#anyway enjoyed doing this will do it again

[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.

[nochepsicodelica]

"Gentle," you murmur, lips curled softly in amusement as you watch Toji plant kisses all over your bare thighs. "Geeentle," you repeat, when he starts inching closer to the inner part of your thigh. Then you see it, the hyper focus he holds on the plush area of your legs. You watch as he prepares to strike, his mouth widening while he starts leaning in closer.

"Gentle, gentle, gentle-- Wait, Toji-!" You blurt, needlessly, since he didn't make any attempt to slow down once he set his plan in motion. Your laughter interrupts the stillness of the once calm room, while Toji is just there with his teeth, harshly, sunken into your thigh. It's warm, it's wet, but most of all, it stings.

After relaxing his jaw, his grip on your delicate skin loosens, and he pulls away, before taking his sweet time to admire his newly created masterpiece. He rubs the temporary impression he left on you, eliciting an expected but still mildly unpleasant soreness with every press and drag of his fingertips.

"That was a good one, huh?" Toji murmurs, a smug grin on his face as he leans in to leave a much gentler brush of his lips on the "affected" area.

You scoff and roll your eyes, but agree nonetheless. He doesn't need to know that, though. "Pshhh, it was alright. I'm not missing a chunk out of my leg or anything, so..."

"Mm..." he hums, like he got your message loud and clear. "Let me try that again, then."

"Wait, no, please! No! Oh god, please, no! Please don't," you cry out, like you're auditioning for the most dramatic TV series. He laughs at the way your legs shuffle before he can get another good bite on you.

"I didn't even do anything and you're already crying," he says, unfazed but stilled entertained, as usual. He's used to your dramatics, by now.

"Ahh! That's what you say to me every night."

"Damn right," he says, proudly, in agreement, reciprocating your menacing grin. "You're chicken, baby," he fires, dropping the grin almost instantly.

"You're chicken, baby," you sling back, turning his insult on him.

"If you let me get another bite in, I'll take it back," he says, bringing your legs back to where they rested before, carefully, so that you don't pull away again.

"But, but, but-"

"But, but, buuuuuut," he mocks, sounding like a mosquito and snickering when you deadpan.

"You're not funny," you say, your voice icy. It's hard to stay serious in the moment, considering how ridiculous the whole situation is.

"Look at you. You wanna laugh. Aaaand your lips are twitching. They're starting to curl."

"Stop narrating my movements, damn it," you chide, giving into the laugh he witnessed slowly unfolding.

Chomp.

Your laughter doubles down, and you swear you feel the breaths coming from his own chuckle on your skin.

"Oww," you wail, pushing at his head to try and shake him off, but he's like a dog with an object it refuses to let go of. "Toji, i'm gonna scream in three... two..."

He loosens his hold on your skin, pulling away completely to avoid setting off the siren that is you, his very lovely lady.

"Don't," he strictly instructs.

"Hm, maybe I should do it, anyway. I'm in so much pain."

"Is that a threat, baby?" Toji asks, scarred side of his lips curling. He watches you shrug in response, followed by a sassy tilt of your head, as if to say, 'what are you gonna do about it?'

"Be good."

"Be nice," you retort.

You both just stare at each other for a couple seconds, eyes never separating from each other. It's a brief moment between lovers who enjoy these little showdowns and how they almost always immediately come to an end when both of you inevitably crack.

Starting with you...

Your lips being tightly pressed together does nothing to suppress the loud snicker that cuts through the silence you both created. Toji follows almost instantly, unable to hold back his own entertained grin as he leans down to leave gentle, soothing kisses on the new impression he made on your thigh.

"You're nutso," you say, nothing but love in your tone, as you delicately run your fingers through his hair.

"You love it," he responds, caressing your thighs in his warm hands as he continues to soothe your tender skin with his lips.

[cashmoneyyysstuff]

SO WHY DO GOOD GIRLS LIKE BAD GUYS ?! - the biker's route ☆ !

synopsis : leather jackets, motorcycles, a nasty attitude—and a smart ass mouth !! but it's just somethin' about him, y'know ??

an. route 3 is here after making yall wait !!! sorry yall exams r comin up but i hope yall enjoy this part >_<!! also i make a sneaky lil aphmau reference his here bc im very unfunny, enjoy!

when you wake up today, it takes you about 5 minutes to actually get up.

you look to your left and your right, half expecting to be met with another katsuki; maybe this one would be a merman or something?! and yet, nothing.

so you stare at your ceiling and wait. maybe this one will come blast through your bedroom wall like the dragon again..!

nothing, nothing and a whole lotta nothing.

so you finally decide to get up and start your day, things were actually back to normal today. you decide to ignore the slightest twinge of disappointment in your gut but you cheer up a bit when you remember the study date your boyfriend had not so graciously promised you.

you're just about done dressing up, about to tie your uniform tie when there's a knock on your door. katsuki is here to pick you up (despite saying he wouldn't anymore like two days ago, typical.) early and on time as usual, or maybe just a bit too early.

"coming !" you call out, pulling up your socks to line them up comfortably, hobbling towards the door to let your boyfriend in.

you swing the door open, already anticipating to be met with your boyfriend, "you're here ear..ly ?"

you stand corrected, it is him. no horns, no ears or tails..but still...a bit different.

first of all, he's not wearing his uniform, no book bag either. instead he's decked out in a black leather biker jacket, baggy black ripped jeans and silver jewellery around his neck, you catch some rings (and bandages) on his fingers when he reaches up to place a hand against his neck, groaning when it pops. and black combat boots. basically, the whole nine yards for a school day.

"oh." is all you can say, part impressed and partly, mostly, confused.

"thought you were gonna keep me waitin' forever." katsuki said, and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. he leans in, tugging you forward by your tie to finish tying it for you.

"wha—i—you just got here." you stuttered "and also, not that i mind, but shouldn't you get dressed for class ?"

your boyfriend looks you up and down, tightly pulling the knot of your tie up properly. you can't help but feel a bit shy at how he's so openly scanning over you.

"nah, fuck that." he shrugs.

okay, now this was strange.

your katsuki with the perfect grades, the stickler, the secret goodie two shoes with perfect attendance wants to skip class?? something was very wrong.

he stands back like nothing happened, shoving his hands in his pockets "anyway, you ready to get outta here or what ?"

"huh ? where are we going ?"

"wherever we wanna, you got anything in mind ?" and he's already turning around, grabbing you by the arm with a smirk.

huh ?

"...is something—"

you can't even finish your question before you hear your name being called loudly, by katsuki. your katsuki, ready for school, book bag and everything just on time to pick you up.

ah, you knew he'd gotten here too damn early.

"dude, this is so creepy."

"how'd this even happen ?!"

"i wonder what type of quirk did this...."

you can catch the beginning of midoriya starting up on his nerdy rambling before sighing. you try tuning your classmates out with a sigh and turn your music up louder in your earbuds.

your homeroom teacher, who had clearly had enough of the surge of bakugou's appearing before him, had allowed this new edgy katsuki (as denki called him, somehow it managed to stick) to attend class. he looked normal enough and didn't look like he'd cause too much trouble, as long as he was attended to, that attendant being you, of course.

"there's another one ?!" you hear mineta cry, surely still traumatised from his experience with the wolfish katsuki almost having him as his early morning snack. the thought makes you laugh. you turn to look at the crowd of your classmates gathered around the twin katsuki's.

kaminari is the first to try and cause mischief, taking his chances since your homeroom teacher was taking a while, and had started a "spot the real bakugou!" contest. the contest was a bit flawed since they were both convinced they were the real original, but you decide not to step in on their fun. (and you have to admit it was a bit entertaining.)

"okay, everyone quiet down please! let's get back on track! " kaminari bellowed, wrapping his hands around his mouth to project his voice.

"gentlemen, whoever can answer this next question will receive..." he sings, drumming his hands on his desk in anticipation, neither katsuki's seem very amused.

kaminari jumps up, dramatically revealing a snickers bar "ta-daaaaa!! a free snickers bar from yours truly! though it's been sitting in my bag for a couple days.." he mutters quietly.

"i don't want that shit." both katsuki's say at the same time.

your entire class errupts into laughter and chaos. you shake your head in amusement and decide to scoot a bit closer to keep listening.

"um..could i request a question ?" midoriya pipes up, raising a hand.

"mister midoriya wishes to request a question ! what do you say, kacchan ?" kaminari the announcer encourages.

"fuck off, nerd!" both katsuki's say again, it's really starting to look like some kind of circus act now. you can't help but laugh along with your classmates.

"midoriya, you have the floor." kaminari giggles, leaning his makeshift fist microphone to your green-haired friends lips.

"how do you feel about having a clone of you ? is it scary ? do you feel connected in a way ? is it—"

kaminari interrupts before midoriya can go full blown geek "please, keep the questions to a minimum, sir !" he energetically spins back around, his chair squeaking loudly as he turns back to your boyfriend and edgysuki. "well, your response ?"

your boyfriend pipes up first with a scoff "like i care, i'm not scared of shit, let alone this dickbag. and no, i don't feel connected to this creep—don't ask me these weird fuckin' questions !"

your boyfriend almost takes this like a real interview, yelling at his childhood friend but diligently staying close to kaminari's fist like it was an actual mic. edgy katsuki seems to think the most important part had been said and doesn't add anything else, although once he spots you in the 'crowd', he makes sure to keep his eyes fixed on you. you quickly look away, your ears burn when you hear him chuckle.

soon after his response your classmates pipe up with more and more questions "oh, oh me ! i have a question !" and "can i go next ?!"s sound inside your class. you're just about to request a random question when sero beats you to it. you kick your legs excitedly, knowing he was always the first one to mess with your boyfriend.

"my question's for both the baku's, actually." he drawls, smirking lazily. he leans back in his chair like he knows he's about to start some shit.

"out of the both of you; who do you think likes yn the most ?"

....

huh.

"wha.." you wheeze, the noise stays stuck in your throat . you feel your ears burn, and it's most definitely intensified by the chorus of "ooooo's" overtaking your class. your class rep tries to save the situation, stating it was surely against the rules to ask such an inappropriate question. you nod to him in appreciation.

"i checked the rule book and this type of question is totally fine actually !" kaminari says.

"what rulebook ?!" you pipe up, embarrassed.

he grins at you, pointing to himself "this rulebook."

fuck, you should've seen that one coming.

"now, an answer if you may..." kaminari snickered bouncing on his chair excitedly, barely able to keep his excitement in check.

your boyfriend's eyes flit to you, likely sensing your embarrassment, his ears turn pink and he scoffs. crossing his arms and readjusting in his chair he grumbles. "this is stupid. m'not answerin' that—"

"—i do, obviously."

....

silence. pure silence after the other katsuki speaks.

"i obviously like her more." he repeats, this time making sure he looks at you while he speaks. he's so sure of himself, arms crossed as well and leaned back so casually with a smirk panting his face.

"...hah?" your boyfriend growls in warning "the fuck you just say..?"

"you got a hearin' problem or somethin' ? quit making me repeat myself, dick cheese." the other katsuki sneers back.

"ya think you like my girl more than me, jackass ?!"

"i know i like my girl more than some extra, shit stain!"

"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU CALLIN' AN EXTRA, YOU PIECE OF SHIT ?!"

"WHO ELSE WOULD I BE TALKIN' TO BUT YOU, YOU FUCKING MORON ?!"

it's chaos. shouting and howling and absolute chaos. but before things can break out into an all out fist fight, your homeroom teacher finally walks in. barely sparing any of you a glance and setting up his sleeping bag on the floor. until—

"you better all get in your seats by the time i'm finished or so help me..."

you have never moved faster in your life. you're sure you unlocked a hyper speed quirk with the way you zoomed back to your seat, head fixed down on your desk. your homeroom teacher sighs in exasperation, introducing the new katsuki you'd all managed to get very familiar in the span of a few minutes. he makes sure to warn you all with a "behave yourselves." kaminari gulps as he feels the teachers eyes very obviously fixed on him.

safe to say the lesson goes on without a hitch, everyone afraid to breath a little too loud.

you quietly scribbling in your notebook. you hope your teacher can't hear the way your heart hammers against your ribs.

you'd managed to survive your class day under the watchful eye of three people;

mister aizawa, who was already in a bad mood from your earlier predicament with your classmates.

your boyfriend who kept glancing back at you...

...probably because of the third hawk carefully watching you, bad boysuki,( or should you probably call him bullysuki) who was very subtle in chucking paper balls at you while the teachers were looking away. the entire day.

he was seated behind you in the back of the classroom, which gave him plenty of opportunities to kick the back of your chair and look oh, so innocent when you turned around to glare at him. during present mic's english class, he'd dropped his pencil inside the collar of your shirt and barely covered his snort when you shrieked in surprise.

truly, a fucking nuisance. too bad for him, you'd been dating said nuisance for more than a year now and this couldn't phase you in the least.

—before you can reach for your bag, you're brought out of your thoughts by katsuki, the all black one, snatching your bag and throwing it behind his shoulder casually. "you ready to blow this joint or what ?"

"i'm not blowing anything with you, jerk. m'starting to think being insufferable is how you breathe."

"aww. you mad at me, sweetheart ?" he coos, leaning down closer to you. you try not to show your surprise, curling your lip up and rolling your eyes at him. his eyes flit down to your mouth for a short moment. "m'just messin' with you a bit. s'all in good fun."

"it's not funny if you're the only one laughing." you counter. he rolls his eyes playfully. pulling you closer by your arm and leaning in way closer than he needed to.

"fine, s'my bad or whatever. how bout i make it up to you by takin' you out, hm ? got someplace in mind ?"

before you can speak, you're interrupted by your boyfriend snatching you back, causing a surprised noise to clog in your throat.

"she's not going anywhere with you, weirdo." katsuki readjusts his grip on your arm, his palms slightly sweaty. you can already feel he's whole body practically heating up.

bad boy katsuki's smirk is immediately replaced with a scowl, tilting his head back to mean mug your boyfriend. he has a few piercings in his ear too, you notice.

"hah?! s'far as i'm concerned, she hasn't said she was gonna go with anywhere with you."

"she doesn't need to tell you anything. besides, we already have plans. so, fuck. off." katsuki growls, putting extra strain on the fact you and him had a study session planned. the other katsuki doesn't seem to take the news well, cracking his bandages knuckles with a scowl.

"huh, that reminds me. we got interrupted before i got to kick your ass, huh?"

"if you wanna go all you gotta do is say when, pussy—"

before the both of them could start trading blows in the middle of your classroom, you stretch your arms, putting distance between the both of them and surprising them both.

"okay, boys. let's cut it out and use our big boy words okay ?" you sigh, irritated. "since, apparently, you're both toddlers, how about i call the shots here, yeah ?

i'm not going anywhere with either of you if you can't behave yourselves." you turn to look at edgysuki "i had a study date planned, so i unfortunately won't be going out with you. if you wanna come along, be my guest. i have a test coming up so if you test me, i will fuck your life up."

"and you," you turn back to your boyfriend, who's wide eyes are fixed on you "behave, okay ?" you warn, swatting at his chest. he jumps like the action snapped him out of his trance, and looks away with a scoff.

he grunts in agreement but grumbles about it, "should tell that other bastard that..."

that was more than enough for you. "alright, off we go." you usher the boys towards the hallway. your boyfriend moves with quickness, snatching your hand and pulling you away before the other katsuki can get a word in. while walking though, the other katsuki leans in to whisper hotly in your ear.

"that was hot as hell, sweets."

"be quiet." you whine.

"of course you'd get us kicked out of the library—of course of cou—how could i not have known ?!"

currently, you're trying your best to not lose your mind.

the difference between a half human hybrid katsuki and a shoujo bad boy male lead katsuki ? one was wild and untameable and it was definitely not the one you're thinking of.

you're honestly surprised the fucking wolf and dragon were easier to deal with than a biker jacket wearing delinquent.

it had started..okay ? maybe ? then again with any amount of katsuki's, going from 0 to 100 wasn't a hard task. you think maybe bad boysuki had started teasing you too much for your boyfriends liking. as protective as he was, and it sort of would've been flattering(you've always had a think for the delinquent type, okay ?!) if they hadn't started trying to have a showdown for your affection in the middle of a library.

and with the way they'd acted, it wouldn't be a big surprise if you were banned for life.

"i didn't even do shit but he—"

"he swung at me fi—"

"both of you shut the fuck up or so help me..." you groan, rubbing your temples. "i love both of you very much, unfortunately, but i'm only human and right now i'm having to hold back the very human urge of wringing your necks out like geese !" you shriek.

your boyfriend looks at the ground, kicking the toe of his shoe against some rocks, he never liked getting scolded after all. you'd almost feel bad, almost. (you still feel a little bad.)

"he—"

"quiet."

"yeah, quiet, loser." bad boy pipes up.

"you be quiet, too." you point, eyes wide. "you know what ? do whatever you want. fight to the death in the middle of the road like buffoons all you want, i do not care. do not come talk to me until you figure it out or...!" you splutter, trying to think of a fitting punishment "no smoochies for a month!"

your boyfriend's head shoots up, looking at you like you'd just admitted to torching his precious signed all might card "w-what the hell ?! that's basically only punishment for me!"

"figure. it. out." you conclude, turning your nose up and walking away and ignoring your boyfriends calling out for you. god, it was like dealing with two big baby's, and dealing with one was already more than enough!

but even if you are pissed off, your katsuki does have an extremely kissable face, and you don't know if you could hold up your end of the punishment.

you're sitting in your room now absentmindedly thinking about your predicament, study sheets splayed out around you. when you hear a knock at the door. you quickly get up, eager to leave your notes behind and stretch your legs. you're greeted with bad boy katsuki, looking down at the ground clutching something in his hand.

"you left this in the library..." he mutters, looking away and handing you your pencil case. you blink in surprise—you had no idea that you'd left it—but you manage to keep calm.

you clear your throat before responding "oh, thanks."

"should thank that other guy. he's the one that found it an' told me to bring it to you." he admits "even though i was gonna do it too, fuckin' bastard ordering me around..." he grits out, bitter.

your heart warms, your boyfriend was an idiot after all.

"where is katsuki anyway? well, my katsuki that is."

katsuki scoffs a laugh, finally looking back at you "m'right here, sweetheart."

wow, talk about déjà vu.

"but if you're looking for him he went off somewhere, said i should go see you first or whatever."

you sigh in relief "well, i'm glad you guys managed to get along."

"tch. i ain't getting along with that bastard. don't lump me in with him."

"kinda hard to do considering you are the same perso—."

"yeah, whatever—just—look." he steps closer, walking in your space and closing your door behind you. he backs you up until your knees hit the bed and you slump backwards with an "oof!". he has you where he wants you now. quickly shrugging off his jacket, revealing a tight short sleeved shirt (perfectly accentuating his muscles, mind you) his arms placing themselves on either side of your head. you lay there looking up at him speechless, wide eyed.

"it's stuffy in here. should open a window." he explains, eyes locking with yours.

"right..." you gulp.

"your room's a mess, too."

"okay, you can get it out if it bothers you." you snarked, squinting at him.

his eyes soften and he looks down at you seriously again. "look," he repeats"i don't—i'm not good at shit like this. but..." he looks off to the sound, grumbling. you catch how his ears bleed pink.

"i don't like you being mad..or whatever." he knocks his forehead to yours "...so stop it."

you snort "wow, so smooth." you chuckle when he shifts to shove his head into your shoulder with a quick "shut up."

his hands search and feel around until they get to yours, intertwining them. "don't..." the rest of his sentence is muffled into your shirt. "i can't hear you." you say curiously, he groans loudly.

"s-stop making me say embarrassing shit." he pulls his head out to look at you, your noses bump against each other. his lips oh, so close to yours.

"don't go...thinking that other guy likes you more than i do, got it..? and don't go liking him..more than me..." he trails off. eyes locked to yours, he waits for your response. you swallow harshly. you want to lick your lips, but he's so close you're worried they'll touch.

"well, i like the both of you just the same. so you don't need to worry about that." you say, managing to gather your thoughts you wrap your arms around him to pull him into a hug. he grunts, surprised, but melts into you quickly enough.

"guess that's good enough..." he whispers, pressing a kiss to your neck. he laughs when you squeal in surprise.

"i still like you more than him though."

and then, as soon as you blink, he was gone.

katsuki let's out a high pitched gasp when you surprise him in the common room kitchen, wrapping your arms around him.

"bwu—wh—what the hell?! don't just sneak up on me like that, dumbass !" he splutters, trying to make up from the cute little noise he let out. you giggle, squeezing his waist while he groans. he can't pull you off him as he's doing the dishes and that'd cause one big mess. (and since he's already on thin ice and doesn't wanna get his boyfriend privileges revoked, he'll stick this one out.)

he sighs, defeated "did that fucker fuck off yet ?" he asks.

"potty mouth," you laugh "and yeah, he's gone now. thanks for finding my pencil case for me, by the way."

he reaches to pinch you and you groan at the wet feeling on your skin, wiping your arm on his shirt. " keep having to pick up after your forgetful ass. should be more careful instead of having a hissy fit at me."

"don't start with me right now, katsuki."

he chuckles and shrugs, resigned. "you still mad ?"

"i wasn't anymore, but your little remark just made me re-mad at you."

your boyfriend stiffens and whips back to look at you, frowning. he squints, you squint back. after a heated stare down match he concedes and rolls his eyes.

"...sorry."

"meh. 2 points."

"what the hell?!" he groans, his hands splash around in the water causing soap bubbles to fly. you laugh and lean up to press a kiss to his lips. his mouth closes abruptly, surprise filling his features.

"well, i won't be taking away your smoochie privileges, at least."

"don't sneak up on me like that.." he scowls "and you better not. would've become your worst fuckin' nightmare till you gave in."

you snort "yeah, right. more like you'd become the whiniest baby."

"fuck off." he scoffs.

you giggle to yourself quietly. swaying lightly as your boyfriend silently does his job, the clinking of the dishes filling in the silence.

until katsuki decides to speak up. "hey."

"hm?"

"love ya."

your heart jumps, looking up at him as he keeps his back to you. your face heats and katsuki shows no sign of being bothered by your silence, if only the way he slows down just slightly in his washing.

smiling, you press a kiss to his back "i love you, too."

he stands straighter, almost electrocuted by your words. he huffs, shifting on his feet.

"hmph...i win, then."

curious, you look up at him again "what are you talking about ?"

he finally looks back at you, a feral grin forms on his face "that face stealing bastard can like ya all he wants, but i still love you more!" he snickers evilly.

your boyfriend was, truly, the biggest idiot.

taglist ! ( if your name is in bold i couldn't tag u :< )

@jastoo46 @cecelia77 @erenstitanweave @closehereyes @stoned-anime-babe @taxavoider @yannvi @sugurusmoon @allurearia @kaerotica @wonubby @cupidsblonde @catsoupki @ita606 @andysdrafts @omitea @lili-of-the-vally @serpent-hearted @ghostorchidd @shewki @pirana10 @witch-craft-works @kanvis @okkotsuus @dragonscribble @emmiesarchive @screaming-dough @napbatata @cacaandweewizzsstuff @redollface @meowsannie @katszumi @m-inluv @monchurie @the-hangry-otter @starlostlaiba @moonshuul @katsus-mistress @dondeh-zedonutqueen @liluvtojineteyam @aspiringwriter1111 @redvelvetstan1 @niktwazny303 @nemisimp @kit-katsukii @alphasage @milktea-academia @qyuin @bakugouswaif @themultifandomgirl @icey-wonders

[moonstruckme]

hi mae!!!! i was wondering if you could write any marauder x reader where it's the readers first time and during she begins to not enjoy it as its kinda painful for her and wants to stop, and the marauder of your choosing is just very lovely and reassuring about her not wanting to continue. i love all your writing!!! xoxo

Love you, thanks for requesting <3

cw: mature content mdni, afab reader, implied inexperienced/virgin reader

James Potter x fem!reader ♡ 825 words

You keep James close. There’s safety in his embrace, in the gentle press of his lips against yours, and you crave that solace right now. You hold his face in your hands, making sure he doesn’t retreat far enough to see your face or to leave you here by yourself. 

You want a partner, not a witness. 

“You feel so good,” he says, voice dropped about two octaves since you got him out of his clothes in the dimming light of his bedroom. “So perfect, angel.” 

You keep your hips still and kiss up at him half desperately. 

James groans. “Oh, god. You’re so perfect. How’s that feel?” 

Your kisses turn breathier, your tight chest not taking in quite enough air. You let him cup your breast in a loving hand. 

“Angel? Talk to me, m’love.” 

You don’t feel confident you have the breath to speak. You don’t know why you can’t just do this.

The next exhale you send out pushes James away. 

“Stop,” you say, voice already breaking. 

To James’ credit, he follows your instructions immediately. “What? What’s wrong?” 

“I’m sorry, I want to stop.” 

“Okay. Okay, lovely.” You cover your face with your hands as James sits up. The slight movement of him inside you isn’t enough to hurt, but the feeling makes you tighten anxiously anyway. You hear him hiss. “I’m just going to pull out, alright?” 

It’s a funny sensation when he does, loneliness and relief both at once. You try not to make a sound as tears turn your skin slippery beneath your fingers. 

“What’s the matter?” James’ tone is gentle, devastated in a way you think he’s trying to hide but can’t. “Does it hurt?” 

“No,” you choke out. 

Impossibly, his voice quiets further. “Did it hurt?” 

A tiny sob jostles its way out of you. You nod without moving your hands. 

“Oh, sweetheart.” James sounds gutted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” 

“I’m sorry,” you whimper. 

“What’re you sorry for? Hey, can I touch you? Is that alright? You can say no.” 

There was never any doubt in your mind that you could, but you wouldn’t want to. You nod again, and in an instant James’ warm hands are soothing up your sides. The loneliness dissipates. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do it,” you say, still unwilling to move your hands. “It didn’t hurt that badly, I just—I freaked out.” 

“Angel.” James sounds like he might be chiding you, if he could bring himself to do it. He takes your hands, and as it turns out, you’re perfectly willing to have them moved by him. His gentle touch has your face coming out of hiding, bearing witness to his crushed expression. 

“Please don’t apologize,” he begs. “I don’t want to hurt you at all. I definitely don’t want to scare you.” 

“I know that.” Your voice is frail. “It wasn’t your fault.” 

James’ brows hook. “I think I probably had some role,” he says, dropping a tender kiss to your cheek. “Does it still hurt?” 

“No.” 

“Would you tell me if it did? You won’t hurt my feelings.” 

He’s absolutely lying, but you’re telling the truth. “It doesn’t, James. It barely even hurt when it happened.” 

Your boyfriend makes a soft, sad sound. “Still.” He places a kiss next to your nose like he’s planning to soothe you inch by inch. “Do you think you might be bleeding?” You’re unsure. “Can I check?” 

You hum your consent, albeit somewhat nervously. James kisses you in thanks. He reaches a hand down between your legs, bringing it back up to find only the sort of wetness you both intended. He wipes it off on his own leg, kissing you again. Kissing, kissing, kissing. 

“We can try again,” you start to say. “Maybe not today, but—” 

He shushes you. “We don’t have to, lovely. I mean, if you want, of course we can give it another go, but don’t feel like you have to.” 

You feel a sort of shrinking in your chest. A quiet, vicious insecurity darkens your thoughts. “You don’t want to?” 

James’ eyebrows jump. “Do you?” 

“I…” 

“Sweetheart.” He rubs your hip, brown-eyed gaze soft. “You said you got freaked out, right? I mean, it’s understandable, I would have too, but when I have a bad experience with something I usually want a bit of a break before going at it again. Don’t you want a breather?” 

“Oh.” Your voice quiets. “I don’t…I’m not sure.” 

“That’s okay,” he says. “Take your time, lovely, I’ll be here. You just have to say the word, yeah?” 

Your reply is a low hum. You finally muster the courage to go to him. You sit up to put your arms around James’ shoulders, your warm chests pressing together. He envelops you without hesitation. 

“It wasn’t a completely bad experience,” you mumble into his skin. 

You can practically feel the bloom of his smile as he presses it into your forehead.

[katsbakugou]

𝑻𝒊𝒌𝒕𝒐𝒌 𝑻𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒅

— 𝒀/𝒏 𝒔𝒂𝒘 𝒂 𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒊𝒌𝒕𝒐𝒌 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒅𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒓𝒚 𝒊𝒕 𝒐𝒏 𝑲𝒂𝒕𝒔𝒖𝒌𝒊. 𝑺𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒅𝒏'𝒕 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒄𝒕 𝒉𝒊𝒎 𝒕𝒐 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒕 𝒔𝒐 𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒄𝒌𝒍𝒚.

⋆☆　 katsuki bakugo x fem!reader

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆　warning : swearing , sexual talk , mention of pounding , fluff , drabble

•❣•୨୧　wc : 990

-ˋˏ authors note : 2 stories in 1 day!!! This idea popped up when I got home from college. anyways! let me know if I missed anything !!! Enjoy !!!

It was a regular day, and Katsuki was at home, seated at the dining table, as he worked through reports from yesterday's mission. Focused and serious, he barely looked up from the papers in front of him. Upstairs in their shared bedroom, Y/n lay sprawled on the bed, mindlessly scrolling through TikTok out of boredom.

As she swiped through videos, one in particular caught her attention—a girl asking her boyfriend to take off her bra, and the way he smoothly unhooked it made her giggle. An idea sparked. Why not try it on Katsuki? With a mischievous smile, Y/n sat up, taking off her shirt, only wearing her bra. She headed downstairs, calling out, "Katsuki?" He didn’t look up. “Hmm?” he hummed distractedly, still buried in paperwork. “I wanna see how fast you can take off my bra,” Y/n said, tilting her head with a teasing smile. Katsuki finally looked up, brows furrowed in confusion. “Why?” “Uh… I saw this trend on TikTok,” she explained, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly. “A girl asked her boyfriend to take off her bra to see how fast he could do it…” She trailed off, embarrassed. Katsuki stared at her for a moment, stress etched all over his face. “No,” he said flatly, turning back to his paperwork. “Katsukiiiiii!” Y/n whined, grabbing his shoulders and giving them a playful shake. “ ’m not doing ya dumb TikTok trends,” he grumbled. “You don’t love me,” she pouted dramatically. “Never said that, woman,” he muttered, glancing back at her. “Please, Katsu—just this once? I swear I’ll stop after!” He sighed sharply. “No.” “But—” Without another word, Katsuki stood up in front of her, his arms went behind and with one swift motion, unhooked the bra like a pro. It slipped off and fell to the floor, leaving Y/n stunned—and topless. “Katsuki!” she shrieked, covering her chest. “What now?” he asked, deadpan. “That was too fast!” she said, eyes wide.

“What? Ya told me to do it. So why’re ya complaining, woman?” Katsuki asked, his tone flat and unbothered. Y/n, still in shock, stared at him. “How did you unhook it so fast?!” Katsuki glanced at her briefly before plopping back down in his chair and returning to his reports, completely ignoring her flustered reaction. “Katsuki!” she called out again, pouting. “Seriously, how did you do it that fast? Be honest—have you done this before? With other girls?” She crossed her arms, sulking now, suspicion creeping into her voice. Katsuki froze and whipped his head around. “Huh?! Are ya serious right now?” Irritation written all over his face. “Ya already know ya were my first, so don’t start spouting shit like that, woman.” Y/n stayed quiet, still pouting as she looked away, clearly not over the shock of his move. "My boyfriend of four years is out here having sexual encounters with other women..." Y/n muttered dramatically before flopping onto the couch in defeat. Katsuki let out a deep sigh, setting his reports aside and walking into the living room. He crouched in front of her, bringing his face close to hers. “Princess, stop,” he said softly.

“Ya already know I’m yers. So why the hell are ya sayin’ stupid shit like that?” His voice was gentle, even if he wasn’t the best with words. “I love ya. Only ya.” Y/n turned her head away, still pouting. “No, you don’t.” Katsuki groaned quietly before gently turning her face back toward him and placing a soft kiss on her lips. “I love every part of ya,” he said, voice low and sincere. “The way ya body fits perfectly against mine… the way ya hand slips right into mine like it was made for it. I don’t want anyone else. Just ya.” He kissed her again, firmer this time, and Y/n squirmed slightly, trying to hide the blush blooming across her cheeks. "Stop making excuses," Y/n muttered, pulling away from the kiss. Katsuki smirked. “Then maybe I should find someone new, huh?” Y/n immediately sat up, eyes narrowed. “No, you are not.” He laughed at her reaction. “What? Didn’t ya just say I don’t love ya?” “Katsuki!” she huffed, smacking his shoulder. He just kept laughing. “Go put ya bra back on before I lose the last bit of restraint I’ve got,” he growled, eyes flicking down to her bare chest. “Then do it—if you love me,” she challenged, arms crossed. Before she could react, a firm smack landed on her butt, making her yelp. “Ow! Katsuki, that hurt,” she winced, rubbing the spot. “Ya say that, but ya like it more when we’re in bed, don’t ya?” he shot back with a raised brow. “Ugh, you’re such a pain,” she grumbled, turning to head upstairs. “Hurry up, I’ll be up there in a sec,” he called after her, pointing toward the stairs. “You’re disgusting,” she said, tossing him a fake-disgusted look as she paused in front of him. Katsuki leaned in, grinning.

“Ya won’t be sayin’ that when my cock is pounding the fuck out of ya, takin’ my time devouring every inch.” Y/n gave him an exaggerated look of horror. “I feel violated.” “Shut up and get upstairs,” he laughed, swatting her butt again as she squealed and ran off giggling. “Damn woman’s a whole headache,” he muttered fondly, picking up her bra from the floor. With a chuckle, he switched off the lights and followed her upstairs into their shared bedroom.

[thisliminalspacedaydreams]

Hey, so sorry to come back to beat a dead horse but. that last comment got to me

If you take care of the smallest detail in your fandom art, that's incredible. It's still free. Should be. Should remain. The comments and kudos and engagement are so, so great, but, and I don't know how to stress this enough,

YOU NEED TO ENJOY WHAT YOU ARE DOING WITHOUT THEM.

You need to be okay engaging in fandom without guaranteed feedback. Is it fair? No. Was fandom created by freaks, for freaks, who wanted to make things for each other anyway? Yes.

I 100% understand the people saying they are writing/creating for the passion and posting for the engagement, but ao3 has already changed so much that this isn't guaranteed anymore.

A lot of newer users think something's going to come out of their work... recognition, validation, opportunities, but anyone who got any level of "fame" are worse for wear: the moment your cringy (I say with love, fandom should be cringe, fandom must remain cringe, praise cringe) fandom work goes boom into the world and outside of the bubble of freaks it was meant for, it becomes content.

That content gets treated with the same terrifying detachment everything else online gets, and it's a nightmare.

I understand the (now deleted) comment comes from a place of frustration, but you're misunderstanding the point.

I am talking about the space, not about devaluing art or labor. I'm saying "this space where things can just exist for free should be protected," not "artists should never be paid."

Not everything online that requires labor should be monetized.

Ao3 (a platform for sharing should happen without forced monetization) is important and rare because it doesn't force anyone into the consumerist mindset. The only goal of ao3 is to share. That's it.

Artists absolutely deserve the choice to ask for compensation. Outside of fandom. Inside fandom? Nope (imo).

Fandom is supposed to be one of the last places where you can give something without it instantly being turned into a product or a target, and even this is dying.

But still, I fight for this stupid, amazing, NECESSARY website. Fans (whether you're makers or readers or lurkers) deserve spaces where they can enjoy and share without being trapped by algorithms and ads and money.

By the way, a lower number of engagement doesn't reflect the quality of the work.​ It depends on the fandom size, the subject matter, how dead your dove is, how alive the fandom is.

If your mindset is, "The truth is: the problem is not who wants to be paid for the work they do, because even the fan's work remains WORK, you worked on that work, you used your time, your skill, you spat blood etc… Nope, YOU are part of the problem, normalizing free work instead of normalizing a salary for artists", then as I so eloquently put it before, it's NOT FOR YOU. Go seek money elsewhere.

GO seek money ELSEWHERE. Go to Tiktok, Youtube, Instagram, Google ads, the REST OF THE FUCKING INTERNET IS THERE FOR YOU TO MAKE MONEY.

Leave my free ao3 and my thousands of hours of free written creation alone.

And god forbid if I ever see you lurking in my comments again saying you have seen "embarrassing works against some noteworthy works" you don't deserve an ao3 account you don't understand what fandom is at all and I'm sorry for you.

Fanfic is a free hobby.

It's one of the last few things we can have as a society that's free. You can engage, for free. People give you things (art, stories, etc), for free.

Don't buy into the consummerism just because it's everywhere else.

You don't have to consume everything you interact with. You don't have to use things, just because they exist.

You're allowed (still, for now), to have things that are enjoyable for free.

Do you realise how insane the world is? We don't have many places where we can just be, for free anymore, but ao3 is. Did you notice we don't have ads in ao3? We don't have pop ups? Where ELSE do we not have that?

Where else can you just go and not have to wait for a commercial to be over or for ads to be on the sidelines?

I don't think the younger people understand, but the whole of internet used to be like this. YouTubers would do Youtube for free, just because. You couldn't monetise your internet presence before.

Ao3 is like a little preserved corner of the internet where the old internet used to be, and it's being attacked by people who do not understand that free things are allowed to exist without judgment.

Please don't ruin this for us.

Some of us need it.

[ilikerafayelwaytoomuch]

What happens when the LADS guys are caught crying?

A/N: what the title says :) . I've always been someone that people have come to with their problems (forever the therapist friend) and comforting them. But I was thinking about what it'd be like to see the lads men cry, as there's a stigma around men crying (which is stupid but anyways). They're a lil short, but I hope you enjoy!

Warnings: a lil angst, mentions of death, comfort, crying

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊

Rafayel 

When Thomas called you saying Rafayel had been dodging his calls all day, you weren't surprised. That was typical of your boyfriend. You decided to give him a call and maybe persuade him to finish a painting or two, but he didn't answer. Growing slightly concerned, you called again, but still nothing. Rafayel never missed your calls. He had even answered one day when he was using the bathroom, never wanting to miss a call from his muse. Since you were off work today anyway, you decided to pay him a visit, grabbing your keys and heading to his place. 

It was eerily empty in his house, which worried you even more. Something was off. Had he decided to go on a spontaneous trip out of town? He would have answered your calls then. You decided to try calling him again, not knowing what else to do. Your heart sank when you heard the familiar jingle play, going towards his phone that was going off. Rafayel had left his phone behind. Even more unheard of. The first place you thought of to look for him was the sea, the beach outside his house. If he wasn't there, there were a few more places to try, but that was the closest place. Opening his back door, you stepped out into his yard, leaving it and walking along the sand. 

You had almost decided to turn around and look somewhere else when you spotted a figure up ahead. The head of lilac hair told you it was Rafayel. His knees were pulled to his chest, sitting in the sand, his head gazing out to the sea, his clothes soaked as sat where the waves met the sand, the waves brushing up against him. A breath of relief left your lips, though you were still concerned. Picking up your pace, you jogged over to him, watching him as you got closer. You could tell that something was wrong in the way he sat and gazed out to the sea. Slowing down when you were close, you could see tears falling like pearls from his eyes, slipping down his face and splattering into the sea water. Your heart broke at the sight, carefully moving to sit next to him, not caring about getting your favorite pants soaked. When your arm wrapped around him, he jumped slightly, turning to see who had joined him. Saying nothing, you pulled him closer to you, his head easily falling onto your chest, a silent way of telling him it was okay to be crying. A way to tell him that you were there for him. 

His arms unraveled from his legs and wrapped around you, the sea beginning to soak your legs and his tears soaking your shirt. You brought a hand up to his head, patting his hair as he cried. When he seemed to settle, his tears slowing, you broke the silence. “What happened?” 

“It's nothing,” he muttered. 

“If it got you out here crying and not answering my calls it's not nothing,” you argued. 

“Sorry,” he hid his face. You gently placed a hand on his cheek, encouraging to face you. 

“You don't need to apologize, Raf. I'm more worried than anything. You know you can talk to me, right? You can cry or scream or pout in front of me and I won't run. I care about you so very much.” 

“I miss home,” his voice broke slightly as he admitted what was bothering him. You nodded in understanding, staying silent. “I miss Lemuria. My friends and family. My home. The stupid fish and whales. I miss all of them and I'm the only one I can blame for that. It's my fault they're gone.” His words sat heavy in your hearts. He had told you of his history and past. You didn't remember what had happened, but believed him when he told you, feeling that the two of you were connected, the bond proving it. 

“I can't say that's not entirely true, and I don't remember what happened, but I don't think you can blame just yourself. You still tried everything in your power to save your people. You fell in love. You were young. No one can blame you for that. I know my situation is completely different, but I miss home sometimes too. It's hard. I can't even imagine how much harder it is when your home literally no longer exists,” you told him. He nodded. “Do you regret what you did?” You suddenly asked. 

“Not at all. I'd choose you every time,” he stated. 

“Then you shouldn't take the full blame for what happened. You tried. You really did.” 

Silence fell over the two of you as you watched the waves. You held him in your arms as he sat silently, a few tears falling every now and then. “Is there anything I can do to make your home here feel more like home? I can try to cook a dish from Lemuria or decorate your house,” you offered.

“You feel like home. Just you being here helps,” he admitted. I nodded. 

“Then I'll be sure to come over more often. And if you find yourself missing home, tell me and I'll come. How about we head back and cuddle up? Watch a movie or something?” You offered, knowing snuggling was his ultimate weakness as well as comfort. He nodded in agreement. You stood first, offering your hand to him. He frowned, looking up at you. 

“Those are your favorite pants, why did you come sit here?” He asked. You shrugged. 

“Cause you're more important to me.” 

“More important than that stupid bird plushie?” His eyes narrowed. You smiled at him. He held such a grudge towards the plush, as you chose one time to have it in your arms while you slept. “Even more than the plushie,” you smiled. He nodded, smiling and grabbed your hand standing up. He pulled you into his chest, hugging you. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. 

“Of course. Let's get going.” 

Hand in hand, you all walked back to his place. Once there, you both changed into dry clothes before ordering some food and picking a movie to watch. You had fallen asleep in his arms, too comfortable to not fall asleep. He smiled down at you, thankful that his bride had returned to him. Thankful that he still had part of his home. 

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊

Sylus

You waltzed into Sylus's office, excited to tell him about your promotion at work. But as soon as you entered, you froze mid sentence, looking at the sight before you. Your boyfriend, Sylus, sitting behind his desk, holding his head in-between his hands. When he looked up at you, his eyes were red, a few tears streaming down his face. He immediately looked away, praying you hadn't noticed. “Sy, are you,” you paused, stunned. “Crying?” 

“No,” he spoke, voice hoarse. You carefully walked over to him, as if afraid to scare him by moving too suddenly. He was lying of course, tears evident on his face. Moving behind the desk with him, you awkwardly hugged him, lightly pushing his face into your chest as your arms wrapped around him. 

“You know, you always tell me it's okay to cry and it doesn't make me any less strong, don't you know it's the same for you? It's okay to cry. Even when you're the big bad boss of Onychinus,” you whispered. He nodded, biting back tears. You stayed as you were, allowing whatever happened to happen. He was unsuccessful in holding back his tears, crying softly into your chest. It was still a shock to you. Sylus was the definition of someone who presented as if nothing could make him cry. It didn't bother you at all, it was just a surprise. Your concern though, was what had happened to make him cry. But you could ask later, and you did, when his tears stopped and he wriggled out of your grasp to grab a tissue. You watched him carefully, observing him. His nose and eyes red, expression downcast. It was unfamiliar to you. You had never seen or heard of him crying. “Wanna talk about it?” You asked. He licked his lips, unsure. 

“If you don't mind,” he finally decided. 

“Not at all,” you answered, moving to sit on his desk in front of him. He smiled softly up at you before taking a deep breath. 

“Some dickhead went on a rampage in the N-109 zone. Slaughtered hundreds of men, women and children for fun,” he spat. “About a year ago, I ran into a child walking around on the street. She had lost her parents and I surprised everyone by supporting her. I found a place for her to live, I visited often to make sure she was doing okay and being taken care of. She was on her way here when she was killed in front of my eyes. I couldn't do anything to save her,” he finished, looking down and biting his lip. You were stunned at the news and furious that something so horrible had happened. 

“Do you need me to go kill this guy? Because I will,” you offered. He chuckled at that. 

“He's been taken care of. Got what he asked for, I made sure of that,” he informed me. You nodded. 

“So it's the loss of this girl?” you carefully asked. He nodded. 

“It's weird and even surprised me, but she kinda felt like a daughter,” he admitted. Not knowing what else to do, you stood up and hugged him. 

“I'm sorry that happened. Truly,” you told him. He gave a slight nod and hugged you back, pulling you in closer. 

“I should have gotten there faster. I didn't know she was there. If I was quicker she could have lived,” he whispered. 

“You don't know that for sure. You didn't know she was there. There was no way to even know she was there. You did all you could, don't blame yourself. It's not your fault,” you soothed. 

“It feels like it is,” he admitted. 

“I know. But you weren't the one to take her life, you did all you could. It may be a bit too soon to think about, but do you want to hold a service for her? You said she lost her parents, so there's not really anyone to do a service,” you offered. 

“That'd be nice. Luke and Kieran have her,” he informed me, words getting softer as the reality continued to hit him. You nodded and moved to place your hands on his cheeks, guiding his lips to yours and pressing a quick kiss to them. “I'll plan it, just tell me what she liked,” you smiled softly at him. He smiled back, sadly. 

“Okay. Use my card for it all. She deserves the best service we can get.” 

“And the best she will. Wanna go get cleaned up?” You asked, he nodded and you guided him to his bathroom, showering with him both literally and with love. Making sure to scrub off any remnants of his fight and loss. You could tell he was still processing it all, upset but not fully grasping the situation. Once clean, you forced him to eat some food before getting into bed with him. Usually, he'd hold you, but today was different. He half laid down on you, head resting on your chest as he listened to your heartbeat. A few tears fell every so often, but he no longer tried to hide them, the grief hitting him. You stayed with him, whispering words of comfort to him, rubbing his back. 

It wouldn't be easy, but with you by his side, Sylus would hold the perfect service for the little girl and process his grief, thankful he had you by his side throughout the whole thing- whether he was strong or weak. 

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊

Xavier 

When you woke up you were immediately confused, the unfamiliar sterile white ceiling staring back at you. You tried to move, but nothing happened. So you took in the surrounding sounds. The steady beep of a monitor, the sound of a distant fan and talking. You figured you must be in a hospital. It was then that you heard a sniffle, making you blink. You couldn't remember what happened. Who was here with you? Were they crying? Your eyes finally moved, glancing to the side and finding your boyfriend, Xavier. His eyes were red and puffy as he cried. He still had blood from wanderers splattered on his uniform. He looked like he had been through hell and back…maybe he had. “Xav,” you managed to croak out. His eyes widened as he saw you were awake. 

“You're awake. How do you feel? Does it hurt anywhere? I'll get the nurse,” he rambled, standing up. 

“What happened?” You asked, ignoring his questions. He froze in place and returned to your bedside, gently grabbing one of your hands. His hands trembled slightly, making you grow more concerned. 

“I-im sorry. I couldn't get there in time, I was trying to warn you, but I failed and you were hit. Bad. I thought I was going to lose you and it was all my fault. All because I couldn't get to you in time. I'm so sorry,” he spoke, tears falling once again. You managed to shake your head. 

“It's okay Xavie. I know you tried. You did everything you could, I'm sure of it. I'm okay now. You're not gonna lose me,” you comforted him. You wanted nothing more than to reach out to him, to hold him and comfort him while he cried. So you tried, gasping in pain when you tried to move. 

“Don't move yet, you'll make it worse,” he scolded you immediately. 

“I wanna hold you,” you admitted. He frowned slightly before getting up and laying in the hospital bed next to you, his arms carefully wrapping around you so he wouldn't cause any further pain. “Are you okay?” You asked him. 

“I don't know,” he answered honestly. “I don't know what I would have done if I lost you.” 

“You'd move on and live your life of course,” you told him. 

“No,” he firmly stated. “I can't live my life without you. I promise I'll be faster next time.” 

“There's no need to beat yourself up about this Xavie. Part of our job is risking our lives. It was an accident. It'd take a lot more to end me.” 

“Promise?” 

“I promise. I'm not leaving you any time soon, okay?” He nodded and hid his face in your neck. You managed to gain enough strength to lift your hand and rub his back, comforting him. 

The nurse came in and he refused to move, which the nurse eventually accepted, mostly because you said you were fine for now. She asked a few questions and took the vitals she could manage to get without Xavier in the way, before leaving and informing you she'd be back later. When she left you placed your hands on Xavier's face, guiding him to look at you. You wiped away a few more tears with your thumb. “I've never seen you cry so much,” you admitted. 

“Only because it's you,” he whispered, nuzzling into your hand. You hummed in acknowledgement. “We should get some hot pot when I'm released to cheer you up,” you mused. 

“If it's what you want,” he agreed, making you pout at him. 

“What I want is for you to cheer up. Of course it's okay to cry, but that doesn't mean I like seeing you cry. I want you to always be happy.” 

“Then don't ever leave me,” he said seriously. 

“I don't plan on it,” you smiled at him before softly kissing his lips. 

“Good. Now get some more rest so you can heal up and come home,” he instructed. You nodded, moving your arms to snuggle closer to him, allowing his warmth to lull you to sleep. 

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊

Zayne 

“Guess who's favorite patient is here?! Oh shit,” you suddenly stopped, still holding the door to Zayne's office, freezing in place. His head was in his hands, glasses thrown onto his desk, his hair messy. What really threw you off though, was when he looked up, fresh tears falling down his face. You hadn't seen him cry since you were children, crying over scrapes from concrete. He quickly wiped them away, unsure what to say. You were the same, still frozen in place. Once your brain decided to process that your boyfriend was crying, you hesitantly closed the door behind you and walked over to his desk. He watched uncomfortably. You weren't meant to see him in this state. Hell, he rarely was in a state like this, no one but him should see. “I- you- are,” you attempted to formulate a question, sighing when nothing that made sense came out. “Are you okay? What happened?” You finally asked. Your heart clenched at his reaction, his face welling up in pain before a sob left his throat. Concerned, you quickly made your way around his desk, pulling him into a hug. He buried his face in your stomach, gripping onto you tightly. You had no words, still stunned by the sight, hands instinctively rubbing his back. 

You stayed like that until your back grew sore from the position, Zayne's tears stopping. He broke the hug and leaned back into his chair, apologizing. “I'm sorry you had to see me like that.”

“Don't be. Are you okay though?” You asked, knowing something was obviously wrong. He nodded. 

“Yes. I guess I just got a bit overwhelmed. With the wanderer attack I haven't been home in days. I've barely slept or eaten. It's surgery after surgery, but I can't just not perform. That's someone's life. It hasn't been this back and forth in a while,” he explained. You nodded. 

“Is there no one else who can do the surgeries? You need to rest,” you chided him. 

“There wasn't. There is now. Fucking 72 hours later,” he breathed frustratedly. 

“That explains why you hadn't answered my texts,” you mused. “I figured you were busy, but not this busy to where you haven't slept in days.” He nodded. 

“Can we go home?” He asked, looking up at you. You smiled and nodded, bringing a hand to wipe away a stray tear. “I was going to leave after gathering myself, but you've already seen the worst of it.” 

“I'm glad I did in a way. Of course, I hate seeing you like this, but I want to be there for you. Overwhelmed and crying or stoic and loving. I wanna see all of it. Want me to get your things?” You offered. He smiled and shook his head, his hand guiding the hand that was once on his cheek to his lips, pressing a kiss to your hand. 

“I've got it. Thank you my love.” He stood and grabbed his things, packing away whatever he needed. You grabbed his hand and led him out of his office. 

When you got to his home, you immediately instructed him to wash up while you cooked him something. He agreed, not bothering to argue, though a shower was definitely what he wanted at that moment. Before cooking though, you quickly slipped out, walking down the road to his favorite dessert spot and getting some sweets for him. The woman at the counter recognized you and immediately got together your usual order- filled with your and Zayne's favorites. 

When you got back to his place you snuck back in, glancing to make sure he was still out of sight. Thankfully he was, opting to take a much needed long and hot shower. After placing the bag of sweets on the counter, you got to work. Zayne left the shower some time later, announcing his presence by hugging you from behind while you cooked, the scent of his body wash filling your nostrils. “Feel better?” You asked. He hummed in agreement. “Sleepy?” You chuckled. He made a noise of agreement, muffled as he hid his face in your shoulder, taking in your scent. He was relieved to finally be home. “I got you something,” you smiled down at the food you were making. 

“You did? When?” He asked. You nodded to the bag on the counter. 

“While you were in the shower. Thought you could use some sweets.” 

“That's an understatement,” he chuckled. When the food was done, the two of you ate, you doing most of the talking as Zayne was tired. He was happy to listen though. He could listen to you talk about your day for hours. You could be reading a dictionary and he'd happily listen to every word. After eating, you did the dishes, slapping Zayne's hand away when he tried to help, instructing him to head to bed first. With a kiss pressed to your cheek, he listened. 

Once done with dishes and getting yourself ready for bed, you joined Zayne, easily snuggling up next to him. He was half asleep, but still managed to thank you. “Thank you for this. You always know exactly what I need. All I wanted was to come home to you and sleep,” he admitted. 

“I would agree, though my days haven't been quite as intense. I'm happy to take care of you. I'll ask off tomorrow so we can spend all day in bed,” you offered. 

“You don't need to do that,” he insisted. 

“Too late,” you smiled. “Get some rest, I love you Zayne.” 

“Sleep well my love,” he mumbled out, falling asleep now that he has said everything he wanted to. 

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊

Caleb 

You wanted to surprise Caleb. He was going to be in town and you hadn't seen him in a while. So instead of meeting him at your place, you decided to show up at his work. You were able to get through security pretty easily, as Caleb had brought you a few times when you visited. You excitedly knocked at his office door before opening it and stepping in. “Surprise!” You called out, a smile immediately turning into a frown when you saw him holding his arm, wincing as tears fell. You ran over to him, gently holding his mechanical arm and looking it over. “Caleb, are you okay? Where does it hurt?” You asked him. 

“It's nothing,” he answered, stopping his tears. It was the same as when they were kids. 

“How many times do I have to tell you it's not nothing if you're crying? That it's okay to cry in front of me?” You scolded him. “Now tell me where it hurts.” 

“I know. But I'm supposed to be there for you, not the other way around. I don't need to be taken care of,” he argued. 

“Everyone needs to be taken care of sometimes. That's how a relationship works. You're there for me and now I'm here for you, so stop hiding,” you sighed. He looked down, avoiding your gaze. 

“It just got an upgrade. They usually hurt, but not this bad,” he softly explained. 

“Do you think there was a malfunction? Should I notify your doctor?” You asked. He shrugged. 

“I'm fine,” he got out, just before wincing again, his hand going to grab his shoulder. You frowned and picked up the phone on his desk, calling for the doctor. 

“Let me take care of you for once,” you told him after putting the phone down, hand reaching to wipe away a few tears that he failed to hold back. “Losing an arm is reason enough to cry anyway. You don't have to pretend it doesn't hurt for me. I don't want you to do that at all.” He nodded, listening to your words. You wrapped your arms around him in a hug, patting his hair until there was a knock at the door. You moved to open the door, letting in two men dressed in lab coats. Caleb explained what was happening and the two worked together to take his vitals and work on his mechanical arm. You brought a chair next to Caleb, holding his hand as they worked. He tried his best to make it seem painless, but failed, wincing every now and then. After some time, the men left. “Better?” You asked him, rubbing his arm. He nodded. 

“Yeah, sorry you had to see that,” he apologized. 

“Apologize again and I'm leaving you. You were this bad when we were kids, how have you not changed at all? I cried all the time in front of you and still do and you don't think I'm weak, right?” You asked. 

“Of course not. You're the strongest hunter I know,” he scoffed. 

“Then why do you think crying is going to make you weak? You're still the strongest commander I know. Getting used to a mechanical arm can't be easy, not to mention, it's newer tech. There's going to be errors.” 

“Yeah I guess,” he half heartedly agreed. You sighed, knowing there wasn't really a way to convince him. You decided on cheering him up the same way you did as when you were kids, knocking the hat off his head and throwing it across the room. “Wha-” he began laughing. You shrugged at him. 

“Only way I know to cheer you up. Should I continue?” You threatened with a grin. He shrugged and you pounced, immediately your fingers finding the ticklish spot on his sides, attacking him. He bursted into laughter, attempting to push you away from him. Unfortunately for him, you were much stronger now than when you were kids. It wasn't until you felt the effects of his evol pushing you away, you were forced to stop. “That's cheating!” You yelled at him. 

“I'm doing what has to be done. There are other ways to cheer me up now, pipsqueak,” he grinned, standing from his chair. His hand found your cheek, caressing it as he grinned at you. “Like this,” he whispered before leaning in and kissing your lips. 

“Such a cheater,” you muttered, face flushed. He laughed and you felt the effects of his evol wear off. He wrapped his arms around you into a hug. 

“Thank you though. For being there and not telling me I'm a wimp for crying over a little pain,” he whispered into your ear. You punched his chest lightly, pulling back to look at him.

“A little bit of pain seems like an understatement, but I won't argue further. You're welcome though.” 

“Promise not to tell anyone about seeing me cry? I've threatened both of my doctors,” he admitted. 

“So you crying and being in pain happens often?!” You exclaimed. 

“I wouldn't say often-” 

“Why didn't you tell me? I would have made sure to come to all the appointments I could have,” you interrupted, disappointed in him a bit. 

“I'm sorry. I was stupid and truly believed you'd think I was a baby, still kinda worried about that if I'm honest,” he admitted. You crossed your arms on your chest. 

“I don't think that. Never will. You've always been way stronger than me. Promise you'll start telling me when you have appointments?” You asked. He nodded. 

“As long as you promise not to tell people I cry,” he agreed. 

“Deal. Now can we go spend the weekend together? A new arcade opened up down the road from my apartment.” Caleb smiled at you before grabbing his coat (and the hat that was thrown across the room). He took your hand and led you out of his office, ready to spend time with his favorite person.

[sierrale8ne]

AMERICAN WEDDING 001. THE WIN you’ll probably leave later anyways, that’s love made in the usa. pairing paige bueckers x black!oc ( kayden kennedy ) warnings 3.7k words, flashback, brief mentions of homophobia lena talks chapter one finally here! enjoy, more coming soon xx

present day april 2025

When Kayden Kennedy was nine, she sat on her fathers lap on a plane ride to Kolkata. She looked over the water, wondering to herself why there was so much ocean. A year later, it was Baghdad, then Istanbul. She couldn’t remember a solid second where she wasn’t moving— where she wasn’t running off and following her father on the journey of his career.

It’s where she grew her love for history.

The large statues, the Seven Wonders of The World, the history. Many would see these places and be star-struck, amazed by the beauty in front of them. But Kayden was different, she was delighted by the how. How did these people get here, how were they brought up, how did they believe that this— this pyramid or this ancient pot— was a symbol of their culture. As she grew older it developed into why they were colonized. And then as she really learned the meaning of the word war, why did these people fight back. Or even, why did they give up.

The rich history of the world interested her always. Like this morning. 

She had woken up at six. The gym waited for her at seven-thirty, where she very attentively listened to an NPR podcast about the tragedies in Gaza. When she got home—nine-thirty on the dot— she changed, showered, ate her breakfast of toast and avocado and sausage while reading The Women by Kristen Hannah. 

By 11 she was cleaning the kitchen and at one she was seated on her couch, laptop open as she began to grade the last of her student’s fourth quarter projects: The Mexican-American War.

Kayden would like to think it wasn’t on purpose, how her job seemingly found its way into every aspect of her life when she wasn’t even trying. But then again, she sought out the knowledge. She wanted to grow her brain, fill it with as much information as she could until she was like a human encyclopedia. Which in all honesty she was, thanks to her eidetic memory.

But something about knowing everything and yet still knowing nothing at all excited her, as nerdy as it seemed. It allowed her to imagine another universe where things changed, where lives could be different.

Like how maybe, in another life, she’s watching her ex girlfriend play in person, and not on the comfort of her couch.

In a strange turn of events, the once persistent and completely attentive Kayden was distracted by something greater. Something heavier that weighed on her moral scale. Something she couldn’t quite name, but could feel on her chest. Almost like a boulder.

Kayden pushed buttons, almost like a second nature. 

Guide. Channels. ABC. 2025 NCAA Women’s tournament championship game.

Kayden had watched here and there. The burn of the bold UCONN letters ate her alive from time to time. She should’ve been there. In the stands cheering or in the library helping Paige study. That was the plan. Their plan. 

There were times when she let her mind wonder. To how Paige was doing, or if she’d thought about her as much as Kayden tended to think about her. When Paige got injured sophomore year, Kayden had hurt a bit. And when she tore her ACL she wanted to wrap Paige in her arms like when they were young and just tell her that it would be okay. 

She’d never say it out loud, though.

Kayden watched the whole game. Not missing a second. She felt like a high school student again, forced between a sweaty guy who didn’t care and a sweatier one who cared way too much. 

She saved face. Never faltering with a smile or a loud cheer. More for herself than anyone else (as she was alone in her apartment).

A Google Slides presentation is open on the coffee table in front of her, red pen balanced on top, forgotten. Because this, this is way more important. Even if she promised for these grades to be finalized by the start of class tomorrow. Paige, who’s having just a bit of an off shooting game, is playing in a game that could define the rest of her career and that just just occupies a larger place in her brain than James Polk and Ulysses S. Grant. 

So Kayden curled up on the couch in an oversized hoodie, her glasses slipping a little down her nose. A bottle of water sweats on the side table. And the game should make her sweat too but she couldn’t. Not even close.

By the start of the fourth quarter– the one of the game she’s been pretending not to watch, but has been glued to for the last hour– the Huskies are leading by 22. Paige’s teammates are killing it. A Sarah Strong layup here, an Azzi Fudd three there (which she does cheer for because she remembers talking to the girl about this dream in hotel room in 2018).

And then she hears the broadcast loud and clear. “Bueckers back door… puts it in! Plus the foul! It’s raining blue in Tampa.” Kayden’s eyes snap to the screen. Her breath catches.

Not because of her name, or even the fact that she just contorted her body and got the bucket. 

But the weight of this, the impending win. The fact that the woman she’d once married, is about to have her dreams come true all these years later, just makes Kayden’s heart swell a bit more. Beat a bit faster. 

The screen flashes in slow motion: celebrating fans, screaming teammates, Paige on the floor with a grin that hasn’t changed in five years. Kayden doesn’t smile. She exhales like she’s been holding that breath since the day she walked out.

flashback july 2019

My hands fumble with my phone, simultaneously trying to slip my feet into the confines of my black Doc Martens. My socks stick out loosely, white, frills on the edges. Just enough innocence to really make the moment. 

pb 🪼 I’m down the street Hurry before your mom starts asking questions

At that, I scramble. Pen, check. Change of clothes, check. Proper lie shoved into my back pocket, double check. I brush over my skirt, tugging down the hem of my tight white shirt in an attempt to cover the tiny stick and poke tattoo that came from drunk dares and an adventurous summer evening with Paige and Jalen.

k 🔐 coming!

I shove open my bedroom door, shoes heavy against the hardwood floor. The summer sun spills in against the grain, soft breeze blowing through the curtains. It’s beautiful, which only makes me speed up to get outside to an impossibly more beautiful girl. The kitchen smells like burnt coffee and lemon-scented cleaner, which makes me all the more excited to get out into the real world outside of this house.

“Where you headed?” 

My mom Marianne’s voice cuts in through the hum of the kitchen. She sits on the couch, legs outstretched with reading glasses perched on her nose and a book resting in her lap. She doesn’t look up, her voice doesn’t even have its usual lilt to it. And I know I’m in the clear.

“The Lake. Then Lauren’s house.” I lie, only partially though, because going to Paige’s cousin’s house after was part of our well thought out plan.

She hums, eyes glued to the book. “You sure that’s a good idea? I heard it was supposed to rain.” That’s code for Marianne Kennedy doesn’t want her daughter to go out at all. She’d rather I stay home where she can monitor me.

My voice trembles in the way that it does when I know I’m about to lie to her. “It’s fine. Paige is picking me up. She thinks we can beat it.” I shrug like it’s no big deal.

“Boys gonna be there?” She asks.

Her voice is filled with something else, and I know exactly what she means. She’s really asking if I'm hanging out with the only girl my age that the entire neighborhood knows is gay, or can she feel comfortable knowing that I’ll talk to a boy here and there. But she’d never say that outright, no, because my mother has an image to uphold. So she’ll ask it like that, and then throw a diss in a few seconds. 

You know, the usual lowkey homophobia.

“Yeah. Jalen and Chet are going, and some other guys in my homeroom too.” I continue. It’s the half truth. There might be boys somewhere, though I’m hoping to get married and dip before they get there. I’m not that interested in sticking around long enough to find out. My eyes dart out the window, seeing the blonde’s beat up red Cadillac sit parked against the sidewalk. 

Mom hums again, thoughtfully this time. Like she herself is thinking about whether or not she believes me or not. “Not that I’m worried about boys, with Paige around.” There it is, that diss I could feel coming like a spidey-sense of mine. I was a superhero, fighting off homophobia one mom at a time. “That girl’s always been… a little wild, no?”

Her words make me flinch and I get defensive fast. Like mom is a girl at school throwing darts and looking to hurt the one person who seems to understand me better than I try to understand myself.

“She’s just not fake.” I say.

I watch my mom put the book face down in her lap, interlocking her fingers to look at me. She’s so blinded by hate that she can’t even notice my choice of attire is ill-fitting for the lake. “There’s a difference between being real and being lost, Kayden.” 

“Ma, I—”

“You’re not like her. I raised you better than that.” She raises an eyebrow. Using that damn code language of hers to say check yourself.

My stomach knots. I shift my bag higher onto my shoulder, needing to move, needing to get out of here before I let her words break me and I crack. Paige is outside with a wedding license in hand and I’m here listening to my mother call her all the underlying homophobic names in the book.

I get quiet. “We’re just friends. I have to go.”

“Good.” Mom nods, flipping the book back around. “You’re a good girl. Don’t let anyone confuse you about that.” She says and I dart for the door handle. I grab my house keys from the hook, bidding her a goodbye like she didn’t just stab me and twist the knife.

The car ride was silent—talking wise. Lil Baby blasts from the speaker and the wind rushes in and out of the car so fast I feel like I’m free flying through the air.

Paige sat next to me, her hand occasionally brushing against my knee as if she wanted to see if I was still there. If I was still in it. I was. Who was I kidding? It’s the girl of my dreams sitting next to me with the brightest light in her blue eyes and the biggest smile, probably bigger than the one she shot me after winning state this year. 

She’s calm, like this isn’t the craziest idea in the world. Which in turn makes me calm, makes me throw everything that happened with my mom an hour ago out the window.

But now, sunlight flashes across the tile and I stand awkwardly against the wall. A courtroom clerk in front of me. The room is smaller than I thought it would be. Which is crazy considering the biggest event of my young 17 year old life is taking place here. 

She notices, she always does. Her keys hang from the pocket of her shorts. The marriage license folded clean in half on the other hand. 

“You sure about this?” Paige asks, her back pressing against the wall, shoulder snug against mine. She’s warm with the kind of heat that feels like she could set me on fire. 

I huff. “We’ve already driven this far. Lied to our parents.” The series of events bats around in my head. Then I look over to her, as calm as could be. Honestly, I don’t remember the last time Paige let me see her be even just a bit nervous. She’s always walking around with that attitude and confidence that made it seem like the world was hers.

She stares straight ahead, branding the courtroom into her brain. “Baby, I don’t wanna… force you into anything. If you wanna go home, tell me. We can get ice cream on the way back or something.” Paige rations trying to help me make sense of it all. It makes me laugh when I think about the cliche; I help her make sense of the real textbook stuff and she helps me when it comes to all the other impulsive things.

“Then we’d have to tell people we just talked about it. This is way more dramatic.” I joke, peering up at the 6’0 athlete with wide eyes and a grin. “I want to do this. Especially with you.” I admit. The clerk digs his eyes at the both of us. I can assume he’s thinking of how much he’s not getting paid enough to entertain two 17 year old girls with a marriage license.

I grab her hand, dragging us to the clerk. Adrenaline runs through my veins like a fire. Paige slides the sheet over the counter, and he looks over it all disinterested but prepared to let us go through with it anyway. 

“Sign here.” He orders, flipping the sheet over like it means nothing. 

I look up at my girlfriend, suddenly realizing that after this I get to call Paige Bueckers my wife. I’ll slide a cheap thrifted ring on her finger and then go to college with her in a year from now. It’s all going to happen the way we planned it. 

So I reach into my bag for the black pen I had brought from my stationary. My hand trembles slightly, everyday handwriting coming in a bit rough as the weight of it settles in my chest like something permanent. Then I hand it to Paige, who’s full of no nerves and a simple confidence to her. 

She takes it before looking down at me. “You sure you’re not gonna chicken out?” Paige had asked, half-grinning, half-terrified— but she’d never let me know that.

I squeezed her hand, grinning back. “I want to be yours.” I didn’t say forever — we didn’t talk about the future much. It was too scary. Too far away. Too… uncertain. Especially with a meddling mom and a girl who might love basketball more than her gir—wife.

The clerk speaks again in his low monotone. “By the authority vested in me by the state of Minnesota, I pronounce you wife and wife.” He stamps the sheet lazily, handing it over to Paige again and right then it hits me like a blow. I was really married.

To her.

And then she kisses me, slow and breathless, like she’s never done it before. She didn’t care about the eyes, and the feeling of her hands on my cheeks stopped me from caring either. My nose brushes against hers as Paige pulls back first, forehead pressed to mine.

“I—I have um. This.” I hold the ring box in my hand, square and suede. It’s a bit dirty from years of it belonging to someone else. But, I don’t care. The box cracks open under my pressure, the dull silver still gleaming in the light. “I figured rings make this, y’know. Official.” I stutter, sliding the ring onto Paige’s finger without hesitation.

“You’re really doing this with me?” Paige asks, her voice so small it almost broke my heart if she wasn’t so perfect.

I nodded. “Always.” 

“Good. Because I got you one too. It’s in the car.”

Later, after she put a pandora ring that she’d spent all her summer savings on, on my finger. We drove like nothing happened. Like we didn’t just make a lifelong commitment. Like my mom wasn’t at home praying that the reality of sin didn’t brush onto me from her. 

We split cash on Ice cream, her dad sent her some money for gas. Everything was perfect. Even the cicadas that screamed in our ears as Paige drove down the straight road. 

Lauren’s house came into view over the hills. The neighborhood was empty enough for us to pull in unnoticed. So Paige parks at the field a block behind the house, climbing into the trunk of the car and pushing the seats back to watch the stars come out. 

It’s where we sit now.

She manipulates her long legs so she fits perfectly. I fit into the curve of her body, my skirt occasionally brushing up in the late night breeze. Paige’s fingers trace lazy shapes over my shoulder.

The stars are bright tonight, twinkling like precious diamonds in rubble. I look over my shoulder at Paige, at how you can see the occasional gleam across her irises.

“Paige?” 

She blinks languidly, the deep brown of her lashes brush over the apples of her cheeks. Dusting them like a thousand little paint brushes. 

“Yeah, baby?” She responds. Voice as deep as a teenage girl could really have. It’s sultry, but full of that kind of love and energy I’ve been subjected to since we were younger.

“You think we’re gonna regret it?” I ask, half-asleep, voice thick with warmth.

Paige had smiled into my skin. “Maybe. Probably. Who cares? At least I’m doin’ it with you, right?” She hums. 

And then, as if nothing else in the world exists, she kisses me again. Softer. Quicker. For the hundredth time today. I smile, against her lips, laughter spilling between us like a river flow. 

Young. Dumb. Untouchable. And for a while, it felt like the whole world really did belong to us and no one else.

present day april 2025

Kayden’s chest ached with the memory of the past and the imagination of a different one too.

Her laptop had been pushed off to the side alongside stacks of rubrics, messily marked and written on—she'd been prepared to be completely focused, but she wasn’t ready for how long it would really take.

Or how easily she would get distracted.

The channel had only been changed once from ABC to SportsCenter. She sat frozen on her couch, the championship celebration playing out in front of her. Without her.

Paige was in the middle of it all — standing on the black platform, hat on her head and shirt hugging her damp and sweaty arms. The confetti stuck to her hair and skin, glittering like stars against her blonde. She was beaming, electric, so full of life that Kayden felt her own chest hollow out just watching her.

Kayden should have looked away. Should have turned the TV off and finished grading papers like a normal person who didn’t still orbit around a girl she hadn’t touched in five years. Oh but no. She stayed.

She watched as Paige ducked into a hug with her coach as emotional as she’s ever seen her, doing the same with every assistant, every trainer, every teammate. Paige beelined straight for the sidelines, arms open for the family members swarming the court.

Kayden watched, and a stupid, heavy ache twisted low in her stomach.

She couldn’t explain it. Couldn’t explain why she still felt this way — tethered, glued to Paige’s happiness like it had anything to do with her anymore. Which it didn’t. Paige had outgrown the small-town dreams they’d once whispered to each other in the dark. She had built a life bigger and better than anything they ever dared to plan. By the looks of it, she also had someone else to celebrate it with. Azzi. By her side, and grinning the whole time as Paige celebrated a little too hard for national television.

Kayden should have been nothing more than a footnote. A “remember when” if she even crossed Paige’s mind at all.

But sitting there in the flickering blue light, watching Paige take the mic for the post-game interview, Kayden knew the truth she’d never managed to choke down: she really really missed her.

Not all the time, not like an open wound anymore — but here and there, in the quiet spaces. In the slow Sunday mornings and empty passenger seats and songs on the radio that pulled her back without warning. Kayden missed Paige a year ago when she was moving to Dallas, emptying her college apartment, and seeing the ring in the same box it was given to her five years ago. 

She missed her when she saw two girls holding hands without fear. When she heard laughter in the breeze that sounded like the kind they used to share.

But more than anything she missed Paige now. Worse than she had in a long time.

On screen, Paige was laughing through tears, her voice still a little hoarse from shouting and ungodly amounts of celebration, when the reporter asked what she’d tell her younger self. Kayden leaned in without thinking, like the answer mattered more than it should.

“I’d tell her to hold on,” Paige said, smiling. “And trust that even the stupid stuff or the little things might matter more than she thinks.” The words that were simple, obvious even, landed like a punch straight to Kayden’s ribs.

She shut the TV off mid-response, plunging the room into thick, echoing silence.

Kayden stayed there for a long time, staring into the blank screen, the ghost of Paige’s smile burned into her mind.

Still married, a small voice inside her said.

Still hers, if she wanted to be.

Kayden buried her face in her hands, realizing that no matter what; that wasn’t her life anymore. It couldn’t be. And it was no one’s fault but her own. Maybe if she wasn’t so listening, so scared, so uniquely Kayden Kennedy. 

And yet, somewhere deep inside he — in the parts she’d spent five years trying to bury— she wondered if Paige had ever missed her too.

🔖 @thaatdigitaldiary @bueckersbitch @pboogerswbb @xxloveralways14 @ykylalex @ohmybueckers @avvwritesstufff @flipthepaige @cherryswisherz @lupinqs @vamptizm @bueckers555 @omg-imtumbling @courtsidewithlani @mariahthealchemist @authentic-girl03 @kissamiyahh @rebecca-woso @angryflowerwitch @rhianthebest @paigebaby5 @rishofkf @xoxosierralane @urantisocialgay @issilovesherself @your-local-bi-panic @nicebellee @elalfywhore @cowboybueckers

[goorgeousz]

emily mentions your underwear once and your brain short circuits

drabble

pairing: emily prentiss x fem!reader

content/tw: alcohol, mentions of underwears, reader wears a g-string, spencer gets super flustered, emily and reader flirt around like derek and garcia

a/n: I’ve listened to “guess” over 15 times in a row yesterday and this scenario keept popping up in my mind. anyways, hope you enjoy it <3

dividers by @uzmacchiato

“Ugh. Why do men.” you groaned, placing your phone back down on the table after checking your new notification.

“What did he say now?” Garcia asked, leaning towards you.

“He asked me the color of my underwear.” you handed her the phone. Morgan and Reid, on each of her sides, leaned closer to see the text, in amusement and disgust, respectively.

“Reid, why do men seem to be so fascinated with women’s clothing?” Emily asked him.

“This is not… exactly my…field of expertise.” he started, blushing slightly, but excited as he always gets when someone encourages his ramblings. “But I do think it’s similar to the thought of people preferring privacy accounts over porn videos. It adds a level of intimacy and personal connection to the fantasy. He could just… masturbate thinking about you or looking for a picture. But when he asks you this, he’s bringing you into his imagination, making you actively participate in it. That’s my take, I think.” he shrugged.

“That’s… very smart.” you state, amazed. He smiles. “But I still think men are horrible. Terrible.”

“Don’t generalize.” Morgan pointed out, which earned him eye rolling from you, Emily and Penelope “Okay, okay!” he raised his hands in mock surrender “I’ll get another round of shots to apologize on our behalf.”

That earned him a kiss on the cheek from Garcia. She followed him toward the bar, leaving on the table only you, Spencer and Emily.

“I still don’t see the appeal. It doesn’t turn me on thinking about what kind of clothing he has on right now.”

“Well, women's undergarments are much more attractive than men’s.” Spender answers to you, blushing again furiously

“Let’s test that theory.” Emily suggests, turning her body completely towards you.

Mirroring her move, you turned on your seat to face her “What’s the color of your underwear?” you asked between giggles, trying (and failing) to make your voice sound low and sexy.

Emily, on the other hand, managed to bite back a laugh just fine, her amused smile turning into a smug smirk in a second. She leaned in, “I’m wearing a dark purple lace bra. It has a white bow between my… you know.” she winked.

Instantly you felt your mouth dry, the loud music from the bar faded away and it was only you and her. And her dark purple lace bra. You and her are used to jokingly flirting here and there, but, for some reason, it never actually felt real until that moment.

Your mind went blank, the only thing you could come up with was “Yeah?”

Her smirk grew, like she knew what it was doing to you “Mhmm. And it’s a set. My underwear is just like my bra: dark purple and lace, with the white little bow on the top. A g-string, just like yours.”

And that’s when you collapsed. Your eyes widened slightly, your face heating like she just slapped you.

Then, she switched it off. Her teasing posture was gone and she laughed loudly. Because you had no idea what just happened or what to do, you laughed with her, but clearly fakely. She turned towards Reid, whose eyes were about to pop out of his head, his face somehow redder than yours.

“I see the appeal.” she confessed to him, like she wanted him to add that to his database.

“Woah, what happened here? Why does Reid look like he just got a second-degree burn?” Morgan asked, setting the five glass shots on the table.

“They were flirting. Again. Guys, you know it breaks Reid.” Garcia chimed in, placing down a little plate with salt and lemon slices.

“Leave the foreplay to the bedroom, Misses.” he added, giving you a teasing wink.

“Oh, I wish. She likes boys.” Emily said, putting salt on her wrist before turning to you with a knowing smirk “But she knows I’d hit it.”

[qvert]

Oh you’re brilliant thank you!

And I know that she gives up the seat in the end and I love that for her

But I really think there’s this fundamental shift in her character the moment she lets jinx and her mindless revenge go and sets her sights on what’s actually important to her - I had to tie that moment to Cassandra somehow

It also has this weird note of ‘I’m not sure if you’d be proud of me mum but here I am’

(smth about fighting to protect what she cares for - in the way she always wanted but was never supposed to)

There was a whole bunch of deep thoughts about this one but it’s late and I just want it off my pile so I don’t keep adding more contrast to the gold bits

I’ll elaborate tomorrow - speculation in the meantime is encouraged :*

[medievalharlot]

A gift for the princess 彡 Geta x princess f!reader x Caracalla

Pairing: Geta x princess f!reader x Caracalla

Synopsis: The empire comes to your aid and you are reunited with your childhood friends, they end up having a gift you cannot turn down

Wordcount: 3,1k

Request: ‘I’ve been thinking of this plot for a while, but I’m not a writer and could never write it myself. But what if both of the twins x reader, who was their childhood best friend, she came from a very wealthy family (for some reason I like to think she was royalty in a neighboring country or smth, anyway, she was forced to move away, and the twins and here were devestated (cause they like LIKED each other) years go by, and they are now emperors, they have to go to a place for business, with other royals (like where the reader lives) and they meet again, and like, fall in loveeee’ by anon

Tags: Childhood friends to lovers, reader is a princess, some light groping but no full on smut, period accurate misogyny, implied violence, implied abuse.

A/N: Phew this one is a little longer than I intended it to be. Maybe a little less historically accurate than my last one but I tried sticking to historical facts. I always thought of Caracalla as a shy child that turned mad and Geta being the brave one. This will be the last full on fic I post before I go to Paris, enjoy!

It would be a short seige, your castle walls were never strong enough to withstand the Parthian army. Yet your father, having spiraled into madness, insisted to keep fighting. For years your small kingdom had been an ally to the empire. Even if it was small, it had a strategic and important port. Under Marcus Aurelius it had it added to the list of allies and it had been loyal up. Your father suddenly decided to start a war against Parthia. Voices plagued his mind, advisors gone corrupt filled his mind with delusions. You had been supportive of your father, trying to see the good in his actions as a way to cope. Giving up on the man that had raised you felt like betrayel. Your mother was a noble lady and after giving birth to you ander your brother she moved back to her own home. Their marriage was arranged and quite an unpleasant one. You were his only daughter, his sweet delight. Your brother was aiding the empire in the conquest of Numidia by order of the emperor, leaving you to watch over your father. Every day he slipped further into madness, and everyday it became more painful to watch.

At a certain point his advisors convinced him to go to war. Once you got wind of the idea you had the advisors sent away, unleashing your fury upon him. But your father had already sent out the command. You had prayed to Pax, Fortuna and Minerva for the war to end well and for the Romans to send aid. Emperor Severus had been a good friend to your father. You weren’t aware that he had passed and his sons, Geta and Caracalla, were terrorizing the empire. News travelled slow in the empire and before you knew it there was an entire army knocking on your door with no aid in sight. You had witnissed the Pathian generals slaughter the people on the outskirts of the city being killed. Their screams haunting your mind as you hid.

Once, you knew the twins. It was a long time ago, before your father had become king. He took you and your brother to Rome quite often, in hindsight you understood it was probably to find a suitable match amongst the sons of the senators. Due to the friendship your father and the emperor shared you were often on the Forum. You remember meeting the twins for the first time.

Caracalla was a shy boy, hiding behind his brother. Geta was a bit cocky but curious about you. They were a few years older than you were. You were clinging to your fathers toga, you never played with boys. At home you were either being taught by master or you were playing with the daughters of your fathers advisors. Boys sucked. And yet here you were, alone with these boys in a room.

“Do you wanna play soldiers?” Geta had asked eventually. “You can be the helpless girl and we-” He had shoved his brother from behind him. “We will save you.” There was a proud smirk on his face.

Soldiers? Why would you want to play that, why would you be the helpless girl. “I don’t want to play that.” You reached for the wooden sword. Geta tried to grasp for it.

“You can’t play with that, that isn’t for girls.” He sneered as you pulled away. Caracalla still hadn’t spoken a word.

“Stop it!” You frowned, you weren’t one to let somebody to tell you what to do.

Soon, chaos ensued. Somehow you ended up in a brawl with him, and to your surprise you were winning. All that commotion had alarmed the servants, who had fetched your fathers. Emperor Severus was pissed. He had dragged Geta off you, shouting stuff like ‘this is not how you treat guests’ and ‘you let that little girl beat you up’. Caracalla chased after them while sobbing as the emperor dragged Geta by his collar out of the room.

The banging on the door only got louder, together with the other women of this court you were hiding in the cellar. Soft prayers were whispered, hopes that the devine above might save them. You didn’t pray, you knew there was no stopping an army, your kingdom was way too small to beat Parthia. Your father didn’t have the men, nor did he have much expierence. It would be over soon and all you could hope for is that they wouldn’t slaughter and take every single woman in this room.

Over the years you luckily grew to appreciate each other’s company. Visits to Rome became more frequent. Your father enjoyed the wine, food, feasts and whores in the capital better. Geta was still as boisterous as before as he often liked to remind you of how he would become emperor someday. Caracalla had grown out of his shyness, but he got reckless and often faced his father’s wrath.

You were sitting on Caracalla’s bed, soflty dapping your handkerchief against his busted lip. Geta was leaning agaisnt a pillar as he watched you tend to his brother. “What happened.” You had asked Geta, Caracalla was still visibly upset. He was rambling some words you couldn’t understand, making himself small and leaning out of his touch. Sometimes it felt like you were talking to a child.

“Drank too much wine last night and was found in the horse stables.” Geta replied, keeping it short. You could tell his fathers violence got to him.

“You’re a fool sometimes Caracalla.” You spoke to him, lifting his chin to get a better look.

“He just needs to die then I will be emperor.” He had spouted a bit angrily in return.

You sighed softly and stood up. “We will fetch a doctor.” You spoke, nodding your head to Geta to signal him to come along. Something was up with Caracalla, he was reckless but he had become more unpredictable and forgetful over the last few months. It was eating away at you, you saw them as your closest friends.

“Something is wrong with him, Geta.” You spoke as soon as the two of you turned a corner. “Did the doctors say anything last time?”

“They say his peverse nature has infected his mind.” Geta spoke as he walked with you. “They’re trying to treat him but father says he is fine.”

“He’s not.”

“I know.”

Then the screams came. The walls had been breached. Younger girls started sobbing, with a stern look you tried to make them shut up. You couldn’t blame them, the worse thing that could happen to you is that they would make you a concubine. Soldiers knew better than harming a princess that could be used for blackmail. But those girls, they would have to endure the worst. You held your breath as you could hear them getting closer, your heart beating in your chest. The doors opened, but to your surprise it weren't Parthian soldiers. Their shields carried the Roman chrest. It were Roman Soldiers. Had they come to your aid? You got up, your dress was dirty and your messy. The seige lasted a few hours and you had been stuck in this stuffy room.

“Princess Y/N, you have summoned by imperial decree.” One of the generals entered, you did not recognize him. He looked older, his black hair slowly graying. They took you, dragging you out of the room despite your protests. The didn’t take commands from a woman, they took direct orders from the emperors and the emperors alone.

It was a particularly hot summer that year. This time you had went ahead of your father to Rome, he had some business to take care of back home. It was uncommon for girls your age to travel alone, you had long passed the age to be wed, but you were of age. It was the only reason your father let you go alone. Something had changed this year tho, you weren’t sure about what. The three of you always went swimming in their private pool, it had been a tradition for you of some sort. You never thought of it as strange. Yet, this year you could feel your cheeks heating up as you watched them swim around.

“Are you just going to lay there?” Geta spoke up. You were still laying in the shade and still dressed.

“Don't feel like swimming.” You spoke as you grinned softly.

“Is the princess afraid of getting wet?” He laughed loudly as he swam to the side of the pool.

“I am not!” You got up defensively. In the midst of your conversation you had not noticed Caracalla lurked behind you. With a giggle he flung you into the water.

“There we go.” Geta laughed, watching you struggle to swim in the flowly stola you were wearing. You would have bothered to undress first if you knew they were gonna force you in.

The echoes of Caracalla's laughter rung around the pool. It had gotten worse, you knew that. Both of them got worse in their own way. From what you heard they were drunks with concubines from all over the empire and a lust for blood. It made you sad.

“You should come to the Colosseum soon.” Geta swam closer to you, looking slightly down on you. The water was up to your shoulders but you could still stand. The way he looked at you made your head do summersaults. He lifted your chin. “I think you would enjoy what we have prepared for you.” He got closer, eye contact still remaining as your lips almost touched.

“I am not sure if-” He cut you off with a kiss. Caracalla was behind you now, his hands roamed your hips and his lips were on your neck. He softly bit down on the skin as he whimpered while rutting against you. You were sandwhiched between them. One of Geta's hands was on your breast, the other holding your chin in place.

It was so perfect, until it wasn't. Your father had barged in and saw the scene. He, too, had heard of the twins endeavours. And upon seeing you sandwiched between them he got furious. He ordered you out of the pool and he scolded the both of them. Surely, they would never hear the end of it from their own father. It made you anxious for what would happen when the emperor got word of what had happened here. That didn't matter tho, you would be there to patch up their bruises.

Atleast, that is what you thought. Your father had send you home right away and you never saw the two of them again. The first year was hard but you learned to live with the heartache. With your father illness you had more pressing matters than Rome.

They had dragged you back all the way to Rome. It was early in the morning when you finally arrived, your head ached and your feet were sore. On the way you were informed your father was killed, only worsening your pain. The soldiers had given you a minimum of food and water and kept you dressed in simple rags. You felt like a prisoner and you still weren’t none the wiser about why you were summoned. Atleast you didn’t have to walk all the way.

You arrived in Rome filthy, dehydrated, hungry and confused. At once, you were taken to the throne room. It was nearly the same as you remembered, only there were two thrones. Maybe he put it there as a way to honor his deceased wife. Taking in the surroundings you heard the emperor and the guards come in.

“I hope there is a good reason for my treatment on this journey, your imperial highness.” You turned around, but instead of seeing emperor Severus, you stood eye to eye with them. Geta and Caracalla. Your heart dropped. It been years since you had seen them. They were the emperors now?

“We apologise for your treatment, my lady.” Geta spoke first as he offered his hand. You stood frozen, taking in the both of them. You couldn’t lie, it was good to see them. It was like a weight falling of your shoulders. But something felt off. Geta had a cold look in his eyes and Caralla looked almost insane. His eyes reminded you of your father. Both of them were dressed in gold armour with a gold laurel crown on their heads. They radiated divinity. It didn’t feel the same as it once did.

With a trembling lip you stumbled over to them, falling on your knees infront of them. You had grasped ahold of Geta’s robe. Caracalla grinned as he crouched down to look at you. “We saved your kingdom. You must thank us, your brother will be king now.”

You looked up at him with fat tears rolling down your face as you were reminded of your father’s death. Geta grabbed your face in his hand. “What my brother means to say is that we are very sorry about your father. He may have acted like a fool but no ally of Rome should suffer like you have.” He gave you a hand, you took it and stood. “There will be games in his honour tonight. You will be attending.” It wasn’t a question, it was a demand.

Softly, you nodded. You tried to process what was going on. “Yes, games.”

“Real games, with bloodshed. No mercy.” Caracalla spoke to you as if he tried to comfort you. “We got you a dress.”

“Yes, Cassia will help you get dressed. You must get some rest now.” Geta turned to a young girl, she looked foreign but she had a Roman. She was probably a concubine that they liked so much she got promoded to a handmaid. “Cassia, get her cleaned up.” He snided at the girl.

Cassia led you out of the throne room to the baths. The hot water felt nice against your sore skin, you felt clean atlast. An essence of mint and citrus hanging in the air.

After the bath, Cassia had dressed you in your gown. It was purple with gold trimmings, it must’ve cost a fortune. The fabric felt expensive. Your hair was done in an elaborate hairstyle. Even if you were a princess, the luxeries in Rome was something your father could not afford. You looked like an empress, the empress. “The emperors wish to see you before you leave for the Colosseum.” She eventually spoke after she finished doing your hair.

With heavy feet you made your way to the throne room. It did feel better to be dolled up again, but under these circumstances you doubt you could feel anything at all. You were alone in a city full of people that would probably want you dead, you had no moment of peace as two guards followed you at all costs. They pushed the door open to the throne room, Geta and Caracalla were already waiting for you.

They had changed into new clothes too. Caracalla wore a black gown, Geta opted for a rich red. The twins turned to look at you.

“You look splendid, my lady.” Geta spoke first before Caracalla interrupted him.

“My brother and I have a proposal to make.” He sat in his throne like a giddy child. You carefully watched them.

“Your father has passed, leaving you unmarried and under nobody’s protection.” Geta started, you weren’t sure what he was getting at. “Your brother is too busy being king, so..”

“What is it you want from me.” You cautiously narrowed your eyes.

Caracalla rose to his feet and walked towards you, grabbing your hands. “Marry us. You loved us when we were children, you love us now right?” There was a hint of desperation in his eyes. “Right?” He repeated, now sounding a little more angry.

You were left speechless. If they had asked you this question a few years ago you would’ve agreed without a second thought, but after all these years and all that happened you just couldn’t process what they asked of you.

“Nothing would happen to your kingdom once you are empress.” Geta was suddenly behind you, whispering in your ears. “We will make the man that murdered your father die a painfull death, my lady.” He stroked a ringed finger against your arm, the metal felt cold against your skin.

Geta took a step back. “We will give you some time to think, we have a surprise for you during the games first.” You heard Caracalla giggling, what had they planned?

In the Colosseum you were seated in between them. The two of them clearly enjoyed the bloodshed. Geta watched with a calm gaze and a smile on his face, Caracalla on the other hand was clapping and laughing as soon as blood was spilled. They had plenty of servants filling their cups, while they drank and enjoyed the finest food. You watched silently with your hands folded in your lap. The screams of agony from whoever was being slaughtered only reminded you of home. When you closed your eyes you could see the families being slain, the face of the Parthian general clear as day. You couldn’t have protected them even if you wanted, it made you feel helpless.

“And now! For the main event, our undefeated champion!” The master of ceremonies announced. Geta gave you a shove, making you look up at what was actually going on in the arena. “The Tigris of Gaul!” The crowd roared when he entered. He rode in on a rhino, the heavy beast trotting in.

Caracalla was basically jumping of his chair now, he took your hand and led you to the edge of the balcony. His grin was like a cheshire cat. “This will be our gift to you.” He spoke.

Geta got up as well, gracefully walking to place a hand on your back.

“Our champion will be taking it up against the Parthian Mithridates!” A beat up and confused man entered the ring, you recognized his face immediatly. It was the general that had killed your citizens. You remained silently as you coldheartedly watched the man taking it up against the Tigris of Gaul.

It didn’t take long for the gladiator to have the general on his back, he had only been given a dull sword. He had no chance of winning. The Tigris held his blade against the general’s neck, looking up to the emperor’s balcony for approval to kill him.

Geta had been smiling this entire time, gauging your reaction. “Well? What do you say? What judgement will the gods render.”

“Kill him.” Caracalla almost spat in your ear, his behaviour getting more erratic. “Kill him!”

Your thoughts ran a hundred miles an hour. That was the man that killed your people, he might even have killed your father. He caused so much suffering, so much death. You had him in your clutches now, you were the one deciding his faith. You looked down at him, the tears had fallen down your cheek a while ago. Were you able to say word, have this man killed? You had always been a sweet girl, your father sang praises of your gentle nature whenever he could. But something had changed, something had stirred.

They had given you this chance. This could mean war with Parthia and yet they still did it. They did it because they could, and they wanted you to have revenge. If being of empress of Rome ment you could reign terror down on the ones that hurt your people you had made your decision.

You looked at Geta, giving him a small nod. His grin grew even wider as he grabbed your hand. He lifted it slightly, he held his other fist up. “The gods have rendered their judgement!” The crowd went silent. They all watched the downturned thumb and they cheered once more. It was true what they said about the games, show them blood or else they will want yours.

You watched coolly as general Mithridates got his throat slid, only flinching slightly as the blade his neck and the blood spurted out. Before you could see the rest you had turned around to leave the emperors box.

“Where are you going. You are missing the best part.” Caracalla frowned as he watched you leave.

“There is a wedding to be planned.” You replied calmly. The twins looked at each other, their gift had worked. Rome would have a new empress soon, and she would show no mercy to her enemies.

[whatsupsonnyboy]

the first time || Joseph Quinn

PAIRING: Joseph Quinn x fem!Reader

SUMMARY: The first time you and Joe meet, something clicks—quiet but unmistakable. Like the start of something that doesn’t need to be explained. And really, who were you trying to fool?

wc: 7.3K

warning: smut (mdni!!), p in v sex, protected and unprotected sex, fluff, midly slow burn (but not really lol), there's just lots of sweet boy joe and amazing sex

a/n: hey, so as i've already post about, i've been writing a bunch of one shots of how it might feel (in my mind ofc) to be in a relationship with this golden boy... so here it is, the first one. I'll post more eventually, it’s not really a story with parts but more like a collection of scenes that pop into my head. They’re not directly connected, but they all belong in the same universe. Hope you enjoy it! 🫶🏾

Feedback is welcomed <3

request are open  | masterlist

You hadn’t planned to stay long.

Just a drink or two. Say hi to Wes. Smile politely, maybe sneak out before midnight with the excuse of a fake early morning.

But then he was there.

You didn’t even notice him at first—just another face in the mix, half-shadowed by the glow of string lights and the low thrum of music. But then he laughed. God, that laugh. Low and rough and golden around the edges. And when you turned to look, really look, he was already looking at you.

That was the first hit. The first crackle of something electric and new.

Wes introduced you. Casual. Effortless. And suddenly you were standing closer than necessary, drinks in hand, eyes locked, trading names like they meant something more.

He was funny. Way funnier than he had any right to be. And warm. Charming in a way that wasn’t performative, but lived-in. Like he didn’t need to impress anyone but couldn’t help doing it anyway.

You asked about his work—half curious, half testing. He didn’t dodge, didn’t show off. Just smiled, scratched the back of his neck, and said, “I love it. Even when it’s a mess. Maybe especially then.”

You nodded, because you got it. Because you were already thinking the same thing about him.

Time blurred after that. Drinks refilled. Conversations spiraled—music, books, worst dates ever, the best breakfast food after 2 a.m. You laughed so hard at one of his stories you had to cover your mouth with your hand, and he just grinned at you like you were his new favorite thing.

When people started leaving, neither of you moved. You were leaned into each other now, shoulders brushing. His fingers drummed absently on his glass. Yours curled around the edge of the sofa like they wanted to close the space.

So when he offered to walk you home, it didn’t feel like a decision.

It felt like the natural next breath.

You walked through the quiet streets, city humming softly around you, your conversation dipping into silences that weren’t awkward, just charged. Your arms bumped once. Then again. And neither of you apologized.

By the time you reached your building, the air felt thicker somehow. Like it knew.

You paused outside the door, keys in hand, heartbeat tapping like a warning or a dare.

“Do you wanna come up?” you asked.

And he—of course he did.

The elevator was quiet, slow, and small enough that your shoulder brushed his again. This time, he didn’t pretend it was an accident.

He looked at you—really looked at you—and that was it.

You kissed him.

There was no hesitation. No awkward pause. Just the sharp inhale before your mouths collided, hot and eager, like you’d both been waiting for permission all night.

His hand cupped the back of your neck. Yours slid into his hair. You kissed like the elevator could betray you at any moment, like you only had seconds, and every one of them mattered.

When the doors slid open on your floor, your lips were still touching, your breath caught between kisses.

And you have no idea what you were doing, but it felt so right that questioning yourself about it wasn’t even an option. 

-

The door clicked shut behind him, but he barely registered the sound. Your hand was still in his, and your smile—soft, a little crooked—was the only thing anchoring him.

You tugged him gently into the apartment, fingers laced with his like it had been that way for years.

No small talk. No tour. No hesitation.

Just the unspoken hum that had been building all night, finally breaking the surface.

When you turned to face him, your lips already parted, he didn’t wait. He kissed you like he needed to. Like the moment he’d felt your mouth in the elevator hadn’t been nearly enough.

You tasted like wine and something sweeter he couldn’t name. Your arms circled his neck, pulling him closer, and he groaned into your mouth when your hips pressed into his.

It hit him all at once—how good this felt. How easy. The way your bodies seemed to move in sync, like instinct, like muscle memory from a dream he hadn’t realized he’d been having.

You gasped into his mouth, and that sound—sharp and breathless—lit him up like a live wire.

His hands found your waist, then your back, then slid lower, gripping your ass as he pulled you closer. He was hard already, pressed up against you through his jeans, and when you shifted just right, grinding into him with a little roll of your hips, he swore under his breath.

“Fuck, okay,” he muttered, eyes half-lidded, mouth dragging down to your neck. “You—god, you feel insane.”

You laughed, but it caught in your throat when he bit gently just beneath your ear.

Then everything sped up.

Your jacket hit the floor. Then his. His fingers were under your shirt, warm and demanding, tracing up your spine as if memorizing you. You didn’t hesitate—you lifted your arms, let him peel the fabric off you like a second skin.

He stared.

Because shit.

You stood there in a bra that barely held you in, chest rising fast, eyes blown wide. You looked wrecked already—and he hadn’t even touched you properly yet.

“You’re...” He exhaled hard. “Jesus, you’re unreal.”

And when he kissed you this time, it wasn’t sweet. It was starving.

He backed you into the couch, hands everywhere—pushing, pulling, gripping, needing. You tugged at his shirt until it was gone too, and your hands ran across his chest like you couldn’t decide where to touch first. He loved that. The urgency. The want in you.

When your mouth landed on his jaw, then slid lower, biting down on the edge of his collarbone, he groaned—loud, filthy.

“You’re driving me fucking insane,” he panted, rutting against your thigh without even meaning to.

Your hand dropped to his waistband, teasing. “Yeah?” you whispered, voice wrecked and dangerous.

He nodded, helpless.

“Then let me.”

The way you said it—it wasn’t a question.

You palmed him through his jeans, slow and confident, watching the way his breath hitched, the way his eyelids fluttered. He wasn’t used to being this undone this fast. But you had him—already.

His hands slid behind your back, unclasped your bra with practiced fingers, and when the straps slipped off your shoulders, he barely gave you time to react before his mouth was on you. Tongue and teeth and lips, worshipping, making you moan—fuck, that sound, he’d chase it forever.

The way you arched under him, like every touch was too much and not enough.

The way you gasped his name like it was the only word you remembered.

It was pure heat. Messy and fast and real.

And when you whispered, breathless, “Come to bed,” your lips swollen, pupils blown wide, he didn’t even hesitate.

He didn’t care about tomorrow. Or what this was. Or where it might lead.

All he knew was that he needed to feel your body under his. Needed to hear you fall apart.

And if he was lucky, he’d get to wake up beside you.

You led him by the hand, your steps quick, your breath even quicker. The apartment wasn’t big, but every second it took to reach the bedroom felt like an eternity stretched tight with want.

The moment you were through the door, you turned to face him, pulling him in again like you couldn’t stand the distance. Your back hit the edge of the bed and you kissed him like you meant to steal the air from his lungs.

He smiled against your lips when you fumbled with the button of his jeans, your fingers slightly clumsy in your rush. You cursed softly, laughed under your breath.

“Sorry,” you murmured.

“Don’t be.” His voice was low, rough. “It’s perfect.”

And it was.

Every little misstep, every shaky inhale, every wide-eyed second of wonder—it was perfect.

His jeans hit the floor. Then yours. You tugged at each other’s underwear with a mix of eagerness and surprise, and when he finally kicked his off and you stood in front of him completely bare, his breath caught in his throat.

You were stunning. Not just beautiful—though, fuck, you were—but alive. Lit up from within. Chest rising fast, lips parted, looking at him like he was something you couldn’t wait to taste.

And god, he wanted to be tasted.

You lay back on the bed, pulling him with you, and he followed without hesitation, settling between your legs, both of you skin-to-skin for the first time. It was overwhelming. It was right.

Your hands roamed his back, his shoulders, your mouth brushing along his jaw, and he felt everything. Every inch of contact. Every trembling breath.

And when he dipped his head to kiss your chest again, slower this time, your fingers tangled in his hair, your hips lifted into his without thinking.

“I don’t have—” he began, breath hitching.

“In the drawer,” you whispered.

He reached blindly, found the condom, tore the wrapper with shaking fingers. You helped him roll it on, your touch so tender it nearly broke him.

He looked at you once more, one hand cupping your jaw, thumb brushing your cheekbone.

“You good?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.

You nodded. “Yeah. I want this.”

Fuck. So did he. More than he could admit out loud.

The second he pushed into you, slow and deep, your mouth fell open with a gasp that echoed straight through his chest.

“Fuck—” he groaned, breath catching, head dropping against your neck. You were tight, so wet around him it was almost unbearable. His fingers dug into your hips, like anchoring himself was the only way not to lose it too fast.

And you—you arched into him, legs curling higher around his waist, nails dragging down his back.

“You feel so good,” you whispered, voice already wrecked. “So fucking good.”

Joe swore under his breath. He could barely think. Could barely hold back. The heat between you was blinding, raw, something feral clawing at his insides.

He pulled back, thrust in again, and your body met his with such perfect rhythm that his control slipped a little—hips snapping harder, breath rough in your ear.

Your hands roamed down his back, fingers brushing the dip of his spine, then slipping between your bodies until they were there—on your clit, teasing yourself as he fucked into you.

“Oh fuck, yes,” you moaned, back arching, head thrown back. “Right there, just like that—”

Joe looked down at you, eyes dark and hungry, and the sight of your hand moving against yourself while he was buried deep inside you… it undid him.

“Jesus, you’re gonna kill me,” he growled, grabbing your wrist, replacing your fingers with his own. “Let me.”

You whimpered, hips jerking as he rubbed slow circles, watching you unravel for him. Your face. Your breath. The way you bit your lip to muffle the sounds that wanted to break free.

“Let them hear you,” he whispered, lips brushing your ear. “Don’t hold it in. I want every fucking sound.”

You obeyed.

You moaned like the world was ending. Like no one had ever touched you right until now. His name on your tongue, over and over, like a spell that made you shake.

He was losing it.

You clenched around him, again and again, dragging him deeper, and he couldn’t stop the filth that poured out of him.

“You’re so fucking wet for me,” he muttered, voice shaking. “So perfect. Taking me like you were made for it.”

You whimpered beneath him, hips rolling in rhythm with his, and then your hand was on him, cupping the back of his neck, pulling him down to kiss you like it was the only way to stay grounded.

You kissed him open-mouthed, messy, tongues sliding together, both of you panting, slick with sweat, chasing something neither of you could name.

When you broke away, your voice was hoarse, breathless.

“Harder, Joe. Please—fuck, don’t stop.”

He didn’t. He couldn’t.

He grabbed your thigh, lifted your leg higher over his hip and started thrusting harder, deeper, until the sound of skin against skin filled the room.

You cried out, high-pitched and desperate, and your walls tightened so suddenly around him he swore.

“Oh my god—” you gasped, and then you were falling apart, shaking, clenching around him so tight it pulled a raw, broken moan from his chest.

Your orgasm hit you like a wave, and he felt it—watched it—his fingers still working your clit through it all, not letting up.

“Fuck, you’re so—so fucking perfect—” he stuttered, barely holding on. “I’m gonna—fuck, I’m gonna come—”

Your mouth brushed his ear, breath hot. “Come inside me, baby. Come for me.”

And that was it.

He came with a groan, hips stuttering, pulse racing, holding you so close he thought he might crush you. You took every second of it—his shaking, his panting, the broken way he whispered your name like it was salvation.

Then silence.

Then breath. Tangled limbs. Sweat. Skin against skin.

And the most beautiful fucking quiet.

He stayed inside you, forehead resting against yours, both of you trembling.

You exhaled a shaky laugh. “Holy shit.”

He smiled, dizzy and wrecked. “Yeah. Holy fucking shit.”

-

Your breathing was still uneven when he collapsed beside you, chest rising and falling in erratic waves. His skin was warm and damp, and yours probably wasn’t any better. But when his arm instinctively reached for your waist and pulled you closer, it didn’t matter. Nothing did.

There were no words. Just the soft rustle of sheets and your fingertips drawing lazy, invisible patterns over the curve of his bicep. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head—gentle, almost reverent—and you let out a quiet sigh, one of those that come not from tiredness, but from fullness. Overwhelmed in the best possible way.

And you stayed like that. Breathing together. Letting your bodies cool down but your connection settle in deeper. There was nothing awkward. No pressure. Just warmth. Familiarity. His thumb brushing your side. Your knee nudging his softly under the sheets.

You didn't mean to fall asleep. But you did.

And somehow, when your eyes blinked open hours later, he was still there.

The light was pale and golden, sneaking in through your curtains. Your bedroom looked dreamlike, still hazy with sleep and the remnants of the night before. You turned slightly and found him already looking at you, face resting on the pillow, eyes still heavy-lidded, hair a mess of curls flattened on one side.

And it didn’t feel weird. Not at all.

“Hi,” you whispered, voice still raw from sleep.

He smiled, lazy and crooked, and it made your stomach do something ridiculous.

“Hi,” he echoed, voice low and warm and sleepy. “You drool a little, you know.”

You gasped, pushing at his chest with the back of your hand, laughing despite yourself. “You liar.”

“Swear on my life.” He grinned. “Just a little. Cute though.”

You groaned and buried your face in the pillow, but he only laughed, that soft, raspy morning laugh that already felt too intimate. Too familiar.

Like you’d heard it a hundred times before.

When you peeked out again, he was still watching you, eyes scanning your face like he was trying to memorize something.

“I usually hate sleeping next to someone,” he murmured.

Your heart skipped.

“But with you…” He shrugged slightly. “Didn’t even notice. Slept like a baby.”

You smiled then—slow, genuine, a little unsure. Because what were you supposed to say to that?

He shifted closer, his forehead gently bumping yours, and you felt his hand stroke slowly up and down your arm. His thumb brushed over a spot on your shoulder, then traced lazy circles on your skin.

Neither of you said anything else. There was no need. 

Eventually, you turned, slow and careful, until your back was pressed to his chest and his arm slipped around you without hesitation. His hand settled on your stomach, warm and still.

You let out a soft sigh and nestled into him, your legs tangling under the covers. For a moment, everything was quiet—breath and body, shared warmth, the steady thud of his heart against your spine. Then his fingers shifted, just slightly. Slid lower.

The first thing you felt was heat—his chest pressed against your back, the slow roll of his hips, still half-asleep but already there, already hard. Your breath caught as his hand skimmed your stomach, fingers brushing lower, exploring like he hadn’t had his fill last night. Like he’d only just begun.

“Fuck,” he murmured, voice thick, scratchy with sleep. “You’re already—”

“Yeah,” you whispered, shifting your hips back against him, shameless.

He groaned, the sound low and desperate, and you could feel it vibrate through your spine. His lips found the spot behind your ear, open-mouthed, warm, lazy like everything about that morning, but hungry in a way that made your pulse spike.

“You sure?” he murmured, fingers sliding between your thighs now, stroking through the wetness he found there, drawing a sound out of you that was all need. 

You turned your head just enough to meet his eyes, and he looked wrecked already—his curls a mess, his gaze still soft with sleep but blown wide with want.

“Yeah,” you breathed, not hesitating. “Just finish outside.”

He stilled for a moment. Just a beat. Long enough for the gravity of it to flicker in his eyes. But then you reached back, guided him to you, and that flicker turned to fire.

“Fuck—okay. Okay.”

The first push inside was slow, careful, but deep—achingly so. You both gasped, your body stretching to take him, his hand gripping your hip like it was the only thing anchoring him to the planet.

“Jesus… you feel amazing” he whispered, half in awe, half in disbelief. 

“Don’t stop,” you whispered, forehead dropping to the pillow as he began to move, drawing back, then pressing in again with that maddening control. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

And he didn’t. He couldn’t have even if he tried.

It wasn’t frantic—this wasn’t a race. But it wasn’t slow either. It was deep. Focused. Like he was trying to memorize every inch of you from the inside. His hand slid under you, fingers finding your clit, stroking in tight circles as he thrust, eyes fixed on the spot where your bodies met like it might disappear if he blinked.

“You take me so fucking well,” he muttered, voice shaking. “So good like this. So—shit—warm. Wet. Fuck.”

Your mouth dropped open, hands gripping the sheets as the pressure built, deep and consuming. Every snap of his hips sent sparks up your spine, every stroke of his fingers wound you tighter.

“Joe—”

“Say it again.”

“Joe—oh my God—”

He bent over you, his chest flush to your back, lips brushing your shoulder, your neck, your ear.

“Feel how deep I am?” he murmured, cock pulsing inside you. “I can feel you gripping me, baby, fuck—don’t stop, don’t you dare stop.”

You came with a strangled cry, your body locking around his, muscles fluttering, your whole self unraveling in waves. He thrust once, twice more, desperate now, but then pulled out with a groan—messy, hot, and helpless as he came on your lower back, one hand braced on the mattress, the other gripping your hip like it might keep him from flying apart.

His breath was ragged, your name half-formed on his tongue, and for a second, all you could hear was the rush of blood in your ears and the high-pitched whine of satisfaction in your bones.

You lay there, both of you trembling, panting, your bodies still joined, sweat cooling between your skins.

There were no words. Just the beat of your hearts, too fast and completely in sync.

He kissed your shoulder, once, twice. You reached back to touch his thigh, his hip—anything to anchor him to you. To keep him right there.

And for a moment, neither of you moved. No guilt. No fear. 

Just skin. Breath. Fire. Somehow, trust.

You lay there, breathing together, warm and safe beneath the quiet weight of morning. Your legs tangled again. His hand resting on your hip. His thumb started drawing circles along your arm as he could memorize you by touch.

And when you finally started drifting off again, lulled by the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, he pressed one last kiss to your temple.

Soft. Unthinking. Like second nature.

You smiled against his chest.

Neither of you meant to fall asleep again. But you did.

And somehow, that felt like the most intimate part of all.

- 

The second time you woke up, it was to the scent of coffee and the quiet sound of someone humming off-key in your kitchen.

For a moment, you thought you’d dreamt the whole thing—until you stretched, and the ache between your thighs reminded you vividly that you hadn’t.

You reached for a hoodie, padded barefoot into the living room, and there he was—standing by the stove in nothing but his boxers and one of your oversized mugs in hand. His curls were still a mess. His back was turned, but when he heard your footsteps, he glanced over his shoulder and grinned.

“Morning, again,” he said, handing you the mug without missing a beat.

You took it, fingers brushing his for a second too long. “You made coffee?”

He shrugged, modest and smug all at once. “Well, I didn’t burn anything, so technically I made magic.”

You laughed, shaking your head, and sat on the edge of the couch as he poured his own cup.

It was easy. Too easy.

The kind of morning where you both felt like you’d skipped a few steps. Like you were already past the awkward stage. You talked about nothing in particular—your mutual distaste for early mornings, how Wes never mentioned either of you to the other (the bastard), the fact that you both hated people who didn’t rinse their dishes before putting them in the sink.

He made you laugh. A lot.

And at some point, still barefoot, hair wild and shirtless, he leaned against the counter and said, “Last night was… not what I expected.”

You looked up from your coffee, raising an eyebrow. “Disappointed?”

“God, no,” he said immediately, then softened. “It was just—better. More. You know?”

You nodded. Because you did know.

There was something about it. About him. About this. And you could both feel it pulsing under the skin, but neither of you tried to name it.

Eventually, the time came. He went to grab his things—shoes, phone, jacket—and you trailed after him, not quite ready to say goodbye, but not wanting to be that person either.

He stood by the door, pulling his jacket on, one arm still half out of the sleeve, when he turned to you with a smirk.

“So… am I allowed to ask for your number, or is this one of those magical one-night-stand rules where I disappear like a gentleman and we pretend we don’t exist?”

You blinked, then laughed, genuinely caught off guard. “You’re such an idiot.”

“Flattering,” he replied. “But I’ll take it as a yes?”

You rolled your eyes, grabbing your phone. “Give me yours. I’ll text you.”

He rattled off the digits, and you sent a simple “Hi” before he even finished spelling out his last name.

He looked at his screen, smiled, then looked back at you like he was about to say something else—but didn’t.

Instead, he leaned in and kissed your cheek. Soft. Warm. Familiar, again. Like he’d done it a hundred times before.

“See you around,” he murmured, brushing his thumb over the edge of your jaw.

And then he was gone.

The door clicked shut, and the silence he left behind was anything but empty.

It was full.

Full of something unnamed but very, very real.

-

You never had the talk.

No labels, no declarations, no drawn-out conversations about what this was or where it was going. It just was.

He texted you that same afternoon. Something dumb and funny. A meme you still had saved in your camera roll. You answered. And he answered back. And suddenly, you were talking every day. Not constantly, but consistently. Steadily. Like the kind of tide that always comes back to shore.

The first time you met up again, it was spontaneous. He was nearby. You had an hour to kill. You grabbed coffee and sat in the park. He stole your cookie. You punched his arm. He kissed you mid-laughter, with your cup still in hand, and just like that—there it was again.

That thing.

And then came the nights. The way his hand would slide against the small of your back as you opened the door. The way he’d kiss you like he’d been waiting for days, even if it’d only been hours.

You’d fuck on the couch. In your kitchen. Sometimes barely making it to the bedroom.

It was intense. Messy. Addictive.

But never rushed.

He made you laugh mid-moan. You pulled his curls just to hear the sound he made when you did. He always made sure you came first—sometimes second—and then held you like he couldn’t stand the idea of leaving. Sometimes he stayed. Sometimes you did.

You shared breakfast. Showers. Bad TV. Inside jokes. His hoodie. Your leftovers.

Somehow, he learned how you liked your tea. You learned what cologne he wore. He kept a spare toothbrush in your bathroom. You found one of your scrunchies on his nightstand once.

And none of it felt like a big deal.

It was just natural.

You’d text him something random at 1AM. He’d reply with a voice note that made you laugh out loud in bed. You'd call him when your day sucked. He'd show up at your door with snacks and that face that made everything easier.

You never talked about exclusivity. You never needed to.

Because even if no one had said it aloud, you both already knew.

It wasn’t casual. Not really.

And still, neither of you used the word "relationship."

But it didn’t matter.

Because every time he kissed your forehead before leaving, every time he whispered “sleep tight” like a secret, every time you caught him staring like he was still surprised you were real—something in your chest softened.

Something in you knew.

And maybe you weren’t officially together.

But your hearts hadn’t gotten the memo.

-

He didn’t really notice when it started to change. Maybe that was the point.

There was no sudden shift, no dramatic realisation. Just a quiet accumulation of small things that began to matter more than he expected.

Like the way his phone would light up and he already knew it was you. The way your name on the screen felt like a hit of dopamine—something in his chest unclenching without him even realizing it. The way the days stretched a little too long when he didn’t hear from you.

He started keeping snacks you liked in his apartment without thinking. He started recognizing your routines—how you stole his hoodie when it got cold, how you took your coffee with oat milk and exactly one sugar, how you always asked if he’d eaten after a long shoot. He noticed the way you hummed softly when brushing your hair, and how your laughter lingered in his apartment long after you'd gone.

He hadn’t planned to stop seeing other people. It just happened. Not out of obligation. Out of instinct.

You stopped replying to those flirty messages. He stopped swiping right out of boredom.

It wasn’t something you ever discussed. There was no awkward conversation, no labels. Just a quiet understanding—like turning down the volume on a song that didn’t hit the same anymore.

One night, Wes texted him asking if he was going out to their usual bar, and Joe found himself replying, “With her tonight.” He didn’t even think twice.

“You seeing her now?” Wes asked.

He stared at the screen for a while. Not officially. Not technically. But yeah. Yeah, he was.

And maybe the most surprising part was that none of it scared him. Not like it used to.

There was this night—you were curled up on his couch in his shirt, eating cereal at midnight, laughing at something stupid he’d said. And he watched you, spoon halfway to his mouth, thinking, Fuck. I really like her.

He didn’t say it. Of course not. But it was there. In the way he touched your back without thinking, or the way he waited for your laugh to fade before kissing you.

He got used to you without realizing.To the way your shoes sat by the door when you stayed over. To the way you wrapped yourself around him in your sleep, like his body was where yours belonged. To the way the silence between you didn’t press down—it settled around you both, warm and easy, like a shared blanket.

He hadn’t realised how much space you'd taken up in his life until he was scrolling through his photos one night and found more of you than anything else. Pictures you didn’t even know he’d taken—your head thrown back in laughter, curled up with a book, sleeping against his chest.

He remembered waking up before you one morning, the light slipping through the blinds, your arm thrown across his stomach, your hair a mess, your face half-buried in the pillow. He just laid there, watching. Not because he was having some big epiphany. Just because it felt nice.

Then came that Tuesday. You were in the bathroom, hair up in a messy knot, brushing your teeth with one hand and scrolling on your phone with the other, wrapped in his old t-shirt like it belonged more to you than him. Joe sat on the edge of the bed and watched.

Not in a creepy way. In a shit, this feels good kind of way. In a please don’t let this go anywhere kind of way.

You caught him staring—of course you did. You always did. Mouth full of toothpaste, you raised an eyebrow. “What?”

He just grinned. “Nothing.”

But he meant everything.

Because it wasn’t just the way you looked in the morning, or how you always denied stealing the blanket.It was the way you’d become his soft place to land. It was the cardigan draped over his chair. The mugs in the sink with your lipstick on the rim. The playlist on his Spotify titled hers.

The lines between you and him had blurred so gently, it didn’t even feel like change.

It just felt right.

And no, he hadn’t said it out loud yet. But when you fell asleep with your head on his chest and his arm pulled you closer like instinct, he didn’t need to.

You probably already knew.

-

He’d been pacing around the apartment for most of the afternoon, fingers stained with ink from scribbled notes, corners of scripts folded and dog-eared, empty mugs lining the coffee table like some modern art installation of a man losing his grip. The flat smelled faintly of coffee, highlighters, and the Thai food box he had grabbed in that small local in front of his gym and barely touched.

His phone buzzed earlier—your name lighting up the screen like a small calm in the storm.

“hey, out for a bit but I’ll swing by around eight?”

He’d smiled when he read it. A quiet kind of smile, the kind that tugged at the corners of his mouth even as his eyes were half-glued to a page of dialogue he couldn’t get right.

“Perfect. I’ll order pizza.”

And then he forgot about it. Not you, exactly. Just the time. The waiting. The worrying about whether you’d show or not. You’d said you’d come, and that was enough. You’d always done what you said so far. He trusted that. Trusted you. It was himself he didn’t quite trust lately.

The new script was a minefield. The director intimidating. The pressure building behind his temples like a storm he couldn’t quite outrun. Somewhere between scene fourteen and seventeen, he pulled his hair back into a tie and rubbed his face with both hands, muttering something half-human under his breath.

He hadn’t even realized the sun was already setting when Wes’s name lit up on his screen.

“you bailing on us tonight?”

He blinked, thumb hovering over the keyboard. “Had plans. Next time i swear”

A beat. Then another buzz. Wes had sent a photo.

Dim pub lighting. Clinking glasses. And you—laughing. Head tilted toward someone familiar. Keith. A friend of a friend. All easy charm and textbook good looks. The kind of guy who always had too much confidence and not enough shame. His arm wasn’t touching you, not exactly. But it was close.

“well… maybe you should reconsider”

And that—that—was when it hit.

A flash of something ugly and electric shot straight through his gut. Not quite anger. Not quite panic. Just that instinctive, animal sting of I don’t want anyone else that close to her.

He tossed the phone onto the couch, harder than necessary.

Fuck. He didn’t want to care. Hadn’t planned on caring. You weren’t his girlfriend. You hadn’t talked about exclusivity, or commitment, or any of that. You were just… seeing each other. Spending time together. Sleeping together.

But still.

He ran a hand over his mouth and stared at the photo again.

Just a few hours ago, he hadn’t had a single thought like this about you. You were the one thing not stressing him out.

Now, you were burning a hole in his brain.

He flipped his phone face down. Then face up. Then picked it up again. He’d stared at the photo so long it had burned itself into his vision. The way you were laughing, the exact curve of your shoulder leaning toward Keith. The lighting didn’t help. It could’ve been a casual moment, an ordinary conversation. But in his head, it had already become something else. A whole story.

Keith. That charming asshole with an ego bigger than his biceps. The kind of guy who calls waitresses “princess” and still manages to get dates. It wasn’t jealousy—at least, not exactly. It was a sharp, nagging sting of insecurity. Of fear. Fear that you were out there realizing you could be with someone easier. Less complicated. Someone who didn’t have their brain split between you and a script that read like ancient code.

He stared at a fixed point on the floor, leaning back on the couch, arms crossed, legs tense. The script beside him felt more like a threat than an opportunity. The notes he’d taken—now scattered across the table—looked like pieces of a mind that didn’t know where to begin.

He went to the bathroom, splashed water on his face, stared at himself in the mirror. Didn’t like what he saw. Came back to the living room. Sat down. Stood up. Turned on the TV. Turned it off. Checked the time: 8:04 p.m.

Not late. Not really. Four minutes was nothing. But to Joe, it felt like a century.

He walked to the kitchen, opened the fridge without knowing what he was looking for, then closed it again. The pizza he’d ordered—maybe a little too early—was already getting cold. Like him. Like everything.

He forced himself to sit back on the couch. Put on an old record—one of those he used when he needed to focus. But the needle barely hit the first chords before he got up again, restless. He went to the window. Pulled back the curtain. You weren’t there. Closed it. Opened it again. Closed it once more.

8:11.

“Fuck,” he muttered, dragging his hands down his face. He didn’t want to be that guy. The one spinning drama in his own head. The one building stories before the movie even started.

But there he was.

And the knot in his chest was pulling tighter by the minute.

Everything about the new film was overwhelming him. He wanted to scream at the ceiling. Throw the script against the wall. Nothing made sense. And the only thing that did—was you. It was you, goddammit. The one thing that didn’t need decoding. That felt simple, and somehow, impossibly huge at the same time.

That’s why it hurt. Because exactly for that reason, the idea of losing you—or worse, realizing you weren’t as in it as he was—felt unbearable.

And then, at 8:16, the doorbell rang.

His heart did this stupid little jump. He got up too fast. Felt that ridiculous urge to pull himself together, to act normal, to pretend he hadn’t been falling apart on the inside.

He wanted the sound of your arrival to reset everything.

But it wasn’t enough to quiet the noise. Not when the doubt was already echoing in his throat.

And when he opened the door… he didn’t know if he wanted to pull you into his arms or put you on the spot. If he wanted to kiss you or yell.

And that—exactly that—was what pissed him off the most.

-

You knew something was wrong the moment you saw his face. 

It wasn't the kind of wrong you could smooth over with a kiss or a joke about the pizza going cold.  It was the kind of wrong that sat heavy in the air, thick in your throat.

"Hey," you said, stepping inside. Smiling, out of instinct, even when your gut already knew better. "Sorry I’m late. I stopped by the pub for a bit, lost track—"

"Yeah," Joe said. Short. Sharp. Already turning away.

You shut the door behind you, heart picking up speed. The living room was a mess hunched over, papers scattered around him like a small, personal storm. 

He laughed, low and humorless. "I didn’t know if you were still coming."

You blinked. "I told you I was."

"Right," he muttered. "But maybe you were grabbing pizza with Keith instead"

You stared at him. "What?"

He grabbed his phone from the couch, tossed it onto the table. The screen still lit up with the photo: you, standing close to Keith, laughing over something stupid, a drink in your hand. Frozen mid-smile.

"Are you checking up on me now?" you said, a little sharper than you meant.

"Wes sent it." He raked a hand through his hair. "He was concerned."

Your stomach twisted. "No. You were concerned."

He laughed, but it was hollow. Bitter. "Yeah, well maybe I was, especially when I saw you smiling at him like that."

You stared at him, anger flickering up, hot and defensive. "You don't get to say that. You don't get to throw that at me when we never—"

"I know!" he cut you off, standing up suddenly, voice breaking. "I know we never said anything, okay? I know we were both just... assuming things and pretending it was all casual and cool and whatever the fuck, but it's not. Not for me."

The words hung there, raw and electric.

You stepped back, heart hammering, because it was true for you too. You just hadn’t said it. Hadn't dared.

"I’m not seeing anyone else," you said, almost without thinking. "I haven’t even thought about it since you."

He stared at you like you’d just said something unbelievable. Like maybe he didn’t deserve to hear it.

You swallowed hard. "And yeah, I was talking to Keith. Didn’t realize that’d be a fucking crime”. 

Joe closed his eyes for a second, like the weight of it physically hit him. When he opened them, he looked wrecked. And beautiful.

"I’m sorry," he said, hoarse. "I’m fucking scared, alright? I’ve got this project that’s swallowing me whole and half the time I think I’m gonna fail, and you’re the only thing that makes me feel like maybe I won't. Like maybe I’m not a complete fuck-up."

You felt your chest tighten, emotions crashing all over you.

"Then don't push me away," you said, stepping closer. "Don’t look for reasons to doubt this when I’m standing right in front of you."

He shook his head, almost helpless. "I don't want anyone else," he said, voice rough. "I don't even see anyone else anymore. It's just you."

You could feel your throat tightening, that sting behind your eyes, but you forced yourself to stay steady.

"It's you for me too," you whispered.

The silence felt thick and heavy and full of everything you hadn't said before tonight.

Then Joe moved — fast, almost clumsy — closing the space between you, pulling you into him like he couldn't bear the distance for a second longer. His mouth found yours in a kiss that wasn’t soft or careful — it was desperate, claiming, full of everything that had been burning between you for weeks.

And you let him. You let yourself fall into it, finally, completely. Because you knew. He knew. It was real.

You didn’t make it to the bedroom. You barely made it past the couch.

Joe kissed you like he meant it now. Like every inch of his mouth on yours came with a promise. No more holding back, no more ifs. Just you and him, here and now, and whatever the hell this was that had already swallowed you whole.

He pressed you against the wall, hands threading into your hair, breath hot and ragged against your cheek. "Fuck, I missed you," he groaned, like the hours apart had been unbearable.

"You had me yesterday," you gasped, tugging at the hem of his shirt, needing him bare, needing him now.

"Not like this." He pulled it over his head and dropped it to the floor, eyes hungry and tender all at once. "Not after hearing you say it."

You stilled for a second, chest rising too fast. "Say what?"

He leaned in, mouth brushing your jaw, your cheek, your ear. "That you wanted me. That you weren’t going anywhere."

You cupped his face in your hands, staring into those stupidly beautiful, frantic eyes. “I didn’t say it tonight, Joe.”

He blinked.

“I’ve been saying it every time I’ve come back.”

And then he lost it.

He picked you up, hands under your thighs, your legs wrapped tight around him, and carried you blindly through the apartment until you crashed into the edge of the bed. He didn’t even bother pulling the covers down.

Clothes disappeared like they were on fire.

His mouth was on your neck, then your chest, then lower—devouring, tasting, worshipping. You were already shaking by the time he slid inside you, both of you gasping like it hurt, like it healed.

“Jesus—fuck—you feel like home,” he choked out, burying his face in the crook of your neck, thrusting deep, slow, relentless.

You grabbed at his back, his hair, anything to ground yourself. “Don’t stop—don’t you fucking stop.”

He didn’t.

He moved like you were the only thing keeping him together. Like if he stopped touching you, he’d fall apart entirely. The rhythm grew rougher, faster, but still so full. Not desperate. Claiming.

“You’re mine,” he whispered, forehead pressed to yours, sweat dripping down his temple. “Tell me you’re mine.”

You gasped, eyes wide and wild. “I’m yours, Joe—fuck—I’ve been yours.”

He groaned into your mouth and slammed into you harder, and it wasn’t careful. It wasn’t sweet. It was real. It was raw and feral and exactly what both of you needed.

Your orgasm hit like a wave you didn’t see coming—hot and electric and blinding. And he followed almost instantly, moaning your name like it was a sacred word, collapsing on top of you, chest heaving, heart pounding against yours.

Silence.

Just the sound of breath and skin and the world finally slowing down.

You felt him shift, just enough to look at you. His eyes—open, vulnerable, like he’d just been cracked wide.

And then, softly, so softly—

“I love you.”

You blinked, breath still uneven.

And smiled.

“Yeah,” you whispered. “I love you too.”

And just like that, there were no more questions.

Only answers written on skin, on sighs, on mouths still swollen from too much kissing.

[luv-lock]

ㅤֹㅤ⊹ㅤ #ㅤWHORE’S FANTASYㅤ.ᐟ ֹ ₊ ꒱

☆⁠ PAIRING : John Constantine x Fem Reader

☆⁠ HEADCANON : How Would He Be When He's Obsessed?

☆⁠ NOTES : There are some +18 parts. Minors DNI. English is not my first language. Hope you enjoy!

You don't notice him at first.

Not really.

You're too busy tugging the hem of your cheap purple dress down over your thighs, smeared lipstick staining the corners of your mouth.

Mascara streams down your face, thick and ugly, like bleeding spiderlegs across dead eyes.

You’re half-high, half-drunk, standing barefoot behind the shitty little bar where the real dirtbags like to crawl, and you’re lighting another cigarette with shaking fingers. The end of it flares like a dying star, and you pull the smoke into your lungs like you’re hoping it'll fill the hollow parts of you.

You stink of alcohol.

You smell like roses.

You taste like regret and somebody else’s hands.

He sees you.

God help him, he sees you.

John Constantine, bastard mage, conman, addict, cynic — he’s not a savior. He’s not a white knight.

He's just another piece of shit who recognizes his own.

He flicks the end of his cigarette into the gutter and watches you struggle with the strap of your dress, tits half-hanging out in the yellow light of the alleyway.

You should look pathetic.

You should look cheap.

You do.

But somehow, you look... more, too.

There’s something about you, something cracked and shining and wrong.

Like a broken mirror catching all the wrong reflections.

Something that crawls under John's skin, burrows between his ribs and digs in sharp little claws.

He tells himself it's nothing.

Just another lost girl.

Just another night.

But he’s lying.

Already, he’s lying to himself.

He lights another cigarette and steps out of the dark.

“You alright there, love?” he rasps, voice like a bad memory, smoke curling from his lips.

You look at him with those dead doll-eyes. No fear. No real interest, either. Just this slow, heavy indifference like you're already halfway in the grave.

You shrug.

You hitch your dress up higher.

You don’t bother pretending to be shy. You gave up pretending a long time ago.

“What do you want?” you ask, voice raw from cheap whiskey and cheaper choices.

John should walk away.

He knows this kind of girl, the ones with nothing left to lose. They eat you alive without even meaning to. They rot you from the inside out.

He should turn around.

He should let you slip back into the filth where you came from.

Instead, he laughs.

Soft, almost pitying.

“Just a light, sweetheart,” he lies, flicking open his battered silver lighter even though his own cigarette is already burning between his fingers.

You narrow your eyes at him, suspicious, but too tired to care.

You let him light your cigarette anyway, leaning in, close enough that he can smell the roses in your hair, the smoke on your skin, the slow stink of desperation leaking off you like cheap perfume.

You don't know it yet, but you've already cursed him.

That first night, he doesn't touch you.

He just watches you, out the corner of his eye, as you stumble back inside the bar, laughing that dry, broken laugh at something nobody else can hear.

He tells himself he won't come back.

He tells himself it's none of his business.

He tells himself he’s already got enough bloody ghosts to haunt him without adding another.

But he does come back.

Again.

And again.

You don't really notice him after that first night.

Not the way he notices you.

To you, he's just another face in the blurry noise of your nights — another man with a lighter, another set of boots tracking dirt across the floor.

You don't know he comes back.

Every night now.

You don't know he sits in the corner, half-drunk, chain-smoking, pretending to mind his own business while you keep carving pieces off yourself and handing them to anyone who asks.

You're too far gone to care.

Always high, always halfway between laughing and crying.

Your eyes — God, those fucking eyes —

half-lidded, lazy, dead as winter, but still so pretty it makes something sour twist in John's gut.

It happens on a Tuesday.

You’re outside again, the bar's back alley, slumped against the crumbling brick wall like a broken doll.

Dress bunched up around your hips, one shoe missing, a cigarette burning forgotten between your fingers.

You’re shaking. Coming down hard.

You’re muttering to yourself under your breath, something sharp and ugly.

John watches you for a long time before he moves.

He hates himself for it.

Hates that he cares.

But he moves anyway.

Without thinking, he fishes a crumpled wad of cash out of his coat pocket and crouches in front of you, holding it out like a white flag.

"Here," he says gruffly, avoiding your eyes. "Get y'self something to eat. A bed, maybe. Somethin' better than... this."

You blink at the money.

Then at him.

And then — slow, crooked grin splitting your face — you laugh.

That dry, brittle laugh, like something breaking.

You grab the cash with one hand — and with the other, you reach for his belt.

John freezes.

You’re clumsy, sluggish, but determined, tugging at his pants like it’s just the most natural thing in the world. Like this is just how the world works:

money = you.

"Y'wanna fuck me, right?" you slur, eyes glassy but sharp underneath. "Go on then, mister. Paid up, didn't you?"

He grabs your wrists, not rough but firm.

Pushes your hands away.

"Christ," he mutters, like a prayer, like a curse. "That’s not why—"

You tilt your head at him, mascara streaked down your cheeks, lips dry and cracked.

You look at him like he's the crazy one.

"Then why else you givin’ me money?" you ask, so blunt it cuts.

"No one gives girls like me free rides, mister."

You grin again, crooked and sad, and your dress slides even further up your thighs.

You don't even notice. Or maybe you do. Maybe you just don't care.

John exhales smoke through his nose, staring down at you, feeling something black and oily coil inside his chest.

"Pity," he says finally, bitter. "Maybe I’m a stupid sod with a savior complex. Maybe I’m just drunk."

You squint up at him through the smoke and the haze, studying him like he's some strange animal you've never seen before.

Then you shrug.

Simple. Easy.

Like you’ve already decided it doesn’t matter either way.

"Y'can fuck me if you want," you say, almost sweetly. "You're not ugly."

John laughs. A short, sharp, broken thing.

He almost wants to take you up on it, just to feel something real for a change.

Almost.

Instead, he shakes his head, rubs a hand down his face.

"Go sleep it off, love," he says, voice rough. "Get a hot meal. For once."

You clutch the money to your chest like it’s something hole.

Like it’s the first good thing anyone’s given you in a long time.

And you just smile at him —

this soft, stupid little smile that shouldn't hurt to look at, but somehow does.

John tells himself it's still just pity.

Just a bit of guilt, a bit of bleeding heart nonsense.

But when you stumble away into the night, barefoot and laughing under your breath, he stays there, standing in the alleyway like a man who's just been punched in the gut.

And he watches you go, smoke curling around him, cigarette burning down to the filter between his shaking fingers.

He doesn't leave.

Not for a long, long time.

He sees you again three days later.

He’s not looking for you —

at least that’s what he tells himself.

Just grabbing a pint.

Just passing through.

You find him first.

"Hey, mister."

Your voice cuts through the noise.

Soft. Small. Almost shy.

He turns, half expecting the same disaster he left behind in that alley —

the smeared makeup, the too-short dress, the wild deadness in your eyes.

But you’re different this time.

You're...

sober.

No makeup.

No booze in your veins.

No cigarette dangling from your fingers.

Just you —

barefaced, raw, skin looking almost too thin for your bones, but real.

Alive.

You stand there awkwardly, hands buried deep in the pockets of a too-big hoodie, cheap sneakers scuffing the pavement.

You don’t look like the kind of girl who sells herself to survive.

You just look like a girl.

"I’m not a beggar," you say suddenly, fidgeting. "But... thanks. For the money."

John blinks, caught off guard.

You flash a little smile — nervous, genuine, heartbreaking.

"Mister's a good man," you say.

It punches something deep in his gut.

He’s not.

You’re wrong.

He’s done worse than you could imagine.

But you say it like you believe it. Like it’s fact. Like it's written somewhere in a book bigger than either of you.

He swallows around the sudden tightness in his throat.

"You hungry?" he hears himself asking.

You light up. Not much, but enough.

A flicker. A spark.

"Yeah," you say simply.

You spend the day together.

It’s stupid.

It’s perfect.

You get street food — cheap, greasy chips wrapped in newspaper.

You drag him through the streets like a manic little hurricane, pointing out dogs that look like goblins, shouting compliments at old ladies, daring him to race you down alleyways.

At one point, you find a children's park — some half-dead little patch of grass and rusting swings.

You bolt for it like a kid.

"C'mon, mister!" you holler, kicking your shoes off and running barefoot through the patchy grass. "Play with me!"

John stands there like an idiot for a second, cigarette halfway to his mouth.

Then he sighs. Drops the smoke. Crushes it under his boot.

And jogs after you.

You end up pushing each other on the swings, spinning until you're both dizzy, laughing like two drunk ghosts.

You even convince him to climb the jungle gym — which ends with him cursing and almost falling on his ass.

You laugh until you wheeze.

He grins despite himself.

You’re smiling.

Really smiling.

Not that broken, brittle thing he’s seen before.

This one’s messy and real and full of life, like you don’t know you’re supposed to be miserable.

For a few hours, you’re not a ghost.

You’re just a girl.

Later, you sit side by side on the grass, lighting cigarettes with shaking hands.

The sun's sinking, staining the sky blood-red.

John takes a drag, exhales smoke in a long, slow stream.

"You..." he starts, hesitates. Scratches the back of his neck, suddenly awkward.

"You gonna... y'know. Work. Tonight?"

You turn your head slowly toward him.

Wide eyes.

Clear and open and a little confused, like you genuinely don't understand the question at first.

And then—

You laugh.

Sharp, bright, cutting.

"Why?" you grin wickedly, teeth flashing. "Mister wanna make his money’s worth?"

John winces.

You elbow him lightly, still laughing under your breath, cigarette bobbing between your fingers.

"Nah," you say finally, settling back on your elbows, face tipped toward the sky.

"I’m good. Probably won’t need to for a week, thanks to you."

You tap ash into the grass.

"Guess you bought me a vacation, mister."

There’s a strange peace in your voice.

No bitterness. No shame.

Just simple, stupid gratitude.

John wants to say something —

something clever, something to fill the aching silence between you —

but the words stick in his throat.

You crush the cigarette out on the sole of your sneaker, rising to your feet in one fluid, tired motion.

"See ya, Mister," you say, tossing a lazy wave over your shoulder as you drift away into the gathering dark.

John stays where he is, sitting on the grass, smoke curling around him like a noose.

He watches you go.

Again.

And he tells himself it’s just pity.

Still just pity.

It’s a week later.

Exactly a week.

John remembers, because you said it.

Because your voice — lazy and teasing and sweetly poisonous — stuck in his bloody head like a song he can’t turn off.

"Probably for a week," you’d laughed.

And now it's been seven days.

He tells himself he’s just passing through.

That he’s not looking for you.

He’s lying to himself. He knows it.

The night air smells like piss and diesel.

The streets are sticky with old rain and regret.

The city yawns open, ugly and hungry, swallowing girls like you whole.

He’s late.

He knows it the second he spots you.

You’re stumbling down a filthy back alley, shoes dangling from one hand, the other hand dragging along the brick wall for balance.

You’re half-folded over, bent at the waist like you’re trying to walk on a sinking ship.

Your pretty dress is twisted.

Your hair’s a mess.

Your mascara — the little you bothered with tonight — is bleeding down your cheeks.

You giggle.

It’s a wet, broken sound.

You take two more steps, your legs buckling.

John’s moving before he can even think.

You're about to hit the concrete when John lunges forward and catches you.

"Whoa there, love," he mutters, arms wrapping around your shaking frame.

You giggle again, breathless against his chest.

"Heyyy, Misterrrr," you slur, blinking up at him with those wide, beautiful, dead eyes. "You gonna fuck me nowww?"

John frowns, adjusting his grip on you.

Your body is practically boneless in his arms, and you reek of cheap booze and something sweeter underneath —

roses wilting in dirty water.

"You alright, pet?" he tries, voice low.

You don’t answer.

Just hum some tuneless nonsense under your breath.

Your fingers tug weakly at the sleeve of his coat like a child needing comfort.

"Christ," he mutters, pulling you closer.

"You’re a bloody mess."

You nod cheerfully like you heard him, but you're not really there, not really.

Your head lolls back and you grin up at him — wide, dumb, beautiful — before you suddenly double over and—

you vomit all over him.

All over his coat, his shirt, his bloody boots.

John grimaces, steadying you as your whole body shudders.

"That's alright, love," he says quietly, patting your back while you cough and gasp and sag against him.

Still — something twists deep in his gut.

Doesn’t even think about it.

Instead, he just tightens his grip and scoops you up —

like you’re something precious, something fragile, something he’s terrified might break if he’s not careful.

He takes you to his flat.

It’s not much —

just a shitty little place that smells like old books, cigarettes, and alcohol.

But it’s clean.

It’s safe.

He strips off his ruined coat, tosses it into the sink, and carries you to the couch.

You’re half-passed out by the time he gets you there.

You’re murmuring under your breath, little nonsense things, like a kid muttering in their sleep.

John finds a blanket.

Tugs it up around your chin.

Your face is flushed.

Your lips are parted.

You look so fucking young like this. So stupidly young and vulnerable.

He pulls a chair close to the couch and sinks into it heavily, lighting a cigarette with shaking hands.

He watches you.

He watches you all night.

He doesn't move.

Doesn’t sleep.

Not really.

When he finally dozes off — just for a moment — the dream hits him hard.

It’s you.

Of course it’s you.

Your body under his.

Your mouth gasping his name.

Your nails digging into his skin.

Hot and dirty and desperate.

His.

He jerks awake with a sick, guilty twist in his gut, heart hammering against his ribs.

You’re still sleeping, innocent and oblivious, curled up like a child under the blanket he gave you.

John scrubs a hand down his face.

"Fucking hell," he mutters.

What the fuck is wrong with him?

You don’t remember a damn thing when you finally stir hours later.

You’re sitting cross-legged on the couch, wrapped up in the blanket like a cocoon, staring down at your hands.

When you see him, you blink.

Confused.

Flickering through memories that aren’t quite there.

"I... um," you start, frowning. "Did I...?"

"You threw up on me," John says dryly, tossing a clean t-shirt over the back of the chair.

"And passed out. Real classy."

You flush — a soft, miserable red creeping up your neck.

"Sorry, mister," you mumble, cheeks burning. "Didn’t mean to be a bother."

John ruffles your hair, chuckling dryly.

"S’nothin’, love. You’re alright."

You sip the coffee that he gave you, curling your bare legs under you, shrinking into yourself like a kicked dog.

John doesn’t like that look on you.

Not one bit.

He makes you breakfast —

burnt toast and greasy eggs and orange juice that tastes like tar.

You eat like you haven’t had a real meal in days.

He watches you across the table, smoking and pretending he’s not watching.

When you’re finished, you wipe your mouth on your sleeve and stand up awkwardly.

"I should... go," you say, pulling the blanket tighter around your shoulders.

"I'll drop you," John says quickly — too quickly.

You blink at him, surprised.

"Really, mister. It's fine—"

"I insist," he says, already grabbing his keys.

He tells himself it’s just to make sure you get home safe.

He tells himself it’s not because he needs to know where you live.

He’s lying again.

The walk to your place is quiet.

You lead him through crumbling back alleys and graffiti-smeared stairwells until you reach a battered old building that looks half-abandoned.

You pause at the front door, shifting from foot to foot.

"This is me," you say softly.

You smile — small and sad and shy.

"Thanks, mister," you add. "For... y'know. Not letting me die in a gutter."

John shrugs like it’s nothing.

Like it didn’t cost him anything.

Like he didn’t dream about you all fucking night.

You wave again —

that same lazy little wave —

and disappear inside.

John stands there for a long time after you’re gone.

Smoking.

Thinking.

Feeling things he doesn’t want to name.

He can’t stop thinking about you after that.

He tells himself he’s just worried.

Just making sure you’re alright.

But it’s not just that.

It’s the way you looked curled up in his blanket.

It’s the way you smiled at him like he was the only good thing in a world full of monsters.

It’s the sound of your voice — broken, brutal, beautiful.

He starts going back to the places he might find you.

Starts listening for your laugh.

Starts noticing every girl with a cigarette and mascara-smudged eyes and thinking, There she is. That’s her.

But it’s never you.

And the empty ache in his chest just grows bigger and bigger.

It becomes a ritual after that.

Every night now, John comes to take you home.

Doesn’t matter where you are, what you're doing.

He finds you.

In some shit-stained alley.

In the back of some filthy dive bar.

In the arms of strangers.

Sometimes he catches you mid-fuck —

bent over some broken table, some guy's hands bruising your hips, your eyes half-closed, mouth open but silent.

Sometimes you’re wiping your face with the back of your hand when he gets there.

Cum glistening on your cheeks, your lashes, your lips.

John doesn't say anything.

Doesn't yell.

Doesn't judge.

He just shrugs out of his coat, drapes it over your shoulders, and leads you away like he’s guiding a sleepwalker.

But it eats him alive.

Every time he sees another man's hands on you, another man's cum dripping down your chin —

something black and ugly and furious wakes up inside him.

He hates it.

He hates it more than he’s ever hated anything in his cursed, miserable life.

So he starts giving you money.

Not much, at first.

Crumpled bills tucked into your pocket with a gruff, embarrassed cough.

"Buy yourself a proper meal, yeah?" he mutters, looking anywhere but at you.

You smile — that soft, broken little smile — and take it without question.

You don’t ask why.

You don’t ask for more.

But John sees the change almost immediately.

You stop letting strange men touch you.

Stop letting them buy your drinks, pull you into dark corners.

You cling to John instead.

Follow him home like a stray cat.

Sleep curled up on his couch, wearing his t-shirts, stealing his cigarettes.

And he lets you.

He fucking lets you because somewhere along the way, he stopped being your savior.

And started being your jailer.

You just don’t realize it yet.

You trust him.

God help you, you trust him because he’s the only man who hasn’t tried to fuck you.

The only man who doesn’t look at you like you're a thing to be used and thrown away.

John keeps telling himself that's all it is.

That he just wants to protect you.

That it’s not about the way your t-shirts ride up over your thighs when you stretch.

Not about the way your bra strap slips off your shoulder when you laugh.

Not about the way your lips wrap around the neck of a beer bottle absent-mindedly when you're not even thinking about it.

It’s not about any of that.

It’s not.

Until the night it is.

You're sitting on the couch, barefoot and cross-legged, wearing one of his shirts that’s far too big on you.

Talking.

You were rambling about your past again—

About shitty foster homes and shittier men.

About how you learned real young what men really wanted.

About how you stopped believing in fairytales because your prince charming turned out to be another monster with rough hands and a mean mouth.

You were laughing when you said it.

That pretty, broken laugh of yours.

Like it didn’t hurt anymore.

Like you didn’t care.

John should be listening.

He really should.

But he’s not.

He’s staring.

At your lips, moving so soft and easy.

At your chest, rising and falling with every careless breath.

At the hint of skin peeking out when you shift, the worn fabric of his shirt clinging to the curve of your tits.

He feels his cock twitch in his jeans.

Hardening.

Throbbing.

And suddenly he’s not hearing a word you're saying anymore.

Just staring.

Just wanting.

You don’t notice at first.

You're still talking —

some story about some bastard who left you bruised and bleeding and crying at a bus stop.

But then you glance at him.

Catch the way his eyes are dark and heavy and fixed on your mouth.

Catch the obvious, aching bulge in his jeans.

Your smile falters —

just for a second.

Just a flicker of something sad and brittle flashing across your face.

And then you smile again.

A dull, tired smile.

Like you're used to this.

Like you expected it all along.

Like it doesn’t even hurt anymore.

You crawl across the couch to him.

Settle between his knees.

Fingers working open his belt like it's just another job, just another disappointment.

John grabs your wrists.

"Wait," he rasps, voice cracked and desperate.

You look up at him.

Not angry.

Not pleading.

Just resigned.

"’S'alright, mister," you murmur, that flat smile never leaving your lips. "You’re different, yeah? It’s fine."

He wants to tell you no.

Wants to shove you away and run and never see you again.

But he doesn’t.

He lets you.

Lets you free him from his jeans, your small hands working his cock free, hard and throbbing and leaking pre-cum.

Lets you take him into your mouth —

warm and wet and willing.

Lets you suck him off slowly, lazily, like you're doing him a favor you don't even care about.

And it feels good.

God, it feels so fucking good.

Better than anything he’s had in years.

Better than magic.

Better than whiskey.

Better than the cigarettes burning a hole in his lungs.

He groans low and broken, one hand finding its way into your hair, guiding you with trembling fingers.

You don't protest.

You don't flinch.

You just take it.

Take him.

Until he’s spilling into your mouth with a raw, guttural gasp, the world going white around the edges.

Afterwards, you sit back on your heels, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand.

Still smiling that awful, empty smile.

John pulls his jeans back up with shaking hands.

Silence stretches thick and suffocating between you.

Finally he croaks out, "Do you... do you hate me now?"

You tilt your head at him, considering.

Shrug.

"Hate’s a strong word," you say lightly. "I'm just disappointed."

The words slice into him sharper than any blade.

But you don’t seem to notice.

Or maybe you just don’t care.

You stand up, stretch your arms over your head, and yawn like a cat.

"It’s fine," you add, already wandering toward the kitchen.

"Not that it matters. You're the one paying me now, right? ‘S'all good."

And somehow, that hurt worse than anything.

Worse than if you had screamed at him.

Worse than if you had slapped him across the face.

He just sat there, jeans still undone, staring at you.

At the hollow place where your soul used to be.

At the pretty, broken thing he was slowly making his own.

After that night, something inside you changes.

You’re not sweet anymore.

You’re not soft.

You still smile —

God, you always smile —

but it’s dull now.

Lifeless.

Like a neon sign buzzing in a dead city.

You're full.

Full of disappointment, full of resignation, full of the ugly truth.

John's just another piece of trash.

No different from the rest.

Just another man who wanted something from you, no matter how pretty he dressed it up.

John tries to pretend it’s love.

Tries to kiss you like you're a fucking miracle. Tries to touch you like you're made of something holy.

But you're not.

You’re empty.

You're a vessel. A cracked and leaking thing.

And he’s just another man filling you up with his filth.

Another Mister who wants something and takes it.

You don't hate him.

You don't love him either.

You just accept it.

Same as you always do.

Then it happens again.

And again.

You don’t protest.

You don’t pull away.

You let him touch you.

Let him rut against you.

Let him use you.

But you don't feel it.

Not really.

You don't kiss him with your mouth.

You kiss him with your absence.

You moan because you know he likes it.

You arch your back because that's what they want.

You scratch your nails down his spine because someone taught you that men like to feel owned, just a little.

But your eyes are always distant.

Wandering.

Dead.

John notices.

He notices everything.

How you never meet his eyes anymore.

How your smile never reaches your cheeks.

How you don't fall asleep curled against him like you used to.

You just lie there —

cold, silent, naked —

like a broken doll someone forgot to put away.

Sometimes, when he’s fucking you, he talks to you.

Whispers your name into your neck.

Tells you how good you feel, how beautiful you are, how much he needs you.

You don’t answer.

You just whimper prettily when you think you’re supposed to.

It drives him insane.

Because you’re there —

but you’re not.

He can touch you, own you, fill you —

but he can’t reach you.

You’re a locked room he lost the key to.

You’re a dead girl smiling.

One night, he’s rougher than usual.

Not violent.

Just desperate.

Hands grabbing too tight.

Mouth bruising your skin.

Fucking you deep and hard, like he's trying to break through whatever walls you’ve built between you.

You let him.

You always let him.

Afterward, he collapses beside you, panting, sticky with sweat and shame.

You roll away from him, staring at the cracked ceiling.

Silent.

Smiling.

He touches your hair, brushes it back from your face.

"You’re not... you're not mad, are you, love?" he asks, voice raw.

You blink slowly, still smiling that awful, empty smile.

"Nah," you murmur. "You’re just Mister, right?"

You say it so sweetly.

So gently.

And it cuts deeper than any knife ever could.

John doesn’t know what to say.

Doesn’t know how to fix this.

Doesn’t know if he can.

So he just lies there, listening to you breathe, feeling the space between you turn colder and colder.

Like a grave filling up with dirt.

After that, it gets worse.

The sex is mechanical now.

A transaction.

A ritual.

He gives you money.

You give him your body.

He holds you like a lover.

You let him.

He kisses you like you're precious.

You let him.

He tells you he needs you.

You let him.

But in your eyes —

God, in your eyes —

he sees it.

The truth.

He’s no different.

He’s nothing special.

He’s just another man who fucked you when you were too broken to fight back.

Just another name on the list you’ll forget one day when you're drunk enough, dead enough, free enough.

And the worst part?

You don’t even blame him.

You just accept it.

Because that’s all you’ve ever known.

And John...

he hates himself more every day.

But he still keeps coming back.

Keeps reaching for you like a man dying of thirst reaching for a poisoned cup.

Keeps hoping for a miracle that never comes.

Because you’re already dead inside.

And he’s the fool who helped bury you.

— MASTERLIST ☆

— © luv-lock. Don't copy, use or translate any of my works here or any other websites ☆

[stylesispunk]

"Blind faith" part vii

priest!Joel Miller x dancer!reader

masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

summary: Joel and you are heartbroken because of each other. You crave his touch and he craves yours. w.c: 6,7k warnings: age gap (joel is in his late 40 and reader late 30s), angst, violence, a broken finger, mentions of death, manipulation, mentions of politics, mentions of exile. Reader is latina and english is not my first language and i'm stupid. a/n: I know I said I wouldn't make Joel suffer anymore because i'm still grieving and crying for him. But this story has angst and i'm sorry. Everything will be better soon. Thank you for all your love and I hope you enjoy it somehow.

dividers by @/saradika-graphics

"Yes, and two cups of coffee, please"

His voice this close to your ears felt like a punch to your gut. It disgusted you, the thought of being this close to him, to smell the reeking scent of his cologne, it made you want to vomit.  

the waitress wrote down the order while asking directly at you, "something else?"

Gabriel lifted his gaze, locking eyes with you, “waffles? Do you love them”

"I don't want anything, thank you." you replied, in a monotonous voice, fidgeting with your fingers under the table. Your hands were still stained with Joel’s blood and your heart constricted.

“Bring them anyway” he said to the waitress. You could hear the sound of the pen writing down the order in the paper, but really nothing mattered to you right now.

You sat in a booth by the window, pale morning light spilling over the table, highlighting the dried, still darkening stains on your hands. No matter how many times you’d scrubbed them raw in that cracked porcelain sink, it clung to you, under your nails, in the creases of your skin.

Gabriel sat across from you, posture too casual for what he'd done, for what you’d both lived through. His jacket hung from the back of the seat, his sleeves rolled up, his hands pristine.

"Stop with that face and that fucking attitude. The priest didn’t die.” He said, “Besides, you made me look like a monster."

You finally raised your eyes to him, a dull, dead stare. “You are.”

His jaw clenched. “No. I’m not.”

“What you do makes you one.”

“I risked my own life for—”

“How many people have you killed, Gabriel?” your voice cut through the air like glass. “How many have you tortured these last months? How many more because someone told you to? Because you wore that damn soldier uniform and it let you believe you were untouchable?”

He opened his mouth, a retort rising in his throat. “You’re a—”

“Am I what?” you interrupted, pushing him to his own limits, your voice breaking, raw and unsteady. “A fucking burden? A communist? What am I to you, Gabriel?”

Gabriel’s mouth snapped shut, his jaw flexing, words hovering unsaid on his tongue like they’d burn him if he spoke them aloud. His gaze darkened, something mean and ugly flickering behind his eyes — and for the first time in months, you weren’t afraid of it. You were too tired, too hollow, too scraped clean of anything but rage and grief. Grieving a life, you couldn’t go back to.

He looked away then, out the window where the pale morning light spilled over empty streets, over a town that wasn’t home to either of you. His hand gripped the edge of the table, knuckles pale.

“You were… the only thing that made any of this bearable,” he muttered. “And you ruined it.”

A humorless, bitter laugh clawed out of your throat. “I ruined it? You ruined it. You ruined the moment you lied to me. When you used me. You sold me out to the same people who murdered my friends, who would’ve killed my family, and you’re sitting here, in this fucking café, drinking coffee like any of that can be undone.”

The waitress passed by, hesitating for a second at the tension thickening the air around your table, but neither of you noticed.

“I risked my life to get you out,” Gabriel snapped.

“For what?” you fired back. “So you could drag me back in again? So, you could play savior one day and executioner the next?”

He leaned in, voice low and tight. “I was trying to save you from yourself.”

“No, Gabriel,” you said, finally meeting his eyes again. “You were trying to save your place. Your pride and ease the guilt you must feel every damn night.”

And for a split second — just one — you saw it crack in him. The anger. The guilt. The truth of it all. And you hated that a part of you still recognized the boy you’d once loved in that face.

“I want to kill you.” He spoke.

You didn’t flinch. You didn’t even blink.

“I know,” you whispered, voice steady in a way that surprised even you. “And some days, I wish you would’ve done it that day.”

The words hung there between you like smoke, choking, heavy, impossible to take back. His expression faltered, something bleak and tired flashing through his eyes, and for a moment he looked like a man who’d lost every war he’d ever fought, including the one inside himself.

“I wake up every fucking day wanting to forget you,” Gabriel said, his voice rough, frayed at the edges. “But I can’t. You haunt me.”

“Good,” you murmured. “I hope I do.”

Your heart pounding in your ears, stomach twisted into something tight and ugly.

“I moved names for you,” he said, softer now, like it mattered. Like it would made you less frigthened “I bought your family’s freedom. Paid for it with my life, my rank. You’ll never know what that cost me.”

“I didn’t ask you to.” You replied, “You knew what kind of person I was and I am. You were aware of my beliefs and my values.”

Gabriel’s jaw tensed, his hand curling into a fist on the table between the untouched cups of coffee. The silence stretched — thick, suffocating — before he finally spoke again, his voice low, bitter.

“I knew,” he admitted. “I knew you were fire and danger and a thousand things that could ruin me. And I didn’t care. I just… I wanted you. Even if it meant burning for it.”

You shook your head, a broken, hollow laugh catching in your throat. “That’s not love, Gabriel. That’s possession. You wanted me like people want land, or power — to claim, to own. Not to protect.”

He looked at you then, really looked — and for the first time, you saw it: the wreckage of a man he’d become. A soldier stripped of his command, a traitor in his own uniform, carrying ghosts in his chest that no war could bury.

“You’re right,” he murmured. “I ruined everything.”

A lump formed in your throat, your eyes stinging with tears you refused to let fall. “You didn’t ruin me,” you said quietly. “I’m still here. Despite you. Because of me.”

You pushed your chair back, the legs scraping against the worn floor. “I don’t owe you gratitude, Gabriel. Not for saving what you tried to destroy.”

“Will you ever forgive me?”

For a moment you forget the man in front of you was the same one who lured you into a fairy tale love story. Through lies he had braided himself because he knew you. He knew what you thought, what you did, what you love and what you hate. He knew your name and what you fought for, and as if you were a witch he tried to hunt you.

But he fell in love with you.

You paused, a breath hitching in your chest, before shaking your head without meeting his gaze. "For what? For killing my friends? For sending your soldiers friends to follow me? or do you want me to forgive you because you are the reason I'm exiled from my home?"

“I wanted to kill you,” he admitted, bitter and broken. “Every day since you ran. I told myself I would, when I found you. That I’d put a bullet in your head between those soft eyes of you and I would bury every part of me you ever touched.”

Your throat felt tight, a war raging in your chest between anger and the ache of remembering the boy he used to be, the one who had lured you, before you met the man in the uniform, before the orders, before blood stained both of his hands.

“But I couldn’t,” Gabriel said, quieter now. “Even with the gun in my hand last night when you looked at me like I was a monster. I couldn’t fucking do it.”

You swallowed hard, blinking fast, heart pounding in your ears.

“You were my ruin,” he breathed. “You still are.”

And for a long, terrible moment, the silence stretched between you like a wire pulled taut.

Gabriel let out a sharp, humorless laugh, the kind of sound scraped raw from a man unraveling. He leaned back in his seat, eyes dark, exhausted, something hollow flickering in them.

“What am I going to do to you now?” he repeated, voice like splintered glass. “I should drag you back. Deliver you like they wanted. Let them finish what I couldn’t.”

Your fingers tightened on the edge of the table, pulse hammering. You forced yourself not to flinch.

“But I won’t,” he said, quieter now. “I don’t even know if it’s mercy or cowardice. Maybe both. Maybe I’m more afraid of what would happen to me if I stop knowing you existed.”

You stared at him then — really stared. At the man you once thought you came close to love. The boy who’d once sworn he’d never become one of them. And yet here he was, uniform or not, lost in a war of his own making.

“I don’t want your mercy,” you told him, voice low but unyielding, like a cut that didn’t bleed right away but hurt all the same. “And I don’t want your guilt. I don’t need your ghosts following me around to feel the weight of what’s already been taken.”

Gabriel’s jaw clenched, the flicker of something — grief, fury, longing, maybe all of it tangled together — crossing his face before he looked down at the table, fingers curling into fists.

“You were my ruin,” he murmured again, as though the words themselves might explain away the things he’d done. “I wake up every day wanting to hate you, and I can’t. I wanted to kill you… I still want to. But more than that, I want to disappear inside you. And that’s the worst thing, isn’t it?”

Your throat tightened. The room felt smaller, the air thick with everything unsaid, everything shattered between you.

“Then disappear, Gabriel,” you said, looking away, the rays of sunshine filtering through the window felt like the hand you should take to in order to escape. “But do it far from me.”

“And letting you to go back to that priest that easily?” he asked, making you freeze.

The words hit you like a stone to the chest, sharp, sudden, heavy. You froze, hand still on the edge of the table, the brittle morning light spilling in around you. Your heart twisted at the mention of Joel; at the blood you’d scrubbed from your hands but still felt beneath your nails.

Slowly, you turned, meeting Gabriel’s gaze. His face was a ruin of its own now, anger and bitterness, some frayed thread of old love barely hanging on.

“He has nothing to do with this.” you said, though your voice betrayed you, cracking at the edges. “Don’t bring him into this.”

Gabriel huffed a humorless breath, leaning back like he needed the distance or he might reach for you. “Isn’t it?” he asked. “It seems to me like he is the one thing you don’t want me to touch now, but he still betrayed you.”

Gabriel stared at you, and for the first time, he looked tired. So fucking tired. “Did you seduce him with lap dances? I mean, the priest?”

Your fingers curled into your palms, nails biting into skin as you fought the heat behind your eyes.

“I don’t have to dance for someone to care about me, Gabriel,” you said, your voice low, steady despite the crack threading through it. “Not everyone sees me as a fucking possession or a fucking prize.”

His jaw clenched, something flickering behind those dark, exhausted eyes. The veneer of anger, of bitterness, peeled back for the barest second, and you saw it — the grief beneath it. The part of him that would rather destroy you than admit he never stopped loving you.

“Don’t lie to yourself,” Gabriel said, his voice rough, unraveling at the seams. “You think he’s any different? You think he won’t leave you to rot the moment it stops being forbidden, the moment you become a liability?” He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “At least I was honest about who I was.”

You shook your head, the ache in your chest too deep, too familiar. “You were a lying coward,” you whispered.

For a moment, the world felt painfully, terribly still. The cold air from the open door brushed against your skin like a warning, like a promise you hadn’t made yet.

Gabriel swallowed, his throat working around words he didn’t say. And then, finally, he managed “I should kill you.”

The words should’ve made you flinch. But they didn’t.

You held his gaze, your chin high. “Then why don’t you?”

The room hung on the knife’s edge of that question. Gabriel’s stare didn’t waver, his voice a low, brutal rasp. “Because you’re already dead.”

The words didn’t land at first. Not fully. But then he added, with a cruel, quiet finality,

“Your family. They killed them.”

The air left your lungs in a single, sharp gasp, the room tilting, blurring at the edges. You staggered back a step, your fingers tightening around each other like it was the only thing keeping you upright. You searched his face, desperate for a flicker of a lie, for some crack in the story — but there was nothing. Just Gabriel, emptied out, a graveyard of a man delivering another death sentence.

And he wasn’t done.

“So, you’re lonely in a foreign country,” he went on, the words like daggers dressed in velvet, “with a forbidden lover who traded you the first chance he got. It seems to me like you’re already fucking dead, mi amor.”

He smiled then, if it could be called that. A grim, bitter thing.

“You have nothing left.”

The silence that followed was a kind of violence all its own. You couldn’t feel your hands anymore. Couldn’t hear anything past the roar in your ears.

But you wouldn’t let him see you break. Not here. Not now.

You straightened, the ache in your chest molten, teeth clenched so tight your jaw ached.

“Then bury me, Gabriel,” you said softly, venom threaded through the tremor in your voice. It was breaking but you still keep going, “but you’re too much of a coward to do it yourself.”

“But you don’t get to touch Joel,” you said, and your voice was steady now. Dangerous in its quiet. “He had nothing to do with this. With you. With the rot in your heart, you keep trying to pin on everyone else.”

Gabriel’s jaw clenched, the muscle ticking there. For a moment, you almost thought he’d strike you. Or scream. Or crumble.

But instead, he laughed. A soft, empty sound.

“That’s where you’re wrong, mi amor,” he murmured, though his voice cracked on it. “The moment he touched you, the moment you looked at him like with love in your eyes, he made himself a part of this.”

You shook your head, “You’re still so desperate to make this about you,” you said desperate “What else do you want from me?” you sobbed.

His hand twitched against the table, a flicker of something — violence or grief, you couldn’t tell.

But you didn’t wait for the next venom-laced word.

“I swear to whatever gods are left, Gabriel,” you whispered as you point your finger towards him, “if you lay a single fucking finger on him—”

but you didn’t get to finish before a crack made your vision white out for a split second.

A strangled cry ripped from your throat as pain shot up your arm, blinding and immediate. Gabriel didn’t even flinch, his grip iron around your now broken finger, his face a mask of something monstrous and unrecognizable now.

“You don’t get to threaten me,” he hissed, his breath hot and sharp against your face, voice low and trembling with barely leashed fury. “Not after everything I did for you. Not when you made me like this.”

Tears stung your eyes, but you refused to let them fall. Not for him. Not for this.

“You were always like this,” you spat through the pain, your words shaking but vicious.

For a moment, something in his expression faltered, that flicker of the boy you once knew, the one who’d whispered promises against your skin in another life, in another world. But it was gone before you could name it.

He let your hand drop, your broken finger throbbing as it hung uselessly at your side. “Run, mi amor,” Gabriel murmured, almost gentle now, and it made your skin crawl. “You can run if you want but I know where you are.”

Joel's eyes fluttered open, but the world around him felt too bright, too harsh. He blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of what he was seeing — sterile white walls, the faint beep of machines in the background, the scent of antiseptic heavy in the air.

For a moment, he just lay there, his mind tangled in confusion. Where was he? What had happened?

The dull ache in his head pulsed like a reminder, a warning. He shifted his body, but the pain stopped him, sharp and insistent. He groaned, wincing at the movement, his eyes darting around in a frantic search for something, anything that could give him clarity.

The beeping intensified, and a nurse came into view, her face kind but impersonal. She smiled at him. "You're awake," she said softly, though there was something about her voice that seemed distant.

"Where am I?" Joel's voice was hoarse, as if it hadn’t been used in days.

"You're in a hospital," the nurse replied, checking his IV. "You’ve been unconscious for a while, but you’re stable now."

He swallowed, trying to process her words. "What happened? Why… how am I here?"

She hesitated for a second, her eyes flickering with something unreadable.

“You were shot in the leg.” Carmen said, stepping inside the room. Her face seemed tired, full of anger, but also sadness covering her features. "You lost blood and ended up passing out. Billy and Mr. Langdon brought you here."

Joel's heart skipped a beat at the sound of Carmen's voice. His eyes flickered to her, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. His thoughts were still a jumble, but her presence brought a mix of relief and dread all at once.

"Billy and Mr. Langdon?" He repeated her words, confusion furrowing his brow. It was like his memory had been wiped clean, leaving him only with fragments of names and faces that didn’t fit together.

Carmen nodded; her face tight. "We were with you at the church."

He looked at her, his gaze searching, but her expression was guarded. She seemed distant, like there was something she wasn't saying. He wanted to ask more, about what happened, about her, about everything, but his mouth felt dry, and the weight of her gaze made his chest tighten.

"What about her?" His voice cracked, the question slipping out before he could stop it. He hated how weak it sounded.

Carmen’s eyes flickered to the side, her lips pressing into a thin line. "I don’t know where she is, father.”

The words hit him like a slap.

"What do you mean?" His pulse quickened, panic rising in his throat. "How many days…?"

Carmen shook her head slowly, her eyes avoiding his. "Five.” She breathed, “No one does where she is. There’s no sign of her. No trace.”

Joel felt his heart drop, his breath becoming shallow, like someone had knocked the wind out of him. Five days? It felt like the world was spinning out of control, slipping through his fingers. You’d been gone for five days, and he’d been lying here, helpless, trapped in his own body while you wherever you were—were out there out of his reach.

His chest tightened, the hospital room feeling smaller, suffocating. He wanted to push the covers off, to stand up, to search for you, but his leg, wrapped in bandages, screamed in protest.

"Where did he take her, Carmen? Where is she?” His voice broke, desperate, raw. His mind raced with images of her—her face, her eyes, the way she looked at him before everything had fallen apart. She couldn’t be gone, not like this.

Carmen’s gaze softened for a brief moment before she looked away, taking a step back. "I don’t know, father," she repeated, her voice quieter now, holding a weight of its own. "We’ve looked everywhere, but there's nothing. Just... nothing."

He could hear his own heartbeat thudding in his ears, the pulse of panic growing louder with each passing second. "I need to find her," he muttered, more to himself than to her, but Carmen was already shaking her head.

"You’re in no condition to do anything right now." Her tone was sharp, "You can barely stand. You need to rest. Let us help."

"Help?" His eyes blazed with frustration, though the pain from his leg and body was a constant reminder of his own weakness. "I was helping. I—I failed her. I need to fix this, oh my—Carmen. I have to find her."

His hands gripped the sheets tightly, and his gaze darted around the room, as if the walls themselves might give him an answer. There had to be something he could do. He couldn’t just lay here.

Carmen sighed, a long, deep exhale that carried the weight of everything she’d been holding in. She moved closer to him.

“How did Gabriel find her?” she asked, sternly.

“Do you know about him?”

She nodded, “I do, but that’s not what I asked. I asked how?”

Joel’s throat worked around the knot forming there, his pulse a jagged, uneven thing beneath his skin. He looked up at Carmen, her face hard but her eyes carrying something heavier than anger — fear.

“I—I. He came to me t one night, to my office at the church telling me he was looking out for his fiancé who ran from the wedding,” he rasped, though the words felt like a lie the second they left his mouth. His hands trembled as he dragged them through his hair. “I thought “poor guy” you know?”, for a moment he stopped, ashamed of himself,” Then he showed me the picture of the woman and it was her. I just felt so—"

Carmen didn’t move, didn’t speak, just stared at him like she could peel his words open and find the truth inside but that was enough for Joel to stop talking.

“I never knew he was a bad guy.” Joel said, his voice cracking, breaking open in a way he hated. “I was trying to help him.”

“By trading her as she was a fucking object?” Carmen asked quietly but mad enough.

Joel’s stomach twisted. A horrible, creeping thought clawed at the edges of his mind.

“Shit,” he whispered, his heart sinking.

Carmen’s eyes sharpened. “You better pray to whatever God you’ve still got left, Joel,” she said coldly. “Because if she’s dead because of you… I’ll finish what that bullet started.”

And for the first time since waking, Joel didn’t try to argue. He just closed his eyes, jaw clenched so hard it hurt, and whispered your name like a prayer.

“What do you know about this?” He asked. Heart breaking at the thought of you being in danger.

Carmen’s shoulders dropped, the weight of it pressing down on her, like she’d been waiting for this moment, for him to finally ask.

She pulled the chair closer, sitting down beside his bed. Her fingers tapped against her thigh, jaw tight, eyes distant like she was staring through the walls of that hospital room and into a past neither of them could outrun.

“I wasn’t supposed tell you this,” she said quietly. “But when you care about someone… you pay attention. You hear things you’re not meant to. See things people don’t think you’ll notice.”

Joel opened his eyes, turning his head to her, silent.

“Well, you know the part she is a ballerina dancer.” Carmen went on, voice low and steady, “She was a really good one, but she also was a really well-known activist too.” She went like she was reciting a ghost story she didn’t want to believe. “You know, things got dangerous for people like her or people who got another belief.”

Joel’s stomach twisted, his pulse roaring in his ears.

“Gabriel was a soldier, well he is.” Carmen whispered. “He was ordered to haunt her, to silence her, so he lured her somehow, but when she found out the truth, she escaped the country and she ended up here.”

Joel’s throat felt raw. “Jesus Christ…”

“And you know what’s worse?” Carmen’s voice cracked, anger bleeding through. “He didn’t just leave her with nothing. He told everyone she was dead. She’s been running ever since. Hiding in places like this, with people like us, because there’s nowhere left for her to go.”

Joel felt sick. All those moments, the way you never talked about your past, how you flinched at certain things, how sometimes your eyes went far away like you were seeing ghosts.

And him? He had just trade you over jealousy.

“She didn’t tell me all of it,” Carmen admitted. “But she didn’t have to. I could see it. And then you showed up… and I saw the way she looked at you. Like maybe… maybe you made her forget for a second.”

Joel let out a shaky breath, guilt gnawing at every part of him. “I never meant to—”

“I know,” Carmen cut him off, softer now. “But meaning doesn’t matter. Not to men like Gabriel. And if he’s got her now…”

Joel’s jaw clenched. “He won’t.”

Carmen met his eyes, a flicker of something like fragile hope in hers. “You are sinner but not for the reasons you think, Joel. You allowed your jealousy won and that doesn’t make you better than him.”

Joel winced like she’d struck him clean across the face. Because she wasn’t wrong. God, she wasn’t wrong.

The truth of it settled in his chest like hot lead, heavy and unmovable. He thought of every moment he’d let anger fester, every time he’d imagined you and Gabriel in the same room and let the bile rise in his throat instead of trusting you. How easy it’d been to believe the worst, to let jealousy twist him up until it swallowed everything else.

“I know,” he rasped, voice breaking on the words. “I know, Carmen.”

She looked away, her hand scrubbing tiredly over her face. “Then fix it,” she whispered. “You owe her that much.”

Joel nodded, jaw tight, his leg throbbing like hell but his mind already racing past the pain. Past the blood. Past the hospital walls.

“I’ll find her,” he said, more to himself than to Carmen. “I swear to God, I’ll find her.”

Carmen stood, the weight of grief and fury still clinging to her like a second skin. But there was something else too, the smallest thread of trust, like maybe, despite it all, she believed he could.

“She’s stronger than either of you deserve,” Carmen muttered, heading for the door. “She is better than any of those people in town.”

Joel’s eyes burned, but he didn’t look away. He couldn’t. Not now. Not after everything.

“I know,” he said quietly, the words barely carrying in the stillness of the room. “I always knew.”

Carmen paused at the doorway, one hand on the frame, her shoulders tight and stiff beneath her jacket. She didn’t turn, but her voice reached him one last time.

“You’ve got one shot at this, Miller,” she said, low and rough. “If you’re gonna bleed for something, make sure it’s for her.

Then she was gone, leaving him with nothing but the steady beeping of the monitors and the unbearable weight of his own regret.

Joel leaned his head back against the pillow, his pulse hammering in his ears. He didn’t have a plan yet. Didn’t know how the hell he was gonna stand on his own leg, let alone go toe to toe with Gabriel. But none of that mattered. Not when he could still hear your voice in his head, the way you used to say his name.

He wouldn’t let it end like this. Couldn’t.

It felt like a lifetime, and somehow no time at all. You’d lost count of the hours, of how many times Gabriel’s hand had closed around your wrist, your jaw, your throat — not always in violence, but always in control. He hadn’t let you out of his sight, not even when he slept. Not even when he pretended to.

The motel room was suffocating. Peeling floral wallpaper, a humming air conditioner that barely worked, and one single window you weren’t allowed near. It wasn’t chains that kept you here, it was him — the way his presence filled every inch of the space, leaving no room to breathe.

He barely spoke unless it was to taunt, to remind you of what you lost, or of what he thought you owed him. Sometimes he’d just stare at you in silence, sitting in the chair by the window with a glass of whatever he could steal or buy, his eyes glassy and distant like a man already halfway dead.

You didn’t beg. You didn’t scream. Not after the first night.

Instead, you waited. Counting every blink, every time he closed his eyes, every time his hand went to the bottle, every time his guard dropped a fraction.

Because you knew one thing: no one — not even a monster like Gabriel — could keep this kind of storm at bay forever.

And when he did sleep, it wasn’t peaceful. He murmured things in Spanish, names you didn’t recognize, curses, threats. And sometimes… yours.

The motel TV played old static-flickering movies in the background — westerns, cheap thrillers. You’d started tuning them out. The real horror was in this room.

But no matter how much you tried to steel yourself, to lock away the softer parts of you that Gabriel hadn’t managed to carve out yet — his name still found you in the quietest moments.

Joel.

You told yourself you hated him. That you had to. That after what he’d done, after the way his jealousy had made you a pawn in Gabriel’s hand again, there shouldn’t be a single piece of you left that ached for him.

But in the dim hours before dawn, when Gabriel was passed out in the chair and the flicker of the TV cast restless shadows on the walls, it was Joel’s face you saw.

Not in the way you last saw him, bloodied and broken in the church when it all went to hell. Not in anger, not in betrayal. But in the way he looked the night he let you fall asleep with your head against his shoulder for the first time. The way his calloused hand brushed a loose strand of hair from your face like it meant something for the both of you.

Like you meant something important. And perhaps you’d been a fool.

Maybe in his weakness you made him sin and he despise you.

But you’d still clung to that warmth like a drowning thing, holding it close when the world wanted to rip it from your chest.

Even now when you should’ve wished him dead, should’ve cursed his name and vowed to forget him. It was Joel’s voice you heard in your head, rasped and rough. I got you. I swear. I love you.

And God, you didn’t know if he was okay.

Didn’t know if he was coming to save you from this.

Didn’t know if he even cared anymore.

But you still hoped. And that was the cruelest thing of all.

Because it was easier to survive when you believed no one was coming. When you told yourself you were already dead.

You pressed your face into your hands, the rough skin of your palms catching against the salt of your tears. The room stank of cheap liquor and sweat, of unwashed sheets and stale cigarette smoke, and the air felt so thick you could barely pull it into your lungs.

The sobs came in fits, shuddering, ugly things you’d tried to choke down for days. But tonight, tonight it all broke.

You cried for them. For your family.

For the mother who used to hum lullabies in the kitchen late at night, for the big brother who used to chase fireflies in the yard with you, for the father whose stern words somehow meant safety.

Dead.

They were dead and you wouldn’t get the chance to know see them or ever say goodbye.

Gabriel’s words had cut through you five days ago like a blade, and you’d pretended it hadn’t shattered something vital. Pretended you could outlast it, just like everything else. But it had festered inside you, a raw, gnawing grief that clawed its way to the surface now.

You cried for yourself too. For the girl you used to be, for the future you’d started to imagine, the one with stolen moments of peace and maybe, just maybe, love. A future that had Joel in it.

And you cried for your hand. Because somehow that stupid, broken, swollen finger felt like a final insult. Gabriel hadn’t taken you to a hospital. He hadn’t even wrapped it. Just left it to throb and pulse and turn shades of bruised purple and blue, a small, constant ache to remind you of what he could do.

The bone grated against itself when you moved it, and it made you dizzy with pain, but you clung to that pain. Because it meant you were still here.

Still alive.

And maybe that was the cruelest thing of all too.

You curled in on yourself on the edge of the bed, knees to your chest, trying to make yourself smaller than the grief, smaller than the hatred in Gabriel’s eyes, smaller than the crushing weight of being so utterly alone.

“I miss you,” you whispered into the dark. You didn’t know if it was meant for your family, or for Joel.

Maybe both. Your chest ached, the kind of ache that felt endless, like it might outlive you.

A soft, broken sound left your throat. You didn’t know if it was a laugh or a sob.It filled the stillness of the room, and you didn’t even have time to swallow it down before you heard the scrape of Gabriel’s chair against the floor.

His voice came from the corner, low and coarse. “Why are you crying, cariño?”

You didn’t answer at first. Couldn’t. Your throat felt like it had been scraped raw, and your face was wet, the tears burning your skin. You just sat there, staring down at your lap, your good hand cradling the one he’d broken days ago.

The pain had changed over the last five days. It wasn’t sharp anymore, it was a steady, deep, nauseating throb that never really left, radiating up your wrist, making your whole arm feel useless and heavy. The bruising was worse now, swollen and dark, the shape of your finger misshapen.

You lifted your hand, showing it to him without a word.

The light from the old motel lamp caught on the mangled joint. The swelling, purpling skin. Your hand shook as you held it up, but your gaze stayed on him.

For a moment, Gabriel didn’t say a thing.

He just stared at it. At you.

And something flickered there, something too tangled to name. Regret, maybe.

“That why you’re sniffling like a little girl?” he asked, voice dry, like the whole thing bored him.

He took a drink from the glass in his hand, the ice clinking against the sides.

You didn’t answer. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away.

“Are you gonna fix it?” you asked hoarsely, your voice a scrape of gravel.

His brow twitched. He set the glass down on the nightstand with a heavy, deliberate thunk and stood. The room felt smaller as he crossed it, each step measured and unhurried.

He crouched in front of you, too close, smelling of whiskey and smoke and the sickly tang of sweat.

His hand came up, fingers brushing your wrist like a threat disguised as tenderness.

He smiled at you, “Okay, I’m taking you to the hospital.”

You didn’t move. Couldn’t. The words sounded like a trick, like something sharp wrapped in silk. He smiled when he said it, but it wasn’t the kind of smile people wore when they meant to help.

It was the kind predators gave right before they sank their teeth in.

“Why now?” you rasped, the words catching in your throat. You hated how small you sounded; how desperate you felt to cling to any scrap of hope and how sick it made you at the same time.

Gabriel’s smile stayed, but his eyes flickered, something colder, something careful.

“Because if I don’t,” he murmured, fingers grazing up your wrist toward your swollen hand, “you’ll lose it.” he shrugged, that easy, cruel nonchalance he wore like a second skin. “I figure you’re not much good to me all busted up like this.”

You swallowed hard, bile burning the back of your throat. It wasn’t mercy. It wasn’t guilt. It was practicality. You were his, a possession, and even a broken thing had to be kept in working order.

“Get your shoes,” he said, standing up. “We leave in five.”

You didn’t argue. Didn’t waste words. You just moved stiffly toward the corner where your worn boots sat, forcing your uninjured hand to tie them while your broken one throbbed in your lap. Every movement made your vision swim, but you bit down hard on the inside of your cheek to keep from crying out.

Gabriel pulled on his jacket, grabbed his keys, and opened the motel room door, letting the stale night air rush in. The moon hung low and thin in the sky; the parking lot empty except for his beat-up truck he had rented.

“You try to run, I’ll break the other one,” he said casually, like it was nothing.

You didn’t reply. You just stepped out into the night, the cold hitting you like a slap, and followed him toward the truck.

But something in your chest stirred, a flicker of defiance even under all the fear and grief.

Because five days was a long time to be kept in a cage.

The hospital lights were too bright.

After five days in that cramped, suffocating motel room, they made your head pound, made your eyes sting. The antiseptic smell hit you hard, thick with bleach and something metallic underneath. You kept your gaze low, shoulders hunched, following the line of Gabriel’s shadow across the faded linoleum floors.

A nurse at the front desk gave you a curious glance, her eyes lingering on the bruises you hadn’t bothered to cover, the way your left hand hung limp and swelling. But when she met Gabriel’s stare, cold and hard like a wolf daring her to speak, she looked away.

“Broken finger,” Gabriel grunted, shoving paperwork at her. “Get it done quick.”

You barely registered the words. Your mind was a storm of noise and memory, a face, dark eyes you still dreamed about even when you tried not to, a voice that rasped your name like a promise.

I swear, I got you. I love you.

Joel.

God. Joel. You thought about him the other night at the church. About his leg and if he was okay.

You could almost feel him in the walls of this place, like a phantom. A brush of breath down your neck, a tug in your chest that you couldn’t explain. Like somewhere close by, something you’d lost was reaching back for you.

But you didn’t look.

Hope was a dangerous thing, and you couldn’t afford it anymore.

Two floors up, Joel lay in a hospital bed he hadn’t allow to leave yet. Carmen had forced him to rest, but sleep wouldn’t come, not with his mind stuck in loops of.

what if, where is she, what have I done.

The steady beeping of monitors, the faint intercom calls, the distant squeak of gurney wheels.

And for one dizzy second, he thought. He thought he caught a scent he knew better than his own

The faint trace of your perfume, buried under smoke.

He turned his head, pulse kicking hard.

Nothing there.

Just a nurse walking past.

Just a shadow at the end of the hallway.

“You’re losing it, old man,” he muttered under his breath.

But he didn’t stop staring at the door, some instinct deep in his marrow telling him that you were close.

And you were.

Less than thirty yards away.

A different wing. A different hallway.

But fate was cruel, and timing crueler.

And the storm hadn’t broken yet.

You were in a cold hallway, feeling the coldness of the air freezing on your skin, the same one that still craves the touch of the same callused palms that welcomed you to daylight the moment you were looking for it the most.

You still crave Joel’s touch on your face, his fingers wrapped around your own.

You missed his eyes finding yours across the room, sharing a secret language only both of you could understand.

And you missed him despite all.

But his cold eyes sliced your heart in half and you still waited for the moment.

Under the same moon.

Tags < 3 @jasminedragoon @mandaloriankait @jellybeanxc @spencercmlover @lilac-boo @disco-fairy75 @correapunk @existentialdreadofhumanity @secretcheesecakenacho @laliceee @exzidss @missladym1981

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[king-of-the-kingless]

Weak Hero sfw and nsfw dating headcanons ^^

~~Gen-Neutral!! Reader~~ a/n: i locked tf in on this what. anyways i wanted weak hero headcanons so i wrote some lol characters - gray, stephen, ben, alex, gerard, teddy, donald and wolf ^^

gray yeon / yeon sieun

➤ definitely enjoys mutual silence as a hangout session, just sitting in silence as you two do your own thing (he’d be studying lets be honest here) but he’d prefer if you were at least in his peripheral vision ➤ would not be the first to confess, but would probably be too obvious with his admiration towards you. constantly looking at you, helping you study, the first to fight back if you’re getting bullied. mans can’t stop staring at you. he doesn’t really flirt either ➤ since he has a motorcycle license, if he gets the chance to drive again, he will gladly take you out on a date that way. enjoys your arms wrapped around his waist as he drives, your head pressed against his back. 

➤ genuinely does not care if you’re shorter or taller than him, he prefers to be the little spoon. loves to stare at you with his pretty eyes, sometimes you can’t tell what he’s thinking but he looks content, just happy to be looking at you.

➤ enjoys foreplay the most, he knows exactly where to press, fondle, when to speed up and slow down. he spends the most time on foreplay because he can only last one round, so he wants to make the most out of it. 

➤ loves, loves, loves to praise and be praised. a king of aftercare and prepping, he’s researched so much just in case y’all ever got to that point. you’re definitely his first time, so he’d be so nervous and worried he won’t be able to satisfy you

➤ about 5 inches, probably a little smaller but he will not let you measure him. keeps it regularly trimmed, he doesn’t have that much hair down there anyways. would like it if you trimmed it. very quiet, letting out a few suppressed moans if he’s close but normally quiet

➤ as for positions, he doesn’t really mind at all. doesn’t mind if he’s being dominated either, as long as it's you, he does not care at all with what you do to him. i feel like he would prefer to see your face, kissing you as you both finish together

stephen ahn / ahn suho

➤ if you’re struggling on a subject, he will gladly help. he’d honestly let you copy his homework if we’re being so honest here, he’d tell you the correct answer even if he purposefully wrote the wrong answer on his paper. ➤ enjoys coffee and library dates, grabbing a book he thinks you’ll like and vice versa and you just sit around to read the books. he’d reach over, placing his hand on your thigh or maybe your knees will be touching.

➤ he does tend to get jealous if you hang out with gray when he’s away. he knows you like him more than gray but there’s just a small lingering doubt that can easily be kissed away. he enjoys kissing you all over your face, his favorite places are your eyelids, nose and mouth

➤ if you were dating or were friends throughout his coma, he would feel very depressed that he missed so much of your life, wishing he would’ve been there for you. but you can easily reassure him of your love, telling him that you have the rest of your lives to spend time together

➤ a very lazy top, enjoys watching you fuck yourself on him but that doesn’t mean he’s submissive. he can sometimes if he’s feeling for it, but the majority of the time, he’ll tell you what to do. praising you for doing so well

➤ i feel like he tends to like being clothed while fucking, something about clothes fully askew to reach your sex, getting the fabric coated in his cum turns him on. 

➤ about 5.75 inches, a little bit of girth to him. doesn’t trim that often, but would prefer it if you trimmed it. i feel like he doesn’t have much hair on his body at all, so he never has to trim much at all. definitely a moaner that whines when he’s close

➤ loves to be ridden, his hands crossed behind his head as he watches you do your thing. he wouldn’t dare move his hips and ruin the show in front of him, even if it was killing him to just buck up into your hips and cum

ben park / park humin

➤ flexes a lot just to get your attention, very bubbly and loud just so you’ll look over at him when he isn’t near you. honestly, he’d do it even if you’re standing next to him let's be real. enjoys picking you up, regardless of how much you weigh. he does it to show off ➤ sticks to you like glue, to him the world is ending if he’s not with you. loves it if you sit on his lap, like even if there are open places to sit, he’d pull you down into his lap, wrapping an arm around your waist and hold you still. 

➤ genuinely the sweetest boyfriend you’ll ever get ngl, definitely puts you first before everything else. except food, he’ll devour everything, so you better watch out if he’s aiming for your snacks. 

➤ loves physical touch, there will probably never be a time he isn’t touching you. hand on your waist, slung over your shoulder, holding hands, ruffling your hair etc. if you have long hair, i can see him attempting to braid it, hard focus on attempt, he’s so bad at it

➤ he’s very giggly while he fucks, makes it his goal to make sure you don’t feel awkward or insecure. only time he’d ever be rough would be if he’s jealous or super pissed off but if that happens, he’s extra mindful on after care

➤ cums pretty quickly ngl, but with his stamina he’d go on for multiple rounds, fucking his cum into you. manhandles you quite a bit too, moving you around a lot, changing positions, he just can’t get enough of you

➤ oh he’s huge, 7.5 inches with a nice thick girthiness to it. doesn’t really trim that often, has a nice happy trail too. he doesn’t care about if you trim, completely shave, or have a bush. grunts the majority of the time, but moans when he’s close

➤ speaking of sitting on his lap, he becomes very flustered if he gets hard while you’re on him. he definitely prefers positions where he can see your face, enjoys some of the lazier positions too but over time he just gets so desperate for you

alex go / go hyuntak

➤ oh my pretty alex, definitely loves pda. just like ben, his hands will always be on you, clinging onto you but i feel like he is not that much of a kisser. he might kiss you like at the very least once a day but that’s it, usually the first time he spots you that day he will give you a kiss. ➤  loves arcade dates the most, even if he sucks at fighting games, he still makes it his goal you leave that arcade with a few prizes in your arms. if you win him a plushie at a claw machine, he will probably sleep with it on his bed, if it's small then maybe on his bed headboard.

➤ he’s aware of his anger issues but he just gets so jealous when others flirt with you while he’s right there, so you will have to tend to his wounds after he lashes out. he always feels guilty afterwards, worried he ruined the date, not cause he beat the shit out of someone, they deserved it

➤ enjoys taking photos with you, giving you his jackets for you to wear, loves to nuzzle his face into your neck to smell your perfume/cologne. if you two ever fight, he will definitely isolate himself from everyone, but ben will drag him back to you don’t worry

➤ always prioritizes your pleasure over his own, every single time. you will cum before him, even if he has to use his hands and mouth at the same time. would absolutely hate it if you try to fake an orgasm for him to focus on himself

➤ doesn’t really last long, could probably last a couple rounds but if you wanted more, he would gladly use his mouth. or if you had a viberator, he would use it on you to get out those last few orgasms for you. He would never fall asleep if you’re not satisfied

➤ pretty average, about 5.5 inches, doesn’t really trim at all but he would if you asked him to. same goes with you, he doesn’t care at all with how much hair you have down there. A groaner but ends it off with a whine

➤ definitely prefers doggy style or prone when he’s fucking you, but if its just fingering or so, he would love to be on his knees in front of you. Sit on his face and he’ll gladly suffocate just to pleasure you, he’d be rock hard doing so

gerard jin / jin gayool

➤ if he catches you listening to some of his songs from his old band, he’ll feel embarrassed but also bashful. he would love to sing you a soft tune as you fall asleep in his arms, his voice was just so soothing to you, maybe even play a soft song on his guitar ➤ when his hair was longer, it was easier to hide him staring at you all the time, but ever since he cut his hair, it’s just been so obvious. blushes and quickly averts his gaze if you catch him, he just can’t believe he was able to date you. he is still very super self conscious about his scar, even if you say he’s handsome

➤ loves to buy you food, he’ll use the money from his part-time job to spoil you with. it’s not much, but it's the thought that counts. if you come by the chicken shop he works at, he’ll try to sneak you a free chicken leg (but he’ll get caught by Teddy)

➤ you’re lowkey his muse, you just being there motivates him to write more music, play his guitar more, anything to see you light up as he plays beautiful music just for you. get ready for a lot of music chords to be written everywhere, he’ll probably think of a nice chord on a date and will doodle it down

➤ he’s got powerful legs from constantly fighting with them, so it would be a nice place to just grind against as he flexes his thigh muscles for you. his hands would be on your waist, guiding you into a nice rhythm against his leg, helping you through your orgasm, praising you for being so cute

➤ enjoys fully bottoming out inside of you and just sitting there, pressing a hand against your stomach with a smirk, bragging about how small you are compared to him, watching as your legs shake from the stretch of his thickness. 

➤ a nice 6.25 inches with a nice thick girth to it. definitely trims very short, but on you i think he would prefer it if you had more of a bush. a loud moaner, he is a singer after all, his moans probably sound heavenly in your ears

➤ prefers the mating press position the most or perhaps full nelson. loves to fully dominate you, folding you in half. he’s tall so it’s very easy for him to make you feel so much smaller than him. definitely loves to give oral, he’s skillful with his tongue

teddy jin / jin taeoh

➤ if you’re feminine, there’s a high chance that people who have no idea who he is will think you’re lesbians because he’s just so pretty. definitely lets you mess with his hair, if you need his pony tail for something, he will willingly give it to you. ➤ a lot of the very first dates you’ll have would be him asking if you wanted to come to his house to visit Co, but then he’d get jealous that his cat is getting all your attention. if the cat is laying in your lap, he’ll pluck Co right out to replace his head in that vacant spot. 

➤ he’s very gullible, so he falls for a lot of things, so it’s your job to make sure he doesn’t fall for something he shouldn’t. he also really loves to tease you, messing around with your hair, sticking things into your pockets as he walks past.

➤ buys you brand items to match his own, definitely loves matching couple outfits or just the vibes of the outfits matching. he’ll even let you wear his jackets as well, theres going to be cat fur in them though, that is inevitable. he likes cats after all

➤ definitely ties his hair back as he goes down on you, but his hair will completely fall out of it as your hand grabs onto his hair as he pleases you. he’ll probably use the hair tie to flick against your sensitive nipples or to tie your hands up. 

➤ a rough fucker, you’ll be having bruises on your waist from how hard he was gripping onto you as he fucked into you. leaves a lot of marks over your skin, claiming you to be his, leave marks on his body as well, he encourages it

➤ about 5 inches, fully shaved. he would definitely prefer you to be fully shaven as well or at the very least trimmed very short. he is not a fan of a bush at all. more of a grunter, but lets a nice lustful groan escape sometimes

➤ enjoys putting strain on your muscles with unique positions, very sadistic in the way he manhandles you, smirking down at you as you can only writhe under him. If you’re on top of him, he will fuck into you every time you sink down on him. You’ll probably never be able to dominate him, but there may be days he’ll willingly let you

donald na / na baekjin

➤ loves buying you gifts, jewelry, clothes, literally anything. you stare at something a little too long and he’ll assume you want it and buy it. however, he doesn’t buy you flowers. he’ll probably buy you some when he confesses but that’ll be it ➤ will show up at your house unannounced, most likely with tense shoulders and completely exhausted. give him a back massage and he’s yours for life. enjoys resting his head on your lap, especially if your head is blocking the light

➤ regrettably, Union comes first a lot of the time, but once he finally has time to himself, he’s immediately glued to you. that is if you’re not also in his office with him. he enjoys it when you visit him just to give him a snack or a drink when he works

➤ the most possessive man you’ll ever see, he fucking hates it if other people have their eyes on you, regardless of who they are. he’d use you to help in meetings, especially with the older ceo’s bringing ladies to intimidate him. he’d sit you on his lap and stare at them all cocky

➤ loves it if you’re loud, he lowkey might just fuck you in his office and not give a shit if the other Union members hear. If anyone says anything, he’ll silence them with his fists ^^ very cocky and urge you to be louder

➤ definitely an orgasm denier, both to himself and you. He’ll stop or even completely pull out if you’re close, loves to make you super sensitive, begging to cum, but the more he denies your orgasms, the better it’ll feel

➤ on the longer side, probably 7 inches? But on the thinner side in terms of girth. Trims regularly, if it gets too long it bothers him. he wants you to be trimmed as well, doesn’t mind fully shaved but doesn’t like a bush. A groaner with a bit of a growl

➤ loves being in complete control during sex, you will not be able to dominate him. If you’re riding him, he’s still fully in control and will force you to cockwarm him if you’re getting close

wolf keum / keum seongje

➤ if you smoke he will share his cigarettes with you, if you pull out your own cigarette, he will pluck it out of your hand and toss it. you will share his cigarette, this is a threat. enjoys sharing food with you, sometimes shows up at your house with some snacks he got at the convenience store because he thought of you ➤ not good at comforting at all, if someone is messing with you or made you cry, his first thought would be to find them and beat the shit out of them, then it will be comforting you. very awkward with physical touch, but hugging him feels divine, you just feel so safe in his arms.

➤ his 3 second staring rule will also apply to you, since his eyes will always be on you, he will be able to easily tell if someone is staring at you. if they stare at you for three seconds, it's game. definitely fights in front of you to impress you, but a lot of the time it backfires because you scold him about getting injured because he’s a masochist and enjoys getting hit. you’re his designated glasses holder now

➤ makes it very obvious you’re his, everyone will think y’all are dating before you even start tbh. he’s definitely the one who fell first, he just tried to push it off as long as he could, not wanting to ruin what he had with you

➤ definitely very rough in bed, he will have you cum a few times before he even enters just to make sure you’re all sensitive for him. he has high stamina, so good luck surviving with him. enjoys using his mouth on you, definitely a huge biter

➤ if you’re being too loud, he will shove his fingers into your mouth to muffle you. But if you’re still being too loud, he will slow down and tease you. will threaten to pull out if you don’t quiet down. but if you’re too quiet, he’ll make it his goal to make you more vocal, overstimulating you a lot. 

➤ a nice 6.5 inches, little bit of girth to it, has a really nice vein on it. doesn’t really trim often. he’d prefer if you trimmed but it’s not a necessity. he’s a growler

➤ a lot of the positions y’all do, he is always on top. very rarely he’d let you ride him, he prefers to be the one in control. his glasses do tend to slide down his nose a lot as he fucks, a lot of the time he doesn’t even notice, his eyes are on you or shut tightly in bliss. 

[demonic0angel]

An attempt to help feed the Kori & Dan friendship thoughts:

Kori visits Dick in Bludhaven to ask if he wants to join her for an outing. Dick unfortunately is busy and can't attend.

Dan on the other hand, who currently has nothing planned beyond being spooky and looming-

By the time he's processed them already going out the door, Dick is wondering if he should be concerned for whoever is about to get caught up in the maelstrom of the super-powered duo.

(I only know Starfire from the Teen Titans 2003 TV series, so while I enjoy the thought of the duo immensely my stocks in the canon knowledge department are low)

(Lmaooo, np, my knowledge of Kori is from cartoons, the RHATO comics, and snippets of pages on TikTok, so tbh, I’m not that knowledgeable either.)

Dick sighed, relaxing on the couch. “Danny!” He called, looking around for his huge, grumpy boyfriend. “I’m done! Do you want me to get started with dinner?”

Silence was the response.

Dick sat up, worried for a moment, before he slumped back onto the couch.

Oh yeah, Dan was off with Kori. Dick had been stuck with paperwork and so he hadn’t been able to spend time with one of his oldest friends, so his boyfriend had volunteered to go with her and give Dick some space to focus.

Dick closed his eyes.

Then his eyes snapped open and he leapt out off of the couch, jumping off to start running for his shoes.

Dammit, how could he have forgotten that Kori and Dan were two of the most powerful, dangerous individuals he knew?!

————

“Dick broke up with you?!” Dan said, looking horrified.

Kori blinked. “Yes.”

“Was he blind? No, was he brainwashed?! There’s no way,” Dan said with a shake of his head, eyes wide. “Was he hit on the head and then drugged? There’s no way he actually broke up with you. You’re way out of his league!”

Kori laughed and said, “We dated, but perhaps it would be more accurate that I broke up with him.”

Dan gave a sigh of relief. “That makes a lot more sense. I was worried that I was dating an idiot for a second there.”

She laughed again and pointed at his drink. “May I try?”

Dan nodded and she happily took a sip, handing over her own ordered drink. He sipped from her straw, licking his lips at the taste of strawberries and lemons, and then said, “This was enjoyable. I’ve only met a few Tamaraneans before but they were terrible conversation partners. There’s something nice about you also knowing human culture. The last few I met were all idiots who followed the rule of your sister.”

Kori frowned before she sighed. “Yes. I haven’t been to my home planet for quite a while. Though I heard you were not from this world, so perhaps it’s different there….?”

He nodded. “Yes, it was a bit different, but not by much. They were very weak too.” He eyed her with a smirk. “But you can give me more of a challenge, right, Koriand’r?”

Kori beamed and said cheerfully, “Yes, I think I can definitely give you more of a challenge than ordinary Tamaraneans.”

Dan laughed and then said, “Sounds perfect to me. Let’s finish shopping and we can find a quiet patch of land to spar. I need to buy Dick new clothes.”

Kori giggled. “Is he still losing them in strange places? He used to do that sometimes.”

“Yes!” Dan sighed as he helped her off out of her chair. She didn’t really need it, but she took the hand anyways, lifting up dozens of shopping bags in the opposite arm. “He’s so lucky he’s cute.”

She chuckled and then said, “Let’s hurry up our shopping before we spar. I’ll tell you his most embarrassing Titan moments.”

Dan perked up. “Oh, absolutely.” He gestured onwards. “Shall we?”

“We shall!”