#first fic of 2023!! let's go

[painless-innit-colourful]

sat down at nine to write a drabble. three hours later it’s a oneshot and I have the best ‘fic writing research list’ since I read half of hetty feather to write about ranbulter. it goes as follows:

quote from sun tzu’s ‘the art of war’.

lyrics from the last few songs of hadestown.

the ‘curse of the ninth symphony’ (and beethoven’s 9th)

the correct spelling of ‘barre chords’

who the bassist is for lovejoy (I knew it was ash but I needed to check)

[thatstonedwriter]

⋆｡˚ 「 Valentine~

Vash x Reader 」 ⋆｡˚

◉ A/n: Trigun brainrot has me in a chokehold so here's a lil piece dedicated to Vash

~I've rejected affection for years and years~

Noman's Land doesn't leave much room for those who aren't willing to fight to survive. That's why Vash stood out so much- a man striving for love and peace, but too unlucky to not leave a wake of destruction everywhere he went.

~Now I have it, and damn it, it's kind of weird~

Despite that, he always went out of his way to show kindness and respect to others, lending a hand, even when it wasn't wanted.

~He tells me I'm pretty, don't know how to respond. I tell him that he's pretty too, can I say that? Don't have a clue~

You were so unused to the gentleness Vash provided. Awkward displays of appreciation always seemed to shroud your true feelings. A grateful pat on the shoulder, or an affirmative nod never seemed to be enough to truly convey just how much you came to appreciate Vash's kindness.

~With every passing moment, I surprise myself~

But he began to rub off on you. Those awkward pats turned to gentle hugs and genuine smiles- the two of you became inseparable. And it scared you.

~I'm scared of lies, I'm scared of guys, someone please help~

Nothing lasts forever. None of you were promised tomorrow, not when you're travelling with the Stampede. You had every reason to steer clear of the Humanoid Typhoon, and yet he was like a magnet, drawing you to him every time you tried to pull away.

~Cause I think I've fallen in love this time~

You knew you were past the point of no return, but you'd never expected Vash to feel the same. Even a few weeks after your first kiss, it was hard to believe.

~I blinked and suddenly I had a Valentine~

[mcschnuggles]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Pocket Monsters: Black 2 & White 2 | Pokemon Black 2 & White 2 Versions Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Bel | Bianca & N | Natural Harmonia Gropius Characters: Bel | Bianca, N | Natural Harmonia Gropius Additional Tags: Age Regression/De-Aging, CGRE - Caregiver/Age Regressor, Regressing!Bianca, Caregiver!N, Fluff Series: Part 1 of Snug's Regressuary 2023 Summary:

Bianca is out on a research mission for Professor Juniper. The only problem is... well, caves are kind of scary.

Lucky for her, she doesn't have to go it alone.

[decaflondonfog]

10(-ish) First Lines Tag Game 🌙

i was tagged by the lovely @mintawasalreadytaken (see her brilliant first lines here!!!) over on my main but i'm doing this here bc i have no hp wips 🤷 the original rules of the tag game are to share the first lines of your ten most recent finished/posted works, but i love not following the rules so i'm going with the wip version and you're getting twelve because that's the amount of wips i actually have started writing for (wtf. twelve?? what's wrong with me) anyway HERE WE GOOOOO

in order of most likely to be finished to most likely to be eventually abandoned:

In the beginning, everything that can possibly go wrong goes wrong.

The first picture in Neil and Andrew’s wedding album isn’t one taken by the photographer they hired.

When Andrew gets home, eyes bloodshot, and hair pointing in at least seven different directions, Neil’s stomach is already fluttering pleasantly, setting him up for nothing but disappointment.

Andrew isn’t small.

It’s too hot in bed.

In the morning of his eighteenth birthday, Eric Bittle woke up too early, with a headache pounding behind his eyes, and promptly dry-heaved for a good fifteen minutes before he realised what had happened.

Kevin immediately regrets spotting her. 

In the end, Adam isn’t sure who’s more surprised about the decision — himself or Ronan — but they go into it like they have so many other things before: with a vicious argument and a reluctant apology.

Renee dodges a punch to the ribs and takes several steps backward, panting, just as Andrew asks, “And you thought having sex with her would be a good way to deal with your feelings?”

When news of Mary Hatford’s death, the arrest of The Butcher of Baltimore and the fall of the Moriyama empire reach Rome, Father Neil Josten is twenty-seven years old and already four years out of the seminary, three post-ordainment. 

Kayleigh doesn’t mean to make a habit of going home with random people every night, but at this point, even a rug and a blanket seem better than trying to fall asleep on the bus to the sound of Tetsugi’s snoring.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Neil can’t bring herself to care about the fact that Riko is probably going to kill her and make Jean watch.

tagging some darling, talented folks here: @slytherco @fluxweeed @skeptiquewrites @mostlymaudlin @starwarned @poetic-ivy (no pressure and i'll let you decide if you want to do first lines from already published stuff or if you want to go with the teasing option like me lmao do whatever you want, who cares)

[museaway]

the "cold" or whatever it is has finally cleared enough that I feel semi-human, so I worked on the reincarnation eruri AU for raspberry and realized it will be the longest thing I've posted for that ship! I think it'll be around 3k. I may have just cursed it by typing that.

to get myself in the mindset, since I've been steeping in a certain swimming pool for months, I made the choice/mistake of going on youtube and watching tiktok compilations, which led to me crying over the ship again. this crying is going on five+ years. incredible staying power. some ships just burn into your brain.

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 3, day 7, got the nose done and since the guide helped a ton with that (and fixing some weirdness in the eyebrows), I'm gonna try animating the eyes and mouth at the same time and see if I can get them to agree with me. If they don't, it's no big deal; I'll just go back to animating one facial feature at a time :)

[aziraphalesbookkeeper]

the castle is on a volcano

oh my god the castle is on a volcano

[sinofwriting]

I ❤️ MILFS - Max Verstappen

Words: 9,747 Summary: Max wasn’t too sure who the woman was that was always with Logan, but he was sure that he wanted to get to know her. Note(s): Sargeant Reader, Age Gap, Older!Reader, Logan and Oscar are both 20 during the 2023 season, not 22. The 2023 driver standings are different (I am giving Logan the season he should have had). Reader has the nickname Pan (short for momma panther). Logan is sweetheart, Max is head over heels in love. I’m gonna be honest I never thought this fic would get written or finished. I got the idea for it back in December but only started writing it on March 16th. And it would have never happened without @burningcupcakefire & @pucksandpower. Thank you both so much for all your help. (also if anyone wants to see more of Max and Pan, let me know)

Masterlist | Support Me! | I ❤️ MILFS verse

Max remembers the announcement of Oscar’s arrival to F1, the drama and hilarity of it. Sometimes he sees the kids name and has to stop himself from laughing. No nineteen-year-old had any business being that funny.

Max doesn’t remember much of Logan’s announcement to F1. Only that he was young as well, being the first American in forever, and Williams' quick admission that they hadn’t wanted to sign, had wanted to wait another year.

He wishes now that he had paid more attention.

There’s a woman standing in the William’s garage, on Logan’s side. She’s clearly there for him, with the similar pass that his trainer has around her neck, and the way her eyes intently follow Logan’s movements around the garage as he talks to the mechanics and engineers.

She also happens to be the most beautiful woman Max has ever seen.

—

She can’t help but clutch at Benny’s arm the whole race, terror gripping her along with pride.

Benny chuckles when the race comes to an end, Logan doing his cooldown lap and she finally lets go. “And just think you’ve got over twenty more races of this.” Her nose wrinkle and a hand goes over her heart that’s thudding. “Please, Benny.” He chuckles again but pats her shoulder. “You’ve got this.” “Not gonna tell me it gets easier?” He snorts. “No. This is far worse than F2 or F3 and we still were both scared watching him out there. We’ll never know a day of peace now.”

She sighs, watching the screens as it shows the top three getting interviewed and in the background you can see some of the drivers getting weighed. “He’s going to be sore and in pain.” It makes something clench inside her, the knowledge that Logan would be in pain. It was part of the job, the aches and the bruises, but it didn’t make it any easier for her to know. “I’ve already got everything set up as soon as he’s back and debriefs are done.”

Her eyes catch on the screen showing where all the drivers placed and tears prick her eyes and she shakes her head. “Twelfth in his first grand prix. I can’t believe it.”

The garage is filled with chatter as the team celebrates getting their first points of the season and their rookie driver performing better than they expected. The way they don’t even try to whisper it makes her jaw twitch. She was grateful that Williams was giving Logan his dream, but she didn’t like how they were going about it. Quickly and publicly stating that they didn’t want to sign Logan yet, wanted to wait a year. And now this.

A light nudge to her ribs makes her unclench her jaw and she gives Benny a grateful smile.

Both of their attention is quickly drawn however to the two Williams drivers entering the garage, the space filling with cheers.

She smiles as Logan grins at the team, basking in the smiles they have on their faces for him and Alex, the pats on the back he’s getting. The grin turns to a beam when he spots Benny and her and he quickly bounces over to them.

A laugh leaves her at the way Benny pulls him into a bear hug, lifting him off his feet a little. “Proud of you, kid.” He murmurs. She can’t hear what Logan says, but he’s put down and it’s her turn.

She wants to bundle him up in her arms, hold him and not let go, but doesn’t want to embarrass him in front of his team, so she raises a hand and pushes his hair out of his face. “You did amazing, baby.” He smiles at her, all bright and shiny eyes and then he’s wrapping his arms around her, hugging her tight and she’s quick to return it, rubbing his back. “You did so good, Logan. So good. I’m so proud.” She tells him again, pressing a kiss to his sweaty head. “Thank you, momma.” He tells her, hugging her tight for another moment before letting her go. She smiles up at him and god, that makes her heart ache. Her son, her baby, taller than her somehow. She woke up some days and still wasn’t sure where the time had gone and how he was taller than her shoulders. “Go shower and debrief and then Benny and me will take care of you, yeah? And I’ll get your favorite ordered to the hotel, ready as soon as you get there.” He beams at her again, darting forward to press a quick to her cheek before starting to rush away. “Best mom ever!” He calls over his shoulder and she laughs.

—

Y/N Sargeant will never forget the first time she held her son, only then at nine years old, he had been her cousin.

Logan was small, wrinkly, pink skin, and full of small cries. She could remember staring at him with furrowed eyebrows, trying to understand how he could be what her baby dolls were made to be like. She remembers her mama having her sit on the couch after asking her if she wanted to hold him and how she had quickly nodded, hoping that maybe holding him would somehow make him look better.

She remembers the sudden nerves that built in her stomach as her mama started to hand him to her. Remembers being scared that she would drop him, remembers thinking how stupid it would be if he was still weird to look at like this.

And she remembers finally holding that and it disappearing. His small cries, no more, his  wriggling calmed down, and his wrinkles no longer looked weird but cute. She remembers holding him for the first time and feeling unconditional love for the first time in her life.

—

She’s twelve when she realizes that her uncle and aunt don’t like Logan much. It didn’t make sense to her then, still doesn’t now. Because they liked Dalton just fine, but not Logan.

She remembers asking her dad about it. Asking him why they didn’t love Logan, but loved Dalton and worse, she remembers the pained look in his eyes as he realizes that his child picked up on what he and his wife had as well.

It’s the first hard adult conversation she has with her parents and it’s fitting that it’s about Logan, as they sit her down and talk to her about how not all parents love their kids, and how sometimes that includes them only loving one child and not the other.

—

She remembers clearly the first time Logan calls her mom.

It’s her fourteenth birthday and she’s got the four-year-old in her lap as she sits in a rocking chair, reading her English essay aloud for him. Logan’s eyes are closed, head resting on her chest, over her heart, and his little fingers of his one hand are curled in her shirt right by his head.

She wants to sit there forever, reading to him as she rocks back and forth. But she wants another slice of cake before Martha puts it away and Logan needs to sleep in his bed where he can stretch out fully and drool on his pillowcases and not her shirt that Martha will surely tut over but then smile fondly when she sees Logan doing it all over again.

Setting the essay down on her dresser, she runs her now free fingers through his blond hair. “C’mon Logan, time for bed.” He grumbles, fingers tightening on her shirt and she can feel it being pulled slightly. “You can put on your new race car jammies, cuddle with Ello.” He shakes his head, squirming a bit in her lap as he tries to shove himself closer. “Stay with you.” “Oh, baby.” She whispers, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Y’know I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.” His head shakes again and she has to bite her lip as his head hits her collarbone. “Want cuddles, momma.” Her heart thuds painfully in her chest at the name he called her, tears pricking her eyes. “Okay, baby. Let's get you in jammies, grab Ello, and you can stay with me tonight.”

—

She’s only been eighteen for ten hours when she asks her father for the near impossible.

“I want custody of Logan. I want to adopt him. And I need your help to make that happen.” He stares at her, no expression on his face, not even shock. “He’s,” She pauses, jaw twitching and tears springing to her eyes. “He wants to do karting, just like Dalton. And he’s good at it. I’ve taken him. They told him no. They haven’t bought him clothes in two years. They don’t know a single thing about his school, his grades, his teachers. He hasn’t called David dad since he was six and he hasn’t called Madelyn mom since he was four.” Her hands are formed into fists, nails digging into her palms as she speaks. “I have money, I can provide for him. I’ve got my shares of the company now and I’ve got my inheritance from Grandma Talls. But I know that a judge won’t sign off without some influence.” “Madelyn and Daniel?” She leans forward in her seat, a spark of hope filling her. “I already talked to them, they’ll do it.” One of his hands comes up to rub at his mouth, sighing. Then it drops to open up one of his desk drawers and he’s pulling out a bunch of papers, dropping them on the desk in front of her.

“I figured this was gonna happen and I knew after you talked to them and they called me. They signed away their rights three hours ago. Michael and Lily are waiting outside to come in so you can sign the papers.” Tears slipped from her eyes, joy wrapping itself around her entire being from his words, the fact that he called their family lawyer to be on standby, that he and her mother were so supportive. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” He smiles at her. “I couldn’t say no to you. Not when it comes to Logan. I’m way too young to have a grandkid, let alone one that’s eight, but I made my peace with that years ago.” “Thank you.”

—

Max watches the free practice session coverage intently as they focus on the Williams garage, nose wrinkling when they focus on Logan’s trainer, Benny and then James Vowles. Could it really be possible that they never once caught a shot of her? He starts to get a sinking feeling in his stomach that he's gonna have to go on Twitter when the camera moves and suddenly she’s there and he’s scrambling for the tv remote, pressing the pause button just before the camera switches to an overhead shot of the Bahrain track.

His heart skips a beat as he gets his first good luck at her. Her pretty eyes and smile. His eyes then travel down, wanting to know her name and his heart drops.

Y/N Sargeant, Mother of Logan Sargeant.

Fuck.

—

“Momma Panther!” Oscar greets to the confusion of other drivers as Logan and a woman enter the room.

Lando’s eyebrows are raised as he watches Oscar stand. Watching as his teammate claps Logan on the back, before giving him an actual hug. Before he then hugs the woman as well, whispering something to her that makes her laugh.

Pulling away from her, Oscar grins when her hand comes up to pat his cheek for a second. “Thank you for the invite, Os.” “Of course.” He sends a fond look to Logan, who's standing awkwardly by the table. “Y’know Logan and you are always welcome.” She makes a humming noise. “C’mon, let me introduce you to everyone.”

Turning around, he smirks at the table. “Everyone, Logan.” Charles lets out a laugh, as the others chuckle. He gestures to her, “This is Momma Panther or Pan.” “Y/N or Pan.” She corrects, playfully shaking her finger at Oscar. “I only let the F2 boys call me Momma Pan.” He sighs. “Okay, this is Y/N. Logan’s mom.”

Lando coughs, water going down the wrong pipe. Fernando’s eyes are wide as he looks at her. Charles, George, and Alex are all nodding. Max has a weird expression on his face and Carlos looks dumbfounded.

“She,” Carlos points at her. “Is his,” he points at Logan. “Mother?” Logan moves away from the table to stand by his mom, easily melting into her side at all the attention. The action makes Oscar smile, all too used to the easy affection between the mother and son. “I got pretty lucky right?” She shakes her head. “I’m just happy you weren’t a difficult child.” Logan both blushes and preens at the same time. Carlos shakes his head, disbelief still clear.

“Please, sit.” George says after a moment. “We haven’t ordered yet.”

The seasoned drivers and her watch amused as both Oscar and Logan usher her to sit first. Oscar easily then lets Logan sit next before sitting beside the American. The two of them sharing a grin after.

It makes her shake her head as she turns her attention to the menu, tuning out the sound of conversation picking back up.

The gentle sound of a throat clearing makes her glance to her left.

The current two time world champion smiles a bit awkwardly at her. “Have you been here before?” She shakes her head, turning her head a bit to look at him better. “No. To Australia of course, for Logan’s races and to visit Oscar once, but not here.” He nods and she can’t help but notice the way he swallows harshly. “We started coming here in 2021, it’s good food. Good drinks.” She laughs, “good gin and tonic?” He flushes a little, but laughs. “Yes. Very good. Heavy on the gin.” She nods, “I think I’ll have one of those then.”

Her eyes drift back to the menu, not even wincing at the prices next to the dishes. This was nearly cheap compared to where she had been forced to eat growing up.

“Momma, can we,” “Yes.” She answers before Logan finishes, already knowing what he’s asking. “Also you two, no hard liquor. We have plans tomorrow.” She continues, still looking at the menu.

They wouldn’t get drunk from a few drinks, but she had a feeling that Lando would try to instigate something again with Oscar, making the poor kid so drunk he could barely walk, again. And she didn’t mind people thinking that she was overbearing with Logan and even Oscar. The boys knew that if they really wanted to do something they could, even if she said otherwise. It was one of the nice things about being an adult.

Logan wrinkles his nose, glancing at the drinks part of the menu, before grinning. “They have it.” Oscar glances at what he’s pointing at, shaking his head. “You and your goddamn obsession.” “We come here like once a year.” Logan defends. “And no other country sells it.”

It’s not until after the server leaves, all of their orders taken, that conversation starts again.

“So, Mrs. Sargeant,” Lando starts. “Just Y/N or even Pan.” She sends a fond look to Oscar who had made that nickname stick. “And I’m not married.” She says, amused. “Ah.” “Not married.” Fernando shakes his head. “Now that doesn’t sound right.” She looks at him amused. “Don’t believe in premarital sex?” She teases. The older driver laughs and so do the others. “No. Just hard to believe that you aren’t married. You are a very gorgeous woman.” “Thank you.”

“So,” Lando starts again, giving Max a weird look seeing how his friend is gripping his glass of water. “Will you be coming to all the races?” She nods. “Yes, I have since Logan started his career. Haven’t missed one.” Logan shakes his head, grinning at her. “Nope, not one.” “Your work allows you to do that?” Her lips press together for a second to try and hide her smile at the gentle but obvious fishing they are doing. “I have shares in some companies and a very generous inheritance. So, no true, real work.” “You do some work for Grandpa when we’re in the states.” “I organize his desk for him, which he then messes up as soon as he sits back down at it.”

“You do not mind the constant travel? It is quite tiring.” Charles asks, curious. “No. And once I got Logan in karting, I promised him that I’d make it to all of his races. Maybe in a few years, I’ll stop going to all of them, but I am part of his team as well.” “Manager?” “God, no.” She shakes her head at Carlos’ assumption. “Cook slash nutritionist. Benny, his trainer is amazing, also doubles at being a physiotherapist for Logan, but he doesn’t know how to cook to save his life. So I make their meals.” “Mine as well.” Alex pipes in. “They’re truly amazing, by the way.” “Of course.” “Can you make mine again?” Oscar asks, leaning over Logan a bit to look at her. “I’ve missed having them.” “Sure.” She laughs. “Get me your new sheets before the next race, yeah?” “Done.”

—

Max watches from the corner of his eyes as she takes her first sip of her gin and tonic. Her brows raise a bit when the drink hits her tongue and he has to force his eyes up, to not focus in on her lips, to think about them and what they’d feel like on, he shakes his head. Forcing the thoughts, the ideas away.

“Very heavy on the gin.” She whispers, turning a bit to look at him. He rubs his hands against his jeans. “Do you like it?” “It’s nice.” She smiles. Relief fills him. “Good.”

He continues to look at her, wanting to tear his eyes away but being unable to. She was simply lovely. And getting this closer look at her, he can’t believe that she’s a mother, or at least a mother to a twenty-year-old. It didn’t seem possible. She looked barely older than him. Not at least thirty-five. She was probably more like Fernando’s age as well and he glances at the fellow two world champion, more disbelief filling him. Because how could the two be close in age at all?

—

Logan sighs as he collapses face first onto Oscar’s bed. Laying there for a solid minute before groaning and turning his head.

“Dinner was nice.” Oscar hums and he can feel the bed dip beside him. “You seemed a bit more relaxed.” “No media, and you and Pan were there. A bit more relaxed.” Logan scoffs. “Yeah, because you were so tense with media before.” As he speaks, he reaches out to lay a hand on Oscar’s thigh, giving the muscle a squeeze. “It’s nuts, isn’t it? I mean we all got told that the media was so much more, so different, but…” He trails off, shaking his head. “Yeah.” Oscar sighs and then he’s laying beside Logan, the American luckily moving his hand off and away from the other’s thigh before he lies on it.

“Y’know I have no personality, apparently.” Logan snorts, eyes opening when he hadn’t even realized he had closed him. The Australian driver also has his head turned so they’re looking at each other. “What? Have they never seen a Prema video?” He shrugs as best as he can. “I’d take that over my apparent frat boyness.” “You? A frat boy?” Oscar laughs. Logan sighs as he thinks a bit more about it, the mood turning a bit serious. “I just hope momma hasn’t seen it.” “What happened?” “She’s just worried. Thinks I haven’t noticed, but she’s wondering if she did a good job with me, done enough for me. And she’s given me everything y’know. I can’t imagine what I’d be like with them as my parents.” Oscar moves a bit closer, just a few inches between their faces now. “You’d still be amazing, still great. Maybe a frat boy.” The American rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling.

“I think Fernando has a thing for her. For Pan.” He clarifies. “What?” “I mean, just during the dinner y’know, he kept looking at her. And him calling her gorgeous.” “Well, he’d be dumb and blind to not notice that.” Logan scoffs, rolling onto his back and turning his head to the side, keeping his eyes on Oscar. “I’m being serious.” The younger laughs, poking him lightly. “I think Alonso has a thing for her.” Logan’s face scrunches up in disgust. “Dude, no. That’s gross. Momma isn’t even thirty and Fernando’s like forty-three. And isn’t he dating that journalist?” Oscar’s brows press together. “What journalist?” “The one that gave Fred shit.” “I thought she died?” The two look at each other, both baffled.

Logan thinks again of the journalist he’s seen around Fernando and the one that all of the Prema drivers, former and at the time current, had avoided or given shit statements too. They did look a bit different now that he really thought about it. Fernando’s journalist slash girlfriend didn’t have a fucking complex.

“Different journo.” Logan mutters. He then blinks, “wait, she died?” “Mate, you didn’t hear about that?” “No!” “She was supposed to be at Spa, remember. And we all were relieved when she wasn’t there. She died, car crash or something, I can’t remember.” “How do I not remember this?” Oscar shrugs as best as he can while laying down. “I don’t know.”

It’s silent for a moment, “you don’t think,” “No.” Oscar shakes his head, but he doesn’t sound too sure. “I mean, yeah no.” “Right.” He looks up at the ceiling.

“Okay, so Fernando is out of the running.” Logan groans, “Os, no.” “Look he clearly has eyes, but if he’s dating someone he’s out. He wasn’t the only one looking.” “Oscar, please, it’s my mom.” “She’s like my mom too, which is why we have to talk about this.” Oscar insists, wriggling closer to Logan. Their sides completely pressed together and when Logan turns his head to look at the other, their noses nearly brush. He looks at Oscar’s face, all earnest and caring and sighs. “Fine. Charles was looking, but he only dates one type, so safe from him.” “Lando was looking.” Logan snorts, “I thought this was for potential dates, not another kid.” He laughs, their noses brushing together from the movement. “Okay, no Lando. Max.” “He kind of looked weird when you introduced her.” He frowns. “I saw that too.” “But he also got all blushy when they talked.”

“The drivers do know, I mean Alex knows that she didn’t like birth you, right?” Logan’s frown deepens. “Of course. I mean, it’s not super well known, but it’s a little hard to believe that she naturally had a kid twenty years ago.” “Thought so.” Oscar then chuckles. “Imagine, them thinking that she did, though. Just thinking she’s got some sort of insane skin care routine.”

—

“How in the hell does she look like that with a twenty-year-old kid?” “I know right?” Alex says, looking at Carlos. “It’s insane.” Charles pokes at his own cheek. “I think I need to ask her for advice, what products she uses. I want to age like her.” “We all want to age like her.” George agrees. “What are you saying?” Fernando frowns. A few of them share a look, but Charles and Max share a different one. “Mate, you’ve got wrinkles and all these lines.” Max says. “I mean those are natural, but look at her. The skincare helps.” Fernando frowns, “Lines?” Charles touches at his own lines, “see lines. From smiling, laughing, frowning. All good things, very nice. Just not uh,” his brows furrow drawing a blank. Lando snorts at his struggle. “You just want to help your skin. Keep it healthy.” The older driver makes a humming noise, considering.

—

Her breath is caught in her throat, eyes wide as she watches the screen. Her heart feels like it is beating in double time. She wants to look away, doesn’t want to watch in case something horrible happens, but she can’t. Because Logan just overtook both Magnussen and Ocon in the same lap. Logan is in 9th. Logan is in a point scoring position with only five laps of the race left. Logan might score his first formula 1 points at his home race, at his actual home race, at his first ever home race.

Her hands are shaking, fingers locked together as she presses them against her mouth, trying to breathe, praying that Logan won’t fall back out of the points.

She doesn’t even notice that he’s lessened that gap to Pierre until suddenly he’s overtaken the other French driver, just three laps later. “Oh my god.” “Fuck.” “Benny,” she whispers, and one of her hands is dropping so she can clutch at the older man. “Benny, I think,” “He’s gonna do it.”

And sure enough he does it. Logan holds his place in front of Pierre and finishes in 8th.

“Yes!” The whole garage is cheering and she’s wrapping her arms around Benny, laughing when the trainer lifts her. “He did it! He did it!” She cheers. The garage quiets though as Gaetan starts to speak on the radio.

“Logan, you are on your cooldown lap.” “Got it. Where’s Alex?” She winces at the question, one of her hands grips at Benny’s shoulder as he sets her back down, the other holding onto her headphones that miraculously didn’t get thrown off her head or disconnected when celebrating. “Alex is P14, P14.” It’s quiet for a moment. “Okay, I’m sorry we didn’t get any points today, next race is ours right? The car felt great.” Both of her hands fly up to her mouth. “Logan.” Gaetan’s voice is full of disbelief and laughter. “Mate, you finished P8. You got us points. You got your first points.” She can see him react to the news, the car jerking underneath him for a second, before he wrangles it back under control. “What? What do you mean?” “You finished in P8. Clean race, finished ahead of both Alpines and Magnussen.” “Holy fuck.” The garage fills with laughter at his reaction and tears start to build in her eyes. “You guys,” his voice breaks. “Thank you guys so much. This was you guys, the car felt great, really.” She watches as James hops on the radio. “This was you as well, Logan. Amazing drive today.” “Thank you, James. Thank you so much for this.”

His mechanics, Benny and her, quickly go over to where the cars are parking, watching as Logan slots it into place. He’s a little shaky as he gets out of the car and he’s about to dart towards them but someone from the FIA, is ushering him to the scale.

His reluctance is clear even with his helmet on, but he goes. Letting them take his weight and as soon as it’s written down, he’s stepping off and away, fumbling with his gloves and then his helmet.

There’s an awed grin on his face, tears in his eyes, and seeing it makes the tears that have built in her own fall.

His gloves and helmet tumble to the ground as his mechanics and Benny surround him, celebrating his points.

Logan laughs when they finally let them go and his eyes light up when he sees her and he darts to her and she easily welcomes him into her arms.

“I’m so proud of you.” She tells him, squeezing his sweaty body close before running a hand through his hair. “You did amazing.” “I did it, momma.” His voice is weak and she can feel tears hit the skin of her neck where his head is buried. “You did it.”

—

“Logan did amazing, it was a good drive.” She blinks in surprise at the voice, turning in her barstool to look. “Max?” He smiles at her, cheeks flushed. “He did really well.” “He did.” She agrees before patting the stool next to her. His smile widens as he takes the seat. “I didn’t realize that Red Bull was in the same hotel.” Maybe she should have since she had spotted a few Red Bull polos, but she figured it was fan gear. “I think Aston is here as well. You aren’t celebrating with Logan?” She shakes her head. “We already celebrated. Him, Oscar, and a bunch of his friends here are throwing a party. I wasn’t really interested in watching them all get wasted, so this,” she gestures to the hotel bar, “is me having a drink to celebrate before going up to my room and ordering some room service.” “Could I join you?” His cheeks redden at the words, at the way her eyebrows raise. “Not like that. But for food? I’ve never actually eaten anywhere in Miami that wasn’t catering.” She stares at him for a moment before nodding. “Yeah. And I have the perfect place to take you.”

—

“Did I actually score points yesterday?” “You did.” “Sweet.” “Very. How’s the head?” Logan shrugs, “I mean, I drank a lot, but like I’m just dehydrated.” She shakes her head, “That will change in a few years.” “Not gonna tell me to not drink underage?” He teases, bending down to press a kiss to her cheek before grabbing her glass of juice and draining it. She snorts. “We’re in Europe most of the time and I gave you your first drink. I don’t think I have a leg to stand on. And you were celebrating.” “True.”

He sits across from her, refilling the glass and taking another drink from it before setting it down and starting to help himself to her pancakes, which she just pushes closer to him. “How was your night? You could have joined us. We wouldn’t of minded.” “I’m your mom, Logan.” She laughs. “I think the me going to your friend's parties ship sailed a few years ago.” “Yeah, but you're awesome. We like having you around.” “I know.” She smiles. “I wasn’t in the mood to watch all of you get wasted.” “Fair.” he says around a bite of pancake, which she sends him a look for and he quickly swallows the food. Giving her a smile that says sorry.

“So, how was your night?” “It was good.” She tells him, spearing a piece of fruit with her other fork. “I came back to the hotel, had a drink, and then got dinner with Max.” His brows press together. “Max?” “Verstappen.” She clarifies. “Red Bull is staying here as well, he saw me at the hotel bar and asked if he could join me for some food.”

“You went on a date?” Her eyes narrow at him. “It wasn't a date.” “You went on a date.” He scrambles for his phone. “Oscar is never gonna believe it.” “I go on dates.” “Momma, you’ve gone on like five dates. And two of those were before you turned eighteen.” She scowls at him. “It wasn’t a date. We just got dinner.” She insists. “Uh huh.” He says, clearly not believing her. “Did he pay?” “Yes.” “Pull your chair out, help you with your coat, anything like that?” Her mind flashes back to Max helping her get out of his car, his insistence on opening doors for her. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean,” Logan continues. “Did he walk you to your hotel room? Say that he had a good time and he’d like to do it again?” “Oh.” Logan grins at her, smug, as he finishes typing out a text to Oscar. “You went on a date last night.” “I went on a date last night.” And she doesn’t mention the fact that a new number resides in her phone.

—

“Logan!” He stops at the sound of his name, turning to look behind him, where Max Verstappen is nearly jogging to catch up with him. “Max.” He greets, when the older driver is next to him, nerves filling him at the eyes of said driver on him, along with how a few other drivers are also looking at the pair, shock and surprise clear on their faces. “Hey.” Max grins. “How are you feeling about the track?” He looks at the older driver in confusion. They had just left the drivers briefing, why was he asking him this? Alex had already spoken about how the team was feeling about Monaco. “The car won’t be the best here, but we said that in Miami, so we’re hoping to repeat that here. Alex has a good chance at ending in a point scoring position.” He reiterates what he's been told and what he’s been telling the press. “But how are you feeling about it?” Logan stares at the Dutchman, eyes flickering around trying to see if cameras are there, if his momma is there, but there isn’t anyone. The other drivers are already gone, so are the FIA people. It’s just him and Max. “Y’know you don’t have to talk to me because you went out with my mom.” He expects relief, like that one dick Jase, and really who puts that on a birth certificate, but Max just frowns. “I know, I don’t have to.” Logan swallows around the lump in his throat, “right.” Turning around, he starts to walk, somehow knowing that the other driver will join him. “It’s a tricky track, it’s Monaco. I was here last year and I barely got in the points.” “P10 and P9.” He throws the driver a look, because that was too much to know, but Max is just looking at him, encouraging him to continue. “The car isn’t suited for it. I mean it wasn’t for Miami, but this is different. And I’m still not managing my tyres correctly, so even if I did manage to gain positions, I’d get called in to pit and lose them.” Max huffs out a laugh. “You are a rookie in a Williams, it’s impressive that you’ve already gotten points. If you could manage your tyres, when sometimes even I struggle, well I’d put you in Checo’s seat.” “Not yours?” He laughs again, “No. I’m a bit better at it than Checo.” Logan couldn’t really deny that.

“Do you want some advice? On the tyres?” Logan quickly nods. “I’ll take anything I can get.” “Don’t fight the car too much on the turns. If you need to get it to turn properly or without going on the brakes too soon, fight it. But when you don’t, let the car be stable, keep it fluid. When you come out of the corner, press harder. It might feel like you’ll go into the wall, but you won’t.” “And if I go into the wall?” Max laughs, clapping him on the shoulder. “I think you're a better driver than that mate.”

—

“How are you doing that in the turns?” Logan looks up from his notebook, where he’d been scribbling a bunch of random words. Looking at the screen, he watches his own onboard. He thinks about saying that it was Max that told, but no one at Williams liked hearing about Red Bull, especially with Alex in the room. “Just something I thought I’d try.” “Well, it was good, continue doing it. We may have ended up out of the points, but we got close.” Logan nods. Even with his five-second penalty, he had still kept fourteenth, and Alex ended up in twelfth. “Will do.”

—

Max had thought about her in his apartment a lot, an embarrassing amount. He had also pictured it very differently. A nice dinner, wine, even though a majority of it made his nose wrinkle, perhaps some kissing on his couch as a movie plays that they both don’t care about.

He hadn’t expected lunch, with juice that he’s trying to figure out how he’s never had it when he’s lived in Monaco for so many years, and a somewhat serious conversation, though maybe he has been expecting that one or rather anticipating it.

“I like you, Max.” He flushes, “I like you too.” He really did, even though his mother was going to have a heart attack when she found out how much older Pan was than him. “And I want to continue doing this.” She gestures between them with her free hand that isn’t being held in his. “So,” sensing that there’s something she wants to say. “I’m a mom.” He blinks at her words, panic starting to fill him. He thought he’d made that clear that he knew that, understood that. He always made sure to ask about Logan. He even had Logan’s number now after talking to him about how he felt about the Monaco track. “I know.” “Logan is important to me.” Oh, god, did Logan not like him? “The most important thing to me. And if we're going to continue to do this, I just need you to know that. He’s always going to be my first priority.” “Of course.” Relief fills him, his heart slows from its frantic beating. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.” She stares at him, trying to gauge how truthful he’s being before nodding. “Okay.”

“Did you think that I didn’t know that?” She shakes her head immediately. “No, it’s just. I don’t really do this.” She laughs. “Dating, relationships. Logan pointed that out to me, so I don’t really know how this goes and I just had to make it clear, put it on the table now.” “I don’t really do this either.” He hesitates to ask his next question, but does. “Logan’s father. What was your relationship with him like?” Her face screws up in disgust. “Ew.” He laughs, not expecting that reply or that word to sum up a relationship. But fair enough.

“I mean the idea of a relationship between me and Logan’s father is gross. Logan’s,” she pauses, seeming to settle on a different word. “Birth parents are my aunt and uncle.” “His what?” He could have sworn she said birth parents, but that couldn’t be right. “His birth parents.” She looks at him, concerned. “I adopted Logan when I turned eighteen. Did you think I gave birth to him?” “No.” He says, shaking head and clearing his throat. “Of course not.” She stares at him, lips pressed together. He sighs, slumping in his seat, eyes closing. “I may or may not have thought you were just a really, really young looking forty-something year old woman.” She immediately bursts into laughter and his eyes fly open at the sound. “You thought?” “The graphic for the race footage says you are his mother, I did not think otherwise. I just thought you looked great for your age.” He defends, a little embarrassed, but delighted by the expression on her face and her laughter that is still filling his ears. “I am his mother, just adopted.” “Not that either of you see it that way.” “No.” She shakes her head, laughing one last time before calming down.

“No. Logan’s mine, he’s been mine practically since he was born. It just wasn’t seen that way legally until I was eighteen and custody got signed over to me.” “Of course.” He then flashes her smile, “So can I ask how old you are?” She laughs, nodding. “Yes, Max. I think just this once it’s better to ask a lady her age than assume it.” “How old are you?” “I’m twenty-nine.” He looks at her with new eyes, the age making much more sense. “I would’ve said twenty-five.” “Really? I think you would’ve said forty-something.” “How was I to know?” He throws his free hand in the air at the tease, his other still holding hers.

—

“Hi, baby.” She greets when Logan stumbles out of his room, practically still asleep, as he drops onto the couch. “Momma.” He whines, resting his head on her lap and turning his face to press it into her stomach, trying to block out the sun. Her fingers brush through his hair as she forces her body to stay relaxed. It was always a fight when he did this.

She hated that her body didn’t bear any signs of being pregnant before, no stretch marks around her belly. She hated that she hadn’t actually gotten to carry Logan no matter how impractical it was, unless of course she was as old as Max had thought she was. She smiles at the memory of how flustered Max had looked when he realized her actual age.

He mumbles something and she turns his face away from her stomach. “What?” “How was your date last night?” Her smile widens. “It was good.” “Yeah?” She nods. “Did you see Jimmy and Sassy?” “No.” She runs her hand over his forehead, knowing that he’s thinking of Sooty. “We should talk though after you’ve had some breakfast.” “About what?” “Breakfast first.”

“What do we need to talk about?” Logan asks nearly thirty minutes later, his fruit bowl all gone and his coffee on its way to be there as well. She swallows, hands flexing. “Max.” “What about Max?” She sighs. “Well, baby, him and I talked about becoming serious last night. But that’s not gonna happen until I know how you feel.” “You know, I’m okay with it.” “I know you're okay with me dating, but this is a bit more complicated. Max is on the grid with you and we’re talking about a relationship.” Logan eyes widen a bit at the word relationship. “I mean, how does Max feel about it? About being with someone who has a kid on the grid?”

He asks knowing it will give him time to figure out how to tell her how he feels and because he wants to know, he kind of wants Max to be okay with it. He likes Max, and not just as a driver. The older driver is kind and funny, he also looks at his mom like she’s the sun, he makes her happy and that’s enough to put him in Logan’s good books. His mom deserves the best and he thinks from what little he’s seen, from how much more happy his mom has been (and god that was weird, because it wasn’t even like she wasn’t happy before) that Max might be the best for her. And Max now every time he sees Logan is always stopping to talk to him even if it’s just for a second to say a quick hi.

“Max is good with it. He knows that you're my number one and that’s never going to change.” Logan flushes at the words. “He also likes you, thinks you're a good kid.” She lets out an amused huff as the word kid leaves her mouth. It was odd to hear Max describe Logan that way, with only five years between them. But at the same time she knew it came from being practically a veteran in the sport. Max was coming up on ten years in Formula 1 despite his young age. He flushes even more. “Really?” “Yeah.” She smiles. “He always asks about you, it’s really sweet. And he knows to that if you aren’t comfortable with this or need more time then that’s what will happen.” “I am an adult.” “You are.” She was sadly well aware of that fact. “But you are my baby, my kid. I couldn’t be in a relationship with someone if you didn’t like them or if it made you uncomfortable.” He nods. “I’m okay with it. Max makes you happy, he’s nice.” “Yeah?” “Yeah.”

—

She lets out a giggle as arms wrap around her from behind, lips pressing against her cheek. “Hi.” “Hi.” Another kiss is pressed to her cheek. “Can I help?” She glances down at what she’s finishing up. “No. You could set the table, though?” “Done.” A kiss is pressed to her temple and then the blanket of heat that covered her back is gone. “What cabinet?” “First one entering the kitchen on the left.” She says, turning her head a bit to watch as Max pulls the dishes out.

Her mouth goes a little dry as she watches him. His t-shirt is tight around his biceps and chest. His skin is a little tanned after their date a few days ago on a friend's yacht. She forces her eyes to not look at his hands, instead trailing them up to his strong shoulders and neck and then to his face. Max, she thinks as he starts to put the plates on the table, is unfairly attractive. Before he can catch her staring, she checks on the final thing on the stove. “Perfectly done.” She mumbles with a smile.

The sound of the front door opening makes her smile grow wider as she grabs a pot holder. “Am I late?” “Just on time.” She tells Logan as he steps into the kitchen. “Can I,” She stops him before he can continue. “No, go wash up.” “Alright.” He bends a little to press a kiss to her cheek before turning on his heel, offering a wave to Max. “Hi.” “Hi, Logan.”

Picking up the pan, she shakes her head as Max goes to try and take it from her. “Logan and you are both going to get on too well.” “Why’s that?” He asks, a twinkle in his eye. “You both don’t like when I lift anything.” “What’s the point of having a son or a boyfriend, then?” Logan says, clapping Max on the shoulder as he comes back. Max grins at the younger, delighted as he claps him back. “Exactly. We feel a bit neglected.” She rolls her eyes, shaking her head, though a smile is stretching across her lips.

—

Max watches amused as the mother and son argue.

“Mom, it would be for two races, two, that’s it.” “One race, really.” Max chimes in, smiling when she glares at him. “Spa is nice, but Zandvoort is really what I consider my home race.” “See, it would be one race. Max wants you in his garage.” Logan says, looking at the other driver, begging for him to help but at the last sentence Max shakes his head. “I never said that. Well, I would like to see Pan in my garage, not for the whole weekend, or even a day. She’s part of your team.” Logan looks at him, bewildered. “But, it’s your home race.” He shrugs. “I’d like for her to stop by, you as well. I already have it cleared with the team. Staying for even a whole session though just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t need her on my side of the garage to know that she’s supporting me, wanting me to do well, not when you are on the grid.” “Are you sure?” Max smiles at Logan, because yes he was sure. Did he want her there, supporting him? Maybe even dressed in something with his number? Of course. But, he liked seeing her in Logan’s garage. Supporting him, wearing his merch, being a mom. “I’m more than sure.”

“Besides,” she says, drawing both of their attention. “Max and I haven’t gone public yet. Or really told anyone yet.”

—

“Well, this is a bit of an odd one.” Laura says as they stop in front of the Red Bull garage. The cameraman focuses on what she’s looking at. “Both Logan Sargeant and his mother, better known as Pan from Formula 2 fans, are in the Red Bull garage, currently talking with our current championship leader Max Verstappen, his engineer GP, and Daniel Ricciardo.” “Shall I see if I can steal one of them away?” Will asks, smiling at the camera as he holds the F1 TV microphone loosely. “Please.” She gestures.

Will steps towards the garage smiling at the small group hovering just inside. “Could I steal one of you for a quick minute?” The five exchange a look and Will stops himself from rolling his eyes at the way they all look annoyed at the idea, but Logan nods. “Sure.” “Thank you.”

He watches as Logan says something quietly to them, getting nods from them all. His brow furrows when Max squeezes his shoulder before the younger driver gives his mom a quick hug, making him shake his head. Logan Sargeant was an absolute mommy’s boy and it was embarrassing as all hell to see. He couldn’t imagine being twenty and hugging his mom in public, let alone all those videos and photos of him reaching for her hand.

Will ignored the part of him that did think it was sweet and felt bad for the kid. He couldn’t look all sappy while filming, especially not when in front of the Red Bull garage.

“Hi everyone.” Logan greets, taking the third mic from the newest crew member. “Hello, Logan. How are you feeling about this weekend?” He smiles at Laura. “I’m feeling okay, I’ve raced here before, obviously not in an F1 car, but I do have some experience with this track.” “And you and your mum’s visit to the Red Bull garage, should we expect an announcement of you switching teams?” She teases. “No.” He laughs. “No, uh, just visiting for personal reasons. Saying hello to Daniel, wishing Max a good home race.” “I mean, I’m not sure, he needs it.” Will jokes, gaining a few laughs. “So, no business to be done at Red Bull? Just saying a hello and wishing a good race to a fellow driver.” “Yeah,” he pauses, looking back at the garage where it’s just Max and his mom standing now watching him with smiles on their faces. It’s only that he continues when his mom gives a brief nod, one barely able to be seen by the camera. “And I wasn’t just wishing a fellow driver good luck.” “Oh?” Logan grins, looking pleased with himself. “I was wishing my new dad good luck.”

—

“Carlos Sainz is a cunt.” Max freezes at her words, hand still on the doorknob from just stepping into the room. “Hi, schat.” “Carlos Sainz is a cunt.” She repeats. His brain is scrambling because what exactly had Carlos done but also why was it so attractive to her say the word cunt. It had to be the accent, he decided quickly, still trying to figure out the Carlos thing. “And why is Carlos a cunt?” He finally asks, releasing the door knob and stepping further into the room.

She’s on her laptop, rapidly typing something, and he can feel anger radiating off her.

“That bullshit he spewed, blaming Oscar’s inexperience.” She scoffs, pausing her typing as she shakes her head. “It was an incident, a racing incident, something he knows a lot about. There was no inexperience fault.” “Oscar’s okay?” He already knows that he is, but knows it's good to ask. “He’s good. He knows that it's a racing incident.” Max winces. Wonders for a second if he should warn Carlos to keep his mouth shut, but shrugs. It wasn’t his fault that Carlos was getting in trouble because he couldn’t watch his mouth or correctly look at footage. “Can I help?” She sighs, hitting close on whatever she was writing in. “No.” She then closes her laptop, turning to face him, with a smile. “Hi. Congrats on the win.” “Thank you.” He bends to kiss her. “You okay?” “Yeah, just,” she waves her hand at her laptop, “stuff.” “Anything I can help with?” She starts to shake her head no as he sits on the edge of the bed, but she stops. “Actually, could I get your insight on something? Not just as a driver, but as someone who lives and breathes racing, loves data, really knows how the sport works.” “Of course. What’s going on?”

Another sigh leaves her, hand coming up to rub at her mouth for a second before it drops. “Why would a team not resign a driver?” His eyebrows furrow, because she knows the reasons, but he answers. “Not performing well, they want out of the team or sport, sponsorship issues.” “The driver wants to stay in the sport and the team.” Her lips turn downwards a bit at the word team. “And the driver brought new sponsorships to the team.” “They have to be not performing well.” “They’re a rookie in a back marker team.” “They have to be really performing badly.” Max says, trying to think of who in Formula 2 or 3 she’s talking about. “They already have six points and have placed ahead of their experienced teammate three times.” His mind is scrambling again, trying to find a reason, because what? “How many does his teammate have?” “Nine.” “I have no idea. Not unless there’s conflict within the team.” She shakes her head. “Is there potentially a more experienced driver for the spot?” She shakes her head. “They’re looking at another rookie or maybe someone who stepped away from the series for a year, though they’d rather take a rookie than him.” “I don’t have an answer for you. It doesn’t make sense to me.” She nods, expression falling and she’s rubbing at her face.

“What’s going on?” He asks, standing up just to crouch down in front of her, taking her hands in his. “The driver’s Logan.” “What?” “Williams isn’t sure they want to offer Logan another year.” Max stares at her. “How?” “I don’t know.” She shrugs, laughing. “There’s talks of them signing whoever wins this F2 championship or even the runner-up depending on who it is. Logan’s making too many mistakes.” “He’s costing them too much money.” Max fills in the blank, shaking his head. “That’s ridiculous. Don’t take a rookie if you can’t afford it. You are supposed to account for the worse. And he’s doing well. It’s not his fault that they built a shit car.” “I don’t know what to do.” She admits, voice just a whisper, and his heart clenches painfully at the sound of it, at the tears in her eyes. “This is his dream. I don't know what to do if that gets taken away from him.” “It won’t. We’ll figure something out.” He tells her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

—

“I think I’m spoiled.” Max says, watching as she gets ready for bed. A faint feeling of arousal pooling his gut as she pulls on one of his shirts. He absentmindedly wonders if it would be weird to wear it tomorrow to the track, the scent of her lotion clinging to it. “Why’s that, honey?” He smiles, cheeks a bit pink, and that arousal builds a bit more at the pet name, at the way she shifts in the vanity chair to loosen some tension in her back. “You come to every race, you see me win, you celebrate them, you got to see me win my third championship today.” Those words feel weird off his tongue, today, but totally sober to celebrate. He wants desperately for tomorrow to come, for the race to finish so they can celebrate, him, her, Logan, the team. “I guess you are a bit spoiled.” He gasps, clutching at his heart, making her giggle. “That’s okay though.” She says, getting up and moving onto the bed, straddling him. “I think I like you spoiled.” He groans as she dips her head, pressing a kiss to the flutter of his pulse. “Schat.” It's a warning to stop and a plea for more. “I know.” She kisses the spot a bit firmer. “Celebrations will have to wait just a day longer.” She then rolls off him, his arm immediately lifting so she can press against his side.

“It’s cruel to win with a sprint race.” She snorts, “A sprint race never stopped us before.” “It’s cruel to win with a sprint race in Qatar.” He amends. “Very true.”

He sighs, staring at the ceiling as he calms down, luckily the feeling of her fingers tapping along his stomach not making it harder. “How’s Logan feeling?” Max asks, remembering how pale he looked when they got dinner. She sighs, moving somehow closer. “Not great. No fever, but his stomach is still a bit upset.” He winces. “He gonna be okay tomorrow?” “I hope so. The team knows that he’s sick, they’ll make the right choice.” “I hope so.” He echoes, wishing that Logan felt better, hoping that he feels better by the time the race starts.

—

“We are confident in him.” Max scoffs, tossing his phone aside. “I know.” “Logan still wanting to do his new routine.” She nods, lips pursed. He shakes his head. “He did good.” It wasn’t the rookie season that Oscar had, but it couldn’t be. Oscar got lucky enough to get a seat in a near top team, while Logan got one with a back of the grid team that was sometimes midfield.

Logan scoring ten points, getting himself to sixteenth in the standings, tied with Bottas in the standings, was very good for a rookie. It was a shame that Williams seemed to think he could’ve and should have done better. At least, Max thinks, the 2025 grid was wide open for possibilities.

“Are him and Oscar still joining us?” She throws him a look. “Us?” “You.” He amends, knowing that despite him joining her, he’d get caught up in Redline and different things. He was just happy she didn’t mind that. “Only for a few days and then they both are off to Australia.” “Will Logan be joining us for Florida?” “Yes. My mom has been asking the next time she’s going to see her only grandchild.” Max laughs at the eye roll. “So, Belgium first, then Monaco,” “You go to Milton for a day after.” He nods, “then Greece, Florida, Monaco.” “Not bad for the first few weeks of winter break.” “Not bad at all.” He agrees, wrapping his arms around her waist, chest pressed against her back.

It’s quiet between the couple as Max sways them.

“Max.” “Yes?” “Your mom, she does know that I’m not in my forties right? Or thirties?” She figured that the woman did, but she also had only briefly gotten to meet her at the one race, and there had been an odd expression on her face when Max introduced her as his girlfriend. He freezes. “Max.” “I knew I forgot something.”

@ohtous @cixrosie @darleneslane @fanboyluvr @teti-menchon0604 @eugene-emt-roe @quackquackhun @rewmuslupin @copper-boom @stopeatread @crashingwavesofeuphoria @jointhehunt67 @namgification @asphalstead @poppyflower-22 @racingheartsposts @gemofthenight @peachiicherries @lpab @hiireadstuff @iloveyou3000morgan @boiohboii @bibliosaurous @skepvids @elliegrey2803

[alonetimelover]

pairing: (ex)Harry Styles x Ginger Spice's daughter!reader x Max Verstappen

fc: Sabrina Carpenter

summary: They broke up and she decided to disappear and write a heartbreaking song. Through this process her old friends from F1 were with her. With one two-time World Champion getting closer and closer.

warnings: swearing, cheating, Harry is an asshole in this (sorry!)

a/n: Long? Oh yes. It's a long one. But also my first F1 related fic, hope you enjoy!

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f1 and redbullracing

liked by yourinstagram, landonorris, maxverstappen1 and 349 392 others

f1 Is there a better way to start 2023 season than with YN YSN (sweetly called the tiny boss of Red Bull Racing) in the paddock? We say there is NOT! Welcome YN, we hope you have the best time with us!

view all 19 323 comments

yourinstagram thank uuuuu!

danielricciardo THE boss is here!

landonorris *heart eyes*

charles_leclerc Welcome back, YN!

ynupdates oh how i missed her face

ynsmybestie 5 months without even a photo of her finger online... it was a draught

ynsmymama yn's a vroom vroom girlie?????

ynsmybabie F1? is she a fan? tiny boss? what is going on?

⤷ ynupdates I feel like I'm the only one that knew. YN is Christian Horner's (red bull racing boss) step-daughter.

⤷ ynsmybestie isn't his wife ginger spice?

⤷ ynupdates yes! she's YN's mum. how do you guys not know that?

⤷ ynshands maybe because she's using her grandma's surname and not her mother's?

formulafan49 so we're getting las vegas content in bahrain? this sport is getting out of control with all those celebrities attending

⤷ landonorizz why are you being bothered by somebody that knows almost everything about formula 1? go be mad somewhere else

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yourinstagram

liked by danielricciardo, landonorris, maxverstappen1 and 2 201 302 others

yourinstagram hiii💛 took a break and wrote a song. you're losing me is out now! i love all of you my pathological people pleasers.

view all 91 393 comments

danielricciardo be a happy song with me?

⤷ yourinstagram running to you right now

⤷ landonorris bringing mum's biscuits

⤷ maxverstappen1 I'll bring myself 😊

⤷ danielricciardo you lot weren't invited, but come in... I guess

landonorris you're the only person I'm not mad at for making me cry, ynn

⤷ yourinstagram you've heard the song before, lan

⤷ landonorris shhhh

⤷ danielricciardo it won't make her fall in love with you, norris

⤷ landonorris fuck you man

maxverstappen1 💛💛

ynupdates WHAT IN THE HELL HAPPENED HERE

ynsmybestie I won't recover. I fucking won't recover

ynsmymama I'm gonna die... its so sad. its heartbreaking. I'm losing myself

hArrysbtch woah, my heart cannot take this

harrysmoustache firstly, break my heart and take it, yn

harrysmoustache secondly, why is the whole f1 here? wtf

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harryupdates

liked by hArrysbtch, harrysmoustache and 45 202 others

harryupdates In his latest interview Harry was asked about his private life - especially his relationship with YN. After the question of "do you feel like you throw a great love away?" Harry answered with "I don't know. I don't regret a lot of things in my life but that's [the relationship] probably one of them." You can read the interview via the link in our story!

view all 4 201 comments

hArrysbtch suddenly a six year lasting relationship was a mistake???

hArrysbtch ehh, harry. i kinda feel that the breakup (from Harry's side) happened a long time ago. there is no sparkle anymore

hArrysbtch now let me start on not mentioning her name like EVER "my last partner" her name is YN, why he can't just say it? it's been going on for years. since they started dating really...

harrysmoustache that wasn't the best interview

ynsmymama about 'you're losing me': "every artist has their imagination that they write down and then release. sometimes it's good and sometimes it should be kept private. i'm not the one to size it up." THAT WAS FUCKING LOW

⤷ harrysmoustache as much as I love him that was petty af

⤷ hArrysbtch especially when almost all critics named this song one of the best LYRICALLY and MUSICALLY in the last few decades

ynshands "I don't know if you can be ready to move on from a longterm relationship. it's definitely harder than from something that lasts months or two years." THIS MOTHERF****R IS TALKING ABOUT NOT BEING THE ONE TO MOVE ON BUT HE DID WHILE STILL BEING IN A RELATIONSHIP??????

⤷ ynsmymama this is called audacity

⤷ harrysfan49 cheating was never confirmed, was it?

⤷ ynsmybestie yes, it was. right after harry's "announcement" yn posted a story with lyrics from 'illicit affairs'. i think that's enough of a confirmation.

ynsmybestie yeah, here he comes again not being able to fucking say her name. those 6 years meant nothing?

⤷ harrysfan92 maybe he doesn't want to share his private relationship online

⤷ ynsmybestie i don't understand that. you're loving a person for six years, claiming them the love of your life, but saying the name is hard? he never mentioned her in interviews (my closest friend, my partner, someone I love). he couldn even show up at her birthday party because he had a photoshoot. just to point out, the drivers showed up in London, even though they had a race in Imola the next day.

⤷ harrysfan87 you guys are toxic. just gonna blame him for the breakup? unbelievable.

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ynupdates

liked by ynsmybestie, landofan92 and 88 203 others

ynupdates YN AND LANDO AT THE NIGHTCLUB IN MONACO!!!!!

view all 6 001 comments

ynsmybestie NO FUCKING WAY

ynsmybestie SHE LOOKS SO HOT

ynsmymama the way he looks at her ??? 🫠

ynsfan92 find somebody who looks at you just like lando looks at yn. YOU CAN'T

⤷ ynsmymuse have you seen how max looks at her?

landofan92 do I need to change my bio from norizz to yesrizz?

user39 yeah, moving on quickly when her exboyfriend is talking about how he adores her

⤷ ynsmybestie where??? because i only saw how awful he was to YN from the moment they broke up

user02 yeah, move on quickly and go trough all the drivers

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yourinstagram added to her IG story!

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lando.jpg

liked by yourinstagram, maxverstappen1 and 1 004 392 others

lando.jpg yn showed her favourites

view all 203 494 comments

danielricciardo LIAAAAAR. SHE LOVES ME MORE.

⤷ yourinstagram of course

⤷ lando.jpg i love your sarcasm

maxverstappen1 💛

yourinstagram not my fault you were the only ones available for photos

⤷ maxverstappen1 I don't mind

⤷ lando.jpg neither do I

⤷ danielricciardo I DO

⤷ charles_leclerc I DO TOO

ynsmybestie hot

ynsmybestie but also i see you YN with favouring Max and Lando, i see you girl

ynsmymama why I've never realised how hot those two are???

ynshands is there a thing she does badly?

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ynupdates

liked by ynsmybestie, maxandyn and 68 574 others

ynupdates YN and MAX VERSTAPPEN at the bar tonight in Zandvoort, celebrating Max's win!

view all 4 206 comments

ynsmybestie SEE? you defend the girl, you get the girl!

ynsmymama i mean i was rooting for them but i am still speechless

ynshands YAS PARENTS

maxfan85 after the race that he had, tying to yet another record and getting a girl? is there a thing he can't do or can't have??

ynsfan93 sooo, do we say they're together orrr?

⤷ ynsmybestie i mean, look at them. i have many friends but i'm not that cozy with any of them

⤷ ynsmymama i vote early stages of dating. yn's a touchy person in nature so you know, it can be that

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yourinstagram added to her IG story!

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a/n: do you want to see more of them?

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part 2

[peachdues]

IN THE NETHERWOOD

PART I

KINKTOBER 2023 ♤ WEREWOLF!SANEMI X RED RIDING HOOD! READER

A/N: did I get carried away? Yes. Do I care? No.

Part I is plot + smut. Part II is minimal plot and a lot of smut. Like a concerning amount.

Forgive the pace/editing errors. This was supposed to be a one shot that turned into a two part fic lmao.

CW: violence/some description of gore • mating • knotting/discussions of knotting • biting/mating • feral/protective Sanemi • virgin!Reader who is a big time monsterfucker • oral sex (F!receiving) • Sanemi makes a mess of his breeches • implied murder/other violence by Douma, but left purposefully ambiguous • brief description of another human being eaten

This honestly could be a multi-part fic that continues after Part II, given how much I leave open — but I’ll let you all decide if you want that. For now, enjoy the ride, monster-fuckers. Happy Kinktober!

You’d known Douma’s band of acolytes had been pursuing you for at least a quarter of a mile through the dark wood, and you’d only grown more and more desperate as the excited titter of their voices drew nearer.

You were panicking; with every moment that passed, your legs grew heavier as the weariness of the last day and a half of your journey became a weight you could no longer ignore.

Find the huntsman of the Netherwood! Your grandmother had pled as she’d fastened the thick, scarlet cloak around your shoulders. He guides those in need to far-away villages. He will take you somewhere safe — where Douma cannot find you.

Grandmother did not dare let any of the tears sparkling in her eyes fall as she looped her hands behind you and pulled the hood of your cloak up over your head, concealing your hair from sight. Head north until you come to the river and then head west. You will find his cabin. Go!

Granny had all but pushed you out of her small cottage — the cottage you had come to regard as your home — and off into the chilly, autumn night.

You hadn’t questioned the urgency, though the realization that you would likely never again return to your grandmother — or even see her alive — hadn’t stung any less. But you knew, as well as the old woman who’d raised you after your parents disappeared in the Netherwood, that if Douma got his hands on you, you would never be seen or heard from again.

Just like his four other previous wives.

The last woman he’d taken as his bride had been a dear friend of yours — Kotoha — and she’s arguably lasted the longest, though perhaps that was because she’d been pregnant when the frost lotus containing his marriage demand arrived at her parents’ hut.

The eclectic village worship leader hadn’t apparently minded that Kotoha had been pregnant with another man’s child — she was unmarried, young, and beautiful; it was all Douma required.

The tension among the village women had dissipated once Kotoha had survived the first week of her union with the rainbow-eyed monster. After all, the other three wives had barely lived to see the next morning, never mind seven.

Kotoha had lived several more months — even giving birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy whom she’d doted over, and even you thought that perhaps the rumors swirling through the village had been wrong. Perhaps those other three women truly had run off into the night with various lovers, leaving Douma alone in his mansion in the eastern wing of the village.

The last you’d seen her, your friend had been smiling and bright, happily making her way back to her marital home, baby Inosuke happily snuggled against her chest, as she’d cheerfully waved you goodbye.

Kotoha was never heard from again. Though the village elders had dispatched a recovery team to search for her, no trace of either her, nor the precious baby boy whom she’d loved so dearly, could be found.

A week later, your grandmother opened the front door of her homely cottage to find a single frost lotus resting on her doorstep.

No one turned down Douma’s marriage proposals; but neither did anyone survive them.

And so, your grandmother had packed a small satchel with what meager provisions she could scrounge, wrapped you in her heirloomed scarlet cloak, and pushed you out the door, begging you to find the mysterious huntsman of the Netherwood so that you would not become the village’s newest ghost.

Douma had surely slaughtered your beloved grandmother by now, having learned of her insolence.

You clamped down on the mournful sob building in your throat, knowing if you allowed yourself to give into your grief, it would only slow you down even further, and make it more likely that her sacrifice for your life would be in vain.

Though, in fairness, it might all be for naught anyways; the Netherwood was not a humble forest with only the occasional gray wolf or hungry bear to fear.

For centuries, your village had stood on the outskirts of the dark, ancient wood which divided it from the nervous system of villages and bustling little towns that made up the region. That isolation meant your village had become largely self-sustaining, though a few brave souls managed to make a yearly sojourn across the Wood to trade with establishments on the other side. The forest stretched for miles, encompassing small mountains and rocking ravines that were difficult enough to navigate on their own, especially in disagreeable weather.

But rugged and often temperamental terrain was child’s play compared to the horrors which lurked within the shadows of the Wood.

To start, as you’d come to realize over the last day and a half of your trek, the Netherwood was nothing but shadow. Though you’d surely traveled through the night and well into the following day, not a trace of daylight had pierced the thick canopy of leaves and twisted vines which loomed overhead. Your only indicator that day had, in fact, arrived, had been your sighting of a few songbirds quietly fluttering from tree to tree, as their songs swallowed by the deafening silence of the forest.

But the eerie quiet of the Wood was nothing compared to what you knew prowled within its depths.

You’d grown up hearing tales of the various beasts and cryptids that made the Netherwood their home – and made any unsuspecting traveler their meal. Your own parents had embarked on a dangerous trek into the Netherwood, seeking out a village on the other side rumored to have much-needed medication for your ailing grandfather, only to never be seen or heard from again. Your grandfather had succumbed to his illness not long after, though you’d often wondered whether his guilt and heartbreak hadn’t hastened his demise.

And so the Netherwood had taken your parents and your grandfather, leaving you with only your cherished grandmother as your family. Over the years, those who dared venture into the Wood often did not return, the dark of the forest swallowing them whole and leaving no trace of them behind.

Now, it was through this very Wood that you found yourself running, clinging to the desperate hope that perhaps you’d find this mysterious Huntsman and be saved, though the sluggishness that had entered your exhausted limbs seemed to suggest that you were more likely to be caught by your pursuers. And that was assuming you didn’t end up as something dinner’s before then.

You continued to stumble through the trees, ducking under various branches and batting away stringy spiderwebs, trying not to allow your frustration to get the better of you. After a while, the voices tracking you grew more and more silent, before the walls of the forest swallowed them completely, leaving you utterly alone. 

As you shoved brush and thorns out of your way, the forest opened to give way to a small river, though it was barely more than a creek. It bubbled merrily, as though completely unaware of the horrors lurking behind the shadows of the ancient grove of trees. 

Several lengths ahead, you spotted something crouched beside the water. Your first instinct was panic, thinking you’d stumbled across one of the nefarious creatures of the Wood, a meal being offered to it on a silver platter, but as your vision adjusted, you realized it was only a man, splashing his face with the creek’s cool reserve.

“A-are you the Huntsman?” You hated how timid your voice was, but truthfully, you’d been running for what felt like an eternity, and each snap of a twig in the Woods around had you on edge. You deserved to be frightened, dammit. 

The man snorted before rising to his feet. “I am a Huntsman; whether I am the one you seek, I cannot say.”

 He was taller than you and well-built. His tunic boasted a deep v at the chest exposing a vast swath of the man’s sculpted chest, the skin as scarred as his broad forearms. His breeches were by no means skintight, but it was clear his legs were also made from the same, sinewy muscle that covered the rest of him.

Idly, you wondered whether he was as scarred beneath his clothing as he was out of it. 

He was handsome, there was no doubt, but his appearance was striking. He had a mop of silvery-white hair, parted slightly to cover the criss-cross of scars etched into the right side of his forehead. Below a pair of startling lilac eyes, you could just make out another jagged scar that extended from his right ear to the bridge of his nose. 

He turned back to you, mouth pulled down in an annoyed grimace. “What is your business in the Wood, girl?” 

His eyes roamed the crimson cloak draped around your shoulders, and you swore for a moment there was something akin to amusement glinting in his eyes, despite the severe set of his mouth. 

You shuddered at the sharp intensity of his lilac gaze. “I seek a guide through the Wood — I need to get to one of the villages on the other side.”

Something in the forest snapped and you flinched, though it did not bother the Huntsman, who only narrowed his eyes at you. 

“Are you being pursued?” 

You nodded, your fingers tightening around the folds of your cloak and wrapping it tighter around your shivering frame. “I do not know how many, but they have dogs.”

The Huntsman nodded, stroking his chin in contemplation. “I can get you to the other side in two days; three at most, should your followers pose a problem.” 

You were floored at how easily he accepted your request, even with the additional threat of being hunted like animals by Douma’s men, but you were grateful all the same. 

“I have payment,” you started, hands shooting to dig through the small pouch fastened around your waist, but the wild Huntsman only shook his head. 

“I do not take payment. I will escort you and then I won’t have to worry about any creatures of the Wood sniffing out your bones and getting too close.”

Charming, you groused in your head, though the implication nestled in his words sent another shudder down your spine. 

“What is your name, girl?” The Huntsman’s voice pulled you back to him and the forest, his face expectant. 

You gave him your name and felt a warmth spread through you as he repeated it, mouth mulling over each syllable like it was wrapped with velvet.

“You can call me Sanemi,” the Huntsman said, reaching for the hand-axe lying on its side by the riverbank. “Follow me.” 

---

The Hunstman led you through a winding path that would have been untraceable had you not been watching the way Sanemi’s eyes marked certain landmarks — an errant tree branch here, a particular thorn bush there. 

“Since you are being tracked, we need to move right away,” Sanemi had explained as you stumbled after him, your feet snaring over the various bumps and snarls of tree roots that jutted out from the forest floor. “But I need to gather a few things from my cabin. It’s just a little ways off, and then we will leave.”

Sanemi had largely ignored you for the rest of the trek, though he’d only cut his eyes back to you to ask a single question. 

“Where did you get that cloak?”

You fingered the heavy edge of the ruby wool that your grandmother had fastened snug around your shoulders, its thick folds providing you protection against the biting chill of the autumn wind. “It is an heirloom. My grandmother said it would keep me safe.” 

The Huntsman hummed quietly to himself. “That is one word for it, I suppose.” 

“How do you mean?” 

Sanemi slowed his pace so that you could catch up and walk beside him as he spoke. 

“That cloak is enchanted. Have you not noticed the strange stitching along the hood?” 

Your hands flew to grip the edge of the hood drawn over your head. Sure enough, beneath the pads of your fingertips, you could feel the odd swirls of thread forming some indiscernible shapes along the outermost portion of the cape’s top. 

“I’d not; this was not my cloak to begin with. It was my Grandmother’s.” You did not know why the Huntsman’s tone made you feel self-conscious, as though you’d been too stupid to notice such an obvious variation in the cape snugly fastened around you. It wasn’t as though you’d been afforded a great deal to time to look over it, in those hurried moments before Grandmother had shoved you through her front door and into the Wood beyond. 

Sanemi only shrugged as he continued on ahead, putting distance between you once more, but he called back one final time. “Red is a symbol for many things, girl. I hope your Grandmother at least warned you of that.”

----

Sanemi's cabin was small, but homely. You'd been waiting uneasily near the unlit fireplace at the center of the single-room cabin, unsure whether it would be considered ill-mannered for you to drape yourself across one of the overstuffed armchairs pointed towards the hearth, as the Huntsman milled about, gathering various supplies.

"Have you any preference for which village I take you to?" He called as he rifled through a sparsely-stocked cabinet, scooping up dried provisions into a small leather pouch.

You shook your head. "No, I wish only to get as far away from the Wood as possible."

Sanemi nodded, stalking past you to open another cupboard. Glinting against the dimming light outside, you saw the curved blade of an axe, sharp and polished.

"I can make do with that," the Huntsman said simply. "Though should we run into any weather, it may take longer than three days to reach the other side of the Wood."

You picked nervously at your nails. Any response you could have given him was cut off by the faint cacophany of voices somewhere in the distance.

Brow furrowed, Sanemi crossed the floor of his cabin to a small window and squinted through the fogged glass. Over his shoulder, you could spy the faint glow of fire making its way towards the cabin.

Torches.

You did not need to guess whose torches they were; there was only one reason for a band of men to be in the Netherwood at this hour.

"It's them," you whispered in horror, your heart sinking to your stomach. "The man who is after me -- they're his -- followers. I hesitate to call them men."

Sanemi's eyes narrowed as he glanced back out the window, and you swore you saw his nostrils flare, as though scenting the air.

He gripped you by your forearm, tugging you further into his cabin. “We don’t have much time until they come knocking. I think I can hold them off — but you have to trust me.” 

You looked over the wild man, from the thick, silvery scars seared into the rippled muscles of his forearms to the thinner, more delicate scars which crossed half his face, swallowing down any fear you’d had of the huntsman upon first stumbling upon him by the river. 

You’d been scared of him, but you feared the fate awaiting you at the hands of Douma and his cronies far more; and so, you were desperate enough to place your life in Sanemi’s rough, calloused hands. 

“I trust you,” you vowed, though your voice trembled slightly. “Please just don’t let them take me.”

Something in Sanemi’s eyes tightened as he looked over you, but he nodded, hands reaching for the small pouch strapped to his upper thigh. 

“I’m sure you’re going to protest what I’m about to do,” he said quickly, producing a small hunting knife from the pocket. “But I need you to believe me when I say this is the only way.” 

“Take off your cloak.” Sanemi ordered, standing tall before you, hand out in waiting. 

Your hands flew hesitantly to the metal clasp resting just below the hollow of your throat. “But my grandmother said —“ 

“I know what your grandmother said, girl, but I’m telling you, that cloak will do you no good indoors. It is only effective out in the Wood.” 

You could tell the huntsman’s patience was wearing thin, but still, you hesitated. 

Sanemi huffed impatiently. “I swear to you I will return it the moment they leave, but you must remove it now. They will use it to track your scent.” 

You shuddered as your fingers quickly freed the small latch, and the crimson wool draped around your shoulders loosened. With some hesitancy, you held your cloak out to the huntsman, who balled the fabric up tight before crossing the floor of his cabin, shoving it into a small armoire and behind several hung pelts and well-worn leathers. 

Sanemi was before you once more before you could blink. “Turn around,” he ordered, twirling the knife in his hand to motion you to spin and put your back to him. 

You complied without protest, hands twiddling nervously before you, until you heard the unmistakeable sound of fabric tearing at your back. 

The corset worn over the cotton layers of your dress loosened and fell to the cabin floor, it’s ribboned ties neatly severed where they’d been laced at your back. 

“What in the devil —,” you began hotly, arms jumping to cross over your unsupported chest as you twisted to glare at the huntsman. 

A warm hand firmly pushed your shoulder, keeping you facing forward. “Hold still, woman,” Sanemi barked, and the heat at your back disappeared for a moment as you felt him kneel behind you. 

To your horror, you felt the outermost layer of your dress lift up and away from you as Sanemi rose, bringing the garment up over your head. 

“I asked you to help me, you dog!” You squealed, your attempts to squirm away from the mannerless huntsman at your back futile. “Not strip me bare to do with as you please!” 

Behind you, Sanemi gave a great snort. “Helpin’ you is exactly what I’m doing, if you’d shut up for one second.” 

Left in nothing but your thin, cotton shift, you silently wondered whether you should’ve taken your chances and continued your trek through the Wood. Surely, being eaten by one of the Netherwood’s more nefarious creatures of horror was preferable to being stripped nude by a half-wild brute in his isolated cabin. 

Your musings were cut short, however, as a firm hand wrapped around your forearm and tugged you towards the back of the cabin, where a small doorway closed off the hut’s only other room. 

Sanemi kicked the door open revealing a surprisingly large bed, draped in blankets made of the furs of several different animals. 

“N-no —mmph!” Your protest was cut off by Sanemi’s free hand as it clamped over your mouth as he hissed at you to shush. 

Over the sound of your thudding heart and hard breath as you planted against the huntsman’s palm, you heard the faint but unmistakable sound of male laughter and jeers, cruel and cold. 

“They will be here any moment,” Sanemi said lowly, and he removed the hand from your mouth in favor of shoving you none too gently into the small bedroom. Before you could speak, the huntsman gripped you around the waist and tossed you effortlessly onto the bed, your body bouncing slightly against the soft plush. 

“Get under the covers and lay face-down in the pillows. Let your hair cover you.” 

Scrambling up against the headboard, you looked back to your savior or your villain — you’d not yet decided under which category he fell — but saw that he was already standing back in the doorway, jaw tense and his eyes trained on the front door of his cabin. 

He glanced back to you only once. “And move that thing off to your shoulders. Make yourself appear as though you’re indecent.” 

With that, the huntsman quickly shut the door to his bedroom, just as a fist pounded against the wood of the door outside. 

You kicked your way under the many pelts adorning the bed, savoring their warmth against your chilled skin. Remembering Sanemi’s final warning, you tugged the sleeves of your shift off your shoulders, concealing it and the rest of your body below the soft fur blankets. 

The front door of the cabin opened, and you buried your face into one of the pillows resting against the headboard, begging the comforting scent of forest pine and cedar to calm your raging pulse. 

“How can I help you gentlemen this evening?” Sanemi called, and you almost laughed at how cordial he sounded, as though he hadn’t just cut your dress from you like a brute. 

Any smile you had was immediately wiped from your face at the cold, steely voice which answered him. “We’re searching for a woman. She belongs to someone who is eager to get her back.” 

You balled the pelts below you in your fists, teeth grinding. Of course, you’d never actually agreed to marrying Douma, and yet the beast felt entitled to claim ownership over you, as though you were no better than a piece of furniture. 

Though, you supposed that wasn’t quite an accurate comparison. Furniture survived Douma; women did not. 

“Is that so?” Sanemi’s hardened tone sent shivers down your spine, and you wondered whether his face matched the stony, scathing cadence of his voice. “Well unfortunately for you boys, it’s just me and the wife here. And you’ve interrupted us.” 

“Our apologies,” the scout said, though it did not sound as though he was sorry at all. “But you won’t mind us taking a peak? Just t make sure you and your wife don’t have a visitor.” 

Sanemi’s answering snarl was soft, but it did not conceal the deadly threat contained within. “Surely you understand why I cannot let a number of strange men into my home, while my wife is indisposed.” 

You had to give him credit; Sanemi sounded every bit the dominating, over-protective husband he was pretending to be. 

There was a beat before Sanemi sighed, his irritation almost convincing. “Make it quick. And do not enter the bedroom.” 

There was a shuffle of feet, heavy and booted, that crossed the threshold of the cabin, and the hair on your skin rose at the charge of violence which filled the air. Breath caught in your throat, you buried your face deeper into the huntsman’s mattress and prayed his ruse would be successful. 

The door to the bedroom banged open, startling you with a squeal as you ruched deeper below the pelts. 

“I told you to stay out of the bedroom,” Sanemi’s voice almost sounded bored, but it was thankfully close. Your eyes slid closed as you willed your heart to slow its drumbeat against your sternum as the resulting silence hung thick in the air. 

“Our apologies,” the apparent leader of Douma’s band of henchmen bit out, his tone acerbic, and his frustration evident. The bedroom door slammed shut once more, and the heavy footsteps quickly made their way back through the cabin and out the front door. 

All remained silent in the huntsman’s cabin for several, long moments, and you did not dare to rise from the bed that had become your sanctuary. 

After what felt like an eternity, the door to Sanemi’s sleeping chamber pushed open, the light from the main room of the cabin flooding in. 

“They are gone,” the huntsman said simply. “It is safe for you to come back out.” 

You turned over and rose from his bed, quickly tugging the sleeves of your thin shift back up over your bare shoulders, if not to preserve the last shred of your modesty that the huntsman before you hadn’t cut away. 

You were startled by his appearance in the doorway. Though his eyes remained fixed on the wood floor of the cabin, you saw that the man before you was nearly as stripped as you were. 

Somehow, in the few precious seconds between him throwing you onto his bed and Douma’s men barging through the cabin door, Sanemi had discarded his lined shirt, leaving everything from the waist-up bare. The only garment which remained on him were his deerskin breeches, and Sanemi had somehow undone its front laces, loosening their fit around his hips. Between the undone cords, you spied a thin trail of silver hair that begun just below his navel and disappeared below the seam of his pants.

It was admirable the dedication Sanemi had shown in perfecting your ruse. To the untrained eye, it truly looked as though Douma’s men had indeed interrupted a husband and his wife as they’d been engaged in acts you’d been told were reserved for the marital bed, the disheveled state of Sanemi’s breeches giving the distinct appearance of having been just barely tugged over naked hips. 

The thought made your mouth run dry, and something hot flared in your belly.

Sanemi ignored your apparent ogling of him, as he produced his discarded tunic from the floor where he'd tossed it and shrugged it back over his head.

Wordlessly, he gathered the shredded remains of your corset and handed it to you, keeping his gaze averted to allow you to redress. You managed to pull on your outer skirts back over your shirt, but you fingered the torn strap of your corset.

“You ruined it,” you said, nose wrinkling as you punched it between your thumb and index finger. “I cannot lace it when you’ve torn the stays.”

Sanemi frowned, and if you hadn’t known better, you would have thought he looked slightly apologetic for the state of your outer-corset.

“Corset woes aside, we need to go now, if we are to have any chance of getting you to another village before your fiancé’s men catch up to us.” Sanemi grabbed the leather satchel he'd been packing before Douma's men had interrupted and began filling it once more. 

You scowled. “He is not my fiancé,” 

“Your keeper, then.” Sanemi amended. The Huntsman stalked back over to the armoire in his sitting room and wrenched the worn doors open, pulling out several pieces of cloth.

“Here,” he said gruffly, tossing you a balled wad of crimson wool. “As promised.” 

You accepted the cloak with a small, uttered thanks, and fastened it quickly around your shoulders. The Huntsman then turned to dig through a small cabinet, returning before you with a small spool of sturdy, leather cord.

He held it out to you. “For your corset,” he said gruffly, his cheeks slightly pink. Feeling your own blush creep up your neck, you accepted the offering. Picking the torn garment up once more, you slid it over your shoulders and used Sanemi’s cords to lace the front together.

Truthfully, the finished product wasn’t half bad; the cord was long enough to cross all the way up to the top of the corset, with enough leftover to allow you to pull it and secure it in place around your bust. You tied off the cord with a pleased nod, before looking back to Sanemi in gratitude. Before you could properly thank him, the Huntsman thrust a small basket into your newly freed hand.

"Provisions. For the journey." He said by way of explanation, and you nodded, nestling the handle into the crook of your arm.

Without so much as a glance around the cabin, Sanemi wrenched the door open and allowed you to pass through the entryway first, pausing behind you only to tightly latch the door shut.

And the two of you set off into the Netherwood.

———

You were no time-keeper by any means, especially in a place like the Wood where daylight was hard enough to find; but it felt like hours had passed since you last spoke to the Huntsman, and the silence was pressing heavily upon you — especially the deeper you ventured into the dark of the Wood.

Though Sanemi had been walking ahead of you, you took it upon yourself to increase your pace, until you walked astride with him.

“How long have you been guiding others through the Netherwood?” You asked lightly, hoping that some — any — conversation you could have with the stoic woodsman would distract you from the odd growls and noises concealed within the forest’s shadows.

“A while.” Sanemi’s answer was as brisk as his pace, and you struggled to match it. 

“Have you lived here your whole life, or are you from one of the villages nearby?” You pressed, scanning your memory as you tried to recall whether there had ever been a boy with white hair and a scarred face in your village. 

“No.” 

You waited for him to elaborate, but Sanemi offered no further explanation. You sighed and fell back behind him; if this was to be his attitude the entire journey, you were in for a long few days. 

The pair of you had traveled for what felt like several more hours without a word before the silence began to irritate you. You sped up your pace until your stride matched the Huntsman’s, walking with him side by side. 

“Why do you live alone in the Netherwood?” You twirled the basket around your hand as the pair of you walked, the nerves you’d felt upon first starting the journey through the Wood having long since abated, in no short part due to the presence of the Huntsman and his axe by your side. 

Sanemi did not turn towards you, his eyes remaining fixed on the bramble ahead. “Why did you venture into the Wood alone?” 

You groaned. “Is this how our entire journey is to go? Either you give me mono-syllable answers, or every time I ask a question, you avoid answering by responding with your own?” 

“That depends, do you intend to keep asking me questions?”

You barely resisted the urge to whack the sullen Huntsman with your basket. “Unbelievable,” you grumbled. “Your time here in the Wood has turned you into a curmudgeonly hermit.” 

Sanemi snorted. “You assume I wasn’t  one to begin with.” 

“I can’t imagine someone who helps travelers cross the Wood was always so  churlish and miserable.” You shot back. 

The Huntsman remained quiet for a moment, though his air did not carry the same cold standoffishness that you’d come to understand meant he was ignoring you. Rather, Sanemi seemed to be in thought. 

“It has been nearly four years,” he said after a long while. “Since I began helping travelers cross the Wood.” 

Your eyes widened. “Four years?” That was an awfully long time to risk one’s neck for the sake of strangers — some of whom, you realized, may not have been all that good. 

Sanemi nodded and you whistled. “I’m sure you’ve seen many kinds of people attempting to traverse through the Wood.”

“There are only two types of travelers,” Sanemi disagreed. “Those who live to make it to my door, and those who do not. I try not to pry into the privacies of those who do manage to find me.” He cut his eyes at you, accusingly. “And usually, they aren’t so eager to pry into mine.”

You ignored the jab, though it bruised your ego more than you wanted to admit. “You don’t like people, yet you’ve crafted your entire existence around serving them.” You could not stop the amused edge in your words. “It is quite ironic, you have to admit.”

Sanemi refused to dignify you with a response, and so the first leg of your journey continued in relative silence.

The stifling quiet that extended between the Huntsman and you finally subsided once Sanemi announced you’d be stopping for the night and making camp. He’d been quick to notice your unease as you’d cast your eyes nervously around the shadowed trees of the Wood, assuring you that you all were in an area less-frequented by the various terrors that called the forest home.

“I will sit and keep watch,” Sanemi said as you’d curled up against the leaves of the forest floor, your red cloak pulled tight around your frame to block out the autumn night’s chill. “So try and sleep.”

“You are asking me to put a great deal of trust in you, Huntsman,” you said softly, but in truth, you did not feel nearly as afraid of him as you perhaps had earlier in the day.

He snorted, dismissively. “I’ve had you in my bed already, have I not? If I was going to harm you, girl, I would’ve already done so.”

Something tightened in his eyes as he dropped your gaze. “And I would never do such a thing to a woman.”

There was a quiet pain in his vow, such that you did not think his words were entirely meant for your ears. But they comforted you nonetheless, and so, still facing the handsome and mysterious Huntsman, you allowed yourself to relax enough to drift off into a dreamless sleep.

---

The journey was taking longer than Sanemi originally believed.

Three days into your travels with the Huntsman, and you’d barely reached the halfway point in the Wood. Though, that was not due to any fault of Sanemi’s; there’d been a few times when he’d stopped mid-stride, eyes narrowed on some unseen thing deep within the forest that you could not see, but concerned him enough to change course. When you asked, the Huntsman had only grumbled that he’d heard suspicious movement ahead, and that he knew whatever it was, it likely wasn’t human.

You didn’t bother to question his judgment. After all, it was Sanemi who was the expert in traversing through the Wood. You, however, had spent the better part of three days understanding how utterly helpless you were without him.

You hadn’t meant to stumble across it. 

You’d only meant to go relieve yourself behind a tree — a simple evergreen, that had looked innocent and unassuming enough. 

As you’d quickly learned, however, upon squatting near the tree’s base, it was anything but innocent. For no sooner had you moved to pull your skirts out of the way had you felt a spiny hand close around your forearm, its knife-sharp fingers digging into your flesh.

The withered, bony had was connected to a sinewy arm, covered in ridged, black skin that made up the panting, salivating bat-like creature that had managed to camouflage itself against the bark of the tree.

You’d taken one look at the rows of sharp, yellow teeth and screamed loud enough to startle the dead.

Loud enough to bring a certain Huntsman crashing through the brush, axe clutched tightly in hand, his eyes wild and bright.

“Duck,” he’d barked once, and somehow you’d managed to wrench yourself to the side of the devil as Sanemi’s weapon buried deep into the creature’s face, the beast releasing your arm and stumbling back with a pitiful gurgle before it dropped to the floor.

You’d hardly had the chance to collect yourself before the Huntsman was stomping over to you, yanking you up by your bicep and dragging you away from the nefarious little tree.

“A goddamned hidebehind,” he furiously spat. “Of all things to provoke, you choose a fucking hidebehind.”

Sanemi ignored your slight protests at being manhandled back to the path he’d identified as leading out of the Wood, too lost in his own raging assessment of you.

“How the devil a pretty little thing like you managed to make it to my door in one piece is the only thing that makes me consider there may be a higher power, given how foolishly reckless you act in the Woods where there’s no shortage of creatures that would want to devour you —“ 

The Huntsman continued his rant, but your ears only picked up on a single fragment of his ramblings.

“You think me pretty?” It was silly, yet the notion that the devilishly handsome Huntsman accompanying you found you worth looking at made something in your stomach flutter. 

Sanemi shot you a withering glare. “You may think me a miserable recluse, girl, but even I have eyes.”

You didn’t know why, but the comment made you smile for the rest of the night, a curious warmth blooming in your chest.

----

You settled for the night among a small circle of trees. Sanemi had helped you shake down a bed of pine needles from a nearby tree, allowing the fragrant nettles to form a soft bed for you against the forest floor.

You watched him repeat the process to make his own bed, your eyes curious. "You seem to have a great deal of experience with this," you mused.

Sanemi produced a single apple from his pouch and sliced it in half with a small hunting knife he kept strapped to his hip. He tossed you one half before he stretched out on his pine needle bed, propping up one cheek on his fist as he faced you. "I s'ppose sleeping outdoors is something of a family trait."

That piqued your curiosity. Though Sanemi had not divulged any details of his personal life with you, you'd assumed he'd been a true loner in his cabin in the Wood.

“You speak as though you still have family,” You bit into your half of the fruit, chewing slowly as you thought. “Do you?” 

Sanemi nodded. “No parents to speak of, but a younger brother — a few years younger than you. Still a boy, though in a man’s body.” He scowled. “The little brat has outgrown me.” 

You smiled at the obvious fondness belying the irritation on his face. “A boy bigger than you? I find that hard to believe.”

Your gentle praise had the intended effect of making the Huntsman look slightly smug, before the same sour look passed his face. “He has grown slightly taller than I, and by all accounts is still growing. I have a feeling he will try and hold it over my head the next time I see him.”

You wondered if Sanemi’s younger brother would literally do so, and the thought made you smile. 

“You said the next time you see him, but you’ve said you have no parents — where does he live, if not with you?” 

Sanemi grimaced, chucking the last of his apple core behind his shoulders. He remained quiet for a long moment before answering. 

“He lives with a friend; he can take better care of him than I can right now.” 

Something about the Huntsman’s tone made it clear the topic was a sensitive subject for the young Huntsman, and so you elected not to press the matter further.

“And what of you?” Sanemi said gruffly, surprising you with his willingness to engage in conversation as the two of you continued your trek. “I know you said you had a Grandmother, as she was the one to give you that.”

He nodded pointedly at your cloak, and you saw that curious heat enter his eyes once more at they combed over the scarlet wool draped around your frame. But the mention of your grandmother caused a lump to form in your throat that took you several moments to work around, the damning prickle of tears stinging your eyes. 

“I do,” you said hoarsely after a moment. “Though I do not know if she survived after helping me escape Douma. Even if she did, I know I shall never see her again.”

Though your vision had become blurred by your tears, you could have sworn you saw Sanemi’s hand twitched towards you at the sound of the wobble in your voice. 

“Douma,” he repeated. “Is that the person you’re fleeing from?” 

You nodded, exhaling a shaky sigh. “He claims to be my fiancé but I accepted no such proposal.” 

Sanemi leaned against the wood of a tree opposite from you, arms folding across his chest. “Then he does not know what it means to be a fiancé,”

You gave a watery chuckle. “No, I suppose he does not.” You chewed on your lip for a moment. “But Douma does not ask; he demands and he expects. His offer was not really a request for my hand — it was a warning that he would collect me to do with as he pleased.”

Sanemi tensed. “What do you mean by that?” 

You combed your fingers through the tangled tresses of your hair, and anxious habit you’d had for as long as you could remember. “In the last three years, Douma has taken four young women from the village to be his wife; every one of them has since disappeared.” 

The Huntsman sucked in a shocked breath. “What has happened to them? Has anyone searched?” 

You smiled ruefully. “I do not know; no one does. Search parties were dispensed each time, but those who looked came back empty-handed.” Your eyes remained fixed on the small, flickering flame of the campfire. “He claimed the first three ran away into the Wood; said they’d left him to be with a lover.” 

You wrapped your arms tighter around yourself, seeking comfort in your grandmother’s cloak. “Quite the coincidence, is it not?” 

“Quite nefarious,” Sanemi remarked darkly, shaking his head. “And what of the fourth wife?” 

Your head dropped. “My dear friend, Kotoha,” you felt the tears begin to gather in your eyes once more. “She was pregnant when Douma demanded her hand, but he did not appear to care. She gave birth a few months later — a beautiful baby boy named Inosuke.” 

“She seemed happy for a while after that, and I thought perhaps Douma had been telling the truth; by all accounts, he was kind towards her,” you continued, fighting the shiver trying to lick its way up your spine. “But then Kotoha disappeared, and Inosuke, too.” 

Sanemi stiffened at that. “When was this?” He asked suddenly, his tone urgent.

You looked up at him, startled. “Just a week before I found you.” 

Sanemi swore lowly, his hand dragging over his face. At your questioning look, he continued.

“A few days before we met, I was leaving to check on a series of caves that I frequent in the east,” he began. “I was half a kilometer from your village when I —,” he hesitated. “Spotted a few men, dragging something through the trees. They seemed to come from your village.” 

Your heart dropped to your stomach. “Did you see —?” Your question choked off as your voice cracked. 

Sanemi shook his head. “All that was left was a pile of bones. Just one person’s. But there were shreds of cloths mixed in,” Sanemi’s mouth twisted down in a snarl. “Clothes belonging to a young child. But no sign of their bones among the adult’s.” 

A cold, clammy sweat broke out across your forehead. “But Kotoha was hardly missing a week — surely that’s not enough time for her to be reduced to bones?” 

Sanemi opened his mouth but closed it before he spoke, his eyebrows knitting together as he struggled for words. 

“I have seen things in the Wood that are  capable of stripping flesh in a matter of minutes,” he said carefully, eyes trained on your face. “It would not be unheard of.” 

You felt the blood drain from your face as nausea wracked through you. “Oh gods,” you moaned, arms shakily coming to rest upon your knees to brace your head as it fell into your hands. “Oh gods — Kotoha.” 

You remained like that for several moments, viciously fighting against the roiling of your stomach, desperate to keep down what meager rations you’d managed to eat. 

Sanemi called your name, soft and gentle. You waited a moment, focusing on taking several, steadying breaths before you lifted your head to meet his gaze.

“So that is to be my fate once he catches me,” you whispered in horror. “To be reduced to nothing more than a pile of bones and tossed into the Wood like garbage.” You shuddered as another wave of nauseous dread sluiced through you. “And I cannot even fathom what will be done to me before then.” 

“It will not,” Sanemi’s answering snarl was soft but vicious, and it broke through the cold terror threatening to knock you off your axis. “I will get you out of this forest and you will be free. Mark my words.” 

“Do not make promises you cannot keep, Sanemi.” You warned, your eyes still wide, haunted. “If he catches me, he will do worse to you; death will be a kindness he will withhold.”

Despite the solemnity of your words, Sanemi only scoffed. “I assure you, he would do no such thing.” He looked to you, eyes serious. “And I would kill him before he had the chance to so much as look your direction.”

You wanted to dismiss his words as nothing more than the bragging of an overconfident, idiotic man. But something in both Sanemi’s tone and the way he was leaning against the tree — one foot resting causally against the bark, the other stretched out before him, supporting his weight, with his arms folded across his chest — made you think perhaps Sanemi’s confidence was more than mere bravado. 

Even though you knew you shouldn't, you took comfort in it; in him.

"You're a good man, Sanemi," you said quietly. "Better than most."

Sanemi scoffed, shaking his head, but the shadow over his face betrayed his own internal turmoil. "I am not half the man you'd like me to be."

You quirked an eyebrow at him, head tilting in question. “Do you care what I think of you?” When the Huntsman did not answer, you pressed. “You worry that I think ill of you — why?”

Sanemi, at best, was confusing. Maddening. He spoke to you gruffly, as though his years in the Wood had made him forget all semblance of decorum and basic human decency.

Yet, there was something else, too; though you hadn’t much experience being desired by men, Sanemi had shown you a particular level of care. He always handed you your dried rations first, ensuring you’d eat your fill before he; he always offered a hand to help you over a particularly tricky stretch of terrain, carrying your basket for you without so much as you having to ask. 

Then, there’d been the way he’d cradled you close earlier in the day, when you stumbled upon the poor man whose body had been mangled and half-eaten by one of the Wood’s inhabitants. He hadn’t needed to tuck your head against his chest like he did, holding you tight as he spun the two of you out of range, to avoid joining the lost soul whose entrails were strewn across the forest floor; he hadn’t needed to comfort you and wipe your frightened tears.

But he had. 

The realization hit you like a boulder. “You feel protective of me,” you murmured in awe, your eyes locked onto him even as he shifted under the weight of your stare. 

Sanemi tried to scowl, but it came off as more a wince. “I feel protective towards any woman who is being treated as something to abuse. What your fake-fiancé has done is abhorrent.”

His voice quieted. “You do not deserve that fate. You deserve to find something good — something that will make you happy.”

You hummed, pretending you were in thought as you began to slowly close the distance between you. “I would like to be happy,” you conceded. 

“You should be,” Sanemi answered. 

“I have felt happy here in the Wood,” you continued. “Have you, Huntsman? Felt happy here in the Netherwood, I mean?”

Sanemi swallowed hard. “Perhaps.” 

You took another step. “Recently?”

“Recent enough,” Sanemi watched you warily, his voice like gravel. 

You clicked your tongue. “Have you enjoyed our time together? However brief?” 

At this, Sanemi rolled his eyes. “You have certainly kept things interesting, when you’re not desperately trying to become a meal for some hungry beast.” 

When you did not answer, Sanemi looked nervously back to you, and his voice softened. “Yes. I have enjoyed it.”

You felt like you were stripping him back, peeling back layers of sarcasm and steel that he’d carefully erected to keep himself from getting close — from caring.

But you were doing it; and he was letting you.

“And you think I’m pretty,” you added, taking another step towards him.

“Aye,” Sanemi croaked, his eyes fixed on your face, the the flicker of the small fire only adding to the heat blazing in his lilac gaze. 

You drew up before him, the toes of your boots just touching his. “I find you quite pretty as well, Huntsman.” 

Sanemi’s eyes closed, his shoulders tense. “I am to deliver you safely to the nearest village.” Lilac irises opened to meet yours and he looked at you gently; apologetically. “We cannot do this.” 

You did not balk. “And if I wanted to stay with you?” You whispered, fingers coming to toy with the folds of his tunic. “What would you say then?” 

Sanemi breathed out a soft sigh of your name, the syllables dripping like honey from his lips. “It is not possible, I’m afraid.” 

You looked up at him through lowered eyelashes and noted how his gaze flicked down to your lips before back to your eyes. “Why?” 

Sanemi’s hand gently brushed a few loose strands of hair back from your face, tucking them behind your ear, and you leaned into the warmth of his touch. “Because you are a beautiful, little lamb, and I am a wolf in a forest of beasts. You do not wish to spend your days here, in the darkness.” 

“You cannot speak to what I want,” you challenged, your fingers rising to clench around his wrist, to hold his hand in place against the side of your head. “My life is my own now; I have no set path.”

“But I would like to travel down yours,” you added quietly, after a moment. 

“It is not one open to transients,” Sanemi warned, though his other hand rose to rest against the dip in your waist, holding you against him.

You only shook your head. “I do not intend to be temporary, Sanemi. I wish to stay with you. I wish to help others as you have helped me.” 

“I’ve yet to help you,” Sanemi said wryly. “Our bargain was that I deliver you to one of the villages on the other side of the Wood. We are still making that journey.”

You stretched up on your toes and boldly pressed your lips against the hollow of his throat, savoring the skipping pace of his heart beneath your mouth. 

“A new bargain, then,” you offered. Sanemi said your name once, as though in warning, but when he did not levy any threat, you only continued, moving your lips up under his jaw.

“You get me to the other side of the Wood. If I still want to stay with you, then you will let me. If I don’t, we will part ways at the first village we come to.”

You’d kissed your way to his lips, but held back, allowing that final line to remain in place between you even as your resolve wavered against the force of your desire for him — for this Huntsman of the Netherwood. 

Sanemi’s eyes fell to your lips, hovering so very closely to his own. “You assume I want you to stay,” he murmured, though he made no move to push you away. “You assume I want to look after a lamb forever.” 

You smiled softly. “Even a lamb can help take care of a wolf.”

Sanemi’s eyes were full of a wariness edged by the faintest trace of hope. “Aye, I suppose that’s true.” The hand against the side of your head fell to caress your cheek. “And as infuriating as I find you to be,” he leaned in close, his lips just barely touching yours. “I do think you quite beautiful, little Lamb.”

You surged forward with a breathy gasp, lips feverishly meeting his as you begged the Huntsman to consume you whole. 

Sanemi responded with equal fervor, his arm locking tightly around your waist as the hand against your face tilted your head slightly to the right, allowing him to deepen the kiss. 

You’d shared a few stolen kisses here and there in your youth with some of the village boys, but never before had you been kissed like this. Never before had you known the passion and all-consuming vigor that the Huntsman poured into you, as he walked the two of you back over roots and loose stones to press you against the roughened bark of a nearby tree. 

No, those kisses had been child’s play. For the way Sanemi’s mouth moved against yours was enough to make you feel as though you’d been dipped in lantern oil and set aflame, and yet you could not find it within yourself to care that you were burning. Not when he molded you against the rigid planes of his body as though to absorb you into his being; not when his thigh slotted between yours, its muscle brushing against a sensitive spot between your legs that had you gasping and Sanemi groaning into your mouth. 

As quickly as it began, it ended, Sanemi breaking away from your lips with a strangled pant as he leapt back, as though scalded by the inferno he’d lit within you. 

There was something untamed in his gaze as he regarded you, his breath choppy as he collected himself. Still stunned by the ferocity with which he’d kissed you, your fingers jumped to your lips, noting the slight swelling now there. 

“I was wrong about you,” Sanemi said breathlessly, his cheeks tinged an alluring shade of pink. “You may not be a lamb after all.” 

Your fingers dropped from your lips as you raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying I am a wolf?” 

Sanemi shook his head, that wildness still blazing in his eyes. “No, not a wolf.” His voice dropped to a purr as he regarded you with a look that made your thighs clench. “You are temptation given physical form.” 

——-

 Neither of you spoke of what transpired against the tree for several hours, though you’d managed to brush aside any lingering awkwardness with light conversation about Sanemi’s time in the Netherwood.

And, despite any lingering doubt as to the sincerity of your words he may have had, Sanemi seemed to naturally gravitate towards you, his hands never straying far from your form as you walked. 

Truthfully, it made you giddy. You’d never experienced the thrill of another man’s touch while in the village, though Kotoha certainly hadn’t spared you any details. Vivid descriptions furtively whispered behind hands, however, were nothing compared to reality. Even Kotoha’s most blush-inducing tales paled in comparison to the electric flash you felt each time Sanemi’s warm hand gripped yours to steer you back from a particularly darkened corner of the woods, or the flutter in your stomach when he lifted you easily up and over unsteady ground, his hands always lingering for a spare second on your waist or the small of your back as you settled. 

It became harder to imagine leaving him once you reached the end of the Wood. With each passing hour, your conviction that you would remain alongside the mysterious Huntsman grew all the stronger. 

The pair of you were resting near a blackberry bush, you perched on a small boulder while Sanemi sharpened his axe, his hand running the small whetting stone against the curve of the blade with precision.

“Have you ever been in love?” The question broke the comfortable silence before you could think better of it.

Sanemi’s sharpening stone paused briefly before continuing along the curve of his axe. “Once,” he said, gruffly.  “Though we were so young, I don’t know if you could properly call it that.” 

You sat up, your curiosity piqued. “Where are they now?” 

The Huntsman hesitated. “She is long-gone. Died here, in the Wood.” 

Your heart clenched. “I’m sorry. I cannot imagine that grief.”

Sanemi did not respond, instead refocusing his attention back to his blade. “It was around four years ago, now.” 

Four years ago. Around the time Sanemi  had begun escorting lost souls through the Netherwood.

“Have you been in the Wood since?” You asked gently, trying to focus on a loose thread handing from your cloak so that he would not feel pressured by your stare. 

Sanemi nodded. “I think,” he cleared his throat. “I think I started helping others as a way to honor her. She was kind that way.”

You smiled at that. “She sounds wonderful; and you do right by her memory.” 

The Huntsman said nothing more, his silence more contemplative as he finished sharpening his weapon. 

By the time the pair of you set back off on your path through the Wood, the morning fog had somewhat subsided, though it’s mist lingered in the denser sections of the forest. 

“Is it normal to not have encountered many of the Wood’s creatures?” You bit down on the shudder you felt at the memory of the partially-eaten corpse you’d encountered a few days prior. “I feel as though we only see the aftermath of the beasts, rather than the monsters themselves.” 

Sanemi smirked quietly to himself, though you did not know what he found amusing about your question. “I suppose that cloak is keeping them at bay, Lamb.” 

You rolled your eyes, knocking your shoulder playfully against his. “Perhaps they’re frightened of the big bad Huntsman,��� 

“Perhaps. I’m quite scary.” 

Your hand found his. “Not at all. In fact, I find you quite —“

Your thought was cut off, however, as Sanemi tore his hand from yours to hold an arm out before you, stilling you. You’d traveled with the Huntsman long enough to know he was telling you to be quiet while he listened, his ears far more discerning amidst the silent noise of the forest than yours.

Only it was not silent; in the distance, you could hear raised voices, yelling, and the distinct howls of several hounds.

Your eyes found Sanemi’s, and you were certain yours were as wide as his, as your heart began to thunder against your chest. 

There was a strange melodic chant rising above the cluster of voices some distance through the trees, and you both turned back and strained to listen.

As the jeering voices and barking of dogs drew nearer, it became clearer what was being said — what thing those voices were loudly whooping and mocking amidst the excited titter undercutting their bloodlust.

Your name.

Douma’s men had picked up your trail, and they’d caught up.

“Run.” Sanemi ordered, tearing the leather satchel from his shoulders and looping the strap around yours. “Do you remember which direction north is?” 

Eyes wide and limbs trembling, you nodded, your breath hitched in your throat as every instinct within you was overtaken by sheer terror. Sanemi placed his hands on your shoulders, squeezing firmly to get your attention back on him. 

“Run north,” he repeated. “Follow the river and do not stop. It is against the wind, so it should be harder to track your scent,” Sanemi’s eyes darted up over your shoulder, narrowing as the unseen force drew nearer. “I will catch up to you. Do not drop that satchel.” 

Your mouth opened and closed several times as you gaped at him, fear, so deep and primal, engrained in your every nerve as you realized he intended to send you deeper into the Netherwood. Alone. 

“I cannot — Sanemi,” you begged, your hand gripping his forearm in a desperate attempt to stay close to him, your protector. 

Gently, Sanemi removed your hand from him. “Y/N, I promise I will find you soon. I need to get them,” he jerkily nodded backwards to the voices and dog howls drawing closer and closer to you in the distance. “Off our trail. 

You shook your head, only trembling harder. To separate surely would mean one, if not both of you would die, and you could not bear to leave him to deal with the onslaught of Douma’s men alone. 

“I promise,” you’d not realized Sanemi’s hands had cupped your face until you felt the press of his forehead against yours. “I will find you. Now go.” He urged, and with a slight shove, Sanemi sent you stumbling in the direction you assumed was North. 

With a great deal of reluctance, your legs began to move as you hurried over fallen branches and twisted roots, every pump of your legs growing stronger as your fear intensified. 

You hadn’t known how many men were in pursuit of you, and you’d left Sanemi alone with only an axe to protect himself. 

You’d as good as doomed him. 

But you kept running in the direction you thought was north, eyes frantically trying to track the watery sunlight filtering through the trees. 

The moment you’d chances scanning for the sun meant you did not see the thick, twisting root that had broken across the forest floor, not until your foot became entangled and you were sent sprawling across the dirt. 

Moaning slightly, you scrambled up, refusing to acknowledge the faint bruising pain you felt in your ankle as you moved to keep running. 

A snap of a tree branch froze you in your tracks. As stupid as you were, you turned towards the source of the sound, dread coiling in your gut. A shadow emerged from behind one of the ancient trees of the Wood, clutching something shiny.

A sword; long, wicked and cruelly sharp, and yet somehow, the blade frightened you far less than its wielder, for his face was familiar.

You’d grown up alongside it, after all.

“Well, well,” the boy — man — cooed at you. “We’ve been looking for you for quite sometime, you know?”

You took a step back, eager to put whatever distance you could between yourself and the smirking village boy who looked at you like you were his next meal. 

“K-Kaigaku,” you stuttered in disbelief. “What are you doing? We were — we were friends.”

The boy’s laugh made your blood curdle. “Don’t mock me,” he shifted his sword to rest against his other shoulder as his free hand twirled a small dagger. “I only align myself with the strong, and you are nothing but a weak and pathetic little mouse.” 

“But Lord Douma,” Kaigaku mused, his grin offset by the malice alighting his eyes. “Lord Douma is strong; powerful. I am loyal to him, not you.” 

“Lord Douma?” You repeated, your voice as sharp as the blade glinting in the faint daylight as the boy before you tilted it back and forth. “Is that what he’s told you to call him? What, pray tell, is he lord of — being an egomaniacal, fatuous, greedy murderer?” 

Kaigaku’s smirk unfurled into an ugly sneer as he shifted to point his sword at you. “Watch your mouth, girl.” 

“And what of Kotoha?” You demanded, your anger an untamable fire that burned in your veins. “You were sweet on her once — did she deserve her fate?”

There was no sign of that fondness in the cruelty which lined Kaigaku’s face as he spat, “She spread her legs for some man like a whore and bore his bastard. Lord Douma only made sure she met an end befitting of her filth.” 

“You vile, wretched creature,” you swore. “Damn you! Damn him!” 

That hair-raising smirk reappeared as Kaigaku stepped towards you. “I cannot wait to see what Lord Douma has planned for you. You should’ve seen what he did to your beloved Granny, the hag.”

Your blood turned cold and a stone like lead settled in the pit of your stomach. You’d assumed, of course, that your grandmother had paid with her life in helping you escape, but you could not bear to hear the ways she’d suffered in exchange for your life. 

Somewhere, in the depths of the Netherwood, a wolf howled. 

“Shall I tell you all about it, Y/N?” Kaigaku taunted. “Shall I tell you how your dear Granny screamed as Lord Douma flayed her alive, piece by piece? How she sobbed for your grandfather? For you?” 

Tears burned, as hot as acid in your eyes as you shook. “Stop,”

“It was quite pathetic, really,” Kaigaku sighed. “She went rather quickly. I suppose that’s what happens when you play with old crones — their pathetic little hearts can’t withstand the fun.” 

You were at a loss; part of you wanted to lunge for the boy, to sink your nails into his eyes and rip, to tear him limb from limb as you screamed with rage until even the beasts of the Netherwood could not tell whether you were human or kin. 

But on the other hand, you were just a woman, who’d spent the last five days in the Netherwood and didn’t have so much as a dagger with which to defend yourself. 

And Sanemi told you to run.

You remembered as a boy, Kaigaku had been slow; always the last person to finish a race or outrun the seeker in hide and seek. 

You, on the other hand, had always been faster; you could outrun him.

You had to. You would.

There was a roaring in your head as your mind disconnected from your body and you turned to flee. 

“Don’t you run from me, bitch!” Kaigaku thundered after you, but you did not slow; you hurtled over root and rubble, adrenaline pumping hot and fast to your legs as you ran. 

You’d thought, for one blissful moment, that perhaps you had a chance of evading him, when a silent whirring cut through the silent forest air. 

Pain, blinding pain, exploded somewhere from the side of your thigh, bringing you to your knees as you cried out. Rolling over, your stomach dropped at the unmistakable sensation of blood dripping down your leg, hot and fast. 

Behind you, you heard the thud of Kaigaku’s knife cluttering to the forest floor. 

“Hn, I missed,” the boy scoffed, eyes roaming over you as you bled. “No matter, you can’t run on a wounded leg, can you little girl?” 

Ignoring the dizzying lash of pain that flared in your leg, you scrambled backwards in a crawl, desperate to put some — any — distance between you and your captor. 

“Lord Douma only said to bring you back alive,” Kaigaku hummed, drawing his sword once more. “He did not say to bring you back unscathed.” 

Kaigaku put the tip of his blade right at your chin, tilting your head up to meet his eyes. You glared defiantly up at him, though your show of courage was a mere facade as you beheld the salacious glint reflected in his beady eyes. 

“I think I shall take my time with you,” Kaigaku decided, using his blade to tilt your head back and forth. “After all there is no one here who shall care if you scream; in fact, I prefer you do.” 

Your eyes widened, what remaining fight you still had wavering. 

Alone. You were completely and utterly alone. 

Sanemi had not come; either he was still fighting the other men sent by your cursed fiancé, or he’d been slain, and now the others were making their way to you, to take you back to Douma and let him do as he pleased. 

You were going to die; but you would not die by his hands. Your eyes lowered to the blade still pressed under your chin, its tip grazing against the delicate skin of your throat, teasingly.

Kaigaku’s blade was sharp, even if it’s wielder not; it would not take much effort to slit your own throat on its edge, and it would take even less to bleed out upon the Netherwood’s earthen floor. 

Before you could move, however, Kaigaku’s sword lowered, its tip teasingly tracing along the front seams of your dress. 

“Perhaps we could make this interesting,” Kaigaku smirked, tracing up the valley between your breasts. “He said only to ensure you were untainted for him; he did not say we couldn’t have a taste.” 

Your stomach churned with a toxic mixture of both rage and dread as the sword cut through the first stitch of your bodice. You tried to gather your feet beneath you, enough so that you could launch yourself forward and impale yourself on his blade, when a low growl sounded from behind your assailant.

Kaigaku, too enthralled by his slow torture of you, did not see the mass of white fur and bloodstained teeth leap from the shadows of the Wood; not until it was too late. 

You looked on in horror as a large beast lunged for the boy from your village, tackling him to the side, his sword arm severed at his shoulder from a single swipe of the monster’s mighty claw. Kaigaku only had time to scream once before the nightmare’s massive maw clamped around his neck and tore, spraying his blood and bits of gore across the forest floor. 

Your breath caught and died in your throat, helpless from where you were still splayed pathetically across the dirt as you watched the animal paint the Netherwood with remnants of Kaigaku. 

The monster turned on its haunches towards you, its maw dripping with blood and bits of sinew and flesh, its lip curled back in a snarl. You whimpered as the creature’s silver-lilac eyes settled on you, every inch trembling in abject terror. 

Though overcome by your fear, your brain was able to put together the sight before you that was sure to be your last. The beast slowly advancing towards you was a wolf, though it was much larger than any wolf you’d ever seen, and its brawn rivaled that of an ox’s. 

The wolf boasted a thick coating of silvery-white fur that seemed to glow, as though it bore the essence of a full moon, though its brilliance was dampened somewhat by the smears of crimson saturating it. Under the dim light of the forest, you could not tell whether the blood was that of the wolf or another. 

One colossal paw stepped hesitantly toward you again, and you felt yourself nearly go faint. Weakly, you tried to scramble back further into the wood, but your left leg had gone slightly numb from its wound, and the blood loss was starting to make you feel dizzy. 

It seemed the Netherwood had answered your silent plea to not be sent back to be killed by Douma; instead, you would serve as the next meal for one of its monstrous residents. 

The wolf drew short of you and watched you closely for a moment. With a great shudder, the wolf began to tremble and shake, and your horror melted into wide-eyed disbelief as you watched the wolf shrink and contort until all that was left was a man, blood-stained, naked, and panting on his hands and knees, fingers dug deeply into the dirt below. The man convulsed as began heaving up bile stained with blood and gore.

The sight of scarred forearms and snowy-white hair broke you out into a cold sweat. 

“S-Sanemi?” You croaked, equal parts relieved and terrified, even if another part of you desperately hoped that you were simply hallucinating the image of the nude man wretching up blood before you.

“Aye,” Sanemi grit out between great, shuddering breaths as he spat one final time at the dirt. “It is me.”

He rose, bloodied and naked, from the forest floor and looked to you, his eyes back to their familiar, lavender hue, though they still retained an otherworldly glow. 

There was a loud ringing in your ears as you stared at him, though you weren’t sure if it was from your panic or your blood loss. Sanemi took a cautious step towards you and it sent you scurrying back, a whimper of fright building in your throat.

He faltered, something like pain crossing his face. “Perhaps you should be afraid,” he said quietly. “And you can be — but I need you to throw me that satchel.”

It took you a moment to recollect yourself long enough to register what he was asking. With shaky hands, you unlatched the leather bag from your shoulders and weakly tossed it towards the Huntsman. 

Sanemi was quiet as he dug through the bag, producing a fresh pair of breeches and a clean tunic. With a deftness that seemed as supernatural as his wolf form, Sanemi dressed, concealing his muscular, scarred form from sight once more. 

He said your name once, quietly. “Are you alright?” 

You trembled, hand clutching weakly at the front clasp of your cape. “He killed my grandmother,” you whispered. “H-he tortured her.”

Sanemi approached you slowly, and when you did not flinch away from him once more, he knelt down beside you. His hand came up to gently stroke your hair, and the touch startled you out of your trance, blinking back fat tears as you looked up at him. 

“We need to go,” he said gently and you closed your eyes, nodding.

You’d known, of course, that your Grandmother had been killed; made peace with it, even. But you had not foreseen that she would be tortured for trying to secure your freedom, and the very thought made something inside your heart wither and die. 

“I know,” you murmured quietly. Sanemi straightened, extending a hand to you to help you up when your fingers closed around his wrist, your eyes urgent.

“Did you kill them?” 

Sanemi grimaced. “Yes, Lamb. I killed them all.” 

You nodded. “Good.” You released his wrist and slid your hand into his. “Good.”

Your shock had dulled the sharp, burning throb in your leg while you’d processed the fact that Sanemi was not a mere huntsman, but a wolf of the Wood. But now that the shock had worn off, the pain slammed back into you with full force as you tried to stand, your leg collapsing uselessly under you as you cried out. 

Sanemi’s nostrils flared and there was a murderous glint in his eyes as he crouched down beside you, eyes locked onto your left side, fingers clenching around the torn folds of your dress and lifting it up. 

“S-Sanemi!” You squeaked, batting his hand away but no to avail. The huntsman — the wolf — managed to pull back the skirts of your dress to reveal the torn flesh of your thigh. 

“Was it him?” Sanemi’s voice was low, his head jerking back over his shoulder in the vague direction where he’d left Kaigaku in pieces. 

You nodded, eyes wide as you watched him inspect the wound. “A knife. He threw it.” 

The huntsman exhaled harshly through his nose. “We’re too vulnerable in the open like this — especially because you’re bleeding.” 

Sanemi sat back on his haunches and pulled his small hunting knife from the leather satchel strewn on the ground. Silently, he leaned forward and wound some of the bottom fabric of your dress around the blade and wrenched, tearing a sizeable scrap cloth from the skirt in one clean stroke. 

Sanemi then reached under your skirt and tugged the shorter end of your linen shift down. “It’s not ideal but it’s cleaner than your outer skirt,” he said by way of explanation at your raised eyebrows and hitched breath. “It’ll do until I can get you somewhere safer. We’re sitting ducks out here. Your scent is bound to attract something.” 

You nodded, gulping. Words were still far too difficult to come by, so you settled for watching your handsome guide as he worked, mouth set in a firm, hard line. 

Sanemi tore another strip of linen from your shift and laid it delicately over his knee. His eyes flicked to yours, once, and you felt slightly ashamed at the way your breath hitched, as though waiting for those lilac irises to bleed silver once more. 

“May I?” His hands were stilled above the exposed flesh of your shin, and you knew he’d need to lift more to bandage your thigh. You nodded after a moment, though your hesitation did not stem from any fear you held for the scarred man delicately sliding his hands up the length of your wounded leg; rather, the heat that crept up your neck came from the way goose flesh erupted over the skin beneath his roughened yet gentle touch. 

Sanemi’s fingers were steady as he gently guided your leg to the side, rotating it in his palm so that the gash was perpendicular to the forest floor. 

At the sight of your bloodied, torn flesh, Sanemi growled. “I should’ve made the little bastard suffer far more.” He said darkly, reaching into his satchel to pull a small skien of water to clean off the wound as much as possible. 

At the first splash of water against your ragged skin, you flinched, hissing through clenched teeth as the cold fluid chased away the spare bit of blood. For a moment, you could see that the cut left behind the blade was deeper than you’d thought, though not so much so that it required more than a good bandaging and perhaps some stitching.  

At least it had not been entirely flayed open. 

The hand Sanemi had braced on your knee to keep your leg steady rubbed soothingly at your skin as he repeated the motion once more, letting the water cleanse the wound once more. “Atta girl,” he praised softly. “It’s done. I just need to wrap it.” 

It amazed you that such a hardened, rough Huntsman — Wolf — had such a gentle touch. His hands were like feathers as he wound the clean strip of linen around your thigh, the only pressure stemming from the knot he’d fastened to keep it secure around your leg. Sanemi then wrapped the other torn fabric from your outer skirt around the makeshift bandage, knotting it in a similar fashion to the one beneath. 

“To keep the one below from becoming dirty,” he offered plainly at your raised eyebrow. “Can you stand?” 

Now that the adrenaline of yojr earlier encounter had worn off, the throb in your leg had become all the more pronounced. Teeth clenched, you gripped the Huntsman’s hands tightly as you rose from your seat on the tree stump, eyebrows furrowed in determination. Sanemi did not remove his hands from you, but kept them out and ready as you tentatively shifted your weight to test your wounded leg.

It was no good; the pain shot through you like an arrow and nearly buckled the knee on your good leg. With a cry of frustration, you  stumbled back against Sanemi, the Huntsman’s arm looping easily around your waist to help lower you back down against the stump upon which he’s sat you. 

“Damn it all,” you cursed, wincing at the angry throb in your leg. “It cannot bear weight.” 

Sanemi pursed his lips as he looked over you, considering. “Allow me,” he said after a moment, squatting down next to you, motioning for you to wrap your arm around his shoulders.

You hesitated; you were not scared of the Huntsman, even after witnessing his terrifying true form, but your apprehension lingered, a primal fear baked deep within your core that told you you should be scared of the predator beside you. That, mixed with your blood loss, made you pause, even though you’re traveled alongside the fearless Huntsman for nearly a week. 

And Sanemi noticed.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured, his arm locked steadily around your waist as he lifted you to your feet, your weight pressed against his chest.

You did not trust your words so you only nodded. Despite the remaining wariness you felt, you longed for his comfort more. You lifted your hand to cup the side of his jaw so you could tilt his face down, bringing his forehead against yours. 

Sanemi whispered your name and your eyes lifted up to meet the smoldering heat of his gaze. 

A knuckle brushed against the curve of your cheek. “Are you frightened of me now, little Lamb?” 

Your fingers gripped the collar of his tunic, a desperation wracking through you at the thought he might pull away and remove the steadying warmth of his arms from around your frame.  

“No. It is not you that frightens me; it is him.”

The arm around your waist tightened. “He will not get to you; I swear it. I will not allow him to lay a finger on you.” 

Your breath shuddered and your eyes squeezed tight. You felt the discomforting press of panic building in your lungs, threatening to choke the air from your throat until a warm finger curled under your chin, followed only by a rugged whisper of your name. 

You opened your eyes and there he was; the only person left alive who you could count on; who had proven, time and again, that your welfare mattered to him. Who treated you like you meant something.

You craved that feeling — craved him. 

“Kiss me, Sanemi.” You murmured, your lips separated by a breath. “Please.” 

Sanemi did not hesitate as he gently brought his lips against yours, the hand under your chin moving to cup the back of your head, holding you steady against him like he was the only real, solid thing in the world. 

Your hands, no longer shaking, unclenched from where they’d been locked around the collar of his tunic and slid behind his neck, fingers tangling in his hair. 

Sanemi sighed against your lips, allowing himself to get lost in the way they moved against his, just as you did. Against the solid rock of his body and under the spell of his soft mouth, it was easy to allow yourself to forget the danger that threatened to creep in from the shadows.  

Lost in your kiss, you made the mistake of trying to shift your weight from your good leg to the bad, causing both knees to buckle. At your small whimper of pain, Sanemi broke away.

“You’re too injured to walk,” He murmured against your lips. “So I shall carry you.” 

He broke away with a final peck, stepping back and reaching behind him to haul his tunic over his head. “Unless you would like to see all of me, little Lamb,” Sanemi’s smirk was devilish. “Then I suggest you close your eyes for a moment.”

The heat his words sparked in your veins dulled the throb of your wounded leg. “And if I desire to see you?” 

Sanemi only shrugged. “Then I suppose I shall have to put on a show.” 

The huntsman held your eyes as his hands went to the hastily tied laces of his breeches, tugging the strings open with ease. 

You fidgeted against the broken stump he’d perched you on, just as Sanemi shrugged down the soft suede of his breeches, revealing that damnable v-line that made your head spin. A few more inches lower, and there was his manhood, hanging thick and heavy between his muscular and scar-speckled thighs. 

He was a sight to behold. 

“Is this your first time seeing a man, Lamb?” Sanemi’s voice broke you out of the reverent trance you’d been in whilst admiring every rocky plane of his body. 

Your mouth had turned dryer than a summer drought, and so you only nodded your head, unable to tear your eyes from the immaculate form that made up the huntsman of the Netherwood. 

To your dismay, Sanemi stepped back from where you sat, again and again until he was several lengths back. You opened your mouth in protest, but he only shook his head. 

“Don’t want you to be too close, my sweet.” He called from a distance.

You frowned. “Too close for what —“

Your question was cut off by a small scream as Sanemi leapt forward, that silver fur exploding forth from him as a large wolf landed only feet from where he’d once stood. 

Now it was clear why he’d put such distance between you; had Sanemi been any closer when he shifted, one of those mighty claws embedded in his law — nearly as long as your hand — would have surely ripped you clean in half. 

Your heart hammered in your chest as Sanemi’s wolf form drew closer. Now, without the weight of terror and the pressing conviction that you were about to die, you allowed yourself to fully appreciate the wolf before you. 

His scars were still visible, though less so in contrast to his human form, his thick fur providing a fair degree of cover.  In this form, you could see that were you to stand, your head would barely reach his shoulder. 

Sanemi grunted as he crouched out, the puff of air from his considerable snout warming over your legs. He looked up at you expectantly, an amused twinkle in his wolffish eyes. 

You gaped at him. “You want me to ride you?” 

Another amused chuff. 

“And how, great and mighty wolf, do you suggest I climb onto your back with a half-severed leg?” You dramatized. “Shall I flop?” 

You couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that the Wolf rolled his eyes. Sanemi pressed his large body against your good side, nudging you with his great shoulder to signal for you to grab his fur.

You took a handful of the silvery coat, surprised at its softness. “Do not bite me just because you think I pull too hard,” you warned, half serious, and Sanemi huffed in annoyance. 

Using the wolf as leverage, you heaved yourself up, Sanemi pressing steadily into your side as you found your footing against him. Slowly, and with less grace than you were willing to admit, you managed to climb atop Sanemi’s back, awkwardly swinging your injured leg over the opposite side.

Once settled, Sanemi rose beneath you, rising to his full height. Sat atop him, you were willing to bet he was taller than most horses back in the village. 

The great wolf sniffed at the air once before lowering himself into a crouch, and springing forth into the Wood.

————

Riding atop Sanemi had been the most exhilarating experience of your life. 

Though, you also could not recall the last time such a ride had left you more frightened, given that you’d spent a great deal of it crouched low against his neck, fearing that if you rose your head even a fraction of an inch, some low-hanging tree would embed itself in your face. 

You supposed you would have kept riding longer, had your stomach not given a great gurgle after an hour or so atop the wolf. With a growl that you thought sounded suspiciously like a laugh, Sanemi paused in a small clearing near a rocky, moss-covered cliff, disappearing behind the lip of the rock once he’d situated you upon a felled log.

A few moments later, human Sanemi emerged, re-dressed, but his face was severe.

“They will keep coming,” Sanemi’s frustration was clear as he shrugged the fresh tunic over his head, the delectable ridges of his abdomen and the alluring dip of his hips concealed from your sight once more. “So long as they can track your scent, they will keep pursuing you.” 

You did not need to ask to whom he referred; the very same fear had gnawed at you even despite the exhilaration of riding Sanemi’s wolf form.

Your appreciation of the huntsman’s physique stalled as fear bubbled again in your gut. “What can I do?” Your whisper was shaky and it made Sanemi pause, his hand twitching towards you. “I cannot change my scent in the middle of the damn Wood—“

“You can,” Sanemi said quickly, and to your surprise, the tips of his ears turned pink. “Or— rather, I can help.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Because you are a wolf? Should I call you that now, instead of ‘Huntsman,’ or ‘Sanemi?’”

“You can call me whatever you desire, so long as you allow me to protect you.” Sanemi retorted evenly.

You tried to keep your voice steady even as you blushed. “And how would you do that, Wolf?” 

There was a dark glint in Sanemi’s eyes at your new nickname for him. “A bite from a wolf can change your scent.”

You balked at him. “A bite?” 

“Aye,” the Huntsman said casually, as though he was merely discussing the weather. “It would leave a small mark, but that mark would alter your scent enough to make you harder to track.”

You thought for a moment, the blush on your cheeks deepening. “Where would you bite me?” 

It was Sanemi’s turn to turn pink. “Likely your neck,” he fidgeted with a stick he used to poke the dying campfire. 

You gulped. “Would you have to transform?” 

Sanemi’s small smile was handsome, even if it looked a little feral. “No, Lamb. I can stay in this form.” 

You watched your protector for a moment, weighing your options. “Come here, Sanemi.”

His eyes snapped to yours, a bottomless heat turning his lilac gaze molten. Slowly, with the grace of a predator silently stalking its prey, Sanemi made his way over to where you sat, drawing short once the tips of his boots grazed yours. 

“Do you swear it? It will keep them from being able to track me?” You asked, voice trembling slightly as you peered up at the Huntsman. 

He nodded, slowly. A hand reached out to caress your cheek, and your breath lodged in your throat as you found yourself leaning into his warmth. 

You managed to exhale around the lump that had formed in your throat. “Then I will allow it.”

Your heart skipped like a rabbit’s against your sternum as Sanemi leaned in close, the warmth of his breath chasing away the chill of the Wood’s air.

“So delicate,” Sanemi murmured, his nose skimming along the slope between your neck and shoulder. “So soft.”

“W-wolf?” Your voice was high, your hands trembling as they jumped to clutch at Sanemi’s forearms, nails digging into his skin in anticipation. “Will it hurt?”

He huffed a laugh against your skin, the gentle tickle of his warm air sending goosebumps along your exposed skin. “No, little Lamb,” his lips danced along your shoulder, back towards the sensitive spot connecting with your neck. “You will feel a prick and then you will feel warm.” 

You nodded, the ends of Sanemi’s cornsilk hair tickling your throat. “I’m ready. Bite me — please.”

Sanemi’s groan was followed by a cold, sharp sting that sunk into the tender flesh between your shoulder and neck that was quickly chased away by a soothing warmth. The huntsman’s mouth latched to your neck as he buried his teeth in you, his tongue stroking soothingly around where he now bit.

It felt like someone had poured warmed honey into your veins. It spread, thick and sweet from your neck throughout your body, making you feel like you’d sunk into a hot bath on a cold day. That warmth coiled in your belly and ignited something fluttery and pleasurable between your legs as you tilted your head to the side, exposing more of your neck to the wolf caging you in against the tree.

Your submission evoked a low growl from his chest, deep and rumbling as Sanemi pressed harder into you, his hands bunching your dress at your sides as he continued to suck at your neck. The feeling of his body molded tightly against yours and the way his mouth worked at that delicate spot made you moan out, the sound finally jolting something within the huntsman as he gave you one final kick, before tearing himself away. 

“Dear gods, woman,” he heaved, breath coarse. “Are you trying to drive me wild?”

You flushed as you panted, staring at him with wide eyes. Whatever you’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that; you’d not foreseen that the act of Sanemi biting you could feel so intimate, could make you long for him to run his hands under your dress, to touch you in your most sacred places until you begged for him.

He was dangerous; it was thrilling.

“Kiss me again,” you breathed, and Sanemi obeyed, his mouth moving fervently against yours as his tongue caressed your lower lip. Sensing the silent request, you opened for him, and Sanemi’s tongue swept into your mouth, licking at yours as his teeth nipped along your lower lip. 

You thought he might devour you; you wanted to let him. 

But Sanemi suddenly pulled away from you as though he’d been burned, eyes wide and breath hard. 

You blinked in surprise. “Sanemi, what —,”

“We need to go,” he said firmly, his cheeks flushed red. At his sides, his hands curled tightly into fists.

—-

The rest of your journey was oddly strained. Despite having grown closer with enigmatic Huntsman over the last several days of your travels, you suddenly felt as though you’d been catapulted back to square one.

Though he still allowed you ride upon his back in wolf form, gone were the amused chuffs and snorts that he used to signal he was listening to your mindless chatter. Instead, the wolf below you remained tense, a cord pulled tight that was liable to snap at the drop of a hat.

As much as you wished it made you angry so that you could snipe at him, Sanemi’s sudden introversion stoked an uncomfortable self-consciousness within you, and you found yourself desperately grappling for an explanation.

Had you tasted badly, when he’d bit you? Did he suddenly no longer find himself drawn to you, now that your scent was different?

Or, even worse, had he realized that perhaps he did not want you to stay with him in the Wood after all, and was now attempting to put distance between you so that you would be more willing to leave him once you reached the edge of the forest?

The thought made your stomach clench painfully.

Sanemi’s distance did not abate even by the time he slowed to a stop for the night. He’d brought the two of you to a clearing in the Wood that bordered alongside a winding river, crested by a waterfall. Sanemi finally lowered himself to the pebbled ground of the riverbank, muscles twitching as though to hasten you along in sliding off him to balance yourself against a mid-sized boulder, before he stalked back towards the trees, his leather satchel in his mouth.

He avoided even your gaze as he stalked into the shallows of the river, spearing two fish with a sharpened stick he’d fashioned. Sanemi hadn’t so much as thrown a word your way as he’d started a small fire, apparently relying on dusk to conceal the small smoke billowing up.

Despite the coolness of the evening air, you noted Sanemi was sweating as he’d flung out the stick bearing your flame-cooked fish dinner towards you.

In accepting the spear, your fingers accidentally brushed against his and Sanemi recoiled — hard.

“What is wrong with you?” You snapped. “Why will you not touch me? Why do you flinch whenever I am near?”

“I do not,” Sanemi answered hotly through clenched teeth, though the muscle that ticked in his jaw betrayed his frustration. “Am I suddenly required to touch you?”

You folded your arms across your chest, eyes narrowed. “You certainly had no objection to it earlier — especially not when you threw me up against a tree.”

“Threw you —“ Sanemi choked off, his returning glare both indignant and enraged. “As I recall it was you who kissed me.”

“And as I recall, it was you who started doing that — that thing with your tongue,” you accused lamely, though any bite in your words was tempered by the blush creeping up your face.

Sanemi scoffed. “You cannot even speak of it without blushing like a little girl, and yet I am the one acting strange?” He leaned back on the piece of driftwood he’d claimed as his seat, arms folded across his chest, head turned pointedly away from you.

As you mulled over a number of insults to call the temperamental Huntsman sitting across front you, the last remnants of the sun faded from the night sky, and overhanging clouds briefly parted to reveal the moon — nearly full, its silvery glow illuminating the riverbank.

The moon’s rays reached where you and the Huntsman had set up camp when suddenly your hand jumped to your shoulder as you cried out.

Sanemi startled forward with a worried growl of your name. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

You grit your teeth, fingers digging harshly into your shoulder as you winced. “Something is — is burning, but I do not know what.”

You were certain the only injury your sustained had been the wound to your thigh by Kaigaku’s knife. But you’d spent enough time in and around flame to know what a burn felt like, and it felt as though something had been branded into you, its throb almost crippling.

You cried out again and Sanemi quickly crossed the dirt and took you into his arms, though you felt him flinch as he did so. “Where?”

You gestured wildly to your shoulder, too distracted by the way his presence made the burn now pulse, sending lashes of heat throughout your body, though there was a maddening edge of pleasure blooming from every part of you that was pressed against him.

Sanemi’s fingers grasped the collar of your dress and wrenched it to the side, swearing softly as he beheld whatever it was he saw.

“What is it?” You managed to grind out, your fingers digging into the muscles of his forearms to keep him anchored to you, as though he were capable of keeping the flames licking at your skin at bay. “Kaigaku did not touch me there — at least, I don’t think —,”

“It was not that boy who did this,” Sanemi said severely, his finger gingerly caressing the spot where your neck met your shoulder. You moaned as his touch extinguished some of the burning fire which had ignited your skin, too lost in the temporary relief to note the way Sanemi’s hands tightened around you. “It was I.”

That stilled you. “What do you mean?” You turned your head, peering up at the Wolf with wide eyes. “From when you changed my scent?”

Sanemi, for once, looked discomforted. “I think —,” he swallowed once, avoiding your gaze as he stepped back. You almost cried out at the loss of his body against yours, as the burn returned once more.

“I think I marked you; but I-“ Sanemi stuttered, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion as he stared at the ground, his weight shifting uneasily from foot to foot. “But it shouldn’t be affecting you — not like this.”

“You marked me?” Your hand fluttered to the fleshy juncture between your shoulder and neck. You gasped as your fingers brushed against a curious raise in your skin that hadn’t been there before, the strange curvature burning a few degrees warmer than the area around it.

The huntsman’s eyes remained resolutely fixed on the ground of the forest. “I told you I would cover your scent.”

You stroked the the mark, fingers tracing the odd curve, like that of a crescent moon. “What does the mark mean?”

Sanemi hesitated.

“Wolf?”

“It is a mating mark.” Sanemi admitted after a long moment, hand jumping to his hair as he ran his fingers anxiously through his silvery-white locks.

A stunned breath blew past your lips, your eyes wide. “M-mating mark?” You repeated, hand freezing where the telling crescent was emblazoned upon your skin.

Sanemi looked equal parts apologetic and scared. “I swear, I did not know it would affect you — wolves have to accept the mating mark to feel it, so I did not think —.” He ran a frazzled hand through his hair, his anguish apparent. “I thought I would be the only one to feel its call. I swear it.”

In the back of your mind, it registered that the mark perhaps was the reason for Sanemi’s sudden change towards you, but the incessant burning you felt would not allow you to question him on it.

“What does this mean?” You cried out again as the mark surged, the pain reaching all the way down between your legs, making you gasp. “Are we — are we m-mated?”

Sanemi’s eyes flashed. “No,” his voice was firm, urgent. “You still have to accept the mark for us to be mated — that’s why I thought it was safe. It was supposed to change your scent enough for us to avoid those men.”

“I swear to you I do not plan on acting on it; I meant only to help protect you. I fully intend on escorting you to the nearest village, as promised, and then I will leave. That mark does not have to mean anything to you.”

You believed him. The slight panic in his eyes as you winced at the mark’s repetitive flare once more could not be faked. Furthermore, you knew Sanemi would have no reason to bind you to him; not when you’d already made it clear that you wanted to stay.

You still did.

Sanemi’s earlier words echoed in your mind. That mark does not have to mean anything to you.

“But it will mean something to you, yes?” You demanded, drawing yourself up tall even as you sat perched upon the driftwood. “The mark?”

Sanemi hesitated again. “Wolves only mark once.”

He did not offer any further explanation, nor did he need to; you understood well enough.

The Huntsman had marked you, knowing full well he’d never be able to claim another as his mate. He’d done that, knowing that if another came along that won his heart, he could not be with them completely — not in the way his nature would desire.

And he’d done it nonetheless; all for the sake of giving her a chance to escape Douma’s clutches and to be free.

He’d put you first.

You hadn’t doubted the sincerity of your offer to him earlier, but now, there was no way he’d get rid of you. You would not allow it.

“And what would you do if I said I accepted it — accepted the mating bond?” You asked, voice as soft as a feather.

Sanemi snorted, pulling away from you to busy himself with stoking the small campfire. “I would say that you are an innocent, little lamb who does not understand what it means to be claimed by a wolf.”

“I understand well enough,” you replied, indignant. “I know what it means for people to give into their carnal desires.”

“You know nothing, you’ve never even seen a man before today.” The huntsman shot back, tossing another piece of kindling into the small fire. “You have never laid with another, much less a wolf.”

“It cannot be all that different,” you pouted. “You appear before me man enough.”

Sanemi closed the gap between your bodies then, coming to sit beside you on the rock, fingers curling under your chin to tilt your head up.

His eyes glinted with a sudden predatory heat. “It is quite different, little lamb.” He murmured. “I may now stand before you a man, but I am very much still a wolf. I would not take you like an ordinary human.”

There it was again — that heat, so foreign and yet so enticing, flickered to life once more in the depths of your belly, and the urge to rub your thighs together suddenly became overwhelming. With bated breath, you watched as Sanemi’s nostrils flared softly, his pupils dilating as the grip under your chin tightened ever so slightly.

“Then how would you take me, wolf?” You whispered, eyes not wavering from his. “How would I accept the mating bond?”

Sanemi’s eyes fluttered shut for a moment, opening only after a shaky exhale of his breath. “You would have to take my knot.”

Your gaze dropped to his lips, the warmth from your mark spreading across your skin along with the sudden urge to feel them move against your own. “Your knot?”

“My knot,” Sanemi repeated, “and that is precisely why I cannot mate you, little lamb.”

You tugged your bottom lip between your teeth, a movement Sanemi’s eyes followed, his tongue flicking out to wet his own lips.

You pressed your chest flush against his front, hands seeking out his in the dark. “And what if I wanted it?”

Sabemi groaned, fingers latching onto your waist, though whether he sought to push you away or keep you anchored in place, you could not say. “Christ, woman. One would almost think you enjoyed torturing this poor wolf.”

You leaned into him, head tilting as you sought the knowledge of his soft lips against yours. “Not torturing,” you whispered, a hair’s breath separating your mouth from his. “Willingly offering myself to him.”

Your lips brushed against his and Sanemi moaned, his hands reaching to snare in your hair as he moved his mouth desperately against yours, teeth nipping and sucking on your lower lip, like he was hungry to consume you. But before he could, your pulled your head back, breaking the kiss.

“Do it, wolf,” you whispered. “Take me. Claim me as your mate.”

Sanemi grabbed you by your jaw, cheeks squishing beneath his firm grip. “Do you know what that would mean?” His voice was rough, his eyes burning with his desire. “If I did, we would be bonded. Permanently. For life.”

He said it as if you had not guessed it to be true; as if you weren’t prepared.

You gazed up at him through your eyelashes, eyes round and full of the innocence he claimed he could not taint. “Would you have it be another?”

Sanemi took the bait, a feral growl tearing from his chest as he crushed your body against his.

“No,” he snarled, and his mouth descended upon yours once more, his hot tongue sweeping into your mouth to swallow your breathy gasp as you threaded your fingers through his soft, moon-kissed hair.

You moaned into his mouth, hands greedily roaming the rocky planes of his chest, nails scratching lightly along his skin.

“You will be the death of me,” the Huntsman breathed against your lips. “You truly want to accept the bond?”

You moaned, nodding vigorously as Sanemi trailed his lips across your jaw and down your neck, his hands beginning to roam up your sides, tugging you down with him against the boulder so that you straddled his sides.

“Very well,” he murmured. “But I will not claim you here,” Sanemi said gruffly against the delicate skin of your throat, lips pressed against where your pulse fluttered. “I cannot.”

You whined and ground your hips down against his thighs, savoring the way the steely firmness of them pressed against something between your legs that made you feel electric.

“I must take you to my den,” the huntsman clarified, pulling back slightly in spite of your small whine. “When wolves like me claim a mate, we…do not like to be disturbed.”

Sanemi’s fingered the front laces of the stay secured around your bust, slowly undoing the careful lacing as he spoke, though his eyes did not leave yours. “And because it will be a full moon when I mate you, I will go into heat. It will last a very long time.”

“How long?” You fought to keep your head from falling back as you watched Sanemi work, the warmth of his hands seeping through the cotton and linen layers of your dress, making your breasts pebble with every loosened tie of your corset.

Sanemi hummed as he leaned forward, tracing his lips over the exposed skin just below your collarbone as his fingers worked the last of your stays. “At least a day; perhaps two. Other wolves have claimed it lasts shorter when one has a mate, as opposed to having to weather it alone.”

The top swells of your breasts were exposed as Sanemi finally freed you from your outer corset, allowing it to fall to the ground beside you.

The huntsman skimmed his nose over the top of your shift where the tops of your soft mounds peaked over, letting his tongue peek out to follow the trail. The feeling of the hot wetness of his mouth made you fidget in his lap, a whine building in your throat, desperate to have him touch more.

“A-and will you — ah,” you moaned as Sanemi tugged the bodice of your dress and shift down your shoulders, exposing your peaked breasts to the night air. “Will y-you mate m-me the whole t-time — oh god, Sanemi,”

“I could get used to you saying my name like that,” The huntsman chuckled, bending to take one of your breasts fully in his mouth, sucking and rolling his tongue over your stiffened nipple. The contact made the mark on your shoulder burn with a sensual heat that you felt shoot straight down between your legs, and you ground against his thigh, mewling for more.

Sanemi looked up at you as he swirled his tongue over the fleshy skin of your mound, his pupils blown wide. “Perhaps,” he muttered in response to your question, in between light sucks. “It depends on how well you take my knot, you sweet thing.”

You moaned again as Sanemi moved his mouth across the valley between your breasts, taking the other mound between his lips and teeth, his hand rising to keep the other warm. He suckled at you for a moment until you were a whimpering, trembling mess atop him, before he pulled off with a lewd pop!

“But no matter,” You shivered as Sanemi’s teeth grazed your ear. “I promise I will make you feel so good, little Lamb.”

“Why must we wait,” you asked impatiently. “I am ready to be your mate now — I promise I can take your knot right here.”

Sanemi snarled against your skin, but it was not in warning. Rather, your words seemed to stir something deep within him, as the bulge between his legs hardened even more, and the building friction between it and demanding ache in your core intensified.

Sanemi shifted your hips in his lap so the apex of your thighs was no longer pressed flush against his hardness.

“You, my flower, smell far too tempting for me to risk having you in such a vulnerable way in the middle of the damn Wood, without any cover.”

Sanemi, lips traipsed along your jaw as he hummed. “There are many creatures lurking in the shadows that would see my mating you as an opportunity to take a bite for themselves.”

You tugged on his hair, trying to get him to meet your eyes. “I thought my scent was alluring only to you?”

“You don’t just appeal to me, little Lamb,” Sanemi said pointedly. “You have a rare scent that attracts all sorts of creatures here in the Wood.”

“But it is different now?” You pondered, fidgeting in the Huntsman’s lap until the ridge of his thigh pressed against that spot between your legs that made you want to sing.

You hummed and used your grip in his hair as leverage to tilt his head to the side, your lips caressing down the side of Sanemi’s neck, savoring the faint, salty taste of him on your tongue as his fingers dug into your hips.

“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Your scent has changed, thanks to your mark.”

You pulled away from your assault on his neck to pout at him, lower lip jutting out in a way that made Sanemi’s eyes darken. “So I do not smell as good anymore? To you, that is?”

With a low growl, Sanemi stood, hands gripping under your thighs as he lifted you before he laid you out against the river stone. “Quite the opposite, Lamb,” he quipped, voice low and heady. “To me, there is no finer perfume. Your scent calls to me; it nearly sends me into a frenzy.”

You found yourself incapable of coherent thought — much less speech — as Sanemi’s hands slid up your legs, bunching the skirts of your dress with every inch of skin he passed over until you felt the night air delicately brushing the heat between your legs.

Your legs spread and supported between his grip and the smooth of the rock, Sanemi leaned forward and kissed you, his tongue sliding past your lips to lick teasingly at the roof of your mouth before he broke away, imprinting his kiss down your exposed torso.

You watched him, enthralled by the way your body seemed to come alive under his touch. Even in the dark of the Wood, you could make out the lilac swirls of Sanemi’s eyes as he watched you, noting every gasp and sigh he pulled from you as his hands and mouth explored the planes of your body.

“What curious eyes you have, Wolf.” Your breath was short, choppy as Sanemi’s lips descended past your breasts, caressing the soft of your belly.

“The better to see your pretty face, my sweet,” Sanemi murmured, pressing a sweet kiss right below your belly button, the fire within your gut leaping like oil in a hot pan.

“W-what — oh,” you moaned as you felt his lips press against your hip, the broad expanse of his hands smoothing down over your thighs, pushing the last of your skirts up, and allowing the searing heat of his hands to meet your untouched skin. “What large hands you have.”

“The better to feel you — to caress every inch of you,” Sanemi’s voice was husky as his fingers trailed up the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, spreading them wider so he could kneel. One hand gripped the back of your knee and gently tugged your injured leg over his shoulder, so your foot rest against the middle of his back.

His hot breath danced teasingly along your inner thigh as Sanemi’s mouth drew closer an closer to where you ached for him, the night air cool as it licked at your tender, heated flesh.

The feel of his mouth drawing nearer to to the most intimate part of your body made you feel as though you’d been set alight. “Such soft lips you have, Wolf.”

Sanemi chuckled, the sound so dark and rich it sent a shiver up your spine. “The better to taste you with, little Lamb.”

Your breath hitched as you felt something warm and hot flatten against your folds and drag up, Sanemi groaning into you as he repeated the movement, again and again.

His tongue, you realized as a strangled cry fell from your lips, your head falling back against the creek stone. He was exploring you with his tongue.

“Sweet,” Sanemi groaned in between wet, sticky laps against your folds. “So fuckin’ sweet.”

Every nerve in your body felt as though it had been set alight, the mark between your shoulder and neck burning deliciously.

Sanemi’s tongue flattened against your core, his nose pressing sharply against the pearl between your legs as he rocked his face from side to side, smearing your juices all over his maw.

“O-oh gods,” you cried out, hips bucking against his ministrations.

Sanemi’s hot tongue circled your entrance once before dipping inside, his teeth grazing your most sensitive spot as he buried the wet appendage inside your core.

His name fell in a breathy scream from your lips as you bowed up off the creek rock, hands shooting to anchor themselves in his hair as Sanemi began moving his tongue in and out of your fluttering core, his nose bumping and pressing against that delicate pearl at the apex of your thighs as he moved.

“My gods,” Sanemi grunted into your folds. “You are heaven on earth.”

You bucked against him once more, though you could not tell whether you sought more of his tongue or whether your body was trying to squirm away, too overcome by the pleasurable sensations Sanemi bestowed upon you as he worked his mouth against you. It did not matter either way, however, for every time you twitched away from him, the Huntsman’s hot, silky mouth only followed you, your cunt this predator’s dinner.

And apparently, he enjoyed playing with his food.

The frequency of your moans increased as the sounds of Sanemi feasting between your legs grew louder and ever more lewd, his own sounds of pleasure muffled by the repeated wet smacks of his mouth against your dripping folds as he sucked you between his lips and teeth and continued fucking you with his tongue.

“S-Sanemi! Oh — oh gods,” you cried as something coiled tightly behind your navel, making your thighs clench around the Wolf’s head as he worked.

Sanemi only responded with another groan, his hand leaving the supple flesh of your inner thigh to stroke against your folds, making you buck all the more against the stone as his roughened fingers brushed delicately against the spot that made you see stars.

His tongue pulled out of you in favor of flicking the bead at the apex of your legs, his fingers moving to your entrance and deftly pushing in, the wetness leaking from your core ensuring that they slid in without much resistance.

You cried out then, utterly overwhelmed by the way Sanemi’s finger began to work inside you, curling and pumping and stroking along your innermost walls until your entire body vibrated below him.

The hand supporting your thigh over his shoulder tightened as Sanemi resumed his oral assault on that small nub above your entrance, sucking and licking at it until the only sound leaving your throat were feverish cries of his name, your hips involuntarily jerking against him. With each passing moment that Sanemi spent feasting between your legs, something began to mount behind your navel, like a coil being steadily wound tighter and tighter.

You thought it should concern you, this foreign feeling, but as that feeling intensified, so too did your desire to see what would happen when it — you — came undone.

You left one hand gripping harshly at the Wolf’s hair, in some pathetic attempt to keep his face locked against your core, and lifted the other to pinch and roll your breast. You jolted at the stimulation, feeling yourself grow even wetter despite the fervor with which Sanemi lapped and suckled at you.

This appeared to please him, as Sanemi’s free hand moved from your thought to grip at your hip, pressing you even closer to his face until you wondered whether he could breathe. If he could not, the Huntsman did not seem to mind; his groans and growls against your cunt only intensified.

Sanemi slid a second finger into you, and then a third, and the resulting stretch made you see stars, your toes curling in your boots.

That thing in your stomach seized even tighter and your entire body tensed, as though you were on a precipice merely awaiting a slight force to tip you over and sending you hurtling to the depths below.

Whatever was happening to you, the Wolf seemed to anticipate it; for the moment that tight coil within your belly unwound, Sanemi’s fingers pulled hurriedly out of your opening only to be replaced by his tongue, his teeth pressed against your pearl. He lapped up every drop of release that spilled forth, humming and growling as you rode his tongue through the waves of crippling pleasure coursing through you.

As you came down from your high with a breathy sigh of his name, Sanemi shuddered beneath you, a strangled groan lilting out from his mouth between lazy slurps at your cunt. Though your vision was hazy, you could see the faint whites of his eyes peeking through his lids as they rolled back into his head, his fingers tightening their grip on your thighs until it was painful, before releasing once more.

The mark on your neck burned but it was no longer in agony; instead, it felt warm, like a part of your body left too long in the summer sun. but the heat was not entirely unwelcome, especially as Sanemi untangled himself from you, allowing the chill of the late autumn wind to sweep in and lick at your exposed skin.

“That should hold us both over until tomorrow,” Sanemi said after a moment with a throaty chuckle. “Though I will be hard pressed to keep my hands off you, little Lamb.”

Sanemi’s hands eased your skirts back down over your legs. Once your nether region was covered, he helped you sit up, allowing you to cling to him for warmth as he refastened your stays and helped you lace your corset back up the front.

Gingerly, Sanemi brushed your hair back from the shoulder bearing his claim on you. You followed his line of sight, twisting slightly and saw what he did: the crescent-shaped mark, which had burned a violent lavender only minutes prior, had faded back to a pale silver, its ache apparently soothed for the time being.

Sanemi leaned forward and brushed his lips against your mark, his tongue flicking out to caress it as you felt that warmth flood your veins once more. With a moan, you tilted your head, exposing more of your neck again to him, begging him to repeat the action again and again, but Sanemi only drew back.

“Apologies, Lamb,” his eyes were dark once more, and his hands fidgeted at his sides. “Seeing that mark pulls at something within me.”

You allowed your hair to fall back over the crescent bite mark and in an instant, Sanemi’s eyes lightened and a sheepish grin spread across his face. “Wolves are territorial. Seeing your mark makes me want to claim you, even without regard to the danger surrounding us.”

You frowned for a moment. “Are you only drawn to me because you’ve marked me?”

Sanemi’s gaze softened. “I am drawn to you, you vexatious woman, because I find you brave, kind, and at times, even a little charming.”

His hand lifted to caress your cheek, tilting your head down to meet his for a gentle kiss. “The mark is only a physical manifestation of what I already feel towards you. It is simply a way to display our bond to the world.”

Sanemi’s face turned grave and the way he said your name was serious. “You do not have to accept the bond if you’ve changed your mind.”

You shook your head hurriedly. “I want the bond — I want you,” the sincerity of your words resonated with Sanemi, as he pulled your hand to his lips, pressing soft kisses against your fingers. “This is all new to me; I just wanted to know you were sure.”

Sanemi’s soft laugh made your heart thrum, and a blush spread across your cheeks. “I am certain, Lamb, that I would not want anyone else to cause me stress apart from you.”

With a quick peck against your lips, Sanemi rose, stretching his arms high above his head. The moonlight, coupled with the residual flames of the small campfire allowed you to rake your eyes over his lithe form, appreciating every scar and swell of muscle dotting his mouthwatering physique.

But your eyes snagged on a dark stain that had spread across the front of Sanemi’s breeches. “What —?”

Sanemi did not look embarrassed, but he did turn away from you nonetheless. “I told you, Lamb,” he said causually as he dug through the satchel, pulling out a spare pair of pants. “The mark affects me far more than it affects you; at least, for now.”

“That is because of me?” Your eyes trailed his form in wonder, and the sight of the stain made your thighs clench together though you knew not why. “Is that — is that your pleasure?”

Sanemi’s lopsided grin widened, a faint snicker on his lips as he regarded you once more, spread out atop his own traveling cloak. “Yes, Lamb. It is my pleasure.”

You looked up at him, head slightly cocked in question. “But I did nothing to you — not like you did to me.”

Sanemi removed his soiled breeches and re-dressed before returning to your side. “You did not need to; as I said, the mark affects me more than you right now. My body knows I have marked you as my mate, and it is eager to make you mine.”

You shivered at the possessiveness in the words and sat up as he leaned against the small boulder, reaching up over his shoulders to tug his tunic up over his head.

“So it was only the mark?” You asked slowly, eyes dropping down to where you knew his manhood lay under his clothing. “The mark brought you pleasure?”

Warm fingers gripped gently under your chin, forcing you to look back up and meet his piercing stare.

“No, sweetling,” Sanemi said, a low growl tinting his words. “It was not merely the mark. I took pleasure from giving you pleasure.” His thumb stroked the underside of your jaw. “A great deal of it, it seems.”

You shifted until you were on your knees before him, and even the dark of the night could not conceal the way Sanemi’s eyes darkened at the sight.

“Shall I give it back to you, my Wolf?” You whispered, leaning forward to graze your lips against the crotch of his breeches. “I should like to taste you as well.”

To your surprise, neither growl nor groan rumbled from the depths of Sanemi’s chest as you poked your tongue out between your lips and gently dragged it up the seam of his pants, just as he’d done to you. Instead, what fell from Sanemi’s lips was a low, breathy whine, the wolf’s head tipping back slightly as his eyes squeezed shut.

Below the barrier of his clothing, something between his legs began to stir. Curious, you brought your hand against it, palming him slightly through the material.

“Fuck,” Sanemi hissed, and the hand around your jaw tightened, forcing you to rise to your feet.

Sanemi cracked an eye open to glare at you, but he melted at your answering pout, his thumb running over the bottom lip you’d jutted out.

“I promise you, Lamb,” he said gruffly. “I will give you plenty of my pleasure once the full moon rises; so much so, you will not know what to do with it.”

Your curiosity disrupted your self-pity. “From your knot?”

“Aye,” Sanemi confirmed, his voice like gravel. “Speaking of which,” Sanemi then tapped your rear, eliciting a small yelp from you as you separated from him.

“If you’re truly committed to taking my knot, you will need your rest, you tempestuous woman,” Sanemi scolded, and before you could protest, he bent low, wrapping his formidable hands around the backs of your thighs and hoisted you up, forcing you to lock your legs around his waist with a small gasp.

Gently, Sanemi laid you out atop his traveling cloak, bracing himself on one steely arm next to your head as he lowered himself down, allowing one quick press of his lips against yours before he pulled away, stretching out on his side.

“We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, and an even longer night.” There was a wicked gleam in his eyes that made you rub your thighs together, even as you scowled at him.

“I don’t suppose you will give me another taste of what to expect,” you sighed, resigned as Sanemi moved his head so that he could lazily dance his lips down the side of your neck.

“I’m afraid not,” his answering smirk was smug as you began to squirm beneath the hand idly fondling your breast. “But I shall make the wait worth your while.”

Your breath lodged in your throat as Sanemi leaned in close, his breath tickling your ear. “When we get to my den,” he promised, tone mischievous, yet you knew he meant every word that followed. “I am going to fucking devour you, little Lamb.”

Devour he will. Part II is fucking filthy. Stay tuned if you want to see her take his knot (again and again).

[iamred-iamyellow]

⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚ Aussie Athletes

♥ masterlist

♥ pairing: oscar piastri x fem!sargeant!ballerina!reader

♥ smau - fluff

♥ a/n: I said I'd write some ballet fics so here's one lol. I'm going to write some ship fic ballet au's (drivers as ballet dancers) after I finish my folklore and Romeo and Juliet series'. Also! I'm performing a don quixote variation this weekend so wish me luck lol :) (none of the pictures are mine)

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yourusername First Day @/ausballet

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logansargeant congrats sis

yourusername <3

user14 she's in Australia now 🫢

user3 PLEASE let that mean she'll be at more races now

yourusername 👀

user5 💗💗💗

oscarpiastri welcome to Australia

landonorris trying to get a date on main?

logansargeant don't even think about it piastri

oscarpiastri ???

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

2023 British GP

You walked into the paddock bright and early to find your brother before he was busy with qualifying. You ended up running into a different, yet familiar face instead. 

“Oh, hey Oscar,” you smiled 

“Didn’t expect you to be here with your new Australian ballet career,” he smirked and took a sip of the water he had in his hand. “You don’t have a busy schedule? 

“I do, but the season wrapped last month. I figured I’d come down here and support Logan, you know? I’ve got a lot of training to do when I get back, though.” you laughed softly. 

Oscar hummed in an understanding response. 

“How’s it been there?” 

“Good,” you paused. “Tough, too.” 

“I’m sure it is. It’s an art and a sport.” 

“People don't really consider what I do “a sport”.”

“They say the same about racing.” 

“I guess we have something to bond over.”  you smiled.

You both heard Lando call Oscar's name, gesturing for him to go to their garage. Oscar gave an awkward, blush-filled goodbye and ran towards the Brit on the other side of the pit lane.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

liked by oscarpiastri, landonorris, and 340,967 more

yourusername he says I'm so american

view comments

lilymhe top golf double date

yourusername we are so there

user7 WHO IS HE

user9 y/n x oscar crumbs

user2 crying and writing fics

logansargeant 😐

yourusername ...

user6 @/landonorris please tell us she's with oscar

user8 why would lando know?

landonorris 🤐

user8 @/user6 I'm sorry I wasn't familiar with your game, clearly Lando does know

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

liked by logansargeant, oscarpiastri, and 305,678 more

yourusername opening night 🧡

logansargeant you did amazing 💐

user2 the orange heart...

user5 NOT a coincidence

user8 AND it's f1's winter break meaning Oscar is back home in Australia where it just so happens y/n dances at

user4 the pieces of the puzzle are finally coming together

ausballet our sugar plum fairy

yourusername <3

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Time Skip - 2024

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

liked by charles_leclerc, oscarpiastri, and 670,895 more

yourusername MONACO <3

view comments

charles_leclerc welcome to the piastri-leclerc family

yourusername I'm honored, thank you charles

oscarpiastri so when should she meet my brother leo?

user6 Y/N'S APART OF THE JOKE NOW 😭

user10 someone go get Nicole

user4 y/n l/n-piastri-leclerc

logansargeant don't break her heart

oscarpiastri I won't I swear

[verstarppen]

omfg i love your fics they’re so funny 😭😭 i had an idea for a max fic that i think you would do so well 🫶 so like she’s his teammate and she has a bf (no idea who but prob another athlete or something since they tend to kinda be fboys 👀 but not another driver please because those dynamics make me cringe in second hand embarrassment 🙏) then he like cheats on her publicly, but she decides to live in idgafistan and max helps her make her ex jealous 😝 but he’s like actually been into her for a really long time and everyone ships them and stuff and then he bags her with his irresistible chronically offline awkward white boy rizz 💋

summary; cheaters deserve to get cheated out of their career, or at least that's how max justifies destroying your ex's life

pairing; max verstappen x fem! red bull driver! reader [ no faceclaim ]

warnings; suggestive language, swearing

a/n; DISCLAIMER the boyfriend is made up and also a sims 2 reference, if by chance there is a real tennis player by the name of Dominic Lothario im so sorry sir this was not written with you in mind ALSO this is my VERY sneaky way of telling everyone my favorite song is trophäe by paula carolina so naturally i had to shove the word trophy everywhere to justify using lyrics as the title I HOPE I DID YOUR PROMPT JUSTICE also i skipped over singapore because we don't talk about singapore

liked by ynln7, charles_leclerc, pierregasly and 2,104,962 others

maxverstappen1 The only time I've cheated.

view all 798,301 comments

feeltheorange WHAT DID HE SAYYYY

meepshoemaker the double take i just did cracked my neck

yukinator22 NAHHHHHHHHH

albogeant BRO DIDN'T EVEN GIVE HER TIME TO RECOVER LMAOOOOOOOO

ynln7 everyone has permission to laugh i came up with the caption

pierregasly Thank god charles_leclerc I'm going to hell I laughed before I saw your comment pierregasly Me too ynln7 assholes (affectionately)

liked by christianhorner, maxverstappen1, charles_leclerc and 4,592,577 others

ynln7 anyway

view all 909,289 comments

christianhorner This is not the team bonding I was talking about

charles_leclerc Shut up, some of us have waited years for this pierregasly Seconded danielricciardo Third...ed?

simplyclerc LET HIM COOK

lionkingseb max verstapprizz

mcmango he saw an opportunity and he took it

redbullpapaya i manifested this with magic beyond the human comprehension

liked by maxverstappen1, ynln7, christianhorner and 2,102,094 others

redbullracing An immaculate performance today from @ maxvestappen1 and @ ynln7 that’s a 6th Constructors’ Championship for the team!! 🏆 CONGRATULATIONS, WORLD CHAMPIONS!!

view all 869,291 comments

super_max they know they ate

staraikkonen the blueprint for all powercouples

shadownorris LET'S FUCKING GOOOOO

angelricciardo talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference

dominic_lothario 👎

redbullracing Shouldn't you be looking for a job? What are you doing in our comments.

kirbyvettel MAXY/N SWEEP

maxverstappen1 The trophy is not my only win this week @ ynln7

ynln7 ok now let me pass you maxverstappen1 No 🧡 You're pretty in p2

liked by maxverstappen1, charles_leclerc, christianhorner and 693,420 others

ynln7 celebrating the win the RIGHT way (playing f1 2023)

view all 108,003 comments

easportsf1 Amen

ynln7 LMAO

maxverstappen1 I let you win

ynln7 bruised ego alert

christianhorner Such a RESPONSIBLE team, aren't we?

orangleclerc THE T-SHIRT

strawberryrosberg Did they turn down the afterparty invite for this because mad respect

charles_leclerc Tell me your record, I'll beat it

ynln7 in your dreams, leclerc maxverstappen1 Beat us in real life first charles_leclerc First of all.

pic credits: instagram and pinterest

[all444miles]

— JERSEY LUV

— pairing: e-42 miles x black!fem!reader — genre: suggestive, but fluff. — summary: attractive things Miles does that just make you fold instantly. — a/n: this was js in my drafts n i was like "i should post this" while yall waiting 4 my new fic !! the entire time i was writing this I was losing my absolute SHITTT. 😭 Like, i was dead by the first hc. this might as well be those "what's it like dating miles" type shi but i wanted to make it diff, yk? listen to some kind of fold-worthy song while u read this - anyways, im waffling. enjoy, mls !! part 2 part 3 !

MILES MORALES that does not take your attitude. He loves you, yes, but if you do too much or talk crazy, he's gonna put you in your place. It's nun violent, of course, but he may just grab your neck once or twice.

"Chiquita, watch yo tone wit me." "Drop that attitude f'me." "Miss me with that voice, ma."

MILES MORALES that manspreads. that's it. that's all.

MILES MORALES that's always gonna call you by some kind of nickname. He just loves it, and you do too. Princesa, ma, hermosa, the list goes on and on. One time he called you lil mami (if you're shorter) and you actually lost it.

MILES MORALES that always has his hands on you. Your waist, your thigh, your face, everywhere. He just needs to make sure your there.

MILES MORALES that lives for your kisses and always kisses you. Doesn't matter the place, the time, nothing. If he wants a kiss from you, or wants to give you some, it's gonna happen. Especially when you have lipstick/lipgloss on.

"Mi reina, lemme love on you."

MILES MORALES that drives with one hand because his other always on your thigh. It's like his lil resting spot.

MILES MORALES that'll always let you know he misses you, he'll spam you with "i miss you" texts or voice notes w him going on abt his day when you not around ‹3

MILES MORALES that has social media but only uses it to post you. You the love of his life, why wouldn't he let evb else know that?

MILES MORALES that loves to spoil you. You like that pandora bracelet? It's yours. You have a shein cart? Its on its way. He loves to spoil his girl, its his love language atp.

MILES MORALES that always keeps eye contact with you and make sure you keep contact with him whenever yall talking. dont look away if he say sum that makes you fold, he gon grab your chin and make you face him 🤭

"Nah nah baby, don't turn away. Keep ya eyes on me."

quick @ to my boo @laaailuh

© all444miles 2023. do not plagerize, copy, or repost my work in any way shape or form, without my permission.

likes, reblogs, comments and asks are always appreciated !

[5ummit]

AO3 Ship Stats: Year In Bad Data

You may have seen this AO3 Year In Review.

It hasn’t crossed my tumblr dash but it sure is circulating on twitter with 3.5M views, 10K likes, 17K retweets and counting. Normally this would be great! I love data and charts and comparisons!

Except this data is GARBAGE and belongs in the TRASH.

I first noticed something fishy when I realized that Steve/Bucky – the 5th largest ship on AO3 by total fic count – wasn’t on this Top 100 list anywhere. I know Marvel’s popularity has fallen in recent years, but not that much. Especially considering some of the other ships that made it on the list. You mean to tell me a femslash HP ship (Mary MacDonald/Lily Potter) in which one half of the pairing was so minor I had to look up her name because she was only mentioned once in a single flashback scene beat fandom juggernaut Stucky? I call bullshit.

Now obviously jumping to conclusions based on gut instinct alone is horrible practice... but it is a good place to start. So let’s look at the actual numbers and discover why this entire dataset sits on a throne of lies.

Here are the results of filtering the Steve/Bucky tag for all works created between Jan 1, 2023 and Dec 31, 2023:

Not only would that place Steve/Bucky at #23 on this list, if the other counts are correct (hint: they're not), it’s also well above the 1520-new-work cutoff of the #100 spot. So how the fuck is it not on the list? Let’s check out the author’s FAQ to see if there’s some important factor we’re missing.

The first thing you’ll probably notice in the FAQ is that the data is being scraped from publicly available works. That means anything privated and only accessible to logged-in users isn’t counted. This is Sin #1. Already the data is inaccurate because we’re not actually counting all of the published fics, but the bots needed to do data collection on this scale can't easily scrape privated fics so I kinda get it. We’ll roll with this for now and see if it at least makes the numbers make more sense:

Nope. Logging out only reduced the total by a couple hundred. Even if one were to choose the most restrictive possible definition of "new works" and filter out all crossovers and incomplete fics, Steve/Bucky would still have a yearly total of 2,305. Yet the list claims their total is somewhere below 1,500? What the fuck is going on here?

Let’s look at another ship for comparison. This time one that’s very recent and popular enough to make it on the list so we have an actual reference value for comparison: Nick/Charlie (Heartstopper). According to the list, this ship sits at #34 this year with a total of 2630 new works. But what’s AO3 say?

Off by a hundred or so but the values are much closer at least!

If we dig further into the FAQ though we discover Sin #2 (and the most egregious): the counting method. The yearly fic counts are NOT determined by filtering for a certain time period, they’re determined by simply taking a snapshot of the total number of fics in a ship tag at the end of the year and subtracting the previous end-of-year total. For example, if you check a ship tag on Jan 1, 2023 and it has 10,000 fics and check it again on Jan 1, 2024 and it now has 12,000 fics, the difference (2,000) would be the number of "new works" on this chart.

At first glance this subtraction method might seem like a perfectly valid way to count fics, and it’s certainly the easiest way, but it can and did have major consequences to the point of making the entire dataset functionally meaningless. Why? If any older works are deleted or privated, every single one of those will be subtracted from the current year fic count. And to make the problem even worse, beginning at the end of last year there was a big scare about AI scraping fics from AO3, which caused hundreds, if not thousands, of users to lock down their fics or delete them.

The magnitude of this fuck up may not be immediately obvious so let’s look at an example to see how this works in practice.

Say we have two ships. Ship A is more than a decade old with a large fanbase. Ship B is only a couple years old but gaining traction. On Jan 1, 2023, Ship A had a catalog of 50,000 fics and ship B had 5,000. Both ships have 3,000 new works published in 2023. However, 4% of the older works in each fandom were either privated or deleted during that same time (this percentage is was just chosen to make the math easy but it’s close to reality).

Ship A: 50,000 x 4% = 2,000 removed works Ship B: 5,000 x 4% = 200 removed works

Ship A: 3,000 - 2,000 = 1,000 "new" works Ship B: 3,000 - 200 = 2,800 "new" works

This gives Ship A a net gain of 1,000 and Ship B a net gain of 2,800 despite both fandoms producing the exact same number of new works that year. And neither one of these reported counts are the actual new works count (3,000). THIS explains the drastic difference in ranking between a ship like Steve/Bucky and Nick/Charlie.

How is this a useful measure of anything? You can't draw any conclusions about the current size and popularity of a fandom based on this data.

With this system, not only is the reported "new works" count incorrect, the older, larger fandom will always be punished and it’s count disproportionately reduced simply for the sin of being an older, larger fandom. This example doesn’t even take into account that people are going to be way more likely to delete an old fic they're no longer proud of in a fandom they no longer care about than a fic that was just written, so the deletion percentage for the older fandom should theoretically be even larger in comparison.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the author of this "study" KNEW the data was tainted and chose to present it as meaningful anyway. You will only find this if you click through to the FAQ and read about the author’s methodology, something 99.99% of people will NOT do (and even those who do may not understand the true significance of this problem):

The author may try to argue their post states that the tags "which had the greatest gain in total public fanworks” are shown on the chart, which makes it not a lie, but a error on the viewer’s part in not interpreting their data correctly. This is bullshit. Their chart CLEARLY titles the fic count column “New Works” which it explicitly is NOT, by their own admission! It should be titled “Net Gain in Works” or something similar.

Even if it were correctly titled though, the general public would not understand the difference, would interpret the numbers as new works anyway (because net gain is functionally meaningless as we've just discovered), and would base conclusions on their incorrect assumptions. There’s no getting around that… other than doing the counts correctly in the first place. This would be a much larger task but I strongly believe you shouldn’t take on a project like this if you can’t do it right.

To sum up, just because someone put a lot of work into gathering data and making a nice color-coded chart, doesn’t mean the data is GOOD or VALUABLE.

[starkwlkr]

bitch, i’m a mother! | f1

female driver x f1 drivers (platonic) i like that almost every story i read about a female driver her team ends up being porsche and I’m not mad about it :) so for this fic, the reader is driving for porsche lol also I’m just making up names for the engineers and team principal. also because I’m in love with charlie hunnam, my man is gonna make an appearance

part 1 part 3

Y/N BEING THE MOTHER OF EVERY DRIVER IN THE PADDOCK

“Y/n is so great, you’re going to love her. She’s the best.” Oscar listened to his new teammate as they walked into the Porsche hospitality. The rookie immediately felt out of place with him being the only one in papaya colors while Lando was in casual clothes.

“Hey, Lando!”

“Lando! How’s it going?”

“Norris, hey!”

Lando greeted most of the Porsche team with a smile while Oscar nodded at them. “I hang out here sometime if you couldn’t tell.” Lando joked.

“So if I can’t find you in Mclaren . . ”

“There’s a big chance I might be here.”

Oscar nodded once again. “Noted. Where’s Y/n?”

As if on cue, Y/n walked into the Porsche hospitality with her team principal by her side. Once she spotted Lando, she called out his name. As the Brit approached the driver and team principal, he gave her a big hug. It was the start of the 2023 season and they hadn’t seen each in a while, of course he was going to give her a hug.

“I’ll see you around, Y/n. Nice to see you, Lando, and you must be mclaren’s rookie. Welcome to F1, I’m Adam.” The Porsche team principal greeted Oscar.

“Thank you—” before Oscar could continue, Y/n cut him off.

“I’ve heard so many great things about you! And you’re an Aussie too! What is it with Mclaren and Aussies? Whatever, I’m glad you’re here, Oscar. I hope you enjoy yourself. Have you eaten yet? I was just in my way to get breakfast. Let me tell you a secret, the Porsche hospitality has the best food in the paddock.” Oscar instantly felt at home with the female driver. She had a comforting presence that Oscar immediately took notice of.

“Told you she’s the best. Just wait until it’s your birthday. She bakes you a cake.” Lando told Oscar.

The entire grid was together for their drivers briefing early in the morning. After going over every detail of the upcoming Grand Prix, the race director decided to let the drivers voice their concerns.

“Does anyone have any questions?”

Y/n raised her hand. “I wanna know who banned the pit wall celebration.”

“Anyone else?”

“Yeah, I’d like to know as well.” Lewis added.

“We can discuss pit wall celebrations at a later time. Excuse me, I am needed somewhere else.” The race director excused himself.

“Don’t worry, I don’t care about being banned. I’ll be there like a proud mom taking millions of pictures of you when you win.” Y/n whispered to Lewis as she layed her head on his shoulder.

“And I’ll be doing the same when you win.” Lewis replied.

“What about when I win? I also want millions of pictures taken of me and the exact same chocolate cake you baked for me for my birthday a year ago. Extra sprinkles please.” Lando smiled innocently.

“Fine, win first then I’ll bake. Shouldn’t be that hard unless you got a tractor for a car.” Y/n teased. “I love you, Lando. Of course I’ll take millions of pictures of you when you win.”

It was a perfect day to race in Silverstone. Like always, Lando had his family in attendance. He was in the mclaren garage when he spotted Y/n on one of the tvs being interviewed by Lissie.

“Hey, that’s my grid mum!” He told his engineer as if his engineer didn’t already know. His smile quickly faded when a blonde man appeared behind Y/n in sunglasses. Lando then watched as the man’s name appeared on the tv.

Charlie Hunnam, actor.

Who was he and why was he with his grid mom?

“Hey, that’s the dude from Sons of Anarchy! My wife watches that series.” Lando heared someone say. He continued to watch the screen as Lissie asked Charlie a question about Y/n.

“She’s incredible, absolutely amazing. I’m happy I finally get to see her talent in person.” Charlie replied, smiling at Y/n which made her blush.

“He’s British . . ” he mumbled.

After Lissie thanked Y/n and Charlie for the interview, the camera kept rolling on them as they walked away. That’s when Lando saw Charlie hold Y/n’s hand then pressed a kiss to the back of it.

“She’s dating a British man and she didn’t tell me?!”

Lando immediately walked out the garage and straight to the Porsche garage. He had a strong feeling Y/n would be showing her new lover around so he started there. He soon spotted the couple talking with the Porsche team principal, Adam.

“Oh, hey Lando! I was about to look for you. I want you to meet Charlie.” Y/n excused herself from Adam and introduced Charlie to her grid son.

“It’s very nice to meet you, mate. Y/n had told me a lot about you.” Charlie smiled.

“Yeah, I’ve heard nothing about you. Nada, zero, not a single thing, zilch.” Lando then turned his attention to Y/n. “I think we need to talk.”

“Okay . . ” Y/n said confused as she turned to Charlie to tell him she would be right back. Lando took her hand and dragged her to a corner away from Charlie. “Lando! What’s wrong? Are you nervous about today?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a boyfriend?”

Oh.

“You always tell me everything and now I kinda feel betrayed. Especially when i also found out he’s British!” Lando said dramatically.

“Lando, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but it just sorta happened. We met a few months ago and he’s made me the happiest ever since. I wanted to introduce you properly today.” Y/n explained.

“He makes you happy? Like genuinely happy? Because if he doesn’t I will run him over repeatedly.” Lando warned.

Y/n laughed and brought Lando in for a hug. “I know you would, but there’s no need for that. I think he’s the one.”

“Before you leave, there’s actually one more gift for you and you don’t have to guess who it’s from.”

Logan was confused, but happily accepted the gift. It was the annual F1 secret santa and he had just finished unwrapping his present. A gift wrapped perfectly with a blue bow was placed in front of him. The tag read ‘From Y/n’ in neat handwriting.

“Thank you, Y/n! I don’t even want to open it, it’s wrapped so good.” Logan chuckled.

Every year, anyone who got a nicely wrapped gift knew it was from Y/n. And any year that someone new entered the season, Y/n would give them a gift during secret santa. She did it for Lando, George, Alex, Charles, Yuki and Guanyu when they were rookies and now she was doing it for Logan and Oscar. She had even sent Nyck a present as well, she wished he was in the paddock doing secret santa as well though.

“Okay, I’ll open it, I’m too curious.” Logan finally unwrapped the present and saw it was a Miami Heat jersey singed by LeBron James. Logan almost freaked out when he saw the signature.

“Holy shit! Wait sorry, I can’t curse, but holy shit!” He took the jersey out of the box and admired it. “This is incredible.”

“You love it?” He heard the familiar comforting voice of Y/n from behind him. “I hope it’s the right size.” She joined Logan in front of the camera.

“It is, don’t worry,” he chuckled as he gave her a hug. “Thank you so much, I love it.”

“I think you just adopted another son.” The camera man told her.

“I love all my grid sons equally.”

[kingofbodyrolls]

Jimin fic recs 2024 🥳

It’s Jimin’s birthday, and of course I haven’t forgotten! And even though I’m not doing my monthly rec lists anymore, I’d still love and hope to make recs on each member’s birthday at least 🫶

Therefore, I want to share my ultimate favorite Jimin stories that I’ve read this past year (2023-2024)💜 Have I recommended these before? Yes. But I will not stop screaming about these stories because they are so fucking amazing!! I want to thank each and every writer on this list for creating such wonderful stories and art - you are truly amazing ✨ All the fics on this list hold a dear place in my heart 🥹🥳

❗Most of these fics are smutty as hell or contains dark themes, so minors dni.❗ 

If you read anything on this list and you like it, please leave a comment to the writer or reblog the fic, it might seem like a tiny gesture, but it really means a lot for writers and I can guarantee it will put a smile on their faces💜 Let’s share and give lots of love!

Looking for more to read? Check ‘The Library’, last years Jimin recs or  last years recs 🙂

[index] → jan | feb (jhs) | mar (myg) | apr | may | jun | jul | aug | sep (jjk)(knj) | oct (💜) | nov | dec (kth)(ksj) |

Emoji meaning → angst = 🌩️, smut = 🥵, fluff = 🥰, comedy = 😂, yandere = 😈, thriller/dark = 👻, fantasy = 🪄. 

⭐The Airport Couple: P[ass]anger from Hell + Drabble @dovechim & @jimlingss [8K] // pjm x f.reader // e2l, frequent traveler jimin x tsa agent reader // 😂😂😂🥰

📝 as a TSA agent, you expect your job to be relatively easy, most passengers these days follow the rules to the T in order to avoid prolonging their custom checks. But not a certain Park Jimin, who seems to have a problem understanding what 100ml is, or the very simple fact that gadgets must be taken out of the bag, and bomb jokes are strictly off limits. Frequent traveller Park Jimin is your nemesis, but darn is he a cute one.

🗨️ this is just so fucking hilarious, don’t get me started. I laughed from beginning to end 😂 And it’s still as good as I remember, if not even better??? Like ✨ I’ve highlighted a few of my favorite parts from the fic. I don’t want to give too much away, but these lines are just so damn hilarious! Please go read it, it’s one of my faves.

⭐The Airport Couple: Park Jimin’s Cock[pit] @jimlingss & @dovechim [12K] // pjm x f.reader // pilot!au, bf2l, coworkers!au // 😂🥰🥵

📝talk about Angry Birds, and most people would immediately think of the mobile game app. But within your circle of friends, it stands for something else. It’s synonymous with Park Jimin, one of the most talented pilots from your batch who also just happens to have anger issues, or in other words, air rage. He is your best friend, but when you get teamed up with him as his co-pilot, you can only pray that things don’t go south… literally. 

🗨️ I remember reading this a few years ago, and I loved it then and I still do ✨ It is incredibly funny, has good banter and dialogue to match. The chemistry between reader and Jimin is just priceless, their friendship is just pure giggles 🥹 It’s also fluffy and will tug on your heartstrings in the best way possible. Just really, really good and definitely also one of my all-time favorites 💜

⭐Couchsurfer @heartbeatan [6K] // pjm x f.reader // s2l // 🥵🥰

📝 this was left intentionally blank 🫥

🗨️ omg this was so fucking good! First, really well written and the pacing was lovely, even though it’s short and one night they spend together 🥹 the build up of their tension and their chemistry was off the charts! So impeccably done! Fuck. I loved it ✨ it’s insane how good this story is and Jimin is just so sweet, romantic and nasty 🥵 I can’t tell you how turned on I got by the description of how Jimin handled OC, like damn 🥵 this is so fucking good, please don’t sleep on the this beauty 💖 Normally, I’m not one for one night stands, because I catch feelings for the characters, but this has a lovely ending that I loved - so fucking good! Lol. Can not stop screaming about this one. Please go read it, fuck. PLEASE 😌 ✨

⭐The Devil in His Details @johobi [9.2K] // pjm x f.reader // college!au // 🥵

📝 evil comes in many forms. In this instance, it’s a 5′8″ pretty-boy with an even prettier dick. And you’re the form you want him to come in.

🗨️ I am MIND BLOWN 🤯🥵 This is one of the dirtiest, filthiest fics I’ve EVER read. Like it’s in the top five, if not even top three! 🤤 It was fucking perfection, the writing, fucking amazing, the dynamic/tension between Jimin and OC—Fuck. GOLD. Abso-fucking-lutely one of the very best fanfics I’ve read ✨

⭐Go Go @inkjam-moon [9.2K]  // pjm x f.reader // best friend!au // 🥵🥰

📝 Jimin’s been your best friend since you were little; but coming from a rich family he’s paid for everything, and he doesn’t realize that it hurts you when you can’t pay him back for all the presents and vacations. When he becomes CEO of his own successful company, it gets worse because he promised to always take care of you, but when secrets come out on the night of your graduation from university, will Jimin be able to keep his promise?

🗨️ this was so fucking sweet 🥹 💜 their friendship is so precious, and the way that they ended up waiting so many fucking years before telling each other about their feelings for each other 🥹 almost pulled them apart 😭 really beautiful ✨

⭐Oui @pixieknj [2.1K]  // pjm x f.reader // established relationship // 🥵🥰🌩️

📝 almost getting caught with your boyfriend…

🗨️ this was so good! Short and sweet ✨

⭐Peaches and Cream @snackhobi [9.1k]  // pjm x f.reader // neighbor!au // 🥵

📝 you wouldn’t mind your cute neighbour being such a shameless fuckboy if a) the walls weren’t so thin and b) he didn’t seem intent on adding you as another notch in his bedpost. 

🗨️ I’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO LOOK AT PEACHES THE SAME WAY AGAIN 🥵 Thank you very much, this was so fucking hot I think I’m malfunctioning. And now, I’ve time I’ll eat a peach, or watch other people eat peaches— I’ll forever think of this story 🥵✨

⭐Our ‘Get Along’ Shirt @dreamyjoons [14.2k]  // pjm x f.reader // e2l // 🥵

📝 another day, another endless round of you and Jimin bickering. It’s never ending, all-consuming, and your friends have had enough. Namjoon decides to end it once and for all - with help from a shirt for squabbling toddlers.

🗨️ JFHKJSFKSDJDH— This was so fucking hilarious 😂 The sexual tension between them was SO HIGH 🥵 and when they finally snapped, oh dear God, it was so good! And the whole shit concept, so hilarious and their banter 😂 AND THE SWEAT??? I’m weak okay!! So freaking good, I loved it so much and Namjoon and the rest of the gang were just priceless. Jin at the end had me laughing so hard 🤭

⭐Just a Taste @yoonieper [14.2k]  // pjm x f.reader // vampire!au, established relationship // 🥵🌩️😂

📝 they said having a relationship with a human wasn’t a good idea, but Jimin liked you too much to ever let that get in the way. Your relationship was beautiful, yes you didn’t know that small important detail about him being a bloodthirsty vampire, but he had it under control. That’s at least what he thought, he never would have predicted a drought….

🗨️ FUCK 😭 This was so fucking good I don’t even know where to begin??? The story in itself was so extremely good, whaaat. And Jimin was so nice, and their love for each other, so fucking pure 💜 This was an emotional rollercoaster and I fucking loved everything about it 😭 and the smut, God, it was so good— I don’t know what to say 😭 And then at the ending, the angst, fuck, I was so afraid if it was going to end just like that, but I was so glad that they found each other again 😭 This is a new favorite of mine, so good, it was slightly sad at times, like angsty, but the love that the have for each other, FUCK. So so fucking incredible 😭 Don’t mind all the crying, it’s happy tears, I promise 💖 Also, it’s mostly told in Jimin’s POV, which I just freaking love and it makes the story so good!!!

⭐High on Love @peachypinkygloss [6.4k]  // pjm x f.reader // established relationship, racer!jimin // 🥵

📝 Jimin has once again won a race and he takes you out on a ride for the night, taking dangerous but very exciting risks. He should have expected that the rush of adrenaline in your body always turns you into a horny mess.

🗨️ I am just BLOWN AWAY by the fic– holy molly, was it dirty? Yes! Needy? Yes! Cute? Yes! Oh and the car racing, love, love, love! Like, everything in this. And the smut 🥵🥵🥵 I mean, it was so dirt and needy (yes I know I’m using the same words, lol), but FUCK. Incredible! Another ont to add to my faves ✨ And a big bonus for the phone messages, because that was fucking hot too!!! 🥵

⭐The Ten Days of Ex-Mas: pt1 + pt2 @kpopfanfictrash [44.6k]  // pjm x f.reader // holiday!au, second chance!au, hockey!au, exes to loves // 🥵🥰🌩️

📝 three months following the worst break-up of your life, you finally feel ready to start moving on. The world, it seems, has other ideas when you pick up the phone and find your ex-boyfriend calling. Jimin Park, star right winger of the NHL and (until recently), the love of your life, has a very large problem. Despite the courage he regularly shows on the ice, in his personal life, Jimin is kind of a coward. When you broke up this fall, he could barely admit it. Not to his neighbors. Not to his friends. Not even to his family, who are expecting him home for Christmas. In a desperate plea for more time, Jimin begs you to pretend you’re still dating – and to his surprise, you agree. Faced with a second chance, Jimin is determined not to squander it. If only fixing a relationship were as easy as falling in love.

🗨️ okay. Okay. Okay. *deep calm breaths* —THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY GOOD, I truly don’t know where to begin! The plot? The hurt/anger? Their chemistry? Their sexiness? Fuck, like everything in this is making it a beautiful masterpiece 💖 I really love how each of them thinks about what happened with their relationship, are working to get better, though Jimin should have been honest about his intentions for the trip, everything was just so fucking amazing 😭 I really loved the aspect of self reflection, seeking therapy, working through it and all that— really payed of for the characters! Loved it, it was so good 💜

⭐The Pitfalls of Silk + drabble @ctrlhope [20k]  // pjm x f.reader // s2l, hybrid!au, soulmate!au // 🥰🥵😈🪄

📝 the winter gods are out to get you. That could be the only possible explanation for the series of bad luck tumbling before you— tropical vacation cancelled, snow locking you inside. Hell, even your shovel broken in half has got to be the gods playing some sort of trick on you. Pulling you along, making decisions for you as they guide you along the red string of fate. Guide you towards the very spider that found his way into your basement. Allowing him to fall into your heart all the same. 

🗨️ I truly don’t know where to begin with this one— damn. It was so fucking amazing!! The world building and writing was perfect and the tension and how their relationship built over time too. Everything is just so exceptional!!! 👏 And the smut, holy shit— 🥵 I’m lost for words 😭 And their dialogues and thoughts, having both of the povs mixed together just made it so amazing 😭 I really loved it and this is another clear new one to add to my favorites 😭💖

⭐The Group Project @noona-la-la-la [8k]  // pjm x f.reader x kth // roommate!au + threesome // 🥵

📝 Jimin is jealous when his best friend and roommate, Taehyung, has a date with the girl Jimin has a crush on.

🗨️ fuck this was so GOOD!!!  Best friend Tae 💜 It was so freaking hot and sinful, like????? Jimin watching them, and then Tae just being best friend ever at the end 🥵 Also, the dialogues were so fucking good! I really loved everything in this 😭

⭐Just a Little Bit of Love (is all you really need) @gukyi [4.5k]  // pjm x f.reader // s2l, gymnastics/dancer!au // 🥰

📝 jimin’s something of a legend at gymnastics, but suddenly you walk in and turn his whole world upside down. quite literally, might i add. 

🗨️ this is so freaking cute and sweet 🤭🥹 It’s completely SFW, and so so good! 

⭐Cherry Blossoms @chateautae [12k]  // pjm x f.reader // magic!au, mentor!jimin // 🥰🥵🌩️🪄

📝 despising the lack of offensive capability to your lackluster powers, your father, the school’s chancellor, signs you up for lessons with the magic university’s top-rated guard, park jimin. known to be an intense, reserved man with ruthless skills in battle, you come to learn he not only goes hard in a fight, but goes hard in another ruthless form of art—fucking.

🗨️ omg 😭 perfection?? That is what this was! The story and plot is cool and cohesive, the dynamic between MC and Jimin, damn it was hot! She doesn’t really believe in herself, but he believes in her, and tries to get her to see her own potential 🥹🥹🥹🥹 Cute! But then it gets filthy! And hot! There’s rain!!!! There’s smut in the rain! What more can I ask for?? ✨ It was just amazing! I loved it! Also all the magic, MC’s ability and then Jimin’s magic! They’re almost a contrast to each other, which I also really like! This is hands down one of my all time favorites!!! 💜✨

⭐Blooming Days @bluekyun [15.3k] // pjm x f.reader // university!au, bf2l, pregnancy!au // 🥰🌩️🥵😂

📝 a typical night for you begins at the library in your favorite chair underneath the lamp in the corner, only to be picked up at 3am by your best friend, Jimin. Despite having slept over in his room several times before, this certain night in Sigma house leads to far more than you ever imagined. But what is to come of your friendship once you reveal those two little lines that will change your lives forever?

🗨️ ahhhh this was so cute, lovely, fluffy and funny! It was also sprinkled with a bit of angst that made me tear up and scared for a moment 🥺 but the ending was happy 🥰 I really loved it 💖

⭐Never Falling + Forever Falling + Free Falling @yoonia [21k + 30.5k + 22k] // pjm x f.reader // e2l, singer!Jimin, non-idol!au, workplace!au, assistant!reader // 🌩️🥵

📝 for Park Jimin, you are everything he will ever need—his assistant, his housekeeper, his task runner, his fairy godmother. For you, he is more than everything. You have dedicated your life for him and, before you even realised it, your heart belongs to him alone. The only problem is that he is never yours, and you are living in a world that your love for him is nothing more than a fairytale ending. As you are suddenly given a chance to wake up and face the real world, will you be ready to embrace it? Will he be ready to deal with the world without you in it?

🗨️ this has been on my trl for forever, and then, it was only a one-shot, so color me pleased and pleasantly surprised to find out that this is now a freaking trilogy 🤯✨ I loved everything in it, and it’s so fucking amazing— if you have not already read it, you are certainly missing out! This is definitely one of my all time favorites 💎

⭐Eldorado @smoochkooks [38k] // pjm x f.reader // gold diggers!au, e2l, slowburn, adventure!au // 🥰🌩️🥵

📝 not all that glitters is gold but you, qualified gold digger, carrying on your back immense experience acquired all around the globe, came to the city of el paso del conte with one goal in your mind: to hit the jackpot of the eldorado of Texas. and nothing, no tragedies and adversities will stop you from pursuing it. but in every fairytale-like, too-good-to-be-true story, there’s a catch. this time, it comes in the name of park jimin, annoyingly handsome archeologist, your sworn enemy and biggest rival. 

🗨️ this has been on my trl list for some many fucking years 😭 well, I finally got to read it! And it was amazing, it was so fucking funny! Filled with witty banter, jokes and stereotypical jokes 😂 World building was so good too! And the smut? Fire 🥵 I really loved it 💖

This is my little corner with my own fics— I don’t write that much anymore (I prefer to read), but it would mean a lot to me if you checked out my work or read it. You don’t have to, it’s up to you of course 🥰

⭐Coming Home (series; completed) [44k] // pjm x f. reader // childhood bf2l, trauma/healing  // 🌩️🥵🥰😂👻😈

📝 when your best friend, Park Jimin, who you’ve had a crush on since forever, suggests you stay at his house to heal and find yourself again after a series of traumatizing events had haunted you for years, you don’t hesitate to accept. Within those walls, a safe haven is woven, where wounds can heal and memories find release. As he nurtures your shattered spirit, an unexpected intimacy unfurls, leaving the fragile barrier between friendship and deeper emotions in question - can you keep your feelings hidden?

🗨️ this is actually the first story I posted on my blog, and the first fanfic I managed to finish writing in ten fucking years. It will forever have a special place in my heart, but please be aware of the very triggering themes in it, okay?

⭐The Winter Collection (series; completed) [16.8k] // pjm x f. reader // e2l // 🥵😂

📝 you don’t know how you ended up here. Stuck with your mortal enemy, Park Jimin, in you car – in a fucking snowstorm.

🗨️ this is a collection of one shots that is with the same couple in the same universe (which is a series 😝). It’s basically just a crack fic. 

⭐My Heart’s Home (series; completed) [237.6k] // pjm x f. reader // childhood bf2l, ranch!au, cowboy!au // 🌩️🥵🥰😂

📝 you’d never thought you’d step foot back at the ranch– a place you used to call home a long time ago. When you are forced to go back, reconcile with your sister and a certain childhood friend that you had long forgotten, will sparks reunite?

🗨️ this is a very, very, very long story lol 😂 It is en extreme emotional roller-coaster, but it’s really worth it. It’s also inspired by the amazing show McLeod’s Daughters 🥰

⭐Last Night in Magic Shop [12.5k] // pjm x f. reader // s2l, one night stand, vampire!au  // 🥵🪄

📝 you find yourself down at the local club, Magic Shop, because your best friend feels like your lovelife is dry as ice. You did not plan on meeting a handsome stranger, who moves his body like an angel, but speaks like the devil. Feeling like he might match your nasty needs, you take him home, enjoying an unforgettable night filled with pleasure.

🗨️ my first vampire story! It’s just a silly thing. 

⭐Whalien52 [10.6k]  // pjm x f. reader // kittygang!jimin, apocalyptic, survival, dystopian // 🌩️🥵👻

📝 you’ve been working for the New World Order as an assassin for years, guarding secrets without batting an eye or asking questions. But when a striking pink haired man shows up at the headquarters stealing information, he makes you question everything. With all of humanity at stake, what will you do? 

🗨️ this one is actually part of a Yoongi series, but this is a stand-alone one shot, but it’s within the same universe as ‘End of The World’.

I have a few more Jimin stories that I didn’t list here, but these are my faves. I have written for most of the other members too—you can check out my masterlist here [link] 💜

And as a something little extra, here’s a few fics that I haven’t had the time to read yet, but damn I’m buzzing to get to read them:

In Flagrante Delicto @hisunshiine

Off the Grid (series; completed) @xpeachesncream

Ho-Ho-Home (series; completed) @jjungkookislife

Fairytail @gukyi

Menace (series; completed) @eoieopda

The Misadventures List (series; ongoing/discontinued) @kimvvantae

All Fervent Manner @yoonia

Blue Kamikaze @gguksgalaxy

The Ocean @dovechim

Dreaded Neighbors (series; completed) @99liners

Happy birthday my soulmate, Park Jimin!!!! 🥳💜✨