#concrete bolt sleeves

[fixdex-fastening-technology]

fasteners from china fixdex & goodfix anchor bolt manufacturer

[em1i2a3]

Send The Pain Below

Pairing: Bob/Robert Reynolds/The Sentry/The Void x Thunderbolts!Fem!Reader

Summary: After you return from a mission severely injured, Bob can’t help but offer you as much help as possible.

Warnings: Semi-Spoilers for Thunderbolts cause Bob. Hurt/Comfort, Fluff (kind of?), Mentions of Injuries/Blood

Author’s Note: Hey y’all! I had this on my WIP list and wanted to get it out, this wasn’t a request I just randomly wrote this and literally didn’t have a clue on how to end it to be quite honest lol. But I didn’t want it clogging up my drafts, and the idea was good in theory.

Word Count: 4,859

The elevator doors of the compound slid open with a quiet hiss, and you stepped out like your body might give out if you stopped moving for even a second.

Your boots landed heavy on the tile, your limp was masked only by sheer willpower and the remaining adrenaline you had running through your veins. Every step sent a bolt of pain up your legs, through your hips, lancing into your ribs and shoulders like tiny barbed wires that threaded themselves deeper with each shift. You didn’t stop to breathe–because it felt like if you tried to, your ribs were going to break.

Throughout the entire ride up to your living quarters, you hadn’t been still for a moment. You paced the tight space of the elevator like a caged animal–shaking, twitching, trying to outrun the memory of the fight. The metal walls had felt too close, too quiet, too loud with your thoughts.

Now, in the open hallway, your ears were still ringing. All you could smell was blood and dirt–iron and ash clinging to your skin like a second, suffocating layer. You didn’t know if it was your blood or someone else’s. You didn’t want to try and figure that out though.

“Hey, I called medical, they’re waiting for you.” Bucky’s voice echoed from the living room. He knew you were coming. He had been communicating with you through your comms the entire mission, and he had gotten a call from the extraction team who gave him a heads up on the damage you had taken.

”I’m fine.” You muttered back. Your steps were stiff, bordering on robotic. Blood had soaked through the fabric at your waist and dried in large dark patches. You were grateful you wore black tactical gear, because if you didn’t it probably would’ve looked like you worked at a butcher shop. One sleeve was ripped open, revealing a long, nasty cut that ran from your bicep to your elbow, and your back felt like it had been slammed through a concrete wall–and it actually had, or at least maybe in your haze you had convinced yourself that happened.

It was your first solo mission. A simple infiltration, Valentina had said. The mission description screamed that it was going to be quick and easy, you had planned it out so much, and you did everything right.

But it hadn’t been enough.

You rounded the corner into the living room, and all the conversations and commotion died instantly.

“Holy shit, Y/N.” Yelena said under her breath, getting up from the couch. You continued to drag yourself towards the washroom, ignoring the comment.

”Y/N, you’re not fine kid, come on–let’s not try to act tough right now. You need to go see medical.” Walker added, following suit with Yelena. You didn’t slow your steps, nor did you look back, because you knew if you stopped now you’d be glued to the floor, and you wouldn’t be able to keep moving.

You could feel the weight of their stares burning into your back as you made your way towards the washroom with one hand trailing the edge of the wall to stabilize yourself. Your vision was swimming–edges soft, depth distorted–but you knew this floor, this hallway, this layout, and thankfully you could walk it blind if your sight gave out.

“Y/N you’re literally leaving a trail of blood across the floor, this isn’t a walk it off type of situation here.” Ava commented, joining in on the pestering, her voice sharp and worried. Yet you still didn’t answer them, you just kept moving.

”Is she even hearing us?” Walker asked, his voice dropping an octave, then a door in the hallway opened and Alexei poked his head out of his bedroom, disheveled and confused from the commotion that was happening, tying his robe around his beefy upper body. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and right when he saw you there was an immediate look of concern that appeared on his face.

“Dorogaya,” He called gently, his brows pinching “You walk like dead woman.” You clenched your jaw hard enough at his words that it made your teeth ache.

“Let someone help, yes?” He added, his voice softer now, as if his words might land easier that way, “You don’t get glory for dying on your feet.” You felt your fingers curl slightly against the wall, but you didn’t trust your voice enough to respond–not with the heat gathering behind your eyes, not with the pain that was spiking again through your spine.

”She’s not listening to anyone,” Ava muttered behind you, voice tight. You didn’t hear the rest of what they said.

The voices behind you melted into background noise–blurred and echoing like they were underwater. You just kept moving. One foot in front of the other. Focused on the hall ahead, on the door you shared with Bob at the end of it. Your hand skimmed the wall, dragging along the paint like it was the only thing anchoring you upright.

The blood trail you left behind was uneven, smeared where your boot dragged slightly on the right side. You didn’t even feel the cuts anymore–not sharply, anyway. Just a dull throb beneath the surface of everything, like your whole body had been submerged in concrete and it was slowly starting to harden around you.

When you finally reached the door, you shouldered it open, and stumbled into the washroom. The light was too bright. The silence–too still.

You stood there for a second, just swaying feeling a wave of dizziness come over you. Then you slammed the door shut, and locked it, enclosing yourself in the small space you and Bob inhabited together.

Then it was just you.

You, and the sound of your breath–shallow, rattling, uneven, and crackling–shaking in your chest like it was a broken metronome. Now that you were alone you could also hear the light above you buzzing faintly, even though there was still a bit of bickering happening outside the door.

You moved stiffly to the switch for the fan and turned it on, letting the low hum kick in above your head. It vibrated in the walls, just enough to mute the sound of your breathing. Then you shuffled over to the shower, reaching in to turn on the hot water in one swift movement, hissing when your shoulder screamed out in pain. The pipes groaned slightly before water burst from the head, pounding into the tile like a rainstorm. Hot. Loud. And endless. Steam immediately began to fill the space, and that’s exactly what you needed–warmth, something to ease the pain that was about to come in full force.

All you wanted right now was solitude. You wanted to lick your wounds like an animal crawling into the shadows–quiet and wild and unwilling to be witnessed. You needed to hurt where no one could see it. Needed to unravel in private, where the grief could live without apology, and the shame could breathe.

You turned back toward the center of the washroom, your vision still swimming, limbs trembling slightly from the effort it had taken just to reach this far. The steam was already clouding the mirror, mercifully dulling the image of yourself–like even your reflection was sparing you the full truth of what you’d become.

You didn’t want to see it. Not clearly. Not yet.

Your fingers fumbled with the front of your vest, the fabric stiff and heavy with blood. It took two tries to get the buckle unclipped–your fingers were sticky and slippery, or maybe they were just numb–and when the strap finally gave, the release jolted your injured shoulder hard enough that your breath hitched through clenched teeth.

You pressed your lips together, hard, swallowing the sound before it could escape.

The velcro at your chest peeled back with a slow, wet rip, and the vest shifted. The weight of it–soaked through, dense and clinging–pulled down at your frame like it wanted to take you with it to the floor.

You reached up to shrug it off, and a bolt of pain exploded across your ribs. Your body locked up immediately, breath freezing in your lungs. For a moment, your knees threatened to buckle completely.

You caught yourself on the sink, gasping.

Your palm left a smear of blood against the porcelain.

Tears burned behind your eyes–not from sadness. From sheer, helpless agony.

Still, you didn’t cry. Not yet.

You stayed hunched over the sink, chest heaving, shoulders trembling with the effort it took just to stay upright. The pain was beginning to spike higher with each passing second–as if your body, now freed from the armor, had decided it was safe to let you feel everything all at once.

Your eyes flicked to the mirror again, just briefly. Your reflection was almost gone now, consumed by steam. Just a shape. Just a shadow of what was left of you.

You reached out blindly for the medicine cabinet.

The metal clinked as you opened it, and your fingers searched through the shelves with shaky, clumsy movements until they found the bottle. White cap. Red label. Tylenol.

It was something and it was all you had.

You unscrewed the lid with fingers that barely cooperated, spilling two pills into your hand. You didn’t have the strength to care about how many milligrams it was or if you’d already taken some earlier–which for the record, you didn’t. All you knew was that the pain had to come down–just a little–before you could finish what needed to be done.

You popped the pills into your mouth and chewed.

Bitter.

Chalky.

The taste coated your tongue like poison. It hit the back of your throat like ash.

You reached down, turned the faucet on with your uninjured hand, and leaned in to catch a handful of lukewarm water. You brought it to your mouth quickly, sloshed it back, swallowed hard.

The pills scraped down your throat like gravel.

You stayed there for a moment, hunched over the sink, your hands braced on either side. The water kept running. The fan kept humming. The shower roared behind you, thick steam curling around your legs, climbing your spine.

You wanted to rest. Just for a second, but you knew you couldn’t.

Not while you were still covered in blood. Not while your pants were still clinging to your thigh like a bandage made of fabric and failure.

You let the water run. You didn’t have the energy to turn it off.

Your fingers drifted down toward your utility belt next. You unclipped it slowly, fumbling with the strap at your hip until it loosened and slid free. The belt thudded heavily to the floor, landing beside the vest. It sounded final. Like a chapter closing.

Then came your pants.

You didn’t want to look.

You already knew what was underneath–your thigh had been burning since the moment you’d hit the floor in that alley. Your hip had felt wet and wrong the second the rebar tore your side open.

Still, you slid your thumbs into the waistband and began to shimmy them down—inch by inch. Pain flared instantly.

The cut across your thigh had stuck to the inside lining. As the fabric peeled away, it reopened with a slick, wet sound and a wave of heat that flooded your vision with white.

You gasped again, one hand grabbing the counter to stay upright. Your breath broke mid-exhale, and the sound you made was something just shy of a sob.

Blood rolled down the side of your thigh in a thin, fresh ribbon.

You stood there half-undressed and trembling, your legs streaked with red, your body steaming in the mirror’s haze, and your throat thick with everything you were still trying to hold back.

————————

Outside in the hallway, the team hovered like ghosts–uncertain whether to press in or give space, tense with the kind of helpless energy that made people argue just to feel useful.

Walker had his ear against the wall, arms crossed, one brow furrowed as he strained to hear through the sound of the water. “I think I heard her,” he muttered. “She made a sound…Not good.”

“I told you she should’ve gone straight to medical,” Ava said under her breath, pacing a slow, tight line across the hall. “We should just go in there.”

“No,” Yelena cut in, her voice quieter but far more final. “She locked the door. Let her have a minute.”

“You saw her,” Walker snapped. “She doesn’t have a minute, are we gonna break down the door if she passes out?!”

”No, I’ll just phase through and unlock the door you idiot.” Ava shot back, and before Walker could rebuttal, Bob’s door creaked open, causing everyone to turn their heads to look at him.

He stood in the frame like he hadn’t even realized they were all there. He was barefoot, dressed in a baggy dark grey scrub set, similar to the ones they found him in when they met him in the O.X.E Vault–when he had admitted he found them comfortable you had gone out and bought him a few pairs. His light brown hair was tousled, and extremely flat on one side like he had just peeled himself off his mattress. He looked like he had just rubbed out a decade of sleep from his eyes as he stretched.

”…W-What’s going on?” He asked, his voice slow and sleep-warm, like it hadn’t yet left the fog of dreams. He blink slowly, shoulders hunching forward slightly under the baggy scrub top. Walker turned to him first, running a hand down his face, exasperation cooling into something just a little more worried.

”Y/N is in the washroom,” Bob’s brows drew together in confusion, almost as if he was urging him to go on, “She came back from a mission looking like absolute hell–like barely walking and bleeding everywhere. She locked the door and hasn’t said anything to us since.” Yelena crossed her arms.

“She won’t let any of us in either…” Bucky said, as everyone began to exchange glances at one another, “But how about you give it a try?” Bob’s arms hung stiff at his sides, fingers curling and uncurling against the fabric of his scrub top, like his body was trying to move before his mind could catch up.

“…M-Me?” He asked, voice quiet–half-hoarse with sleep, half-tight with something else he hadn’t figured out how to name. His eyes flicked toward the washroom door, then back to the group, unsure. “W-Why me?”

Yelena was the one who answered. Calm. Certain. No hesitation.

“Because you’re her friend. And she trusts you.”

Bob’s shoulders twitched at the word–friend–like it didn’t feel big enough to carry the weight of what you were to him. It didn’t feel small either. Just…Not right. Not complete. Not everything.

“She listens to you…She likes being around you and she trusts you…” Bob looked down, jaw shifting slightly. His hands came up, one running across the back of his neck, the other tugging anxiously at the loose sleeve of his shirt. He could feel the familiar burn start to gather low in his chest–the one that always came with too many emotions pressing up at once, begging for escape.

He wasn’t good with being needed. He wasn’t used to being the person someone called for when everything fell apart.

But you’d never made him feel like a burden.

Not once.

Even when he couldn’t meet your eyes. Even when his hands shook too hard to pour water. Even when he curled up on the floor and told you he wasn’t sure if he was real. You stayed. You held his face in your hands and called him Bob in a voice that made it sound like that name had never belonged to anyone else. You were his calm…And now he needed to try and return the favour.

He swallowed hard.

“Okay,” He whispered,“I’ll try…Just…B-Back away for a second okay, or g-go down the hall.” The team scattered almost immediately, as Bob took one shaky breath and padded forward, every step louder in his ears than it should’ve been. He cleared his throat and knocked gently on the door.

”Hey…Y/N…I-It’s me,” He said, barely louder than the sound of the fan humming on the other side of the barrier between them. He pressed his hand flat to the wood, almost like he would be able to feel you through it, “I–I know you probably don’t want to s-see anyone right now…I get it, I–I do…But…” He faltered for a moment, glancing down the hall seeing the rest of the team watching him.

”B-But can I come in? Please?” There was a pause. A long one, but he didn’t move, he waited until there was a sign to either go, or come in.

And then–the lock turned.

His heart thudded, heavy and thick against his ribs, a soft sigh escaping his lips.

He pushed the door open slowly, the rush of steam hitting him in a wave. It curled around his ankles, ghosted against his chest, and painted the room in a blur of heat and wet air. The mirror was almost completely fogged, and the fan overhead did nothing to stop the fog from swallowing the space whole.

And then he saw you.

You were standing by the sink, half-turned, wearing only your sports bra and underwear. Blood was smeared down your leg in stark red streaks, tracing the lines of torn muscle and raw, reopened skin. Your shoulder was mottled purple and yellow, your arm wrapped around your ribs protectively like the pressure might keep something from falling apart.

Your face turned toward him when he entered. Slowly.

And even though you weren’t crying, not exactly, your eyes were glassy–rimmed with something bitter and deep, something that looked a hell of a lot like defeat.

“J-Jesus,” Bob whispered, the breath barely making it past his throat.

His stomach dropped. His hands clenched uselessly at his sides, eyes scanning every part of you like he didn’t know where to look first.

Your cheek had a shallow cut beneath the eye, already beginning to swell. Your lip was split. There was dirt caked under your nails, your hair was stuck to your neck with sweat and blood, and your expression–when your eyes finally locked on his–was exhausted in a way he’d never seen on you before.

You looked like you had fought through the end of the world and barely made it out breathing.

“Y/N…” He breathed, and for a second he couldn’t move. Couldn’t talk. Couldn’t function. His throat tightened so sharply it almost made him cough. You shook your head slowly–once, twice–like each motion cost you something.

Bob flinched.

Not because you scared him, but because you looked like you were unraveling and still trying to hold it all in place. Because even just shaking your head seemed to hurt. Because you’d finally let someone in, and he didn’t know if he could be the person you needed, but God, he wanted to be.

He shut the door behind him gently, a soft click that sealed the two of you into that steam-filled quiet, then turned the lock. The air was thick, and his scrubs were already starting to cling to his chest, but he didn’t care.

His eyes were still moving over you–your thigh, your ribs, your face–and something in his jaw worked like he was trying not to cry for you.

“I–” He started, then stopped, trying again a second later “I know you don’t wanna hear it, but…M–Maybe we should go to medical, just for a minute. Y-You’re bleeding pretty bad and I–”

”No, Bob.” Your voice was sharp. Not cruel, but tired. Bone-deep tired. Your eyes were hollowed by it. “I don’t want to go. Don’t ask me again.”Bob’s lips parted. He froze like you’d slapped him with the words.

His hands came up instantly–palms out, defensive, the way someone does when they know they’ve stepped over the line. “Okay. Okay. I–I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to–I just…”

His voice cracked, soft and breathless, and his lashes fluttered quickly like something was stinging behind his eyes. “I–I just didn’t know what else to say. I just–I wanna help.”

You didn’t answer right away. You turned back toward the mirror, wincing slightly, your weight shifting between your feet like even standing was a negotiation.

Bob took a step forward. Then another.

“C-Can we at least get you cleaned up?” He asked, voice gentler now. “Just… Just so we can see the damage a little better? I–I promise I won’t touch anything unless you say it’s okay…And I–I won’t bring up medical again…”

You blinked at your own reflection. Or rather, at the smeared suggestion of it–nothing but a shadow behind fog and grief and wet heat. Your throat bobbed, your lips parted, and for a moment, the only sound in the room was the roar of the water pounding the tile behind you.

Then, slowly–like each movement had to be dug out of you one inch at a time–you nodded.

Just once.

Bob exhaled like he’d been holding his breath since the door opened. “Okay,” He murmured, so quietly it barely reached you. “Okay.”

He moved carefully, like you were a wild animal that might spook. His hands stayed visible, slow and shaking just slightly. His voice was raw and steady all at once. You watched him in the mirror as he stepped around you to reach the shower, his eyes flicking back to your face every few seconds like he was checking to make sure he wasn’t doing something wrong.

He pulled his scrub top over his head. His chest was lean and pale, the faint trace of old scars visible across his ribs. He didn’t look at you while he did it–he wasn’t doing this to be seen, only to be with you. To match your vulnerability. To show you he wasn’t going to ask you to do something he wouldn’t do beside you.

Then the pants went next, dropped quickly to the tile with a soft thund. He stepped into the shower in only his boxers, reaching up to adjust the temperature with a small frown, his brow furrowing as steam curled around him. Then, gently–so gently–it was his voice again.

“C’mon. I’ve got you.”

You turned, just barely, and let him take your hand. His fingers laced through yours so softly it nearly broke you. You stepped forward, and he guided you into the stream like you were made of glass and grief and things that couldn’t be named without breaking apart.

The moment your skin hit the water, the heat scalded into every nerve ending that had been screaming silently for hours.

You cried out.

Your knees gave out without warning, your body folding in on itself with a sudden, sharp gasp of pain.

“Woah–woah, hey, hey–I’ve got you–” Bob’s voice cracked mid-sentence as he caught you, his arms sliding around your waist and shoulder just in time to keep you from hitting the floor.

You collapsed against him with the weight of everything. Your cheek pressed to the curve of his collarbone, your ribcage shaking with shallow, broken breaths as the water soaked your skin, turning the blood on your body to long, diluted streaks that ran in ribbons down your legs, and floated around his.

Bob eased you down slowly. The tile kissed your knees, too cold beneath all the heat, but his arms stayed around you–tight, protective, and stable. He let himself sit with you fully, legs folding beneath his weight as he cradled you in his lap, one hand braced gently at your lower back, the other spread over your ribs, careful not to press too hard.

His chest rose and fell against your shoulder, each breath a little too quick, a little too uneven. You could feel his heart hammering, not with fear, but with something else–some horrible, aching emotion that had nowhere to go but into the way he held you.

You tilted your head up slightly–just enough to look at him.

And the look on his face made your breath catch in your throat.

Bob wasn’t crying. But his eyes were wet, the rims pink, his brows drawn in tight with something that looked like devastation barely leashed. His jaw was clenched, not out of anger, but because he looked like if he let it go, it would all fall out–every emotion, every worry, every broken piece of what this had done to him.

”Don’t cry Bob…I’m fine.” Bob leaned in closer at your words, his brows tightening even more–not with disbelief, but with something gentler. Something so heavy with care it made your chest ache worse than your ribs.

His forehead came to rest against yours, water beading and dripping between your skin, breath warm and unsteady against your lips. His voice was just a murmur, barely there beneath the drum of the shower.

“Please d-don’t lie to me…” He whispered, closing his eyes. “I c-can’t…I can’t see you like this and not do something, I–”

His voice broke completely then. And it wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic or violent. It was quiet devastation—the kind that crumbled inwards, the kind that shook hands and pressed foreheads and curled arms around broken bodies in the dark.

And then something in the air shifted.

It was subtle at first–so small you didn’t register it until it started to crawl up your spine.

A hum.

Not from the fan.

Not from the pipes.

Not from the water.

From him.

From the center of Bob’s chest, where it pressed faintly to yours. A vibration–gentle, low, like the world taking a breath. It was warm. Not hot like the water. Soft, like standing in sunlight after a long, cold night.

Bob didn’t seem to notice.

His arms stayed around you, trembling slightly but strong, his breath hitching once more as he whispered, “I–I would take it if I could. I’d take all of it, Y/N. I swear I would…” You blinked.

Once. Twice.

Then the numbness hit.

It started in your cheeks, right under where Bob’s forehead rested against yours. A strange, tingling sensation, like static running under your skin—like the prickle of limbs falling asleep, but deeper. Warmer. It began to spread across your jaw, down your neck, over the pulsing ache of your ribs. You stiffened slightly in his arms.

“B-Bob…” Your voice came out thin. Cautious. “Something’s… wrong. I—I think I’m—”

You pulled your head back.

Just an inch. Just enough to look at him.

And that’s when you saw it.

His eyes–his eyes–weren’t the soft blue they usually were. They weren’t even shimmering yellow like when the Sentry burned through him, lit up and alive and untouchable. No, this was something else entirely.

They were light.

Not glowing with light���made of it.

Warm and impossible, like the moment just before sunrise. Liquid gold, honeyed and bright, but threaded with something deeper–something eternal. Like looking into a star too close. Like watching the sky open.

Bob didn’t even seem to realize it. He was staring at you like you had changed. Like something was wrong with you.

His brows furrowed suddenly, breath catching. “What the hell…”

You froze.

“What?” you asked, voice sharp and shaky all at once. “Bob—what is it? What’s happening?”

His eyes searched your face, wide and stunned and almost afraid to believe what he was seeing.

“Your face…” he whispered, “Y/N… it’s–”

He reached up–slowly–and touched your cheek.

His fingertips brushed the skin just below your eye, where the cut had been. Where the swelling had bloomed purple and raw. There was nothing there now. Not even the tenderness. Just heat from the shower. Just clean, unbroken skin.

“It’s healed.”

You blinked again.

And now that he said it–you felt it.

The pounding in your ribs was gone.

The throb in your thigh, the searing line from your bicep to your elbow, the burn from the rebar in your side—it was all gone.

Your body felt heavy, yes, but no longer from pain. Just from the realization.

You looked down at your arms, your legs, your skin, now mostly clean under the steady pour of water–and new. Whole. No dried blood. No open wounds.

You looked back at him.

“Holy fuck…You healed me…Is the…Is the Sentry back or something?” He shook his head in confusion.

”I–I don’t know…I didn’t e-even know he could do t-that to other people…”

[cherrypickedchaos]

Grease and Ghosts

A lost love. A shared past. A garage full of memories. Can they race back to each other before it’s too late?

Genre: smut, slow-burn reunion romance, angsty vibes, small-town grit, forbidden-yet-inevitable love, erotic literature, yearning, established relationship, grief, mechanic! f x Oscar.

NSFW warning: 18+... Oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, praise kink - if you squint.

Inspired by Northern Attitude by Noah Kahan

The garage was warm, but only just. The little space heater hummed somewhere by the desk, struggling against the December cold creeping through the warped garage door. Oil stained the concrete as metal clinked against metal. A faint scent of burnt rubber and coffee lingered in the air, the ghosts of a hundred late nights. In the corner, a battered radio whispered an old song she didn’t really hear, classic rock, just like her dad.

She was halfway under an old Citroën, turning bolts that didn’t want to turn. Her hair was full of dust and a smear of something dark on her cheek. She wiped it with the back of her sleeve and muttered to herself.

"Come on, you stubborn—"

The bell above the garage door jingled once.

She didn’t look up. Customers always came in cold and awkward, like they were afraid they’d catch grime just by standing too close.

"Be right with you," she called, voice muffled.

A beat of silence.

Then a voice.

"Heard a Citroën throwing a tantrum and figured this has to be Sparks’ garage."

Everything in her went still. Not just the voice. The name. No one had called her that in years. Not since…

She slid out from beneath the car slowly, one hand still gripping the wrench. Her heart knocked once against her ribs, then waited. The wrench in her hand suddenly felt too heavy, like it remembered him too.

He stood in the doorway with his hands in the pockets of a coat too clean for this place. Taller than she remembered. Older. His hair was shorter, but his mouth was still a straight line. Same boots. Same dark eyes.

"You’re back," she said. It came out quieter than she intended. Not quite a question, not quite a statement.

"It’s Christmas," Oscar replied, like that explained something.

She nodded. Calm on the surface. Only there.

"You’ve never come back for Christmas before."

He didn’t answer. His eyes wandered the space like he was trying to measure what had changed. Or maybe what hadn’t.

🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂

The sun sagged low behind the trees, throwing long shadows across the cracked old kart track. The air stank of petrol, burnt rubber, and over-fried chips from the greasy stand by the entrance. Her dad’s truck was parked nearby, dented and loyal, with tools spilling out the back like it always had something to fix.

She stood stiff in the middle of it all, fourteen, maybe fifteen, swimming in racing gear a size too big. The gloves didn’t fit. The helmet slipped when she moved. She could barely see over the wheel.

Oscar leaned on the fence with his usual smugness, arms crossed, helmet dangling from one hand. He’d already finished his lap, loud and fast, chewing up the track like he owned it.

“Sure you want to do this, Sparks? Not too late to back out and keep your dignity.”

She glared, even if her knees were shaking. “I want to try.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Suit yourself. Just don’t cry when I lap you.”

Her dad called over, half-amused, half-warning. “Knock it off, Oscar. Let her drive.”

The kart hissed as she climbed in. The seat was cold and unwelcoming. The harness snapped shut with a sound too final. When the engine stuttered to life beneath her, it felt like being strapped to a jackhammer.

She nearly stalled pulling away.

The first lap was a disaster. Jerky acceleration. Clipped a cone. Took the corner like she was aiming to plow through it. She could hear him laughing somewhere behind her.

“You’re not supposed to be good at this!” he yelled as he zipped past.

Her cheeks burned. She tightened her grip on the wheel until her knuckles ached.

“I’m just getting started,” she muttered through gritted teeth.

Second lap, smoother. Third, tighter. By the fourth, she wasn’t thinking. She was feeling it. The turn before the back straight. The way the engine kicked up just before it screamed. The little tremble in the left tire she hadn’t noticed before but now anticipated like a sixth sense.

On the fifth lap, she passed him.

She didn’t plan it. She just caught him easing off the gas too early on the final corner, and she surged past, tires screeching, heart thudding so loud she couldn’t hear the engine.

She hit the finish line a full second ahead.

Oscar rolled to a stop beside her, helmet under his arm, sweat in his hair and shock in his grin. He blinked. Then barked out a laugh, the short, sharp kind he did when something actually surprised him.

“Okay,” he said. “That was… not bad.”

She climbed out, helmet under one arm, eyes bright and confused. He was still staring at her.

“What?”

He didn’t answer, just kept smiling.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

That only made him smile wider.

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The rain had stopped sometime in the night, but the damp clung to everything, to the air, to the walls, to the soft knock of Oscar’s boots against concrete. He was already there when she arrived the next morning, leaning against the garage door with two coffees and the look of someone pretending not to feel the cold.

She didn’t ask how long he’d been waiting.

“I got the one that isn’t sweet,” he said, holding one out like a peace offering.

She eyed it, then him, then took it without a word. It was the kind of thing you did when you still knew someone’s order. The kind of thing that shouldn’t still be true.

She set the cup down on the workbench without drinking. Then crouched by the rusted-out sedan she’d been fighting with since Tuesday. The front suspension was shot and the bolts refused to move, as if the car had grown roots overnight.

He watched her work, hands in his jacket pockets. She could feel his gaze, light and constant, like static.

“You’re still doing everything yourself?” he asked finally. “No apprentice, no kid from the high school shop class?”

“I don’t like people in my space.”

Oscar gave a small snort. “Yeah. That checks out.”

She didn’t look up. The wrench groaned as she forced it left.

“Jet lag,” he added after a beat. “Didn’t know if you’d be here this early.”

“I usually am.”

He smiled. “Some things really don’t change.”

“Don’t bet on it.”

There was a long pause. She tugged another bolt loose with a satisfying metal shriek. He didn’t flinch.

“Still staying with your mum?” she asked, casual but not careless.

“Yeah. Delaney Road.”

A pause. Then, lighter: “Festive as ever.”

She grunted. “Must be hell.”

“Close enough.”

He didn’t elaborate. She didn’t push.

The silence stretched between them, not quite comfortable, not hostile either. Like the aftermath of an argument neither of them ever actually had.

Oscar shifted his weight. His fingers tapped absently against his paper cup.

“Still smells the same,” he murmured. “Grease and instant coffee.”

She glanced up, only briefly. “Guess some things don’t change.”

He didn’t answer, his mouth smirking, drifting through the garage like he was walking through a dream. Slow, deliberate. Hands still in his pockets. His eyes moved from one thing to the next, pausing, like he expected each corner to remember him.

He stopped at the old pegboard above the tool bench, where every socket and spanner had its own chalk outline. A few spots were still labelled in her dad’s handwriting. The paint had faded, but the scrawl was unmistakable.

Oscar leaned closer, squinting at a note scribbled in the corner. “Still sorting by chaos theory, huh?”

She didn’t look up. “It’s efficient if you understand it.”

“Sure, it is,” he muttered. “Just a two-move puzzle. Where the first move is giving up.”

She snorted, quiet and unwilling.

He kept going, fingers brushing the top of the ancient radio, still held together with black electrical tape where the antenna had snapped. He turned the knob slightly, and the volume nudged up, a raspy old voice singing over sharp guitar and muffled drums. Something raw and old-school, all grit and growl.

He smiled faintly. “Still stuck on your dad’s rock station.”

“You’re the only one who ever minded it.”

He glanced over at her. “He never gave me hell for changing it.”

She kept her head down, tugging the hood lower. “That’s because he said it built character.”

Oscar gave a quiet laugh. Not much of one. Just enough.

The old coffee tin was still there too. Half full of washers and screws. He picked it up, shook it gently, then set it down again. Every corner of the place was like that. Alive but still. Like the garage had kept breathing after everyone else had left.

“You looking for something?” she asked finally.

He turned, caught off guard. “No. Just… remembering.”

She gestured toward the rolling cart. “If you want to be useful, sort those by size. The metric ones. Top tray.”

He blinked. Then gave a short, almost theatrical sigh. “You always did know how to delegate.”

But he moved toward the tray and started sorting, bare hands, slow and methodical. She watched him from under the hood, only briefly. He still knew what he was doing. Still worked in silence when it counted.

For a few minutes, neither of them spoke. The music buzzed low. Tools shifted. Somewhere outside, a bird scratched against the sheet metal roof.

It was almost easy.

He was reaching for a socket when he saw it.

Top shelf. Behind a jar of miscellaneous bolts and a rusted tin of copper wire. The frame was angled slightly toward the wall, half-hidden, like it had been set down in a hurry and never moved again.

He froze.

The frame was still the same one. Silvered edges, slightly tarnished. Square and heavy in the hand. He remembered it well. He had seen it a hundred times on the wall near the back office, framed perfectly by light in the late afternoons. Back then, it held a photo of the three of them. Her dad in the middle, grinning under his ball cap. She was maybe thirteen, holding up a tiny trophy with both hands, cheeks red with sun and adrenaline. Oscar stood next to her, making a peace sign with motor oil on his sleeve.

Now it held nothing.

The glass was cracked in one corner. Not shattered, just a fine spiderweb fracture that reached toward the centre like it had been hit once by something small and sudden. The dust around the frame suggested it had been sitting there for a while. But the glass was clean. No smudges, no fingerprints. Like she still touched it sometimes. Like she still moved it. Just not enough.

He picked it up gently.

Behind him, the soft sound of a ratchet stopped.

He turned it slowly in his hands, thumb brushing the crack. His voice, when it came, was quieter than before. Not hesitant. Just careful.

“That always been empty?”

She didn’t answer right away. When she did, it was flat. No weight behind it.

“No.”

He didn’t ask what happened to the photo. Didn’t ask why she had taken it out or what it had meant to her to leave the frame behind. She didn’t offer.

He set it back exactly where it had been. Angled toward the wall. Then turned back to the tray of bolts and kept sorting.

She didn’t move for a while after the sound of him setting the frame down. Just stayed crouched beside the car, her hand resting on the axle like she had forgotten what she was doing. The silence had stretched again, but this one felt different. Tighter. Denser. Like the kind you hold between your teeth.

Oscar glanced over but didn’t speak. His fingers worked slowly, sorting washers into neat lines on the tray. It wasn’t about helping anymore. He just needed something to do with his hands. He wanted to ask.

Why here? Why still this place, this building full of ghosts? Why had she taken the photo down but kept the frame like a shrine to something neither of them could name?

She hadn’t changed much. Maybe a little sharper around the eyes. Maybe quieter. But her hands still moved the same way when she worked. Her jaw still clenched when she focused. The way she held herself, stubborn, grounded, full of heat she refused to show, that hadn’t changed at all.

He wondered if she thought about it. About that photo. About the night he left. About what would have happened if she had come with him instead of staying. If they had left this garage together, would she still be reaching for busted bolts with scraped knuckles in the middle of winter?

Would he still be unravelling behind a smile in front of every camera in the paddock?

He looked at her again. Still no eye contact. She hadn’t looked at him properly since he arrived. He tried to say something. Cleared his throat. The words didn’t come.

So, he went back to sorting. One washer at a time. No hurry. When the tray was full, Oscar stood and stretched. His joints cracked louder than they used to.

She was still under the car, but her focus had slipped. The ratchet stayed in her hand. She wasn’t turning it.

He walked past her on the way to toss a rag into the bin. Didn’t stop. Didn’t linger. Just glanced once, on instinct, toward the shelf.

The frame was still there. Still empty. Still cracked.

He hesitated.

Then reached up and gently turned it face down.

The movement made her head lift, just barely. She saw it. She didn’t say anything at first.

Then: “You’re just visiting?”

He stood still for a moment. Like he wasn’t sure what to say. Then nodded once.

“Yeah.” He paused in the doorway, hands in his jacket pockets again. The same posture he’d had yesterday, but it felt different now. “Just visiting.”

The door creaked as he let it shut behind him.

She stayed where she was, eyes on the tray of tools he had left behind. Neatly sorted. Every piece in its place.

She flipped the frame back over a few minutes later.

Didn’t look at it.

Just set it upright, facing forward again.

And kept working.

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The sun spilled in through the open garage doors, slicing through the floating dust and laying gold across the concrete. The air smelled like grease, motor oil, and the lemon soap her dad always kept by the sink but never used. Music buzzed from the old radio on the shelf, the volume too high, the bass a little blown out. Something with twang and grit and an unapologetic guitar solo.

Her dad stood by the coffee pot, humming off-key and tapping a socket wrench against his palm like a conductor. His mug was chipped, stained darker on the inside than out. He looked happy.

Oscar was elbow-deep in the side of his kart, legs sprawled, hoodie sleeves pushed up, hands stained with oil. The kart should’ve been a quick fix. He had come in early that morning for something simple, throttle lag, or maybe a stubborn plug. Now it was four hours later, and the engine was halfway out, and he hadn’t even tried to leave.

She stood across from him, holding the parts tray. Narrowing her eyes at the mess he was making.

“That’s the wrong socket,” she said.

“It is not,” Oscar shot back, already forcing it.

“It doesn’t even fit.”

“It fits enough.”

She rolled her eyes and turned to the drawer set. “No wonder you break everything.”

“I don’t break everything. I make bold choices.”

“You make poor ones.”

“Bold ones.”

Her dad chuckled without looking. “Same thing at your age.”

Oscar grinned like he had just been handed a medal. “Thank you.”

“Wasn’t a compliment.”

She passed him the correct socket. He took it, their fingers brushing just barely, and for half a second neither of them said anything. His smile faltered. She looked away too fast.

“Try not to strip the bolt this time,” she said, sharp again.

“Wow. Just when I thought we were bonding.”

“Keep thinking.”

Across the room, her dad shook his head, still smiling. He leaned over the coffee pot and muttered loud enough to be heard, “You two gonna fix the car or stay there long enough to get married under it?”

Oscar’s hands slipped. “What?”

Her head jerked up. “Dad.”

He was already sipping from his mug, totally unfazed. “Nothing. Just making conversation.”

Oscar cleared his throat and went back to work. The tips of his ears had turned pink. She was glaring at her dad like he had committed war crimes. Her dad only raised his eyebrows and wandered off to the back shelf, still humming along with the music. When the guitar solo kicked in, he whistled under it, off-key and enthusiastic.

Oscar swatted at a fly buzzing near his ear and bumped the tray. A wrench clattered to the floor.

“That’s strike three.”

Oscar blinked. “Three? What were the first two?”

“The socket you forced, the bolt you cross-threaded, and now the wrench.”

“That socket fit. Spiritually,” he retorted with a grin on his face.

“You’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me. I’m unpaid emotional labour.”

She bent to pick up the wrench and flicked a rag at his face on the way back up.

He caught it. Barely.

“You’re assaulting a teammate,” he said, dramatic.

“You’re not my teammate.”

“Yet.”

She snorted, but there was a smile under it. Her dad caught the sound and shouted from the other end of the garage, “If you two are done flirting, I got brake pipes back here with your names on them.”

Oscar called back, “We are never done flirting.”

She smacked his arm with the rag again.

Her dad cackled, a big laugh, full of breath. The kind of laugh that shook the walls and stayed in the corners long after the noise was gone. The kind of laugh you don’t know you’ll miss until the day it’s not there.

Oscar leaned against the kart, wiping his hands. “So, Sparks, what’s the plan after this? Sandwiches? Cold drinks? A full parade in my honour?”

“You can have the last Tim Tam if you promise to stop talking.”

“I make no such promise.”

She tossed the rag at him again. It landed on his head. He left it there.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, with her dad whistling and the engine guts open like a story waiting to be finished, Oscar looked at her. Not for too long. Just enough.

Enough to know he’d be back next weekend. And the one after that. And probably the one after that too.

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The garage smelled the same. It always did. Like cold metal and worn rubber, with coffee grounds clinging to the corners. But today, something else hung in the air. Thicker than oil. Heavier than exhaust.

Oscar didn’t say anything when he walked in, comfortable now since he’d done it all week. Just raised a hand in greeting, slow and small, like he wasn’t sure if it counted.

She didn’t wave back.

She was working under the hood of a battered Subaru; the same one she’d been pulling apart the day before. Her posture was tight. Focused. More than usual. Like every bolt was an excuse to stay silent. The heater was on, but the place still felt freezing.

Oscar leaned against the wall near the bench, hands in his jacket pockets. He listened for a minute.

“You always let the sad stuff play this loud?”

She didn’t look up. “Didn’t notice.”

He nodded once, even though she couldn’t see him. The music hummed low, her dad’s kind of track. Guitar heavy. Gravel voice. It scraped the silence instead of filling it.

Oscar kicked lightly at a loose washer on the floor. It rolled into the dark under one of the shelves.

“You okay?”

She tightened something that didn’t need it. “Fine.”

“Right.”

Another beat passed. The longest one yet. He moved toward the tool cart and stopped halfway.

“You need help?”

“No.”

He rocked back on his heels. “You sure? I’ve gotten really good at following instructions. Some even said I was trainable.”

Nothing. Not even a breath of a smile. She turned a wrench slow and steady, like she was trying not to let her knuckles shake.

Oscar exhaled through his nose and leaned back against the bench. “Alright. No jokes today.”

Still no answer. He glanced around the garage. Nothing had changed, but it all felt different. Dimmer. He didn’t know why. Not yet. But he felt it. The air was thick with something unspoken. And he was standing in it, same as her. He stayed quiet after that. For a while.

She didn’t tell him to leave, but she didn’t talk either, and in the silence he found himself reaching for something to do.

The rolling cart was low on parts, so he crossed the garage and crouched by the lower drawers, pulling them open one by one. Most were packed with tangled cables, random fittings, a few tools long past their prime. The third drawer stuck halfway, then groaned open with a reluctant scrape.

He reached in for a socket set and paused.

Buried beneath a roll of old sandpaper and a cracked measuring tape was a sketchbook. The edges were warped, the cover smudged and oil streaked. No title, no decoration. Just plain black spiral binding and a corner folded over like it had been jammed back in a hurry.

He hesitated. Then slid it out. She was still under the hood.

Oscar flipped the cover open and felt his breath catch. Page after page of detailed mechanical sketches, clean lines, annotated margins, systems broken down into layered cross-sections. Suspension setups. Chassis tweaks. Engine configurations. Every line purposeful, confident. Sharp handwriting in the corners.

One page showed a kart body rendered from three angles, painted with a stripe of red across the nose and annotations for airflow and weight balance.

At the top, in pencil: “Race Concept: Build One Day”

He turned another page. Then another. Then something slipped out from between the pages and fluttered to the ground.

A piece of paper, yellowed and creased, like it had been folded and refolded too many times. He picked it up.

An application form. A real one. Addressed to a junior race team: a mechanic development program. He recognized the team. Knew the name. Knew who drove for them now.

The form was filled out, every blank completed in neat pen. Dated two years ago, almost to the day.

His name was written in one of the fields as emergency contact. It had never been sent. He looked up from the paper, toward the car.

She hadn’t moved. But she was no longer working. She was just holding the wrench. Still. Like she already knew what he’d found.

He looks at her, eyes sharp, searching. “Why didn’t you go?”

She freezes for a heartbeat, then lets out a dry, bitter laugh. “Why didn’t I go? You really want to ask that? After all this time?”

He blinks, caught off guard. “I just don’t get it. I thought maybe you’d have left by now.”

Her smile twists, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Of course you don’t. You left. You ran.”

He shifts, suddenly uncertain. “It wasn’t like that.”

“No? Then how was it?” She folds her arms, voice low and sharp. “You want me to explain how it feels to stay put while everything you cared about falls apart?”

He swallows. “I’m not blaming you.”

She snorts quietly. “Funny. Feels like you’re blaming me for not packing up and walking out.”

He looks away for a moment, then meets her eyes again. “I guess I thought you might have wanted out.”

Her laugh is harsh, edged with sarcasm. “Wanted out? Maybe. Maybe not. You think it’s that simple? Just wanting something makes it happen?”

He steps closer. “Then why stay?”

She shrugs, but there’s steel beneath the motion. “Because sometimes you don’t get a say. Because life doesn’t pause while you figure your shit out.”

“I’m sorry,” he softens

She bites the inside of her cheek, jaw tight, voice barely above a whisper. “Save it.”

Silence stretches between them, heavy and raw.

Finally, she looks back at him, eyes guarded but sharp. “I didn’t stay for you. Not for your memory, your guilt, or your leaving. I stayed because it was the only thing left.”

He nods slowly, swallowing the weight of that.

Her lips press together. “So don’t ask me why I didn’t go. It’s your question, not mine.”

She looks at him, voice low and steady. “Go.”

There’s no lightness this time. No teasing edge. Just the hard line she’s drawn and refuses to cross back over.

He takes a step forward, then stops. His eyes search hers, like he’s trying to find a crack, an opening, something to hold on to.

“I—” he starts, but the words catch somewhere between his throat and the silence.

She cuts him off with a shake of her head. “No. Not today.”

The weight of that is sudden and absolute. He swallows, hesitant, wanting to say sorry, wanting to fix what’s been left broken, but the moment has already passed. Her hand moves, subtle but deliberate, toward the door.

As he turns to leave, his eyes catch something pinned to the wall, a funeral program. Her dad’s name. The date. He had died the day after he left.

He lingers for a moment, the weight of that detail settling over him like a silent accusation.

She doesn’t look back.

Not yet.

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The night air was still. Not cold enough to bite, but damp. It clung to her sleeves and settled in her hair like dust. The kind of night that felt stuck between seasons. The kind that didn't know what it was supposed to be.

They were standing outside the garage, in the gravel lot between the back wall and her dad’s truck. The lights inside were off now, except for the lamp in the office window. Its glow leaked out just far enough to stretch across the concrete. Oscar was leaned against the side of the truck, arms crossed, head tilted down like he couldn’t look at her and say it at the same time.

She was hugging herself, not from the cold but because it helped. It helped to press her elbows into her ribs and keep her hands still and hold herself together, because no one else was going to do it. Not right now. She hadn’t spoken in a while. She didn’t need to. He was going to say something. She could feel it in her spine.

He cleared his throat like it hurt.

“I got a call,” he said.

She looked over at him. Not all the way. Just her eyes. “Okay.”

“It’s a development seat. One of the junior programs. They want me in Spain for winter testing. And some training stuff. Sim work. It’s a whole thing.”

There was a pause. She waited. He didn’t keep going.

Then, carefully: “It starts tomorrow.”

Now she turned to face him.

“Tomorrow.”

He nodded once.

“You’re leaving tomorrow.”

Another nod. Barely a movement. She let out a quiet, disbelieving breath. “You weren’t even going to tell me.”

“I’m telling you now.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

Oscar didn’t say anything.

Her voice stayed calm, but her arms tightened across her stomach. “I’ve been sleeping three hours a night. Helping my mum with the shop books. Packing up Dad’s tools. Keeping my brothers from falling apart. Trying to make it feel normal for them. I haven’t had five seconds to myself, and the second I turn around, you’re gone too?”

“I didn’t want it to be like this,” he said.

“But it is.”

He looked up. Finally. “I didn’t know if I should say anything. I didn’t want to make things harder.”

She laughed. Not because it was funny. “Congratulations. You did anyway.”

“I thought maybe you’d come.”

“You know I couldn’t.”

He flinched at that. Just a little.

“I know,” he said. “I just… I didn’t want to hear it.”

“So, you waited until the night before?”

“I didn’t know how to say it.”

“You could’ve just said it mattered.”

The air stilled between them.

She let her arms drop. For a second her hands dangled like they didn’t know what to do. She looked at the gravel, then at the dark shape of the garage behind him.

“My dad’s in the hospital. You know that, right? You know what they said today?”

Oscar stayed quiet.

“They said maybe one month. Maybe less.”

Her voice didn’t shake. But her eyes glinted, not from tears, not yet, just the pressure behind them.

“I’m not leaving my family. I’m not getting on a plane and pretending none of this is happening.”

“I never asked you to.”

“No, you just made sure I didn’t have time to think about it.”

His face fell. The guilt came through then. Not anger. Just the weight of knowing he’d done something too late.

He stepped forward, carefully. Like the space between them had turned fragile.

“If this were different-”

“It’s not.”

“I didn’t want to leave without you.”

“But you are.”

He looked at her, like that was the first time it had fully landed.

“I should’ve asked you,” he said.

“Yeah.” Her voice cracked then. Just a little. “I would’ve said no,” she added. “But it would’ve been nice to be asked.”

He stepped closer again. This time he didn’t speak. He just looked at her like he wanted to hold something that wasn’t his to keep.

Their hands almost touched. Almost.

The porch light from the garage flicked off behind them.

She didn’t say anything. He didn’t move.

She stood there in the hoodie he’d left at the garage weeks ago, the sleeves too long, the hem smudged with grease and threadbare at the cuffs. It still smelled faintly like him. She hadn’t meant to keep it. But she had.

She wiped the corner of one eye with the sleeve and stepped back.

“You should go.”

Oscar didn’t. Not yet. He looked at her a moment longer, and something shifted in his face, something that knew this was a line they wouldn't uncross if he said it. But he said it anyway. Soft. Final.

“I love you.”

She didn’t cry. Not then. She just stepped forward, took his face in her hands, and pressed a kiss to his temple—firm, quiet, devastating. Then she pulled back.

Oscar stood there, rooted. Then he nodded once, and didn’t say goodbye.

He got in the car. The headlights flashed across her as he turned it around, and for a second, their eyes caught through the windshield.

He didn’t wave. She didn’t look away.

And then he was gone. She stayed in the gravel; arms crossed over the hoodie like it might hold her together. The quiet rolled back in like a tide.

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The kitchen smelled like toast and old bananas. A cereal box was tipped on its side, spilling onto the table in slow motion while Jackson, twelve now, watched a video on his phone with one elbow in a puddle of orange juice.

“Seriously?” she said.

He blinked up at her. “What?”

She pointed to the box. “That.”

“Oh.”

He righted it lazily, wiped his arm on his hoodie sleeve, and went back to watching. Eli was already half-dressed, hoodie on inside out, socks balled in his hand, standing at the fridge with the door wide open.

“There’s no milk,” he announced like it was a personal betrayal.

“There was yesterday,” their mum said from the hall.

“Well, it walked out, I guess.”

Jackson didn’t look up. “You drank it straight from the bottle again.”

“I didn’t.”

“You absolutely did.”

Their mum shuffled in, hair still wet from the shower, coffee in a chipped mug she refused to throw out. She sat down at the table without looking.

“Is anyone wearing trousers?”

“I am,” Jackson said.

“I’m not,” Eli said, pulling one sock on and then immediately stepping in the juice puddle.

“Cool,” she muttered, standing to grab a paper towel. “We’re thriving.”

The morning noise bumped along in its usual rhythm, cabinet doors, toast popping, someone humming under their breath. She stood at the sink, staring out the window without really seeing it, arms folded. The dish rack was piled unevenly. One of the mugs had a crack spidering down the handle, but no one ever threw it out. Every part of the room was lived-in, a little worn. Familiar.

Jackson grabbed a granola bar and slung his backpack over one shoulder. “Hey, can you tell school I might be late?”

“Nope,” she said. “Tell him yourself.”

Eli was still barefoot, still poking through drawers.

“You’ve had fifteen minutes,” she said.

“I was doing my English reading.”

“Since when is YouTube considered literature?”

“It’s a visual medium,” he said, too proudly.

Their mum finally spoke again, eyes still half-lidded behind her coffee. “Shoes, both of you. Doors. Let’s move.”

Jackson saluted. Eli grumbled. Then the screen door banged shut behind them, leaving the kitchen quieter, a little cooler.

She sat down across from her mum, stealing the other half of her toast without asking.

“They’re growing up fast,” her mum said, staring into her mug.

“Yeah.”

“You okay?”

She shrugged. “They didn’t match their socks.”

“They never do.”

“And Jackson might actually survive school.”

“Not betting on it.”

They shared a look. The kind built from years of not needing to explain everything. The toast was cold, but she ate it anyway.

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The hood was up. The sun wasn’t. Clouds hovered low outside the garage, grey and swollen, flattening the light that came through the open door. Inside, everything smelled like warm metal, damp concrete, and the lingering bite of brake cleaner.

She was half-under the front end of a Volvo, gritting her teeth at a bolt that refused to move. The ratchet clicked and slipped again, the angle too tight, the clearance unforgiving.

“Need a hand?” came a voice from behind her.

She didn’t bother looking. “No.”

Oscar’s boots crossed the floor behind her anyway. She could hear the lazy rhythm of his steps, the smugness practically radiating off them.

“You sure? That bolt sounds scared.”

She exhaled through her nose. “You want to be helpful, go bother the socket tray.”

“I already did. It’s organized. You’re welcome.”

She turned just enough to glare over her shoulder. “You organized it wrong.”

“I organized it alphabetically. It was beautiful.”

She straightened and wiped her hands on a rag, resisting the urge to throw it at him.

“No one organizes sockets alphabetically.”

“Well, now they do.” He was grinning like a man who hadn’t just committed workshop treason. Her arms were sore, her temper was fraying, and still, still, he looked at her like he was enjoying every second of this.

She narrowed her eyes at the bolt again, muttering under her breath. “It’s seized.”

Oscar leaned beside her, arms folded, head tilted toward the engine bay.

“You want the breaker bar?”

“I want it to cooperate.”

“That’s not usually how metal works, Sparks.” He said it easy. Like the nickname belonged to him. Like the years hadn’t scraped that ownership away.

She didn’t answer. He walked off without asking and came back with the bar. She took it without looking at him. Their fingers touched for a second longer than necessary.

He noticed. She pretended she didn’t.

She braced the bar, adjusted her stance, and pulled. The bolt groaned. Gave. She rocked backward a step, breath catching in her throat.

Oscar let out a low whistle. “That was kind of hot.”

She turned, deadpan. “Say that again and I’ll bury you under the parts cart.”

“Romance is dead.”

She handed him the bar. “It never lived.”

He held her gaze for a moment too long, the smile lingering at the corner of his mouth. There was something in his eyes, not just amusement. Something warmer. Something older.

She looked away first.

“Need anything else, boss?” he asked.

She bent back over the car. “Silence would be great.”

He chuckled, quiet and pleased with himself and stayed exactly where he was, just leaned beside her while she worked, offering nothing but presence. That used to be enough. Some weekends, that was all they did, pass tools back and forth and talk about engines like it was a language only they spoke. Now the silence wasn’t comfort. It was pressure.

She reached for a clamp. He passed it to her without asking. Their fingers touched again, briefly, and this time neither of them pretended it didn’t happen.

She cleared her throat. “You’re hovering.”

“I’m helping.”

“You’re loitering with confidence.”

He smiled. “You used to like having me around.”

“You used to know when to back off, you’re breathing down my neck.”

He smiled. “Missed it?”

She rolled her eyes and turned back to the engine. He leaned in slightly, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him at her shoulder.

“I remember a version of you that smiled more.”

“I remember a version of you that didn’t leave.”

The smile didn’t fade, but it faltered, just for a second. A small drop in the engine’s hum.

“Ouch,” he said, with mock offense.

She tightened the clamp. “Yeah, well. Some of us had shit to do.”

Another pause. She didn’t look at him. “You know. Like bury a parent. Keep a roof over people’s heads. That sort of thing.”

He blinked. Slow. Careful.

“Wow. Was that a joke?”

“Only if you’re laughing.”

Oscar let out a low chuckle, stepped closer again, not enough to touch, but enough that she could feel the air shift.

“Not bad, Sparks. You’re getting sharper in your old age.”

She gave him a sidelong glance. “You’d know.”

He smiled at her then. Not wide. Just that tilt at the corner of his mouth that used to make her forget what she was holding. “I did.”

This time, she looked away first. She passed him the clamp back. “Hold this.”

He did, wordlessly, steady hands in the right place without being told. Muscle memory, maybe. Or something else. She adjusted the seal, her fingers brushing his as she worked, and there it was again, that flicker of heat under her skin. The way her breath caught just slightly off-rhythm.

He didn’t say anything, but she could feel his eyes on her. She tightened the last bolt with a sharp click and stepped back fast, wiping her hands hard on her rag.

“Done.”

He stayed still, clamp still in place. Watching her. She met his eyes, just once.

“You want something to do, clean the threads on the rear plugs.”

He tilted his head, just enough. “You okay?”

“I’m great.”

“That’s not what I—”

She cut him off with a look.

“Rear plugs,” she repeated.

Oscar nodded, slow, the smile returning. But softer now. Like he understood. He turned away to grab a brush, and she let herself breathe again, only once he wasn’t looking.

Later, the engine gave a small hiss as she loosened the last bolt, warm air rising from the block and curling against the cold. Oscar was beside her again, leaning into the open hood, his arm brushing hers.

She didn’t move. Not right away.

“You sure you remember how to do this?” she asked, eyes on the housing.

He bumped her lightly with his shoulder. “I’ve done more tracksides rebuilds than you’ve had birthdays.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“It’s not supposed to be.”

He reached in to hold the part steady while she rethreaded a line. She leaned in at the same time, and suddenly they were sharing the narrow space under the hood, shoulders pressed, breath warming the metal between them.

She was aware of everything, the sharp scent of engine coolant, the oil under her nails, the sound of his breath when he concentrated.

His head dipped closer, just slightly, voice softer now. “You know what I missed?”

She didn’t answer.

“This. The way you go quiet when you work. The way you talk to engines like they owe you something.”

She kept her hands moving. “They do.”

He smiled. “They listen to you.”

“They behave for me.”

Oscar glanced at her, and she felt it.

“You ever think about what would’ve happened if you came with me?”

She stopped tightening the line. Just for a second.

“Don’t.”

He didn’t move. Didn’t back off.

“I think about it,” he said.

“That’s your problem.”

She leaned away, suddenly too warm, grabbing a rag from the cart to clean her hands. The air between them stretched thin, like something pulled tight and trembling.

He straightened, slower this time. “You always used to get like this when you were trying not to punch me.”

“Still do.”

She tossed the rag into the bin. Harder than necessary.

Oscar grinned behind her. “You missed me.”

She turned, looked him dead in the eye and didn’t say a word. He didn’t press. Just stayed there while she wiped down the engine block, her hands precise again, her face unreadable.

Oscar leaned against the edge of the workbench now, like he belonged there. Like this was just another Saturday in the garage. Like they hadn’t gone years without speaking. She felt his eyes on her again. That same kind of watching, patient, sharp, almost fond.

It used to make her feel invincible. Now it made her feel like her skin didn’t fit right.

“You still look at me like that,” she said without turning around.

“Like what?”

“Like nothing changed.” He didn’t answer right away. She didn’t give him long. “Things did,” she added.

“I know.”

She turned, finally. Not all the way, just enough to see him out of the corner of her eye.

“You think flirting makes it easier to come back?”

Oscar shrugged, but it was too slow to be casual. “I think it makes it easier to stay.”

That landed between them, quiet but heavy. She didn’t reply. Instead, she picked up the torque wrench, checked the calibration like it mattered.

“Car’s done,” she said.

Oscar nodded, like that meant something else entirely.

Then, still watching her, softer now: “Thanks for letting me help.”

She didn’t look at him. “Don’t make a habit of it.”

He smiled anyway. And she kept her back turned until he walked out.

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The lights above the track buzzed, half the bulbs flickering like they were tired too. Everything else had gone still. The stands were empty, the engine noise long faded, and the air smelled like warm rubber and cooling metal.

He was still in his race suit, unzipped halfway, sweat darkening the collar. She stood by the kart, tools in hand, grease smudged across her wrist, heart still beating out of rhythm from watching him take her build and push it to the edge.

Oscar pulled off his helmet and ran a hand through his hair, breathless.

“That was-” he stopped, grinning like an idiot, “-I don’t even know what that was.”

She walked toward him, still holding the torque wrench.

“You hit seventy-four on the back straight.”

His eyes went wide. “No way.”

“I checked the readout twice.”

He let out a breathless laugh and looked back at the kart like it was something holy. “You built that.”

She shrugged. “You drove it.”

“I barely had to. It knew what it was doing.”

She raised a brow. “Machines don’t drive themselves.”

Oscar turned back to her. Still smiling. “Maybe not. But that thing was humming. Every turn, every shift, clean. Like it wanted to win.”

She ducked her head. “It did.”

He stepped closer. She looked up, and that was the moment, quiet, too fast to stop. Oscar still smelled like engine heat and wind. His hand brushed her elbow when he leaned in just a little.

“You really don’t get it, do you?”

“What.”

“That kart moved like it had something to prove.” He paused. “So did I.”

Her voice was low. “And?”

“It did.”

She opened her mouth, probably to say something cutting or smart, but she didn’t. Instead, she just stood there, close enough to feel the heat coming off him, fingers still wrapped around the wrench like it could anchor her. Then he kissed her.

Not rough. Not slow. Just honest. The kind of kiss that didn’t ask permission because it already knew the answer. Her hands didn’t let go of the wrench. His stayed loose at his sides, like he wasn’t sure he was allowed more.

When they broke apart, she didn’t step back.

“Okay,” she said softly.

He blinked. “Yeah?”

She nodded, still close. “You earned it.”

He smiled, something brighter than his usual smugness, something softer. She finally let go of the wrench.

Oscar’s grin stretched a little wider. “You know, if you keep building karts like that, I might just have to race them all.”

“Oh, you think you can handle it?” She cocked a brow, stepping even closer, the heat between them suddenly sharper than the engine’s roar had been.

He laughed softly; eyes gleaming. “I’m not scared.”

“Good,” she said, voice low and teasing. “Because I’m not just building karts, Oscar. I’m building traps.”

He glanced down at the wrench still in her hands and then back up, his smile turning sly. “Traps, huh? Should I be worried?”

“Depends.” She tapped the wrench lightly against his chest. “How fast can you run?”

His breath hitched just a little. “Faster than you think.”

The silence settled again, but it was different now, charged, expectant. She let her fingers trail a little along the sleeve of his suit, teasing without touching fully.

“Careful,” she murmured, “or I might start thinking you like being caught.”

He leaned in closer, voice barely above a whisper. “Maybe I do.”

Their faces were inches apart, the heat from the track mingling with something else, something electric. She glanced down at the wrench again and then back to his eyes, suddenly feeling daring.

“Race me to the garage,” she challenged, stepping back with a playful smirk. “Loser has to wash the kart.”

Oscar’s grin was all challenge now. “You’re on.”

And just like that, the tension broke with a burst of laughter as they took off, feet pounding on the concrete, racing into the night.

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It was the afternoon on a Tuesday. Oscar had been gone all weekend for a race. She couldn’t pretend she wasn’t jealous of the sport taking him away, though she wouldn’t tell him that. She certainly wouldn’t admit to quietly cheering him on while cooking Sunday lunch with her mum, or that her mum insisted on having every race playing in the background.

She thought she’d enjoy the quiet. Maybe even need it. But without him, the garage felt less like a sanctuary and more like a shell.

She wiped the grease off her hands and bent back over the hood of an old VW, trying to focus, when the familiar clang of boots echoed through the doors. It was the sound she’d missed more than she wanted to admit.

“Sparks,” he greeted, his voice cutting through the silence, casual but not quite.

She didn’t look up right away. Just kept her head buried under the hood, like she hadn’t been listening for that exact sound all afternoon. “Didn’t know they let losers back through customs.”

Oscar let out a low laugh and leaned against the workbench, arms crossed. “Seventh isn’t losing.”

“Tell that to the guy who came sixth,” she muttered, finally straightening up. Her ponytail was a mess, a smear of grease across her cheek. “I had to turn the volume down. Your post-race interview was giving me second-hand embarrassment.”

He raised a brow. “You watched?”

“My mum did.”

He grinned. “So, you just happened to be in the room?”

She didn’t answer. Just grabbed a rag and wiped her hands, more force than necessary.

He looked around, the garage somehow smaller with both of them in it. “Miss me?”

She scoffed. “You leave for two days and come back with a god complex. Impressive.”

“You missed me.”

“In the way you miss a splinter.”

“Sharp. I like it.”

They danced around each other like usual. Tension in every breath, every glance. Neither willing to admit what was obvious to anyone else. She didn’t ask how the race went, and he didn’t offer. Some things they didn’t talk about.

Oscar wandered as she fiddled with a wrench she didn’t need. He stopped by the back corner, drawn by something under the tarp. He glanced at her.

“What’s this?”

“Don’t touch that.”

He looked at her. She didn’t sound playful anymore.

“Seriously. Leave it.”

But he was already lifting the edge. Not enough to see everything, but enough. Welded frame, stripped interior, half an engine. It wasn’t much yet. But it was something. Something important.

When she crossed the garage, she wasn’t stomping. She was silent. Cold.

“You don’t get to look at that.”

Oscar blinked. “I didn’t know it was…”

“You didn’t ask.” Her voice was quiet but sharp, like glass underfoot. “You just went ahead like you always do.”

He stepped back, hands up. “I wasn’t trying to-”

“It’s not about trying.” She was furious, but it wasn’t loud. It was contained, fragile. “That’s mine. You don’t get to touch it. You don’t get to act like you still know me.”

Something in her cracked then, but not in the way he expected. She wasn’t just mad about the car.

“Don’t say that,” he whispered. When she didn’t reply he continued, “Don’t say I don’t know you. I do. Sparks I know you.”

She almost laughed, shaking her head. “No. No, Mr F1 hotshot. You don’t know me. You knew me. Me four years ago, before you left. News Flash. I’ve changed.”

He looked at her, jaw clenched like he had something to say but wasn’t sure if he should.

She didn’t give him time to find the words. “The girl you knew,” she said. “She thought the world was gonna wait. Thought people stuck around if they said they would.”

Her voice didn’t rise, but something cracked in it. “Turns out, people leave. Even the ones who promised not to.”

Oscar’s eyes dropped. “I didn’t promise-”

“Exactly,” she snapped, bitter smile flashing. “Smart move.”

He took a breath, slow and heavy. “I didn’t leave to hurt you.”

“Well, congrats. You managed it anyway.”

A beat passed between them. The garage was too still; the weight of silence louder than any engine ever was.

“You act like I didn’t think about you every damn day,” he said finally, voice low. “Like I didn’t watch every message and think- ‘If I go back now, I’ll remember everything I lost, and it’ll be ten times harder to leave again.’ But I still almost did. A dozen times.”

She turned away from him, arms crossed, jaw tight.

He took a cautious step forward. “You think I don’t regret it?”

She didn’t look at him. “I think you made the right call. That’s the worst part.”

He blinked. “What?”

She laughed once, no humour in it. “You made it. You left and made it. And you’re good. Really bloody good. I can’t even be mad at that without feeling petty.”

“That’s not-”

“I needed you,” she said, finally facing him. “After Dad, after everything, I needed you. And you weren’t here.”

Her voice cracked at the end of it, barely. Just a hairline fracture. But it was enough. Oscar looked like he wanted to reach for her, say something, fix it. But he didn’t move. He just stood there, like someone watching a fire burn too far to stop.

She shook her head. “You don’t get to come back and act like nothing changed. You don’t get to touch my car or talk like you still know me.”

He glanced toward the half-built machine under the tarp. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? Not just a car.”

She didn’t answer.

“You built it without him,” Oscar said softly.

Her jaw tightened. “I built it for me.”

He looked at her, properly now. “You never showed anyone.”

“No,” she said. “Not everything has to be for display.”

Silence again, heavier this time.

“He would’ve been proud.”

Her laugh was sharp, cutting. “Don’t you dare.”

Oscar flinched.

“You don’t get to say that,” she said. “You didn’t even come back. Not once. Not even for the wake. Not for the funeral. Not for me.”

“I didn’t know what to say,” he said, voice quiet.

“You didn’t have to say anything,” she snapped. “You just had to show up.”

The words hung there. Raw. Final.

Oscar looked like he wanted to argue. Or explain. Or at least try. But whatever words he had fell short. He swallowed hard, but didn’t speak.

And she didn’t look at him again.

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The sterile hum of the hospital waiting room was punctuated by the quiet murmur of a family trying to hold itself together. At nineteen, she’d always seen her father as her steadfast champion, invincible despite life’s many curves. That afternoon, however, the harsh fluorescent lights revealed the first cracks in that fortress.

She sat on a row of uncomfortable chairs, knees jiggling, the vinyl squeaking beneath every shift. Her mother sat to her right, posture too upright, one leg crossed over the other, hands folded tight in her lap. Her determined smile was brittle. Her eyes had gone glassy and faraway, as if she were staring straight past the walls.

To her left, Eli and Jackson slouched in oversized hoodies, their small limbs tucked in like they'd rather vanish into the fabric. Eli swung his legs restlessly, trainers tapping a dull rhythm against the tile. Jackson hugged a toy car in both hands, a battered Hot Wheels thing, bright blue, its wheels worn from years of races down garage ramps and hallway baseboards.

“Can I get a can of coke?” Jackson asked suddenly, not quite whispering.

“Not now,” she said, automatic.

“I’m thirsty.”

Her mum blinked like she was coming out of a fog. “There’s water in my bag.”

“I don’t like that water.”

Eli elbowed him. “It’s just water, idiot.”

“Don’t call him that,” their mum snapped.

“Sorry,” Eli muttered, quieter.

Oscar stood a few seats away, his hands in his coat pockets, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He looked out of place in the sterile hallway, too tall, too real, like he’d been dropped into someone else’s tragedy. But he wasn’t a stranger. Not to them. He’d driven them here. He’d held her hand on the walk in, brief, not for show. Jackson had fallen asleep on his shoulder during the wait and Oscar hadn’t moved the whole time.

Now, though, Oscar’s usual fire had dulled to embers. His jaw was set, but his eyes were soft, full of something heavy. He wasn’t looking at her. He was watching the boys. Watching their mum. Watching the whole room crack open.

The sound of footsteps drew them all upright. The doctor appeared in the hallway like a verdict, clipboard in hand, expression calm, prepared, devastating.

The words came in carefully measured doses. Aggressive. Treatment options. Time is uncertain. None of it landed cleanly. Her mother’s fingers tightened around the armrest. Jackson squirmed in his seat. Eli looked at her, wide-eyed, waiting for someone else to react first.

She felt Oscar step closer, just behind her now, his presence suddenly grounding against the sterile hum of the corridor. The harsh hospital lighting didn’t soften anything, not the ache in her chest, not the sting behind her eyes, but he did.

“This isn’t how we imagined today,” he murmured, his voice thick with something unspeakable.

She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. Her arms were folded tight across her chest, fingers digging into her sleeves like she could anchor herself to the moment. Still, she was grateful he was there. Grateful he hadn't filled the silence with apologies or promises he couldn't keep.

Then, slowly, she felt it, his hand brushing against hers. Not a grab, not even a touch, really. Just the barest graze of skin, tentative and uncertain. She didn’t flinch, she didn’t respond either. Not at first.

His hand stayed there, barely touching, like he was asking permission without words. Waiting. She exhaled, shakily. Let her fingers unfurl from the fist she hadn’t realised she’d made. And then she let him.

Their hands found each other with aching slowness, fingers threading together like it hurt. His thumb moved once, softly over her skin, a gesture that asked nothing but said everything. She still didn’t look at him. Just stared straight ahead, toward the blank white wall and the door they’d both been too afraid to open.

Her father was just down the hall, behind a closed door. She imagined him lying there, awake now, or not. Breathing easily, or not. She hadn’t seen him since the scan. She’d thought it would be hours still. She wasn’t ready.

Jackson tugged on her sleeve. “Is he gonna come home today?”

Eli gave him a look. “Don’t ask that.”

“I was just-”

“Enough,” she said gently, pulling her arm away. “We don’t know yet.”

Her mum stood, finally, one hand pressed flat to her chest like she needed to keep something inside. She didn’t say anything. Just nodded at the doctor and followed him down the corridor, her steps small, uneven.

The boys stayed on the bench, suddenly quiet. Jackson leaned his head on Eli’s shoulder, and Eli let him. Neither said a word. The toy car slipped from Jackson’s fingers and rolled in a lazy arc under the chairs. Oscar bent to catch it before it disappeared, handed it back without comment.

Jackson took it, nodded. Eli gave his brother’s shoulder the softest nudge. Not rough. Just something that said: I'm still here too. Oscar sat beside them, hands clasped between his knees, eyes forward. The silence pressed in again.

Her own hands were shaking. She shoved them into the pockets of her jacket. Her thoughts spiralled, unfocused. Words caught in her throat like gravel. She didn’t want to go in yet. She didn’t want to see her father like that. Smaller. Dimmer. She didn’t want to hear the quiet way he might say her name. Or not say it at all.

Oscar reached out, quietly, resting one hand on her knee. His thumb moved in a slow, absent motion. Not asking. Just anchoring. She didn’t cry. Not yet. But she let her head drop against his shoulder, just briefly.

Across from them, the hallway light flickered once. Then stayed on.

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The garage smelled like heat again. Not the good kind, not motor heat, not track heat, but the stale kind, the kind that came from a space that hadn’t been aired out in days. The kind that came from silence.

Oscar had been back every day since, but he’d kept his distance. Especially from the corner.

Now, he was sitting on the bench near the old toolbox, elbows on his knees, watching her work like he was waiting for a green light that might never come. She was under the hood of a hatchback she didn’t care about. Tinkering more than fixing. Avoiding.

“I shouldn’t have looked,” he said quietly.

She didn’t look at him.

“I didn’t mean to step on anything. I just-” He hesitated. “It was stupid.”

Still, she kept her head down, arms elbow-deep in useless adjustment.

He added, “It’s a hell of a car.”

That earned him a glance. Quick. Neutral.

“You didn’t see all of it.”

“Didn’t need to.”

She tightened a bolt that didn’t need tightening.

“I overreacted,” she said, too casual to sound sincere, too flat to be nothing.

He looked up at that.

She added, “You were just being nosy. You’ve always been nosy.”

“True.”

“And smug.”

He grinned. “Deeply.”

A small beat passed.

Then: “But also right,” he added. “About the car. It’s something.”

She wiped her hands on a rag. “It’s mine.”

“I know.”

She looked at him again. Longer, this time. The light through the windows caught the dust in the air, made it move like smoke.

Then, quiet: “You really want to drive it?”

He blinked. Sat up straighter. “Yeah. If you’ll let me.”

She hesitated. Just for a moment. Then tossed the rag onto the bench.

“You can drive it.”

He stood, surprised by how fast she said it.

“But,” she said, already walking toward the tarp, “I’m coming too.”

He smiled. “You don’t trust me?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Not with the car. And definitely not with the wheel.”

Oscar stepped forward, eyes on her. “Where are we taking it?”

She didn’t answer right away. Just peeled back the edge of the tarp and looked at the machine beneath, her machine, like it was a secret she was almost ready to show.

Then, softly: “The old track.”

Oscar’s smile softened. “I remember.”

The tarp came off slowly. Like unveiling something holy. Oscar didn’t reach for it. He just watched.

The frame was welded clean, the lines sharp and purposeful. No paint yet, just raw metal and taped notes on the panel seams. The engine was only half assembled, but the wiring loom was already tucked tight, routed with care. It looked like something caught mid-transformation, feral and unfinished.

He let out a breath. “Damn.”

She didn’t smile, but her hands moved with less tension now. She crouched to unlock the jack stands, then handed him a socket without being asked.

“You built this from scratch?” he asked.

“Started with scraps,” she replied. “Salvaged parts. A few things from the old kart.”

Oscar blinked. “Our kart?”

“Some pieces still worked.”

He knelt beside her, checking the front suspension. “Steering feels stiff.”

“Needs adjustment. It's deliberate.”

He glanced up. “You always did like control.”

She gave him a flat look. “You always did need it.”

He laughed softly, then dropped it. The mood didn’t break, but it bent. They kept working. Wheels. Brake lines. Torque checks. They passed tools back and forth with an ease they hadn’t earned back yet. Each movement was a ghost of a hundred Saturdays before it.

“I kept meaning to ask,” he said after a while, his voice softer. “Why that track?”

She didn’t answer right away. Just twisted a wrench a half-turn too far and leaned back.

“I like the corners,” she said eventually.

Oscar gave her a look. “You hate those corners.”

She shrugged. “I like knowing what I’m up against.”

That made him pause. Something in the way she said it, something in the torque she used on that bolt, pulled at a memory. A night. A fight. A version of her standing at this exact distance, arms crossed, words sharp.

He reached for the next tool, but his hand hovered instead. She noticed. Her eyes flicked to his. Everything in the room stilled. Like a scene about to replay itself.

But not yet.

Not yet.

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The hospital room was dim. A small lamp glowed on the windowsill; the only real light left. Everything else had gone quiet. She sat on the edge of the vinyl chair, hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands. Her knees were pulled up, ankles crossed, eyes fixed on the bed.

Her father looked smaller under the sheets. The kind of small that came from pain and the slow fading of someone who used to fill every room with his laugh.

He stirred, eyes fluttering half-open. “Hey.”

She straightened. “Hey.”

“You’re still here.”

She gave a tired smile. “You think I’d go somewhere better than this?”

His mouth curved weakly. “Could be worse.”

They both knew it already was.

She reached over and adjusted the corner of the blanket, not because it needed fixing, but because she didn’t know what else to do with her hands.

He was quiet for a while. Then, softly: “Your mum’s gonna need help. And the boys.”

She nodded.

“But not forever,” he added. “Don’t let this place trap you.”

“I’m not trapped.”

“Not yet,” he said. “But I know how it happens.”

She swallowed hard, blinked up at the ceiling.

“You were gonna go,” he said, eyes still half-lidded. “You and that boy.”

Her throat tightened. “Oscar left.”

He turned his head slightly, eyes clearer now. “What?”

“He got offered something. Overseas. He left yesterday.”

His chest rose slowly, then fell. “I see.”

“He didn’t know… how bad things were.”

“Did you tell him?”

She didn’t answer.

He watched her a long moment. “You should’ve told him.”

“I was tired of people leaving.”

He gave a quiet, painful breath of a chuckle. “Well. Some of us don’t get a choice.”

She looked away, biting the inside of her cheek. Then, quieter: “He cared about you. Still does.”

“I liked that kid.”

“He left.”

Her dad reached out. His hand shook, but he managed to place it over hers. “He’s not the only one who’ll want you.”

She shook her head. “This isn’t-”

“Don’t close the door just because he couldn’t walk through it,” he murmured. “You’ve got a life waiting. Don’t be afraid to take it.”

She couldn’t speak. Just stared at their hands. A spasm passed through him, sharper this time. His fingers gripped tighter.

“Hey,” she said, sitting forward. “Breathe. Just breathe.”

He winced. Jaw tight. Trying to fight it.

“Dad-”

“I just want you to be okay,” he whispered, tear falling on his cheek.

“You’ve done that,” she said, voice shaking now. “You said everything. You said it all.”

Another flicker of pain crossed his face. She leaned closer, brushed his hair back like she used to do as a kid.

“If it hurts… you don’t have to stay. I’ll take care of them. I’ll take care of everything.”

His eyes fluttered.

“You can rest now,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”

She kept her hand over his until his grip faded, even then, she didn’t move. The monitors didn’t beep. There was no drama to it. Just a quiet kind of ending. The room didn’t feel any different. But she did.

She sat there for a long time, still holding his hand, forehead resting against the edge of the bed. Her shoulders began to shake, no sound, just the sudden, overwhelming collapse of it all.

He was gone.

And she hadn’t cried until now.

The wrenching sobs came fast. She tried to cover her mouth with her sleeve, to stay quiet. But there was no stopping it. Her ribs felt too tight. Her throat raw. Her whole body folding in on itself as the truth landed hard, brutal, final.

It didn’t feel real.

It felt like something she’d say out loud and regret the second it left her mouth. Like if she kept her eyes closed, maybe he’d still be here, asleep and snoring like usual. Just tired.

But when she looked again, the shape of him didn’t move. She sat there until the weight of silence became unbearable.

Then she stood. Wiped her face with both sleeves.

Pulled his blanket back up to his chest. Smoothed the pillow.

Her hands were steady again by the time she stepped into the hallway. The light was harsher out here. More real.

She found her mum curled up on the waiting room couch, arms wrapped around both boys. One asleep, the other blinking groggily at a cartoon on the wall screen. Her mother looked up the second she walked in.

Didn’t speak. Just searched her face.

And her daughter nodded.

Once.

Enough.

Her mum's arms tightened around the boys. Her face collapsed quietly into their shoulders.

She walked over and sat on the floor beside them, legs folded, head leaning against her mother’s knee like she used to when she was little.

No one said anything for a long time. They just held on.

🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂

The airport hotel smelled like disinfectant and overripe fruit. The kind of generic comfort that didn't comfort anything. Outside, a Spanish winter pressed cold against the windows, but inside the room it was all fake warmth, dim lighting, beige walls, and the quiet hum of nothing important.

Oscar sat on the floor between the bed and the desk, knees drawn up, one arm hooked over them, still in his base layer from the sim test earlier that morning. His travel bag was unzipped beside him. His race gloves stuck out the top, half-dried, still tacky with sweat.

His phone was in his hand. Her name was on the screen. He hadn’t opened it yet.

He’d stared at it for the last twenty minutes, thumb hovering just over the play icon, heart doing that thing it used to do when she stood at the edge of the track with her arms folded, pretending not to watch his laps. Except now, it wasn’t adrenaline. It was fear. Guilt. That cold pressure behind his ribs that said if you listen to this, you can’t take it back.

He hit play.

"He’s gone."

That was it. Just her voice. Flat, drained, the edges of it frayed in a way he hadn’t heard before. No sobbing. No explanations. No details. Just two words and a pause at the end, like she didn’t know whether to hang up or break down.

Then silence. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. The ceiling above him had a water stain shaped like a continent he didn’t recognize. The laptop on the desk still glowed faint blue. The flight itinerary was open.

He could still make it. If he left now, grabbed his bag, told the team manager he had to go home for a few days, they’d understand. They wouldn’t like it, but they’d understand. He could be there by morning. Stand in the back of the service. Offer some half-version of comfort.

But then what? Walk in with nothing to say? Stand beside a grave he hadn’t helped dig? Try to tell her he was sorry in the same voice he’d used to say goodbye?

He stared at the screen until the gate info blinked up. The room buzzed around him like a distant track on warmup laps, close, but not immediate.

Oscar stood slowly. Walked to the window. Pressed his forehead against the cold glass.

The voicemail played again in his head. He’s gone.

Her dad. The man who handed him wrenches before he was tall enough to reach the pegboard. Who taught him to find torque by feel. Who called him out when he was being cocky and praised him when he shut up and listened. Who let him into that garage like it wasn’t borrowed space.

The man he should’ve come back for. If not for her, then at least for him. Oscar picked up his phone. His thumb hovered over her name.

He didn’t call. He didn’t text. He didn’t move.

Instead, he reached for the laptop, closed the lid, and slid the boarding pass into the bin beside the desk. He sat back down on the floor and stared at the blank carpet like it might offer absolution.

It didn’t.

That night, he didn’t sleep. He just lay there, arms crossed over his chest, listening to the hum of the hallway outside, trying to convince himself that leaving things broken was less painful than showing up too late to fix them.

He told himself it wasn’t cowardice. But he never listened to that voicemail again.

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The track hadn’t changed. The painted lines were faded, the curbs chipped at the corners, weeds feathering out through the cracks. The stands were empty, half-collapsed in places, and the flag post leaned a little more than it used to, but the smell was the same.

Petrol. Dirt. Rubber. Memory.

The sky was soft grey above them. The kind of morning that held back light like it wasn’t ready to commit. Oscar stood by the driver’s side, helmet tucked under one arm, his other hand resting on the roof of the car like he wasn’t sure he belonged touching it.

“You sure about this?” he asked.

She didn’t answer right away. Just walked around to the passenger side, the soft scuff of her boots on gravel the only sound.

“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” she said.

Oscar nodded; jaw tight. He slipped into the seat. She followed. The doors clicked shut. The windows fogged a little at the edges. And then the silence grew loud. She adjusted the harness. Tighter than she needed to.

He looked over at her, helmet already in place. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re shaking.”

She flexed her fingers on her lap. “Adrenaline.”

He didn’t push it.

The ignition clicked. The engine coughed once, then roared to life, raw and eager. She felt it all through her spine.

Oscar glanced at her one last time. She gave him the smallest nod. And they rolled out onto the track.

The car took the first corner like it was born for it. Tight. Clean. No drag. No protest.

She felt every inch of it, the way the rear tucked in just enough, the low hum under her boots, the rumble that wasn’t noise but language. Her hands braced against the dash like she could feel the pulse through the frame.

Oscar didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His hands moved with the wheel like he was dancing with it. Confident, but careful. Like he knew she was watching every twitch.

They hit the first straight, and the engine opened up. The sound of it filled the cabin, low and rising, as if the car was proud of itself. She almost laughed. She hadn’t expected that. The thrill. The spark. The joy.

“You feel that?” Oscar shouted over the noise, grinning like a kid behind the visor.

She didn’t shout back. Just nodded. Wide-eyed. Because she did. She felt all of it. Every piece of metal, every wire, every stubborn bolt and long night and skinned knuckle, it all mattered. It all worked.

The car was hers. And it was alive. They hit the back curve faster than she would’ve taken it. Her breath caught, but the car held. So did Oscar.

He wasn’t cocky behind the wheel now. He was grateful. Driving like it meant something.

Mid-lap, she turned to him. No helmet. No mask. Just her.

“You don’t have to be gentle,” she said.

He glanced at her. “Not with this one.” And pushed.

The engine screamed into the next gear, the tires kissing the track edge as they clipped the apex. She leaned into the motion, and for the first time since her dad died, since Oscar left, since the world stopped asking what she wanted, she let herself feel it:

Pride. Freedom. Love.

She looked at the track unfolding ahead of them, the straight stretch, the air vibrating through the shell, and her eyes blurred. And then, Oscar said it.

Quiet. Like it didn’t need to be shouted.

“I thought about this,” he said. “All the time. You. Me. This car. I wanted to believe we’d still make it here.”

Her breath stilled.

“I thought if I saw you again, I’d forget what it felt like to leave.”

He downshifted. Took the next curve.

“But I didn’t forget,” he said. “I never forgot. Not a single day.”

She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. She looked ahead, blinked hard, and let the tears fall anyway. Not loud. Not messy. Just there.

Because he was right and because she hadn’t let herself believe that anyone, especially him, remembered what she’d lost.

Oscar’s voice dropped, almost a whisper. “I loved you back then.”

She looked away, fiddling with the edge of her jacket. “Yeah? I’m not sure you really knew what that meant.” Her tone was light, but the edge was there, sharper than she wanted.

He let out a dry laugh, running a hand through his hair like he was trying to find the words he didn’t have. “Maybe not. But I never stopped.”

She met his eyes, feeling that familiar mix of warmth and ache. “Me neither. Even if I wanted to.”

The silence between them wasn’t empty, it was full, thick with all the things they never said. The hum of the engine faded into the background, the car still resting beneath them like a quiet witness.

Oscar’s grip tightened slightly on the steering wheel, fingers tracing the worn leather. “I thought if I came back, everything would be easier. Like we could pick up where we left off.”

She bit her lip, staring out at the cracked asphalt stretching ahead. “I wanted that too. But sometimes, the past isn’t a place you can go back to.”

He nodded slowly, eyes never leaving hers. “I was scared. Scared I’d make it worse.”

“By coming back?” Her voice cracked, just for a moment. Then she masked it with a small, bitter laugh. “You walked away when I needed you the most. You weren’t just scared, you were gone.”

He swallowed hard, jaw clenched. “I thought it was what you wanted. What you needed.”

She looked down, hands tightening into fists on her lap. “Maybe. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. It still does.”

For a long moment, they just sat there, two people tangled up in regrets and love, unsure how to bridge the distance time had made.

Oscar’s voice was quiet, steady. “We’re here now.”

She finally gave a small, tired smile. “Yeah. Stubborn enough to be here.”

He chuckled, a lightness returning to his tone. “So, what now?”

She shrugged, eyes sparkling despite herself. “I don’t know. But I’m glad you asked.”

And as the morning light finally spilled across the track, it felt like maybe, just maybe, they were ready to find out together.

🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂

The garage smelled like oil, sweat, and something else, something electric, like the air itself was charged just for them.

She lay stretched out on the cold concrete floor, knees bent, arms propped behind her head, watching the underside of the car they’d just finished tweaking. Grease streaked across her collarbone, drying into her skin like a second language. The hum of the overhead fluorescent lights was steady, almost hypnotic, as she caught the faintest scent of Oscar’s aftershave mixed with the grime on his sleeves.

Oscar was crouched beside her, one arm hooked around a suspension spring, head tilted back to study the mechanics, but every so often his eyes flicked down, meeting hers through the shadows.

“Not bad for a rookie,” he said eventually, voice low, the kind that made her heart flip and her cheeks warm.

She rolled her eyes but smiled, elbow nudging his arm. “Says the guy who just tried to convince me the clutch was on backwards.”

He grinned, brushing a hand through his tangled hair. “Details, details. It worked, didn’t it?”

“Barely,” her eyebrow arched. “You nearly reversed us into the hydraulic lift.”

They fell quiet then, the only sounds the occasional drip of oil and their steady breathing. The air between them thickened, charged like a live wire. Without thinking, she shifted closer, her bare arm brushing his sleeve, skin sparking at the contact. He caught the movement, eyes locking with hers through the shadows.

The breath she took felt thick in her lungs.

“Careful,” she whispered. “You’re getting dangerous.”

Oscar’s smile softened, something real behind it now. “Only for you.”

Silence. The kind that knew what it wanted but waited anyway. His hand did not move yet. Hers stayed braced against the floor like it could keep her grounded.

The lights buzzed overhead. A tool dropped somewhere deeper in the garage, loud, then gone. Still, they didn’t speak Then his fingers curled gently around her wrist. Slow. Testing. Not claiming, just asking.

Her breath hitched, the heat in her chest spreading, making her skin tingle in a way the garage grease never could.

“Happy birthday,” he murmured, voice rough, as if the words themselves held a secret promise.

She swallowed, eyes wide and heart racing. “You remembered.”

His thumb brushed the inside of her wrist now, rhythmic. Calming or trying to be.

“How could I forget?” He shifted closer, the warmth of his body pressing against hers, sending an electric pulse straight through her.

They were tangled in shadows, the world outside forgotten, the garage a cocoon of scent and whispered promises. His lips brushed her temple, soft but claiming, a contrast to the roughness of his hands as they moved to her waist, pulling her closer, deeper into the quiet heat of the moment.

She arched up against him, breath mingling with his, the sharp tang of motor oil and skin and something dangerously sweet filling her senses.

“Don’t stop,” she breathed, voice trembling between a plea and a dare.

His laugh was low and dark, a sound that promised mischief and more. “Oh, I wasn’t planning to.”

Fingers traced the line of her jaw, tilting her face up to meet his kiss, fierce and slow, a promise that this night was theirs alone, unspoken but understood.

The world narrowed to the press of skin and the rush of heat between them, tangled bodies and whispered names in the dark.

No need for words. Just the quiet, raw language of two people who had waited far too long to let go.

His lips crashed into hers, hungry and deliberate, the taste of him, spearmint and gasoline, flooding her senses. The concrete bit into her back, but she barely noticed, too lost in the way his fingers tangled in her hair, possessive and desperate.

A groan rumbled low in his throat as she nipped at his bottom lip, her hands sliding beneath the hem of his grease-streaked shirt, tracing the taut muscles of his stomach. A wrench clattered somewhere nearby, the sound sharp in the charged silence, but neither of them flinched.

Oscar’s mouth trailed down her neck, teeth grazing the sensitive skin just below her ear, and she arched against him with a gasp. His breath was hot against her skin, lips leaving a searing trail down her collarbone as her fingers tightened in his hair.

The garage air clung to them, thick with the scent of sweat and motor oil, but all she could focus on was the rough drag of his calloused hands sliding under the small of her back, lifting her just enough to press her harder against the concrete.

Her top rode higher, the fabric catching on the edge of a bolt they’d dropped earlier, and she shivered as cool metal kissed her skin. His mouth followed the path his fingers had taken, tongue tracing the dark smudge of a grease streak along her hipbone, tasting salt and the sharp tang of engine work. She gasped when his teeth grazed the sensitive dip of her waist, her own fingers leaving prints on his shoulders as she dragged him closer.

His fingers hooked into the waistband of her work trousers, rough knuckles dragging against her overheated skin as he peeled the fabric down in one slow, deliberate motion. The air between them crackled, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps as the cool garage air hit her bare thighs.

His calloused palms skimmed the curve of her hips, pausing just long enough to catch the edge of her underwear with his thumb, the lace snapping taut before yielding. She lifted her hips in silent permission, the concrete rough beneath her, every scrape and grind of it only heightening the ache building low in her stomach.

The lace gave way with a whisper of fabric, his breath hot against her newly bared skin. She gasped as his mouth found the inside of her thigh, teeth scraping just enough to make her hips jerk off the concrete. His laugh was dark, vibrating against her skin as he pinned her down with one broad hand, the other tracing slow, maddening circles higher, always higher, until her fingers twisted in his hair, desperate. Fluorescent light flickered above them, casting jagged shadows across his shoulders as he dragged his tongue over her in one slow, filthy stroke.

Her back arched off the concrete as his tongue circled her clit, slow and teasing at first, then relentless, the same rhythm he used when polishing chrome, all focused pressure and knowing precision. The wrench lay forgotten nearby, its metal gleaming under the flickering lights, but all she could hear was the slick, filthy sound of his mouth working her, the groan vibrating through his chest when she rocked against him.

His fingers dug into her thighs, holding her open as he dragged his tongue lower, tasting her in slow, deliberate strokes, each one wringing a broken noise from her throat. The scent of motor oil clung to his skin, mingling with sweat and her arousal, thick enough to drown in. Her thighs trembled against his ears as his tongue pressed deeper, the flat of it dragging against her with the same slow precision he used to torque bolts, just shy of too much.

The garage air clung to them, thick with the scent of gasoline and her, the taste of her sharp on his tongue as he curled two fingers inside without warning. Her gasp fractured into a moan, her hips lifting off the concrete only for his free hand to shove her back down, the rough pad of his thumb circling where his tongue had just been.

"Good girl," he rumbled against her skin, the vibration sending another shockwave through her. His tongue slowed to torturous swirls, savouring the way her thighs trembled around him.

His thumb pressed harder, the rough edge of his callus dragging just where she needed it while his tongue flicked mercilessly. "Look at you," he growled, pulling back just enough to watch her clench around his fingers, glistening under the garage lights. "Pretty little thing falling apart on my tongue."

The garage air hummed with the sound of her panting as his tongue curled deeper, the wet heat of his mouth wringing another broken cry from her lips. His fingers twisted inside her, dragging against her walls with the same rough precision he used when threading stubborn bolts, just enough friction to make her toes curl against the concrete.

The scent of her clung to his face, smeared across his lips as he pulled back just long enough to watch her squirm.

"Close," she gasped, her thighs shaking where they framed his shoulders, the muscles in her stomach tightening like coiled wire.

His grin was all teeth, wicked in the flickering light. "Not yet."

His fingers withdrew with a slick sound, leaving her clenching around nothing as he shoved his own trousers down just enough to free himself, thick and flushed, his cock bobbing against her inner thigh.

 "Won't let you finish," he started, dragging the leaking head through her, "not till I’ve felt you." Her breath hitched as he notched himself against her entrance, the blunt pressure just shy of pushing in. The garage air clung to them, thick with oil and sweat and her, his calloused grip bruising her hips as he held her still.

His hips snapped forward, burying himself to the hilt with a guttural groan that vibrated through her chest. The concrete bit into her shoulders as he pinned her down, every ridge and vein of him carving itself into her walls.

She gasped, half pain, half blinding pleasure, her nails scoring red lines down his sweat-slicked back as he began moving. No finesse now, just the brutal drag of him pulling out until just the head remained before slamming back in, the wet slap of skin drowning out the hum of the garage lights.

 He fucked her like he raced, relentless, precision-guided chaos. Every thrust was a victory lap, every moan a trophy ripped from her throat. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, only feel: the sting of concrete beneath her, the heat of his sweat dripping onto her skin, the way his hand slid between them to circle her clit again, fast and filthy.

"Fuck, you feel-" he bit off the end of the sentence with a groan, his forehead pressed to hers, lips brushing as he moved. "So fucking good, always-"

She tugged him closer, wrapping her legs high around his back, forcing him deeper. Her body arched to meet his every thrust, slick and shameless, gasping his name like it was the only word she knew.

“Say it,” he panted, voice rough with need. “Tell me this is mine. All of it.”

She sobbed out a “Yes-yours, always-” as he slammed into her, the drag of him too much and never enough. He kissed her then, wild and hungry, tongue tasting every desperate sound she made.

Her orgasm hit like a slammed door, violent, all-consuming, her whole body tightening beneath him as she shattered. She clenched around him, dragging a broken curse from his mouth as he lost rhythm, stuttered, and spilled into her with a low, feral groan.

The air between them hung heavy, buzzing like static. For a long moment, they didn’t move, just breathing hard, tangled in sweat and oil and heat.

Oscar finally let out a shaky laugh, forehead still pressed to hers. “Happy birthday.”

She laughed too, breathless and wrecked, hands still tangled in his hair. “Best gift I’ve ever had.”

He kissed her again, slower this time, lips brushing hers like a secret. Then he pulled back just far enough to look at her, really look at her, his voice rough around the edges. “I meant it, you know. I love you. And I’m yours, forever.”

She blinked, eyes wide, raw with something that had nothing to do with lust. “I know,” she whispered, pulling him close again. “Me too.”

And in the quiet aftermath, lying there on the cold garage floor, covered in grease and sweat and each other, it felt like the most honest place in the world.

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She was smiling when they rolled to a stop.

The engine ticked quietly as it cooled, metal softening in the hush. Her chest rose and fell in a rhythm that almost felt calm. Her fingers relaxed; her boots planted steady on the floor. Oscar had already unbuckled, helmet resting in his lap, breath fogging the glass.

And still, she smiled.

Because for a second, for just that heartbeat on the straight, it had felt like before. Like they were invincible again. Like grief had never burned a hole in her chest, like he hadn’t left, like maybe there was still something here worth saving.

Then the smile broke.

She didn’t mean for it to. It cracked, barely, and then her throat tightened. Her hands started to tremble. Not from adrenaline this time.

Oscar noticed. “Hey. You okay?”

She shook her head, wiped her face, and laughed, sharp and wet and wrong. “Why am I crying?”

He reached for her instinctively, but she flinched away, throwing the door open instead. The cold hit first. Then the rain. A slow drizzle that grew fast, soaking into her jacket, her hair, her skin like it was trying to wash something out of her.

Oscar followed, stepping into the gravel and rain, not bothering with a jacket. “Talk to me.”

She spun on him. “About what? About how I finally let myself feel something and it just made me fall apart?”

“You don’t have to do this alone.”

She scoffed. “I’ve been doing it alone for years. You don’t get to waltz in and fix it with a lap and a couple of words.”

His voice was low, but firm. “I meant it, you know. I love you. And I’m yours, forever.”

That stopped her. Not softened her, stopped her.

She blinked rain from her lashes, jaw tight. “Don’t say that like it’s a promise. You said you loved me back then, too. Right before you left.”

“I had to leave.”

“You didn’t have to leave me.”

The rain picked up, drumming on the roof of the car, filling the silence.

Oscar took a step forward. “I never forgot you.”

“You keep saying that. Like it’s supposed to undo everything.” Her voice rose, frayed and full of ache. “You don’t get to show up now and act like I’m still yours.”

“But you are,” he said, helpless. “You always have been.”

Her breath hitched, too fast. Too shallow. She tried to speak but her chest was collapsing inward, ribs locking up like a vice. Her hands went to her knees, the gravel swaying underfoot.

“Hey. Hey, look at me.” Oscar knelt beside her, water pooling at their feet. “Breathe. Just breathe.”

She couldn’t. Not properly. Not through the panic or the pressure or the weight of everything she hadn’t let herself feel until today.

“I can’t,” she gasped. “I can’t-”

He didn’t touch her, just sat close, voice steady. “In. Out. Match me, alright?”

It took time. Too much of it. But eventually, the air found her again. Rushed in like it had been waiting on the edge. She sat back, soaked and shaking, and didn’t resist when Oscar put his jacket over her shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” she said, small. “I didn’t mean to fall apart.”

He looked at her with something tender and broken. “You don’t have to hold it all together for me.”

Silence again. Then the kiss.

Raw, desperate, teeth and breath and rain. A collision, not a comfort. It didn’t build; it broke.

His hands tangled in her hair like he didn’t know how to let go. Hers fisted in his collar, dragging him down, as if closing the space between them might fill the chasm time had carved open. Their mouths met like a question without an answer, too late, too much, too soon.

It tasted like rain and salt and memory. He kissed her like he was drowning. She kissed him like she was trying to forget. And for a second, just one stolen, selfish second, it felt like maybe that was enough. But it wasn’t.

It could’ve been more. Maybe it was more. But it wasn’t peace. It wasn’t healing. It was fire, not warmth. Burn, not balm.

When they finally tore apart, breathless and shivering, it was with bruised mouths and glassy eyes, and the unmistakable sense that something had broken open between them, something fragile and vital that couldn’t be put back the same way.

He kept his forehead pressed to hers. Their breaths synced. Rain ran between them like blood from a split lip.

“I never stopped,” he said, barely a whisper. “Not for a second.”

She pulled back enough to look at him, really look at him. He looked wrecked. Beautiful and broken in a way that made her ache.

“I know,” she said. It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t enough. She looked down at her hands, still trembling. “But we can’t keep doing this.”

“I know,” he said, softer now. Final.

They stood there for a long moment. Rain washing everything. The air between them thick with what-ifs and never-agains.

Then, slowly, she shrugged off his jacket and held it out to him like a flag of surrender.

He took it. Didn’t speak.

She turned. Walked toward the garage with shoulders squared and spine straight, as if leaving him again didn’t hurt this time. As if it didn’t kill her. Rain slicked her face, cleaned her of everything she didn’t say.

“Don’t go,” he said, voice cracking like thunder in the downpour.

She froze. Just for a second. Just enough for him to catch up.

“I need you,” he said, chest heaving, soaked through. “I need you, and it’s killing me, watching you walk away like I didn’t fight hard enough to stay.”

She didn’t turn. Couldn’t.

“I know I broke something,” he went on. “I know I left you when you needed me most. But I’m here now. I came back. That has to count for something.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “It does,” she whispered. “But not enough.”

“I love you,” he said. “I mean it, you know. I love you, and I’m yours. Forever. Every race, every podium, every win it is all for you”

She turned then. Slowly. Eyes full of grief, not doubt. “I believe you. But I had to grieve you like I grieved him. My dad. You left, and I lost both of you, one after the other, like the world was trying to prove I could survive it.”

He flinched like she’d hit him. Because she had. Just not with her hands.

“I might be able to forgive you someday,” she said, her voice breaking. “But I’ll never forget that I had to learn how to live without you. And I did.”

“I never wanted you to-”

“But I had to.” Her tears ran hot even under the cold rain. “And now I don’t know how to need you without remembering what it cost me.”

They stood there, hearts unravelling in the storm. Then she stepped back. And this time, when she turned away, she didn’t freeze. She didn’t falter.

And even though it tore through her like wreckage, she kept walking.

And this time, he let her go.

🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂

The garage door groaned on its runners as she forced it open, the sound slicing through the morning stillness like it didn’t belong. Dust motes swirled in the streaks of light pouring through the slats, dancing in the quiet. The air was thick with the scent of oil, old rubber, stale sweat, and grief.

She stood at the threshold for a long time. Just… stood. Then she dropped to her knees like the ground had been ripped out from under her.

The first sob tore through her like a jagged knife, raw and ragged, cutting through the silence with brutal force. It wasn’t just a sound; it was a desperate, guttural cry that ripped from deep inside, shaking her whole body. Another burst followed, violent and uncontrollable, wracking her ribs and twisting her insides until she couldn’t catch her breath.

Her hands clawed at the concrete beneath her, scraping at the cold, unforgiving floor as if she could gouge away the pain. Fingers curled tight into the frayed fabric of her hoodie, nails biting into skin, desperate for something real to hold onto.

She convulsed, shoulders trembling violently, chest heaving with sobs that tore at her throat and left her raw, broken, ragged, like a storm tearing through the last shreds of her control.

Her world had shattered.

Her dad was gone. Oscar was gone. And the garage, their garage, was still here.

That felt like the cruellest part.

Eventually, when her body stopped shaking, she sat back on her heels. Wiped her face with the sleeve of her jacket. The floor was cold. The silence, colder.

She looked around.

Tools still hung on the pegboard in his careful, labelled rows. Coffee mug, “#1 Race Dad,” still perched on the workbench, crusted with forgotten dregs. The old tarp still half-covered the kart she’d helped him build when she was eleven.

Her chest ached. But she stood.

Slowly, she started tidying. Not because it needed to be clean, but because he would’ve wanted it that way. Bolts sorted into jars. Rags thrown out. The rolling stool finally fixed so it didn’t squeak when you moved.

She moved like a ghost, hands remembering what her heart couldn’t bear to think about. Like how her dad used to whistle off-key while tuning engines. Or how Oscar used to pop in unannounced, grease on his jaw, some half-eaten protein bar in his hand, asking if he could borrow the torque wrench again.

He never returned it. She found it, later, in a box of his old things. She kept it.

After a while, she climbed up on the workbench and pulled the tiny chain that turned on the old boxy TV in the corner. It buzzed to life like it was waking from a coma. She fiddled with the aerial until the image came through. Static. Then a track. Then him.

Oscar. His first F1 race.

Her breath caught in her throat as the commentators rattled off stats and history, as the camera cut to his face in the cockpit. He looked calm. Sharp. So far away.

She remembered that helmet. Remembered sitting cross-legged on the floor while her dad adjusted the chin strap and told him not to let his elbows flare too wide on exit. She remembered Oscar rolling his eyes and doing it anyway and winning.

The lights went out. The engines screamed. The race began. And she… smiled.

Through everything, through the hollow ache in her chest, through the blister of abandonment, through the mess of mourning and oil and dust, she smiled. Because he made it. Because they all did. Once.

She watched in silence as the laps ticked by.

Then the camera cut to the pit wall. A sea of engineers and race staff. And there, in the middle of it, an empty space.

That’s where her dad would’ve stood. Arms crossed. Headset on. Watching his boy.

She reached for the coffee mug on the bench, still half-covered in grease. Held it in both hands.

“Hope you’re watching,” she said quietly. “Because I am.”

And for the first time in a long time, the silence didn’t feel quite so empty.

🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂

The roar of engines and the bustle of the paddock were a world away from the cracked asphalt and peeling paint of that old garage. The smells had changed too, now a sharp blend of burnt rubber, high-octane fuel, and polished carbon fibre. It was a different kind of chaos, one polished and precise, but it still made her heartbeat faster.

She moved with a confident grace beneath the towering garages and sprawling hospitality tents, every bolt tightened, every engine checked, every system calibrated. She was no longer the girl who’d broken down on a cold concrete floor, drowning in loss and anger. Now, she was a high-level mechanic for one of the top F1 teams, sharp-eyed and relentless, earning respect in a world that demanded nothing less.

Oscar watched her from the edge of the paddock, the crowd and noise a blur around him. He saw the way she worked, the focused intensity, the flicker of fire in her eyes when the car was ready to roar back to life. She was in her element. Unstoppable.

He remembered the words her dad had once told her, the way they echoed through his own mind now:

“Don’t let this place trap you.” “You’ve got a life waiting. Don’t be afraid to take it.”

She had taken those words to heart. She had carved out her own path, far from the ghosts of their past and the silence left behind in that faded garage. It was both a relief and a sting to see her moving on.

Oscar let out a slow breath, the weight of years pressing down on him. He still held on to a sliver of hope, fragile but persistent, that maybe, someday, she’d come back. Not because she needed to, but because she wanted to. That maybe, after all the pain and distance, there might still be a place for him in her story.

But for now, he watched quietly, proud and aching, knowing that her future was hers alone to claim

🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂

The late summer sun hung low above the track, casting long golden streaks over the tarmac and shimmering off the car’s metalwork. She was crouched by the front wing, grease smudged on her cheek, sleeves rolled to the elbows, completely focused. Her fingers moved confidently, coaxing bolts into place like she was born doing it.

Her dad stood on the overlook, arms crossed, a proud shadow cast behind him. He was pretending to be checking the line through Turn Three, but really, he was watching her.

Oscar came up beside him, hands in his pockets, pretending to watch the track too. They stood in silence for a moment, two generations of men who loved her, in different ways.

“She’s got your stubbornness, you know,” Oscar said, nudging her dad lightly.

Her dad huffed a short laugh. “Poor girl.”

Oscar hesitated. “I’m gonna marry her someday.”

Her dad raised a brow, but didn’t turn.

“You sure about that?” he asked.

Oscar looked down at her, her hair pulled back messily, singing quietly to herself as she worked, utterly in her element.

“Yeah,” he said, simple and firm. “I love her.”

A beat passed.

“She’ll make you work for it.”

Oscar smiled. “I know.”

Below them, she called up, “You two done brooding? Car’s not gonna fix itself.”

Her dad chuckled, then started down toward her. Oscar followed, jogging to catch up.

When they reached her, she stood and wiped her hands on a rag, one brow raised like she already knew they’d been talking about her. Her dad pulled her into a side hug, planting a kiss on the crown of her head, arm strong around her shoulders.

And as she leaned into the embrace, Oscar reached for her hand.

She didn’t hesitate. Their fingers twined together, warm and sure.

And in that moment, with her dad’s arm around her, Oscar’s hand in hers, and the sun dipping behind the track, it felt like everything was exactly where it was supposed to be

🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂🏁🍂

[bbybhr]

♡°•| Gears and grace |•°♡ 2

Mechanic!sevika x pastor's daughter!reader click for pt1

The day after your encounter in the church restroom felt strangely...normal! you arrived at Sevika’s garage, the big door was rolled up as usual, the familiar scent of oil and metal welcoming you. Sevika was already absorbed in wrestling with a stubborn motorcycle engine, her greeting a familiar grunt.

Something had shifted within you, though. The raw intensity in sevika's words, the foreign adrenaline that rushed through your veins in that hidden space,it hadn't just terrified you! it had emboldened you in subtle ways. You still felt the fear and the guilt... but layered over it was always that sweet sense of wanting more...of needing more, and that silenced the fear and guilt with a thrilling excitement, a thrilling excitement that nagged in your mind to be more...present, in her life! She already invaded your world and you were the kind to simply return the favour.

You watched Sevika curse under her breath as she dropped a greasy wrench, narrowly missing her foot, she was too busy with her hands, trying to stop the engine oil from dripping,so you stepped forward, picking up the wrench, and grabbing a rag from the workbench. You wiped it down with surprising meticulousness before handing it back to her.

Sevika paused upon seeing you stepping forward from your safe corner, looking from the clean wrench to your face, one eyebrow slightly raised. She took it without comment, but her eyes lingered on you for a second longer than usual.

Later, while Sevika was focused on fine-tuning the engine, you busied yourself judging the chaotic state of her main workbench...tools scattered haphazardly, empty cans shoved aside, layers of grime.before you know it your hand moved tidying a small section, arranging wrenches by size, wiping down surfaces.and soon enough You became absorbed in the simple task. Inevitably, a smear of dark grease transferred from a tool handle to the sleeve of your pale blue cotton dress. You frowned at it for a moment, a familiar pang of ingrained neatness protesting, but then… you shrugged inwardly. It felt strangely insignificant compared to the other lines you’d already crossed.

As you worked, sorting bolts into little piles, a melody surfaced unconsciously. You began humming softly, a simple hymn tune you’d known since...forever.

Upon hearing your melodic voice sevika froze, the sounds of her working ceased. You glanced up quietening, thinking she needed something. But she was just standing there, leaning against the motorcycle's frame, watching you. Her expression was unreadable, but she wasn’t annoyed. She was… in thought, her eyebrows frowning as she looked to her side, the humming it was...disturbing...disturbingly good,yeah, she could get used to that, she noded her head "continue" she murmured as she went back to work, she was letting you in so easily, that made you think it was her intention to have you there in the first place.

~၄၃‎~•°~•°~•°~•°~•°

A few days later, the motorcycle was finally humming smoothly, a deep, throaty rumble that vibrated through the concrete floor. Sevika gave the throttle a final twist, a rare glint of satisfaction in her eyes as the engine roared and settled. She cut the power, the sudden silence ringing.

She kicked down the stand and looked over at you, a calculating look entering her eyes. "Ever ridden one of these?"

You shook your head immediately. Motorcycles seemed loud, dangerous, utterly outside the realm of your quiet, predictable life.

"Want to?" The offer was casual, almost a challenge.

Your first instinct was refusal. It wasn't safe. Your parents would disapprove. It wasn't… you. But then you looked at Sevika, the confidence radiating from her, the implicit promise of something new, and new things with sevika, they never failed to make you...happy. The experiences you’d had with her, even the frightening ones, were also the most exhilarating of your life. Hesitantly, you nodded. "Okay."

Sevika smirked, clearly pleased by your agreement. She procured a spare helmet from somewhere ("Don't want the pastor blaming me if you crack your skull"), secured it under your chin,she putted on her own hamlet and her jacket then swung her leg over the bike. "Get on. Hold on tight. And don't wiggle."

Getting onto the seat behind her felt clumsy, illicit. You tentatively placed your hands on her waist. "Tighter," she commanded gruffly over her shoulder. You complied, wrapping your arms more firmly around her solid torso, feeling the muscles and the raw strength beneath the worn leather jacket, the warmth radiating from her back.

With another roar, the bike lurched forward, you pressed yourself against her with a muffledgasp against your hamlet. The garage, the street, the familiar houses blurred past in a rush of speed and wind. Fear warred with exhilaration. You squeezed your eyes shut for the first few blocks, then cautiously opened them. The world looked different from this vantage point, faster, more vibrant like how your life felt since she entered it. You held onto Sevika, like a life line.

She drove further than you expected, leaving the neat suburban streets behind, heading out onto country roads you’d never travelled. Eventually, she slowed, turning onto a rough track that led upwards. The bike bumped along until you emerged onto a scenic overlook.

Below, the town was spread out like a toy set, familiar yet distant. Beyond it, rolling hills faded into a hazy blue horizon. You’d lived your whole life down there and never known this place existed. You slid off the bike with her help, pulling off the helmet, you walked to the edge, speechless. A breathless laugh escaped you, pure, unadulterated joy bubbling up, from all the new things, feelings, and from the exiting ride.

"It's beautiful," you whispered, turning to Sevika, your eyes shining.

She hadn't taken her helmet off, watching you from beside the bike. The usual hard lines of her face seemed softer behind the visor. She wasn't looking at the view... she was looking at the unrestrained happiness illuminating your features. A strange warmth spread through her chest, unexpected and unfamiliar. It wasn't the thrill of possession or the satisfaction of control. It was simpler, quieter... a profound contentment derived purely from seeing you happy, from being the one who brought that unburdened joy to your face. She just nodded slightly in response.

~၄၃‎~•°~•°~•°~•°~•°~

The following Saturday found your church hall buzzing with activity, preparing for the annual charity bazaar. Boxes overflowed with donations, tables needed arranging, and banners needed hanging. You were darting around, trying to help everyone, feeling increasingly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work still left. Your father was busy coordinating, your mother arranging baked goods, and volunteers were stretched thin. They needed muscle, someone strong enough to haul the heavier tables and boxes.

An idea sparked, bold and slightly terrifying but again... almost everything in your life is like that, lately. You slipped out getting on your bike, paddling towards your street.

You found her leaned against the workbench, a beer can in her hand. she looked as surprised upon seeing you there as you were for coming to her "weren't you supposed to be in your charity thing?" She asked eyes narrowed "did you sneak out to see me?" She added than with a smirk, teasingly, making you roll your eyes at her.

"are you busy?" You asked looking over her garage. the same nervousness that filled you, when you asked her to came to church, even though more subtle, filling you

"What d'you need?" She cut to the chase, finishing off her drink.

You took a deep breath. "We're setting up for the church charity bazaar. And we're really short-handed. There's a lot of heavy lifting… and I was wondering… maybe… if you could possibly help? Just for a little while?"

She paused, then a low chuckle skipped her. "Where's the shy little Pastor's kid now? Trying to recruit me for free church labor?" She said feigning shock to your audacity

"It's for charity... please? For just an hour or so..." you insisted, feeling your cheeks warm, now looking back to her face.

Another chuckle. "Fine."

You two arrived twenty minutes later,you left your bike at her garage, deciding to walk the distance since you refused to ride her motorcycle when your parents were there plus with sevika looking just as out of place in the bustling church hall as she had during the service, you drew enough curious glances for different reasons already...

Later, as things started to settle down and early attendees began to trickle in, you decided to help at a children’s craft table. Sevika leaned against a nearby pillar, arms crossed, observing. There was no more work for her and...she kinda earned the right to let her gaze linger... just for a little bit...

Anyhow, You couldn't judge people for looking too much at her, when you couldn't get your gaze off of her...her and the effortless way she started hoisting heavy tables that two other volunteers had been struggling with

She was working efficiently, silently, following your somewhat flustered directions. initially, she kept glancing at her watch making witty comments about how there's too much work and how she's going to leave you with all of them, but as the hour mark came and went, she didn’t leave. She just kept working, moving boxes, setting up stalls, her presence a solid, capable force amidst the gentle chaos that made you smile...it was so like her to be your safety net...even though most of the time she herself would provoke you to get in the water.

But as the afternoon wore on, Sevika found her gaze drawn back to you repeatedly...when you were laughing with an elderly woman buying cookies,or when you were carefully helping another child glue glitter onto a picture frame. She was feeling the same warmth in her chest that appeared when you were at the overlook, the fascination that went beyond the surface, beyond the game, beyond the simple thrill of corrupting the pastor's daughter.

And maybe that was the reason that made her stay until the very end, that and the way your eyes glow everytime you looked to see if she's still there,that damn sparkle and adorable smile made her stay long after her promised hour, helping carry the unsold items and leftover boxes back into storage without complaint.

~၄၃‎~•°~•°~•°~•°~•°~•°~

One afternoon, you arrived to find something new standing in your usual spot near the workbench. a chair. Not a folding metal one, nor an overturned crate, but a proper, sturdy wooden chair with a surprisingly comfortable-looking padded cushion. It was simple, yet clearly chosen with some thought. You stopped, staring at it.

The rhythm of your visits to Sevika’s garage stayed the same... comfortable, if still subtly charged, routine. You continued your quiet tidying, now an accepted part of your presence there along with the occasional humming a tune, and the grease stain on your clothes (another shared thing between your two worlds) became a badge of honor you carefully washed out each evening.

Sevika glanced up from the engine she was meticulously cleaning, noting your focus. "What?" she grunted, feigning indifference like she didn't spend the whole day till now imagining your reaction

"The chair," you said softly, gesturing towards it. "You...bought me a chair?"

"Found it cheap," Sevika cut in gruffly, turning back to her work. "Sick of you perched on that damn crate like a nervous bird. Figured you could use it." She waved a dismissive hand. "Don't let it get to your head."

A warmth spread through your chest, unrelated to the garage's lingering heat. She'd thought of you. She'd gone out and bought a chair for you because now your presence in her life was as big as her presence in your life. Despite her dismissive tone, the gesture felt enormous.a wide smile touching your lips.

Sevika finally looked up, her gaze sharp. She saw the undisguised pleasure on your face, the softening in your eyes. It made the annoying warmth within her chest grow, something dangerously close to... She immediately clamped down on it, reverting to her usual defense mechanism. She strode over, backing you off towards the chair. "I bought it," she said, her voice dropping to a low growl,she pushed you down to sit on the really comfortable cushion "because it keeps you put. Gives me better… access."

Before you could process the shift, her hand cupped the back of your neck, pulling you forward. Her mouth crashed down onto yours in a hard, possessive kiss that stole your breath and effectively shut down any further sentimental discussion.

~၄၃‎~•°~•°~•°~•°~•°~•°

One rainy afternoon, while rummaging through a box of old manuals in the garage looking for something Sevika needed, you unearthed a tattered paperback novel tucked amongst the greasy diagrams. You pulled it out curiously. Sevika wasn't the tidies but she wasn't the kind to keep, trash...not in her stuff at least.

Sevika glanced over. "Huh. Forgot about that."

"You've read...a novel?" you asked.

"Started it," she admitted, a rare flicker of something almost nostalgic in her eyes. "When I was a kid. Found it somewhere. Liked it, but never finished it. It got torn and lost before I get the chance. Don't even remember the title now, or who wrote it." She shrugged, picking up a wrench. "Something about a girl who could talk to machines… And a broken compass. Stupid kid stuff."

That fragmented memory lodged itself in your mind. A story Sevika had liked, left unfinished. Nope...you couldn’t have that. you visited the town library, spent hours searching through young adult fiction archives, armed only with the vague clues: girl protagonist, talking to machines, a broken compass. You checked out a stack of books that seemed remotely plausible.

Thus began a new ritual. While Sevika worked, the sounds of clanging metal and whirring tools would be accompanied by your voice not humming a tune,but reading aloud from one of the library books. You’d sit in your comfortable chair, book propped on your lap, carefully enunciating each word.

"…and so Elara whispered to the rusty automaton, hoping it would understand," you read one afternoon.

"Nope," Sevika grunted from under the chassis of a car. "Not that one."

Another day and another book "...following the cracked needle of the peculiar compass, Lyra ventured deeper into the whispering woods..."

"Nah, wasn't woods," Sevika's muffled voice replied. "More city, I think. Keep going."

Book after book proved fruitless. After finishing a particularly dull chapter about a girl befriending sentient kitchen appliances, you sighed in frustration. This wasn't it either... closing the book with a gentle snap. "Fiddlesticks" you said angrily.

From the depths of the engine bay she was working on, Sevika let out a sudden, barking laugh... that rare, genuine sound that always made your heart skip. She slid out, approaching you, a wide grin splitting her face. "Fiddlesticks? Seriously?" She shook her head. "Oh my God. Do you kiss me with that mouth, Pastor's kid?"

You flushed, embarrassed but also happy to see her laughter. "It's a perfectly fine word!"

"For a five-year-old maybe," she chuckled, leaning in, her grin softening . "No, but seriously," she added, tapping your chin lightly with a greasy finger, "we really need to work on your dictionary." The moment was...light.

~၄၃‎~•°~•°~•°~•°~•°~•°~•°

The knock on your bedroom window came long after midnight, soft but insistent. You froze, heart leaping into your throat as you got up from the bed. Pulling back the curtain revealed Sevika’s silhouette against the moonlit lawn, looking up expectantly. You slid the window open quietly.

"What are you doing here?" you whispered frantically, like your parents could hear you from down the hall.

"Couldn't sleep," she replied simply, her voice low. "Felt like a ride. Coming?"

Sneaking out? The very idea sent a thrill of pure terror mixed with irresistible temptation through you. This was a line you’d never imagined crossing. But looking down at Sevika, waiting for you in the dark, the thrill won. With painstaking slowness, you crept out of your room, down the stairs, and slipped out the back door, your heart pounding a frantic rhythm against your ribs.

The motorcycle ride was different at night. The world was hushed, bathed in silver moonlight and deep shadows. The wind felt cooler, the engine roar seemed louder in the stillness. You clung to Sevika’s back, burying your face against her leather jacket, breathing in the familiar scent of smoke and oil, feeling utterly reckless and surprisingly safe all at once.

She took you back to the overlook, the town lights twinkling below like fallen stars. You sat on a large, flat rock near the edge, the silence broken only by the chirping of crickets. Sevika produced a can of beer from her jacket pocket, popping the top with a soft hiss.

"What if my parents wake up?" you fretted, hugging your knees to your chest.

"They won't," Sevika said, taking a long sip.

"What if I pass out from… from the excitement or something?" you whispered, the anxieties tumbling out.

She lowered the can, "you won't ." The flat certainty in her voice was oddly comforting.

"What if… what if someone dangerous comes up here?"

Sevika turned, setting the beer can down. She leaned in, silencing your worries with a kiss. It wasn't hard or demanding this time, but slow, deliberate, almost gentle. It tasted faintly of beer and the cool night air. When she pulled back, her eyes searched yours in the darkness. "Than I kick their ass" she stated softly, definitively. And somehow, pressed close to her side under the vast, starry sky, you believed her.

Pt3 people? {•~•}

Tags: @megamultifandomtrashposts . @zthebean27

[takes1]

MORE FUKUNAGA PLSSS IM STARVING MOTHER💔💔💔 I ATE IT UP LAST TIME AND I RE READ IT LIKE EVERY THREE DAYS😞😞

this was so funny and has never once been a forgotten addition to my inbox.

shohei fukunaga would risk everything just to see you one more time

warnings. none, sfw. minors still DNI

details. sfw / fem!reader / pining / stolen kisses / closet freak!shohei / forbidden long distance / mutual crushing / karasuno manager!reader / everybody thinks this guy is unsettling / romantic / is it wrong to headcanon him as yandere? / 1k words

links. my masterlist. more haikyuu. my ao3. my imagines.

A blur of your hair, seen from the window of his bus, shocks Shohei's body upright. Nothing quite fixes his slouch the way you do.

As he cranes unnaturally to confirm if that was you amongst the massive, unorganized gaggle of players queued up to leave for their respective cities, there are a dozen Karasuno jerseys, and that's enough to fly on.

"Please stop the bus, sir. I-- forgot something."

Shohei was completely doubled over in remorse, and respect, to their less-than-happy bus driver. What can you expect from a bunch of ungrateful city boys anyway? He muttered a curse under his breath and the bus sighed to a stop.

The doors had half a second to fold open and he was already leaping out onto the concrete with surprising, accurate, and needed agility.

He bolted at points, and managed to squeeze through at other times, past the violent sea of teams separating your bus from his.

None of Karasuno had been told to load on, yet. A handful were picked to throw bags underneath in the storage compartment, but you were conveniently sitting pretty and watching the crowd, for nothing in particular.

In fact, you were mulling over some lukewarm regret over not telling Shohei a proper goodbye. Neither of you were ever certain you would get to reunite, and with Nationals done-- what else was there to bring you together?

You thought you spotted a Nekoma uniform, completely out of place- and in the flash of time it took to recognize who it could have been, you were scooped up with some impressive strength.

"(Y/n)--," He huffed against your hair, but his tone never tired, never dragged- it was always flat and pleasant, "Please-."

Those big eyes looked droopy as they searched your surprise. You were very happy to see him but it did not show.

"Please come see me in Tokyo."

Some voices got through to you, the both of you, in your shock.

"Huh?!"

"What did that punk just say?!"

Nishinoya was rolling up his sleeves after loading the biggest, heaviest bag into the bus, "Hey! Lay off our manager you creep!!"

"Wait-waitwait-!"

You couldn't explain fast enough- Daichi had to play middleman and stiff-arm the two buffoons, though he himself wasn't the biggest fan of that look Shohei had to him, nor how he ran up on you like that. He didn't correct Nishinoya for calling him a creep because he did look the part.

"Don't be rude!" You shouted back.

You had to usher him away, further from your now nosy team. He didn't seem to give it any attention, or energy, so it made you briefly wonder how often he was belittled like that.

"God- I guess," You had to shake out your nerves, all giddy from his hug, and his attention, "I'm sorry, I guess they're all still jocked up on adrenaline- or something--,"

"I don't have a lot of time--"

"Right! Right- sorry, um... Come- come see you? In Tokyo?"

Your hesitation to give him an instant 'yes' spurred his nervous movement- a jump, in his hand that brushed across your lower back and pulled you closer. That shrub behind you looked sharp, too, so while he was at it, he fixed your orientation so that you switched spots. Your back to the crowd, his back to the shrub. He could see anyone coming from here, too.

You shuddered at all his touching. "The city? I-h-- I dunno, Shohei. That's so... far."

It was at least a bullet train away. Possibly the better half of a days' worth of travel. Little Karasuno in the mountains was your home, and you couldn't possibly dream of travelling by yourself through all of that.

There were two teams loading onto their buses, now. The crowds were starting to become organized lines, or blocks, in order to leave.

He shook his head, considering the only alternative with a thick swallow. "I can't wait around for another practice game to see you again."

It was quiet, for a beat. No guy had ever, ever looked that serious about you before. Your hand was rising to touch his face, to see if that worry was actually real.

"I...I can't-."

His little gasp at your touch was confirmation. A much bigger hand slid up to keep your palm right there, right across his cheek, next to his mouth.

Your reassurance was a long-awaited rain after a brutal dry season of uncertainty.

A light nod, a small smile, found you as you were completely transfixed on the lengths he went to, all just to come see you one more time.

"Let's do it," Maybe you could take a friend, and you could make a weekend out of it under a really bad excuse, "I wanna see you too."

Well, maybe it wasn't quite the same. To want and to need were two very different concepts.

It still made him melt, pressing warm and fervent open kisses against your hand, into your palm and spilling all across your wrist. You couldn't hide how tingly it got you- you hid an impure sigh under your free hand. Even when you couldn't bring yourself to look at him, you could still hear him kissing you.

"I have to go," He sounded miserable, with one difficult-to-read look back towards his bus, a fair distance away.

Some intangible force compelled you to put an ounce or two of pressure in your hand, to better remember how his face felt against your fingertips.

"Call me," Was going to be the last thing he said to you. He slipped from your touch but you weren't ready for him to leave, yet.

His voice was a sigh, nearing a whisper. It captured you in its sincerity and brevity.

"Yeah- I-, I will."

You couldn't help it; you had to seal this somehow. The thought to give him a rushed, imperfect kiss blended right into the action. You kept him here, with you, by fisting the collar of his jacket for a clumsy smooch.

That big, interesting grin and sparkly eyes were not something you were prepared for, either.

He kept his excited chuckle back, just barely, and kept you still for a real kiss. Gentle, and warm, and way better than your own attempt.

You couldn't hear yourself telling him goodbye- you watched his lips form some kind of muted response and felt emptyhanded as he had to run back quicker now to catch his bus. It was idling in the way of many vehicles trying to get out of the lanes.

Did you even have his number?

☆VIP☆

@integers @paradoxicalwritings @yuchacco @megapteraurelia

my masterlist. more haikyuu

[aspenmissing]

ꜱɪɴᴄᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴛᴀʀᴛ

ᴛᴏɴʏ ꜱᴛᴀʀᴋ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ || ꜰʟᴜꜰꜰ || 3179 ᴡᴏʀᴅꜱ || ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: ᴛᴀʟᴋꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴋɪᴅɴᴀᴘᴘɪɴɢ, ᴘʀᴇꜱᴜᴍᴇᴅ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ

ʀᴇQᴜᴇꜱᴛ ᴀɴꜱᴡᴇʀ: ʜᴇʟʟᴏ ᴍʏ ᴅᴇᴀʀ! ɪ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ɴᴀᴍᴇᴅ, ꜱᴏ ɪ ᴡᴏɴ'ᴛ ꜰᴏʀ ɴᴏᴡ (ꜰᴇᴇʟ ꜰʀᴇᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴍᴇꜱꜱᴀɢᴇ ᴍᴇ ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ʟɪᴋᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ɴᴀᴍᴇ ᴏɴ ɪᴛ! ᴀɴʏᴡᴀʏ, ɪ'ᴍ ꜱᴏ ꜱᴏʀʀʏ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴏɴɢ ᴡᴀɪᴛ, ʙᴜᴛ ɪ ʜᴏᴘᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ!! <3 <3

ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ | ᴛᴏɴʏ

You were there when he got his first black eye trying to charm a senator’s daughter. You still remembered the way he strutted over to her like he was auditioning for his own movie, flashing that crooked, teenage grin — so smug, so sure of himself — until her bodyguard stepped in and decked him square across the jaw.

And then, there he was, bleeding and laughing and already asking you if he still looked handsome with a busted lip.

You told him no.

You lied.

Because Tony Stark had always been impossible to look away from.

=

You were there when he built his first engine in the garage, fingers smudged with oil, eyes alight with pride, like he’d just cracked the universe open.

He was seventeen — cocky, brilliant, sunburnt, and sweat-soaked in a band tee two sizes too big and fraying at the sleeves. The kind of summer evening where the air hung thick with heat and potential, and the scent of gasoline, grease, and half-melted candy bars clung to the walls of the workshop like wallpaper.

You were sitting cross-legged on the floor beside him, legs sticking slightly to the concrete, holding a flashlight in one hand and a parts list in the other. Every once in a while, he'd reach over to nudge your shoulder or take a bolt from your palm without looking — like you were just another part of the process. Like your presence was a given, not a question.

You didn’t mind. You never had.

Because there was something sacred about being close to Tony Stark when he was building. When he was in the zone — all sharp focus and endless energy, muttering equations under his breath and brushing his damp hair back with the heel of his palm — it felt like watching a star collapse into itself and spark a new galaxy in the aftermath.

He’d hum sometimes, absentmindedly — low, tuneless, off-key — while tweaking wires or tightening screws. And every so often, he’d look over at you with that boyish glint in his eye, like he couldn’t believe he was doing it, like he couldn’t believe you were there with him, like the whole thing might vanish if he blinked.

You’d pretend not to notice the way his shirt kept riding up when he reached for something on the workbench, exposing the dip of his back and a constellation of freckles you knew by heart. You’d pretend not to watch the way grease stained the edges of his jaw when he wiped sweat with the back of his hand. You’d pretend not to care when your fingers brushed while passing him tools and he didn’t flinch — not like he did with other people.

Because that was the thing about Tony.

He didn’t let people touch him much. Not unless he was performing. Not unless he was controlling the moment, the contact, the outcome. But with you, it was different. Always had been.

You could tap his arm to get his attention, lean your head against his shoulder while watching him sketch out blueprints, nudge his knee with yours to make a point — and he never pulled away. Sometimes, he even leaned into it.

You didn’t realize how rare that was until much later.

=

That night, when the engine finally roared to life — sputtering at first, then humming like a living thing — he’d nearly tackled you in celebration. Laughed loud and victorious, hands still smeared with grease, eyes lit up like the Fourth of July.

“We did it,” he grinned, passing you a soda from the mini fridge, his smile so wide it nearly split his face.

You took it with shaking hands, heart thudding in your chest, trying to ignore the fact that your legs were still tangled together on the floor. Trying to ignore the way his knee was brushing yours. Trying not to stare at the black smudges on his cheek or the way he’d given you the first soda — like it was a trophy, like you mattered.

“We did,” you echoed, your voice soft, almost reverent.

And he looked at you then — really looked. Not just a glance, not just a passing flick of his eyes, but something deeper. Slower. Like he saw through the layers you tried to keep in place. Like he’d known, even then, that you were already his.

And maybe you had been.

Because somewhere between the smell of oil and the whir of spinning gears, you’d fallen for Tony Stark — not the legacy, not the genius, not the heir to a billion-dollar empire, but the boy on the garage floor with smudged hands and a heart he didn’t show the world.

You never told him that night.

But later, when you wiped the sweat off his brow with the hem of your shirt and he let his forehead rest against your shoulder for a beat too long, you thought maybe he already knew.

And then… years later… you were there when everything came crashing down in Afghanistan. When he was kidnapped. When the headlines turned from glitz and glamour to dread and speculation.

The first month was chaos. The second, agony. By the third, you were barely sleeping, barely eating. Just pacing the floors of his empty mansion, praying to whatever would listen that he was still alive. That he was still him.

You were one of the few who refused to believe he was dead. Everyone else had begun to mourn — quiet whispers behind closed doors, board members talking succession, Pepper trying to hold it all together with trembling hands and red eyes. But you wouldn’t let yourself break. Not yet. Not until you saw a body. Not until you heard his voice.

Then came the call.

He was alive.

And before you could fully process what that meant, where he was, how he’d survived — you were already moving. Racing through streets, hands trembling as you gripped the steering wheel, a brown paper bag full of greasy burgers riding shotgun. His favourite kind — the one with the grilled onions and extra pickles, the kind he used to bribe you with when he wanted help in the lab or a distraction from board meetings.

When you got to the tarmac, the world slowed.

There were so many people — reporters, military personnel, med techs. Flashes from cameras, the whirring of helicopters overhead. But all you could see was him.

Tony.

He stepped off that jet looking thinner than you remembered. Older. Like the sand had sanded down all his sharp edges. His face was gaunt, beard grown out, his eyes shadowed by things you couldn’t begin to imagine.

He blinked against the light. Looked around like he didn’t recognize the world anymore.

And then he saw you.

The second his eyes locked on yours, something in his expression cracked — like the armour he’d already begun building around himself faltered, just for a moment.

You didn’t wait.

You ran to him.

Didn’t care about the cameras. Didn’t care about protocol. You shoved past some poor intern trying to keep people back and practically launched yourself into his arms.

He caught you — of course he did — though he staggered back a step from the impact. But then he held you like a lifeline, like if he let go, he might vanish all over again.

You didn’t say anything at first. Just wrapped your arms around him and pressed your face into his shoulder, trying not to sob. He smelled like sweat, blood, metal and something scorched. But he was real. He was solid.

He was alive.

And he was holding you just as tightly.

When you finally pulled back, your hands found his face, your fingers brushing over the lines that hadn’t been there before, over the smudges of exhaustion and pain and defiance.

“You okay?” you whispered, though you already knew the answer would be complicated.

He didn’t answer right away.

He looked at you the way a drowning man might look at the surface — desperate, hopeful, disbelieving.

“You brought me burgers?” was all he said.

You let out a breathless laugh, tears still clinging to your lashes as you shoved the warm bag into his chest. “Don’t say I never do anything for you, Stark.”

He smiled then. Not the cocky smirk that made headlines. Not the fake, camera-ready grin.

A real one. Small. Grateful. Raw.

“I missed you,” he said, quiet as a confession.

“I missed you more,” you answered, barely above a whisper. He looked at you like he wasn’t sure if he still deserved you. You hugged him like you never left.

Because he was still your Tony. Maybe quieter now. Maybe lonelier. But underneath the metal and the trauma and the press headlines, he was still the same boy who once called you at 3 a.m. because he needed help with something.

And maybe that was why it hurt sometimes.

To watch him bury himself in parties and press. To watch him flirt with anything that moved. To hear the world call him a genius, billionaire, playboy — like that was all he was. Like the man who still called you when he couldn’t sleep.

He did.

You knew him.

Every broken, brilliant inch.

=

You were there when he started to change — not just in the headlines, but in the quiet hours. When he disappeared into the workshop for days, chasing something raw and angry and desperate with the same hands that once built engines for fun. You brought him food he didn’t eat, sat in the corner while he soldered circuits in silence, listened as he talked to himself more than he talked to you.

You didn’t ask questions. You didn’t have to. Because you saw it in his eyes — the shift, the weight, the guilt.

Afghanistan had broken something in him, but it had also forged something new. Something jagged and unfinished and burning. You were there the night he finished the suit — the first one — watching as he stood in front of it with something like awe and fear tangled in his features.

And when he turned to you and asked, quietly, “What do you think?” You told him the truth.

That he looked like a man who had decided to carry the weight of the world on his back and hadn’t yet realized it would crush him.

You wanted to stop him. You didn’t. Because you knew you couldn’t. Because you’d loved him from the moment he offered you a wrench instead of a handshake.

You never told him. You didn’t have to.

But God, some nights, it burned inside your chest like his arc reactor had been accidentally wired into your ribcage — steady and constant and aching. An echo of everything unsaid.

And little did you know…

He felt it too.

Had for years.

Maybe that’s why he always called you first. Maybe that’s why you were the one name no one ever saw, written in sharpie on the inside of the helmet. Not for show. Not for the press.

Just for him.

Just for you.

The tower was quiet that night.

No Avengers. No PR galas. No mission reports glowing on the conference table or threats on the horizon. No reporters outside, no flashbulbs, no Friday quipping through the speakers or bots skittering across the floor with trays of half-eaten sandwiches.

Just the low hum of electricity in the walls, the whir of hidden generators, and the subtle crackle of old jazz drifting through a vintage speaker Tony refused to upgrade. He claimed it had "soul." Said the slight hiss between notes made it feel like someone real was still playing. You suspected it reminded him of Howard, though he’d never admit that out loud.

The lights in the workshop were dimmed, warm and golden, casting long shadows across blueprints and prototypes. It felt like the rest of the world had folded itself away, leaving only this — this little pocket of time that belonged to no one but the two of you.

You were perched cross-legged on one of his cluttered workbenches, wearing a pair of leggings and one of his ancient MIT sweatshirts — the sleeves pushed up past your elbows, collar stretched out just enough to betray how many times you’d borrowed it and never given it back. The scent of motor oil clung to the fabric, faint but familiar, blending now with the spice of his cologne hanging faintly in the air.

This was your version of peace. The kind only found in the hush between long conversations and longer silences. When neither of you had to pretend.

No pretense. No performance.

Just Tony. And you.

He was half-buried under a mess of wires and unfinished armour plating, legs sticking out from beneath the latest prototype of his repulson tech. His arc reactor pulsed a steady, quiet glow beneath the thin black tank top he wore when he was too focused to care about anything but function. His hands — scarred, deft, always moving — reached out instinctively, and you handed him the screwdriver before he even asked.

“You’re in my head, you know that?” he said without looking up, voice dry but amused. “Terrifying.”

You rolled your eyes and tossed a washer lightly at his shin. “You love it.”

“I do.” His voice dropped, lost a little of its humour. Gentler now. More honest. “Too much, probably.”

You blinked. The words were quiet — almost casual — but they echoed louder than any explosion you’d ever heard.

You glanced down at the piece of tech you were toying with, but your fingers stilled, the metal suddenly cold in your palm. And when you finally looked up, he was watching you.

Not the way he watched the models at parties or the stage lights at expos. Not like a man who wanted to impress.

But like a man who was trying to memorize you. To freeze time with his eyes alone. Like you were a moment he couldn’t afford to lose.

“I never said thank you,” he said after a beat, fiddling with a bolt like it could distract him from the weight of his own words. “For staying. For always being there. Especially when I didn’t deserve it.”

You swallowed hard. “You didn’t have to.”

His gaze lifted, meeting yours with such sharp vulnerability it nearly knocked the breath from your lungs. “I did.”

Silence bloomed between you — thick and heavy with everything that had never been said. It felt like standing on the edge of something, the wind pushing at your back, daring you to take the leap.

You tried to anchor yourself. “You’re my best friend, Tony.”

He gave a short, brittle laugh, standing up too fast and pushing his fingers through his hair like he was trying to scrub the emotion out of his skull. He started to pace — classic Stark behaviour — like he was drafting a schematic with each step.

“That’s the problem,” he muttered.

��…What do you mean?”

“I mean—” He turned, gesturing to himself, then to you, as if that alone explained everything. “I’ve been in love with you since the day you cussed me out in the lab for almost blowing off my own damn hand.”

Your heart skipped.

“That was twelve years ago,” you said, barely above a whisper.

“I know.” He let out a dry laugh. “Believe me. I know.”

You stared at him, stunned into silence. Tony — Tony, who flirted like it was armor, who slept through feelings like they were background noise — was standing in front of you like a man unraveling, eyes wide with years of unspoken want.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Because I’m me,” he said, gesturing at himself again with a helpless smile. “And you’re… you. You’re kind. And good. And steady. And I’m—look at me.” He shook his head. “I’m a mess with a god complex and a press schedule.”

“Tony—”

“And I figured if I said anything, I’d ruin everything. I figured I’d push you away. And I couldn’t… I can’t lose you.”

The world tilted under your feet.

You stood up slowly, every nerve lit like a fuse, heart pounding hard enough to make your fingers tremble. You took a step toward him, then another, until there was only a breath between you.

“You thought you’d ruin it?” you asked softly.

Tony nodded, eyes locked to yours like you were the only real thing in the room.

You reached up and brushed your fingertips across his cheek, barely there, but enough to make his breath hitch.

“Tony… I thought I was the only one.”

He froze.

“You…?”

You gave him a small, sad smile — the one he’d seen a hundred times when you patched him up in med bay or sat on the edge of his bed after a panic attack. The one that always said I’m here even when you couldn’t say I love you.

“I’ve loved you since we made our first engine together all those years ago”

His expression crumpled, just for a second, like a man watching the last piece of a puzzle click into place after years of trying to force the wrong ones to fit.

Another heartbeat passed. Then two. Then—

His hands found your waist, tentative but certain, like he was still asking permission even after all this time. His thumb brushed against the hem of your sweatshirt — his sweatshirt — as if grounding himself.

One hand lifted, fingers ghosting along your jaw, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear like it was sacred.

“Can I…?”

You didn’t answer with words.

You just leaned in.

And kissed him.

Slow. Gentle. Fierce in its restraint. Like opening a book you already knew by heart but had never dared to finish. Like every phone call at midnight, every shared silence, every almost had led to this.

His hands splayed against your back, pulling you in. Yours curled into his shirt, bunching the fabric over his heart. He kissed you like you were oxygen. Like he’d been drowning for years and finally found the surface.

And when you pulled back, just barely, your foreheads rested together, breath mingling in the space between.

“I should’ve kissed you years ago,” he murmured.

“I would’ve let you,” you whispered back.

He laughed then — a real laugh. Soft. Unarmoured. Just him.

And his mouth curved into a smile that was for you and you alone.

“So…” he began, already shifting back into humour like it was a second skin, “do we tell everyone you’re officially off the market, or should I build you a suit first?”

You laughed, breathless. “Let’s just start with dinner, Stark.”

“Dinner I can do.” He nodded solemnly. “I’m great at dinner. I’m phenomenal at dinner. Honestly, I might be the best dinner date on the planet—”

“Tony.”

“Right. Shutting up now.”

But he didn’t pull away.

Neither did you.

Because in that quiet workshop, with jazz humming in the background and years of longing finally collapsed into the space between your mouths, Tony Stark didn’t need a comeback.

He just held you like he was finally, finally home.

[touchtheinvisiblestars]

Drowning

It was supposed to be a simple trade.

You and Joel had done a dozen like it before, meet the group, hand over the ammo, take the meds, walk away. No drama. No unnecessary chatter. Just business.

But something about this group felt wrong the second you stepped into the warehouse.

Too quiet. Too polite. Too still.

Joel’s posture shifted subtly. You caught it out of the corner of your eye, the slight tightening of his jaw, the way his hand drifted just a little closer to the pistol at his side.

A glance passed between you and him. Silent understanding. This wasn’t right.

Then came the twitch, one of them, standing too far back to be part of the trade, fingers brushing over the safety of his rifle.

That was all the warning you got before hell broke loose.

Gunfire erupted like thunder, the air splitting open with sound and heat. Joel moved first, fast and brutal, pulling you down behind a pile of broken crates. Splinters flew. Bullets screamed. You barely had time to raise your weapon before the first man was on you, close enough to smell the sweat and blood on him.

You shot him in the gut. Joel put a bullet through his head.

Then it was just chaos- smoke and shadows, shouts that became screams, the metallic tang of blood already in the air. You barely noticed the shot that clipped your shoulder. Not at first. It was the warmth that drew your eyes down, the spreading red on your sleeve. Your legs buckled, but Joel caught you with one hand and fired with the other, his aim steady even as yours blurred.

He didn’t ask if you could keep going.

He just made damn sure you didn’t have to.

When the last man dropped, the silence hit like a punch. Your ears rang. Your breath came in short, shuddering bursts. Blood dripped onto the concrete, some yours, most not. You leaned back against the cold wall, blinking through the fog as your hands trembled around your pistol.

Joel stood over one of the bodies, chest heaving, his arm bleeding through the torn sleeve of his shirt. For a second he just stared at the corpse like he was trying to burn it out of his memory. Then he turned, and his eyes found you.

"You okay?" His voice was rough. Tight.

You nodded, but your lip trembled. “Yeah,” you said, though it sounded like a lie even to you.

Joel’s eyes flicked to your shoulder. “You’re hit.”

“So are you,” you said, trying to sound steady, but your knees were on the verge of giving out.

He took a step toward you- cautious, like you were a wounded animal that might bolt or bite. His hand hovered near your arm, not quite touching.

You stood there, toe-to-toe, close enough to see the blood drying on his cheek. His gaze dropped to your mouth, then lifted again, eyes dark with something you didn’t have the words for. Not relief. Not yet. Just... shock. That you were both still breathing.

The air between you crackled. Hot. Heavy. Your pulse thudded in your ears.

Then you moved. You didn’t think. Didn’t plan. Just grabbed him by the collar and kissed him hard.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t pretty. Your lips were split, your hands shaking. Blood smeared between you, his or yours, you didn’t know, but your mouth crashed against his like you were drowning and he was the only breath left in the world.

Joel didn’t move at first.

Then his arms snapped around you like a vice.

He kissed you back, and it was devastating. Nothing held back. It was all desperation. His hand tangled in your hair, the other gripping your waist like he was afraid you’d vanish if he let go. He kissed like a man who’d been starving. Like he hadn’t let himself want anything this badly in years, maybe ever.

And for that one burning moment, there was no past, no future. Just now. Just this.

When he finally pulled back, his forehead pressed to yours. Both of you were shaking. Breathing like you’d run a hundred miles.

“We shouldn’t’ve done that,” Joel said, his voice hoarse, eyes shut like it hurt to say.

You didn’t let go. You were still holding on to his shirt like a lifeline. “Do you want me to pretend it didn’t happen?”

Joel opened his eyes.

Looked at you like he didn’t know how to answer. Like the words physically hurt coming out of his mouth.

“No,” he said quietly. “But it scares the hell outta me that it did.”

You swallowed. Your shoulder throbbed, your knees weak, but you nodded once. “Me too.”

There was a pause. A breath. A beat between heartbeats.

Then he kissed you again.

Slower this time. Softer.

The kind of kiss that lingered. That asked a question and gave an answer in the same breath. His hand brushed your jaw, thumb gentle where the rest of him had been rough. And when your lips parted, it wasn’t because you needed air- it was because you both needed to feel it.

[theink-stainedfolk]

New WIP!!!

Heartpulse Horizon

---

In the hyper-advanced city of Solara Prime, where technology governs every heartbeat, Lou Scheiner’s life is shattered when a malevolent, otherworldly force known as the Null tears through his world, leaving him with nothing but grief and rage.

The Aurora League, an elite group of superhuman Aetherials wielding cutting-edge Aethertech, arrives too late to save what matters most. Reeling from loss, Lou is unexpectedly drawn into their orbit, invited to compete in the brutal Aetherial Trials—a chance to join their ranks. Reluctantly guided by a mysterious, silver-haired stranger with amber-tinted glasses, Lou faces a gauntlet of danger, alliances, and self-discovery. Alongside a sharp-tongued girl who defies expectations and a growing bond that feels both dangerous and inevitable, Lou must confront his pain and decide whether he can fight for a world that failed him.

In a dazzling clash of tech, power, and heart, Black Star rises as a rebellion against despair, proving that even in a world of monsters, hope can burn brighter than ever.

---

Character Introduction

LOU SCHEINER

Age: 18

Birthday: March 12, 2007

Zodiac Sign: Pisces

Ethnicity: Mixed ( reflecting Solara Prime’s diverse megacity)

Height: 5’10” (178 cm)

Build: Lean but wiry, built for speed and resilience

Eyes: Stormy gray, with a faint flicker of defiance

Hair: Ashy brown-black, slightly messy, medium-length with a tendency to fall into his eyes

Skin Tone: Olive, slightly weathered from street life

Dominant Hand: Right

Style: Practical and unpolished—worn cargo pants, his mother’s old utility jacket (faded green with too many pockets), scuffed boots. After joining the Trials, he adopts a minimalist black Aethertech suit with blue pulse lines.

Moodboard: Urban decay, cracked concrete, stormy skies, flickering neon signs, a single wilted flower, a bloodied metal pipe, a glowing Aethertech glove, a photo of a smiling mother and son, rain-slicked streets, a clenched fist.

Appearance:

Lou’s face carries the weight of loss—sharp cheekbones, a jaw that tightens when he’s angry, and gray eyes that seem to hold a storm. His hair is perpetually tousled, like he just rolled out of a fight or a bad dream. Scars from his Null encounter mark his ribs and hands, faint but visible. He moves with a restless energy, always ready to bolt or brawl, but there’s a softness in his gaze when he looks at something that reminds him of home.

Past:

Lou grew up in Aurum Sector, a middle-tier district of Solara Prime, raised by his single mother, Celia, who ran a plant café and taught him to fix small tech gadgets. Life was simple—school, helping at the café, sneaking onto rooftops to watch the city’s lights. That ended when a Null attack took Celia, leaving Lou as the sole survivor after a desperate, futile fight. Orphaned and angry, he’s haunted by her death and the Aetherials’ failure to arrive in time, fueling his distrust of TAL and his reluctance to join their world.

Personality & Traits

✔ Fiercely loyal—would die for those he loves.

✔ Stubborn to a fault, refuses to back down even when outmatched.

✔ Emotionally raw, wears his heart on his sleeve despite trying to hide it.

✔ Quick-witted in a crisis, adapts fast to danger.

✔ Deeply empathetic, feels others’ pain like his own.

✔ Reckless when angry, often acts before thinking.

✔ Haunted by guilt, blames himself for not saving his mother.

Hobbies:

Tinkering with old tech (learned from his mom).

Rooftop running to clear his head.

Sketching cityscapes in a battered notebook.

Listening to lo-fi music on cracked earbuds.

Quirks:

Twirls a small screwdriver when nervous, a habit from his mom.

Mutters to himself when frustrated, half-cursing, half-planning.

Always checks exits in a room, a reflex from the Null attack.

Keeps a pressed flower from his mom’s café in his jacket pocket.

Likes & Dislikes

✅ Likes:

The smell of rain on concrete.

Street food stalls (especially spicy rice cakes).

Honest people who don’t sugarcoat things.

The hum of a well-built machine.

Night skies with visible stars (rare in Solara Prime).

Moments of quiet with someone he trusts.

❌ Dislikes:

The Aurora League’s polished heroism.

Crowds cheering for spectacle over substance.

People who give up without a fight.

The sterile smell of hospitals.

Being pitied or patronized.

Betrayal or broken promises.

Favorite Food:

Spicy rice cakes with chili oil (his mom’s recipe).

Grilled skewers from street vendors.

Bitter black tea, no sugar.

A Line That Defines Him:

“I don’t need your heroes. I needed you there.”

~~~

ELIAS VARN

Age: 22

Birthday: October 27, 2003

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

Ethnicity: European descent (possibly German-Italian roots)

Height: 6’0” (183 cm)

Build: Slim but toned, with a dancer’s grace and precision

Eyes: Hazel, often hidden behind light amber-tinted prescription glasses

Hair: Iridescent silver with rose-gold underlights, styled in a sleek, slightly tousled boy cut

Skin Tone: Pale, almost luminescent under Eidolon’s artificial lights

Dominant Hand: Ambidextrous

Style: Minimalist and futuristic—fitted matte black or slate-gray jackets, high-collared shirts, slim boots with subtle tech accents. His glasses and hair are his signature, giving him an enigmatic, untouchable vibe.

Moodboard: Chrome surfaces, glowing circuit boards, starlit voids, amber-tinted lenses, a single rose-gold thread, a sleek hoverbike, holographic blueprints, a shadowed observation deck, a faint smirk.

Appearance:

Elias is a paradox—striking yet elusive, like a blade hidden in silk. His silver hair catches light in prismatic waves, with rose-gold underlights that glow faintly in the dark. His amber-tinted glasses obscure his sharp hazel eyes, making him hard to read. He moves with calculated elegance, every gesture deliberate, but there’s a tension in his posture, like he’s always holding something back. A faint scar on his left wrist hints at a past he doesn’t share.

Past:

Elias's origins are shrouded. His anonymity is by choice—he prefers to work in the shadows, observing rather than engaging. His decision to join the Trials is a rare break, driven by an inexplicable pull toward Lou.

Personality & Traits

✔ Brilliant strategist, always three steps ahead.

✔ Guarded, hides vulnerability behind wit and detachment.

✔ Charismatic when he chooses to be, with a magnetic pull.

✔ Relentlessly curious, especially about human emotion.

✔ Perfectionist, frustrated by his own rare mistakes.

✔ Secretly yearns for connection but fears it.

✔ Ruthlessly protective of those he lets in.

Hobbies:

Designing experimental tech in his private lab.

Riding his sleek black hoverbike at reckless speeds.

Studying human behavior through surveillance archives.

Playing chess against AI (and winning).

Quirks:

Adjusts his glasses when flustered, a rare tell.

Hums obscure classical melodies while working.

Always carries a micro-toolkit disguised as a pen.

Stares too long when he thinks no one notices.

Likes & Dislikes

✅ Likes:

The hum of perfectly calibrated tech.

Late-night cityscapes from high vantage points.

People who surprise him (rare).

The challenge of solving impossible problems.

Dark chocolate with sea salt.

Lou’s unguarded moments (though he’d never admit it).

❌ Dislikes:

Inefficiency or sloppy work.

Being forced to reveal his thoughts.

Loud, chaotic crowds.

Failure, especially his own.

Predictable people.

Sweet, overly sugary foods.

Favorite Food:

Dark chocolate with sea salt.

Black coffee, no additives.

Sashimi with wasabi.

A Line That Defines Him:

“Everything’s a puzzle. The trick is knowing which pieces you’re allowed to break.”

---

My ♡s: @paeliae-occasionally @willtheweaver @drchenquill @wyked-ao3 @the-inkwell-variable @corinneglass @seastarblue @keeping-writing-frosty @oliolioxenfreewrites @vesanal @orphanheirs @dauntlessdraupadi @oros-ash3s @pheonix358 @ominous-faechild @loveyouloatheyou @write-with-will

[clancysjumpsuit]

If You Need Anyone

chapter nine

clancy x reader

pervious chapters here

tw: abuse + self harm

-

Nico pulls you up the winding cement steps. Tears start to threaten your eyes. You have no clue what’s going to happen next and it makes you grow sick. Soon enough you’re being pulled in front of a cell. Only a bed, toilet and sink reside there. Nico turns to look at you and his hand connects to your cheek with much force, causing you to gasp. You grab at your cheek, heart feeling like it’s going to creep up your throat and bleed out of your mouth. 

“This is the last time I’ll tell you. What have I told you about him?” he means Clancy. You don’t say a word, as if your lips are glued shut. “Hmm?” he hums in question and crosses his arms. 

“T-that he’s dang-dangerous.” you can barely get the words out. 

“And?” Nico straightens his posture, making it feel like he’s growing even taller. You open your mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. He slaps you again and throws you into the cell. You fall onto your hands and knees, scraping against the floor. You wince and scatter yourself back to your feet. “You shall stay in here where I can keep an eye on you.” 

*Clancy* 

Clancy takes off once you are out of sight. He doesn’t go and find Keons like Nico told him to. Instead, he bolts his way to his room and swings open his door so hard it almost flies off the hinges. He doesn’t bother closing it. He grabs a pillow and lets out a blood curdling scream. He’s failed. Everything he has done leading up to this moment wasn’t worth it because he failed in the end. You’re gone. He knows you’re in Nico’s tower and he was trying to protect you from it. 

He stands to his feet, sniffling and wiping his tears away. He’s at a complete loss. Contemplating if he should go to Nico’s tower and blame himself to get you out of there. He knows what’s going to happen and he’s powerless. Clancy doesn’t know what to do with himself. He ends up pulling all of the drawers out of his dresser and hurls them all over his room. He tears his all black clothes all over. He’d punch the wall if it wasn’t built out of concrete. 

That’s when a single thought crosses his mind. 

His razor blade. 

He walks over to his desk and picks up his lamp where his razor blade is hiding underneath. He huddles in the corner of his room and rolls up his sleeve. He takes the blade, presses in and slices his wrist. Blood starts to pool out and drip onto the floor. He doesn’t care. This is all his fault, is all he thinks as he continues to drag the blade against his skin. 

“Clancy-” he hears a voice in the entry of his room. Clancy snaps his head up and drops the blade. Keons. He looks at the mess Clancy has made of his room and himself. “What happened?” 

“Nico…” Clancy’s voice breaks. “Took…” he hiccups from how hard he’s sobbing. “To his…” Clancy doesn’t need to make a coherent sentence for his bishop to understand. 

“Oh.” Keons sighs, his eyes scanning Clancy’s room once more. “Let’s go get you cleaned up.” Keons walks around all the clothes and drawers tornadoed around Clancy's room and holds his hand out for Clancy. 

Clancy grabs his bishop's hand and lets himself be pulled to his feet. Keons keeps a hold of Clancy’s hand as he leads their way to the medical center. Clancy lets the tears flow and stream down his cheeks. He’s heaving and gagging his whole way there. 

“This is all my fault,” Clancy chokes out. He can barely breathe with how hard he’s been crying. He looks down at his arm, blood flowing down and causing a mess on Clancy and Keons’ meshed hands. “We never should have gone in there. I should have never shown that place.” He wipes his eyes with his free hand. “I hate myself.” 

“Oh, my child.” Keons sighs. 

“I hope nothing I went through happens…” Clancy’s head slowly lifts up as he looks at his bishop. 

Keons doesn’t make eye contact with Clancy. Instead he focuses on opening the cool, heavy metal door and pulling Clancy inside. They walk into a room with nothing but a table with plain white sheets on, a sink, a cabinet and a wooden chair in the corner. Keons hooks his hands under Clancy’s arms and lifts him on the table. He wets a warm cloth and starts to dab away at the dried blood painted on Clancy’s arm. Clancy can’t help but wince and twitch at the pain. But he deserves it, is what repeats in his mind. 

Once the blood is washed from his arm, Keons rummages through the cabinet and pulls out a roll of gauze and starts to wrap Clancy’s wrist and arm as gently as he can. It’s completely quiet, but Clancy knows Keons isn’t judging him. Clancy sighs before speaking. 

“I’m sorry…” Clancy muters. 

“Don’t apologize to me.” Keons says flatly as he continues to wrap Clancy’s wrist. 

“Why?” the boy sniffles. 

“You didn’t do this to me. You need to apologize to yourself. You don’t deserve this, Clancy.” Keons rips the gentle material and tapes it to itself. 

“What if I do?” Clancy bats his lashes, trying to blink away the pain in his eyes from all the tears he's cried.

“You don’t.” Keons’ voice booms through the room with confidence. 

“What am I supposed to do?” Clancy’s voice is raw. 

“We’ll figure it out,” Keons pats on Clancy’s shoulder. “I promise.” the boy nods his head at his bishop’s words. “For now,” he says and helps Clancy back down to his feet. “Let’s get you a meal and clean up your room.” 

Keons grabs Clancy’s hand again and swiftly exits the medical building and into the main one. The only time Keons drops Clancy’s hand is when they get to the dining hall. He sits Clancy down furthest from the entrance. Clancy’s head is stooped low, eyes closed as he tries to steady his breathing. All he can think about is you and the worst things imaginable playing out through his mind. 

“My fault…” Clancy whispers to himself.

Keons returns with a tray of food for Clancy. Only a sandwich and a banana on the side with juice. The bishop places the tray in front of the boy and he slowly peers his head back up. He glances at the tray and then focuses on his bishop. 

“I can’t eat.” Clancy pushes the tray away from him. 

“You need to try.” Keons pushes Clancy’s food back in front of him. “Even if it’s just a little. You need something and then we’ll  figure out what we have to do.” 

“Maybe I should give up…” Clancy sighs a somber sigh, the feeling of hopelessness washing over him like a tidal wave. “Maybe I should give into the ways of Dema. Be a good citizen.” more tears start to flood in Clancy’s eyes, causing his vision to go blurry. 

“You know that’s not true.” Keons says tenderly. “Clancy, you see things others do not. You know what’s right and wrong. You know what needs to happen. You’ve come too far to give up now.”  

Clancy nods his head at Keons’ words. He sits there, thoughts swimming in his mind, he can’t seem to grasp onto a singular one. It takes a few moments before Clancy grabs the banana and slowly peels it, trying to suck back the tears. He’s already cried so much today that he’s surprised he still has more tears in him. He eats the banana slowly, trying his best to force himself to swallow, the feeling of disgust boiling in his stomach. He doesn’t want to eat but deep down he knows his bishop is right. He does his best to dissociate while he fuels himself. 

“Is that all you can handle?” Keons asks as Clancy finishes the yellow fruit. Clancy nods his head. 

Keons takes the tray and puts it away, discarding the food that Clancy didn’t eat. He helps the boy up, reconnecting their hands and meanders their way back to Clancy’s room. It’s a mess. Everything in his room wrecked and clothes strewn about. He closes his eyes, exhaling deeply as he starts to tidy up his room. Keons is right behind him, helping in silence. 

“I’m sorry…” Clancy’s voice breaks as he starts to sob again. “Everything is falling apart, even me.” 

“But I’m here to remind you that you can do it. You can keep on going.” Keons puts one of the drawers back in the dresser. “Promise me you’ll keep going until you make it?” another moment of silence. 

“I promise.” 

[patrollingboston]

Amidst The Chaos

Chapter 2!! I have changed Sarah and Casey's ages to around 6? just to make the involvement in parenting make more sense :)

Pre-Outbreak - Austin

The evening Austin sun filtered through Della’s windows, catching on the dust that clung to every surface like an old memory. She stood at the sink, hands wrist-deep in warm, soapy water, absentmindedly scrubbing dinner plates as she gazed out at the quiet street. Trees arched over the cracked sidewalks, while kids raced each other up and down the gentle slope of her driveway, bike tires skidding against concrete.

“Mom! Quick!” a small voice called from upstairs, edged with panic.

Della dropped the plate back into the sink with a splash, warm water hitting her cheeks as she turned and bolted up the stairs.

At the top stood Casey, her hair pulled into messy pigtails, streaks of pen scrawled across her cheeks like war paint.

“Sarah threw up—look!” Casey pointed urgently down the hallway.

Della exhaled hard through her nose, already regretting the Tuesday night playdate idea. Of course something would go sideways.

She followed Casey’s finger to where a little girl stood frozen in place, her curls limp, her face pale with embarrassment.

“Oh, goodness me…” Della muttered, rolling up her sleeves. “Alright. Casey, take Sarah to the bathroom. I’m gonna call her dad to come get her.”

Della rushed downstairs, grabbing her phone off the coffee table. Her eyes darted around the room until they landed on the post-it Joel had scribbled his number on earlier— “just in case” he’d said. Hands slightly trembling, she punched in the digits, the dial tone ringing in her ear like an alarm bell as the stress started to spiral.

No answer.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she muttered, pushing hair out of her face with a frustrated huff. She hit redial.

“You’re through to Joel Miller. Leave a message, I’ll get back to you when I can.” His voice filled the room—deep, unhurried, that southern drawl like honey on a hot day.

Della stared at the clock hanging crooked above the kitchen door. He was supposed to pick Sarah up soon anyway, right? It’s a school night. He wouldn’t forget.

She wasn’t exactly a fan of playdates, but when Casey came flying out of school that afternoon, hand-in-hand with Sarah, both girls beaming like sunshine, Della didn’t have it in her to say no. She remembered how awkwardly she’d turned to Joel in the parking lot, standing stiffly across from him while the girls chattered between them. He’d been polite, but unreadable—face tight, posture coiled, like small talk was a foreign language.

Still, he’d jotted down the number and thanked her. And now here she was, elbow-deep in chaos.

“Everything okay up there, Casey?”

“Mommy, she won’t stop throwing up—she wants to go home!” Casey called down; her voice high with panic.

Della sighed and jabbed at her phone again, frustration bubbling beneath her skin.

“You’re through to Jo—” She hung up mid-sentence, jaw clenched, and stormed back upstairs, tying her hair up like she was heading into battle.

“Alright, Casey, downstairs. Keep an eye out the window for Sarah’s dad, will you, darlin’?”

Casey nodded seriously and dashed off, the fairy wings strapped to her back bouncing with every step, lending her exit a dramatic flair.

Upstairs, she’d already done her best. She knelt beside Sarah, dabbing gently at the other girl’s flushed face with a paper towel, she carefully gathered Sarah’s curls and held them out of the way, her little hands awkward but kind.

Sarah sniffled, lips trembling. “I want my daddy.”

Della crouched beside them and reached out to steady Sarah’s shoulder. “I know, sweetheart. I called him, but he’s not answering just yet. I’m sure he’ll be here real soon.”

Two Hours Later

A loud knock jolted Della from her half-doze on the couch. Casey was curled up against one side of her, and Sarah lay fast asleep on the other. Careful not to disturb them, Della eased herself up, glancing at the clock as she passed the hallway. 8:30 p.m.

The front door creaked open with a groan. There he was—hands shoved into his jeans pockets, his T-shirt clinging to his frame, expression unreadable, just like it had been earlier.

"Howdy," he said, voice low and leathery.

Della didn’t bother to hide her glare. “Hi. Your daughter has been vomiting nonstop for two and a half hours.”

Her tone was clipped, controlled, but her clenched jaw gave her away. Maybe he had a good reason for being this late—but her patience was on its last legs.

Joel’s face shifted, brows pinching with what looked like guilt. “Shit. I’m sorry—”

“If you’d bothered to check your damn phone, you’d have seen the multiple missed calls. And texts.” Her weight leaned into the cracked, red-painted door behind her, its peeling surface warm from the day’s heat.

He ran a hand through his hair. “I was out. Didn’t realize my phone was off. I’m real sorry.”

“Yeah, well, thanks. Whatever she had for lunch is now all over my upstairs carpet.”

“I’ll send you money for a cleaner,” he muttered, then called inside, “Sarah, c’mon.”

The little girl stirred, rubbing her eyes as she peeled herself away from the cushion. Joel bent to scoop her up effortlessly, holding her close.

“Well, it ain’t just my problem,” Della said, arms crossed. “Next time she’s crying for her daddy, maybe make sure your phone’s on.”

“I said I’m sorry,” Joel snapped, a flicker of heat behind his words. “I had something important to do tonight.”

Della scoffed. “More important than your own daughter? Right.”

Then, softening just slightly, she addressed Sarah. “Hope you feel better soon, sweetheart.”

Joel shot Della a look—sharp, defensive. But he didn’t say another word. Just turned and carried his daughter out into the night.

With the quiet wrapping around her and moonlight spilling in through the slats of her blinds, Della moved her brush slowly across the canvas, painting a soft, scenic melody in muted tones. This was her outlet—where the weight of the day slipped off her shoulders with every stroke. Her daughter was often her muse, and tonight was no different.

But he wouldn’t leave her mind.

The way he brushed her off. The way his shirt clung to that toned frame. The way his careless attitude clashed with her calm resolve.

She shook her head, a few strands slipping loose from her braid as if trying to physically rid herself of the thoughts that pulled her away from the moment.

Instead, she let her focus drift to the other room, where her daughter lay curled up, fast asleep beneath soft blankets. Della’s expression softened. With a quiet breath, she lifted her brush again and let her hand move—finally—back to the painting.

[fixdex-fastening-technology]

Are you looking for a #sleeve anchor that is easy to install, strong and reliable? Discover the advantages of FIXDEX & Goodfix expansion bolts!

[emilygrayce91]

From Bucharest

Chapter 5 - Rusted

Trigger Warning - 18+ for Violence, Sexual Themes, Trauma, Torture, Drugs, Death, Language.

If you’re new to this story, start at the beginning: Masterlist From Bucharest

The first thing Bec noticed when she regained consciousness were the metal shackles around her wrists and the cold concrete floor beneath her. Her head pounded and she felt like she was going to throw up. 

"What the fuck?" she moaned, rolling onto her side. She tried but failed to rub her head, the shackles straining against the chain bolted to the ground. 

It took several seconds for her eyes to adjust to the darkness before she could make out a small metal cot in the corner and nothing else. 

"James?" she whispered. 

No reply. 

Bec dragged herself over to the cot and pulled herself up onto it. Her vision blurred, and she had to swallow back another mouthful of bile. 

She couldn't make out much beyond the cell door besides several shadows and a few flashing red lights. "Hello?" she called out, her voice echoing through the small space. 

"Professor Fegan," a voice crackled overhead, coming from a small speaker in the corner. Bec startled, turning to face the corner where the disembodied voice was coming from. 

"Where am I?" she asked, tucking her knees under her chin. She still wore her slacks and a long sleeved shirt, but the cell was cold and the back of her neck was sticky and wet from the blood that had dripped from the large gash near the base of her skull. 

"I have to thank you. We had only anticipated bringing you in, but your capture led to someone...a bit more valuable," the voice spoke again. 

"Who are you?" Her head was spinning, and absolutely nothing was adding up. She was nothing, a nobody. And James...where the hell was James. Had he been the one to bring her in? But why? Why all the effort to keep her safe, just to turn her over. Nothing made sense. 

"That's not important at this time. But I do need you to listen very carefully to me. Can you do that?" 

Bec remained silent. The voice was patronizing, with a slight accent, but it didn't sound Romanian. Close, but slightly different. She couldn't place if it was a regional accent she hadn't heard before or originating from an entirely different place. 

"Ms. Fegan?" 

"Fuck you," she spat. 

"I was hoping we could do this the easy way, but I see now that may not be possible." 

The static cut off, and the presence of the voice left the room. A large clang rang out from the other side of the cell and two men dressed in familiar tactical gear stood on the other side of her cell door. 

Behind them, a portly little man, balding except for a tuft of hair near his forehead, held a clipboard, feverishly jotting something down. 

"Please confirm you are indeed Rebecca Fegan from Lansing, Michigan. 32, birthday September 21, 1993," the little man finally asked, peering over a small pair of glasses that were sliding through sweat that was profusely trickling down his forehead and face. 

"Who are you?" she asked, ignoring his questions. 

"Confirm...Rebecca Fegan. Aged 32. Born September, 1993." 

"I'm not answering any of your questions until you answer one of mine," she said, standing slowly from the cot so as not to jostle her head. She neared the cell door as far as her shackles would permit. "Who are you?" 

The little man adjusted his glasses, sighed, and handed his clipboard to one of the agents. Nearing the cell door, he folded his hands over his protruding stomach, eyeing her like a small boy might peer at an ant hill through a magnifying glass. 

"Ms. Fegan, you are not in any position to make demands, let alone threats. Do you realize who we are?" 

A single name came to mind, something James had mentioned several times. "HYDRA?" 

"That is correct." He scratched his chin, visibly pondering something that made him chuckle. "Interesting that Bucky remembered, but that is not important now." He waved his hand, slowly pacing back and forth. "Ms. Fegan, I need you to corporate, at least a little, or...certain measures will need to be taken. Do you understand?" 

"Fuck you," she said again, sitting back down on the cot and turning away from him. 

"I had really hoped to avoid this. You seemed like such an intelligent person on paper, but alas." The metal clanging of the cell door sliding open had Bec turning back to face the men. 

One of the tactical agents was on her, forcing her onto her back. She struggled, kicking and clawing, but he was strong, abnormally so. A small sting came under her ear, and she quickly realized the agent had injected her with something. She could still make out the men moving over her, but every part of her body had gone numb, and she was unable to speak. 

"Perhaps some pain will be a little more persuasive," the little man said, smiling over her. 

************************************************************************

The feeling of total powerlessness over her own body was almost more than Bec could handle. She would've spilled all the beans about herself, including that one time she stole a pair of socks for absolutely no reason, but even her vocal cords were frozen.

Her body was tossed into a large chair and her wrists were shackled to the arm rests. A pic line was placed in her left arm, attached to a bag of what looked like saline hanging from an IV stand. She could also make out numerous stainless steel vital monitors and operating machines. The dials whirred and and beeped, tracking her heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature.

The portly man rolled in front of her, his plump form nearly breaking the small doctor's chair beneath him. Small embroidery on the front of his newly donned doctor's coat read Dr. Pirogov.

"Ms. Fegan." He slid a syringe from his chest pocket and stared at it, twirling it between his fingers. "This contains a small dose of a drug similar to the well known haloperidol. Also known as Haldol, that medication is commonly used to treat nerves and other emotional conditions. This drug, however, is ten times more potent and in small doses such as this, can cause agonizing pain throughout the entire nervous system."

Bec wondered if her eyes had widened in response despite the sedative they had given her, but her head just slumped to the side, and she knew the screams of panic could only be heard by her inside her own head.

Dr. Pirogov slid his chair closer so that his knees were nearly touching her shins. He leaned in close, and she could smell stale cigarettes and body odor wafting off his still slightly sweaty skin.

"Reverse it," he said to someone behind her, and slowly she began to feel her fingers and toes again. The prickly sensation of her body coming back to life. She shuddered, trying with all her strength to pull out from under the shackles around her wrists and ankles, but there was no where for her to go.

Bec looked around the room frantically, hoping someone would show some pity on her, when her eyes halted on a figure to her left.

James.

But he didn't look like James anymore. In place of his hoodie and jeans, he wore similar tactical gear to the other HYDRA agents, his metal arm on full display.

And his eyes. There was something off about his eyes. He stared at her, but the recognition was gone. They were empty, unfeeling and almost...unaware.

Dr. Pirogov held the syringe out in James' direction. "Would you like to do the honors. It's only fair since you were the one to ultimately bring her in."

James held Bec's stare as he moved forward and took the syringe. Bec didn't know what to make of it. She hadn't known James that long, but she could just sense that this wasn't him.

Something had happened to him.

"James, please don't do this," she whispered, as he poised the syringe over left forearm.

There was no recognition, not even a flash of acknowledgement that he heard her.

"сделай это," Dr. Pirogov commanded.

The pain was horrendous. Bec screamed, her head snapping back against the chair, sending another blinding slash of agony through her skull and across her vision. Everything burned, even her blood felt as if it were boiling.

She kept her eyes on James through the pain, his own hollow and unfeeling. He dropped the syringe on a nearby surgical table and stepped back, taking position behind Dr. Pirogov who stood and began pacing back and forth in front of her.

"Now that I have your undivided attention, Bec. I need you to confirm that you are in fact Rebecca Fegan, aged 32, born September 1993."

Dr. Pirogov continued to recite the questions from his clipboard, but Bec stopped hearing him. His lips continued moving, but all she could focus on was James over the doctor's shoulder.

He was gone, only a shell of himself, and if she didn't start complying, so soon would she be nothing but the skin around her bones, just like him. 

[winterrsun]

An aversion to zombie brains

Mini drabble I cooked up

Blurb- Not long after the group arrived at Alexandria you feel a little off. Daryl thinks settling there has made you weak, but what if it’s something more than that?

Reader x Rick | some fluff, references to smut but no smut in story

Warnings: pregnancy references. Some gore. Language (f-word).

This just popped into my head and I had to write it out immediately instead of doing work like I’m supposed to be woops

“You sure you’re good to out today, you’ve been a little under the weather lately” Rick softly enquired as you finished lacing up your boots.

“How did you pick up on that, I haven’t said anything? And I’m fine, I’m itching to get out of here for a bit” you replied with a smile.

“I notice things” he smirked, “you haven’t been eating much. And you’ve been sleeping in later in the mornings. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I am, I promise” you said, planting a kiss to his lips before leaving.

You headed through the gates of Alexandria with Daryl, Rosita, Carol and Glenn by your side. Glenn looked at the list in his hand of supplies you were all scouting today.

“Let’s head out east” he suggested, “and stick together for now until we find something concrete to search”.

It wasn’t a particularly fruitful run, unfortunately. You did run in to a small heard of walkers, 20 or so. Nothing your capable group couldn’t handle. However, as you plunged your large knife into a walker skull and the smell of its leaking blood and brains down your arm hit you, you experienced a visceral reaction as if it were your first time killing one of these things.

Your brain clouded with dizziness and you instantly gagged. Trying to shake it off you turned to the next walker fast approaching you, snapping its teeth, but couldn’t repress the heaving sensation making its way up the back of your throat. You pivoted away from the walker and threw your breakfast up all over the ground, while Daryl’s bolt pierced the skull of your would-be attacker, sending the walker to the ground in an instant.

The group picked off the last couple roamers with ease while you continued to retch, before shakily straightening up and wiping your mouth with your sleeve. You were mortified, you couldn’t understand why that had happened. You must have killed at least a hundred of those animated corpses by now, many in much more gruesome ways than a knife cleanly to the skull. You’d never had a reaction like this before. Maybe you had food poisoning.

“The hell was that?” Daryl asked. His tone wasn’t angry, but you still felt ashamed.

“I- I don’t know. I think it must’ve been something I ate?” You stammered.

“We’ve all been eating the same food though” Rosita replied. “Plus it’s way better than anything we’ve eaten in months.”

You shrugged helplessly. “I really don’t know guys. I’m sorry” you said.

Daryl scoffed a bit, “I think I know what it is. I think these sheltered Alexandrians are rubbing off on ya. Don’t go getting weak on us now.”

Your eyes widened, “oh come on! That is not it” you began in argument, but Daryl’s wide grin stopped you and he started to chuckle. He was just teasing you; one of his favourite pastimes.

“Youre an ass, Dixon” you grumbled.

The group made their way back to Alexandria without further incident. As you closed in on the last mile of the journey, making your way down the now-familiar path, Carol pulled you back for a chat.

“How long have you been under the weather?” She asked you gently.

“A couple weeks, on and off” you admitted. “I don’t really know what it is, maybe stress adapting to this place? Maybe my body’s having a fit now that the constant survival mode feeling has reduced a little.”

“Mmm, maybe” Carol replied after a pause. “I’ve noticed you not eating much, and being picky on what you will eat. I haven’t known you to be picky with food before” she continued.

“Yeah….well I don’t know….like I said I think it’s probably stress?” You asked it as a question, wanting her to up and reveal what she was getting at.

The two of you walked in silence for a couple of minutes before she continued. “How long since your last period honey?”

You looked at her, then straight ahead, as you tried to remember. You couldn’t really. You knew you hadn’t had one yet since arriving at Alexandria, and your group had been there over six weeks now.

You remember feeling thankful to not have one on the road for a while, because when you did get it on the road it was fucking awful.

“Couple months, at least” you answered finally. “That could be stress too” you pointed out halfheartedly.

“It could” Carol agreed, “but I’m not sure it is” she added.

She walked ahead back into the group, leaving you at the back with your mind racing a hundred miles a minute. You and Rick were careful, you tried to be at least. When you didn’t have condoms he’d always pull out. And while high school health class taught you that wasn’t a fool proof method, you also tried your best to keep track of your cycle and when you’d be at highest risk of pregnancy.

That was at the prison, when life had some level of structure and stability. You couldn’t keep track of anything on the road. You thought back to the few moments you and Rick had shared while your group travelled and survived. That time against a tree when you were meant to be looking for firewood. Another time under an old railway bridge. You hadn’t been very careful the last few months you realised.

As you re-entered Alexandria, you saw Rick approaching the group to welcome you all back, clapping Daryl on the back and smiling at Carol. He walked up to you and pulled you into his arm, kissing the top of your head affectionately.

You looked up at him, and suddenly felt very nervous.

“You okay?” He asked, brow furrowed as he looked into your anxious eyes.

“I think we need to talk babe” you replied.

[bitbd]

Living Fossil

What kind of superhero not only throws a random parked car at a kaiju, but misses?

Skye could feel her heart pounding like a hammer as she watched her 1962 Volkswagen Beetle not even glance off the flying gargoyle larger than her entire apartment building. Her Love Bug skipped tires-up along the street like a stone on a still pond, glass and metal bending and breaking every time her car slammed into the concrete. As it finally came to a stop the other noises of the fight were drowned with blood rushing through her ears and nerves whining across her brain. It was almost as if she was mid-nightmare, staring at the turquoise wreck.

Her eyes blurred; Skye absently realized tears were streaming down her face. She trembled, and overwhelming despair quickly gave way to overpowering wrath. Clutching her purse hard enough for fingernails to pierce leather, she stomped off the sidewalk and towards the smoking ruins. She took in the sight of what was her first car, her only car, the first purchase she'd made, the car she bought and repaired with her own time, effort, and talents. It was totaled, beyond repair, a corpse of metal, rubber, and leather.

A police officer took notice of her and barked an order for her to stay back. Skye hastened her marching; the cheap crocs-and-socks she was wearing didn't give her half the gravitas she'd prefer but they'd have to do. Unconsciously even as anger flooded her entire being, she was already orienting herself tactically, drawing from everything she knew, observed, and could correlate together to set the universe the way she wanted. It came to her as naturally as putting on a pair of pants, pedaling a bike, or driving her...

The police officer got closer and barked even more harshly. Skye hoped, and he did as she wanted, he grabbed her sweater-covered arm. He'd feel a stiff wiry metal frame just beneath the cloth.

"You need t-" he began, with the slightest bit of apprehension, but he didn't get any further as a handheld glittering cleaver dropped from her other sleeve into her waiting hand. Skye wasted no time sliding it across the cop's throat.

Before blood could even begin to trickle she drove it several times between ribs. It was such a wonderful knife, the vest underneath was barely anymore impediment than glaze on a bagel. Speed, precision, and follow-through made the city puppet into mincemeat. Skye grabbed him and with strength born of both adrenaline and alloy she hurled him behind another, even taller, vehicular wreck. The others manning the barricades had their own hands too full to mind one of their sheep in the jaws of a lioness. The sentiment allowed her to smile even as the tears kept pouring.

He didn't have the breath to even make a pained noise, so he made for a good listener.

Skye growled and strained to begin talking, "Try so hard to retire into obscurity. Try so hard to bite back my ambitions...."

His uniform was soaking with blood, it was dripping onto the road. She glanced at the metal badge, N. Thompson.

it was a boring name, she cleared her throat, "...in the end... in the fucking end this world still finds ways to fuck me out of nowhere..."

The cop's muscles relaxed, all pretense of resistance lost, she kept talking, "...I could've I would've done more, but I wanted to quit while I was ahead."

From here, Skye could peek beyond the overturned tow truck to see that the fight was still in full swing. She recognized the colorful trail of the flying brick sparring with the winged beast several times her size, taking stony chunks out of it with every hit-and-run maneuver, finding wieldable debris to parry bolts of lightning spewing from the gargoyle's mouth and things to slam into the monster's body. It was Lady Psalter, they'd had encounters before in more ways than one. She didn't believe in fate or providence or anything like that but the fact that it was her of all heroines was quite the synchronicity.

"Fucking preachy hypocrite little tease going up against another freak that this city keeps birthing like a rabbit with ovaries peppered with tumors..." Skye squeezed the officer's neck like a warm wet stress-ball.

Skye reverted to a growl, clenching her jaw as she glared at Lady Psalter, fighting without any care to what she'd just done.

"I'll do it, if the world wants to take an eye I'll take two if I'm being pushed then I'll jump off the ledge headfirst and dive down as deep as I can."

She spared a glance at the officer, he was long dead. It didn't give her any satisfaction, but it did give her the last bit of clarity she needed. The woman pushed the corpse off her, took off her sweater, revealing the grey mottled tank top underneath. She tied the sweater around her waist, arms covered in sweat. Plans began to form, but first she needed to be wearing a skin that fit her reborn heart.

....

Less than an hour later, the woman was staring in front of the mirror, leaning in close. Her eyes were still puffy from all of her pitiful crying. Beyond that she could see veined dark bags under the eyes contrasting against pale freckled skin. Her hair was a sight, choppy dark auburn hair. She was so tired, so restless, and all for what? She recalled how well she slept when she wasn't holding back. She looked down at her silver costume made up of horizontal divisions in the flexible metallic armor. It was form fitting, not like there was much form to show, she was stretched tall and bony. Yet that didn't matter because as long as she was complete she was unassailable.

The final step would make her complete. The woman put on the headpiece and mantle, gingerly affixing it into place. Now when she looked in the mirror she saw a mouthless face with two wine dark bulging compound eyes, all of her head shielded, additional chain mail draped over her shoulders. Two antennae dangled on top and bounced slightly as she turned her head. One press of a button activated blocky orange text and images on the inside panel, showing her current inventory of drones, equipment, weapons, trinkets, and other technology. She hadn't chosen to keep anything as backup, she'd scrapped it, wiped away most of her villainess corpus like so much beautiful sand.

No matter, she'd started from nothing and she had her costume. She grabbed both sides of the mirror hard enough that it threatened to crack, her true name uttered.

"Dr. Trilospite"

It was dorky, she'd picked it when she was so young and hungry for glory, but it was hers.

"Dr. Trilospite!"

The barrier between illusion and truth crumbled completely.

Dr. Trilospite laughed long and hard.

[a-bit-of-writing]

02/30 - Lock

Fandom: Outlast

Character: OC 

Words: 1,257

Summary: Trapped in Mount Massive Asylum as it descends into blood-soaked chaos, Marla must survive the night with nothing but a name, and even then that is slipping.

Note: I really went all out with this piece to the point that I'm considering making this into a multi-chapter story 😅

30 day fanfiction challenge

Setting: Mount Massive Asylum, sometime after the generators die.

The screaming hadn’t stopped in hours.

At least, Marla thought it had been hours. In the bowels of Mount Massive, time leaked away like blood through gauze - slow, sticky, impossible to measure. The emergency lights guttered overhead, coughing up wan red strobes that painted everything in fever-bright pulses, then plunged the corridor into ink. Every few seconds the asylum seemed to breathe: a choking inhale of crimson glow, a rattling exhale of darkness.

Inside her padded cell the walls were no longer white. They wept rust-brown streaks, the stuffing beneath torn open as though the room itself had been disemboweled. Somewhere far off, an air-handling fan squealed, warped blades chewing through stagnant air; each metallic shriek wormed under Marla’s skin.

She’d wedged herself beneath the child-sized desk bolted to the corner. Knees folded so tight her joints ached, shoulder pressed against cold concrete where the padding had been ripped away. Her patient smock, once hospital blue, was mottled with other people’s fluids: old vomit, fresher blood, iodine yellow where antiseptic had spilled. She smelled like a slaughterhouse floor.

Marla… Marla… She mouthed the name over and over, no sound emerging. It was a paper talisman, a desperate mantra to remind herself she still existed beyond this place. That she was more than a warm body on a checklist.

The first body had hit her door at what might have been dawn. A wet thud followed by a boneless slide. After that, the corridor devolved into carnival pandemonium - boots hammering tile, inhuman laughter ricocheting off cinder block, the dull percussion of fists against metal doors as panicked inmates begged for release or mercy or both.

Mount Massive granted neither.

Occasionally a silhouette lurched past the square of reinforced glass set into her door: naked patients smeared with gore like savage birthmarks, orderlies shrieking obscenities as they were dragged away, a priest in tatters reciting scripture while fire licked up his sleeve. Once, two figures tottered together - a macabre embrace - until one caved the other’s skull against the wall and danced away through the spray.

She kept still. Kept silent. Silence was survival.

But curiosity, that suicidal ember, finally drove her to the shin-high feeding slot. She inched forward on raw palms, careful not to let the metal grate squeal. Outside lay the remains of someone in staff whites - face down, spine arching out where vertebrae had been yanked free like links of grisly rosary. Steam rose from the organs spilling across the tiles, misting the lens of the hallway camera that blinked but recorded nothing anymore.

Marla clamped a trembling fist between her teeth before the scream could tear loose. Copper flooded her tongue, an anchor to reality.

Then the lock rattled.

Click.

Not battered. Not shot. Unlocked.

A line of icy sweat traced her spine. Whoever held that master key wanted inside.

The handle turned with deliberate care, as though savoring anticipation. Hinges whined; the door yawned inward a handspan, and red strobe light knifed into the cell, illuminating flecks of dried blood drifting in the air like black snow.

Beyond the threshold stood a figure no taller than Marla - slight, almost delicate. A patient’s wristband glimmered beneath crusted gore. Their grin split impossibly wide, cheeks cracked at the seams, teeth pink with meat. In the upturned glare of the emergency lights their eyes shone catlike, pupils blown wide with mania or medication - here, difference meant nothing.

They raised a scalpel. Its blade was pristine, polished to a mirror finish despite the carnage caking their forearm. It caught the red flash and winked, promising every exquisite slice still untouched by rust.

“Found you,” the stranger whispered in a voice scraped raw, as though their throat had been sanded with glass. “Time to play doctor.”

Marla scrambled backward, skull knocking the desk. Spots burst behind her eyes. In the corridor, something heavy dragged closer. The wet rasp of flesh against tile, punctuated by a metallic rattle. More of them. She could already smell the iron tang rising like humidity after a storm.

She considered begging, but the stranger’s smile said yes, cry. Instead she reached blindly behind the desk, fingers closing around a splintered strip of wooden molding. Pathetic weapon. Better than prayers.

The lights failed then - total blackout. Only the asylum’s diseased heartbeat remained: distant alarms chirping like dying birds, ventilation fans grinding, the low bass of thunder rolling above the mountains.

In the void Marla heard them breathe. A chorus of hungry lungs.

Red light flared again. The scalpel arced toward her face.

Marla swung the broken wood with animal ferocity. Crack. The figure shrieked - a high, wheedling note - yet the blade still carved a shallow furrow along her cheek. Hot blood spattered the padded wall, instantly black in the crimson strobe.

She lunged toward the door, slipping in the viscera puddling at her feet. Her soles skated, found purchase on exposed concrete. She bolted into the hallway - into Hell.

Bodies littered the corridor like gore-slick stepping-stones. Fluorescent fixtures dangled, sparking where wires had been gnawed by frenzied hands. Up ahead, two inmates tore at a guard’s corpse, pulling intestines in opposite directions as though divvying rope. One looked up, nostrils flaring, eyes focusing on Marla with lupine hunger.

She ran.

Her breath hitched in ragged sobs, ribs knifed by each inhale. The asylum seemed to warp around her - corridors narrowing to suffocating throats, doorways yawning like broken jaws. Somewhere an automatic door slammed, metal folding like thunder, followed by a chorus of shrieks as hunters were locked out or prey locked in.

She slammed her shoulder against a side door marked RESTRICTED-MEDICAL RECORDS. The latch broke. File folders exploded into the air, fluttering like diseased moths. She wedged a rolling cart against the handle, hands slick with gore, ears straining for footsteps.

Instead she heard the ventilation grate above her pop loose. Something massive crawled inside the ducting - steel buckling, a wet snort echoing downward. Heavy, predatory. Walker. She’d overheard that name in therapy sessions; it tasted like doom.

Marla’s vision tunneled. Her knees nearly buckled. She needed to hide, to disappear, but Mount Massive was a maze designed by sadists.

Her gaze fell to a metal service elevator at the far end, its doors ajar like a secret mouth. Past it loomed the surgical theaters - cold rooms rank with formaldehyde and bone dust. If she could reach them, maybe she could lose herself in the labyrinth of gurneys and cadavers.

Behind her, the cart rattled, the scalpel-wielding stranger testing the barricade. Their giggle seeped through the gap. “Ooooo, patient’s playing tag!”

The grate in the ceiling groaned again.

Marla’s pulse hammered so loud she thought her ears would burst. Move. She sprinted, slipping on papers, shoulder-checking the elevator doors wider, and hurled herself inside. She punched the Down button with frantic fingers. Gears howled; cables juddered; the doors crept shut just as the hallway lights sparked white, revealing the silhouette of a hulking giant dropping from the duct like a slaughter-house angel.

As darkness swallowed the elevator, Marla sagged against the wall, chest rising in sharp, painful jags. Somewhere below, the basement levels waited, generator rooms drowned in ankle-deep water, morgues where the dead refused to stay still, laboratories echoing with Walrider whispers.

But she was alive. For now.

Blood dripped from her cheek, pattering onto the elevator floor in a growing constellation - red stars in the black.

Her reflection in the dull brass panel stared back, pupils huge, hair matted, lips cracked.

“Marla,” she rasped, voice foreign in her own throat. “I am Marla. I am-”

The elevator jerked to a halt between floors. Lights failed. A hand - huge, callused - punched through the roof grate above, searching.

Mount Massive wasn’t done with her yet.

[decaydazai]

ִֶָ☾. See You Later!

cw: war au

pairing: megumi x OC, dad!Satoru

wc: 2.3k

(Akira's POV)

Arata and I were about to leave after the entire conundrum involving the vending machine, our boots scraping against the cold concrete. Wind stirred dust like it was hiding something. I scanned the zone. Something was off.

Too quiet. Not the good kind.

Arata was to my right, one hand near her holster, eyes razor-sharp. “Looks like it hasn’t been touched in years.”

I crouched beside the old terminal, brushing away decades of grime with my sleeve. “That’s what they want you to think.”

Then—

Click.

I froze.

Click click.

Two more.

Arata stiffened. “Did you hear that?”

I didn’t answer. My heart did.

Then they appeared. Three of them. Cresting the ridge like they’d been waiting for dusk.

Human in shape, but somehow different. Joints too fluid. Faces too still. Light didn’t reflect off their skin right—it bent. Like the world didn’t know what to do with them.

Sentients. Real ones.

I straightened slowly, stepping in front of Arata. “You’re not supposed to be online.”

The tallest one tilted its head, and I swore I heard metal strain.

“Unauthorized entry detected,” it said in a voice dipped in static. “Cross-referencing DNA profile: Gojo, Akira. Threat level: Red.”

Arata’s breath caught. “They know you by name?”

“I don't know how,” I whispered.

I barely registered her pulling her weapon. A gunshot rang out. It hit—ricocheted.

The thing smiled.

I grabbed her wrist. “Move!”

We ran.

Through dust and shadow and the broken bones of old infrastructure. I ducked low, weaving through collapsed beams, dragging Arata with me as their steps pounded behind us. I could feel the cold hum of their proximity—too close, too fast.

We found the ruins of a hallway—what used to be an ops corridor—and I slammed the reinforced door behind us, bolting it with an iron pipe. They didn’t try to open it.

They were waiting.

“Shit,” Arata gasped, bracing herself against the wall. “We’re boxed in.”

“No,” I said, panting. “Not yet. There’s a backup shaft I remember. It's supposed to run parallel to the old comms room. It’s narrow. We can crawl through it to the other side of the compound.”

Arata looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “How do you know that?”

I hesitated. “I don't. I guessed due to the installation and wiring. It's our only way out.

She blinked. “What?”

I sighed, rubbing my temples. "Let's just do it. I left trails, by the way."

Arata furrowed her eyebrows, a cease forming between them. "Why? And to who?"

“In case something happened. In case I didn’t make it back. I started embedding patterns. Messages. In my files. I marked specific words. Same pen, same color order. Left codes. Coordinates. Enough for him to trace. He wasn't supposed to find them yet, though. I didn't leave any trails in case this happened."

“Him,” Arata echoed, staring. “Wait. You’re telling me you wrote a secret love-coded message into classified black-ops files hoping Megumi would find it?"

“Not hoping,” I said, flicking my flashlight on. “Knowing.”

She exhaled sharply. “What the hell is he, a codebreaker?”

“No. He’s worse.” I smiled faintly. “He’s in love.”

She didn’t answer.

Behind us, the hallway lights began to flicker. One by one. Like a countdown.

We moved, running again. Deeper, faster. The shaft was ahead, covered in rust and silence, but still intact. I hit the latch and climbed inside first, turning to offer my hand to Arata.

“He’ll find us,” I said quietly.

Right before she pulled herself in, the wall behind her exploded.

We both ducked, heartbeats slamming, as one of the sentients crawled through the breach like a spider. Arata fired again—three rounds, all aimed at its core. It barely flinched.

I sealed the shaft door behind us and we bolted forward, crawling through wires and dust and memory.

My hands were bleeding. The metal walls of the shaft had edges like paper cuts, and the dust was thick enough to choke memory. I could hear Arata’s breath right behind me — shallow, ragged, like she was swallowing panic with every exhale.

We were blind. Only the beam of my flashlight cut through the dark, jittery against rusted cablework and crumbling insulation. The shaft was uncomfortably tiny, but it was what it was.

Then came the thud.

Heavy.

Too heavy.

I stopped. Held up a fist. She stilled. The thud came again.

I twisted toward her. “They’re above us.”

She mouthed back, How?

“They’re tracking heat.”

Arata’s jaw clenched, and for the first time since I met her, I saw her eyes flicker. Not fear — calculation. She was trying to figure out how many exits we had. How many bullets. How long it would take to die.

I reached forward again. Crawled faster. The shaft forked ahead — one path dropped lower. Tighter. A squeeze barely fit for a kid.

Perfect.

I slipped down it, boot first, sliding on my stomach until the space narrowed into silence.

She followed.

We stayed like that for what felt like hours. Until the air grew colder and the walls began humming. A different hum. Familiar.

I blinked.

“Wait,” I whispered. “I know this place.”

“You what?” she hissed.

I tapped the pipe above me. “This is under the research wing. One of the earliest blind test zones for Project Blind Sun. My father brought me here once when I was a kid. Looks like my predictions were right."

Arata stared. “Are you saying we just crawled into the belly of the beast? Thanks to your prediction, at that?"

“No,” I whispered. “We crawled under its grave.”

--------------

The lab beneath Sector 9Y was buried in time. A bunker within a bunker. My flashlight caught broken panels, smeared code stamps, bits of shattered glass.

“Why the hell would they reactivate this place?” Arata muttered, scanning the room.

“I don’t think they did,” I said. “I think it never actually shut down.”

We moved quietly. Past servers that buzzed faintly. Past an old terminal with flickering lights — not completely dead.

Arata crouched, dusting off the control panel. “You think it’s safe to touch?”

“Not remotely.” I popped open a side hatch. “But if there’s data in here, I’m not leaving without it.”

Then the screen lit up. A welcome message.

WELCOME BACK, GOJO-SAMA. PROJECT NODE: SERAPHIM GATE STATUS: REBOOTING DNA CONFIRMED.

Arata stepped back, stunned. Confused. Maybe a tiny bit afraid, but it was impossible to know.

“What… is Seraphim Gate?”

I stared at the screen.

“I don’t know,” I said. This was actually scaring me. Why was there a giant welcome message for my dad in the lab he sabotaged with his own hands?

And behind us — again — came that sound.

Click.

But this time it wasn’t from outside. It was from the shadows inside the lab.

I grabbed Arata’s hand, mine slightly trembling. We bolted — deeper into the forgotten wing. The shadows moved with machine grace. No footsteps. No breathing. Just the sound of shifting servos and the smell of old death. I don't know what my dad had been doing or what and who he was involved with, but this wasn't good.

I shoved open a side hatch and dragged Arata in, locking the blast door behind us.

“No exit,” she said, chest heaving. “We just boxed ourselves in.”

“We bought time,” I snapped, taking ragged breaths. “That’s all we need.”

The lights overhead sparked.

Then flickered red.

The console in the center of the room lit up.

ACTIVATING HOST EXTRACTION PROTOCOL. SUBJECT: ARATA MIYAZAKI. DNA KEY THREE – CONFIRMED. EXECUTING TRANSFER.

“What the hell is it doing?!” she shouted.

“I don’t know!” I ran to the terminal. “They’re not after me — they want you!”

“No—no, Akira, stop—!”

She shoved me back just as something burst from the far wall — a thin tendril of chrome and light, reaching like a vein of lightning.

It latched onto her back.

She screamed.

And the door behind us exploded.

A blur of black and blue shot through the smoke. Clean, sharp, silent.

Megumi.

He moved like a blade.

One shot — the bot behind Arata dropped. Another — the console shattered before it could complete the sequence. Sparks flew. Systems whined and died.

He was on his knees beside me before I even realized I’d hit the ground.

“Hey.” His voice was hoarse. “Hey, stay with me.”

I looked up at him, dazed. I'd ripped my side open against some metal while running and was gushing blood.

“You came.”

“Of course I came.” He was already checking my injuries. “You’re bleeding.”

I laughed weakly. “I bled more for worse.”

I winced as the pain sharpened, closing my eyes and leaning my head against the smashed console of the terminal as my breathing got shallower.

“I know.” He cupped my face. “But not again. Not alone.”

Arata coughed nearby. “Glad you two had your reunion. Can we get the hell out now?”

Megumi lifted me in bridal style; eyes still locked on mine. “I found the exit shaft on the way in."

“They want her,” I said, nodding to Arata. “They called her DNA Key Three. Something called the Seraphim Gate—”

“Explain later,” he said. “Move now.”

He was here.

And for now, we were whole.

_______________

We ran.

Well, Megumi ran. He carried me.

Arata limped behind, one hand clutching the charred mark on her back where the cable had latched on. “If I die from whatever the hell that was, I want my corpse buried far from military zones.”

“You’re not dying,” Megumi muttered. “Not today.”

“Cool,” Arata snapped, “then maybe clue me in on why robot tentacles think I’m a USB stick with legs?!”

“No idea,” I wheezed, “but I vote we short-circuit the next one with sarcasm and blind panic.”

We stumbled into a corridor that looked like it hadn’t been touched in decades. The signs were in a language I didn’t recognize — not Japanese, not English. Just glyphs. A triangle with a bleeding eye. Another with wings curled backward. A third, labeled in smudged ink:

SERAPHIM LOCK 3 Authorized DNA Required

“Okay,” Arata said flatly. “See? This is exactly the cult-bunker aesthetic I was hoping to avoid.”

Megumi didn’t slow. “We’re getting out. The shaft should lead us above ground.”

“We go up, what if those things are waiting?” I asked, raising an eyebrow quizzically.

Megumi looked back. “We stay here, I guarantee they’ll find us again. And you'll bleed out."

Fair. I readjusted the improvised compression, my head falling against Megumi's shoulder. He caressed my hair and adjusted his grip on me for more comfort, kissing my forehead. "You'll be okay."

We reached the shaft. Megumi hoisted me first, hands steady despite the tremor I knew he’d never admit to. I managed to not rip the wound open further, lying on the solid ground. Arata followed, teeth clenched the whole time. He came last.

We emerged into dusk-stained air, ash drifting across the horizon like paper snow.

The compound behind us groaned — alive again. Then it boomed.

A fireball lit the sky behind us. And just as I turned to ask what the hell that was, a voice crackled in Arata's comm.

“Akira. Lieutenant Arata. You’re both off the grid.”

Buzzcut.

“You’re lucky I intercepted the drone traffic. What the hell did you trigger in there?”

Megumi grabbed the comm and snapped, “We were ambushed. They tried to plug Arata into the floor like she was a damn power source!”

There was silence on the line. Then Buzzcut’s voice returned, low. Controlled.

“…Did it say ‘Seraphim Gate’? The terminal, I mean. Did it say DNA Key Three?”

We all froze.

Megumi looked between us. “…You know what that is?”

Buzzcut exhaled. “Get out of there. Now. I’ll explain when you’re safe. But listen to me, you just activated a goddamn fail-safe that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore. And if you’re alive, Akira, then so is your father.”

The line went dead.