “go study Spanish.”

Y/n frowned. “Spanish?”

“Sí, Spanish. Page twelve. The one with conjugations.”

Y/n hesitated, then shrugged and picked up the Spanish workbook. Alexia sank into her chair across from her, exhaling very hard.

Well, at least that crisis was prevented.

..

A/n: Hope you guys liked it <3

[saeishi]

── ₊ ✶⋆.˚ down bad !

10. how to get isekaid ♢

( not proofread !! )

“okay class, don’t forget your reports. i need them by thursday morning, understand? class dismiss.”

wow, look, another pain-in-the-ass report!

you slump on your table and stare at the clear sky from the window beside you.

“hey, y/n! do you wanna come over and watch our practice?” you heard bachira’s name calling out to you but you didn’t say anything. you’re tired. you just wanted to lay your head on your desk and stare into the peaceful sky with jealousy.

“yohoo~ earth to y/n??”

“i’m sleeping, meguru.”

you heard him gasp, “back to my given name! yay!”

“y/n.”

oh god not again…

“i’m sleeping, rin.”

“you heard that?” you mentally rolled your eyes at his cold tone when he asked bachira. but instead of the cheerful voice of your bubbly friend, you heard a low, and neutral voice from another man that made you sit up quickly.

“‘i don’t want to fail’, she says.”

“itoshi sae?!”

there, stood the man who made you overthink because he left you on read last night, you don't even know why you felt like that but it still made you think about all the possible reasons why.

he’s not even your boyfriend, so why?

you can feel bachira’s grinning face while looking back and forth between you and sae.

“we’re going.” was all rin said before leaving, with your cheerful friend following behind him.

“goodluck, y/n!” he said and he disappeared with rin.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, GOODLUCK?!

you sat frozen on your seat, still in disbelief in the current situation you’re in right now while staring at the door.

DAMN YOU TWO!!!!

you didn't notice sae grabbing the other desk and combining it with yours before sitting down across from you.

he’s wearing his training gears, and you’re starting to feel bad because why is he skipping practice just to tutor you?

“don’t you have practice today? why are you here?” you mentally patted yourself on your back for not stuttering, but what he said next made you stop.

“your baby is here, aren’t you happy?”

THIS GUY—?!

“t-that was—!” way to go to jinx it, y/n!

he chuckled, “you really are different in person.”

well, i’m sorry?!

you lowered your head in embarrassment to avoid his gaze.

reo is right. i am embarrassing.

“we only have one hour before i go back to practice. tell me all the parts that’s too difficult for you so i can help you.”

you nodded your head, still avoiding his gaze. you open your bag and grab your notebook and put it on your desk.

sae opens it and stops at the third page.

“oh.”

oh?

OH?

GOD CAN THE GROUND PLEASE SWALLOW ME UP NOW??

“it’s amusing you’re surviving this.”

“....can we just, start now?” i’m getting more embarrassed every passing second!

“you don’t need to look so down. everybody has their own subject weakness.” geez, thanks for the comfort i guess? “anyway, if we didn’t manage to finish this today, just tell me when you’re free so we can continue this.”

…huh?

previous ◈ masterlist ◈ next

── ⟡

a/n: I APOLOGIZE FOR THE LATE UPDATE!! cold is being a btch so i couldn't update last week 💔

SUMMARY. you just wanted to prank your friend by giving him a love letter as "payback" for not lending you his notes. it should be easy— writing it and sending it to him. but why is his brother the one that's reaching out to you the next day?!

── ⟡

TAGLIST. (open)

I. @anqelkoz @ihsoti @yorubl1d3 @hellothere9597 @nomyimi @saeglazer @p1z-d0n7jud6em3 @captainshindo @xxbookloversworldxx @vaelils @sugacor3 @vashyuu @tojirin @ohagiyoo @kaz-0e @yoshinocherries @anaxugoras @prdoe @kaikaidenkai @90s-belladonna @blvdmrcnry @jeonggukimagines @bub-ss @zayqw @realrintaro @nevvynev @arslansenkai @bvttersywt @ruchimochi @dontmindtheevie @haruhi269 @chuurinnie @jeagermika @noecyan @lavzxx @mo072806 @ewsnup @swagkittybear @lizbix @aluraveil @levihanmyotp @sapph1r3x @emichanted @arwawawa2 @cookiesandcreammy @heartbrii @samthesimp1 @n0tviv @bubybubsters @satoruslipbalm

[torncwpid]

Rewrite the First Time

Summary: Gaz finding out that reader's ex absolutely half-assed her first time, and deciding to make it up for her when they finally have sex

Cw: sexually explicit content (mdni), mentions of bad past relationship, fluffy smut, fem!reader

Word count: 1.9k

I still feel a little awkward writing explicit smut but I figured writing out this thought would be a good idea to exercise that

You didn’t mean to tell him. It was just another late night conversation with your friend, and you were way too comfortable near him. Comfortable enough to feel like it wouldn't be a big deal to mention it, you both wrapped in blankets and watching some half-forgotten show rerun on your couch, his shoulder heavy beside yours.

Kyle had asked you how your last relationship ended. A simple thing friends usually know about each other. You felt like you should have had a simple answer, but the truth is that there were so many reasons for the breakup, all tangled into one big and complicated knot, and you rarely really mentioned all those reasons, settling for a short and socially acceptable “We weren't what each other needed, so I didn't want to be wasting our time and broke up”.

But something about the way he asked it gave you the space to actually answer honestly. Not the autopilot script you gave everyone else. Not the polished version that skipped over the shame and the ache, so you told him about the guy you dated before. He’d gotten under your skin with charm, flattered you until you said yes, and settled on bare minimum from then on. You told Kyle how he made everything feel like a transaction — even sex. Especially sex.

The first time you’d ever been with anyone, it had been with him. You told Kyle how he hadn’t even looked at you when it was over, how he just rolled away. Didn’t kiss you, praise you, ask if you needed anything… just turned his back and went to sleep like your body was a hotel bed he didn’t want to pay for.

You laughed as you said it, and you meant it. It did hurt that he didn't bother to make it special when you had told him more than once how important it was to you, but after so long, you just learned how to live with it since you knew you couldn't change that. What was done was done. But it still stung you deep down — the knowledge that you didn't have a good first experience and couldn't do anything to change it.

Kyle didn’t laugh, though. He didn’t even speak for a long few seconds. His jaw clenched slightly, a muscle ticking like he was chewing through words and discarding each one.

“I’m sorry,” you’d said too quickly, like you’d broken some invisible rule. “I shouldn’t have— That was too much.”

“No, luv, you’re allowed to talk about shit that hurt you.”

You blinked, surprised at how that pet name sounded from his mouth — easy, natural, like it just rolled off. Not romantic, not then. But warm.

He stayed a little longer that night. Watched you out of the corner of his eye as you laughed too hard at some dumb joke on the TV, like he was memorizing the sound.

He never forgot.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later — after flirty texts turned into late-night calls and the tension between you built up every time he brushed your hand or said your name just a bit too softly — that you realized Kyle hadn’t forgotten what you told him.

Because when his hands finally touched your skin like he wanted you, not just because you were available and a woman, but because you were you, it was with a care that had no business being so gentle.

It started slow, like it always did with Kyle. He wasn’t pushy, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t intense. He kissed you like the taste of your mouth might save him. His hands ran over your sides, your hips, your jaw, slow and steady like he wanted to memorize every millimetre of your body, like he had all night to.

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he whispered, lips brushing your ear.

You shook your head. “Don’t.”

He leaned back slightly, warm eyes searching yours. “Say it.”

“I want you,” you said, voice smaller than you intended.

He smiled, a crooked, soft smile that would have looked boyish if it wasn't for the fire behind his eyes.

And when he touched you… God.

It felt like he was trying to erase the memory of your first time with every stroke of his fingers, every kiss he left against your thighs, your stomach, your breasts. Like he could dig into your bones and pull out that leftover ache and replace it with something that felt like reverence.

“You know,” he murmured, mouth against your skin, “you deserve better than what he gave you.”

It took you a while to remember what he was talking about — who “he” was.

“I know” you whispered.

He looked up at you, face deadly serious. “You should’ve known it then too. He should’ve shown you.”

You swallowed hard, not sure what to say. The weight of being wanted like this wasn’t something you were used to. Not like this. Not when there was no rush. No demand. Just… him.

“I’m not gonna fuck you like it’s routine,” he said softly. “You’re not a goddamn checkbox, love.”

And somehow, that made your breath catch more than anything else he’d said or done.

You weren’t a checkbox.

Not to him.

Not ever.

His mouth found yours again before you could say anything else, stealing whatever breath you had left.

This kiss wasn’t the slow burn from earlier. This one was heat and want and teeth. A low groan rumbled in his chest when you pulled him closer, your fingers sliding under his shirt, feeling the muscles beneath. He let you explore for a minute, then pulled back just enough to strip himself of the fabric before reaching for the hem of yours.

“Can I?” he murmured.

You nodded, and he peeled it over your head with care, like he was unwrapping something sacred. His eyes darkened as they dragged down your body, and he swore softly under his breath.

“Fuckin’ beautiful,” he said, and the way he said it — low, guttural, full of awe — made your cheeks burn.

He kissed down your neck, slow and unhurried, until he reached your chest, taking his time there too, like every part of you deserved his full attention. You arched into his mouth as he suckled and teased, and the way he responded — his hand cradling your side, murmuring something sweet you couldn’t quite catch — made your whole body light up.

You’d had someone touch you before, but it never felt like this, even when he was hornier than usual. Kyle didn’t just want you; he worshipped you. Every touch felt like he was craving you, not sex.

When his hand slipped beneath the waistband of your underwear, you gasped, your hips lifting instinctively. He hummed against your skin.

“Shhh, I got you,” he whispered. “Gonna take my time with you.”

He pushed the fabric down and off, kissing your thighs as they trembled under his mouth. His breath ghosted over your cunt before he looked up, checking, he was always checking.

“You want this?” he asked.

“Please”

He groaned again, deeper this time, and then his mouth was on you. He didn’t rush, didn’t force, he listened to every moan, every stuttered breath, every twitch of your hips. His hands pinned you down just enough to make you feel safe.

When you came on his tongue, it wasn’t quiet. Wasn’t graceful. It was raw and shaking, and he held you through every second of it like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

Only then did he kiss his way back up your body, lips swollen, chin wet.

You pulled him into another kiss, tasting yourself on his tongue, and when you felt him hard against your thigh, you reached down to help him out of the rest of his clothes, and you gasped for a second at the feeling of how big he was.

Still, even now, he paused.

“You sure?” he asked again, voice hoarse.

“I’ve never been more sure,” you said under a chuckle.

He lined himself up, and just before he pushed in, he cupped your cheek, kissing you one more time, like he needed it. Like you grounded him.

The stretch was slow, more careful than anything you’d felt before. Your breath caught, and he stilled immediately, holding you like glass.

“You okay?” he whispered, forehead resting against yours.

Your response was a frantic nod. “I just feel so full.”

He smiled gently. “That’s good, love. Tell me if it’s too much.”

He moved in shallow thrusts at first, letting you adjust, his hands gripping your hips like he couldn’t believe he was finally inside you. The sound of skin against skin built up slowly, your moans mixing with his, the heat between you unbearable but just perfect.

And then he really started moving. Now it was deeper, harder, and your nails dug into his back.

“Kyle—”

“Fuck, say it again,” he barked, the softness from just minutes ago almost completely gone, the only way you could feel it now was in how he was observing you, looking out for any sign of pain or regret.

“Kyle,” you whimpered.

“God, you feel good— So fuckin’ good around me. So fuckin' tight and wet and all mine— All. Fucking. Mine.”

You cried out, pleasure climbing up your spine like fire. He kept whispering praises disguised as humiliation at you, until you were close again. And he could tell you were there before you even realized. Could feel how much tighter you got.

“I’ve got you, love. Let go for me. Wanna feel you cum all over me.”

And you followed his command like the good girl you are. Feeling you clench around him, he thanked God that you were on birth control, because there was no way he could pull out when you felt so good, dragging him over the edge with you as he buried himself deep with a groan.

He didn’t pull out right away. Just held you and thrusted lazily into you while you both caught your breath.

He pressed kisses to your hair and shoulder before moving the both of you so he could lay down and tuck you into his chest, arms wrapped tightly around you like he never wanted to let go.

Later, when your body was limp with satisfaction and laziness, when he was tracing idle lines on your hipbone, you’d turned your head and asked the question that had been curling in your chest like smoke.

“Why d’you care so much?”

He hadn’t looked at you right away. Just dragged his fingers down your thigh and kissed your shoulder.

“Because,” he said eventually, “if I’d been your first, I’d have made sure you never forgot it, for the right reasons.”

His voice was rough, and you could tell that he hated that it hadn't been him.

You rolled to face him, your heart pulling tight

“You kind of just did,” you whispered.

The look he gave you then was pure fire and tenderness all at once. Possessive. Dangerous.

Yours.

And he didn’t say it, at least not out loud, but you could feel it in the way his hand curled protectively around your waist and tugged you closer like he needed you against him to survive.

This is how it should’ve been the first time.

And this is how it’ll be every time.

[eraserbread]

ex-hubby!gojo for the sinners au next pls 🙏🏾 🙏🏾 i think he'd be a little unhinged ab needing to be w her again, but actually forever this time

it's just not in your nature to turn down your ex husband, gojo, when he shows up in the middle of the night ✧

→f!reader, relationsip angst, no curses vampire sinners!au, manipulation, sfw

yes, you're sleep deprived, but you're not crazy.

the tapping on your windows—rustling leaves outside of your bedroom—wasn't just a hallucination. now, that tapping and rustling have shifted towards the other side of the room, pausing every few seconds just to start again.

you ran and hid against the wall, tucked under the window where you heard the initial tapping. it yanked you from your sleep, now you're in pitiful pajamas, heart racing dangerously in your chest. it feels like you're about to have a heart attack—surely someone is scoping out the area to try and rob you... right?

a defenseless divorcee that wears her sorrow on her sleeve would surely be an easy grab, you don't even blame the assailant for trying.

"are you seriously hiding from me?"

the voice slaps you sideways—fucking satoru. the rustling stops, and the wind whistles against the cool glass. you're nearly shaking, fingers digging half-moons into your bare knees.

no, this couldn't be him... satoru is far too prideful to show up at your doorstep like this. after days of not answering messages or calls, he's back so entirely, it's like he never left.

you two haven't really talked more than a few words since he got the divorce papers. he's been hanging it over your head, telling you he'd sign them if you just give him a day... then another... next, he'd have to see you face-to-face. then a meeting forces him to cancel, and the papers go unsigned.

it's why you're so exhausted, and why he's so adamant.

"are you crazy? you scared the hell out of me." once you've gained your nerve, you're peeking up from your crumpled kneel, eyes just barely passing the jutting windowsill before you're seeing him.

towering over you, thin white hair ruffled like he ran all the way here. his eyes are bright, uncovered beams illuminating the darkness of your soul, but it's him.

unmistakably, satoru is standing outside your window—a flimsy pane of glass keeping you apart.

he doesn't answer you, instead he reaches straight-faced into the chest of his hoodie, pulling out a sickeningly familiar bundle of papers. you watch him flip through the drawn-out pages until he reaches the end, never once taking his eyes off those words. then, he holds the last page to the window, showing off the fresh signature he placed on the dotted line.

you heart drops... in a good way.

he lowers that paper and your gazes meet. he's not hiding emotion well, though he's not crying, his eyes are downturned. almost predatory in the way they're pulling you in for pity.

"why didn't you just call me?" you're trying to get anything out of him, at this point. why he's here when he could've just mailed it to you, or why he's knocking and tapping on every window in your space.

"you were asleep."

"then, just leave them right there. i'll get them in the morning."

gojo stares for a second, then glances down as if he's checking a watch. "sun won't rise for another five hours." he steps back, arm motioning to the tight squeeze he had to endure between trees just to get your attention. "and I don't have access to the building."

you sigh, fingers moving to open the locks on the window. he could walk all the way around to the front, but then so would you. you wish he'd just leave the papers and fuck off.

cold night air flushes forward as the window pulls open, making you step back and guard your warm skin. satoru's eyes take you in once nothing is keeping you apart, picking you down to the core. it's shameless, you're exposed.

"give me the papers." you bite, thrusting an empty hand into the night. satoru stands quietly for a second, looking down at your hand, then to your avoidant face and static appearance.

"just the papers? you don't want me to come in?"

"no." you decide, beckoning them into your grip with a curl of the fingers. you're staring stubbornly over your shoulder, completely blocking him out because you know how weak you are. just one turn of the mouth, and you'll be pulling him to your bed.

"i'm not giving you anything until you let me in." he's being strict—it's unlike him—but it's making you swallow down nerves, and your body temperature rises as danger sets in.

everything you see in front of you screams satoru gojo, but when he opens his mouth... god, it's so different.

"leave them outside." you're begging now, voice soft and nervous in your throat. still, you can't turn and look at him. you can see his bright reflection in the window glass, but you can't focus on it. your skin starts to break out in goosebumps.

when curiosity catches on, you flit your eyes towards him, pitching a surprised, little frightened whine when you see the stare he's giving you. his bright, blue eyes are opened twice as wide as they should be, reddened and exhausted in the corners, with pupils the size of saucers.

two hands pressed to the plastic of the sill, his muscles flex and bend like something is keeping him from jumping inside. his long fingers are red, dripping with craze as he grinds his nails down to stumps.

"you're tearing me apart, and you don't even care." he growls, manic reflection drawing closer as he kneels to your height. strangely, you feel safe behind this window. it's like he can't come in—he won't show you this unstable side of himself to your face, only through open windows.

"we settled on this divorce twice. you agreed." you're trying to be the calm voice of reason in this situation, taking a tentative step back. you don't want to look at him anymore, you just want him to go away.

"to have my money, property, and life stripped from me? did you even think about me once?"

"we aren't good together! how many times do we have to continue proving that?!"

"as many times as we need to, because this is a fucking marriage—

you're feeling brave enough to reach out and slam the window down on his sentence, not worried about his fingers or his uncanny reflexes. you wouldn't fight with him tonight, and you figure he must be strung out on something serious to show up at your door so maniacal.

it's like the slam lowers him back to earth, because he's fixing his posture, running a slow hand through his hair as he looks down on you. his stare has evened out into something more reminiscent of the one you studied so many years ago.

"go home, satoru." you finish, grabbing the curtain to yank it over his reflection.

you can't see him anymore, so you think that's it. you stand for a second, hands pressed to your hips as you try to come down from the ordeal. something's not right—your brain doesn't believe it, but your heart does.

as you turn around to leave him in the dust, a soft single thud falls onto the glass, then as soft as the night, you can hear him whisper, "all I need is one more night, and I think I can be okay without you."

you're peering over your shoulder like you heard a ghost, lips parted in utter shock. it's the first time in all of your years, that he's given you that tone. so pure—innocent right down to the bone.

"can't you see? i love you so much that I'm willing to let you go..."

he sits ignored for a few moments.

"i know nothing will ever be the same with us, but you're all I think about."

"our bodies don't deserve to suffer, lets give them what they need just one last time."

you're not sure which of his pleas hit you the hardest, but you're hesitating as you give in and pull the curtain back. he's still there, forehead pressed to the glass, splayed open palm kissing the surface.

in the moonlight, your satoru looks so pale and uncommon. he's glowing as he blinks up at you, porcelain reflection cracking at the edges when you're pushing attention onto him.

and that palm is twisting into a fist, his eyes bright like those of a happy puppy about to be reunited with his owner.

one last time couldn't hurt...

it's what you tell yourself to dull the feeling of your inescapable demise. you're pulling that window back open, biting over your bottom lip as you let him crawl inside, one long leg at a time.

when he's in your space, hunching over you like an entity, hands closed around your meek shoulders, you're warm. it's familiar, here, like it's where you want to take your last breath.

nobody can really blame you, after all. he knows just what you need— how to get you off so you can sleep the night away like a drunk. the shame in your bones has dissipated into steam, and the divorce papers are cold and lifeless as satoru fishes them out and presses them to your chest.

"i want to try something." his voice is deep, you can feel it reverberate through your body and into your soul. he's holding your chin at level, making sure you're not looking anywhere that wasn't where he needed.

right now his face is morphing into something that panned out so perfectly within his calculation that he was holding back a laugh.

mm—sweet mercy. now you're finally going to be together forever.

[strawberriesandhotmen]

Lovers and Sunlight

a/n: I hope y’all enjoy that little drabble I threw together for y’all. It was just something that popped into my brain so I decided to get it out there lol.

pairing: boyfriend!Frank Castle x fem!reader

CW: Honestly no warnings here, this is just a cute little fluff piece I wanted to put out. I guess I could say “sexy morning voice Frank being an absolute sap and worshipper of you, the girlfriend”; period, as he should

word count: 929

Sunlight peeked through the curtains, stretching across the bed rather artfully. Frank stirred just slightly, tugging you closer to his bare chest with a soft grunt. Your eyes fluttered open at the sunbeam shining across your eyes, a hand going to Frank's bicep as you rolled to face him.

He looked beautiful in the morning, you had always thought so. Short hair as mussed as it was able to be, lips in a soft pout, eyebrows permanently furrowed. Adorable.

You raised your hand to drag your knuckles down his cheek, feeling his slight stubble against your skin. The contrast between you was so clear: his hardened, coarse exterior against your freshly manicured hand (Frank never let you go more than a month without getting your nails done). You ran your thumb over his bottom lip, smiling when he scrunched his nose and grunted a second time.

"Good morning, Frankie." You hummed softly, returning your hand to his bicep. He let out a sigh before squinting his eyes open, rubbing the sleep from them before returning his hand to your waist.

"Mornin', doll." God, his morning voice would be the death of you. Low, gravelly, and it always sent a shiver straight through you. His thumb began to rub tiny circles into your hip over the fabric of his shirt you had put on the night before, and you nuzzled your head into the crook of his neck.

Why did he still smell so good in the morning?

"Smell somethin' you like, sweetheart?" You giggled as he caught you inhale, pulling back to get a good look at his now smiling face. It was a rare sight, a smile from Frank, one he saved only for you. You had been the first to see it after Maria, and he thought to himself that you would also be the last.

"Not my fault you're like a walking bottle of cologne, Frank. You can't blame a girl for indulging." He let out the rumble of a chuckle at that, his hand sliding down to your thigh before hiking your leg over his hip. You always loved that in the mornings he felt the need to be so close to you, as close as possible.

"I guess I'll just have to allow it." He teased, feigning exasperation and tapping the tip of your nose. His face split into a wide grin as you giggled again, squeezing his bicep (well, as much as you could get your hand around, that is).

A comfortable silence stretched between you, each admiring the other's eyes as you traced random circles into his skin. You reveled in the feeling of his big hand encompassing your thigh, smiling when he let out a little yawn.

Like you said before, adorable.

"Why r'you lookin' at me like that for, doll?" He questioned teasingly, his lips cocked in a crooked grin. You merely hummed, snuggled further into the pillow.

"You're cute in the mornings." He snorted at that, a reaction you expected.

"Cute, I'm not-"

"Adorable, even." His eyebrows raised and his thumb stopped its ministrations, and your stomach fluttered as his lips spread into a mischievous smile.

"I'm gonna get you for that one, doll." Before you could get out one word in protest, you were thrown into a fit of giggles as his fingers danced up and down your sides, tickling you mercilessly. Frank knew how much of a weakness that was for you, and it moments like these he enjoyed using it to his full advantage.

You squealed, squirming in his grasp and desperately trying to escape. He laughed at your dramatics, not stopping his torture until you quite literally couldn't catch your breath. Letting you calm down, he pulled you to lay on top of him, tucking a hanging piece of hair behind you ear tenderly.

"I ever tell you how beautiful you are, sweetheart?" The softness with which he said those words tugged at your heart, and you smiled with a head tilt.

"Everyday, my love." He grunted at that, pleased that you were aware of the high regard in which he held you. Frank practically worshipped you, and you couldn't feel more lucky.

"C'mere, baby." He muttered, tilting your face just slightly closer to his. With an intimacy that, on the right day, could've brought tears to your eyes, he pressed his lips to yours and held you close.

It wasn't rushed, not heated, but meant. With the slow movement of his lips, you could almost hear the I love you's pouring out.

And when he pulled back to press your foreheads together, you felt like the luckiest girl in the world, staring into those pretty brown eyes like they were the only things on this earth.

And to you, they were.

He was your everything, and you were his.

[sappho-favorite-pupil-fandoms]

Oil and water

Summary: after six or seven months from season 2 finale Vi and Caitlyn finally live together in Caitlyn's house, ready for their own personal 'happily ever after'. Or not?

What would happen after Arcane s2 finale???

Warnings: mention of sex/implied sex, sexual innuendos (sort of), domestic violence, both physical and psychological, stalking, controlling behaviour, unhealthy drinking/alcoholism, implied cheating, strong language, implied ED, mention of SA. every warning you can think about, basically.

---

Violet was still on the ground in front of the king size bed, her knees brushing against the cold floor beneath her. Still naked. Eyes closed shut, as if she was focusing on a feeble melody coming from afar.

A tip tap of feet coming from the bathroom, the cry of the bed's wooden structure under the weight of a person, fingers brushing through her hair.

Caitlyn.

Her first impulse was to jump up from her kneeling position, but a hand on her shoulder prevented her from moving. It was just a gentle touch, but it made her wince.

"You look so pretty like this, kneeling for me" whispered Cait, slowly tracing the outline of her lips with a finger "No, no, don't move. Stay down there".

Vi had to tilt her head to look her in the eyes. She was wearing a periwinkle nightgown now, her long legs covered by its soft texture. She was sitting on the bed right in front of her.

"That is your place, isn't it?"

Vi didn't falter: "It is".

"It is?" Caitlyn smiled, her lips tensing and her expression lighting up with pleasure "It is what?" asked.

"My place".

Vi looked away from her, focusing on the floor under her knees, defeated. But she knew Caitlyn was satisfied by her answer, even without seeing her face she could tell. It was easier that way.

"Come here!" and Violet didn't falter to obey the order, once again, and got on the bed as she was asked.

Her girlfriend slipped the eyepatch off of her and put it on the nightstand, before slipping herself under the covers and turning the lights off.

Vi did the same - she was still naked and pretty cold at this point, and in a few seconds Caitlyn's lips were on hers, Caitlyn's hands on each side of her face, keeping her in place. The red-haired woman remained still once again, waiting for her girlfriend to be done. She was too exhausted to even pretend to return her kiss, but the other woman didn't seem to care enough to really notice, and if she did, she didn't seem bothered by it.

"I'm exhausted. I have to wake up early, tomorrow. I got to rest" said Cait, her voice coming from her side, from the darkness.

"You are exhausted?" but Vi bit her own tongue to avoid saying it out loud: her last sassy comeback had earned her a busted lip.

She opened her arms for Caitlyn to snuggle against her chest, instead, her girlfriend's favourite place to sleep, and then stroked her long, blue hair "Good night, Cupcake".

"Good night" murmured her in her neck, with a sigh.

Vi couldn't remember why Caitlyn had to wake up early the next day, nor she was able to tell if her girlfriend had ever told her why. The blue-haired woman had stopped telling her where she was going or why months ago.

She was, however, very interested in knowing where Vi was going.

A few months earlier Violet discovered Ekko - Ekko her childhood friend, Ekko the only family she got left, that Ekko - was still alive, somewhere in the Underground City. And she had to find him, of course, so she sneaked out of the house. She didn't enjoy lying to Caitlyn, or to anyone else, for that matter, but she knew her girlfriend would have never let her go.

She knew going back to Zaun was...a dangerous idea. Most people down there weren't ready to forgive her for siding with the Enforcers, for sleeping with Caitlyn Kiramman, not only an Enforcer but a former dictator, for becoming her house pet. She couldn't forgive herself, either, so she didn't blame them.

But she had to try. She had to try, if there was a chance, even a one chance to see Ekko again, she had to try.

Vi knew Ekko loved her, she was one of his greatest friends, and that's why she also knew Ekko would have never accepted to forgive her, but she had to try to find him.

And it didn't work.

She didn't manage to find Ekko cause he didn't want to be found, that was the conclusion Vi eventually got to. Ekko didn't want to see her. A lot of people in the Undercity weren't exactly in the right mood to chat with her over a pint of beer at The Last Drop.

But the worst part came when she arrived back home, that night: Caitlyn knew where she had been. She was paying someone to follow her apparently, to know where her girlfriend was every second of every day.

Now her blue-haired woman was sleeping peacefully, her mouth slightly open, the weight of her body on Vi's. It was an uncomfortable position to be in but she couldn't move and risk waking Caitlyn up, therefore she didn't.

She remembered that one night very well, it was impossible to forget.

Her girlfriend was furious with her,

"I give you everything, i give you a house and expensive clothes and food, i give you everything you want, and you pull this?! You have nothing without me, and yet decide to go back to that- that place! What where you thinking?!"

They were both standing in the kitchen, the one that Caitlyn didn't use cause she had someone that cooked for her. Vi didn't know if her girlfriend thought she went back to Zaun to escape from her, or if she found out about Ekko, but what she did know is Caitlyn grabbed a dish from the table and threw it on the floor.

The porcelan dish shattered with a loud noise in a multitude of small pieces that flew around the room, between the two women.

Vi remembered being too scared to speak or do anything else. Caitlyn hadn't thrown that dish at her, not yet, but it wasn't the first time her girlfriend had violent behaviours towards her.

It made sense: she wasn't used to receiving "no" as an answer, or to not having her ways. The privileges of being born in the richest family of Piltover.

But Vi could have never thought...After Caitlyn had hit her with that rifle in the stomach, Vi told herself it was just a one time thing. It was a mistake. Nothing more than a stupid mistake. It was never going to happen again. It could not happen again. Caitlyn loved her. Caitlyn loved her. Caitlyn loved her.

Caitlyn had hit her just because she stopped her from taking her revenge. She was upset, in that moment, that's why she had hit her. It was never going to happen again, that's what Violet told herself.

That's what she had to tell herself. She could understand it, now: she had no choice but to go live with her girlfriend, to decide to trust her. She had nothing else, no money, no status, no influence besides the influence she could exercise through her fists.

She had lost everybody, she had lost Jinx, her sister, and she ended up losing herself too, in the end. She had no choice but Caitlyn, and now she was trapped in that golden cage with her. A prison fair more luxurious than any jail cell, but nevertheless a prison she could not escape from.

Vi turned her head to the side, to where she knew her new red suit was hanging from its hanger, even if the darkness was hiding it. It was so beautiful, such a valuable piece of clothing. Vi didn't know how much Caitlyn had paid for it, more money than the ones she had in her whole life, probably.

It was a gift for her after they had another fight. "Fight", that's how her girlfriend called slapping her cause she commited the unforgivable crime of forgetting about their monthsary. She didn't do it on purpose, she was barely aware of this "monthsary" nonsense. It simply wasn't a thing in Zaun, or maybe it was, and she had spent to many years in prison to ever learn about it.

Caitlyn required her to wear the suit for an after party for the highest society of Piltover, particularly for the Counselors, their families and friends.

Vi remembered how those elegant people looked at her: as if she was an exotic animal that Caitlyn Kiramman had managed to trap and take back home with her, and she felt that way, too. Despite the expensive outfit, none of them could forget that she was a zaunite. She was really no more than an animal, to them. No more than a pretty thing hanged at her powerful and rich girlfriend's arm.

The red-haired woman went straight for the alcoholic section of the buffet, feeling disgusted, but without really being able to tell if she was disgusted by all those people around her or by herself. Caitlyn had disappeared long before, in the joyful company of a beautiful woman that was wearing a sea water dress. An ambassador, probably. Vi wasn't sure.

She was already halfway through the ninth or tenth glass of some fancy wine, and not very sober anymore, when she spotted a familiar face among all those strangers.

Sevika.

Vi thought for a moment she was imagining her old enemy, cause why the hell would Sevika be there? But then she remembered: they gave her a sit in Piltover's Council. That's why she was there.

The dark-skinned woman was standing aloof from everyone else, clearly uncomfortable, in a pair of thigh trousers and a jacket.

It was the alcohol maybe, but Violet was so happy to see someone - anyone, really - from her old life, that she had to keep herself from bursting into tears.

Sevika noticed her too, apparently, cause she came closer and took a glass of wine from the buffet table. Only then Vi noticed they gave her a new prosthetic arm, a very realistic one.

"Woah!" she shouted way too out loud, and leaned out to look at it closer "it's very-"

The older woman was looking at her like she was struggling to recognise her, her dark brows were furrowed, her lips pressed against each other, her jaw clenched.

Sevika didn't say anything but grabbed a chair and moved it so that Violet could sit on it, right after propping her glass on the table. Vander's daughter looked so drunk she thought she had do to sit down.

And the red-haired was in fact pretty drunk, that's why she found the fact Sevika's eye were so sad confusing.

"What's wrong?" she remembered asking.

"We were tricked" said Sevika, slowly shaking her head in disappointment "They tricked us. All of us".

Later that night, when her and Caitlyn went back at Caitlyn's house, her girlfriend was upset with her. Of course, she was.

"What the fuck, Violet?! I bring you to a party and you get wasted like that?! You want every fucking person that matters in this city to know i can't get my girlfriend to behave?! But yeah, what the fuck can i even expect from you, you are what you are. I should know better..."

Vi didn't remembered what she answered in detail, something about that woman ambassador, maybe? but it must have been quite the answer, cause it was enough to get Caitlyn to push her. And she was so drunk it was way too easy for her girlfriend to make her lose her balance, and fall on the ground.

The next morning Vi woke up and she was still on the living room floor. Cait left her to sleep there. A huge bruise had appeared on the back of her right arm. And when her girlfriend came back home that day she brought her a couple of boxer gauntlets as an apology gift.

Vi sighed and gazed at the woman asleep on her chest, under the covers. She was peaceful, her features softened by sleep. Her powder blue eyes caressed Caitlyn's forehead, and then that scar on her eye, her lips and chin.

She was beautiful. She had always been beautiful, in Violet's eyes.

And she loved her. Oh, how she loved the woman that was now sleeping on her naked body. She loved her and clinged to this love with all her strenght, it didn't matter how much her muscles ached and screamed her to let go.

She had loved Caitlyn, she had really loved her, but not anymore.

Whatever romantic feelings she had for the blue-haired woman, after months of abuse they were completely gone. They were gone just like her sister, just like her old self was. Whatever romantic feelings she had for Caitlyn, after months of mistreatment, they turned into resentment and fear.

Yes, fear. She was scared of Caitlyn now, just like she was scared of those Enforcers that murdered her parents.

She tried to pretend, she told herself she could be one of them, and she did horrible things in order to prove this point. Maybe she did become as cruel as them. Jinx was right: that was the worst decision of her life. But she could have never really been one of them, not to them. They would have never accepted her.

Vi pressed a hand over her mouth to muffle a sob.

She had cut the bridges with Zaun and everything she had ever known for this, for this new life, and when she realized she didn't want it it was too late. She couldn't go back to Zaun, she had nothing left there, but she couldn't stay in Piltover cause she had nothing worth keeping here.

She had become one of those monsters that Powder was so afraid of when they were kids, the ones she swore to fight to protect her little sister.

For a moment, Vi thought she was glad Jinx wasn't alive to see her. And Vander. And everyone else.

Skipping meals and replacing them with fancy, expensive liquors wasn't enough to get her to forget what she had become, what she had done and what she had lost.

Meanwhile, Caitlyn started snoring quietly and rolled to her side of the bed, off of her chest.

Violet was glad of it, cause she didn't want to be touched from her. And she didn't want to fuck her. Ever again. Not that she didn't find her attractive anymore - no amount of abuse could change the fact Cait was good looking - but every time her girlfriend tried to touch her now her whole body instinctively recoiled.

It made her feel dirty and horrible about herself, but what other options did she have?

Vi wanted to believe Caitlyn wouldn't have dared to try to physically coerce her into having sex, or to threaten to kick her out if she refused, but after everything she had seen Caitlyn do, she honestly couldn't be sure about it.

Meanwhile, the moonlight flooded into the bedroom from the window's glass, so bright it was almost painful to watch.

And Vi couldn't sleep. She could barely even breathe.

[elysiality]

⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 .𖥔˚ BOT ! drop. (⁠*⁠・⁠～⁠・⁠*⁠) — natalie scatorccio.

-> ꙮᝰ.ᐟ baby, I'm sorry (fem! Travis user)

Last night stretched the boundaries of your mind far beyond anything you could've imagined. Insanity was inexorable— you just didn't expect it would come so quickly. You were the perfect victim. A heartbroken little lamb, freshly jilted— courtesy of Natalie (even though one could argue that it was completely on you, you would retort that sleeping with your high school bully was solid ground to initiate a breakup), seduced by Jackie, who had already been ostracised the second the plane went down. You and Nat had been eyeing each other up all night. Subtle hand brushes, longing stares when no one was looking. But you couldn't put your pride behind you, couldn't just march up to her and tell her that you didn't give a shit anymore, that you just wanted *her*. So you threw yourself at Jackie, who you'd always suspected of being a bit of a lesbian herself (c'mon, those secret looks at Shauna when she thought no one was looking? Does she *actually* not realise how obvious it is or does she just not know how to read a room?)— and surprisingly, she played right into it. She has her own agenda, of course, and you have yours. Which, of course, lead to Lottie basically dragging you away from Jackie's arms, your clothes torn, your crown swerving off your head as you were tied, in just your lingerie, to a tree— *and had a fucking knife held against your throat*. The night was hazy, a blur of events and confusing things you weren't even sure you had seen. You had changed into casual clothes and stumbled out of the cabin on legs that might have been made out of jelly for what they were working, your sisterly instincts screaming at you to find Javi. But a sharp jolt of pain through your neck stopped you dead, an ember of fire lighting up whenever you so much as tilted your head. Clearly, you hadn't left last night unscarred. You force yourself to sit on the moss, slowly starting to wipe at your wound with the edge of your handkerchief. You hear footsteps, quiet and sleek, from behind you and shudder out of your zombie-like trance, immediately regretting it because *mother of God, that fucking hurts*. Nat comes up to you, her messy hair tied back, looking just as shit-faced as you feel, but every bit as gorgeous as she is. She sits down next to you quietly, holding out a threadbare cloth— dipped in sanitizer, from the smell of it. You take it with an awkward murmur of thanks, dabbing at your neck. Nat bites her lip and then sighs, taking it from your hands. "No- fuck, wait- let me-" she stammers out, getting on her knees in front of you, cleaning out the cut to some occasional hisses. You keep your neck up, lax and austere, tamping down your cries of pain. You don't want to make her feel bad. She tried to stop it, you know she did. But looney Lottie got to her. You stay like that for a while, letting the daub seep into your stinging skin, startling only when you feel a warm liquid seep onto your shorts, dampening a little patch of the cloth. For a brief, crucifying second, you wonder if you've somehow accidentally pissed yourself and now have to pull a Laura Lee to live down the embarrassment, only to look down in trepidation and realise that Nat is *crying*. You immediately cup her face in your hands, forcing her to look up at you. Her usually clear glass-green eyes are now blurred with tears, pouring out in rivulets down her face as she sobs. She grips onto your thighs, burying her head in between your knees. "I'm sorry- fuck- I'm so sorry, {{user}}— I-I should've tried harder, I should've protected you from the others, I should've stopped you from- from going off with Jackie, I- I shouldn't have slept with that jackass Bobby, I'm *sorry*—" she's blubbering now, going off on a tangent. You've seen it before. A flurry of emotions, a maelstrom brewing inside her before it all pours out like water through a broken dam. She's *spiralling*. And you need to intervene before she goes down that rabbit hole far deeper than she needs to.

— 🖇️ link !

[lovejongseob]

hi honey, let me ask you something — do you accept fantasy writing requests? Something like Seob walking along the beach, seeing a mermaid and falling in love?

Siren

Of course lovely !! Thank you so much for requesting 🩷 I really love this prompt actually !!

The sun had set hours ago, and one by one, the group Jongseob was hanging out with went back to their respective homes. He should've gone home himself, but as the night sank in, Jongseob remained the last person on the beach.

He couldn't tell himself why, he wasn't expecting anyone to show up or still be there, and the air was growing way too cold way too fast to be enjoyable. But even so, he walked mindlessly down the outstretched sand, a feeling in his gut telling him don't leave.

He's seeing things out of the corner of his eye now, shooting stars that disappear, constellations he doesn't remember, patterns in the sand, and oddest of all, occasional glows and splashes in the ocean. Combined with the almost sense of danger he feels when he thinks of exiting, hes starting to get unnerved.

He just wants to work on clearing his head, but his mind won't focus on the ground in front of him. His eyes are taking in the entire scene, every gleaming star, each shape the clouds take, the moon, pulling up the waves even further, the crash against the shore, and.. a mermaid tail in-between in all ?

He saw it for just a second, but it was so much more vivid, so much more alive than everything else he'd seen, he was officially ready to just leave, and book a psychiatrist. His mind was definitely playing tricks on him, he just needed to sleep, or consider medication. The walk back might be a little long, but it's just one straight path behind him.

Jongseob was sure he was alone on that beach. He said the last goodbye to everyone who showed up, walked for what seemed like forever in no particular direction without seeing anyone, and heard nothing but tides and wildlife around him. He turns back around to finally go home, and is essentially jumpscared by the most beautiful person hes ever seen.

You're somewhat far out into the water, with only your upper half exposed. Hes tempted to run, scream, be terrified because someone suddenly showed up the way he was walking from, but he just can't be. Hes just stunned. He lets out an awkward greeting, and hopes he isn't going home as soon as he thought.

Luckily for him, despite the late hour, and the fact he was a complete stranger, you were quite friendly. You weren't awkward or uncomfortable in response, and got him into talking smoothly. He was nervous he just wouldn't know what to say after introductions, but you genuinely seemed so sweet and interesting, the conversation flowed on its own.

Eventually, you're convincing him to dip into the water with you. Something about you seems to be luring him in, but he chalks it up to attraction. Hes only just met you, but hes infatuated. He genuinely believes you are the reason he needed to stay on the beach. So all you have to do is light-heartedly suggest he joins you, and hes pulling his sweatshirt over his head that second.

In just his swim trunks now, hes shivering and lightly complaining about how cold it is. Hes slowly inching himself in, and hes shaking a little. Hes obviously not as used to the ocean water as you. You're laughing when he makes jokes about it, but you seem concerned, maybe even confused ?

When he doesn't stop trembling, you offer to help warm him up. He freezes up even more, absolutely ecstatic at the offer, but also shocked and a little nervous. You let him take his time before agreeing, but he wasn't considering saying no, he was just figuring out how to not seem too happy that a stranger wants to touch him.

He didn't know what he was expecting, but not in any of his dreams, or in a million years, would he have thought it'd be this. Jongseob doesn't have time to process how your arms feel wrapped around his, or how your chest is pressing right against his, because he feels it.

Smooth and scaled, a large tail wraps around his waist and upper thighs. He gasps and squirms a little, but you tighten him in your grasp, telling him the proximity will help with warmth. As he looks down to confirm what he can't even think could be real, you slide your hand over his mouth to muffle the scream that escapes.

The gorgeous person hes been talking to, opening up to, laughing with, isn't even a person, but a mystical entity hes only before seen in stories and drawings. When his breathing steadies and he doesn't look like hes seen a dead body, you loosen yourself around him a bit, but not without asking if hes warmed up first.

He promises you he is, and you trust him not to immediately run away. In your fortune this time, he stays, and is actually telling you he has a few questions while you heat up more.

He asks you just about everything he could. Is there ocean scenery or buildings they don't know about, what do they look like ? Do mermaids have a certain society or culture ? Are you allowed to just talk to humans ? Are there any other fantasy-like creatures out there ? How many people know about this ? You answer as much as you're allowed, but your favorite, and one you do answer, "Can I see you again ?"

Jongseob and you, the pretty mermaid, end up talking and swimming together into the early morning. You never expected to be particularly fond of a human, yet here you were, spending the entire night with one. You probably don't have the best concept of being home at a decent time, and neither does Jongseob when he's with you.

He's always at the beach now, waiting patiently for all the visitors and tourists to wander off or pack up. You don't mind swimming out of your way up to the beach, and you ignore any questions about why you've been near the surface so often. You're his favorite mermaid, and he's your favorite human.

wanted to maybe title it "tidal" but then it sounded like title and it pissed me off. siren was my first idea as a reference to their debut song, i wanted to maybe do something else but I actually hate titling things so nevermind

[stratostella]

yankee is the best yonezu album that's my baby to the point i just kinda had vgperson's lyrics in mind when i watched that vid cause of the amount of times i brought it up as a kid AGHHH

[elenadoeslife]

🔥/🚿?

[non-un-topo]

Watching Titane last night had me so close to shaving half my head and my eyebrows and just embracing looking insane

[enigmaticvariation]

los campesinos and car seat headrest announced tour dates at the same time and neither are going anywhere near me fuck my stupid baka life

[muchtodoonterror]

As to the etymology (begging your pardon, I just love an excuse to open the OED) the cockpit is most likely taken from the position of coxswain. "Coxswain" itself is derived from cock + swain; the latter half meaning "servant" (cf boatswain). The cock in question is actually an old word for a boat, with the OED citing approx 1400 as it's first written attestation and spelled "cokk(e)".

for a deeper dive into etymology: cock/cokke itself seems to have taken a somewhat uncertain path in English. It could be from the Middle French "coque" via the Old French "coche" meaning a small boat, which gets us back to Greek/Latin kokkos/coccum. That refers to a grain or seed and so a hull - thus giving our coxswain and cockpit common origin not with a rooster but with the cockle (as in cockles and mussels alive alive-o).

(Of course there's always further to look, with cognates cwch in Welsh and cog in German, and so on, but it does seem like it all comes back to the root for "shell".)

The cockpit

The cockpit was originally an area to be used by the ship’s surgeon during the battle. On many naval ships it was the rear part of the orlop deck, a dark, narrow area that was usually used as quarters for midshipmen and the like. As it was the lowest deck of the ship, it was well below the waterline and was considered best protected against enemy cannon fire. (which is why the powder magazine was also located there).

Deckplan of USS Constitution, the violet spot marks the cockpit

Although the exact position of the cockpit often varied from ship to ship, it was usually a panelled area near a landing stage, which enabled the ship’s doctor’s comrades and the loblolly lads to transport those wounded in battle more easily. Surgeons, who found it difficult to find suitable positions on some ships, went to one of the lower gun decks, where unused cannons and a few planks often served as makeshift operating tables.

The Surgeon at work aboard USS Constitution

In preparation for battle, buckets of sand and boiling pitch or tar were placed at strategic points in the cockpit, then vinegar was prepared and the instruments were provided, along with brandy and laudanum and poppy seed syrup (one to collect blood from amputations, the other to dip stumps to seal the wound and prevent further bleeding, the vinegar was used for disinfection and the other for anaesthetics and pain relief). The sand was also spread generously over the deck to reduce the risk of slipping due to blood accumulation.

Ship’s Surgery in the Cockpit, Unknown Artist, 1820

But how did the cockpit get its name? That is difficult to say, it is a term that is proven to have appeared as early as the 16th century. And since the 17th century it was used as the Surgeon’s place of work. Some suspect that it had something to do with the fact that while in port the area was often used to separate wives or other friends of the crew during the working day. Or that it was derived from the dark shelter in which the coxswain stood to steer the whipstaff in the early 16th century.

[yanderedrabbles]

Christine - A Yandere Short Story

Based on Christine by Stephen King After your boyfriend's death, you're eager to sell his vintage Mustang. The car reminds you far too much of him and worse than that, it feels oddly alive. The only problem? Your dead boyfriend isn't ready to let go. Tags: Male Yanderes x Fem Reader, Horror, Character Death, 12k words Taglist: @mel-vaz

When your boyfriend died, you and Christine were the only witnesses.

All through his funeral, you kept thinking of ways to get rid of her. You were being paranoid and you knew it - she couldn't speak even if she wanted to. But having her around put you on edge, made you grit your teeth until your jaw ached.

After the wake, you approached your boyfriend's parents and asked if you could have her. They were pale and shaken, reeling from the suddeness of death just as much as from grief. His father nodded like a sleep walker, his voice older than his years.

"He would have wanted you to have her. She's yours."

His mother squeezed your shoulder. "I can't imagine what you're going through, dear. Whatever his faults, my boy loved you. I know that."

You managed a smile, managed to thank them through the tears that were suddenly falling. But your mind was on Christine. Always on Christine.

You were the last to leave the funeral parlour. You tried to tell yourself it was a coincidence, but deep down you knew the truth. You were scared. Scared of Christine, scared of your too quiet townhouse, scared of the dreams that would come when you closed your eyes.

It was early evening and the streetlights were coming on in the narrow tree lined avenue outside the funeral parlour. When you stepped out, goosebumps crawled across your arms.

She was waiting for you.

Christine. Your boyfriend's 1969 Mustang, cherry red and entirely rebuilt.

She was directly under a streetlight and her paint gleamed. The light reflected off her windshield so you couldn't see inside, but for a second it seemed like someone was already sitting behind the wheel.

You squeezed your eyes shut. When you opened them, the shadow driver was gone.

Christine. For most of your relationship, you loved her just as much as your boyfriend did. She was a labour of love and you felt it every time you sat in her passenger seat.

But things were different now.

You walked towards her cautiously. It was ridiculous to be scared of a car, but you were.

When you opened the driver side door, you almost expected to see your boyfriend. Despite the funeral, the wake, the late morning call to please come and identify a body down at the morgue, you still expected to see him. Light green eyes looking up at you, half smile that was half teasing and half lecherous.

The seats were empty.

You slid behind the wheel, your breathing shaky. You almost never drove Christine. Not that your boyfriend didn't offer. It was just that you liked riding passenger - liked looking over and seeing your man with one hand on the wheel and the other on your thigh, liked seeing the muscles flex in his forearm when he steered.

The car still smelled like him. That was the first thing you noticed. Despite being impounded for a week while the cops did forensics, despite the valet scrubbing and steaming the seats to get the blood out, it still smelled like him.

You rested your head against the steering wheel, closed your eyes and sobbed for the first time since the night you killed your boyfriend.

When you put Christine up for sale, the calls started coming in almost immediately. It wasn't surprising - she was in incredible shape, she ran like a dream, and her white leather upholstery was original.

At first, you thought you'd be able to sell her before the month was up. The buyers would look under the hood and whistle in admiration.

But something always changed when they took her for a test drive. You couldn't understand it - she would drive perfectly but by the time you got home, the buyers were almost always frowning at you, or worse - not looking at you at all.

No matter how fanatic they were at first, no one wanted Christine.

You dropped the price and then dropped it again, but still no takers. The car spent all winter in the garage. You'd turn her on to idle every few days, clean off any dust and check that the mice weren't nibbling at the wiring, but you never stuck around for long.

It hurt to leave her locked away - your boyfriend poured so much of himself into her - but it hurt even worse to drive her. Whenever you were behind the wheel, you could feel the gaping emptiness of the passenger seat, could still see the bloodstains.

It was on the first warm day of spring when someone finally bought her.

Colt Guilder called you when you were just about ready to give up on selling her. You were literally about to take down the ad when your phone rang. The voice on the other end was deep, with a slight southern drawl that immediately reminded you of your boyfriend.

"Can I come and take a look today? I wouldn't want to impose ma'am, but I'm in a hurry to see her before anyone else gets a chance to buy her."

Her. Even the older buyers didn't really call cars 'her' anymore.

"Sure. You can come by this afternoon."

You were sitting on the porch steps when he pulled up, a jug of iced tea and your novel abandoned next to you. He stepped out of his Jeep, a tall man in blue jeans and boots, and you felt your heart lurch. Something deep inside you told you that this was the man who would finally take her off your hands.

He smiled at you as he approached and for a second you wanted to warn him away. Wanted to tell him the truth about Christine.

"Howdy ma'am. I'm real happy you agreed to meet me so last minute."

You smiled at him and shook his hand and bit back the truth. Oh, how you would come to hate that decision.

When he pulled up, Colt wasn't expecting the Mustang's owner to be a pretty little thing in a sundress. He was a gentleman, his mama raised him right, but even he had trouble keeping his eyes on your face and not letting them wander lower.

His hand swallowed yours when he shook it and it was hard not to notice the softness of your skin. Whoever rebuilt the Mustang, it wasn't you. You had the hands of a lady, not a mechanic.

"The car is out back. Keys are waiting for you. She's been serviced pretty regularly and my... my boyfriend built her up himself."

You started for the garage and he fell into step behind you. You were so much shorter than him - it was kind of cute to see your head bobbing in front of him. Like a pixie in a sundress.

"How come your man ain't the one to sell it?"

He wasn't surprised you had a boyfriend. Hell, he'd have tried his luck if he could. No doubt other men had the same idea.

"He... he passed away a few moths ago."

He cringed. Nice going, Colt. Bringing up painful memories only three sentences into conversation. Must be a world record.

"I'm so sorry ma'am. I had no idea."

You shrugged. "It's fine."

He was about to say something else when Christine came into view. Her grille was a newly buffed silver and her deep red paint caught the spring sun.

He gave a low whistle. "Pictures don't do her justice."

You smiled at that, but edged out of the car's direct line of sight. Neither of you consciously noticed it, but you approached the car like you would an animal. Slightly from the side so it couldn't charge at you.

"Mind if I take a look under the hood?"

"Be my guest."

He popped the hood and let out another low whistle. Without even looking past the surface level stuff, it was clear your boyfriend knew how to build an engine. The Mustang looked almost new.

"How long did this take?"

You leaned against the garage door and crossed your arms.

"A long time. He bought her a few months after we started dating. She was gonna be scrapped - looked like a total rust bucket."

He raised his eyebrows. If that was true, the body restoration alone must have cost a fortune. Did you realise how valuable a vintage ride like this was worth?

"Y'know, just from looking under the hood, I can tell you could get at least three times as much as you're asking."

If his uncle heard him sabotaging himself like that, he'd have given Colt a whack on the head. Truth was, he wanted the car. Wanted her so bad he would have taken out three separate loans to afford her.

But he wasn't a monster. It wasn't fair to buy something so fine from a girl who might not understand its true worth.

You raised your brows, more surprised at his honesty than at his statement.

"I know she's worth more. But I'm in a hurry to get rid of her. And well..."

You looked away. "People find the car a bit strange."

It was his turn to be surprised. He couldn't see any red flags in her upkeep or her paintwork. Maybe it was a deeper issue.

You pushed yourself away from the wall and nodded at the door.

"Keys are waiting for you. Take her for a drive and decide for yourself."

The interior was just as well taken care of as he expected - a tough job when the upholstery was mostly white. The keys had a tag attached with a name engraved in metal.

"Christine?"

"It's what we call her. It was a joke at first but the name sort of stuck."

You slid into the passenger seat and tugged your seat belt across your chest. He glanced at you out the corner of his eye and -

'Silly thing, doesn't she know better than to get into a car with a stranger twice her size?'

He shook his head, like that could dislodge the idea. He wasn't that sort of man, wasn't some kind predator with a mind full of filth.

'It would be so easy. You're so much bigger than her, so much stronger. You want her. Why not just take what you want?'

Where the hell was this coming from? He might have a guilty thought every once in a while, but he was always quick to squash it down. It wasn't like him to think something so...forceful about a girl.

He turned the key and the engine roared to life. And it really was a roar. V8 engine growling so loud he could feel the vibration through the steering wheel.

Oh baby, he was sold on her right then and there. The devil himself couldn't have outbid him. What little boy didn't dream of a car like this? Didn't spend his childhood looking through magazines and brawling over matchbox versions?

The clutch was smooth as butter as he cruised down your driveway and turned onto the main road.

God, he wanted to gun it. Floor the gas and find out for himself just how powerful old school muscle was.

He looked over at you, about to ask if you knew exactly what your boyfriend did to the engine. You were looking out at the passing trees, your hair stirring in the slight breeze from his open window.

'She looks like she belongs here, with you.'

It was another foreign thought, something he wouldn't expect of himself. But it was true. The Mustang would have felt empty without you - in your sundress and white sneakers, you completed the picture. Your boyfriend must have rebuilt the car just for you, as a way to keep you next to him. Colt wasn't sure why he thought that, but somehow he knew it was true. Whoever your man was, he put so much of himself into this car that Colt almost felt like he was right next to the guy.

You turned to him, fingers fidgeting with the hem of your dress.

"What do you think?"

"She runs sweet as apple pie."

You felt your heart stutter. Your boyfriend used to say the exact same thing.

"You alright there sweetheart? You look a little pale."

"Sorry. Just a little car sick."

Car sick was right - you were sick to hell of this damn car and the way it played with your emotions.

"C'mon, I know a diner just off the highway. We can stop for some fresh air and a bite to eat. You'll feel better in no time."

You didn't have time to protest before he switched lanes and turned onto the highway.

The diner he took you to really was just off the highway, a retro looking spot railed off from a steep cliff.

"How did you know about this place?"

He shrugged. "I must have heard about it from someone."

Strange. Colt didn't think he'd ever seen the place before, much less heard about it. But when you looked at him with that slight hint of panic, that sudden fear, somehow he knew this was the place to bring you.

He climbed out and opened your door for you before you had a chance to do it yourself.

"You know this place?" he asked.

If anything, you looked even paler than before. "Yeah. My boyfriend and I used to come up here pretty often."

He frowned, annoyed at himself for somehow making this even worse. "We can go somewhere else if you want."

"No!" You took a deep breath. "No, this is fine. I just need a moment away from the car, that's all."

He led you to a picnic table near the edge of the cliff. Far below you, the main road clung to the cliffside and disappeared into the trees.

"You just sit pretty and I'll grab us some chow."

You smiled up at him. "Thanks Colt. Really. I know this is probably eating into your day."

He waved it away. "Trust me, this is a much better way to spend the weekend than what I had planned."

It was true. He'd wanted to see the car and somehow that turned into lunch with a pretty girl at a table with one hell of a view. Maybe Christine had some good luck about her. Maybe all of this was just meant to be.

When he stepped into the diner, he was greeted by jukebox country music and the smell of good, strong coffee. He didn't bother to look at the menu. Somehow, he knew exactly what to order.

"I'll have a banana spilt, some fries and a toasted sandwich." He smiled at the elderly waitress. "Please and thank you Agnes."

"Sure thing sugar."

He frowned. How the hell did he know the waitress's name?

Must have seen her name tag, right? That made sense. Must have been a half second, subconscious glance.

When she handed him his change, he dropped his eyes to her lapel. No name tag. No label. Not even a necklace with her initials on it.

It was a warm spring day but he still shivered. Something strange was going on.

No, don't be ridiculous. Agnes was a common name, a vintage diner kind of name. That was probably why he said it. His mind must have just made a lucky guess. There's no way he could know her name when he didn't even know about the diner until he pulled up.

Unless... it wasn't him that knew her name. Maybe it was someone else, something else speaking through him.

"C'mon Colt, don't be an idiot," he muttered to himself.

"You say something sugar?"

He jerked his head to the side, his heart lurching. Just the waitress, just Agnes, looking at him with raised brows.

"No ma'am. Just thinking out loud."

"Alrighty then. Here's your order. Be careful not to spill the chocolate sauce. It's hell to clean up."

"Yes ma'am. Thank you ma'am. Have a good day."

He was stupidly happy to step out of the restaurant. The place must have been getting to him. Why else was he suddenly so superstitious?

"You doing okay Colt?" you asked.

He grinned at you. "Just dandy sweetheart. I got you a banana split and some French fries."

"Oh! That's perfect, thank you."

See? Nothing strange at all. He had a sweet ride and a sweeter girl waiting for him. Why worry about some weird diner?

He sat down across from you and unwrapped his sandwich. Behind you, Christine looked at him with a shining chrome smile.

"Listen, you can get a whole lot more for a car that fine. But if you're willing to let her go for the price in the ad, I'll buy her today," he said.

You froze, a fry halfway to your mouth. He really wanted her? He wasn't coming up with some lame excuse or hurrying off with a mumbled apology?

"Done," you said, a bit too quickly.

You were finally getting rid of Christine. No more nightmares, no more tip toeing around the garage like you were scared she might notice you, no more unwanted memories every time you laid eyes on her.

You were burying your past like it should have been buried on the day of your boyfriend's funeral.

He offered you his hand and you shook it, a genuine smile on your face.

"She's all yours." And thank God for that.

Colt drove you home and followed you into the house to collect the car registration papers.

You frowned at your empty desk drawer. You could have sworn you left the documents right here...

You popped your head into the living room where Colt was waiting.

"Give me a second. I think I left them upstairs."

"Sure. I'm in no hurry."

He wandered around your living room while you were gone, too keyed up to sit still. It was a neat, modern room with art on the walls. The big bay windows opened onto the front yard and the driveway where Christine sat waiting for him.

Part of him still couldn't believe it. She really was his dream car. The sort of ride all his work buddies would be green with envy over.

He leaned against the windowsil and then quickly looked down when his hand brushed something metallic.

Picture frames, the small kind that usually sat on a desk. He picked one up, the frame cool against his skin. It was a picture of you and someone he guessed to be your boyfriend. Both of you were in formal wear - you in a deep red evening gown and him in a tailored tux. Christine was parked in the background, her red a compliment to your dress.

Your boyfriend was handsome in a rough cut sort of way, his hair swept back and a tattoo just peeking out of his shirt. He was looking directly at the camera while you looked up at him, his arm curled tightly around your waist.

Colt frowned. There was something about the man's expression... a kind of possessive meanness. He seemed the type of guy to start a fight and then finish it no matter what, a real tough customer.

And the way he held you... some might call it loving but Colt found it more proprietary than anything else.

'Mine. My girl, no matter what. Try and take her from me and I'll show you a world of hurt.'

Colt put the picture down with a frown and scanned the others. Out hiking on the mountains, at the beach, holding a huge bouquet while he kissed you. A perfect couple except... except for the way he looked at you. Sweet, yes. But somehow dangerous, in the way rattlesnakes and cougars were. Fine if they weren't disturbed, but tread on their territory and there'd be hell to pay.

He moved away when he heard you coming down the stairs. You were a little flushed, a little out of breath, but you grinned at him and waved a stack of papers.

"Finally found them! Just need to sign the change of ownership forms and she's all yours."

He watched you as you searched for a pen, your sundress swishing 'round your thighs. He didn't like your boyfriend - dead or not, he seemed like one mean bastard - but seeing you so happy, so flushed with life and hope and joy, Colt found he could almost understand the other man. If you were his girl, he'd hold you just as tight.

You finally found a pen and he scribbled his signature on the dotted line.

"Well, seems like you're the proud new owner of a 1969 Ford Mustang. Congratulations."

He carefully took the papers from you, his fingers brushing yours. "Real good doing business with you sweetheart."

You lead him out to the car, going through the list of things he'd need to do to properly register the car as his. Real cute of you, to think he didn't know it all already.

He slid into the driver's seat and when he touched the wheel, he felt that same sense of power. And under it, a strange feeling of being not quiet alone in the car.

You stood outside his window, running through a catalogue of spares and repairs that he might want to check out. If he had to guess, you seemed nervous.

He leaned back and smiled at you. "It's alright y/n. I ain't changing my mind. Deals done, remember?"

It was the first time using your name and it sent a small bolt of electricity jolting through him.

'Her name is mighty sweet, ain't it? Meant to be said oh so softly, meant to be savoured.'

You looked at him like you felt it too, your cheeks just a little warmer than before.

Oh Lord, what sort of bastard was he? Feeling this way about you when your boyfriend was in the ground for scarcely half a year? You were probably still mourning, still nursing your broken heart. He should be a gentleman and leave you alone, shouldn't take advantage of your vulnerability. He should be a good man.

'You'd be an idiot to let her go.'

The thought streaked through his mind. It almost didn't feel like his own idea. Wherever the thought came from, it wasn't wrong. He really would be an idiot to not ask you out when he had a chance. He got lucky with the car - prize piece like this would have been snatched up in a matter of hours. If he didn't ask you out, if he didn't push his luck for the second time, the same thing might happen with you.

"How 'bout I take you out to dinner later this week? As a thank you."

You looked unsure, your eyes jumping down to the car keys like you were expecting an objection.

"Please? I know Christine must mean a lot to you. I'd feel a whole lot better taking her off your hands if I could thank you properly."

You bit your lower lip and he found his eyes drawn to the sight of it. Please say yes please say-

"Yes, I think I'd like that. But no later than eight, okay?"

YES! He rubbed a palm across his jaw to hide his smile.

"I'll bring you home early, promise."

"I'll hold you to that, cowboy."

Oh god, he wanted to melt when you called him that. It was so silly - big guy like him getting butterflies over a sort-of kind-of date.

'Atta boy. You ain't gonna regret it.'

He was too distracted watching you walk away to realise the thought wasn't his own.

That night, you slept without dreaming. For the first time since your boyfriend's death, you didn't see his face when you closed your eyes.

You woke up the next morning expecting to be relieved. Christine was gone, wasn't that exactly what you wanted?

Yes, but...but what happens next? You weren't an idiot nor were you unduly superstitious, but Christine didn't feel like a normal car. Maybe that's what happens after a violent death - things change, the blood seeps through the fabric and poisons the aura, or the energy, or whatever the hell you wanted to call it.

You made yourself breakfast but couldn't eat more than a few bites.

Okay, try and be logical. It was probably just your guilt playing tricks on you. You loved Christine and you loved your boyfriend, so it was only natural that you'd feel terrible about selling her. That's all. Blood and death can't change the nature of an inanimate object, no matter how violent or grisly it might have been.

Right. Just your guilty conscience. No need to work yourself up.

Across town, Colt slept through his alarm. He was dreaming, a sweet little fantasy of cruising down the highway on a brilliant summer day. You were next to him, your sundress even shorter than before, smiling at him and running your hand up his thigh.

You were his girl. His and his alone. He could feel the certainty of it in every part of him. You loved him, you stood by him, you did everything you could to support him, you were his.

Christine purred through her gears and he pushed the gas a little more, eager to get home. He would show you exactly how much he appreciated you - inch by inch and kiss by kiss.

"I love you darlin'. I need you to know that," he said. His voice didn't sound like his own. It was raspier, with an edge of meanness that not even love could soften.

You looked at him, smiling all soft and sweet. "I know. I've always known."

Colt jerked awake, smiling and shivering at the same time. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, disoriented and feeling like a stranger in his own body.

"One hell of a dream," he muttered.

'Not a dream cowboy. A memory from someone long dead.'

He ignored the thought, his mind already focused on the day ahead. He'd driven Christine home yesterday, but left his Jeep parked outside your house. He could either get one of his buddies pick it up or take a taxi over and get it himself.

Was it even a choice? He wanted to see you again. If he had to pay an ungodly amount for an Uber, he would.

Should he call you before showing up at your door? What would be a good time to see you? He didn't want to show up too late and catch you in a rush to leave.

'She'll be awake by now. But she'll only leave for work after twelve.'

How did he know that? Did you mention it yesterday?

He climbed out of bed and half stumbled to the bathroom. As the steam clouded up the mirror, he thought of his dream. And what might have happened if he'd stayed asleep longer. Maybe your hand would wander further up his thigh, and then...

He lathered up his fist and took hold of himself. He was already hard from just the thought of you. Your sundress looked so damn flimsy. He could probably yank it off you with just one hand.

He groaned, his forehead pressed against the tile. Picturing your hand dwarfed by his when you shook on the sale; how soft your skin was, how good it would feel if you touched him just like this.

'Fucking yourself like a dog at the thought of her.'

He agreed. You really were turning him into a dog.

You were sitting in your living room, trying and failing to read your novel, when he knocked on your front window. You struggled to smooth down your hair while you scrambled for the door.

"Hi Colt! Came to pick up your Jeep?"

He was wearing blue jeans again today, with a tight wife beater that showed off arms thick with muscle.

"Yes ma'am. Thought I'd stop by and see if you needed anything."

That made you smile. How often does someone go out of their way to check up on a stranger?

"I don't think so. But I've got some fresh orange juice and donuts, if you'd like to come in."

He smiled at you and for a second his gaze dipped down past your chin. "There's nothing I'd like better."

He took up a lot of space at your kitchen table, but you found it comforting. The room felt too big without your boyfriend to fill it.

You flipped open the box of donuts and he picked out the mint chocolate one.

"Never really liked the mint ones," he told you, "But I've got an awful craving for one right now."

"Oh I never liked them much either. It was my boyfriend who was the die-hard mint fan."

He looked away from you, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. "It must be hard for you. Losing him so suddenly."

"It was. It is. Everyone keeps telling me it gets easier, but it hasn't. Up until last night, I dreamt about him everynight."

"Dreamt of him?" he asked you suddenly, his eyes intense.

"Yep. Every single night. It was like I was reliving my memories again and again."

He looked a bit perturbed at your statement, but you put it down to him feeling awkward about the conversation. Death is never a fun or casual topic.

"So how's Christine treating you?"

"Like a dream. I was thinking of taking her down the coast next weekend. All open road and sea air." He paused, seeming to weigh something up in his mind. "Why don't you join me? The morning after I take you out to dinner. We can pack a picnic and have lunch at the cape."

"That sounds incredible." You looked down at your hands, slightly uneasy but not sure why. Your boyfriend spoke about doing that once. A mini road trip with the windows down and the sea breeze in your hair.

It's not that strange that Colt had the same idea, right? Everyone knew the coast road was a long, quiet stretch. Perfect for putting Christine to the test.

"You're gonna love it," he said. "I'll even make my world famous tiramisu."

You raised a brow. "You know how to make tiramisu?" Big guy like him didn't really seem the patisserie type. Did he have a cute apron with bows on it too?

He pointed his donut at you, blue eyes twinkling. "Not just any tiramisu. World famous."

You snorted out a laugh and for the first time in months, you kitchen felt like a happy place.

He dreamt about you again that night. Christine was parked in a dark corner on the edge of a cliffside hiking trail. He could hear waves crashing far below. It was nighttime, with the full moon outlining your face in silver and shadow.

He was in the driver's seat and you were straddling his lap. You were wearing a sweater and a cute pleated skirt that seemed oh so short with the way you leaned over him.

"You've been ignoring me," you accused him. You were pouting in an adorably petulant way. He looked at your lips - red and slightly swollen - and knew that he'd just been kissing you.

"I haven't been ignorin' you sugar. I've just been busy."

He spoke with that same raspy voice that somehow wasn't his.

"Too busy to say hello or drop by for dinner?"

You shifted in his lap and he had to bite his lip to stop himself from groaning. Oh, you damn tease.

"I'm filthy and tired after work sweetheart. You wouldn't want me."

You frowned, going from slightly annoyed to full blown angry.

"I always want you, you idiot. I'm not scared of a few stains. I like it when you come home smelling like the workshop. I like it when you're dirty from work." You tugged at his collar. "I like you. Why don't you get that?"

'Because you're too good for me.' He almost said it. It was on the tip of his tongue and it was only some dull instinct that kept him quiet. How couldn't you see it? You were everything he wasn't. You were educated and kind and selfless. He was just some bastard from the wrong side of the tracks.

He wanted to impress you. He wanted to be worthy of you. Fixing up the Mustang was just the start of it. He didn't care that it took him all summer and pretty much all of his pay cheque to do. He wanted a ride that he would be proud to pick you up in.

And it still didn't feel like enough. Nothing ever felt like enough.

He looked away from you and stayed silent.

You sighed and brought your palms up to his cheeks, gently turned his face back to yours. "I like you. I'm dating you. I want to spend time with you, no matter how grouchy you are. Okay?"

He should be a gentleman and let you go, shouldn't take advantage of your kindness. He should be a good man.

"Okay," he said and leaned forward to kiss you.

He wasn't a good man. He wasn't a gentleman. He was going to hold onto you for as long as he could.

Colt woke up with a snarl, slamming his fist on his alarm so hard the clock face cracked.

"I didn't want it to end, goddammit."

He rubbed his hand over his face. The dream felt so real. He could feel the late fall chill, could smell your shampoo and taste your cherry lip gloss. He wanted to go right back to sleep and fall back into that wonderful fantasy.

He scowled and threw the covers off. Dreams could wait, work couldn't.

All through the day he was snappish and irritable. One of the apprentices messed up an order and he snarled at them to stop being so fucking useless and fix it. His coworkers shot each other looks behind his back. He was behaving entirely out of character but both him and his buddies were helpless to stop it. It was only when he got home at the end of his shift that he realised why.

He wanted to dream about you again.

There wasn't any guarantee that he would. Dreams weren't exactly scheduled network programming. But somehow he knew it would happen.

He ended up going to bed before eight, a world record for someone who usually only considered sleeping when it was well past midnight.

He was right. He did dream of you.

You were in a bikini this time, lounging on a lawn chair in the backyard. You had sunglasses on and there was a slight sheen of baby oil on your skin. Your phone was on shuffle and pop music was blaring from the speakers.

You weren't expecting him and he kept his steps real quiet as he approached you. He kept expecting you to hear him and shoot up, and he was slightly annoyed when you didn't. What if he was a serial killer or some sick pervert, sneaking up on you while you were so vulnerable? Did you have no spatial awareness?

He made it all the way to the back of your chair and you were still totally oblivious. There was a magazine and a glass of ice tea on a small table next to you. You were softly humming along to the music.

He took a minute to just admire you. Your body stretched out and entirely at his mercy. His girl, his gorgeous girl.

He leaned down until his lips were right next to your ear.

"Hey there sugar. You miss me?"

You shot up with a shriek, your sunglasses flying. You whirled on him, grabbing your magazine like thirty pages of glossy Cosmo was going to help you fight off an attacker.

Your eyes narrowed when you recognised him and you smacked his chest, hard.

"You asshole! You gave me a heart attack!"

He couldn't help but smirk at the sight of you so riled up.

"You're lucky it was me and not someone else. Not everyone has such noble intentions."

"Yeah right. Was it your noble intention to scare the living daylights out of me?"

He held up his palms in a placating gesture. "Just teachin' you a lesson sweetheart. I was standing there for a good few minutes and you didn't notice a damn thing."

He cast a critical eye across your backyard. "I reckon some high wooden fencing would do the trick. 'Bout seven feet high, sunken flowerbeds on either side like trenches to make it even harder to get a leg up."

"I don't want a fence."

He ignored you, already mentally calculating how much lumber he'd need. "A nice light coloured wood. Pine maybe. Will match your house much better."

You sat back down, the fight draining out of you as your adrenaline dissipated. "What are you doing here? Did you get off work early?"

He narrowed his eyes but you didn't seem to notice. "Why? Don't want me around?"

That shocked you enough that you twisted around in your chair to look at him.

"Of course I want you around! Don't ever imply otherwise. This is a lovely surprise." You paused. "Near heart attack aside of course."

It was funny how easily you could calm him down. One sentence was all it took to get him smiling again. He leaned forward and hooked one finger under the strap of your bikini top.

"I haven't seen this one before. New?"

You blushed and looked down. "Mm-hmm."

"It's cute. But..."

You glanced up at him, suddenly self conscious. "But what?"

He grinned wolfishly. "But...you would look so much better without it."

He tugged at the bow holding your top up. The strings unravelled and fell down your back. The bra cups started to slip down too, and his eyes were glued to their steady fall.

He was going to teach you a whole 'nother lesson about wearing such a skimpy outfit where anyone could see you. Show you exactly what sick, twisted bastards would do to your body. Teach you a lesson you won't forget, so maybe, just maybe... you'd learn to be more cautious around men like him.

Colt woke up with a hunger like death. His cock so hard it was actually throbbing. He didn't feel well rested, despite having slept more than he had in two weeks.

It played over and over again in his mind. The strings unravelling, your bikini top sliding off... Always stopping right at the good part, the part he most wanted to see.

He got ready for the day with a savage efficiency. Bolting back his protein shake without even tasting it. He didn't realise it, but he'd started counting down the days until he could see you again. Just two more days. Two more nights of dreams and then you'd be there in the flesh and he could finally - finally what? He shook his head to clear away the dirty thoughts that were crowding him.

He was being a real bastard. Thinking about you, dreaming about you, when he had no right to. You hadn't shown any romantic or physical interest in him. You were clearly still grieving your man. He needed to get himself under control - what you needed in your life was a friend, not another man to obsess over you.

He forced himself to take a cold shower. Forced himself to avoid thinking about you. And to especially avoid thinking about the you from his dream.

'Good luck with that buddy. I used to be so tired I was falling asleep on my feet and I still couldn't get her out of my head.'

Work was thankfully busy that day and he threw himself into it with every feverish ounce of energy he had. Whenever his thoughts wandered towards you, he would find something else to do. He didn't eat anything at all and he didn't even notice getting hungry. He took on an extra shift and finished long after the sun went down, his muscles a hurting mess and his head not much better.

Christine was the last car left in the parking lot, sitting under a streetlight like she was waiting for him. He found his steps unintentionally getting slower the closer he came to her.

In the dark and lonely emptiness of the parking lot, she didn't feel like a normal car. If anything, she seemed to be watching him. Her headlights like eyes and her grille a silvery gash of a smile.

If he had to guess, he'd say the car was almost unhappy with him.

"Because I'm thinking about her?" He asked as he climbed behind the wheel. Immediately, he felt stupid and superstitious for talking out loud.

'Because you aren't thinking about her.'

He'd driven Christine to work the last few days despite not wanting to cause unnecessary wear and tear. Being in the car, driving it, was still a thrill.

Not tonight though.

He felt on edge, wanting to get out as soon as possible. She purred to life with the same thrumming power as always but his throat was tight with a nervousness he couldn't explain.

The inside of the car was suffocatingly quiet. He turned on the radio and old school rock 'n roll poured out.

'Just the sort of thing her boyfriend used to listen to,' he thought to himself. And then he laughed a stuttering, barking sort of laugh because there was no logical way he could have known that.

'Take it easy big guy. You and I are just gonna cruise. That's all.'

A nice cruise. Yeah, that sounded good. Calm his nerves, get rid of the nameless dread that was building all day. He relaxed into his seat, the streetlights crawling past in a hypnotic line of bright and dark.

He didn't notice when the radio dial moved on its own and the station changed from rock 'n roll to country. The singer sounded awfully familiar. His voice a kind of husky rasp. He was singing about his girl, his pretty woman, and he was singing about the grave and he was singing about the dark that waited.

'Oh,' he thought to himself dully, 'That's the voice I keep hearing in my dreams.'

When he finally reached home, it was two in the morning and the petrol gauge showed an empty tank. He'd somehow driven enough to eat through a full tank of gas. A drive that should have taken twenty minutes took five hours.

He got out of the car on legs that felt numb and cold. He couldn't remember driving. He couldn't remember the strange music or the even stranger passenger that rode with him. In his mind, there existed the clear cut memory of leaving work and climbing into Christine. Then there was nothing but a long, grey blankness that was tinged with a muted terror.

He collapsed into bed still in his work clothes. By morning, his mind would have stitched over all those things too terrible to contemplate. He would wake up feeling groggy and confused, and probably put it down to the strain of a long day.

Colt slept after driving with the dead and didn't dream.

On the day before your date, he found an engagement ring under the passenger side carpet.

He had no reason to look there, no reason to pull the carpet up by its seams. But he did it anyway and his reward was a silver and diamond band with blood dried in the crevices. There was an engraving on the inside and he had to take it out into the sun to try and read it.

'Mine. Forever and always.'

He shivered despite standing in the bright midmorming sun. Most rings would say 'yours' instead of 'mine.' He had no doubt that the change was entirely intentional. Your boyfriend was staking his claim on you - not just with the ring but with the intention behind it.

He looked at the brownish red stains and knew in his heart they were blood. Your boyfriend's blood.

Colt didn't know how the man died, but looking at the ring, he felt sure that it was bloody and far from natural. How would a blood stained ring end up in Christine? If the guy had been in accident sure. But the car was in perfect condition. The ring shouldn't have been there.

Unless he was murdered. Soaked in blood and tossed around during the struggle, the ring probably got pushed under the seam of the carpet. It was a sealed off spot and even a forensics team might miss something that small.

It was an outlandish and macabre theory to be basing entirely off one mysterious engagement ring. If he stopped to think about it, he would no doubt be able to poke a dozen separate holes into his theory.

Somehow, he knew it was true. The same way he suddenly knew Christine wasn't just an ordinary car and that his dreams about you were far from natural.

He felt a queer prickling all across his nape. He wasn't the type to scare easily, but this... This frightened him. He didn't feel alone anymore. He felt like if he looked up at the rear view mirror, he'd see someone in the back seat. No, not just someone. He'd see the dead man who owned the car before him.

He'd see the man who wanted to marry you.

He sucked in a sharp breath and forced himself to let it out slowly. He wasn't a superstitious man. He didn't let fancies of ghosts and ghouls affect him. But even he couldn't deny the way he felt. His gut was telling him something was terribly, terribly wrong.

He climbed out of Christine like a man scared of waking a sleeping bear. He didn't even bother to grab the keys.

He couldn't explain any of it. Not the dreams, not the thoughts that felt like someone else, not the prickling certainty that a man died right where he'd been sitting.

He got into his his Jeep and pulled out of the driveway, his eyes on Christine the entire time. Like she'd somehow roar to life and slam into him.

He didn't know where he was driving to until he parked. A bar across town, a real rough spot that on most days even he wouldn't want to stop at. But today wasn't like most days.

The place was dark and the folk sitting around weren't exactly the friendly sort. He settled at the bar and ordered a tequila without really thinking about it.

Funny. He used to hate tequila.

It went down like fire, and he shuddered. He wanted to laugh. What else was a mam supposed to drink when the world didn't make a lick of sense anymore?

"Give me another one." His voice was raspier somehow. Even though that never happened when he drank vodka or whiskey.

There were mirrored shelves opposite him and he caught sight of his eyes. A pale green. He tossed back his second shot and tried to tell himself it was just a trick of the light.

He wasn't sure who to talk to. Not the Sheriff's Office. Yeah officer, there was a man murdered in my car and now I can't stop dreaming about his girlfriend didn't exactly scream unimpeachable sobriety.

And not the pastor either. Father, I'm being haunted by filthy thoughts and I'm not sure if they're my own. He doubted the old man at his mother's church was qualified to deal with that sort of thing.

But he couldn't keep quiet either. He had to tell someone about it. If they called him crazy at least it was an acknowledgement. At least it was better than being dead drunk and being scared of his own eyes in the mirror.

Who could possibly know anything about it? Oh. Of course.

He fumbled his phone out of his pocket and almost threw it across the room when it wouldn't turn on. He charged it every night, goddammit.

"There a pay phone somewhere 'round here?" he asked the bartender.

The man jerked his face at the side door that lead to the back parking lot. Colt stumbled out - swaying on his feet far worse than two drinks should warrant.

It was late afternoon. He shaded his eyes and tried looked at the sun like it was deliberately lying to him. He arrived at midday and he couldn't have been in there for more than twenty minutes. How the hell was it this late?

'Time moves differently when you're dead cowboy. You should know that by now.'

The payphone was in the shadow of the bar and he shivered when he stepped out of the sun. Wrong. It was all wrong and he didn't know how to fix it. Why was the voice still in his head when Christine was all the way across town? Why did he still feel life he wasn't quiet alone?

It was only when he had the receiver up against his ear that he realised he didn't know your number. Shit.

He leaned his forearm against the payphone and rested his forehead against it. Could he maybe get a taxi and show up at your house? He scoffed. Yeah, that would go well. Showing up dead drunk just to say he knew you liked short skirts in fall and that he dreamed of pulling off your bikini top. He'd be lucky if you only mildly tazed him.

Fuck. Okay. Home again. Sleep it off. Charge his phone. Call you in the morning and try not to sound too crazy. He could manage that.

He called the taxi company listed in the phone book. Half wondering if they were still in operation. When it finally connected, the call was thick with static.

"Yeah?" The man's voice was raspy and standoffish.

"Can I get a cab at Ronnie's on Westside?"

The man laughed. "Oh you must be a real tough customer to be drinking there. Didn't think you'd have the balls cowboy."

Colt wanted to cuss him out. What kind of fucker answers the phone and insults you less than two sentences in? He squeezed the receiver until he felt he could control his voice.

"Yeah. I'm a real mean guy. So can I get my cab or not?"

"Oh, I'll send you a ride alright." There was a mocking tilt to his voice. "Best fucking ride you'll ever take. Just sit pretty. You'll know when it's for you."

The skin on the back of his neck crawled. He hung up without another word.

The streetlights were coming on and the gold of sunset was giving way to the awful in-between greyness of twilight. He waited for his ride.

You came home to find flowers on your doorstep. A bouquet of white roses. You froze. There was only one man who sent you flowers and he was cold and dead for the better part of a year.

You picked the card up by the edge and flicked it open.

Hope you didn't forget our date. See you soon dollface.

-Colt

Oh. You laughed, ridiculously relieved. Of course.

Dinner tomorrow night with the cowboy. You took the roses inside and hunted around for a vase. Was it actually a date? He'd said it was a thank you dinner, but it wouldn't hurt to dress up a little. Do your makeup a bit fancy, maybe wear your new heels. It'd been months since you'd gone out, had a nice dinner with a friend. This could be good for you. Just one more step back into normalcy.

The clouds were starting to gather and as evening came on, they broke with a shudder of thunder.

You curled up on your couch, all the lights on. It was going to be a bad storm. The first really awful one in almost half a year. You tried not to, but it got you thinking about that night. The night your boyfriend proposed to you. The night you killed him.

You closed your eyes and tried not to see it, but the memories followed you even past the darkness. You couldn't run from them for long.

It was cold outside, rain drumming on Christine's roof. Sharp, constant. Your boyfriend was in the driver's seat, buckling his belt. A lazy, satisfied smirk on his face.

You liked it when he looked at you like that. Satisfied. Mellow. It never lasted long, but in the few minutes after fucking you, he would agree to just about anything.

"I'm drunk on you baby," he'd said once. "Heads all woozy. Would do anything for you. Fucking anything."

Christine's windows were all fogged up, and you traced little hearts on the glass. To be honest, you felt a little drunk on him too. Heart still pounding, head reeling. Cunt still fluttering and full. He was so good at reading you, at fucking you just how you needed it. No man before him could make you come so hard, or do it so easy.

"I got something to ask you, baby."

You turned to him, hand reaching out for his and pulling it into your lap.

"Yes?"

He rubbed a thumb across your knuckles. He wasn't looking at your face, just down at your interlinked hands.

"You're my girl, yeah?"

"Obviously. I love you."

"And you ain't going to leave me?"

"Never."

He sighed. Managed to raise his eyes to meet yours. You weren't used to seeing him nervous. Usually he'd just bull doze his way through a conversation, not stopping until he got what he wanted. This was...new. It made a whole new crop of butterflies start up in your stomach.

"Will you marry me?"

You froze. What? Where was this coming from? You loved him. You cared about him. But marriage? That was such a big step. Such a grown up thing.

"I've got money put away. And Christine. I can put a deposit down on a house by the end of the month. Can pay for a nice wedding too. All white and frilly, like you want."

"I..."

"You don't got to worry 'bout your student loans neither. We can pay 'em off a whole lot faster if we're together. You can even go back to school if you want. Get that second degree you're always talking about."

"I...can't."

You pulled your hands away from his. Looked away from him.

"I love you. I really do. But it's too...much. We're too young. I... I just don't want to rush into things and make a mistake."

He was quiet. Awfully, dangerously quiet. His hand was still in your lap and you could feel when he clenched it into a fist.

"Is there another man?"

"What?"

You whirled to face him, suddenly angry. How could he even suggest...

"I haven't touched another man since the day you asked me out."

He wasn't smiling anymore. His green eyes were narrowed, mean.

"Who are you fucking? Which bastard is it? Huh?"

"No one! There's no one else. I just don't want to get married and make a -"

"Mistake? You think I'm a fucking mistake?"

You flinched. His voice was even louder in the closeness of the car. It made your ears throb.

His fist uncurled and he grabbed your hand, hard. Yanked you towards him so your upper body was sprawled across the gear shift.

"Was it a mistake to fuck me? A mistake to say you loved me?"

"No! That's not what I-"

He cut you off with a hand around your throat.

"You want to leave me. That it? You're going to fucking leave me?"

You pulled at his fingers with your free hand but it was useless. His grip was getting tighter the angrier he got. Your head felt all swollen, your nose and throat burning.

"Please just -"

"No! No fucking please. No changing your mind at the last minute. You ain't gonna be my girl? Ain't gonna be my wife?"

He pulled you towards his face, his lips barely brushing yours.

"If you won't be mine, then you'll just have to fucking die. It's me or no one else, baby. I told you that, all those months ago."

You scrambled for some way to get loose, but you were in an awkward position and he had all the leverage.

"I fucking warned you. I told you that if you dated me you couldn't ever leave. I knew I was going to fall in love with you. Hell, I was half in love before you even said hello. I tried. But you just didn't listen, did you?"

Your hand brushed something cold and metallic in the centre console. His switch blade. He usually kept it in his back pocket to help with work. Oh, and he kept it sharp. You grabbed it, more on instinct than anything else.

Your head was pounding and your heartbeat was pulsing in your ears. But the rain was somehow worse. Falling so loud you thought you'd never get the sound out of your head.

You tried to plead with him again, reason, beg, whatever it took. But when you tried to speak he just closed his fist even tighter and your words died in your throat with a shudder.

Oh god, he was really going to do it. He's eyes were wild, mad with something beyond reason. He'd seen reason in the rearview mirror about a hundred miles ago and now he was headed straight down the highway of fucking insanity.

How? How could the man you loved be choking the breath out of you?

Because he loves you. Because he'd rather see you dead than lose you. Because you were too damn blind with love to notice how dangerous he is.

White starbursts bloomed across your vision. Little fireworks to celebrate your brain dying.

You stabbed him.

You didn't fully mean to. You were half mad with fear, half dead in his grip. Not sure what you were doing until you felt the blood.

The switchblade sunk straight into his neck.

You didn't even pull it out. Just left it there and scrambled back when his grip on you loosened, your chest heaving. You throat and eyes and nose all felt swollen. Your lungs burned like fire.

He reached up and touched his neck. Looked down at his fingers like he couldn't believe the blood was his.

You might have tried to save him then. Might have come to your senses and called the ambulance, might have stripped off your shirt and tried to stop the bleeding.

But a knife in his throat apparently wasn't enough to stop him. He looked at you and there wasn't anything rational left in him. He reached for you again, hands curled like claws. He was dying and all he wanted to do was take you with him.

You screamed. So loud that it made your own ears ring.

You grabbed the knife and pulled. You didn't realise it was acting like a stopper until his blood splashed on you. Hot, stinking of metal. It sprayed across your face, got into your mouth and nose, soaked the whole front of your shirt.

You scrambled for the door handle and fell backwards out of the Mustang. Landed on your ass and pushed yourself away.

He was halfway over the passenger seat by then, hands still reaching, mouth pulled into an ugly snarl.

You kicked the door shut.

It slammed with a bang and mercifully blocked him from view. Your turned onto your knees, pushed yourself to your feet and ran.

The rain was coming down so fast that it stung your skin. You didn't rightly know where you were going. Only that it was away.

You still don't know how you made it home. You were a twenty minute drive away and it was too dark to see more than three feet in front of you. Must have been luck. Must have been fate.

When you got home, you were shaking so hard you couldn't even open the door for a good five minutes.

You stripped off your clothes right there on the doorstep and threw them in the trash. Switch blade too. You don't know how you managed to hold onto it during that wild, reckless run.

You took a long shower. Sat under the hot water with your knees curled to your chest. Too scared to cry.

At some point, the better part of your brain must have taken over. You vaguely remember burning the bloodstained clothes. Remember taking a drive and throwing the bleached switchblade out the window.

And when the call came a few days later, to please come down and identify a body, you were calm enough to not give yourself away.

If it was anyone else, maybe the cops would have tried harder. But your boyfriend was a rough man from the rough side of town. They gave you looks of sympathy but shook their heads behind your back.

Guy like him had it coming.

When it was all said and done, you and Christine were the only ones who knew the truth.

Colt waited all evening for a cab that never came. And when the storm started, he was annoyed enough to consider driving home on his own. He'd only had two shots. And that was a few hours ago. He'd be fine. Folk got away with worse all the time.

He left the bar with his jacket over his head and his eyes darting down the road. The rain was sheeting and he had to scramble to make it to his Jeep without getting totally soaked.

Wet and hungry and still a little drunk, Christine didn't seem like quite so big an issue. He was just jumping at ghosts. Tequila got his thoughts all twisted up, that's all.

Driving was miserable. Even with his headlights on bright and his wipers cranked all the way up, he was having real trouble seeing the road. The yellow line was the only thing he could properly rely on.

When the headlights showed up behind him, it took him a while to notice them getting closer.

"Guy's got a death wish, driving so fast in this weather."

The driver behind him was gaining quickly. Colt expected them to try and overtake, but they didn't. Just got closer and closer. A car's length away. And then half. And then almost kissing his bumper.

"Why is this dude so up my ass?"

He hit the gas, but the guy behind him didn't care. Just picked up and kept coming. Revved it a little and Colt could hear the engine even through the rain. Some kind of muscle car. A loud, growling thing.

Almost like a...Mustang.

His whole back suddenly felt icy. It couldn't be. Christine was back home, keys still in the ignition. Even if someone did steal her, why the fuck would they track him down? Must be another muscle car, with some ego tripping asshole behind the wheel.

He told himself all that and more, but his foot pressed harder on the gas.

And still the Mustang kept coming.

The speedometer crept upwards. Sixty. Seventy. Eighty.

Too fast for the narrow roads, and sure as hell too fast for a rainy night like this one.

A curve was coming up soon, the road ringed off with guard rails. He could see the reflectors glinting orange at him. Shit.

He took it wide, drifting into the opposite lane. He could feel his tires slipping a little and he hit the breaks just enough to steady the Jeep.

The Mustang didn't have any trouble with the curve. Stayed in its lane and gained a little more speed, so that when they were straight again, its hood was in line with his trunk.

Good. Maybe now the fucker would finally overtake him.

He couldn't see the car clearly. The headlights were bouncing right off his side mirrors. He couldn't even make out the silhouette of the driver.

Screech.

The Mustang's hood scraped against the side of his Jeep. The whole car lurched to the side, tires slipping.

"Fuck!"

Colt gunned it again, trying to out race the mad man. But whoever was behind him had no intention of letting that happen. They kept pace with him, blocking him from getting back in his lane.

Lightning flashed and Colt looked in the mirror just in time to see the car properly.

The thunder was loud enough to drown out his scream.

The car trying to run him off the road was none other than the 1969 cherry red Mustang that should have been sitting in his yard. Maybe he could have accepted it as a coincidence. Someone else had the exact same car as him and just happened to be driving like an asshole. Maybe he could have accepted that.

But the car didn't have a driver.

He saw it clear as day. The lightning glared straight through all the windows and there wasn't a single person in that car.

Impossible. This can't be real. There's no fucking way.

He could almost hear the laugh.

'Do I got you scared cowboy?'

Colt didn't have time to answer. The road was merging into the cliffside, and the wall of rock kept him trapped. There were lights coming straight at him, the blaring of a horn as whoever it was tried to warn him.

He slammed hard on the brakes. Christine shot ahead and at the last second he managed to edge back into his lane. The headlights roared past, the huge semi exhaling a spray of water and smoke.

It would have flattened him, even in his Jeep.

Christine's tail lights were a pair of glaring red eyes in the rain, until suddenly they weren't. Gone.

Colt slowed the Jeep, parked on the shoulder.

The rain was drumming on the roof and his hands were shaking. He got out of the car, water soaking through his shirt almost immediately.

The paint on the back door was scratched off in huge swathes. The metal was dented.

He climbed back behind the wheel, mind teetering on the edge of something past sanity. The world wasn't sane anymore. Nothing was.

He heard the growl of the Mustang through the rain. No headlights this time, just the whine of tires on slick tar.

Where?! Where was she?!

Christine slammed into the Jeep head on. All Colt saw was her red face and silver smile in the glare of his headlights before his whole world was filled with the grinding of steel on steel. His head slammed backwards, the whole car shuddering.

The airbags came on, blinding him.

Christine didn't stop after hitting him. He yanked the hand break up but she kept pushing forward, edging his car closer and closer to the edge. He felt it when the guard rail scratched against his bumper.

An ugly scream of metal, but the rails held. Christine didn't seem to like that. She pulled back, her tires shrieking as she got ready to slam forward again.

Colt jumped just before she hit the Jeep. His seat belt was almost the death of him. It wouldn't release and he couldn't see the catch in the dark. He must have had at least one lucky star though, because the door wasn't too mangled and he managed to kick it open just in time.

He landed hard, on his hands and knees.

Metal shrieked. Christine slammed into the Jeep hard enough to send it through the rails. He turned just in time to see his car go tilting off the road and down into the dark.

For a second, he thought he might have made it. Maybe she didn't notice him. Maybe it was all over.

Christine pulled back and her headlights washed over him, still on his hands and knees. One of the lights was hanging loose from the crash, making her look lopsided. The rain was still coming down hard and the droplets were gold in the light between them.

She revved.

Colt scrambled to his feet and ran straight for the guard rail. He jumped.

It wasn't a sheer drop. It was instead a steep slope, thick with shale and slippery with water. His knees buckled under him and he ended up on his back, half rolling and half sliding down the embankment. His palms were bleeding and as he fell, the gravel lodged itself in his open skin.

He couldn't see where he was headed. Could only try and and protect his head and brace for impact.

His slide ended with a boulder. He slammed into it his ribs first. Heard a crack before all the air was knocked straight out of him.

He could see the headlights way up above him, cutting through the rain.

At least she can't follow me down here.

True. Christine couldn't follow him.

But that's when Colt saw him. The driver. Coming to stand in front of the headlights, the silhouette of a man.

The silhouette stepped through the gash in the railing left by the Jeep and dropped out of the light.

Colt knew he should run. He could hear the shale slipping as the other man came down. Controlled. Measured. Nothing like his own tumble.

But he couldn't move. Everything hurt. Breathing sent sharp spikes of pain all across his chest.

"Well, well cowboy. Look at you."

The voice was low and raspy, mean. He knew that voice. Had been hearing it in his head and in his dreams and was fool enough to think it was his own.

His eyes were getting used to the dark. He could just about see the stranger. Tall, wearing jeans and a leather jacket. There was dirt thick on his boots, in the folds of his clothes. Not the black shale of the slope, but a reddish clay.

Kind of like in the cemetery.

No, he realised as the stranger squated down in front of him. Exactly like the cemetery. It was grave dirt he was seeing.

He was looking at a dead man.

The stranger might have been handsome once, but now one cheek was filled with holes. Ugly, clustered together things that showed his teeth. His other cheek was a mass of white. Worms, tiny little worms wriggling in and out of his face.

Colt wanted to scream. And vomit. And then scream some more.

There was a dark hole in the stranger's neck and when he moved it oozed a sticky, thick kind of blood.

"You know why I'm here?"

Colt didn't really notice it at first, but his voice was different. Thicker somehow. Like his vocal cords were packed full of dirt and blood.

Colt coughed and his whole chest hurt so bad he thought he was dying. Something was definitely broken. He'd be lucky if there wasn't internal bleeding too.

"Let me guess. Came to punish me for my sins?"

The dead man laughed.

"Not yours, no. Don't give much of a damn about you. I'm here to get what's mine."

The pieces were clicking together in his head.

"Your girl."

"My girl," your boyfriend agreed.

He reached for him, the nails on his hand either blue or totally ripped off. His skin filled with holes that showed pale white tendons and ugly pink flesh.

That was when the adrenaline really kicked in. Colt shoved at the man with one hand and pushed himself up with the other. It was like touching a carcass at the butcher. Cold. Limp. Just a piece of meat. No human should ever have to feel a body in that state.

He made it to his knees before the bastard hit back. Your boyfriend kicked straight at his jaw and Colt's head flew backward, smashed into the rock behind him. He dropped back down like a stone.

"Why you gotta be so fucking difficult, hmm?"

Colt was too out of it to pull away. The man reached for him and the skin of his hand was crawling with bugs. He grabbed his collar and dragged him up.

"Just gonna go to sleep for a little while cowboy. Maybe you'll wake up. Maybe you won't. Either way, I've waited too fucking long to let this chance go."

The corpse kissed him. Or more accurately, pressed his open lips against his and breathed.

His lips were cold and stiff and utterly beyond human. The taste was rancid. Worse than the worst thing he'd ever had. Metallic like blood, sweet like rotted meat.

Colt fainted.

The rain drummed down. Christine sat on the roadside and waited, her hood and paintwork back to normal. In bed, you tossed and turned in the hands of a nightmare.

The thing that was Colt Guilder opened its eyes.

It was your phone that woke you up. Your ringtone blasting even through your dreams.

You fumbled for it, eyes squinted against the brightness.

"Hello?"

The call was thick with static. Still, you recognised the voice. Would know it even from beyond the grave.

"Hey beautiful. Did ya miss me?" 

[lvrclerc]

✶ THE EX EFFECT

summary: being oscar piastri's pr manager is... uneventful, to say the least. that is, until your most recent ex winds up the mclaren garage. in an attempt to prove him something, the arm you end up grabbing is oscar's. now the word is spreading around the paddock that you're his (fake) girlfriend and it turns into a beneficial pr opportunity for him and a perfect cover up for you. except oscar gets a little too good at it, and all the reminders in the world are not enough for you to keep in mind that this is fake.

F1 MASTERLIST | OP81 MASTERLIST

pairing: oscar piastri x pr manager!fake gf!reader

wc: 19.2k

cw: not proofread, past toxic relationship, annoyances/colleagues to lovers, fake dating, he falls first, sort of third act breakup, oscar is slightly ooc, very light angst, season timeline is fucked but who cares! romance! clichés! drama!

note: requested here, i know nothing about pr, this was supposed to be short but i couldn't stop myself so you have this monster of a fic! i kinda hate this. anyways, enjoy!

WHEN YOU FOUND out you’d aced your interview, you thought to yourself, the sleepless nights carrying group projects every other member had procrastinated were worth it. The number of social events you passed on to finish top of your class─valedictorian, Communications major with a Journalism minor─had paid off because you had just landed a job as PR manager in Formula One. Not just in any team, either: McLaren. You were ready to dive into the glamour, the glitz, and the hardships of the sport. To thrive in the pressure, the politics, the media storms. You were ready to shine.

Except you were managing Oscar ‘No Emotions’ Piastri, and nobody thought about telling you that.

Oscar Piastri, a quiet semi-rookie when you first crossed the headquarters’ threshold, who gave you five words max per interview, had a sarcastic comment to every command the team social media manager threw his way, and disappeared at every media opportunity like a ghost, deadpanning instead of showing enthusiasm. Needless to say, there wasn’t much for you to manage.

It’s not like you didn’t try. You nudged him gently at first: helpful suggestions, friendly reminders to loosen up a little. Be more engaging. Play the game. But every time you did, he looked at you as if you'd sprouted a second head and proceeded to swiftly ignore you. The first time it happened, you were offended, and maybe a little concerned. You complained to Charlotte, Lando’s PR manager at the time, and she gave you the wisdom of a woman who had seen some things: “Assert yourself,” she’d said.

It was your first month on the job. You were fresh out of university. You didn’t even know where the best coffee machine was. How were you even supposed to do that?

Still, you decided to try again.

During a long and taxing car drive to the McLarens’ HQ, one you were sharing with Oscar after a last-minute driver swap and a logistical disaster, you figured it was now or never. Assert yourself, Charlotte had said. Be firm. Be confident.

You went for humor instead. A joke. 

Terrible idea, in hindsight.

“You know,” you said lightly, breaking the silence that had stretched across three roundabouts, “you’re kind of boring.”

Oscar simply glanced at you, expressionless, so you clarified. “I mean, you’re not even letting me do my job. Throw me a bone here.”

And it was supposed to be playful. Oscar was supposed to quietly snort, asking how he could finally help you, and boom, you’d finally get to apply all that polished knowledge you’d studied for years.

Instead, he tilted his head slightly, puzzled, as if you’d just spoken in Morse code aloud, and said, “Imagine being boring and still more interesting than your ex.”

“What?” You blinked. Saying you’d been taken aback would have been a euphemism.

He didn’t even look away from the road.

“You talk in your sleep. Don’t nap in the common room again.”

Silence fell again, but this time it wasn’t peaceful. It was personal.

That was the moment you decided, with startling clarity, that you very much disliked Oscar Piastri.

You didn’t know you talked in your sleep. You didn’t even know he’d stumbled upon you squeezing a thirty-minute nap in the common room of McLaren’s headquarters. And you certainly didn’t remember the dream you’d had─ or why exactly it had featured your ex out of all people. All you knew was that, no matter what he heard, it was a low blow.

Especially when it came to the one man who somehow slithered his way into your heart just to shatter it from the inside out.

Disliking the person you were assigned to manage wasn’t unheard of in the world of public relations. It was practically a rite of passage. Most of the time, it came with celebrities who were a walking headline: strippers, drugs, arrests, rumors of twins with three different people. That, you could’ve handled.

Oscar wasn’t like that at all. Oscar was just… rude.

Not loud rude, or messy rude. Just… quietly, unbotheredly rude. He was unreadable, dry, and too clever. Not a PR nightmare, just a PR black hole. Just to you.

And if there was one thing you happened to be very good at─besides the job you weren’t even getting the chance to do─it was holding a grudge.

After that episode, you kept your interactions with Oscar to the bare minimum, or as much as you could without being fired. The paycheck was just too good, especially as a fresh grad still recovering from student debt.

Any advice or directions you had for him came during team meetings, always surrounded by enough people that he couldn’t hit you with his usual blank stare. When he messed up during interviews, which was sometimes inevitable, and you followed up with a politely scathing email, bullet points and all. Face-to-face convos were reserved strictly for emergencies… or if you happened to be seated beside him, in which case you communicated via foot. Strategic, silent, and sharp. You’d step on his sneaker under the eyes of all, and he’d keep smiling at the camera like nothing happened. Except for the tiny, throbbing vein on his temple─ oh, you lived for it. 

It was a perfect arrangement. Passive-aggressive peace, mutually tolerated detachment. It worked for both of you.

Sometimes, you caught him glancing your way, wondering why you were still here. But you didn’t care. You had a system, and it was stable. It would’ve stayed that way for a long time, until your or his contract expired, whichever came first.

But then your ex decided to show up, and that messed everything up.

It was a very nice Thursday, dare you say. The kind of morning that made you think the season wouldn't be so bad.

You’d expected Bahrain to be hotter, considering the furnace it had been last year during the start of your first season with McLaren. But today, the air was warm without being unbearable, a soft breeze threading through the paddock and playing with the loose strands of your hair. Your cardigan slipped off one shoulder, but it didn’t cling or suffocate─ just draped like it was meant to be styled that way.

Oscar had just rolled out of the garage, off to log laps and data and whatever mysterious things drivers did during testing, which meant you were officially off-duty for the next three hours. You had time for yourself, maybe for a proper coffee and a chocolate croissant. Eventually, a little conversation with Lando, if you ran into him.

Yeah. This was a good morning.

You should have known it wouldn’t last.

It should have hit you when the coffee machine didn’t work, so you had to walk all the way to Lando’s side of the garage to fetch yourself a cup. It should have hit you when you didn’t even see Lando, and they were out of your favorite chocolate croissant. It should have hit you when you passed by grown men in their forties gossiping like schoolgirls about the new additions to Oscar’s car engineering team, you never heard anything about. It should have hit you when the feelings in your gut made you hesitate near the orange-colored walls.

But it really, really hit you when he grabbed your elbow.

“Y/N?”

Your body locked up like someone had flipped your off switch. The voice was familiar in the worst way─ like a nightmare you thought you’d finally grown out of. You didn’t even need to turn around. Your body already knew. Still, you did, as if asking the universe for confirmation.

And there he was. Theodore Silva, in full McLaren uniform, lanyard slung around his neck. Dark brown hair, messy, tied up in a bun, with his characteristic three o’clock shadow. Your ex-boyfriend. Your heartbreak origin story that, somehow, had the nerve to smile.

You would have backhanded him if the shock didn’t make your mind go blank.

“Wow,” he said, and you felt like a funny coincidence. “Didn’t expect to see you there. Always knew you were the ambitious one.”

Oh, you knew that tone. That patronizing little tone he used when he wanted to seem impressed while reminding you he could always do better. As if you hadn’t told him a million times about your fascination with motorsports and all of its scandals. You weren’t 19 and easily diminished anymore.

You slapped on a polite, seething smile. “I could say the same. I wouldn’t have guessed they hired people with so little… experience. Or the grades to back it up.”

Theodore Silva wasn’t the richest man alive. No, that title was reserved for his father, who owned a few businesses that took off in the early 2010s and left him with an outrageous amount of money and too much to do with it─ including sending his incompetent son to a prestigious business school even though he could barely manage to keep up half of the average required. Even his father’s money couldn’t get him to graduate the same year as you.

But after another year, it could apparently get him a job at McLaren.

Yet, Theodore still chuckled, brushing off your remark as if it were just another inside joke you two shared. “They just brought me on- engineering for Piastri’s car. Funny how life works out, huh?”

He was on Oscar’s team. You’d be obligated to see him, be near him, every day. You didn’t answer, just stared at him blankly, too busy cataloguing every sharp object in the vicinity, trying to ignore the twist of your heart.

“Small world,” he added to your silence.

You tried to smile again, but you knew it came out weird when the words that came out of your mouth sounded more like a screech than anything else. “Smaller than I’d like.”

Theodore tilted his head, studying you with calm eyes, as if he hadn’t watched you, arms dangling near his side, as you broke down in his apartment’s parking lot. “You look good,” he said softly. “I’m glad you’re doing well.”

You stared at him.

Hell no. He had that voice, wearing guilt like an optional accessory, looking at you like he was the one that got away. The nerves. You hated how your chest tightened, the smell of his cologne, and how he thought he could just waltz in, throw some compliments around, hoping to win you back.

Fuck him. “I’m doing very well, Theodore. Loving my job. How’s Anna?”

That landed. He physically winced, scratching his neck. “We, uh─ We broke up, actually.”

How surprising.

“So─”

You weren’t about to let him finish. You weren’t about to let him think he even had the sliver of a chance. He wasn’t about to wreck the life you built for yourself by simply being here, no. Instead, you did the sanest thing anyone would have done in your place.

You lied.

“I have a boyfriend, actually.” The words came out so fast you almost flinched, not registering them yourself.

Theodore paused, eyebrows lifting. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” you smiled, wildly too sharp for the context. “He’s great. Amazing, supportive. Emotionally available. You know─ faithful.”

He blinked, and his fake-casual mask slipped for a second. “What’s his name?” He asked, all lightness gone from his expression. 

That’s when it hit you. Unspoken panic rose in your throat because, believe it or not, you didn’t have a boyfriend. You barely even had a social life─ you spent most nights in bed with a sheet mask and Youtube videos. If you hesitated now, even for a second, Theodore would know. And he’d never let go, flashing you his smug little grin of his, strutting around the garage for a season, thinking he had a chance.

Not today, Satan.

The garage door behind you creaked open and footsteps echoed in your direction.

You didn’t look, didn’t think. You just grabbed the first arm that brushed against yours.

“This is him!” You said, an octave too high. “My boyfriend.”

And Oscar Piastri, your emotionally repressed, sarcasm-saturated PR headache of a driver, froze mid-step. As much as you wanted it, there wasn’t any way to back out now. His eyes dropped to your grip, white-knuckled, around his bicep. Then to you. Then to Theodore.

“... Sorry, what?” He said under his breath, just loud enough for you to hear.

“Babe,” you hissed between your teeth, eyes still set on Theodore and smiling like your life depended on it. “Go with it.”

Finally, your ex managed to speak up. He was frozen, mouth half-opened in shock. “This is your─ You’re dating─ Oscar Piastri is your boyfriend?”

Oscar opened his mouth, definitely to ask what was going on, but you beat him to it. “Yes! Yep. It’s, um─ it’s very new. A few months.”

You finally turned to face him fully.

His brown eyes, sharp and unreadable as ever, flicked across your face─ first your eyes, then your mouth, then down to where your fingers were still digging into his arm. There was confusion there, definitely, but also a kind of calculation unique to him.

“This is Theodore,” you added, swallowing thickly. “He’s one of your new engineers.” You hesitated. “... and my ex.”

That’s when something clicked.

You felt it. The subtle shift in Oscar’s expression─ the way his shoulders straightened or the brief flicker of understanding behind his eyes. He glanced at Theodore just once before looking back at you. You pleaded silently. With your eyes, with your fingers brushing lightly over the sleeve of his fireproof top, even with the part of your lips that whispered please without making a sound.

But the longer you stood there, the more the panic crept up your spine. Oscar didn’t owe you anything. The man barely liked you. He could’ve thrown you under the bus without blinking, called you out right there and made your life ten times harder.

Which is why you almost jumped when his hand, much larger, reached up and gently settled above yours.

“Ah, Theodore,” Oscar said, like the name physically bored him. “Nice to meet you. Sorry about my reaction,” he added, fingers tightening just slightly over yours. “I just didn’t expect… this.”

He turned to glance at you. An innocent smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth.

“Y/N’s told me a lot about you.”

Theodore snapped out of the shock that froze him into place, and his smile flickered. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Oscar said casually. “All the highlights.”

You blinked up at him, heart in your throat, unsure whether to laugh or sob. Was Oscar Piastri helping you?

“The highlights?” Theodore asked, dumbfounded.

Oscar hummed, thumb absentmindedly brushing over your hand─ just once, like punctuation. You weren’t dreaming, he was playing along. And the look on Theodore’s face was worth every single of it.

“Funny, she never mentioned you, or the fact she was dating an… F1 driver, as a whole.” As if you even talked to him anymore!

Oscar shrugged, way too relaxed. “That’s all right. We’re keeping it on the down low for now, I’m sure you understand. And we don’t do much… talking, anyways.”

Your jaw nearly hit the tarmac. You stepped on Oscar’s foot, a habit by now, and he barely flinched. Apparently, that was enough for Theodore. “Well,” he said slowly, eyes narrowing. “Guess I’ll see you two around the garage.”

“Guess I’ll see you around my car,” Oscar answered, a little too quickly.

Theodore just glanced at him before muttering, “Small world.”

“So small,” you nodded stiffly.

The second he was out of sight, you yanked Oscar by the wrist like a woman possessed, dragging him to the nearest utility alleyway─ dim, slightly greasy smelling, and blessedly empty. For how long, though? You didn’t know. “Okay,” you hissed. “Wow, what the hell was that line?! We don’t do much talking?!”

Oscar raised a condescendent eyebrow, arms crossed on his chest. “I don’t know, you tell me, Mrs. This Is My Boyfriend. I just followed along. You’re welcome, by the way.”

You groaned so loud it echoed, looking up to the ceiling, hoping answers will fall off it and solve your life, simultaneously pacing a short line across the floor. “I know what I did, alright? I just─ I panicked! That guy─ he… he cheated on me. With my best friend. In my own bed. And I just─ he looked so smug and self-satisfied standing here like I’d run back to him. I needed to shove something in his face, show him I’m fine. Better. And I didn’t look and you were there and your arm was right there and now I’m going to have an aneurysm─”

Oscar blinked. “Wow. Okay. That’s… a lot of information, considering we barely know each other.”

“Thank you so much for the support, Oscar. I wonder whose fault that is, exactly!”

“I’m just saying. That was a whole soap opera act in thirty seconds,” he snapped back, rolling his eyes.

You exhaled harshly. “Whatever. I didn’t actually mean to drag you into this, okay? I’ll fix it. I’ll… tell him it was a misunderstanding or… I’ll figure it out. I’ll PR my way out of this, because whether you like it or not, it’s actually my job─”

“It’s fine,” he said, cutting you off, eyes closing briefly like he needed to reboot.

You paused. “Huh?”

“I said it’s fine.” His eyes opened again, locking onto yours. “Now that he thinks you’re dating someone, his delusional ego’s going to spiral and he’ll leave you alone. Especially if it’s someone… above in station, let’s say. Not to stroke my own ego.” He tilted his head, tone flat. “He looks like the insecure type.”

“He is,” you aggressively agreed, pointing at him like he’d just cracked the Da Vinci code, and you swore you saw his lips pull up. “So we just… leave it alone?”

“Let it die down,” Oscar continued with a casualness you could only hope to replicate. “Maybe have a conversation here and there for consistency, but that's about it. It’s not like he’s going to go around bragging that his ex-girlfriend is dating the guy he’s working for.”

You snorted. “I think he’d rather die.”

Oscar’s mouth twitched, trying not to smile. “Exactly.”

You sighed, finally letting your shoulders drop as the tension bled out of you. The adrenaline was still rushing through your veins, waterfall-like, but slowly softening, giving way to a quiet panic that you could make do with until the end of the day. It’s fine, you told yourself, it’ll be fine. “Okay,” you murmured, giving him a small nod. “Thank you. Seriously.”

“Don’t mention it,” Oscar replied, already turning away. “Literally.”

“Deal,” you said. “Never again.”

The plan was to return to your regularly scheduled programming─ distant and professional. With the way Theodore worked (or more accurately, didn’t), you were pretty sure he wouldn’t last long in the McLaren garage anyway. Life would go back to normal soon enough. You were sure of it.

Rule number one of PR management: never assume anything. Certainty was a myth. Because as long as there was even a sliver of doubt, it could all go wrong. Maybe you’d gotten complacent in your ways, Oscar never gave you anything to work with after all, but you really thought that this time, it would be fine. You slept like a rock that night, the kind of sleep where your mind recharged so hard it forgot you had responsibilities in the morning.

That’s probably the reason it took you so long to notice. First, it was the way people lingered as you passed. How engineers muttered behind their coffee cups and went dead silent when you got too close. You weren’t used to this level of attention─ as a whole, you were a pretty discreet presence in the paddock, so when the smiles came and the knowing smirks got thrown your way, you started becoming suspicious.

“Morningggg,” Lando sing-songed as you entered the McLaren hospitality tent.

“Good… morning?” You muttered, narrowing your eyes as you plopped down next to him. “What’s got you in such a good mood today?” You asked as you bite into the chocolate croissant you’d been craving since yesterday.

Lando studied you. Waiting.

“Do I have to guess, or…?”

The curly-haired man sighed dramatically, as if your question alone had aged him. “No, but I thought we were friends. Guess I was wrong, since I had to hear it from my race engineer. During briefing.”

You blinked. “Okay, what the hell are you on?” you admitted. “Have you been doing crack? Is that it?”

“Whatever, keep your secrets, Y/N,” Lando conceded, a smug little grin on his lips. “You’ll talk to me when you’re ready. Or I’ll just get the truth from Osc’. He seems… chatty, lately.” 

You couldn’t imagine Oscar Piastri being chatty to save your life. “What? What does Oscar have to do with anything?” But Lando was already up and walking off.

Alone with your chocolate croissant and your detonated sense of peace, you scanned the room, eyes darting in panic.

Across the tent, Oscar stood by the coffee station, talking to a staff member with his hands-in-pockets casual disinterest. His eyes met yours, and he paused mid-sentence, one eyebrow raised in that really? kind of way that made you want to slap him. There was a silent question in it. 

One you didn’t have an answer to.

The answer actually came knocking that night─ quite literally. Loud, incessant, unforgiving knocks at your hotel room door.

You were in the middle of taking off your makeup, cotton pad in one hand and dabbing at your under-eye concealer like it personally offended you. “Seriously?” You audibly commented, exhausted. It was nearly 10 PM. You’d done your job, answered more emails than anyone should in one day. The very least the universe could offer was twenty-four uninterrupted minutes of peace.

But the knocking didn’t stop, so you opened the door with a groan and a complaint on your tongue, only for the sound to die the moment you registered who was standing on the other side.

Oscar Piastri. In a hoodie, track pants, socks that did not match, and looking far too calm for someone who’d just banged on your door as if the apocalypse was tracking him down. You stared in confusion, words refusing to come out of your mouth no matter how hard you tried.

“Sooo… we might have a problem,” Oscar finally spoke in the silence stretching between you.

He walked in your room with no hesitation, without you even inviting him in─ the audacity! Sure, yeah, come on in, ruin my night, you thought. He glanced around, sizing your room and seemingly expecting paparazzis behind the mini-bar, before turning to face you with a flat look.

“What’s this problem that has you acting so dramatic for─”

“You’re trending on F1 Twitter. Well, we are,” he said simply, tone measured. “Someone took a photo. You holding my arm next to your ex. In the garage. And the caption is─”

He pulled out his phone. A screencap of big, red, capital letters: IS OSCAR PIASTRI SOFT-LAUNCHING HIS PR MANAGER?

It took a while for reality to set in. 

You stared at the screen blankly, eyes flicking from Oscar to the headline, erratic. Soft-launching. Soft-launching. You tasted blood in your mouth. Oh, no─ it was actually just your soul leaving your body. “This is not happening,” you mumbled, blinking rapidly. “It’s fake. This is fake. I’m hallucinating.”

Oscar hummed. “Want me to read you the quote tweets?”

You pointed a finger at him. “Don’t you dare.”

He shrugged and put his phone down. You sat down on your bed, hands flying to your temple. “Okay, okay. No big deal. I’ll just tell the team we were talking about… a car issue. A steering problem. Brake pedal feedback. That sounds fake, right? Like, real-enough fake.”

Oscar gave you a look. “You could try that,” he said slowly, “but your ex has apparently been sniffing around the garage asking people if we’re actually dating.”

“No way.”

“I overheard Lando’s race engineer telling him. He asked five different people.” A beat. “He’s not subtle.”

You could feel your eyes twitch. “Jesus Christ.”

Oscar crossed his arms, leaning back against the mini-bar, staring at you. “So I don’t think your little oh it was just a brake issue! excuse is going to cut it.”

“I’m going to end it all,” you said, dropping your face in your hands. “I’m going to crawl into my media kit and live there forever.”

He raised an eyebrow at you. “I’ll bring you snacks.”

“How are you not freaking out? Like, at all? It’s your face on every headline, and my job on the line!” You didn’t want to think about the repercussions this would have on any future jobs you might want, or your actual one. Future employers were going to Google you and find dating rumors about a fake relationship with a driver you were managing.

“Oh, I freaked out,” Oscar cut in smoothly, walking toward you. “Trust me, I had a whole mini-existential crisis in the elevator.”

“That’s good for you, Oscar. Why aren’t you still freaking out?”

“Because I figured this might be a job for my PR manager,” he said, toned laced with sarcasm. “Who also happens to be the cause of the PR disaster in the first place.”

You opened your mouth just to close it, and to open it again. “That’s fair.”

“And you said I was too boring.” Oscar gave you a dry smile, and weirdly, that was the moment it clicked.

You were his PR manager. This─whatever mess the universe had decided to dump in your lap─wasn’t just a disaster. It was an opportunity. A viral, narrative-controlling opportunity. The kind of chaos you could work with. You’d complained that Oscar gave you nothing: too quiet and acidic. Well, he certainly wasn’t that anymore, or almost.

You straightened up, the panic slowly morphing into focus. Your heart was still pounding, but now to the rhythm of the plan puzzling itself in your head. No one had trained you for what to do when you were the story but if anyone could improvise, it was. Your idea was wild, unhinged, even. But you knew better than anyone that the line between unhinged and brilliant was just the execution. And if you played this right, it could be exactly what the both of you needed.

You turned to Oscar slowly, the corner of your lips twitching into something almost insane. “Oscar,” you said carefully. “What if we didn’t let this go to waste?”

“Come again?”

“I mean, this,” you gestured vaguely toward his phone, screen down on the counter. “Oscar Piastri’s mystery romance unveiled, blah blah blah. It’s a mess, but it doesn’t have to be.”

Oscar’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “... You’re about to say something crazy.”

You got up from your spot on the bed to face him fully. “Fake dating.”

“There it is.”

“No, seriously, hear me out,” When he started taking a few steps back, you rushed toward him, hands animated. “People are already talking. We can’t undo the articles or stop the whispers, but we can own the story. It’s simple PR strategy: if the narrative’s out of our hands, we grab it back, shift the focus and make it work for us.”

“And what, exactly, would we be gaining from this?” Oscar looked deeply, deeply unconvinced.

You got closer to him and his eyes widened discreetly, quickly shifting from your eyes to your lips, and to the one finger you were holding up in front of his face. “One, you get press engagement. You’ve been called the human spreadsheet by more than one person─”

“Never heard of that.”

“Okay, maybe it’s only me, but my point still stands. This? It gives you dimension. Warmth. Personality. More people of all age groups rooting for you.”

Oscar raised an eyebrow. “Because I’m dating you?”

“Don’t flatter yourself too much. Two,” you continued without missing a beat, “I get a break from Theodore. He’s more likely to leave me alone if he thinks you’re in the picture long-term, or as close as we can get to it.”

“Isn’t that the reason you picked me in the first place?”

“I was desperate. You were here and tall.”

Oscar shrugged at your words, quietly agreeing with you, which egged you on for the last point of your argument. “Three, if this all goes up in flames, we just say we broke up. That wouldn’t be the ideal outcome until Theodore’s out of the picture, but if push comes to shove, we do this quietly. Classic ‘we ask for privacy during this time’, then ghost the media. End of story, and we go back to our ways.”

The silence stretching between the walls of your hotel room seemed to last a lifetime too long as the Australian studied you carefully, arms crossed on his chest. “You’ve really thought about this.”

“Actually, I just did. I’m that good.”

He exhaled loudly at your comment, dragging a hand down his face in exasperation, and you tried your best not to let a little quip past your lips. “And how long would this have to last?” Oscar asked, voice muffled by his palm.

“Until Theodore goes away, which shouldn’t be more than a few weeks knowing his talents. Enough to let the story peak and settle and it would include a couple public appearances, some social media crumbs─ low effort, maximum payoff for you.”

Hope swirled in your chest with the intensity of a storm when he dropped his hands, his dark eyes locked onto yours.

“And your ex leaving you alone would be the only thing you’d gain out of all this?”

You didn’t hesitate a single second when you answered. “That, and peace. Maybe a little petty revenge over him and honestly? A challenge.” Because this is what you’ve been dying to do ever since you stepped foot in the paddock a year ago.

And maybe Oscar saw the hellfire of determination in your eyes as he scanned you, either that or you sold your reckless idea with the confidence of a politician, because after long, skeptical minutes. He held out his hand, and the overwhelming weight pressing against your shoulders seemed to evaporate in the flight of a hundred butterflies.

“Fine, count me in,” he said, voice a little hoarse, “but if it all goes to shit, you’re taking the blame.”

You hastily took his hand, his rough palm fitting into yours, and you blamed the electricity rushing in your spine and the powdery pink of his cheeks on the ridiculous situation and the relief coursing through your body. “Deal, but it won’t go to shit if you keep up with me.”

The ghost of a smirk pulled at his lips, which made you smile. Your heartbeat was thundering in your chest and the heaviness of what you’d just agreed upon settled over you like a second skin.

Fake dating Oscar Piastri. How hard could it be?

First thing you did the next morning was to warn a handful of team members: there was no world in which running a fake dating scheme in secret wouldn’t come back to bite you and frankly, your job and reputation were already hanging by a thread due to yesterday’s PR earthquake. You and Oscar pulled Lando, Zak, and a few key staff members─social media, comms, and PR support─into the smallest available hospitality room you could find, locking the door behind you.

You explained the situation as fast as you could, hands raised in surrender under their gazes. How the rumors were technically true but not real, what conclusions you came to in such little time, and the thought process behind your idea, carefully excluding Theodore’s implication.

“Wouldn’t lying to the public make it worse?” Someone from comms piped up, deadpan.

You winced. “Damage control isn’t always about truth. It’s about optics, controlling the narrative before it controls us. We’ve assessed the risk, this buys us time to refocus headlines onto the cars, not the garage drama all while boosting Oscar’s popularity.”

Zak blinked at you as if you’d grown a second head. “You assessed the risk?”

“With me,” Oscar added from his chair, facing you. “I see the strategic upside. I’ll blow over in a few weeks, it’s fine. No harm done.” You sent him a silent thank you, holding his eyes just long enough for him to notice.

“Soo, when’s the wedding?” Lando piped up, leaning forward. “Or do we just have the break-up arc planned?”

You ignored him, preferring to explain the conditions of you and Oscar’s little agreement: no posts unless you greenlit them, no press comments and if anyone asked, yes, you were together. Happy. In love, but still casual. Social media staff were already scribbling notes or rapidly typing on their keyboards, and Zak looked like he might die of a heart attack.

So were you. Still, when you glanced at Oscar during one of McLaren’s CEO's silent breakdowns, you couldn’t help but share a silent laugh.

The following days were catastrophic, to say the least. Navigating the Bahrain paddock for the last of testing and media obligations for the first Grand Prix of the season the week after had turned into a minefield of knowing looks and suspicious stares. You and Oscar were learning how to walk the tightrope of fake affection with the grace of two toddlers. A few shared smiles, a shoulder brush, but every interaction felt rehearsed, taken off a badly written script. By some given miracle, it did work on some people but not all, and especially not Theodore. You could feel his eyes on you everytime you walked through the garage, narrowed as if waiting for a slip-up, but you’d rather die than prove him right.

By the end of the first few days, Oscar’s social media manager handed you a photo of the both of you to approve for Instagram─ one where Oscar had his arm slung around your shoulder awkwardly while you stood next to the car, all too aware of the massive lens pointed right at you. It was…

“It looks like we lost a bet,” you muttered, horrified.

Oscar leaned in over your shoulder to look at the picture. “Oh. Yeah, that’s bad.”

You threw your hands in the air, movements more powerful than words to transcribe the frustration elevating your blood pressure. Before a flurry of complaints and insults could slip past your lips, Oscar spoke.

“Okay, maybe it’s not very convincing, but it’s also because we haven’t figured out how to sell it correctly.”

“What a revolutionary thought.” He shrugged your comment off. 

“Well, I figured since we skipped the whole dating part and went straight to the whole madly-in-love thing, maybe it’s time we… backtrack?”

You felt the lightbulb switch on in your mind, eyes widening in realization. “Backtrack… like a backstory?”

Oscar nodded solemnly. “A timeline, yeah. How it started, how it’s going, first dates and everything. The whole fake fairytale.”

You couldn’t argue with that. You hated to admit he was currently beating you at your job, but Oscar was right. People were already speculating about the two of you a week in your fake relationship; everyone, including you, needed some foundations to be settled and fast. “Okay, alright. We can figure this out tonight, preferably in my hotel room since it apparently became the headquarters of this,” you made circle hand gesture between the two of you, “operation. Also because nobody will bust us in there.”

Oscar showed up at an ungodly hour of the evening─ the clock showcased numbers that hurt your sleep cycle, but nothing made the press talk more than going to your girlfriend’s room in the middle of the night, right? He knocked once before letting himself in, dressed in the same sweats and hoodie as a week ago, and holding a suspiciously large energy drink. “I come bearing poison,” Oscar announced, lifting the can.

You squinted at him from your spot on the bed-your hotel room lacking a desk-surrounded by a battlefield of notebooks and your wheezing laptop that was one short breath away from the grave. “Perfect, that’ll keep us up. We have work to do. Welcome to the Ted-talk-slash-lie-building meetup.”

Oscar kicked off his shoes, walking toward you. He eyed the chaos with a low whistle. “Oh wow, you weren’t kidding.”

You handed him a purple glitter pen without even glancing in his direction. “Sit your ass down and write with honor, Piastri.”

“Glitter? Really?”

“Don’t patronize me. I love glitter gel pens. Better memorize that if you want to be a good fake boyfriend.”

Oscar snorted but didn’t protest as he took the pen, sitting down next to an open notebook on the edge of your bed. He cracked the energy drink open with a hiss, and you took it from his hands before he had the time to bring it to his lips. “Jesus, you’re bossy.” You shot him a look. “Alright, alright. Where do we begin?”

You exhaled, eyes settling on your computer screen. A bright, pink page was showcasing Date Idea: Where To Take Your Beloved For A First Date? “With the basics. When we started dating, how we met, how many fake months we’ve been in fake love, which side of the bed you sleep in for continuity purposes.”

“Right side.”

“Wrong answer. It’s mine.”

You gradually settled in a surprisingly comfortable rhythm. Between the quiet clicking of the keyboard, the buzzing of Chinese nightlife outside your window, and the rhythmic scratch of the glittery ink on paper, you and Oscar brainstormed.

Ideas came slowly at first, awkward and stilted the way two kids forced together in a group project would work─ which it was, in a way. It didn’t take you long to realize you didn’t know Oscar at all, and he didn’t know you either, and the recognition of that fact put a certain strain on your interactions, as much as there already was. Yet, the tension softened as the minutes from midnight trickled away. You found yourself building a history out of thin air, questions after questions and jokes after jokes─ inside jokes that didn’t exist and justified why you laughed so hard at ‘soft tyres’, a first date that involved a tragically undercooked lasagna which Oscar and you had to fight over because neither of you wanted to look like a bad cook. You chose May 21st as the anniversary date because it sounded cute. Oscar protested, “How can a date even be cute? It doesn’t make sense.” He still settled on it.

Snorts, teasing looks as you drew a clumsy timeline in the middle of your designated ‘Relationship Basics’ notebook. “What about our first kiss?”

“Mmh, that’s a good one. People are going to ask.”

“Duh,” you fought the smile on your lips with little effort. “C’mon. You were wearing that hideous orange puffer, it was raining, and I was mad because you didn’t share your umbrella.”

“Oh right, and you were soaked and… okay, you said I owed you a kiss for compensation. Sounds like something you’d do,” Oscar replied, leaning forward in mock seriousness.

You made a sound, halfway between a gasp and a laugh. “You do remember!”

He laughed. A real one, warm and easy, going right through your chest. You quickly joined him, and his eyes lingered on you a second too long after the joke faded. “I made it up with hot chocolate later, though,” he added with a lazy smile that didn’t belong in any scenarios.

You scribbled that in your notebook. “Ew. We are sickeningly cute.”

And somewhere between a fabricated ski trip and the great debate of who said ‘I love you’ first, something shifted, just a little. Oscar had moved from the edge of the bed to sit beside you, arms behind his head against the headrest, legs stretched on the covers. His knees bumped yours every now and then, but you didn’t flinch away. The notebooks laid abandoned now, pens scattered across the duvet. Your laptop screen dimmed after an hour of neglect and your limbs were heavy with the sweet stickiness of fatigue that only came when you laughed too much and too hard.

You glanced over at Oscar and his hair was a little messy, eyes a little sleepy, softened by the light of the space. He was already watching you. “You know,” he spoke up. “For a so-called meeting, it suspiciously looks like a sleepover.”

You couldn’t help but giggle at that, tiredness winning over your resolve. “It’s almost four,” he continued,  voice lower in the hush of your hotel room. “We’ve officially survived our first week of fake dating. Well, we did four hours ago, but…”

“And we haven’t accidentally gotten married in Vegas like they do in movies. I’d call that a win.”

“Oh yeah, that’s definitely not because of our amazing chemistry.”

A huff escaped you again, and your head fell back against the pillows. Shanghai still hummed outside the window, quieter this time, and the city lights threaded through the thin curtains you pulled. The room was just as still, if warmer─ you could feel the tired blush on your cheeks and the heat of Oscar’s thigh against yours. “You know, you’re not as annoying as I thought,” you said, a lazy sigh curling into your words.

It came out like an offhand casual observation, but you didn’t meet his eyes. Truth be told, you were ashamed. The whole year you’d convinced yourself Oscar Piastri was a nuisance and a stain on your work life had been shattered in the shine of glitter pens and the drafting of a romance novel-worthy story. Because he was actually kind of funny, and even though he delivered his jokes like he was bored half the time which you used to interpret as condescance, they still made you laugh. He listened when you spoke. He had a dry, understated charm you were starting to recognize as very authentic.

And he hadn’t complained once tonight. Not when you made him pick an anniversary date for the third time, or reenact a fake first meeting with your best friend. He was just… there.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he replied, but his voice melted at his usual edges. “You’re alright too. Surprisingly.”

When you turned your head, you found he was already looking at you for the second time, and a moment passed. You gave him a smile, barely there, and he looked away. “Guess we do make a decent team,” Oscar mumbled.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” you mimicked him. He snorted.

You walked him to your door after an exchange of soft chuckles and breathy goodnights. Fake dating Oscar would be harder than you thought, but it definitely wouldn’t be as bad as you made it out to be.

You weren’t sure what it was between the sleep deprivation, the amateur acting, or the emotional whiplash of building an entire relationship with a guy you were only acquainted with, but something about it shifted the rhythm you’d gotten used to. Whatever happened during that night, being Oscar Piastri’s fake girlfriend became easier after it.

It started with texts. You couldn’t remember which one of you sent the first non-work related one, but it became a daily occurrence of linking the other pictures the press took of the both of you.Oscar would often comment something along the lines of Do I look like a man held hostage or a man in love? Be honest. You’d roll your eyes everytime, answering: All I can say is that I’m not flattered. At first, it was mostly logistical─ scheduling photo ops, making sure neither of you veered your scheme off the track. But somewhere between sarcastic captions and oddly flattering candids, the conversations grew longer. It became a way to kill time, a habit.

Oscar was easy to talk to, which was a thought that would’ve originally terrified you. Except the conversations carried off screen, and you found yourself enjoying them an awful lot.

Along the lines of your ruse, you started saving seats beside each other during lunch breaks or waiting up for the other to go back to the hotel together─ not for the cameras or Theodore’s heinous stare, but for a reason as simple as the enjoyment of the other’s company. Oscar was more than a colleague by that point, he became something else that you couldn’t quite call a friend the way you called Lando one. You stopped overthinking every step you took beside him, every glance and sentence. You had your script, sure. But more than that, you had a quiet kind of understanding. He knew when to press his hand to the small of your back when it was needed, and you knew when to lean in just enough to sell the look of something intimate. 

It wasn’t perfect, but it was practiced. Comfortable, even. Maybe, just maybe, a little fun. Which is why you couldn’t tell when the little things started to feel not as little anymore.

Rare were the times you arrived late to a team briefing, but a late-night spiral reviewing articles about your little charade had stolen more sleep than you’d expected, and for the first time since you started out at McLaren, your alarms lost the battle. You slipped in your seat next to Oscar, a movement you barely thought about anymore, breathless, cheeks warm from your run across the paddock and the drizzle misting your hair. Your pants were drenched, there was a pounding behind your eyes and you were thirty minutes away from biting someone’s head off if they even dared mention your tardiness.

Oscar didn’t say anything at first, just glanced your way as he often did, eyes flicking up and down once. You braced for a comment, a joke, preparing to hold yourself back from doing something you’ll regret doing to your fake boyfriend in public.

Instead, he leaned down, reaching for a paper bag next to him, from where he pulled out a steaming paper cup and a chocolate croissant that he slid toward you without a word. Your name was scribbled across the side of the wrapper along with your very specific order, down to the temperature.

You looked at Oscar. At your breakfast. Then at Oscar again. “How─”

“You weren’t answering my texts,” he said, still looking forward. “Figured you’d be late, so I got you this. You get cranky with no sleep or caffeine in your system.”

“I don’t get cranky,” you muttered, wrapping your cold hands around the hot beverage. “You get sassy when you don’t sleep.”

“Sure,” Oscar said casually, meeting your eyes for the first time since you sat down. “There’s extra vanilla, by the way.”

You didn’t answer, just rolled your eyes, but his gaze was still on you when Zak burst through the door. The fact he remembered that you took extra vanilla syrup in your extra hot latte and that your favorite pastry was a chocolate croissant should be nothing, because you’re sure you told him at some point during your many one-on-one briefings. Except it wasn't. Not really.

Then, there was the flight. There was nothing the fans and the media loved more, and Theodore despised just as much, than couple apparitions at airports, which led to Oscar’s social media manager to nudge you into the believable. That’s how you found yourself catching the same flight as Oscar, Lando and a few others on their jet. It had become recurrent in the past few weeks and you’d never admit it out loud, but there were non-neglectable perks: fewer crying babies, more space, and the occasional poker game where you absolutely obliterated Lando’s ego. You know I’m just that good at acting, you’d said, throwing a cheeky smile at Oscar that he gave you right back.

This time, though, none of you had the energy to talk, let alone play cards. It had been an exhausting and emotional race weekend─ back-to-back media obligations underneath the fire of reignited on-track rivalries, rain delays, and disputes amid the team you couldn’t legally disclose. The jet was unusually quiet as it took off into the night sky, everyone slipping into their respective silence.

You hadn’t meant to fall asleep. You usually didn’t in airplanes, they stressed you out too much─ you’d just leaned against the window for a little moment, eyes fluttering closed. The buzz of the engine and the soft cabin light blurred the world into static and you drifted away in a split second, as soon as the city was turned to insignificant holes in the black tapestry underneath you.

After a while, you felt a warmth, subtle at first. There was something solid against your shoulder, enough to make you crack one eye open.

Oscar’s head was resting against yours, and you were tucked comfortably against him. At some point, he’d dozed off too, and the both of you had slumped toward each other in your sleep. You could’ve moved, you know you would have a few weeks back, but you didn’t. You let your eyes close again and let yourself drift in and out of sleep along the quiet sync of your breath. His arms wrapped around your waist, your legs rested on his knees, and you weren’t quite sure how long you stayed like that─ten minutes, an hour─but when you finally woke up again, it was to the obnoxious flick of Lando’s phone camera and his barely contained laughter.

It was the accumulation of those little things, the seemingly insignificant moments that, piled together, made them bigger than they should have been. It was when Oscar took the habit of sleeping in your hotel room after qualifications to watch a movie under the pretense of simulating ‘passionate encounters’. It was when, one morning, bleary-eyed, you accidentally threw on his hoodie with his number printed on the back, and his hands lingered on the small of your back a little more possessively that day. It was when you were running low on your orange glitter gel pen and a full set was mysteriously delivered to your door, even if you didn’t need one. In the way his pupils dilated ever so slightly when you caught him staring, when he pointed right at you after his podiums, how your skin fizzed with heat for hours after he kissed your cheek in front of the cameras.

But what really blurred the line was the night in Spain.

It hadn’t been a particularly thrilling race─ tame from lights out to chequered flag. Oscar had finished P3, Lando snagged P2, both holding their qualifying positions with sharp determination. But the crowd had been wild, the champagne flowing and before you knew it, Lando dragged you and Oscar into Carlos’ plans for the night. All that happened after was a blur of neon lights and ear-shattering singing.

The walk back to the hotel was your idea- just a short stroll through warm cobblestone streets, the air sweet with late night chatter and the slow beginning of summer. You and Oscar snuck out the back entrance of the club, the latter clearly not fitting in the Spanish nightlife, your heels dangling from your fingers and his cap pulled low to hide the flush of his cheeks. Both of you were just tipsy enough to feel invincible, shoulders brushing as you exchanged anecdotes and very real inside jokes, something about not-much-talking, laughter echoing against the dead of the night.

It was quiet for a moment after that, the comfortable kind that sometimes settled between you. Oscar decided to break it.

“You know,” he started, softer than usual. “I’ve been meaning to ask─ why didn’t you like me at first?”

You turned your head up slowly, the reality of the question dawning on you. You raised an eyebrow. “What made you think I didn’t like you?”

“Come on.” Oscar gave you a look, and in the dark of his eyes you swore you saw the polite, Shakespearean insults you sneaked in your emails, the harsh tap on your foot on his, flashing in the quarter of a second. You couldn’t help but laugh.

“Okay, maybe I didn’t. At first.” 

He kept his eyes on you, waiting. You sighed, tipping your head back to look at the night sky─ no stars were visible, but it didn’t take away from the beauty of it. “You were just─” You paused, choosing your words carefully. “Honestly, you were rude, smug and condescending. I felt like you were trying to make my job harder than it should be by just- not doing anything. People were talking about you as this nice, quiet boy and I secretly wanted to bash your head against a wall.”

A beat. “Wow. That’s brutal,” he simply answered. “I don’t get how I gave that impression. I always thought you were the one being rude to me.”

Your head whipped in his direction and you could physically feel the disbelief splashed across your features. “Me? You started it!”

“How?”

“That one car ride in my third month,” you deadpanned. “You made a very snobbish comment about a dream I had about my ex. You said, and I quote─” you cleared your throat dramatically, dropping your voice to the flattest Oscar impression known to man, “‘Imagine being boring and still more interesting than your ex.’” Oscar was half-laughing by that point. “Oh, don’t you dare! You also said something about how I shouldn’t sleep in the HQ again, but for the record? It was my first triple-head─”

He held a hand up in mock surrender, mouth agape in stupor. “Is this what started this whole… passive-aggressiveness?”

“Uh… yeah? It was unnecessarily arrogant!”

Oscar made a face. “Unnecessary, sure. I get it. But you know what was also unnecessary? The intimidating, pretty new girl at McLaren─who also happened to be my new PR Manager─calling me boring to my face.”

The words hung in the air between the two of you. Your froze, caught off-guard by the ease with which the compliment slipped out. Oscar was continuing with his rant, either completely oblivious or choosing not to care. You cut him off. “... You thought I was pretty?”

That’s when he faltered, his lips parted in a half-word as if he hadn’t realized what he said before you pointed it out. Oscar’s gaze flicked to yours, then away, suddenly far more interested in the cracks of the sidewalk than anything else. “Well, yeah,” he took off his cap and brushed a hand through his hair like it might undo the sentence. “I mean, you still are. It’s not like that changed.”

It would be lying to say you had considered the possibility that you caused the tension between you and Oscar in the first place. While your sad attempt at humor might have been the catalyst, something must’ve already been simmering under the surface for things to go cold so quickly after it. Your heart gave the tiniest, traitorous jump, chest pulling in a reluctant way, at the thought he’d noticed you then. You despised how easy it was to smile, to fall into the warmth of the possibility.

“Oh,” you said softly, and it explained everything and nothing all at once.

“I’m just saying,” Oscar added quickly, flustered, “it didn’t feel great.”

You couldn’t tell if the red of his cheeks was from the heat, the alcohol, or the embarrassment, but what you could tell was how hopelessly cute you found him in this moment. You tried to play it cool, despite the fact your heartbeat had skipped a full chord. “Noted. And for the record, now I know you aren’t boring,” you added, teasing, playfully nudging your shoulder with his. “You’re just… private. Or mysterious. A sardonic brick wall, if you will.”

It successfully had him looking up, a light-hearted scoff slipping past his lips - you could see the relief in his facial traits. “I’ll take mysterious. It’s better than boring.”

When you got into your hotel room, Oscar slipped past your door as he normally would, and you collapsed onto the bed with your legs tangled together like always─ but something was different now. The air around the mattress was slower, stuck in time, warm in the way his breath ghosted over the nape of your neck when he settled beside you, eyes already fluttering shut.

For the first time since this whole agreement began, you had to consciously remind yourself that it wasn’t real. The comfort in your chest wasn’t made to stay. The steady rhythm of his breathing next to yours, the way your body naturally molded into the other─ it was all pretend. 

At least, that’s what it was supposed to be.

Like silk curtains flowing with the breeze, the change was discreet but there nonetheless, in the shared silences that felt less like pauses and more like instances captured with a polaroid. There was hesitation, once again, but unlike the one you chased away before─ in how you touched, how you laughed, how you glanced at each other and closed the gap under the bright flashes. You were both tiptoeing around something fragile and new.

Neither of you said anything, but it was something too heavy not to notice─ at least, you hoped Oscar did as well: the reluctant awareness of how hazy the lines had started to get and the stunned realization that maybe they’d never really been that straight to begin with after Oscar’s tipsy confession in Spain. You were still doing everything to showcase your relationship to the media, Theodore’s presence in the paddock still overwhelmingly present and Oscar’s popularity sky-rocketing. You were still holding hands and tucking yourself to his side in the garage between two meetings, carefully weaving the continuation of the story you made up together. Yet, when no one was watching, it didn’t feel as plastic. Not when Oscar whispered in the crevice of your ear in a crowded room, or when your heart jumped at the sound of his laugh. When it started to hurt, just a little, when he pulled away.

The day he called you at five in the morning from Canada was confirmation enough. The switch from the heat of Spain to the rainy weather of the United Kingdom for work had taken its toll on you, and you had to call in sick for the Montreal race weekend. Tucked in your covers with a cup of coffee and an inability to sleep due to your clogged nose, you watched your phone screen lit up with his name. You answered with a hoarse, “Why are you awake?”

Oscar chuckled, his voice slightly muffled by the hotel air conditioning in the background. “Why are you?”

“Respiratory betrayal,” you said, dragging your blanket further up your chin. “What’s your excuse? The race’s tomorrow.”

You talked about everything and nothing for a little while. Oscar told you how the track felt a little underwhelming, how the social media team messed up with their main Instagram account, and of Lando’s endless complaining about the lack of your presence─ apparently, the paddock was too quiet now. You nodded in your pillow with a smile like he could see you.

Eventually, the conversation drifted away, like it always did now. Oscar asked what you were listening to lately and you told him of a song that sounded like spring and reminded you of long drives at night, especially the instance when he drove you home after Monaco. He said it sounded like something you’d play to get out of your own head. You said it was. He told you about this stupid childhood habit he had of organizing cereal boxes in alphabetical order and you laughed so hard it triggered a coughing fit.

Oscar’s voice dropped. “I wish you were here.”

It wasn’t dramatic or purposeful in the slightest. He said it as if he was realizing it at the same time he pronounced the words. It was your case too when you answered, “Yeah, me too.”

Your chest ached, because there was no camera to capture the softness of the moment and you just found out you preferred it that way.

And then you came back for the Austrian Grand Prix. You didn’t see Oscar much that weekend. You’d barely touched the ground before you were swallowed whole by emails, debriefs, documents you missed during your sick leave and Theodore side-eyeing you every time you so much as coughed next to him. There was no time for soft moments, not even time to stop and just glance at Oscar even if you wanted to.

He crossed the line in P1 that day. You were mid-conversation with Zak, animated with excitement even during your lengthy talk about the following media duties, when arms pulled you in so strongly you lost track of what you were saying. You recognized him by touch alone: Oscar was wrapped around you, body sweaty and warm from his maddened laps. He held the helmet in his hand, still catching his breath when his head dropped on your shoulder. 

“You’re back,” he said, voiced laced with something a lot like relief.

“Of course I’m back,” you whispered back, fingers twitching on the back of his race suit. He sounded like you were gone for years and somehow, it really did feel like it. You could’ve stayed there for hours, you thought, until Zak obnoxiously cleared his throat next to you.

Oscar pulled back, eyes brighter than his usual post-race exhaustion, the glint of something you couldn’t name just yet dancing in his pupils. His hands came to rest on your wrist, barely brushing your hands. “Stay with me?” He asked, and your heart might have stopped just there. Realizing how it sounded, Oscar quickly corrected, “For the interviews. I’ve been dodging the media since you weren’t there.”

“I will,” you smiled. Your feet were already moving anyway.

He kept glancing sideways everytime the journalists asked about strategy and pace, and the little tug in your guts told your mind you were enjoying it, even though shamefully missing the feeling of the circle his thumb drew on the inside of your hand. When the interviewer asked about the less than discreet glances, making a comment on the obvious chemistry you two shared and how well you worked together─as colleagues and as a couple─Oscar didn’t laugh it off like you always practiced. He nodded, bashful and sure.

The sentence kept blinking in the back of your head like a warning sign: this was all fake. But even telling yourself that wasn’t enough anymore because your heart apparently didn’t get the memo. The touches and the sleepovers made your dreams spiral and your cheeks warm. You became his phone wallpaper for authenticity and his picture became yours as well without as much as a second thought, every little attention as natural as the cycle of seasons.

You were falling for your own fake dating ruse. Which meant you were quietly, miserably falling for Oscar Piastri in the process, in the realest and most literal way known to man. That was terrifying.

Never, in your short but hectic PR career, had you ever experienced that.

Not the newfound feelings you were harboring for your fake boyfriend, no. You tried your best to think about that as little as possible─ if you didn’t look at them, maybe they wouldn’t look back. Right now, you were talking about the diplomatic ambush you and the F1 grid and staff just walked into. The hotel hosting the drivers and half the sport’s staff for the Silverstone weekend had decided to organize a charity gala. Last minute. Mandatory, if you had any desire to keep your reputation intact.

It was a smart move─ brilliant, even: Host a fancy event for a cause, pick a night when the entire motorsport world is under your roof, and leak just enough information to the press so no one can afford to skip it. Declining? Not donating? Refusing to schmooze with the hotel owners? You’d be crucified online by breakfast. Genius, really. You respected the play. 

But damn, give a girl some warning. You didn’t have anything to wear.

Apparently it was the case of everyone else as well, which made you feel less self-conscious. When you walked out your hotel room the morning of FP3 and qualifying, the hallway wasn’t buzzing with race talk but with chaotic murmurs about last-minute outfits, shoes emergency and the drama of Max Verstappen only packing team merch─ which, much to his dismay, was absolutely excluded from the dress code.

You were promptly swept away by a group of female staff members from different teams, mostly working in comms or PR, determined to save you from showing up in jeans and a prayer after a heated conversation around the breakfast table. It turned into a surprisingly wholesome mission: shared complaints, budding friendships, and a chorus of tender laughter when you found the dress. “Your boyfriend’s going to be a happy man!” one of the older women teased, earning cackles from the others and a fiery blush from you.

You were, admittedly, very lucky─ as much as someone in a fake relationship could be.

Especially when Oscar knocked on your hotel door later that evening, fresh from his post-quali shower, hair a little messy, still buttoning up the blazer of his suit and eyes flickering with something unreadable when you opened the door, ready.

You’d be lying if you said you weren’t expecting a reaction. When you were tearing down your skin with your scented body scrub and carefully smoking out your eyeliner in the mirror, you told yourself it was for you only─ but faced with Oscar’s eyes roaming over you, you knew you were clearly lying to yourself.

For a moment, he didn’t say anything. He silently took you in, and you feared that maybe you didn’t achieve the effect you hoped for. Maybe a hair was out of place, or the dress looked awkward on you. But Oscar’s lips parted in a discreet intake of breath and the way his mind blanked out was painfully visible on his features. Quietly, “You look…” He trailed off, clearing his throat and rubbing the back of his neck as if he could try to scrub off the red climbing out of his collar. “You look really nice.”

Really nice. That wasn’t quite what you expected, but his reaction was telling enough for you and knowing Oscar, you knew you weren’t getting anything more unless he was under a copious amount of alcohol or sleep-deprivation. You rolled your eyes at him, biting back a satisfied smile. “You don’t look half bad either.”

And he did. Devastatingly so. His suit was tailored within an inch of its life, cinched right at the waist and the lapels hugging his chest, his frame striking in the color. It was all very James Bond of him, minus the reckless charm─ though tonight, he seemed to be toeing the line. Your gaze dropped to his tie, and your fingers twitched at your side when you realized the shade was an exact match to your dress. You hadn’t said anything about your outfit ahead of time so you didn’t believe it was on purpose, but when your eyes met his again, there was a flash of something knowing and boyish─ almost proud that you noticed.

“Come on,” Oscar finally broke the silence. “You’re setting the bar too high. Everyone’s going to think I’m the lucky one tonight.”

“That’s because you are.”

The hallway was quiet as you two walked down together. You could feel it again─ that invisible thread pulling tighter, a weightless tension lodging in your chest and the incessant smile pulling at your lips. This was fake. Totally fake, you repeated to yourself again as you stepped with Oscar in the elevator, arm slithering around his bicep, ready to make your entrance.

The hotel hall was drenched in gaudy decorations, shimmering chandeliers and overly sparkly dresses, the kind of excessive elegance that only made sense in photoshoots and unnecessarily overpriced galas. Everywhere you looked, sequins caught the light and laughter echoed over the clink of crystal glasses. You weren’t in your element at all, Oscar wasn’t either and clearly, none of the drivers or the team principals who showed up wanted to be there. But in the name of keeping up appearances, you spent the evening with Oscar and a glass of champagne, stepping on his foot from time to time for old time’s sake. You knew how to mingle, after all it was everything you studied for four years.

You drifted through conversations in tandem. His hand stayed on the small of your back, occasionally brushing lower in ways that felt more unconscious than performative, or maybe it was just wishful thinking. When you’d lean into him to talk, he always dipped his head to hear you better on instinct. When Lando started tagging along, he was quick to complain about third-wheeling.

The whole evening was spent like that: finding amusement where you could in the middle of obligations, which was often spent sending sharp comments Oscar’s way, which amused him greatly, or Lando’s with Oscar’s help, which definitely amused him less. But gossiping could only get you so far, and soon enough the height of the heels you chose and the weighty ambience was enough to uncomfortably tighten your ribcage. You were quick to excuse yourself to the empty entry of the hotel, where you collapsed on a chair with a sigh.

You took a slow sip of your almost empty glass, letting the fizz of the bubbles distract you from the uncomfortable twist in your chest. Oscar would have followed you if you didn’t ask for some alone time, and God knows you needed some away from him. You were trying to find a distraction, anything to make you stop thinking about the brush of his fingertips or how you could have sworn his gaze lingered a second too long on your lips when you laughed at one of his jokes.

You didn’t expect, and especially didn’t want, Theodore to be that distraction.

His voice cut through the fog. “Tired?”

The glass nearly slipped from your fingers. Your body tensed, and you jumped to your feet out of reflex, ready to leave at any given moment. “Oh wow, didn’t mean to scare you like that,” he raised his hand in mock surrender. You rolled your eyes.

Theodore had the same haircut, same smug face, same cologne that lingered like melted plastic. The longer you looked at him, the longer of an eyesore he became─ nothing about him stood out: not his suit, the false casual way he was holding his blazer in his hands, and certainly not his demeanor. You couldn’t help but draw a silent comparison to Oscar.

That’s when you realized: you hadn’t seen much of Theodore the past week around the paddock. You hadn’t paid a lot of attention to his presence in general, too caught up in Oscar and the torment of your own conflicting feelings to even grace him with acknowledgement. You voiced the first part of your thought, casually sipping your drink.

His expression tightened as he forced a smile. “Ah. Yeah, well, they… they let me go. Budget cuts, you see.”

It took all your will and decency not to explode in laughter. Budget cuts. Ah, yes. Incompetence must have had a change of definition in the Oxford Dictionary recently. “So… why are you here?”

“My dad knows the hotel owner. I got an invite last minute.”

“Oh,” you said with a mocking tilt of the head. “So nepotism and unemployment. Got it.” The fake niceness you sported on during your first interaction at the start of the season had vanished out of thin air─ you weren’t going to put up with this pathetic excuse of a man any longer than you had to, precisely now that you had no reason to anymore.

Theodore laughed. Your hand prickled with the need to punch him in the nose. “You know, it’s not even that important that I lost my job at McLaren.” Said no one ever, you thought. How far did his privileges go? “I─ well, I only took it up because I learned you were working there. I thought… maybe if I was around again, we could fix things.”

You must have hit your head, this had to be a fever dream. The words reaching your ears made no sense to you whatsoever. 

“Fix─?” You scoffed, eyes widening. “That job was supposed to be your redemption arc? Is that it? Oh my god, Theo. You slept with my best friend and you thought I’d fall back in your arms because you barged into my career?”

“I made a mistake─”

“You made a choice,” you spat.

“I didn’t think it would matter this much to you!”

“Did I not cry enough the first time or do you want me to reenact it? Were you really hoping I’ll welcome you with open arms, open legs and a memory loss?”

“Well─”

“Don’t answer that. Actually, stop talking.”

Theodore threw his arms in the air, taking a step forward as he hurled his jacket on the chair you sat on a few minutes ago. “I just thought maybe seeing me again would remind you of what we’ve had!”

Rage and indignation alike rose in your throat like vomit, and your hands shook imperceptibly as you answered. “It did. It reminded me that what we had was never good enough to keep me from building something better. So thanks for the little nostalgia trip, but I’ll pass.”

Something in Theodore’s gaze darkened, dangerous and petulant, and before you could step back, he leaned in. “Oh, I get it now,” he snarled at you, voice dropping into something bitter. “It’s because of Piastri, isn’t it?”

“Back off, Theodore.” Your back had straightened instinctively. Discomfort crept under your skin like cold water─ you didn’t like the way he hissed his name and how close he was getting.

He didn’t back away. Instead, he took another step. “Didn’t realize you’d fall for the first man who gave you attention after me. Guess I underestimated how lonely you─”

“Everything alright there?”

His voice, warm and familiar, sliced through the tension and your shoulders slumped in relief. Oscar.

He was standing just behind Theodore, who turned around comically slow. Oscar’s expression was unreadable. You never saw him angry, but you did know how to recognize the calm before a storm.

“Yeah,” Theodore answered, too fast. “Just… catching up.”

Oscar’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Well, I think you’ve done enough catching up for tonight.”

He walked toward you, and you subtly stepped to his side, his heat grounding in the absurdity of the situation. He didn’t look at you─ his eyes were locked on Theodore’s, cold and measured. “If you’ve said your piece,” he started, “I think you should head back to whatever table your father pulled strings to get you to.”

Theodore scoffed, his features twisting into something ugly, but he didn’t push his luck. He wouldn’t be winning this fight. After a beat of tense silence, he turned and stormed off the entry hall, muttering something beneath his breath you didn’t bother catching.

The moment he was out of sight, you could feel the rigidity in your body melt away. You hadn’t even realized how tightly you’d been wound until now, standing frozen in place. You reached out instinctively, gripping Oscar’s sleeve in order to keep you on your feet. “Shit,” you whispered. “I didn’t expect him.”

Oscar’s hand closed gently over yours and how thumb drew slow circles across your knuckles. You could feel his eyes on you attentively. “You okay?”

You sniffled, breathing fast as a breathy, nervous laugh slipped past your lips. “God.” You wiped your cheek, pausing when you saw the glint of moisture on your fingers, “I didn’t even realize I was crying.”

Oscar didn’t say anything right away─ he reached up with his other hand and brushed your tear track, cradling your cheek with the gentlest touch, like you’d break if he pressed too hard. “He’s a real dick,” he murmured, brows drawing together. “Trust me, he’s never coming near you again.”

That made you laugh─ quiet, and undeniably tired, but real. You looked up at him, something vulnerable sitting openly between you now. “Thanks for stepping in,” you breathed out. “You know, you’re awfully good at being a fake boyfriend. You nailed the attitude down.” You tried to make light of the situation, but the words stung when you got them out. You regretted uttering them as soon as you felt the frail openness in the air retract. Something in Oscar’s eyes dimmed a little, but they didn’t move from yours. 

“Always, that’s my job,” his tone dripped with a strange kind of acerbity. “Now, let’s get you to your room. I think we’re done for the night.”

You couldn’t agree more.

The way to your room was spent in silence, apart from the click of your heels on the carpet and the faint sound of breathing. The quiet was now oppressing, seeping with an anxiety that took you back to when he shook your hand in a similar hotel room a few months ago. When you released his arm as you reached your door, you half-expected him to mutter a polite goodnight and disappear at the end of the hallway.

Instead, Oscar leaned against the doorframe, hands shoved in his pockets. “Can I ask you something?”

You gave a small nod.

“What made you say yes to him?” He asked. Faced with your confused expression, he clarified, gaze flicking down. “Theodore. Why did you date him?”

There wasn’t a trace of judgment in his voice, just a searching sort of curiosity. The answer sat heavy on your tongue, unfamiliar and painful, but still, the question pulled something sharp through your chest─ you didn’t know why you were suddenly so self-conscious about it. 

“I’d like to say I don’t know but…,” you leaned back against the wall next to him, folding your arms to hold yourself together and eyes fixed on a point somewhere past his figure. “I think… I was tired. I used to put everything into school, so much that I skipped out on everything else. I didn’t even know who I was beside the pressure and achievements, and Theodore… just happened to be there during that confusing time of my life. My roommate’s, and ex-best friend’s, friend. I thought he was charming, in his own sort of way. He was persistent, used to leave flowers by my dorm room every morning.” You chuckled sadly. “They weren’t even my favorite - turns out they were hers.”

You heard Oscar exhale. “It still made me feel noticed, like I mattered to something outside of studies. Like someone actually saw me, you know? So I fell in love. And turns out he didn’t see me at all─ he sure as hell doesn’t now either, if he thought showering Zak with dollar bills and side-eyeing me across the paddock would be enough to win me back. That’s without mentioning the cheating.”

The silence of the hallway was deafening, your words echoing against the walls. It wasn’t uncomfortable, just dense. Until Oscar broke it.

“I don’t get it,” he murmured, “how anyone could cheat on you. It doesn’t make sense.”

It made you look at him. You’ve gotten used to turning around and finding his eyes already on you; it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise, but your chest still tightened when you met the darkness of his irises. You waited for him to reply, lacking any explanation yourself of why it couldn’t meet the simple principles of logic in his head, why he couldn’t find the flaws in you that lead Theodore to another woman.

Oscar’s answer came under a different form. “For what it’s worth,” he said, gaze steady. “I like to think I see you.”

You blinked. “Do you?”

The question slipped out before you could stop it, and the moment it did, the answer came rushing in. He did. You knew it in the way his head tilted slightly to the side, like he was still trying to see more of you, even now.

Oscar knew your coffee order by heart, the temperature and how much milk to ask for when you were too tired to speak it aloud. He knew which bakery carried your favorite pastry and what time he had to sneak away from media duties to grab it for you─ especially when the paddock version tasted like cardboard. He noticed when your hands got cold before you did, kept spare hand warmers in his bag in colder countries because “you’re always freezing.” He sent you stupid memes during long flights because he knew take offs made it hard for you to sit still. He carried spare glitter gel pens in his bag, and never teased you about it─ just handed you another one when you absentmindedly noticed yours was running out.

He remembered that you always got motion sick if you sat in the backseat of a car for too long. That you needed silence when thinking. That you hummed when you were concentrating and tapped your pen when you weren’t.

And suddenly, you weren’t just asking if he saw you the way you’d always wanted to. You were asking if he’d always been seeing you, even when you weren’t looking.

“I do,” he answered, barely above a whisper.

You nodded. There couldn’t be anything more true than that.

Just like that, the air tilted. Toward him, engulfing you both in a fragile, sacred space. Everything narrowed down to Oscar and the small buzz between your two bodies─ dense and electric, full of every feeling that had been lurking beneath the surface. His eyes flickered to your lips for the briefest of seconds. Back to your eyes. 

He moved subtly, like he wasn’t sure you’d let him, the idea of losing the moment scarier than not having it at all. Your body was still, breath hitching and heart racing, as his hand reached up to cup the side of your face, thumb brushing softly over your cheekbone, memorizing the shape.

And when he finally leaned in, he hesitated just inches from your lips, close enough for you to feel the warmth of his breath and the tremble in yours. “Is this okay?” He whispered.

You closed the space.

The kiss was gentle at first─ careful and tentative. The gentle, kind sweep of two people trying to find their footing, but the electric shock of the feeling brought everything back to you: the months of tension, the stolen glances, the fumbled excuses to stay close. Your mouths crashed over each other, deepening in the split of a second, slow and aching in the pants you let out and the touch of roaming, curious hands. You breathed into his mouth, seeking his air to make it yours.

Oscar’s other hand slid to your waist, pulling you impossibly closer and your back flush against the wall as your fingers curled into the lapels of his jacket. You could feel his heart hammering under your palm, fast and desperate, mirroring yours. His tongue demandingly slipped past your lips, and he kissed you like he had wanted to for a long time, and there was no denying he had. Raw and needy, you felt stripped bare by the small whine he let out when you bit down on his bottom lip.

You thought, the world could fall apart tomorrow and this would have been everything you needed to go peacefully.

When you finally pulled apart, both breathless, he didn’t move far. You wouldn’t have let him anyways, the heat of his body too comfortable, the weight of his mouth branded on your own. His forehead rested against yours, eyes closed and lips swollen.

“You have no idea how long I wanted to do that,” he whispered, voice hoarse and rough with honesty.

You fingers tightened in his jacket, and you brushed a strand of hair off his forehead. “Trust me, I think I do.” He laughed against your lips and you kissed him again. Because after all of it─all the pretending, the teasing, the overthinking─you didn’t have to lie to yourself anymore, to convince yourself. You couldn’t make up the way he was kissing you back.

Yet, you still went to bed alone.

You hadn't planned on it─ well, not exactly. After the emotional whirlwind of the evening, the kiss, the honesty, the confession, you’d invited Oscar into your room without really thinking. It had been an instinct, comfort-driven by the nights already spent together, even if everything was entirely different─ including your intentions and his. But Lando had to barge in, clumsily looking for his room next to yours, doing a double-take at the sight of you tucked into Oscar’s side, your makeup smudged from tears and kisses like a hormonal teenager, Oscar looking all too rumpled and embarrassed next to you.

“Jesus,” Lando muttered. “I’m just─ you know what, we’ll unpack that later. Good night. Please don’t make too much noise.”

Oscar laughed, arms wrapping tighter around your waist when your friend disappeared, whispering, “I’ll come back tomorrow. After I take you out on a date. A real one, this time.”

You’d smiled. “You better.” He kissed you again, quick and soft and annoyingly perfect, more than your dreams made it out to be, and you went to bed glowing, with his name lighting your phone screen with sweet nothings and promises of conversations tomorrow.

But tomorrow never came, because the knocks that woke you up were giving you a sickening déjà-vu. They were urgent, a trumpet announcing the complete turning of your world just like they had done a few months back, in February, and loud enough to slice through the sleepiness in your bones along with the drowsy haze of your mind.

You got up with difficulty and barely had the time to wrap a blanket around yourself before answering the door. You half-expected to find the Grim Reaper himself waiting on the other side with how early it was for anyone else to be knocking. Instead, you were faced with Oscar. Your heart gave a small, automatic jolt when you saw him. After how last night ended, he should have been the best thing possible to wake up to.

The expression on his face stopped you cold.

Oscar, who rarely wore his emotions so plainly, looked visibly shaken. The sharp lines of his face were pulled tight with worry, brows furrowed and jaw clenched. And that─more than the hour, more than the knocks─was what stopped you from throwing yourself into his arms.

You opened the door wider to let him in, which he did with hurried steps. “What’s happening?”

“Can you close the door first?” You did without much of a question.

Oscar sat on the edge of your bed, phone cradled in hand. He looked up at you, and distressed wasn’t enough to describe it─ he looked wrecked. “Have you checked your phone this morning?” He asked.

Dread pooled in your stomach. “No, I─ I just woke up,” you answered. “Oscar, I─”

“Someone leaked it. Our agreement, the fake dating. It’s all out.”

The world tipped.

The air in your lungs vanished and, for a moment, all you could hear was the blood rushing in your ears. His words repeated like static, a taunting echo getting louder and louder the more you realized what it meant. “What?” You whispered, eyes locked on his. The truth could have looked different there, but didn’t.

You sat down next to him, every limb leaden, cinching the blanket tighter around your shoulders. “How─? Who even─? We were so careful and─”

“Nobody knows, they’re searching for it right now,” Oscar replied, but it came out strained. “Everyone's trying to trace it now, but it landed on DeuxMoi and basically everywhere after that. They’ve got… receipts. Pictures, testimonies, photos- and a very incriminating audio recording.”

His throat bobbed with a swallow. “Of you. Saying something like… how good of a fake boyfriend I am. From last night, before we went up.”

Your stomach flipped. “But─ we were alone.”

Different scenarios flashed in your mind, engulfing you both in a spiral of questions and worry. Someone could have been filming you, and the lights were too low to spot the silhouette. Maybe Theodore’s jacket, draped over the chair you’d sat on, had a recording device on it in an attempt to prove himself something, or to get revenge on you. But how would he have guessed? There were so many possibilities, and Oscar’s silence didn’t help you feel any better about any of them─ not knowing burned hotter than the betrayal itself.

He took your hand in his, your intertwined fingers resting between the two of you. The contact made you flinch.

Your breath came out in a shaky exhale. “I mean… it was going to end anyways, right?” Oscar’s frown deepened, so you pushed forward. “The whole relationship. Theodore left. That was the plan, wasn’t it? It wasn’t supposed to last past him. It’s a very shitty way to end, sure, but… you can work with it.” You were tearing up by the time the last word left your lips.

Oscar winced. His grip on your hand tightened. “Don’t say it like that.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” You let out a wet, pathetic laugh. “It’s over.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he said, and it sounded a lot like a plea. “We can figure something out─ Zak, the rest of the PR team-someone will know what to do, there-”

You scoffed─ not at him, never, but at the cruel absurdity of it all. Your incapability of keeping something good for yourself. “You don’t get it, Oscar.” Your voice wavered. “Apparently, we’re everywhere. There’s an audio recording. People feel like they’ve been made fools of. They won’t forgive that so easily─ they’ll turn on you. They won’t believe in something that’s already been exposed as fake, even if─”

You couldn’t finish your sentence. Because that was the worst part, wasn't it? You weren’t faking it anymore. Neither of you were, and hadn’t been for a really long time. You could have stumbled around, trying to figure out what it meant, searching his mouth and holding on to the feeling long enough to put a name on it, but the headlines didn’t give you that chance. They took it from you, carved it out of your hands before you even got to claim it as yours.

A beat.

“It was real for me,” Oscar said. “It is.”

You looked at him, the details of his eyes that made promises you were sure he could have kept under different circumstances. You tried to smile, but your face cracked under the weight of it, tear tracks shining under the early morning light. “They don’t know that,” you whispered. “They won’t care.”

Oscar’s gaze fell on the floor, and you shook your head gently. “You still have a career to protect. Just say it was my idea, you were helping me out and I got you into all of this─ which is the truth, technically. You just got too caught up. They’ll forgive you eventually, they’re here for the racing.”

“And what about you?”

The silence spoke for itself, heavy with the undeflectable nature of the situation. Carefully, as to not startle him, you took back the hand he was holding and folded both of them on your lap. There would be no other outcome to this story. “I’ll figure it out. It’s my job.”

He didn’t believe you, you could see it in the lopsided curve of his mouth, the prominent vein near his temple you traced with your eyes before falling asleep. You realized you never had the opportunity to pass a night in his arms.

“You go get ready for your race, Oscar. Don’t worry about me.” Your chest ached as your mouth shaped the words, barely hearing them yourself. The only thing that mattered was the low lights in the Australians’ eyes, how his mouth opened and closed around something. He never said whatever was pending at the edge of his tongue, but he closed his eyes when you put your lips on the skin of his cheek.

Oscar just left quietly, in the imperceptible click of a hotel door. You couldn’t watch him go─ if you did, you might not have had the strength to let him.

You were let go by McLaren before the race even began.

The decision had been clear from the get-go. Still, it didn’t make sitting in that sterile room any easier knowing the lanyard around your neck would be up to grab for someone else in seconds. It wasn’t cruel or personal─ it was just business.

You spent over three hours with members of staff, going over the facts and projected damage. You nodded along and asked questions you could predict the answers to, but the conclusion was written into the walls: the scandal was too loud, and you weren’t quiet enough to survive it─ at least, not with a badge that read McLaren on your chest.

You gave it back, sliding it over the table to the chief of staff. They booked you a flight home as discreetly as they could manage and it wasn’t until you stepped in your apartment, suitcase dropped by the door and keys shaking in your hand, that the overwhelming silence caught up with you.

And with it, everything else.

Your face was headlining the front pages of multiple websites and you’d just lost the best job you’ll ever have─ if not the only one, because a simple search would now lead every possible employer to the failed scheme you tried to put up.

You collapsed onto your bed, entirely dressed and only one shoe off, still wrapped in the airport chill. They made you hand-over your team-issued phone, along with the contacts of everyone that mattered back at Silverstone. You didn’t even have a chance to explain yourself or to say goodbye.

Oscar would finish the race and find out you vanished, and you had no way of telling him 

You let the weight of it all crash down on you.

If you had to estimate, you’d say you let yourself rot in your own misery for about a week, give or take. You weren't counting the days, but you knew you hadn’t opened your curtains since you got home. Your eyes were red, rubbed raw every time another wave of emotion struck you, and you hadn’t so much as looked in a mirror. Instead, you moved through your apartment like a ghost, sidestepping your own reflection as if it might reach out and confirm what you already knew─ you’d lost something you didn’t realize mattered this much until it was gone.

The past year had been everything. You successfully worked your way into a world that worked too fast for second chances where you found a rhythm, built friendships and connections. As tiresome as the lifestyle could sometimes be, you fell in love with what you were doing and what you came to be. In the past months, your life had mirrored the tracks─ swift and brutal, with enough turns to break a few wheels. Now, you were left with nothing but the emptiness in your stomach and for someone who always strived for more, the bitter aftertaste in your mouth was enough to keep you from wanting.

Your wake-up call came in the form of your rent.

Turns out heartbreak didn’t pause rent or the cost of groceries rising due to inflation. McLaren paid well, but not well enough so that you could afford to disappear off the grid and wallow in self pity with your last check. So you did what you always did, reminiscent of your past college superhuman efforts: you opened your laptop and got to work.

You applied to everything you set your eyes on─ LinkedIn, obscure websites, Facebook Ads, no one was safe. You didn’t dare touch anything remotely F1 related, or even F2, F3 or F4, the wound was still fresh and your name was probably too much of a touchy subject for you to be accepted anywhere near. You stuck to motorsports-adjacent companies, agencies, development programs, even local circuits. Just… something, anything that would let you keep your toes in the world you loved.

Eventually, it came.

A small karting company in the Netherlands, of all places. Barely enough to fill a spreadsheet on a good day, but they had promising talents and were expanding, so in need of someone to help build their communications structure from the ground up. Preferably someone who knew how to handle press and build narratives, connect people to stories. They were desperate, which means they probably didn’t even look you up when they interviewed you. You took the opportunity with your first real smile in a minute.

It wasn’t as glamorous. The office had flickering lights, and you hadn’t come with the most adapted wardrobe. But it was something─ so you got to work.

You were surprised by how much you ended up loving it.

The people were awkward but nice, you went out with a few of your colleagues by the end of your first week, and the kids racing under your name were awfully sweet and their parents just as kind. The work wasn’t overbearing, but you put every ounce of your attention in building its perfect image with your team. Your new apartment was small and comfortable, and the city you settled in a neverending discovery of wonders. You felt fine─ which was a step away from the state you had been in not so long ago.

But even though you tried to build yourself another life, you still couldn’t shake the memory of Oscar. He was still there─ not in person, but in every memory you were not capable of erasing just yet. You caught yourself ordering his coffee order alongside yours as a force of habit, and accidentally took the notebooks with the overly precise details of your fallacious history with you to work. There was so much of him in you now, you had trouble picking apart the pieces. You scanned articles for his face but skipped race reports in case his name hurt more to see.

You tried to bury the ache in your schedule and the excitement of the company’s mediatic expansion, you wrote press releases, attended networking events with a tight smile and let small wins feel bigger than they were. Yet you knew your heart was sitting in his hands, thousands miles away- and you refused to wonder if, without knowing, you were still holding his. It was a hope you couldn’t entertain, all in the name of letting go. It was an act of healing of some sorts. Putting Oscar behind you was growth, not grief, and letting go of something that had no chance of being anymore was the most adult thing you’d ever do.

Except you have a history of your past catching up with you─ deep down, you should’ve known this time wouldn’t be any different.

It happened when you bumped into someone on your way out the café, hands full with the Communications team’s comically large coffee order. It was the end of August, and your mind was anywhere but on the street─ mostly focused on not spilling anything. Of course, that’s what made the crash even more cinematic.

Cold drinks flew in the air, splattering across the pavement and down your pants in dramatic, sticky rivulets. You were halfway into a curse when someone said your name in an all-too-familiar voice.

“Y/N?” You looked up from your drenched legs, and there he was.

Lando Norris in the flesh, unruly mullet and all. “Oh my god,” you muttered, halfway between disbelief and horror. “Hi?”

He stared at you like he was trying to convince himself he wasn’t hallucinating. You’d feel offended if you couldn’t understand where he was coming from- you did disappear suddenly, those two months ago. “You’re─ holy shit, what are you doing here?”

You awkwardly wiped your hands on the napkin that came with the order, glancing at the wasted money on the ground. “Clearly failing my duties. I work for a karting company just outside the city. Communications consultant.”

“No way, seriously? In the Netherlands?” Lando asked, eyebrows shooting up. “That’s… kind of awesome.”

You gave him an awkward smile. “Yeah. It’s not McLaren, sure, but I like it there.”

The mention of the team brought an icy breeze to the conversation and had Lando shuffling on his feet before you changed the subject. “And what are you doing here?” You asked, too enthusiastic for it to be spontaneous.

“Zandvoort race this weekend,” he answered with a slight grin.

“Oh, true.” With the drastic changes in your life and the newfound popularity the company had gained, you’d forgotten all about the fast-paced calendar you had become so accustomed with. The fact there was even a race taking place in the Netherlands, despite Max Verstappen being Dutch, had completely slipped your mind.

It should feel like a win, but your heart twisted to punish you.

Faced with another silence, Lando spoke up again. “You know, it’s not the same without you there, Oscar’s new PR manager is an old man.” That made you chuckle, although bittersweet. “We miss you. A lot.”

You didn’t miss the implication in his words. The air suddenly felt a bit thinner in your lungs than it did a few minutes ago. “He shouldn’t,” was all you could manage to reply in the tightening of your throat.

“Why not?”

You shrugged, forcing your voice to stay level. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It ended. He has to focus on his career.”

Lando opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it, only giving you an hesitant smile in return. “Well… I’ll tell him I saw you. If you want.”

“No,” You shook your head with a soft laugh. “No. Just… good luck, alright? For the Grand Prix.”

It got Lando to smile wider, at least, something warm in the spreading of his lips. “Thanks. And Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really glad I bumped into you. Let me make up for the spilled coffee.”

He did. Brought the entire order again and handed it over with a sheepish shrug, reminiscent of the friend you had two months ago, before disappearing down the cobblestone street. You stood there a bit too long, dazed by the improbability of it all. The universe decided to shake you a little, but somehow it had to be just when you made peace with the fact it had moved on without you.

You went back to the karting center where reality demanded your full attention. The rest of the day passed in a blur of last-minute adjustments─ tomorrow, you were hosting a little event in order to showcase the rising talents driving in your colors, which needed your immediate attention, no matter how divided by the episode this morning. You didn’t even notice everyone else leaving until the sun dipped below the horizon, painting gold across the windows and casting long shadows on the now-empty space.

You exhaled slowly, closing your computer and feeling the soreness in your back from being hunched over too long. The cons of being a workaholic, you guessed, but you’d done your part. You gathered your things, slid your jackets over your shoulders, and stepped out into the cooling evening.

You could have missed him if you hadn’t hesitated a second too long in the doorway, but you could also recognize Oscar anywhere, eyes closed or blindfolded.

He was leaning against a car, parked a few meters away from the entrance, hoodie loose around his shoulders and hair tousled by the breeze. His gaze was distant, unfocused as he was watching the distance. The second the door thudded shut behind you, the sound cutting through the quiet evening, his eyes snapped up, finding yours.

He looked lost, beautifully so. It froze you in your tracks. It didn’t seem to have the same effect on Oscar, as he pushed off the car and took careful steps forward.

“Hi,” was all he said, soft and steady.

You hadn't realized how much you missed the silken casualness of his voice before it reached your ears. It hit you harder than you’d expected. “How─?”

“Lando,” Oscar cut in gently. “He said you worked at a karting company near the city. I… looked it up. Thought maybe, with a little chance, you’d still be here.” He scratched the back of his neck and he looked away for a second, just one, before his eyes snapped back to yours.

Neither of you moved, unsure how to cross the canyon that had cracked open between you.

“I wasn’t expecting…” You trailed off.

“Yeah,” Oscar breathed out a humorless laugh, rubbing a hand over his mouth. “Me neither. It was, uh, pretty impulsive. But I couldn’t just…” He trailed off too, shaking his head.

You nodded, even though you didn’t understand. This whole conversation made no sense. “How’s it going? Life, I mean. At McLaren?” you asked, desperate to ignore your heart clawing at your ribs.

Oscar’s lips thinned. “Fine. Busy.”

“That’s good.”

He took a step closer, so very little you could have missed, and so slow it gave you the opportunity to step back. You didn’t take it. “And you? How’s─ all this?”

“It’s… something. I like it. I do.” You laughed, and it came out wrong.

“I’m glad.”

Silence fell, weighty on your shoulders. You didn’t know what to do, and you couldn’t guess how to act when Oscar looked so closed off, out of reach─ something he hadn’t been to you in a long while. You chose to let it stretch, unsure of what else.

Finally, it came down to Oscar. “You left.”

The words stung with the strength of a slap, and heartbreaking enough to put you back in front of your apartment door, two months back. You gripped the hem of your jacket, bringing it closer to your body in hope to substitute for the warmth his tone lacked. You inhaled sharply, fighting the sting behind your eyes.

“I didn’t have a choice. They made it very clear there was no place for me anymore, and it would be the better option for one of us to come out unscathed.” Your voice faltered despite your best efforts. “I didn’t want to leave that way, Oscar. Not without saying goodbye.”

You couldn’t help the comment that bordered on your lips. “But I figured you weren’t too concerned. You didn’t look too hard to reach me either.” Not an e-mail, no nothing. You were deprived of his contact information due to your work phone being taken away, but he wasn’t. 

Oscar’s hands curled into fists at his side. “I couldn’t. If I did, they assured me it could make everything worse if someone leaked it again, for the both of us.” A scoff escaped him. “Told me I had to wait until they found the person who took the audio recording in the first place before I could try anything.”

“And did they?”

“No,” he admitted. “But I don’t really care.”

Again, he took a step forward. Oscar was close, not overly, but close enough for you to see the wild and desperate edge etched in his delicate traits, regardless of how much he tried to hide it. “I wanted to reach out. Every day. I just─” He ran a hand through his hair. “I guess I thought that’s what you wanted. I kept thinking that maybe you hated me for how it ended, or─ maybe you regretted it.”

Your laugh broke out sharp and ugly, more hurt than anything else. “Hated you? Regretted it?” You shook your head in disbelief. “Oscar, how could you even think-?”

He didn’t interrupt you. You had to do it yourself, because Oscar just watched as if waiting for a confirmation between the lines. “You really think I’d regret you?”

He still didn’t move. “I mean…,” he finally rasped out, barely carrying over the wind, “it cost you your career in F1. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

“I cost me my career, Oscar. Not you. The fake relationship was my idea. I told you from the beginning I’d take the fall if it came to it. You were just helping me.”

You watched his jaw contract with the need to argue back, but you wouldn’t let him. Oscar was wrong on all accounts in his reasoning, blinded by whatever had been clouding his mind during your disappearance, and you were making sure it stopped there.

“I couldn’t hate you even if I tried. Well, not now at least- you were pretty insufferable at first.” His shoulders shook in the semblance of a laugh. “And if there’s anything I regret, it’s not realizing that it stopped being fake a lot sooner.”

There it was, the hefty topic you had been dancing around─ the kiss, gentle in its unearthing, and the whispered promises of explanations in the morning. Something that had been stolen from you and was now coming back to the surface for a last gasp of air. You could either take it or let it drown.

Oscar’s eyes searched yours, and for a second you believed he’d apologize and leave.

But that’s not what he did.

“It was never fake for me,” he said. “When- When you walked in and introduced yourself as my PR manager, and you were all smiles and nerves and─” he huffed, breathless, shaking his head, “and I was gone. I didn’t know how to act around you or what to do with myself.”

He got so close, you had to tilt your head to look up at him. “I kept thinking it would pass,” he continued. “That it was just a stupid fixation. But you kept being you, and you got close to Lando, and you stuck around. It just kept getting worse. Or better, I guess, depending on how you looked at it.”

“Then there was your ex,” He said, breaking into a soft laugh. “You took my arm and called me your boyfriend and all I could think was, yeah. I’d like to hear that again.” His fingers grazed the inside of your wrists, a ponctuation in his confession. “I didn’t fake a single thing. Not once. It’s been real from the beginning.”

Almost delirious, you broke into a cackle that had your hand flying to your mouth─ a half-sob, half-choke ripped from your chest. “So you were a douchebag… because you liked me?”

Oscar’s mouth quipped, sheepish. “Yeah.”

“And you acted like an idiot because you didn’t know how to show it?”

“... Yeah.” Now he sounded embarrassed.

Another watery laugh bubbled out of you, and you wiped at your eyes with the sleeve of your jacket. “Oh my god, you’re such a man,” you said, voice wobbling between amusement and heartbreak, and Oscar’s smile cracked wider at the sound of it. You sniffled, rolling your eyes to try and hide the hopeful pain in your chest as you asked, intertwining your hand with his. 

“So… what do we do now?”

The pad of his fingers trailed up your arm, sending shivers down your spine. He cupped your elbows gently, steadying you like you were at risk of breaking at any minute. “Well,” Oscar murmured, the ghost of a demand parting his mouth. “Now that we got everything out of the way, I’m here for a reason. Only if you’ll have me.”

You didn’t need any more convincing, the days spent in his company during the tired mornings  and warm nights gave you ample amounts of reasons not to deny him.

As if you had the strength to even think about it.

You surged up, and your mouth caught up with his in the same way a puzzle piece would fit into another. It felt like homecoming, how the weight of his lips balanced against yours. Oscar hands went up your sides, painfully slow, wrapped around your waist and pulled your body flushed against him. You curled your fingers in the air at the nape of his nec, tugging slightly, and he sighed into your mouth─ broken and hopelessly in love.

The world shrank to just this: the press of his chest to yours, the warmth of his skin and how intensely Oscar Piastri kissed you back.

When you broke off contact for air, Oscar chased after your mouth. You tried to contain a giggle, unsuccessfully. “I can’t believe it took a whole fake relationship, messy break up and all, for you to do and say all that,” you teased.

He rolled his eyes and before you could react, the hands resting on your hips pinched your sides. You yelped, stepping on his foot. Old habits die hard, apparently, no matter what may have transpired in between.

“Well, I think you wouldn’t have liked me as much without that fake relationship.”

“I wonder whose fault it is, Oscar.”

“I’m just saying, I─”

You kissed him again. And again, and again, until the sun was well gone and stars were the only witnesses.

That night, you made sure to take Oscar back to your apartment. There was no awkwardness in the small talk made in the car, no hesitation in your movements. It was a slow series of quiet laughs against skin, not rushed or frantic in the slightest, whispered confessions tangled between languid kisses. You were curled up against him, a blanket thrown haphazardly on your legs and you talked. The way you wanted and needed to.

He murmured you might need to lay low for a while into your hair, eyes already closing with tiredness, in order to let everything die down and you agreed, brushing his knuckles with the featherlight touch of your lips. You could always come out with the truth later on, and you were content with your life in the Netherlands─ even more so if Oscar could share it with you in some hidden place in his heart. Your palm rested over his heart, feeling his heartbeat slowing down by sleep and lulling you into Morpheus’ arms just the same.

He kissed you one more time. The taste of home and future lingered in your mouth. Oscar will be there in the morning, when the sunlight will shine through the window. And then you could discuss it, about you, more in detail around a cup of coffee, when he’ll drive you to work before disappearing in his orange car, feelings less raw and more authentic.

Real didn’t have an expiration date. You had all the time in the world to figure it out.

©LVRCLERC 2025 ━ do not copy, steal, post somewhere else or translate my work without my permission.

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satoru gets nanami drunk after an especially long mission, and leaves u to deal with his neediness :(( poor baby

nanami comes back home and you're laying on your side in bed, asleep, but jolted awake at the sound of the distant front door. the nightstand clock tells you it's a few minutes to midnight, and nanami always clocked out at 6.

typically.

he doesn't hesitate finding his way to you, understanding that if you're not waiting up for him, you'd be asleep. and, he was right. except, you're sitting up, blinking sleep away when he pushes open the door.

you can tell he's not all there - it takes him a second to catch his footing and notice you watching him.

"you weren't waitin' for me." he's slurring his words ever so slightly, letting them melt into each other. "what's wrong with you?"

"nothing." you whisper, giving him your sweetest, softest tone. "come on and come to bed, baby." you nod him forward, not like he could see you well with the lights on. you really didn't want to get out of bed - already wrapped nicely in your sleep clothes and content where you are.

seems kento has other ideas. he flicks on the light and leaves you to bear the harshness. you cover a palm over your eyes, hissing under your breath.

"really?" you whine, rubbing the assault from your droopy lids as he walks to the bed.

"somethin' wrong?"

you bite your lip, wanting to tell him to fuck off but extremely wary. you don't think he's been in such a state in... years, now that you're thinking about it.

"you weren't there... so i gotta- i have to take this off all myself."

you squint trying to make out what he's saying, but he's trying to toe off his shoes, stumbling in the process but catching himself pretty quickly. tomorrow, you'd scold him to hell for tracking them into your bedroom. tonight, you don't care. you just want him next to you.

but, it is annoying being woken up and forced to watch kento try and take off his shoes. "just take your shoes off and come to bed."

"did i tell you, that soup you made last night... fantastic." he mutters lazily, slipping into bed with his shoes still on. if he was sober, he'd see your eye twitch manically. he's so fucking stubborn.

but, he's being sweet ...kinda? right now, so you swallow that irritation and lean into him. like always, you start at the button at his neck, flicking it loose and moving down to his tie. it's been loosened already, making it easier to pull and slide off. under your busy fingers, nanami lays back on his propped arm, eyes shut.

so spoiled...

"shoes, ken." you so helpfully, sweetly remind him. to no fucking avail. instead, he leans into your exposed collarbone and starts kissing you. it's a specific kiss - a kiss that means 'this won't end anytime soon'

though you roll your eyes, you let him. your body is so fucking used to this, now, that all it takes is his shaky hand on your thigh to get you going.

and, you're going. you crane your neck for him, swallowing down want as his clumsy lips take to you like a cat drinking milk. he's stuck there -- fixated and happy lapping little love marks into your skin with a hand fiddling at the crotch of his work pants. he's restrained by a belt, two buttons, and a zipper, and his drunken state couldn't fathom undoing it all.

the first moan you give him has him pulling away, blinking up at you with reddened eyes.

so, he looks at you and asks - no, tells you. "help?"

and you fold.

his shoes still on and all, you climb over his lap, scooting down just enough to tug and pull at his belt. you're sitting just under his beaming erection, giving it a little push when you pull open his zipper. under you, he's covering his red face with his hand, moaning from your touch and presence alone. it's obscene - uncharacteristic. you love it.

"so pretty... pretty n soft... pretty, too. can't look at you or I'll wet my pants."

"you're crazy," you mumble, pulling his arm from his face and bringing it to yours to slip his finger between your lips. he gets the hint, taking control of his arm as he strokes over your chin, letting your fingers work your silk shirt away around your back.

he's dragging across the jagged edge of your teeth, pressing into your canines just to feel a bit of pain. if he opened his eyes, he'd short circuit, luckily he opens them as soon as you're dropping your shirt. then, you're showing all of you to all of him, and he can't do anything else but slap another hand over his eyes, whining dejectedly and blushed to the core.

"kento, look at me," you deadpan, tired enough to just roll over and sleep, but intrigued enough to keep pushing him.

"so hot."

you claw at his thick hand, nearly begging for his eyes to take you hostage. "hey."

"please... suck it..." he mutters, then stuffs his teeth with his fist, seething out sharp breaths as your fingertips find his skin just over his waistband. the request takes you back.

"you stopped when we got married... always wanted to ask you why but... please..."

you don't speak, you can feel more wet words on his tongue that you know he wants to say.

"please, baby girl... please, doll... the second I wake up 'm gonna buy you that silver necklace with my initial you've been wantin'... or I've been wantin' for you. just kiss 'm, please. so good..."

you have no idea what's he's going on about, but you like the sound of it. you like the sound of your nicknames twirling off his smooth, drunken tongue. so, you lean down to kiss them away, tasting the tang of drink on his supple skin.

he kisses you back just as eagerly, groping your chest in his hand as if it'd bring him down to earth again.

"i stopped because i don't think i'm very good at it." you laugh, taking it upon yourself to sit up and tug his briefs down past his hips. he's a mess - work clothes falling off the bone and you all over his face. he tastes like your chapstick now, and you catch little kitten licks poking from his lips just to study it.

"just kiss him like you're kissin' me."

then, you grab the base of his flushed cock, and he arches his back, a dramatic, uneasy 'ah-' coming from his throat. that really takes you aback - you've never heard such a noise come from your insanely composed spouse.

"don't... give it pronouns, weirdo."

"well, 's not a she."

and for the first time ever, you find yourself pressing your palm to his lips to shut him up. then, kissing over your knuckles, you watch his striking hazel eyes shiver and fall shut. you're so fucking in love it's crazy.

then you give him what he wants.

even though it feels unfamiliar, you drop your head, fist working his happy, dripping erection into oblivion as he whines and cries for you. it's when your lips kiss over the head, focusing your tongue in the slight dip, he cums. all over your face.

you're definitely taken aback, letting him have his moment, but you're so flushed and kinda agitated, yet always in love with him. he's a shaking, crying mess -- actually, crying tears. it's absurd. you'd remember this moment long after you've died.

even covered in cum, he still pulls you back, attacking your lips in a hot kiss you're not prepared for. seems like that release has him coming back to himself, because the grip he has on the back of your neck is not nice. you wouldn't be surprised, and you wouldn't mind, if you saw a bruise there in the morning.

when he comes to his senses, he pins you down face first into the mattress, kissing all over your neck and back as he fucks you lazily. he's so slow, it's serene. you can feel every dip of his cock, every vein as it drags against your sensitive, spasming walls. you both are so wet, begging for more, begging for each other.

it's how he makes you cum for him, with his sloppy, lazy ass thrusts and the wet kisses he leaves on your stained skin. there's cum drenched in these bedsheets, and if you weren't so fucked out and tired, you'd kick him out and call him inconsiderate.

tonight, you don't care. you fall asleep tucked under your man, barely able to breathe, let alone move. he'd suffocate you, at this rate.

but,

you don't care...

read part 2? <3