#god. prev so fucking true

[luck-of-the-drawings]

[<==PREV PAGES] [NEXT PAGE==>(not out yet.wait a year.or maybe more.imagine.]

saw alot of comments on prev pages; saying 'i HATE that mean teacher! im gonna FIGHT HIM!!' & i LOVE the energy!! it WOULD be nice. to have that catharsis. but the story of young tidestrider is Not one of catharsis. it is a story of being so small and so special and sucking so bad.

[spin-in-time]

If you prefer the newer seasons of ninjago over the older seasons (pilot-s5/s7) we are fundamentally different people

[enlighten3d]

REALLLLL

the pipeline of fixating over some thingy

[sophiethewitch1]

What We Want - Chpt. 6 - Round Two. Fight!

In Which A Romantic Breaks The Universe

(Yandere!batboys x f!reader) 18+ MDNI!

SUMMARY

Another lonely birthday, another empty year. You miss your family. You're late for your bills and rent, and even then, you got robbed last Tuesday.

Still, you buy yourself a cupcake, because you need it. I mean, hey. What's dessert for if not to get over cheating boyfriends and dead relatives?

As you blow out the candle, watching the clock switch from 11:59 pm to midnight of the next day, you make a wish.

And because the world doesn't like to make much sense, it comes true. Your life is suddenly flipped on a dime, and you're stuck trying to catch up with it. Fantasy becomes reality. You're a Wayne now, apparently. Or you used to be. You're loved, you're rich, you're talented and powerful.

Well, sort of. Careful what you wish for, right?

(TRIGGER WARNINGS AND MASTERLIST HERE)

PREV - NEXT

Damn. Your indulgent TV stalking of the Wayne’s really doesn’t hit the same once you technically knew them. And you were hiding inside one of their bedrooms, inside one of their clothes, using their TV subscription. It just didn’t feel right. Morally, of course, but that wasn’t what you were talking about. No, you were just pissy your favourite pastime was basically ruined. You shovel another spoonful of cookie dough ice cream into your mouth, glaring through tired eyes at the screen.

There’s an up-close shot of Dick Grayson’s abs. The presenter ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ over his physical form, and you have to agree. You wish you had abs like that. Unfortunately, you did respond to most unwanted experiences with stress eating. As always with these celebrity figures, you can’t really tell if you want to be Dick or be with Dick. Your butt is nowhere near the level his is at.

While you hadn’t really set out today looking for shirtless pictures of the Waynes, it wasn’t like you were going to say no to them. So, when the gossip channel had switched from the reactions of the Waynes to last night’s fiasco to… this… you’d just kept watching.

You wonder if you should stop doing this. It’s definitely kind of creepy, and now you’d technically once been his… step-sister. What a mind fuck. You’ve been crushing on these dudes for a while, and now they were your ex-step siblings. This was like the start of a bad porno, but you knew you were not that lucky. And it wasn’t like you were going to start thinking of him as a brother any time soon. You hadn’t even met the guy. No, he was still firmly in the ‘celebrity crush’ section of your mind. Pretty and untouchable. The way things are supposed to be.

Which was also bad because you would probably have to meet and interact with him at some point. Probably in the near future. God knows you’d absolutely humiliated yourself in front of the fucking Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne,. Twice, in fact. You didn’t even want to think about the display you’d shown for Bruce Wayne or Damian Wayne.

You didn’t really know what to do with your slightly obsessive crushes. And you could see it definitely being a problem in the near future.

…You decide that what you do in your private time is absolutely nobody but your business, and keep watching. It’s a mix of bitter spite and genuine mental breakdown levels of desperation that leads you to that decision. You feel like you’re a child with their toy being taken away, and it’s making you mad. And sad too. Even if you shouldn’t do this anymore, you still want to keep the habit. You’d mentioned before your creature comforts were one of the few things that kept you going. And while you were mostly very good at not being the jealous, heinous creature you really are, you knew you wouldn’t be giving this up.

They’d have to tear your gossip channels from your cold dead palms. You weren’t giving them up, not without a fight at least. Unfortunately for you, the universe seemed determined to wrestle away literally everything you loved.

Guilt’s for tomorrow. Today is for ice cream and purposefully ignoring everything. Speaking of which, you can not remember the last time you had a good Ben & Jerry’s. They were so expensive these days, as all groceries were. You simply couldn’t afford it. The Waynes, of course, had multiple tubs in multiple different options. Alfred had seemed delighted that you’d taken the ice cream, for which reasons you could not perceive.

Oh, yeah! His name was Alfred. Very butler-y. You’d remember it this time, he was a very nice man. And he called you ‘young miss’ which earned him points. He also didn’t seem to hate you on sight or treat you like a two-headed freak, like some of the other people in this household. Not naming names. Yeah, fuck that noise, Damian Wayne obviously has issues and it’s much less attractive in real life.

The woman drones on, and your eyes flick to your phone. Yup, she’s still yapping. It’s not like you don’t appreciate Dick’s abs or anything, it’s just that you think she might’ve been talking about this one specific photo for over half an hour now. Lady should get a hobby. Wait, wait, this is her job. Maybe you should start a podcast where you rant about the Wayne’s exercise regimes. It seems to be quite a lucrative field.

You shriek when the door slams open, nearly tumbling backwards off the bed. Hands manage to grip the bedcovers before you tip over, not making a complete fool of yourself. As it goes, you lose your spoon to the carpet. Bits of cookie dough spread over the floor in a divine sacrifice. And you lose your sanity to the man standing in the doorway. To be fair, he looks just as confused as you feel.

You blink at the physically perfect form of Dick Grayson and then turn your head to the TV to look at the other physically perfect form of Dick Grayson.

…You really wish you had a good explanation for this.

He mutters out your name, lips parted. Dick Grayson seems absolutely shocked to find you here. His eyes flick around the room and eventually land on the TV. Said baby blues widen to the size of saucers when the reporter makes a really, really unnecessary comment.

“And in news that broke the hearts of both ladies and gentlemen everywhere in Bludhaven, Dick Grayson has announced he will be returning to Gotham to assist his family in this difficult time. My cousin in the Blud is probably crying right now. There’s no ass out there quite like his, and there’s no replacement for Bludhaven’s favourite young rich bachelor,” she winks at the camera, and then the shot of his toned stomach phases forward to take up the entire screen.

Well, there’s a lot to say about that. First of all, fuck. Second of all, shit. Third of all, she really couldn’t have said that part about Dick coming back to Gotham sooner? Perchance, before you’d found yourself in this situation?

You said you weren’t that lucky, you meant it.

“But still, ain’t that lucky for us Gothamites? I myself have spent a lot of time on Dick’s Tiktok and Instagram, and his acrobatic videos have been used in a lot of my personal-”

You snatch the remote from the sheets and pause it right there. The silence is tense. You wait for him to say something, but he just stares at you. Completely stunned, mouth-catching flies. You want to pull the covers up and hide under them, but you don’t think that’d make him leave.

“I couldn’t find my room,” you finally manage to say. It’s the worst excuse you’ve ever heard, sounds like a complete lie. And yet, unfortunately, it is the truth.

Dick’s eyes drift to the TV, which you still haven’t unpaused. You can’t tell if it would be worth it, just to get rid of his golden brown abs staring at you judgementally, even if you’d have to deal with the extra embarrassment of the dialogue over them. Maybe if you muted the TV? It wouldn’t make up for the insult of his paparazzi photos on a widescreen.

It takes you even longer to come up with an excuse for… that.

“I was checking the news about last night,” you continue, the panic in you rising like a tea kettle left on the stove for too long. You might start shrieking like one too.

You don’t think he believes you. He looks down at the Beatles shirt you’re wearing. You know what he’s going to say before he does, but you still dread it.

“You’re wearing my clothes,” he mutters, his voice awed.

You want to say, ‘Nooo! No, no, no! Don’t do this to me, damn it! Not anymore! No more, please! It’s enough, enough suffering! This is genuinely ridiculous, damn you!’ but instead you reply with a shaky, “…Didn’t have any of mine.”

Also, you’ve been huffing Eau de Dick Grayson? That’s definitely in character for you. You want to beat your own head in with a stick.

“And I couldn’t find my room, and uh, thought this one wasn’t being used,” you continue, daring a glance back at him. He still looks completely stumped.

“It wasn’t,” he answers, but it sounds like he’s a thousand miles away.

You know, Dick Grayson was supposed to be a lot more charming than this. You’re almost proud you managed to stun the man into near speechlessness. Almost, almost. Almost not going to kill yourself once he leaves.

If he leaves. He doesn’t look like he’s getting up. You eye the gap between you and the door. Your animal brain is telling you to just run for it. But Dick has Olympic level athletics, and you don’t doubt he could catch you if you ran. Would he try though? That’s the deciding factor here.

He doesn’t seem like he’s actually going to fucking do anything though. He just keeps staring, like if he looks for long enough, it’ll all start to make sense. Which, you wish.

“Do you know where my room is? I couldn’t… remember…”

He nods, instead staring at his own abs on the TV.

“Can you take me to my room?”

He nods again. Still doesn’t look back at you.

“…Mr. Grayson?” you say, and almost immediately regret it. ‘You’ wouldn’t have used his last name, even though you might’ve. ‘You’ had been a casual person, as far as you could tell. That was the kindest way you could say it, at least.

His head snaps to you. He somehow looks more confused. You wonder if you should pinch him or something, god knows you’ve done your fair share of pinching yourself recently.

“Yes, right, sorry. Let’s… go,” he gives you a cheery smile, shaking his head, but it seems quite strained. You’re probably matching. This is the most humiliating moment of your life, and of course, it’s with the most beautiful man on earth right beside you.

A break. You want a break.

The two of you quietly shuffle out of the room, and when he guides you forward, you follow him obediently. Your head naturally bows, shame making it hard to look at him. You stare at the wooden floors as you walk. Watching it shine in the morning light that filters through the windows.

Eventually, he comes to a stop in front of a door that has obviously been avoided. Though it’s as clean as every other inch of this house, there are no marks in the rug from the door opening and closing. And even then, it seems… well, it sounds silly, but the door seems sad to you. Too many things seem sad to you these days.

Your thoughts must show on your face because Dick clears his throat and gives you a worried look. Is it rude to say you’re sick of those sorts of looks? That they just make you feel sick and burdened these days? It’s not like you could bring your family back from the dead, or convince your cheating boyfriend to not be a piece of shit. It was out of your hands.

“…Are you alright?” he asks you, blue eyes sincere. You tilt your head to the side.

“No?” you say, but it sounds more like a question. No, you are not alright. Yes, you will be okay. It’s the only option. It’s one of your rules. You have to be okay. You just have to.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

You almost laugh.

“No,” this time your voice is firm, confident. Dick seems like he’s going to push it, but something in your eyes makes him stop. You give him a forced smile and say goodbye, closing the door gently in his face. Once you do, you crouch down and once again, press your face to your knees. Then you press your hands to your mouth and let out a scream that had been bubbling up for a while. After that, you feel you can live with the humiliation that is your existence without jumping out the three-story-height window.

You stand up, turning to the room. The first thing you notice about it is that there’s dust in here. Same as Dick’s old room. Now that you think about it, Alfred doesn’t seem the type who’d randomly leave certain rooms uncleaned, so it must be something he does out of respect for the tenants of Wayne Manor. Or maybe the old you requested it? God knows.

Sitting down on the old bed, your eyes rove around the room. It’s well decorated, as the rest of the manor is, but you can’t see anything that would make it your room. There’s none of the novels you’d collected from the used books store, no dorky little items you impulse bought, no pictures of your family. The apartment hadn’t had those either.

‘You’- she- seemed like a ghost to you. While you’d often felt like you’d barely been alive, simply going through the motions, this girl seemed like she hadn’t even been conscious half the time she was doing it. It made your stomach swim, your face pulls taught.

While you’d had few things holding you afloat, it’d been enough to keep you alive. Molly, your co-workers, the need to work so as to not starve to death. She hadn’t had anything like that. No liferaft. You’d been sputtering and gasping your way through life, and she’d been drowning. Maybe already dead, at the bottom of the sea, hair tangling with the seaweed.

This room feels like a coffin, and this manor like a cemetery. It makes you physically sick.

Showing off your fickle-mindedness, you realise that despite this being the Wayne manor filled with all your idols, you actually don’t want to fucking be here. You need space to clear your head, and the creaking floorboards that echo down the creepy hallways just don’t offer that. The atmosphere at your too-modern, too-minimalist apartment is leagues better than the atmosphere at this gorgeous old house which you’d usually love spending hours getting lost in.

Usually. Unfortunately, this place was more suffocating than the workplace when you knew you were about to get fired again. And you weren’t getting paid to stay here, so why the fuck would you?

Once you realise you’ve decided to run, you’re quick to pack up your shit. There’s not much in the room you need. A pair of sneakers, because you would rather die than put those heels on again. And you’ll grab some shirts because they’re comfy and remind you of home. Hopefully, it’ll make everything… grate… a little less. All of this is thrown in an old ratty backpack, which is then tossed over your shoulder. Shoes slipped on, and tapped against the floor so they’re on comfortably. And then you’re ready. Ready as you’ll ever be. With one hand on your phone, you take a peek outside the door. Coast is clear.

You press call for ‘The Wicked Witch of the West’. Jeanine picks up on the third ring.

“Hello, Jeanine Ryans here,” she says, her voice all business.

“Jeanine, I need an evac, stat,” you whisper to her, creeping down the hallway of the manor. The floor is unbelievably creeky, so it’s pretty fucking difficult to be stealthy about it.

“…What?”

“Get me out of this fucking manor, please,” you beg, now going down the stairs. Almost out, almost out.

“Right, on it. I’ll have a car outside in ten minutes if that’s alright?” Jeanine replies, immediately on the case. It almost makes you cry. You know she’s being paid for this, and very desperate for the job for some reason, but it’s still a hail mary that you are so grateful for.

“Thank you, thank you so much,” you say, turning a corner and-

Oh, fuck. Damian Wayne glares down at you, green eyes cataloguing every single guilty piece of you in existence. He sees your hand tighten around your backpack, hears Jeanine telling you not to worry through your phone, and probably notices the way your eyes desperately flicker behind him to the door. To your goal, to the exit to this labyrinth.

You can practically hear the wind blowing, see the tumbleweed drift by.

And then, he moves past you, twisting his body so no part of it touches you. There’s a moment where your brain freezes, something spicy smelling (cinnamon, maybe?) flowing past you, and by the time you turn around, he’s gone. Your deer-in-headlights tensed-shoulders look falls, leaving you confused in the foyer. He didn’t even say a word to you. You felt like you just got passed over by a boss from a Dark Souls game.

…Well, you’ll take the wins where you can find them! Quickly, you hurry out the front door, skittering down the steps like some sort of rat. It’s a long walk to the gates, and you don’t really know how to open them to let the car in, so you decide to take your time and enjoy the walk. The early morning dew apon the clean-cut blades of grass glint and sparkle, the gravel on the road crunches under your technically-not-stolen sneakers, and even if it’s a miserable life, it’s a pretty day. From the hill the manor lives upon, you can see Gotham’s tall skyline, cloaked in its characteristic fog.

Eventually, you find yourself in front of the gate, where you can see Jeanine waiting with a black car on the otherside. There’s a big green button next to the side gate, which you press, and it clicks open. There’s a moment where your neck tingles, and you glance up at the camera pointed down at you. The red flickering light beside it holds your attention. You can see your bedraggled reflection in its lense.

Shaking your head, you move on, greeting Jeanine. She gives you a quick bow of the head and opens the door for you. You hike the bag over your shoulder, give the Wayne manor one final, lingering look and then you step into the car. Jeanine starts speaking to you about some future appointments you have, and you’re too tired to understand a word of what she says. She realises you’re not processing anything she says, and hands you a pair of headphones with a wire adapter.

You could kiss her right then and there. You don’t because that’d be weird, but you definitely think about it. Headphones on, you watch the rolling hills and luxurious manors turn into highways and honking traffic, to finally the upside part of town which was now apparently where you lived.

Eventually you find yourself being delivered in front of your swanky new apartment. With a passing goodbye, Jeanine tells you that she’ll be busy for the rest fo the day so if you need anything to call the number on the card she hands you. You tuck it in your pocket, certain you’ll lose it like every other business card you’ve ever been handed.

The elevator ride up to your room is contemplative. The music is boring, your reflection is bedraggled and tired, and the gentle feeling of gravity under your feet tugs at you. You rock slightly when you finally reach your floor. The doors open, but you don’t make any move to leave. They shut again, and you’re left staring daggers at your mirrored self.

You’d woken up, still here. It wasn’t a dream. It was reality. And more than that, it seemed more and more like you’d be staying in this reality. You didn’t think you could go home. Sure you were rich but… but your home. Your few things you’d managed to save. Your meagre group of friends and your hard-sought job. It made you nauseous. Where had you lost it all? Why were you here now? Why did you keep having to lose everything?

You manage to snap yourself out of it before someone else calls the elevator. Striding out of the space, you look to the right where you remember your apartment coming from. It’s not hard to find the unit, as there are only three on the entire floor. Rich people.

The door closes with a satisfying thud behind you, and you nearly melt with exhaustion.

This apartment is the ninth circle of hell for you. Scrambling around on your knees, you’re desperate to find the damn phone that won’t stop ringing. You can’t understand where the sound is coming from.

Under your bed? You shine your other’s phone’s light under it. Nope. Behind the dresser? Nada. You search inside the drawers and then peek inside the fancy lamp. Absolutely nothing. You’re ready to tear your hair out when you spot something… odd.

There’s… You think there’s something stuck in your floorboards. You dig at the space with your fingernails and the piece of wood pops open. Inside is… a cardboard box. An awfully familiar cardboard box, actually. The sight of your Mum’s old keepsake box makes you cry out with joy, lifting it from its little enclave. You’d lost a lot in the past few days but at least the old you knew how to keep your family’s stuff safe.

This apartment looks brand new. And apparently the past you dug into it to hide her stuff. You can’t really judge, you have a hidey-hole back at your apartment. It was a brick that had already been loose in the wall, so it didn’t feel quite as criminal as this.

The ringing is coming from inside the box. When you pull the lid up, you find a keepsake box a little different from yours. While yours only ever had your family’s old passports and photo albums, this one had a sleek phone sitting on top of all the mementos. It’s an exact copy of the phone on your bed- or well, it would be, if you hadn’t dropped it.

Two phones? This bitch was greedy. And so are you, eagerly sweeping the expensive item into your gremlin hands. Your thieving high is instantly quashed when you see who’s calling.

Of all fucking… George.

You roll your eyes before hanging up, tossing the phone to the side as you start rifling through the old keepsake box. You flip through family photo albums and lovingly cradle old stuffies. The phone buzzes. You ignore it. You find one of your mother’s old necklaces, and because you’re desperate for anything that can ground you, slip it over your head. The cool heart locket rests just under your collarbone, and you clutch it with one hand as you keep exploring. The phone keeps buzzing. It’s only almost half an hour later when you realise something about this is strange.

Why is George… not blocked? You glance down at the vibrating object like it’s radioactive, a despairing frown pulling at your face. Cautiously, you pick it up, making sure not to open the notifications lest it tell George you read any of his messages.

He’s… apologising for not being there for your birthday. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. And it’s not even a proper apology, it’s one of those ‘I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings’ bullcrap. He keeps spamming you, and eventually, you realise that he’s not going to just stop.

You decide to nip this in the bud quickly because even remembering his cheating face makes you feel like throwing up.

‘You’: Why are you contacting me?

‘George <3’: Seriously? Look, I’m sorry I wasn’t there yesterday. I was busy, you know that.

Stupidly, you reply:

‘You’: ‘No, seriously, why are you contacting me? I’m done with you.’

You wonder how you ever loved this jackass. Even if he was obviously more of a jackass here, than where you’d come from. He was just better at pretending there. You keep scrolling, ignoring the new texts that pop up. Your stomach sours at the number of texts he himself had ignored, of the amount of ‘sorry baby, can’t come tonight’, the begging, the pleading.

No, he wasn’t worse at pretending. He just didn’t care.

You wonder if this could have been you, further along down the line. Abuse happens slowly, right? Like a frog in a pot. You’d have forgiven and forgotten, written away his worse behaviours till you couldn’t anymore. Till you couldn’t leave, till you were trapped.

You think George Lancaster would’ve tried to. He would’ve isolated you from everyone you had left if he hadn’t screwed up and got caught.

You realise now there were a lot of red flags in your relationship with George. Molly always hated him and he hated her. He’d constantly complain about how much time you spent with her, spamming you with texts when you went out.

You were only… only two days since you’d actually broken up with him. Which was sort of crazy to think about. You feel like you’ve lived eons since then. Like that one traumatic incident aged you thirty years. Anyway, you still hadn’t processed the whole George thing. You’d been sort of busy fighting for your life.

‘George’: I’m here, can you at least open the door so we can talk face to face?

Freeze. A knock sounds, and your head snaps up to the front door. You don’t move. You just wish it away. The knocking only gets louder and louder.

You feel like a dumb girl in a horror movie as you walk towards the door, unlocking it and creaking the knob open. George Lancaster stands on the other side, and before you can slam it in his face, he grabs you by the arm and yanks you out of the door. And then he’s pulling you to the elevator, even as you try and get your bearings, get yourself away from him.

“You can’t just ignore me like this,” George says, pissed off to high hell, “We’re going to miss the reservation I booked specifically for you. I told you it was happening today and-”

There’s white noise between your ears, you can’t hear what he’s saying. Told you? It wasn’t in any of the texts. He’s still talking even as the elevator dings, even as he shoves you in a white sports car that’s half parked on the curb. Even as he drives his way through Gotham’s streets, he won’t fucking shut up.

Why are you letting this happen to you? Why aren't you fighting back, wrenching yourself from his grasp? He takes you into a restaurant, one so upscale that normally you wouldn’t be able to get in for months, and your head snaps from staring socialites to watching politicians to gawking celebrities. You have the eyes of the world on you right now, and they’re all watching George yell at you.

And you can’t find your voice.

It's like a scab you can't stop picking at. Like you think this is what you deserve or something. And it's not. You know it's not. And yet you follow obediently, chastised and embarrassed, as he pulls you through the restaurant. When he picks a table in the centre of the room, you don’t protest. When he chooses your meal for you, even though it’s not to your taste, you don’t protest.

Looking at George, scrolling lazily on his phone, your hands clench against the table. They’re sweating, shaking, nails digging into your palms.

You… you didn’t have to break up with him again, did you? You realised it earlier, but you didn’t- it didn’t really sink in. Your first breakup with George Lancaster was a miserable traumatic experience, and it had been in the solitary streets of Gotham’s Narrows. This one, this one would be seen by literally everyone.

Nauseous. You feel so damn nauseous, your mouth dry as you swallow down bile. This was ridiculous. You couldn’t stand seeing his face. Was he texting her right now? God, did she even know? You’d just stormed out that night, running from what you’d seen.

George had chased after you. Had he left her there? Your stomach churned at the idea. You had to hate her on principle but, well, you also had to sympathise with her. Contradictions, that was the average you. You didn’t want to help this random girl. Didn’t want to have to ever think of her again.

…Staring at George, a definitively awful person, you can’t do it. Can’t just leave her to it.

“I’m breaking up with you,” you say.

“What?” George replies, not even looking up from his phone.

“I’m breaking up with you!” you shout. It’s not even intentional, just a result of being pushed too far, of breaking too easily.

The restaurant goes quiet. Guess you’re up for another scandal then. Whatever, it wasn’t like you would’ve lasted much longer anyway. This was all too complicated for your recently traumatised mind to handle. And it was just too damn stupid to bother with anyway. All of this was fucking stupid.

You included.

Just pull the bandaid off, right? You could already see how this version of you had so many scandals to her name. You probably should start giving a shit. Or at least trying to. You don’t think you want to, though.

George puts his phone down face down on the tablecloth, giving you a calm look. That slightly pitying stare activates something in your brain you didn’t really know was there. It’s a type of rage you haven’t known since you were a kindergartner and one of the other girls said you couldn’t play princesses. Since your first service job where your manager felt you up. Just pure, petty, anger. The type of anger ready to burn the world down as long as it burns whoever pissed you off as well. He opens his mouth, probably to say something condescending, and your hand whips out and snatches his phone.

“Hey!” George says instead, his eyes widening.

You turn the phone back on. Hm, passcode. You flip it around and use facial recognition to open it. Despite the fact that George wears the most comically shocked expression, with saucer-wide eyes and a mouth open to catch flies, it unlocks. Nice.

“Hey! What are you doing?” George demands, reaching over the table for his phone.

You twist away from his reach. Password. You flip the phone, and despite George’s comically shocked expression, it still unlocks. He shouts again when it does, probably realising that you might be taking this seriously. That he might actually be in trouble. That his sugar mummy might not take too kindly to the numerous texts to other women on his phone.

…You really can’t believe you’re a sugar mummy. And for George of all people. What a horrendous waste of money, it’s fucking tragic.

He’s got the texts with someone known as ‘Pizza Hut’ pulled up, with some very flirtatious messages. You scroll up furiously, ducking under George as he gets up from the table and tries to get the phone. Still, backing up, the sight of a very poorly shot dick pic of George’s has you grimacing. Your focus on the picture, trying to decide whether his penis looked so unappealing before you’d learnt of his betrayal, has you distracted when one of the servers come around.

And, well, shirt, meet soup. Very, very hot soup. Everyone? Meet a screeching, klutzy moron.

George takes the chance to advance on you, snatching his phone from you. He doesn’t even seem to care you’re currently getting third-degree burns. The sting scorches through the thin fabric of your dress shirt, burning your skin. George grabs you again, his grip harsh enough this time you know it will bruise, and you can’t really say why you do what you do at that moment.

Your aunt used to have a chihuahua. It was an ugly, grumpy thing. She’d rescued it late into its life, and it had been treated poorly beforehand. It didn’t like to be touched at all and used to run from anyone who tried. And if you tried to touch it? Cornered it?

Well, of course, it started biting.

George’s howl is the most satisfying thing you’ve ever heard. His squeal of “bitch!” might be even more so. He slaps you away from him, and the sound echoes in the restaurant. Your face stings. When you land ass first in the puddle of still-too-hot soup, you wonder if you might try and bite him again. You don’t think you even broke the skin, considering you can’t taste blood. The other patrons stare on in genuine horror, like they’ve never seen a messy breakup before. One woman raises a hand to her mouth, and gasps-

You find yourself staring up at a furious George, one with a menace in his eyes you’ve never seen before. You wonder, idly, if he’s ever hit you before. Well, not you, but ‘you’. You realise now that he has the capacity for it, that he probably always did.

“What the fuck!?” he hisses, angry eyes darting from side to side, “Biting me?! In fucking public?! Have you lost it, you crazy bitch?! And you got my phone fucking soaked in soup!”

“Did you buy it?” you ask, wiping your mouth with your sleeve to get George’s dirty taste out of your mouth.

He blinks, confused, thrown off by your question, “Huh?”

“Did you buy that phone?” you repeat, your staring starting to turn into a furious glare.

You don’t think he did. Your George had never been able to afford those sorts of things, he’d been as broke as you were. Of course, you’d seen him lust over those items, but you’d always managed to convince him not to go into debt over silly things like sports cars and fancy phones. And even then, you’d been the one to buy him a PS5.

He looks down at the phone and back at you, and you can see his jaw tick.

“I bought it. That’s mine.”

“It was a gift. You’re going to be such a bitter bitch to take back everything you gave me? Gonna leave me out on the fucking street?” he says, spittle flying with angry words.

This was escalating fast. Maybe before you’d have been cowed by his words, but you were genuinely off your rocker by now and were very much willing to tango with this bastard. Like yes, he did terrify you, but so did everything else. You could handle this much at least. You weren’t ready to back down.

“And if I did? What then George? What could you even fucking do?” you throw back, voice rising to match his.

“It’s not your money either, it’s theirs, you little leech!” says the pot.

“Does it matter?” replies the kettle.

Pushing to your feet, you find George without another answer. He stands between you and the exit. With the plain murderous rage on his face, you think he’ll try to grab you again if you run past. He wouldn’t bite you back, but he might slap you or something. So instead, like any good coward does, you run straight to the girl’s bathroom. It hasn’t failed you yet, and you doubt it will today.

You shove into the bathroom, past a woman doing her makeup. Her head bobs up and down as she takes in your seemingly infamous face, and your stained shirt. You stride as far away from her as possible, darting into the last bathroom stall and sitting on the closed toilet lid. You pull your knees to your chest and hiss out a sound of frustration when that presses the sticky liquid against your chest and pants. Not your brightest idea, but you were sort of running on fumes right now.

The bathroom stall is extremely clean. One thing you were quickly realising about rich people is they didn’t have to suffer shitty public bathrooms. You didn’t think they deserved it. Like customer service jobs, and traffic, they built character.

What were you doing? Right, trying not to cry. You’re doing much better than yesterday. Still, sitting on top of the toilet’s closed lid, your phone pressed to your face, you wouldn’t say you’re doing ‘good’.

But because you knew George was too much of a pussy to ever enter the woman’s bathrooms, you refuse to move a single inch. You don’t want to go out there. At all. At all, at all. You’d tried to call Jeanine, but she hadn’t answered. Some P.A. she was. You still weren’t going to fire her. Then you remember that she told you she was going out later, and that she’d left a card with you. Digging through your pocket, you decide it’s finally time to die when you realise you lost the card somewhere along the line.

So, she wasn’t going to come save you as your knight in shining armour.

You can’t remember Molly’s number. Who did these days? That was your phone’s job. So you were left with… this. You were left with this. Four blocked numbers and a third had sent an automatic reply because he was driving. Alfred was probably busy. Weren’t butlers always very busy?

…Rich people weren’t often very busy. They had butlers and assistants to do all their chores. You unblock all four of the Waynes that you have on your phone.

The first thing you notice is the amount of texts between ‘you’ and Dick. Scrolling and scrolling, you find most of them are him checking up on you and one-word replies from the old you. He’s friendly and accepting, even when you respond in cruel and aggressive tones. The further back you scroll, the kinder your replies are. At one point it seems like the two of you had a good relationship.

You check the other chats. Tim’s message log is filled with coffee requests sent back and forth between you, Damian’s is completely empty, and Bruce’s has had no response from your phone in years. But eventually, you scroll back far enough that you find an actual conversation instead of just ‘Call Alfred’ repeated every few days.

‘You’: I miss them.

‘Bruce Wayne’: I know. I miss them too.

You press the back button, sighing. That felt like you’d seen something you shouldn’t have, like you’d peeked into someone’s diary. Which was unbelievably stupid. All of this is unbelievably stupid. You should just leave, you should just be brave. Two days ago you faced off against one of your worst fears, but today you couldn’t even handle George Lancaster.

You want someone to rescue you. You know no one will unless you ask. It makes you choke on your own self-disgust. This is the second time in one day. God, maybe you should just do it yourself. It’s not like you couldn’t pay for your own Uber.

And still, you find yourself clicking on a name and begging. Skin crawling, you type and retype the text probably a hundred times. You go from long apologies to begging to rants you never intended to send in the first place. Tap, tap, tap, and then you delete, delete, delete.

What you settle on is simple.

‘You’: hey. can you come pick me up? thx

Maybe a bit too simple. You cross your arms and tuck yourself in the good ol’ fetal position. You feel like you’ve spent half your time holding yourself like this the past three days.

‘Dick Grayson’: I’ll be there in five.

MASTERLIST - NEXT

[fallstaticexit]

The Art of Being Seen - a Nancy Landgraab story

୧‿̩͙ ˖︵ ꕀ⠀ ♱⠀ ꕀ ︵˖ ‿̩͙୨

𝔓𝔞𝔯𝔱 𝔗𝔥𝔯𝔢𝔢- 𝔚𝔦𝔣𝔢

Prev / Next / Beginning / Pillowfort

Part III - Wife - Nancy recalls her life as a wife, mother, and businesswoman (we begin at the year 1998 and then time skip to 2007 and again to 2015). Nancy has chosen to put her past behind her and is working hard to continue elevating her family's business while raising two rambunctious boys with her husband and business partner, but is it all truly enough to keep her past and her desires at bay? Can she continue playing the perfect wife and mother when temptation shows up at her front door?

Trigger Warnings: infidelity, drug use, sex and nudity.

Transcript under the cut

Nancy Narrates: [Geoffrey proposed our junior year of university. I said yes]

Nancy Narrates: [Not a minute after graduation, I was walking down the aisle. I was ready to become a wife]

Nancy Narrates: [Ready for my parents to look at me with pride in their eyes]

Nancy Narrates: [I was going to be great]

Nancy Narrates: [On that day, I made a vow to my best friend]

Nancy Narrates: [A promise to stand by his side, in sickness and in health]

Nancy Narrates: [To be true and faithful to him]

Nancy Narrates: [So help me God]

Nancy Narrates: [I decided to pack away my past and leave it all behind me. This was the life I chose. I chose to be good. Normal. I chose him, and all that came with it]

Geoffrey: Goinggg uuup!

Nancy: [laughs]

Nancy: [whispers] Hey, you’re not asleep, are you?

Geoffrey: [grumbles] M’sorry. Too drunk for more, I think.

Nancy: [chuckles] It’s fine. You can sleep.

Geoffrey: [sighs] Hey. I wanna have a buncha babies.

Nancy: Oh, so you’re really drunk then.

Geoffrey: M’serious. Want 4 boys, 4 girls. All name Geoffrey Jr. and Nancy Jr. At least one’s named is Zachary.

Nancy: Hey, listen here, lover boy. Let’s just enjoy this. Just you and me and us trying not to drown in the work my parents give us.

Geoffrey: And then babies?

Nancy: [hums] Maybe babies. Give me a year to think about it, ok?

Geoffrey: [sighs happily] I love you. My wife.

Nancy: I love you too.

Nancy Narrates: [I was elated. I was a woman who was capable of loving a man. I was a woman who was capable of making love. I’ve never felt more hopeful. My future never felt so bright-]

Nancy Narrates: [And just like that, the high was over]

Geoffrey: Hey, Nance? Are you missing work again today? Your mom has been really... erm, Queenie-ish the past week with you being out. I’m scared she’s going to actually bite me. [chuckles nervously]

Nancy: Damn you, Geoffrey! What happened to a year? It’s barely been 90 days!

Geoffrey: Wha-

Nancy: I should have known, you can barely pull out of the driveway properly!

Geoffrey: Wait, you’re pregnant?

Nancy: [scoffs] You don’t sound very sorry about it!

Geoffrey: You’re pregnant! I’m going to be a dad?!

Geoffrey: [sings] I’m your baby’s daaadddy!

Nancy: [sniffles, laughs] I can’t believe you did this. I could strangle you.

Geoffrey: Hey, we did this. Me and you.

Nancy: God, what are we going to do with a baby? I don’t even think I’ve ever met a baby.

Geoffrey: We got this, Nancy. It’s us, we’re talking about. We’ll be great!

Nancy Narrates: [Who would have thought; a wife and soon a mother. This was the life I chose]

-

Queenie: You should head home, Nancy. I’ve scheduled you a prenatal massage to your residence for this evening. I’ll have my intern take over your projects for the time being.

Nancy: Oh. Thank you, mother. That’s very kind of you.

Queenie: It’s the least I could do. You are carrying my grandson, after all.

Queenie: [murmurs] My lucky girl.

Nancy Narrates: [A wife, a mother, the perfect daughter]

-

Nancy: [howls]

Doctor: We’re going to give one big push, ok mom? You’re doing great! Ok, now push, Mrs. Landgraab!

Geoffrey: You are doing great, Nancy! Wow! You’re amazing! That’s it, just keep breathing. In and out. In and out-

Nancy: Aughhhh! Geoffrey, shut the fuck up!

Geoffrey: Okay!

Doctor: And push!

[infant wails]

Doctor: Congratulations mom and dad! A boy!

Nancy Narrates: [This was the life I chose]

[ivysprophecy]

please please please

word count; 1644

summary; turning off your phone and shutting out the world isnt the best way to handle your problems but its what you do. and jjs had enough of it.

warnings; i dont think there is any? mentions of anxiety attacks? tagging @murdockcastleslut @kimoralov3 @arkofblake

masterlist

prev. | next

divider by @bernardsbendystraws

"well hey there stranger"

i turn from my book to look behind me, seeing the boy id been actively avoiding for the past two days. carrying his surf board.

i shouldve remembered he'd come here to surf. i just wouldn't have guessed this early in the morning.

"hey jayj."

"oh thats all i get? 'hey'? no 'i miss you so much'?" he sets his board in the sand taking a seat next to me on my blanket.

guess im not finishing my book today. "oh my god jj! youre here! ive been dyingggg to talk to you! i cant believe youre really in here in the flesh! there. better?"

"oh dont be like that- cmon mama whatd i do?" i feel bad with the genuine concern on his face.

okay was ghosting him out of nowhere awful of me? probably. i just didnt know what else to do.

after that night at the bonfire i realized that with my feelings for him growing it wasnt a good idea for us to continue our casual... something. it played with both our emotions. it isnt fair to either of us.

especially after his 'i love you'. that really did it in for me.

"you didnt do anything jj. trust. i just... ive been in a funk. needed some me time thats all."

"well... do you still need your 'me time'?" he looked so hopeful. how could i say yes? where jj maybank is concerned ill easily fold every time. "cause you havent answered my texts so i couldn't ask you to surf with me this morning."

"... i dont have my board. but i suppose i can hang out with you for a little while."

"im honored," he smiles laying back on his elbows, "but really. are you good? i like to think i know you pretty well and this whole MIA thing was not normal."

turning to face him more, i sigh, what the fuck am i supposed to say? 'yea im just so in love with you i cant be around you' yea that would go over really well.

"i dont know. just gotta lot of stuff goin on. you dont have to worry though. im good."

"well do ya wanna talk about it?"

"trust me jay you dont wanna hear about my problems. theyre trivial at best."

"what are friends for if not for listening?" he nudges me with his shoulder urging me to talk. i really dont think i can do this. i was not prepared.

"youre not a very good listener," i point out, to which he immediately takes faux offense. jaw dropped and everything.

"oh thats just not true! i can listen!"

i run a hand through my tangled hair in frustration. this cannot be how i tell him. it just cant. i came here to get away from thinking about this and now hes right here in front of me acting so unserious while im spiraling.

"jj i really appreciate how eager you are to help me but its really not necessary. i didnt really prepare myself and its just too much-"

"prepare yourself? mama what the fuck are you talking about? does this have to do with that night after the bonfire? i mean obviously it does who am i kidding you havent talked to me since then. did i do something wrong? was- was it bad?" he leans in closer, lowering his voice thats laced with worry and guilt.

oh my god that is the absolute last thing i expected him to say. shit i really fucked this up. and honestly just not true.

"what? no! no jj you didnt do anything wrong and it was perfect. promise," i try to reassure him but i know deep down hes gonna over think this whole thing if i dont tell him straight up

i may love him but i never said he was the brightest in the bunch.

"okay so whats the problem?"

"the problem is that it was perfect," i cant help but let out a sigh before hiding my face in my hands as the words leave my mouth.

god my heart is racing, im not ready for this conversation. maybe if i pass out i wont have to. yea if he has to call an ambulance then we can avoid this all together. but an ambulance is also like five grand so...

shit.

"... youre mad at me because you had a good time?" his face contorted in a weird fixture of confusion.

"no! no- god youre so dense sometimes!"

"mama i dont have a fucking clue what youre saying! how does that make me stupid??"

i hide my face in my hands again trying to compose myself because what the fuck kind of confession is this?

"jj im avoiding you because ive been developing feelings for you and i cannot in good conscience keep being so casual with you and sleeping with you knowing this and i know that you do not want anything serious so i figured id just make it easier for the both of us and just take myself out of the situation entirely so that nothing bad happens and i cannot stop fucking talking so please for the love of god say something or do something because i feel like my heart is about to beat out of my chest and-"

oh my god im getting my book moment. he just kissed me to make me stop talking!!! oh my god hes kissing me.

is this where i kiss him back?

of course i kiss him back!! what the fuck!!? and oh my lord does it feel nice, so so so nice.

the way his tongue presses against mine, the way he cups my jaw and pulls me close to him. it was slow and confident and loving and everything he knows i like. his hands find my hips like muscle memory, pulling our bodies together, eventually having me on his lap. where he takes my hands and places them on his chest so i can feel his chest rise and fall with deep breaths.

“… mama you need to learn to breathe.”

“that’s not funny right now jj. im actively having an anxiety attack, horrible thing to say really."

"what're you so anxious about? i think we're havin' a pretty calm conversation, dont you?"

"i mean yea- but thats not-" he interrupts me while shaking his head with a shrug.

"listen, i get why youre a little nervous to say that, all things considered. but i thought it was pretty obvious i was into you, i just didnt wanna push you because you made your boundaries clear so i just took what i could get."

my eyes bug out of my head in shock. am i the dense one? i mean yea hes a really good kisser and i can feel he cares deeply about me when we do stuff and makes me feel safe and supported but that doesnt mean-

yea im stupid. he all but outright said it. actually he has. thats what started this panic.

"... okay yea- maybe. but you agreed they were a good idea so i figured that meant you wanted them there too. and i dont know- it just kind of got overwhelming and i didnt wanna be one of those girls who expects something huge after sex so... you know what i mean? and truthfully youre not what i expected for me."

"what does that mean?" his face showed a little offense.

"i just mean- ya know. for one i didnt expect to love my best friend. and then on top of that i didnt think id love a guy who was a treasure hunting, or- adrenaline junkie i should say."

he leans back putting some space between us, "is that supposed to be a bad thing?

"no! no jay im not saying this right- i-... youre a fighter and youre adventurous- a lot of things im not. if that makes sense. all im sayin is a few years ago i wouldnt have expected to be here. but i like it here. love it here even," i smile at him teasingly trying to ease his worries. the last thing i need is to say the wrong thing right now.

"so what youre saying is that you love me?"

"youre such an idiot."

'but do ya? because i think you do mama."

i roll my eyes chuckling, "yea. yea i do maybank," i press a small kiss to his cheek leaning back into him.

"does this mean youll let me make you a maybank mama?" his eyebrow was quirked up as he teases his question.

"lets not get ahead of ourselves. how about we take this slow?"

he looks down at my button up shirt i was wearing over my bikini to shield me from the ocean breeze, and i could tell he was debating taking it off of me. giving me that same look he always does.

"slow? mama i dont think we're gonna be too good at that."

"all 'm sayin is we dont have to jump the gun, we both admitted it, doesnt mean we gotta change the way we act or announce it or nothing. we can just enjoy this ourselves ya know?"

"you embarrassed of me mama?"

"not at all baby, just want you all to myself. is that too much to ask for?"

he shakes his head leaning up against me, our faces inches apart, "nah i dont think so. i like the sound of that."

i meet him the rest of the way pressing his lips to mine, smiling into it. pulling him as close as humanly possible. i need him under mind skin, in my blood, you know?

"i do too, so we agree? we'll keep this between us for now?"

"whatever you want mama. yes maam."

[angstandhappiness]

Yeah, movie theaters are another level of immersion

idk if this is a boomer take but I think ppl should make more of an effort to go see movies in theaters bc I couldn’t bear it if the movie theater industry went down and the only way to watch movies was through streaming I’m not strong enough

[formulawolff]

x. bringing the heat in miami - t.w.

pairing: female driver! x toto wolff

word count: 3.6k

warnings: cursing, mentions of sex, mentions of masturbation, lewd humor, age gap relationship, ANGST, naughty text messages, banter, light flirting, toto being down astronomically bad (like actually in the trenches) yadayadayada

prev. | next.

party in the city where the heat is on 

all night, on the beach till the break of dawn

“welcome to miami”

“bienvenidos a miami"

˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖

will smith’s infamous track fills your ears as you stroll in through the main gate of the track, fans clustered in thick waves. your name is called more times than you can count. posters, caps, shirts, you name it, wave about, begging to be signed. 

the sun shines overhead, casting bright, fiery light all around. although it was only around eight in the morning, humidity clung to the air, creating a sticky, dewy sensation on your exposed skin. fluffy clouds drift along, carried by a breeze as it rolls through. 

god, the weather was perfect.

hopefully it would be like this on race day.

“welcome to miamiiii,” alex bobs his head, singing along to the music, “are you excited? it is your home turf, after all.”

“if we were in phoenix, i think i would feel a little closer to home,” you suppress a giggle, “but yes, i am really fucking excited. everyone loves a race in their home country.”

“we’ll be in austin soon enough in october,,” alex shrugs, “when we’re in austin, i need you to show me how to ride a bull and teach me how to perfect that smooth texas drawl. i want to be like one of those little aunties who always say, ‘y’all come back now!’ like dolly parton! ” 

“you’re ridiculous,” the giggles blossom into a full-on laugh, “you don’t just start speaking with a southern accent. that’s not how that works.”

“sure it is,” alex nods, “hey, your parents are coming out for the race, right?”

“yes sir! they will finally get to see their baby girl in action!”

“they didn’t come out for a single grand prix last year?” alex raises a brow.

“i wasn’t winning races last year,” you counter, “i told them not to worry about spending that money during my rookie year. not everyone’s parents are loaded, you know.”

which, was a true statement. 

your parents had invested their time, hard-earned cash, weekends off, and a portion of their lives to get you here. you didn’t expect them to fly out for every single grand prix, make every event, or pay another dime towards your expenses. 

unlike many of the drivers, you were not born into an extremely lavish lifestyle. your parents were modest people, who happened to have a child later in life. ever since you were born, they lived in the same house, drove the same vehicles, and got by adequately. since they both worked full-time, getting you into the racing world was no simple feat. 

yet, they were determined to make your dreams become a reality. after years of careful coordination to the karting tracks, weekends devoted to races, and thousands upon thousands of dollars spent, you were offered a contract with williams racing. of course, you accepted that offer graciously. 

now, you were steadily paying your parents back for their dedication. once you signed your contract and those zeroes hit your bank account, you went out to the nearest dealership, purchasing a suburu wrx. with the premium package, at that. 

you would never forget your dad’s face the moment you pulled into the driveway, beaming as you placed the keys in his hand. 

that was one of the only moments you had ever watched him cry, wrapping you up in a tight, loving embrace.

“you didn’t have to do this. being your father is a gift in itself.”

“but you deserve it. you’ve sacrificed so much so that i could be in this position.”

“and you deserve nothing but the best, baby girl. you are going to be one of the greatest drivers formula one has ever seen. you make us so proud. keep making us proud. keep defying those odds. keep making history, baby girl.”

keep making history, baby girl.

as you stroll into the paddock, greeting the engineers, pit crew, and other team members, you can’t shake that feeling brewing deep within. 

it’s is a fiery desire, setting you ablaze with determination. 

you were going to keep making history. 

you were going to be the first american to win the miami grand prix. 

you were going to be the first woman to win two consecutive grand prixes. 

you were going to be the first woman to earn that title of world champion. 

you were going to chase that high. by any means possible. 

and nothing was going to stop you now. 

˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖

“look at him,” lewis hamilton shakes his head, “he looks absolutely pitiful.”

“you think his little relationship is on the rocks?” 

“quite the contrary mate,” lewis remarks, folding his arms across his chest, “i think it’s more like the poor man is depraved. obviously the euphoria has worn off. he’s come down from that high. the man is craving more. plain and simple. a hand can only do–”

“i don’t need the mental image of my team principal wanking off,” george russell scoffs, rubbing his temple, “fuck, that is disgusting, lewis.”

toto wolff stood a few meters away from the drivers, engaged in deep conversation with bono and members of the crew. now that lewis knew the truth, he couldn’t help but notice how much power that american girl held over the team principal. it was almost as if he were deep in a trance, under some sort of spell. 

it was pitiful, really. just the sight of her was enough to send the team principal spiraling, intoxicated off her alluring aura. not like lewis could blame toto, though. there was no denying that the woman was extremely breathtaking. 

with her stunning features, witty mouth, unapologetic personality, and angelic presence, she was practically miss america.

well, not practically. 

she was miss america.  

everyone adored her. lewis could barely go throughout his morning without hearing her name being mentioned. whether it was fans, journalists, social media, even members of the mercedes crew, she was the hot topic of formula one, taking the world by storm.

toto was a lucky man. an extremely lucky man. 

if only she was into men her age. 

“my apologies mate,” lewis nudges george with his elbow playfully, “did we have anything going on today? any obligations?”

george’s brow furrow, sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose, “if we’re being honest, i can’t really remember. i think something to do with monster energy, maybe.”

“perfect,” lewis licks his lower lip, fishing his phone out of his pocket. 

time to text that little assistant. 

in all seriousness, he felt horrible for taking advantage of that young girl. she was only nineteen for fuck’s sakes, a fresh face to mercedes at the start of the 2024 season. that made her the perfect target to do his bidding. 

well, it wasn’t really bidding. 

more like investigative journalism. 

at least, that’s what lewis told himself to feel a little less guilty for what he was about to do. 

hey, do you by chance know toto’s schedule today?

seconds later, little text bubbles appear. 

he was meeting with you guys this morning, then he has an interview with the press around two-thirty p.m. it’s nothing super serious, just a brief session entailing his thoughts for the weekend. at four, he has a zoom call with a few of the mercedes execs. after that, he told me he was going to be out for the remainder of the evening. why? 

hmmm. how convenient. 

i was just curious. thanks for letting me know! i appreciate you, natila. 

of course, mr. hamilton! let me know if you need anything else! :))) 

it was now or never. go time.

after the meeting with the mercedes executives, lewis hamilton was going to knock on toto wolff’s door. he was going to stroll into that office, settling into one of those plush leather chairs. and before toto had the opportunity to speak, lewis was going to confront him about that american girl. 

how he was going to start that conversation, he had no idea. that would come to him in time as he went about his day, meeting with sponsors, flashing that lovely lewis smile, flirting with the reporters just a little. not too much so that it was obvious, but enough to make them blush a tad, giggling as they scrambled to stick to their script. 

but for now, it was time to focus on the matters at hand. 

across the track, a dutch driver strolls through the crowds, a jersey in one hand, phone in the other. glancing down at his screen, he curses under his breath at the throng of people. why were there so many people? where did they all come from? 

pausing for a moment, he taps his screen, thumb gliding through his contacts. 

“hey, where are you again?”

“we’re in the williams paddock!” her voice is an octave higher than usual, more than likely from anticipation, “we’ll see you soon!”

“sounds good,” max verstappen stifles a chuckle as he hears a voice on the other end, the words firm, demanding almost.  

“honey, who are you talking to? who’s coming over here?” 

“mom, please, just let me be on the phone for two seconds,” she exhales, “okay, i have to go. i’ll see you soon!” 

the walk to the williams paddock was excruciating, as max had to bob and weave through the masses to avoid reporters, potential sponsors, and any individual who called his name. it’s not like he didn’t like the fame that came with his success, it’s just that he didn’t like the constant cameras in his face. the prying questions. the intrusive comments. 

sometimes he wished he could just blend in, be like any other face in the crowd. yet, how could he when he was max verstappen? 

yet, as he steps into the paddock, he makes out the williams driver, her parents hovering around her as she introduces them to various members of the crew. at the sight, max can’t help but feel the corners of his lips curl into a smile as he notices the sheer and utter pride plastered across their faces. 

and they had every right to be proud of you. 

you earned it. 

“goedemorgen,” max clears his throat, raising his hand for a small wave, “i just came to stop by.”

the instant your mom realizes who is standing before her in the paddock, her eyes widen, lips parting, “oh my gosh – honey. look who it is!” 

“good morning max,” your laughter rings like bells as you cross over to the dutch driver, “how are you?”

“pretty good,” he nods, sticking out his right hand, “hallo, i’m max.”

your dad shakes his hand, squeezing it firmly, “nice to meet ya, max. i’m tony. this is my wife, heather.”

“pleased to meet you,” max beams, turning to your mom, “i brought something for you today. your daughter mentioned that you were a big fan of mine. so, i brought this jersey for you. she let me know your shirt size, so it should fit perfectly. my signature is on there somewhere, but i just can’t quite remember where.”

graciously, heather accepts the jersey, her eyes glossy, shifting to you as she wipes a tear, “oh, honey, you planned this?”

“of course i did,” wrapping an arm around her shoulders, you pull her in for a hug, “i couldn’t bear the thought of you guys attending the race without meeting any of my friends. besides, you deserve an all-inclusive experience at your first grand prix.”

“besides,” max shoots you a wink, “i wanted to meet the woman who crafted such a talented driver.”

at max’s compliment, your mom’s face flushes, “oh please! i can barely make it on the freeway without having a nervous breakdown. i don’t know how she can drive these things. it amazes me how confident she is and–.”

“i could show you,” max offers, “i have some free time tomorrow. i’m sure we could all meet up somewhere and i could take you for a spin, show you the ropes. how does that sound?”

“oh max,” your mom waves a hand, “you do not–”

“but i want to. it’s no issue. no issue at all.” 

“then it’s a plan,” you can’t help but grin as your moms’ eyes light up, “what time works for you, max? since it’s only thursday, we’ll have some time in the morning before the practice laps. or, we could go after. whatever works for you.”

“let’s go in the morning,” max suggests, checking his phone, “i think i can make a few calls. have someone bring in a car. we’ll take it out on the track.”

“is that allowed?” your mom arches a brow, “i just don’t want you two to get in any sort of trouble. 

“oh mom,” you roll your eyes playfully, gesturing to max, “that is max verstappen. whatever max verstappen wants, max verstappen gets.”

“she’s not wrong.”

“okay fine,” your mom nods, and you feel a giggle forming at her overprotective nature. 

“just don’t give me a heart attack out there, max. i have a very important race to watch on sunday.”

as your parents talk to max, alex making his way into the conversation, you feel the buzz of your phone in your pocket. carefully, you fish it out, ensuring to shield your screen from your mom’s wandering gaze. 

this is unbearable. i need to see you tonight. are you going to have any free time? i vaguely recall you mentioning that your parents were going to be here. i will take no offense if you would like to spend time with them. i know you do not get to see them often. 

i need to be inside you, schatzi. i can’t think straight right now because the only thing i can think about is fucking that perfect pussy of yours. 

i miss my golden girl. more than anything. 

˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖

“lewis? this is a pleasant surprise.”

“how’s it going mate?” lewis hamilton bears a quaint smile as he settles into a chair, face-to-face with the team principal, “things going well?”

“eh,” toto shrugs, his head bowed as he types away on his phone, “same old shit, you know.” 

“things going well with the horseback rider?”

oh, so he wasn’t going to drop it. silently, toto curses the attentive nature of his british driver, “they’re fine.”

“so,” lewis leans back, folding his arms across his chest, “when were you going to fess up and admit that your little girlfriend doesn’t ride horses?”

“i don’t understand what you–”

lewis scoffs, clicking his tongue, “i know exactly who your little girlfriend is because she’s a few spaces ahead of me on the grid.”

shit.

the expression painting lewis’ features is brimmed with satisfaction, his gaze piercing right through the team principal as he shifts uneasily in his desk chair, running a hand through his hair. 

toto was well aware that lewis had completely blindsided him, pinning him in a corner. it was quite literally perfect timing, as the team principal was merely minutes away from organizing his things, shutting down his computer, and heading out the door, well on his way to his golden girl. 

well played, lewis. well played. 

yet, he had to maintain his composure. he had to maintain that poker face as lewis cocks his head, prompting him to formulate some sort of witty retort. 

“i’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“bullshit,” lewis shakes his head, “you’re not a very good liar, toto. you of all people should know that i can read you like a bloody book. how long has this been going on?”

well, he had to fess up now. lewis would continue to call him out on his shit if he kept up with the lies. letting out a shaky breath, the team principal hangs his head in defeat, his heart thumping against his rib-cage, wiping his damp palms on his slacks.

no going back now. time to come clean. 

“since she won in jeddah. but if we’re being technical, it started in bahrain.”

“wait,” lewis sticks his hands up, squeezing his eyes shut, “pause. this has been going on since the start of the season? for weeks you’ve been sneaking around, meeting up with her in secret or something? was she the one who came to brackley between melbourne and suzuka?”

with all of the questions pouring from lewis’ mouth, toto’s mind reeled, a swirling torrent of anxiety, fear, and disappointment. his cheeks burn with shame, tinged pink. 

“yes, she was.”

tilting his head, lewis’ lips purse, “you like her?”

“well isn’t that blatantly fucking obvious,” propping his elbows on the desk, he massages his temples with his fingers, “how did you find out?”

“it wasn’t hard,” lewis shrugs, “i mean, i see the way you look at her.” 

toto’s eyes narrow at lewis’ vague response, “how. did. you. find. out?”

“natila texted me about it,” lewis coughs, averting the team principal’s beady stare, “she may have heard a conversation or two.” 

“regarding?” toto presses, satisfaction pumping in his veins as lewis starts to crack, shifting in the chair, “come on, lewis. you can’t just march in here and demand answers from me without sharing your sources. what did natila hear?”

“she heard the entire conversation you had with the drive to survive crew while we were in suzuka. they mentioned that they had footage of you walking over to her motorhome. that’s all natila heard. don’t fire the poor girl,” the words were rushed, breathy, “it was my fault. i asked her what she heard. i told her i would pay her if she told me what she knew.”

“well,” toto blinks, swallowing thickly, “did you end up paying her?”

“only like five thousand.”

“that’s quite a large sum over something you could have just asked me about personally,” clasping his hands together, toto raises a brow, “why didn’t you just come to me instead?”

“because you got so fucking defensive the first time i asked about it!” 

lewis did have a point. 

a good point, at that.

it was not like the team principal would have withheld information regarding his developing relationship with the williams driver. it was more like he feared what would ensue if he did share what had transpired. he trusted lewis, he really did. additionally, it wasn’t like this was just some average woman. his career, her future, and so much more were at stake. the benefits of keeping it all under wraps greatly outweighed the risk of discovery. 

more importantly, he was protective of his golden girl. 

she was his little escape from it all. a breath of fresh air after excruciatingly long nights in the paddock or disappointing days on the track. she was his sun, shining her vivid, warm, golden rays into his dreary and dull life. 

sure, toto was a billionaire. but money was not everything. 

nearly every day, toto’s mind wandered to their time spent together in brackley. the way she felt against his skin. the way her shy smile was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. the way her fingers felt intertwined with his. the way her lashes fluttered as she slept, lips parted ever so slightly. the way his hands roamed her curves, relishing the softness of her. 

that memory alone was worth far more than the number of zeroes in his bank account. 

“you’re falling in love, aren’t you?”

lewis’ voice is low, dangerously quiet. yet, there’s a curious glint in his eyes, the bitterness and anger no longer present. his body language is more relaxed, legs crossed, the driver fiddling with his thumbs. 

“i –” toto stutters, scrambling to find the right words, “yes, i am.”

“does she know?” 

“no,” he inhales sharply, “she doesn’t.”

“you want to tell her though, don’t you?”

“it would just feel rushed,” the team principal dismisses lewis’ inquiry, his voice hardening, “i have to be realistic here. no one falls in love that quickly. that’s just petulant.”

“well look at it this way,” lewis offers, “if you’ve had your eye on her for some time, then it’s really not that rushed. clearly, if you’re feeling those emotions so deeply, then it’s accumulated over time. i don’t want to pry, but how long have you been attracted to her?”

“you don’t want to know,” a chuckle rumbles in the team principal’s chest, “it’s embarrassing, really.”

“no, no, no,” lewis tuts, “tell me, toto. how long?”

“december 2022, when she signed her contract with williams. when i saw that photo of her, i knew i had to have her. last summer, in monaco, i may have slipped up and approached her at the afterparty. i flirted with her, but she dismissed me. so, i kept my distance. however, it was just growing harder and harder to stay away. it was impulsive, that night in bahrain. but i wanted to make a move before anyone else got to her.”

as toto finishes, he can’t help but notice lewis’ smirk, “holy shit, toto. you’ve been wrapped around her finger for quite some time then, yeah?”

“i wouldn’t say that–” toto begins, clicking his tongue, yet, he’s swiftly cut off as a new figure cracks open the door. 

george russell leans against the doorframe, arms folded across his chest. his lips are pressed together, forming a tightly wound frown. 

“way to include me in the gossip session, guys. what did i miss? clearly, quite a lot. if you don’t mind, i would like to join the conversation. toto, would you start from the top? even though i’ve already heard most of it, when were you going to bring it to my attention that you were fucking that bloody williams driver?”

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as always, if i forgot to include you, please let me know! thank you all for the continuous support! i love y'all sm!! <33

[v7lgar]

@jegulus-microfic | cease - may 4 | 831 words @ecstarry @godsofwoes @bellaxisworld prev part next part

“You are unavoidable.”

They waited for each other to talk, but they didn't. James felt like fainting, or maybe that was the alcohol in his veins, who knows?

His mind was racing, he wanted to scream at him, he wanted to shake him until he pulled the words out of him. He couldn't do it, and he was never good with silence.

“Reg—”

“James, you are married.”

James closed his eyes shut, his words stank like a needle. He was right, of course. Fuck, he was right.

“I am aware.”

“Then what is the meaning of this?”

James was on edge, he was tiptoeing around the edge, and he knew he was going to fall into the pit anytime.

“Look,” he forced out the words, “Regulus, this isn't easy, okay?”

“I guess—”

“No, no. Don't fucking talk, okay? Just listen to me. God, you don't have any idea how hard it is for me to talk right now. I don't care if you don't talk, I don't care if you end up hanging up on me. I just need you to listen.”

Even though he expected him to talk again, Regulus didn't. He did what James said, he stopped and started to listen.

James took a deep breath and inhaled deeply, his eyes were still closed.

“It was a mistake to invite you to my wedding, I'm going to forever regret it.”

“Why?” Regulus asked, his voice was tiny, almost whispering and maybe he was hurt.

“Ever since then, I can't stop—” he couldn't say it, he couldn't admit it, he didn't want it to be true. Yes, he thought about it. But telling his feelings and thoughts was something else. He was going to make them real. He still didn't want it to be real.

But, at this point of this misery, what choice he had left?

“I couldn't stop thinking about you, about us.”

Saying out loud made it ten times worse but, he felt as if something lifted off his chest. Now he was sure that he should do this. It was wrong but he didn't care. For the last two years, this feeling ate him alive. He couldn't tell anyone, not to Sirius, not to his wife and for sure not to his parents. There was nobody but Regulus. He would understand, and even if he didn't, James had no choice.

“It's funny, isn't it? I was the one who broke up with you and got married but look at me now. Calling you because I have been bearing these thoughts every day for two years.”

“James…”

James took a sip of his whiskey and continued, “I know how this sounds, believe me, I know. I just— it's just—”

He began to laugh, squeezing the bridge of his nose, he felt everything in an unbearable amount. This wasn't fair, nothing was fair.

“James, calm down—”

“I CAN’T FUCKING CALM DOWN!” he screamed, “I CAN’T EVEN FUCKING BREATHE FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS!"

“I can't fucking breathe, and I tried. Fuck, I tried to stop thinking about you, I tried to forget how you tasted, I tried to erase the memories of holding you in my arms, but you are just— I can't shake you under my skin. The more I try to stop, the more I think about you. And this is— this is just— it is not fair, okay? Not fair, I have a wife for god's sake! A wife, Lily, my Lily.”

He didn't notice when he stopped laughing and started letting the tears down on his face, it was torture.

“You have your Lily,” Regulus replied with a dry voice, “Yet, here you are.”

“I am here, yes,” James said, “I am at your mercy, and I hate every second of it.”

He took a deep breath, “ I hate that telling you all of this is making me feel better. I've been suffering for so long, knowing that confessing my feelings to you is going to be my salvation. But this felt wrong, having all these feelings as a married man. I am fucking married, Regulus.”

“I am aware, James. I was there, watching you make your vows to each other. I was there, remember?”

“Why did you come? Why did you join my wedding, Regulus?”

“Because,” Regulus said, “I wanted closure.”

James slowly sank to the floor and palmed his face. He couldn't talk, it was impossible to function. Maybe doing all this was his way to destroy everything he had. He never considered himself as a destructive person, but now, all he could think of was shattering everything he had cared for, for Regulus. This had to cease to an end, he knew it, but he didn't have the heart for it.

“Did you?” James asked quietly, “Did you get your closure?”

Regulus waited for a minute.

“Yes,” he said, breaking James’ heart in pieces like he did to Regulus years ago, “I got my closure.”

James couldn't say anything in return.

[reiderwriter]

♦️There Are No Words Left to Speak ♦️

Chapter 5 of That's What You Get

Prev Chap || Next Chap

Pairing: Spencer Reid X Fem Reader

Summary: In a panic, you spill your guts to Penelope and receive some much needed advice before your "date" with Reid.

Warnings: None!!

A/N: This one is 4k words long because I absolutely could not help myself 😭 I've has a lot of messages and asks about this series lately, and it's been really encouraging to see! If you like this chapter, please comment or reblog and let me know or come chat with me in my inbox! Happy Reading!!

You can find my masterlist here and the series masterlist here.

"Penelope, I fucked up and I need your advice," you screamed into the room as soon as the door slammed open, startling the other woman as she threw her phone up in surprise. 

"Jesus, Y/N, you're lucky I didn't reach for the all too full can of pepper spray I store in here, oh my god."

"I'm sorry, Pen, I'm just, I'm kinda freaking out, and I need your help."

"Are we going to need wine, or are we going to need ice cream and a chick flick? What kind of problem are we talking here?" she asked from her place at the desk. 

"I married Spencer in Vegas." You said and then clamped your hand over your mouth as you finally let the pressure of the weekends mess seep out of you now that you'd shared your secret. 

"Oh my god, both, we'll do both. We need both, let's go, let's go now."

–X– 

Penelope drove the two of you home, immediately moving into a mothering role as soon as the words left your mouth, and she could see your impending implosion. You were grateful that she didn’t ask you any further questions as you made your way back to her apartment, just turning on the radio to a channel playing 90s pop hits and simply letting you calm down through the fun music. 

When you finally got through her door, she let you get comfortable and then immediately came back with all the things she promised. 

“Okay, I know you’re more a rose girl, but all I have is this really nice white that Derek got me for my last birthday and half a bottle of tequila, and I think it’s better for the both of us if we don’t open the tequila. Also, I have chocolate, cookie dough ice cream, and tissues, and When Harry Met Sally on DVD, I'm ready to be plugged in and played as soon as you say the word.” 

“Penelope, we do not tell you how brilliant you are as often as we should.” 

“While that is true, I’m trying my best not to immediately cave and ask you to spill, so can we please sing my praises after you explain what you mean by saying you married Spencer.” 

“God, Penelope, I don’t know what happened,” you let your head hang in your hands and she immediately moved to sit closer to you, rubbing a hand over your back and getting the tissues ready. 

“We went out drinking, and my mom got in my head earlier in that call I took, and I don’t remember anything and then I woke up and we were in bed together and-” you rambled out, lifting your head up as you tried to explain, but she cut you off quickly there.

“You were in bed together? Did you… you know, bump uglies with Spencer? Do the old in n’ out? Sorry, I’m making this worse, I’ll shut up now,” she said, but you laughed at her enthusiasm, and you felt more of the weekend’s tension leave your body. You knew that you had made the right decision coming to Penelope with this. She always knew how to make you feel better. 

“I don’t know, but it looks like it. TMI but-”

“Hold on, I don’t think I want to know what the Good Doctor is like in bed.” She visibly shuddered, and you let out another shaky laugh. 

“Well considering I remember none of it, you’d be hard pressed to get those details from me. I did wake up handcuffed to the bed, though.” 

“Shut the front door, no you did not!” Penelope’s jaw dropped. “Oh god, I’m almost morbidly curious, but I don’t want to open that can of worms. Sorry, please continue.” 

You took a swig of the wine she poured you and relaxed a bit further into her couch, pulling your legs up under you to find a more comfortable position as you told the rest of your story to Penelope, gaining more confidence with each of her reactions to what you told her. 

“So, now we just need to track down our two witnesses and get the marriage quietly annulled, and we can forget it ever happened.” You could hear the frown in your voice before you realised you were making that kind of expression, and from Penelope’s reaction, you could see that she’d noticed too. 

“Oh.. oh, I know that look. You don’t want the annulment, do you?” 

“Yes! I mean, no! Look, I really don’t know how to answer that right now, it’s just…” you trailed off, and Penelope silently filled your wine glass again, not saying anything and letting you come around at your own pace. 

“Earlier today, after we told Rossi, and before I came running to you, he… he kissed my forehead, and he called me Mrs. Reid, and I really liked it. And I didn’t think about it before, but Reid is nice, and he is good, and he is obviously really smart, and, god  he’d be a great dad, and he took care of me yesterday and today… Penelope, I think I have a crush on my husband.” You gasped out, feeling the weight of your revelation as it hit you straight in the gut. 

“But we talked about it and we’re getting an annulment and now it’s like I fucked up before I really got the chance to let it go anywhere, and what if it’s a mistake? What if I made the world’s greatest fuck up and married a great man in Vegas and then threw it all away a week later?” you raked your hand through your hair quickly, trying to ignore the tears forming quickly in your eyes. 

“Oh my god, sweetie, it’s going to be okay… You’re going to have to trust me when I tell you that it’s going to be okay…” she patted you on the back and you let the tears fall down a bit, quickly dabbing them away with the now balled up tissue in your hand. 

“I don’t know if I can, Pen…” you tried to smile up at her, but you could feel your lips wobbling and you let your head hang again before you could let out a choked sob. 

“No, nonononoonono, listen to me… Okay, promise you won’t hate me after I say this?” She said, squishing your cheeks between her hands as she made you look up into her eyes. 

“I pwomise,” you sniffed out, voice muffled by her strong grip. She let you go then, content that she had your attention. 

“I know for a fact that the boy is as infatuated with you as you are with him because… because I saw you two.” She stopped there to watch your reaction, but you froze, so she continued.

“You… you called me from wherever you guys were out in Vegas, mumbled some words over the phone and then sent me a picture of a brochure with an address on it, and then when I turned up it was a wedding chapel and you were getting married.” She winced out those last words, and you gasped at the confession. 

“You were one of the witnesses! Penelope!” You pointed an accusatory finger at her, but it was half-hearted. You knew that you were stubborn enough while sober. You certainly wouldn’t have been persuaded out of something you obviously wanted while blackout drunk. 

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, but you guys were just too cute! He was giving you all these small kisses on your forehead and on your cheeks, and you looked like innocent kids giddy and high on love, and I didn’t want to bring you back down to earth. You looked so happy, and I do not make it a habit to get in the way of my friends’ happiness.” 

“Penelope, why didn’t you say anything?” You groan out, sounding a bit like a petulant teenager who has just discovered her mom threw out a shirt she hadn’t worn in years. 

“I wanted to, but I was told not to…” she winced away. “And before you ask, I won’t tell you who else was there! Just know it was someone else who also loves both of you and would’ve pulled you two out of there. No questions asked if they thought you were making a stupid decision!” 

You let the revelations sink in, one by one. Penelope was there. Reid couldn’t keep his lips off of you. The other witness thought you two were good together. It almost didn’t surprise you when you started giggling, finding humour in the situation at least. 

“Oh my god, Penelope, I got married in Vegas to my coworker. And I think I’m in love with him now.” You were in a fit of giggles now, and Penelope hesitantly joined in at first. 

“Yeah, I suppose it is funny when you put it that way.” 

“God, what am I going to do? How am I going to face him from now on?” You pulled yourself together again and faced Penelope again, hoping that she would have actual answers for your very rhetorical question. 

“Well, at least we have a couple of days off now. You don’t have to see him again until we go to work.” 

“No, we have a date tomorrow,” you said matter-of-factly. “Appointment, really, he’s reading some books on alcohol induced memory loss tonight, and then I’m going over to his place to see if any of it can help us fill in the blanks.” 

“Oh god, you’re going to talk books with Reid. That’s practically as romantic as it gets for him. No wonder he wifed you up.” You playfully kicked her leg, and she laughed again. “Okay, so no avoidance, okay. Maybe you could put the moves on him? Try to recreate that scene with the handcuffs. Who knows what might happen.” She wiggled her eyebrows at you then, and you did your best not to once again be overcome by a fit of giggles.

“Okay, enough of my romantic problems. I was promised When Harry Met Sally and that ice cream has probably melted, so let’s get to it.” 

–X–

You braced yourself at the apartment door as you psyched yourself up to knock. As promised, you’d been greeted in the morning by a text from Spencer with his address and a proposed time to meet. He’d suggested 5pm, and you’d agreed, but here you were 20 minutes early, probably looking overdressed and over eager to spend time with your coworker/ husband/ soon to be former husband, maybe. 

You’d left Penelope’s apartment that morning, having had an impromptu sleepover, happy that you’d at least confirmed your own feelings. You’d taken a taxi to collect your car, then spent the rest of your time at home overthinking and overpreparing. 

You’d put on a dress and some make-up, and you were almost regretting the decision now you were on his doorstep, wondering what he’d think. You worked one of the toughest jobs in the world together, and you knew that he’d seen you completely black and blue after going blow for blow with unsubs in the past. Would he think this sudden effort was weird? You tried not to pace, knowing that your footsteps in the hall would alert him to your presence, but you couldn’t bring yourself to knock just yet. 

You checked your phone again. 4:45. You couldn’t spend another fifteen minutes out here overthinking, so you finally just pushed ahead and knocked. Almost as if he had been waiting on the other side of the door this entire time, Reid answered immediately, not even letting you get a third rap in before he was there standing in front of you. 

“Hi,” you said, standing there awkwardly with your hand still up, ready to knock again. 

“Hey,” he replied, smiling at you. 

You felt his eyes trail down your body, taking in your appearance. The dress you’d chosen wasn’t particularly special, just a mid-length tiered dress with bow straps. The weather was getting chillier so you’d layered it over a plain turtleneck, enjoying the added bonus of not having to conceal down your neck to mask the love bites he’d lavished upon you only a few nights prior. 

You looked at him as well, and you were pleasantly surprised by his casual wear. He was more dressed down than he was in the office, but not by much. He was still wearing slacks, and a button down shirt as well, but he’d thrown a beaten up CalTech sweater over the top of them, and he looked so cosy you wanted to bury your head in his chest. He was wearing his glasses, and you were so thankful for that, as you forgot how well they suited him, fitting him perfectly. 

“You’re early.” He said, finally breaking the silence between the two of you, drawing you out of the trance he’d kept you in while you took in the sight of him. 

“Yeah, I guess I just overestimated how long it was going to take to get here. Is that okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah, it’s great, totally fine. Come in.” He moved his body to the side slightly so you could enter the door, but kept his outer arm pressed against the door so you had to duck under it, brushing past him as you went. The small contact made your entire body buzz, your heartrate picking up as you willed yourself to act natural. 

“The food should be here any minute.” He smiled as he followed you back into his apartment. “I wanted it to arrive before you got here so I could surprise you.” You turned around to face him, and you could hear the bashfulness in his voice as he made the admission. 

“Sorry for ruining the surprise,” you smiled up at him. “What did you order?” 

“I remembered you mentioned that Korean streetfood place a while back that does those spicy rice cakes and kimbap rolls, so I got us some of that. Is that okay?” 

“Sounds perfect.” You were touched that he even remembered the conversation when you yourself couldn’t even think of when it might have happened. He turned and walked further into the apartment, and you followed him this time, finally looking around and taking it all in. 

The walls were obviously lined with bookshelves, and there were books laying around in piles everywhere. The walls were painted a dark colour, which made the space feel calming, almost more intimate, and sunlight was streaming in from the open window on the back wall. 

“Sorry, it’s not much. Take a seat wherever, and I’ll grab those books I was talking about.” 

You took a seat on the couch and watched him trail around the room, picking up books from several shelves and stacks. 

“Okay, this is all of them. So the main takeaway is that it usually takes two weeks to fully recover memories from alcohol induced blackouts.” He explained, bringing you a stack at least eight books high. 

“Spencer, did you read all of these last night?” You asked. 

“Yeah, I said I would, I thought it would help.” 

“Spencer,” you took his hand into yours as he set the books on the floor and flopped down to the couch beside you. “I really appreciate you putting in all this effort to help us, but you could’ve just come home and relaxed, you know. Our case was long and tough, and now all of this, you deserve a break.” You stroked your thumb over the back of his hand, trying to make the gesture calm and reassuring. 

“I know, I wanted to do this. I want to remember what happened between us,” he whispered the words softly, not needing to fill the space with much sound as you’d crept closer and closer together since he’d returned. 

“So, uh, two weeks then, is that it, we just have to wait for the memories to return?” you asked quietly, letting go of the small moment you’d shared to get back to the task at hand. 

“It seemed so, but there are some other more general tips we could implement that could help us piece together what happened. We might at least be able to figure out who our witnesses were.” 

You felt almost guilty then, but you kept your mouth shut. You’d decided the night before that you wouldn’t tell Reid about Penelope. At least not yet. You wanted the time first to see if he could possibly feel the same way about you before you worked up the courage to let him in on what you had learnt. 

“Yeah, I’m open to try anything. Within reason, that is.” 

“Great! I was thinking at first that maybe we could do a cognitive interview, but as we only have each other to work with, I thought that might make some of our answers more biased and not garner effective results. But we could still try to jog our memories by working out some of the same emotions, doing some things we could have done that night, and seeing if any of it rings a bell?” 

“Some of the things we did that night?” 

“Yeah,” he repled. 

“Like… like make out or get handcuffed to a bed?” You enjoyed watching the flush creep up his neck, and his eyes go wide as he struggled to backtrack on that one. 

“No, no! I mean, unless you want to, or you think it would help?” It was your turn to be left speechless, your mouth suddenly not complying with your brain as you begged yourself to respond somehow. All you could muster was a glance down at his lips that lingered a bit too long, your body slowly creeping forward. 

He noticed and moved closer towards you as well, letting his hand grasp your waist as you got caught in his atmosphere. 

“It’s worth a try, right? To regain our memories.” He supplied you with the words, letting you stay silent as your lips grew closer and closer together, seconds away from taking your breath away forever. 

A loud rap at the door and a shout of “delivery” had the two of you suddenly bouncing away from each other, Reid scrambling to the door to collect the food, while you stood up awkwardly and tried to pretend there was something really interesting on his bookshelf that had caught your attention all of a sudden. 

For the Nth time in so many days, you found yourself trying to convince your heart to beat a little quieter, and you managed to get yourself under control as he returned with the food.

“I’m sorry, I lost track of time…” he trailed off as you nodded, joining him back at the couch as he began unpacking the food. 

“It’s totally fine, we should eat anyways, trust me when I say this stuff doesn’t taste even half as good cold.” You smiled at him, but it didn’t go quite to your eyes. You really wanted to kiss him, and you were really doing your best to control your disappointment, not wanting to show off how desperate for him you were. 

“Well, you’re in luck, because you now get to witness one of my only flaws,” he said, fishing out two sets of chopsticks from the delivery bag. “I am absolutely terrible with chopsticks.” 

You giggled at him and grabbed the pair he offered you, letting out a dramatic fake gasp. “And you only tell me after we get married? That’s it, I want a divorce,” you laugh, and the two of you settle down into a comfortable silence as you begin your meal. 

–X– 

Two hours later, and you’re still no closer to locking lips with the man than you were earlier. You’d had a nice time talking with him over the food, both of you sitting like kids on the floor as you ate over his coffee table. He’d told you about a Korean film festival he’d attended a few years back, one of many international film festivals he’d been to, and you sat and listened, in awe of the way his eyes lit up when he talked about something that excited him. You hoped that one day, he’d talk about you in that same way. 

You helped him clean up and settled back onto the couch, where he’d mentioned having a copy of one of the films that had since been subtitled, and you ended up in another movie marathon.

The movie was good, but his presence next to you was even better. He’d stretched out his arms on the couch behind you, letting you snuggle up into his side as you pulled your legs up and under you, screwing yourself up in a comfortable little ball, burrowing into him for warmth. He was a fire beside you, and you wished you were bold enough to push further into him, to drag your hands across his skin and feel even more of him, continuing the exploration from earlier. But you weren’t, and, honestly, you were tired, so you let yourself sit peacefully beside him, touching but not much, as you were lulled to sleep by the sounds of the TV. 

It was pitch black outside when you finally cracked your eyes open again, but he was still there next to you on the couch. The movie had been turned off, and so had the TV, and there was a blanket now wrapped around your legs, so he had obviously moved, but he had also come back to you. You shifted your head up to look at him and smiled. He’d picked up another book from who knows what shelf and was reading slowly so as not to wake you with the movements of his hand as he traced down the page. Your head had moved from his chest to his lap, and he held the book off to the side in one hand, his other resting protectively over your waist. He was so engrossed by his book that he hadn’t even realised you’d moved and that you were awake until you spoke to him. 

“Spencer? What time is it?” you asked, your voice thick with sleep. 

“It’s 11:30. You fell asleep during the movie and you looked like you could use the sleep.” 

“Wow, what a way to tell a girl she doesn’t look so good,” you laughed at him as he pouted down at you. 

“I didn’t mean that. Y/N, you look beautiful today. You look beautiful everyday.” 

You lifted yourself up from his lap, one hand braced on either side of his legs on the couch as you bought yourself eye-to-eye with him, your chests close enough to touch if you took a big breath in. Instead, yours were shallow as you looked up at him through heavy eyes. 

“Thank you, Spencer.” You whispered, silently begging him to close the space between the two of you. But he didn’t, instead, clearing his throat and putting his book down, breaking your eye contact. 

“I should be getting home now. It’s pretty late.” You said, standing up from the couch. He followed you up and around as you started collecting your things and organising the space you’d occupied. 

“Y/N it’s late, and you’re tired. I can’t let you drive home like that. An estimated 30% of road accidents occur due to sleep deficiency, you know.” 

“It’s fine, I don’t want to get a taxi and just leave my car here and then have to come back in the morning. I’ll be fine driving,” you said, but he softly took the keys out of your hands as you grabbed them from your bag. 

“Stay here tonight.” He said, less of a suggestion than an already established fact. You looked up at him and knew there was no changing his mind, but he continued anyway. 

“I have a spare toothbrush and some old clothes you can probably use as pajamas, and it’s not like we haven’t shared a bed before. Maybe…maybe waking up next to each other again will help jog our memories, too. We only have until the end of the week, right?” 

He looked at you expectantly, and you let out a little sigh and nodded your head, letting him guide you away to the bedroom and back into sleeping in his arms. 

--×--

🏷 @w-windy @multifandom-on-the-side @reidandhotchsgirl @babybluecakes @hugyourlungs @prentissesredtanktop @reidscaffeine @bethanyhaas01 @average-sunflower @academiareid @sailortongue @daddy-dotcom @anniewhalelover @abbyshmaby @isabel-ffl-xoxo @sujan39 @frxcless @bluestuesday @busy-buzzing @breadbrobin @maxinehufflepuffprincess @l0v3cam @booksandwonderlands @myescapefromthislife @ferrjulie @scoobydoopoo @aelinismyqueen @littlesingingbean @jamiemuscatosslut @xohoneybun @anchovy89freya @dysphoricsanity @ghostheartbeat @rebloggiest-reblogger @wishyoudaskme @imawhoreforu @academiacoffeelover @softservepunk @andiebeaword @r-3dlips @wakaladjarin @ratbastardchild @mcira @danika1994 @stargurl99 @whovianwholikesgirls @its-not-too-late-for-coffee @doriantomybasil @shqwqrma @shits8gigs

[priisakilljoy]

They gave her a choice. She choose.

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (2022 - ) I I Could Not Prevent It

[moralesmilesanhour]

teamwork (makes the dream work...?) pt. 2

summary: miles is not exactly a productive work partner

wc: ~800

A/N: not much plot movement here, but a tiny bit of exposition sort of. Miles will calm down in the following chapters...maybe 🥴

prev. next

"Oh Miles? He's in some of my AP classes. Honor student," Your friend's voice filtered through your phone speakers while on the FaceTime call. She popped a potato chip in her mouth as she sat in bed and sniffled, at home with a nasty cold.

"I've heard his name before. I think his dad died, that true?"

"Yeah, a couple years ago. Say he used to be really sweet, and now he don't talk no more."

"That's sad," you remark. "Maybe that's why I'm only seeing him now."

"You actually saw him in class?!?"

Your friend's face was the picture of disbelief, eyes wide as saucers as if this was a rare event.

"Yeah, he's my partner for the week cuz you decided to go and get yo ass sick!" you explained, dramatically jabbing a finger at your phone screen.

"It's not my fault that kid from AP Chem sneezed on me, damn!"

"He's really smart, but his attitude fucking sucks. He draws good, though," you think out loud.

“It’s just a week, sis, give it four more days, you’ll be fine.”

“You’d better hope so, for your sake.”

-

The following afternoon saw you asking around, trying to piece together a picture of this kid that everyone simultaneously knew and didn’t know. By the time lunchtime ended and Ms. Jones’ calculus class rolled around, you had heard the following:

‘Almost flunked out of school…on purpose’.

‘Did graffiti on the school walls once.’

‘Freakishly quiet’.

‘Secretly joined a gang’.

That last bit made your stomach turn a little as you approached your new temporary seat. Sure enough, Miles was already slouched at his desk, twirling that same pen between his fingers like a drumstick. You didn’t bother to say ‘hi’ this time. He didn’t bother to look up, either.

Miles didn’t say a word during the lecture portion of class, not even to answer questions. Would explain why you’d hardly noticed him until this week.

As the heavy-set math teacher scanned the classroom, she frequently craned her neck and made brief eye contact with Miles, but never cold-called him.

Her skin was a chestnut shade, and she kept her dark hair pinned back in a tight, slick bun. The way she pressed her lips together as she moved on suggested that they’d been through this before, and she'd be sorely disappointed.

When her lecture ended, Miles suddenly stood to his full height.

You weren’t able to tell by the way he sat, but the boy was quite lanky. Even with his awkwardly-broad shoulders slumped, he likely was a half a head taller than you. Ms. Jones stopped her slow pacing around the classroom and sighed.

“Miles, sweetie, what did I say yesterday?”

Miles looked up at the ceiling and sighed in exasperation before plopping back down into his chair. He raised his hand as if it pained him to do so.

“Yes, Mr. Morales?”

“May I please use the restroom?”

A few snickers could be heard erupting around the classroom, and the woman rolled her eyes. An innocent smile was plastered over Miles’ face, revealing two deep dimples in his cheeks. If the smile had actually reached his eyes, you would’ve thought he was cute.

“Go ahead,” Jones relented.

The boy dropped the smile and noisily pushed his chair aside; As he shot back up from his seat and strolled past your desk towards the door, Jones narrowed her eyes at him.

“Hold it. Sir, where are your glasses?”

Miles stopped in his tracks, groaning loudly.

“Oh my god, I don’t need glasses to go potty, Ms. Jones. I can aim, I promise.”

“Make sure you put them on as soon as you get back, your mother told me to remind you. Go,” Jones said, waving her hand dismissively.

“Uh-huh, thank you, ma’am!” The boy was already in the hallway, letting the door slam behind him.

Today's partner work was just a packet of long equations to simplify, so you were only mildly irritated that Miles never seemed to return from his impromptu bathroom trip until the last fifteen minutes of class.

You looked up as he sauntered over to his desk, hands in his pockets.

“Where were you? Class is almost over,” you demanded.

Miles ignored you and sat down, picking up his pen to work at a long string of equations at lightning speed.

Suddenly, you reached over and snapped your fingers in front of him. The boy looked up with his lips curled into a grimace.

"What's good witchu? You got through the work, didn't you?" Miles hissed in a low whisper to avoid catching Ms. Jones' attention.

You frowned deeply. "And what if I didn't? I'd be struggling while you were off running around the damn school-"

"I needed time to myself," he interrupted. "To think."

" 'Think' about what?"

"Personal shit," Miles resumed his problem-solving. "Any more questions, officer?"

The school bell rang, pulling from you a sigh of relief that you wouldn't have to see him again for another 24 hours.

[sophiethewitch1]

What We Want - Chpt. 3 - Dreams And...

In Which A Romantic Breaks The Universe

(Yandere!batboys x f!reader) 18+ MDNI!

SUMMARY

Another lonely birthday, another empty year. You miss your family. You're late for your bills and rent, and even then, you got robbed last Tuesday.

Still, you buy yourself a cupcake, because you need it. I mean, hey. What's dessert for if not to get over cheating boyfriends and dead relatives?

As you blow out the candle, watching the clock switch from 11:59 pm to midnight of the next day, you make a wish.

And because the world doesn't like to make much sense, it comes true. Your life is suddenly flipped on a dime, and you're stuck trying to catch up with it. Fantasy becomes reality. You're a Wayne now, apparently. Or you used to be. You're loved, you're rich, you're talented and powerful.

Well, sort of. Careful what you wish for, right?

(TRIGGER WARNINGS AND MASTERLIST HERE) - PLEASE REMEMBER TO CHECK, THIS CHAPTER IS DARKER IN TONE!

PREV - NEXT

Your hands are pruned. It’s quiet in the extravagant bathroom, other than the sound of the tap’s running water and your own shaky breathing. This was all a bit much. Your hands are more than clean now, but you absolutely do not want to go back out there.

You kind of just want to go back into one of the stalls and cry. A core girlhood experience, except you were an adult with a job and taxes. Or, you were. You think you’re some rich scion or something in this dream. Which like, cool, who wants to slave under capitalism anyways?

…You wonder if anyone would notice if you slipped out the window. You’d been gone for a while and nobody had come looking for you, since you’d totally gotten lost trying to find the bathroom. Sure, you were on the third floor, but at this point you were willing to risk it. Even if you couldn’t walk in a straight line right now, much less climb the trellises. For some reason, you could not handle your liquor today like you usually could. But once again, this was all just a very vivid dream, so it wasn’t like you could die.

To punctuate that thought, you hear someone scream.

It cuts off instantly, and then there’s quiet again. You pause, then turn off the tap, listening for any more sound. Drip, drip, drip… you press the tap down again and properly turn it off. Still no noise. Immediately, you realise you are standing directly in a horror film. You live in Gotham for fuck’s sake. It wasn’t an unlikely occurrence. You’d gotten mugged just a few days ago.

And you were alone in the bathrooms. So unbelievably drunk, and alone in the bathrooms. You were actually so dead, it was crazy. A dream, a dream…!

Your head bows, staring into the white porcelain of the sink as you focus hard on your hearing. You don’t think you could hear the party before, but you’re not sure. It’s definitely not there now. You swallow the dry pain in your throat, trying to summon a modicum of courage. Your vision spins.

You slap your wet hands to your face and then blink through your fingers. God. Okay, okay, okay. You can do this. You survived a mugging just last week with only minimal bruising. To convince yourself of your badassery, you dig your fingers into the blemishes, hoping to wake yourself up with the pain. It’s a bad habit but you have lots of those.

…Where’s the pain? Oh god, where’s the pain? Wait, don’t panic, it’s a dream! Of course, you wouldn’t have your bruises in a dream. That made total sense. And you definitely weren’t panicking.

You splash more water on your face. Time to face the music, you drunken moron. If you were going to be in a horror movie, you’d be the final girl of all final girls.

One hand on the sink, you take your heels off. They’re going to get in the way, and the sound of them clicking against the marble will give away your location. Massaging your sore ankles, you try and come up with a game plan. You don’t know what’s going on, and it really could all just be a false alarm, but better safe than sorry and all that. It’s a gala full of some of the richest people on earth, and you’re pretty sure you saw a swat team of security guards at the entrance.

So this was probably a hostage situation or a villain attack. You’d hear more noise if it was a supervillain fighting a superhero downstairs. Then you’ll bet on a hostage situation for now. Depending on who had taken you all hostage, that could be a totally fine situation where you all just end up leaving with lighter purses, or it could be the Scarecrow’s shown up and he’s about to mentally traumatise you. Like you needed any more of that.

Of course, this was all probably still a dream. Maybe if you say it enough times you’ll actually believe it. You’ll just plan ahead in case this is real (which it definitely isn’t). Plus you’d proven you could feel pain in this dream anyway, with all the times you’d slapped yourself. You hoped the fucking Tim Drake didn’t think you were too weird. Because he definitely thought you were weird.

It’s cool. You’re cool. You could handle this. You were a Gotham native after all. Totally cool. You have to force yourself not to gag on your own fear. Totally, absolutely, terrifically cool.

A few deep, calming breaths later, and you’re cracking the door of the lavatory open just an inch. You peer through the crevice, taking another deep breath when you don’t see anyone in the hallway. You push the door open a bit wider, peek your head around it to look the other way. Still empty. Another deep breath, you feel your chest rise and fall, and then you take the first step out onto the wooden floors. You wince at the slight noise the bare sole of your foot makes and hurry over to the long Persian rug to snuffle any more sounds.

And then you’re standing in the middle of the hallway in your ballgown, head swivelling back and forth as you try and catch any minuscule sounds, shoulders bunched up to your ears.

The first thing you need to check is the exits. Since you are on the third floor, and the banquet was on the first, you can assume that they’re well-guarded, but probably far away from you. Still, this is the Wayne Enterprises Tower, and there wasn’t just the party happening tonight. It was mostly empty as you’d seen but there’d been a few people you’d wandered past. They’d all seemed like late-night office workers, and the female janitor you’d bumped into was the one who had told you where the toilet was.

Was the janitor okay? Was that her scream you’d heard? Concentrate, dumbass. On airplanes, they tell you to put your mask on first before you do it for anyone else. The idea was the same here. Save yourself before you can hope to save anyone else.

That was… that was if you even needed saving. This could all still just be your own paranoia. Someone hit their knee on a ridiculously fancy side table or something. Like that scream wasn’t of pure terror. Like it didn’t sound like someone on death’s door.

Concentrate! Okay, check the stairs first. Don’t take the elevator, because you’re not an idiot. Maybe. Hopefully. Slowly but surely you creep your way back towards the entrance to the third level, where both the elevator and the stairs were. There was a map, too. You hadn’t been able to figure it out earlier, but you had a bit more incentive this time.

You make sure to place your feet carefully, aiming for the carpets and rugs. Even if your drunken steps miss half the time, you’re still mostly quiet. Every time you have to walk across a crossing you spend a minute listening, and then peer around every corner too. You’re not sure if you should be running, or if you really should try one of the windows.

Deep breaths. Keep moving. That’s the best course of action. Don��t get caught, but don’t just hide either.

It’s when you’re almost at the third-floor foyer when you hear something. There’s a crash, the sound of something breaking. No voices, though. Still, you can’t convince your body to move for a full minute. There’s a part of you that wants to go hide in an abandoned cubicle and wait, but there’s another part of you that is very aware of the rates of fires in this city. You keep going, taking a longer route to avoid the source of the crashing.

Another noise. A scream. Laughter. Spine-chilling laughter.

Shit, motherfucker. Why the hell did you get smashed at a fucking Wayne gala? Everybody knew the rogues of this city were totally obsessively in love with Bruce Wayne. Especially your own personal worst nightmare. You don’t dare even think his name, lest you summon the bastard.

Was he in Arkham right now? He should be. Like you should be at home in the Narrows getting a good night’s rest. Like you should be wearing dorky Flash pyjamas, not a dress more expensive than your rent.

He should be. It’s not nearly enough.

You realise, suddenly, that you have to make a choice here. You can walk away, pretend you didn’t hear anything, that you can’t hear anything. A woman’s cries, you think. You could leave her, save yourself. Hideaway and let whatever fate she’s facing befall her. Could you do that? Could you even stomach the idea?

In the end, the universe makes the decision for you.

“And who do we have here? What’s a pretty little thing like you doing wandering around?”

You hear your doom in his slimy voice, even though you didn’t hear him sneak up on you. Shaking, you raise your hands into the air, and slowly turn around. You see your doom in the twisted clown mask’s grin. For a second you think it’s really him, but then you notice his dark brown hair and the tanned skin under the mask. God, god, god. It’s a Joker goon. Your literal worst nightmare, given flesh. Is he here? No, no, no- You swallow down the urge to scream, to run, and do your best to keep thinking like a person and not a prey animal.

You feel like one. You think he knows that. You hope he doesn’t.

“Hey Travis, I found another one!” the man calls out, raising his gun to point at you. He jerks it, moving forward, and you turn back around obediently. The gun presses against the back of your head, and you move forward, obediently.

“Shithead, don’t say my name out loud!” another voice replies. You get to see its owner when you come around the corner and find the foyer.

There are five other people here, all tied up. Four seem to be exhausted office worker bees, who just stayed too late on the wrong day, and the last is the janitor who helped you. The kind lady gives you terrified eyes, but she’s the only one not crying among the hostages.

“Man, you worry too much. Like there aren’t hundreds of Travis’s in the city.”

“Just shut up, my god! If we leak info and it gets traced back to us, he’s docking our pay.”

Who’s he? Who’s fucking he?! He can’t be here, right? He fucking can’t be. You can’t, you can’t. God, you're going to vomit right here and now.

“Whatever. Anyway, this is the last person on this floor.”

“Check the feed again, dickhead,” the second one commands, obviously the leader between the two.

The one who caught you groans, and then you hear the sound of fabric shuffling. Is he looking at his phone? You wish you could turn around and look. You don’t dare with the barrel against you.

Your teeth dig into the side of your mouth. So did they have the security feeds? That meant you were doomed from the start. The only other option would’ve been to actually jump out one of the windows. They would’ve probably found you anyway. Hunted you down to meet their quota.

Shit. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. This is looking like a big deal. And everybody knew Joker never left out on his big deal jobs, he enjoyed them too much. He’s probably downstairs demanding the Batman come meet him and have tea or something. Shit.

All of a sudden these goons seem like the much better end of the deal.

“Checked, checked, double-checked, triple-checked… There’s nobody else here,” the man behind you grumbles, and the one in front of you sighs.

“Alright, alright. Bring her over, I’ll tie her up, and then we can blow this joint,” the man says, and you really, really hope he’s not being serious about blowing this place. You’d had enough of explosions, thank you very much. Especially ones organised by the Joker.

The gun digs harshly into your skull, “Well, go on.”

Swallow, swallow down your fear. Don’t let it stop you. You walk forward to the other man, arms in the air shaking. When you’re in reaching distance, the second goon roughly grabs you and shoves you to your knees. He pushes your hands in front of you, not bothering to tie them behind you. You don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.

The rope cuts into your skin. It’s going to leave marks, and bruises. The man finishes tying the knot and then pulls you back to your feet. Then he shoves you towards the elevator and turns to start picking up the other hostages. You turn so your back is toward the wall, not willing to have your eyes off the monsters for even a second.

It’s when he’s pushing one of the office workers towards you, that the second man speaks again.

“Hey, the boss said we had to kill one of ‘em.”

What? What did he say?

“Oh yeah, oops.”

The gunshot goes off before you can process the words. Before you can process the gunshot, the janitor’s body is crumpling to the floor. Before you can process her fall, blood is starting to seep from the wound in her chest. Before you can process any of that, the man behind you laughs.

He laughs. He laughs and laughs and laughs.

The janitor lies on the floor, blood seeping into her hair and uniform. You squeeze your eyes tight, tears slipping over the lids. You refuse to look at the wound. At the gaping hole in her chest. And despite yourself, you know why they shot her, not you. Not any of the workers either.

Because she wasn’t worth the cash.

Yesterday, that would’ve been you on the floor. You were a fake wearing a fancy dress, who didn’t belong here at all. Still, they didn’t know that. You didn’t think anybody knew that. Not anyone but you, who had woken up in a world a little to the left.

“I’ll be down in a minute, Trav. I wanna play with this one for a bit,” the shooter says, and all of a sudden you’re thrown back into your body, into your frail mortality. You’re cold, your spine gives a shiver, and your horrified eyes find the wretched clown mask.

Like you said, your doom. You wish you weren’t right all the time.

“No way. She’s one of the high-profilers, we need her,” his leader replies, and you’re desperate to stick by his side. You didn’t think a Joker goon would be your saviour, but here you were.

“I’ll give you five K of my split,” he offers, not willing to let go of it. Of you.

The other one pauses, glances at you assessingly. There’s a glint of something in his eyes, something that tells you you’re not making it out of here unscathed. It’s something you recognise, something you even recognise inside yourself.

It’s greed. And it’s going to kill you. You always knew it would, you just didn’t think it’d be like this.

“Make it seven,” he finally announces, the deal for your soul made without any fuss or fanfare.

“You’re such a hardass. Fine, fine, seven it is.”

“Alright, and only thirty minutes, tops. Not a hair on her head, you understand me?” he says over his shoulder, waggling a finger at his coworker.

The group leaves through the elevator. It dings, and you watch in mute, stunned horror as the other hostages refuse to meet your gaze. As they abandon you to save their own asses. You couldn’t really blame them, as much as you wanted to. You were ready to do the same earlier.

“I think not even a hair is pushing it, right?” the creep says, finger reaching out for said hair. You jerk back out of his reach, an instinctual flinch. He grins, and lets his hand fall back to his side. You take a shaky step backward.

You’re trembling with fear. With the need to get away from this terror, this situation.

He gestures with his gun, pointing back in the direction of the branching hallways.

“Well, go on. Run.”

And God help you, you do.

Spinning on your heel, you flee to the echoing sound of his laughter. Your feet fall rhythmically against the marble floors, the sound of your bare soles far too loud. You can’t even do anything about it. There’s no option for stealth here, only the sort of hunt you’d expect to find in the woods.

Not here in civilised mankind’s territory. But this was Gotham, and the monsters often looked human.

You dart into a large room filled with tiny square cubicles. A call centre or something, a maze of low walls that are too small to hide behind. You keep going, teeth-gritting when his laughter cuts off. He’s taking this seriously, hunting you down. You think he’s done this before. ‘Played’ with people.

You can’t worry about those other poor victims, lest you become his next one.

Another crash, this time to your left. Your head snaps to the side, eyes wide, but when you look there’s only a broken lamp on the floor. You have to swallow down the urge to cry. He is. He’s playing with you. He’s having fun with it.

You keep running, passing by halls and offices and don’t stop running till you can’t. Out of breath. You’re out of breath. You bend over, the stitch in your side too much for you to stand. Why are you out of breath? You can run more than this. You often run more than this when you’re late for your morning train.

What’s going on? What’s happening to you?

A bang, behind you. You spin around. Don’t see anything.

He’s nearby. Right under your nose. You need to keep running, you have to. Through your panting you hear his laughter again, and that’s enough fear to get you moving again. Maybe you were in Arkham, arms strapped to your side and screams wailing down the halls.

You didn’t believe it. No, not in this moment. Not right now, as you run for your life. If you lived through this, you’d probably go back to thinking it was all a dream or a delusion.

But with that monster nearby, there’s nothing this could be but real. With sweat dripping down your neck, smearing your makeup. With the feeling of your heart beating out of your chest, in your ears. With the blind, all-consuming panic you’re in.

He’s real. And he’s coming for you.

You lift your tied hands and press them to your lips, muffling the sound of your harsh breathing and soft sobs. Heart beating out of your ribcage, you push your body even as it screams for you to stop. You’re flagging. Vision’s swimming, and you can feel bile creeping up your throat. You can’t keep doing this. You need to keep doing this.

For a moment, you stop to catch your breath. And he catches you too.

You scream, tugging at the rough grip on him. He swings you around into a wall, and again, you cry out. Side throbbing with pain, singing with it. Still, you don’t stop. Can’t stop. Not safe, not safe, not safe. You push back against him, and he pushes back against you. Your drunken state is no match, and you tumble down onto the carpet. When he laughs, you look up at him, and he down at you.

The goon’s plastic mask merges with the Joker’s mutilated face, until you can’t tell the difference.

You aren’t the type to fight back. It’s just not instinctual to you. But when you hear his belt buckle clack, your foot kicks out before you can even think. You hit him squarely in the stomach, knocking him backward, and then you scramble away from underneath him.

“You bitch!”

He grabs you by the nape of your neck, yanking you backwards. You choke, hands grasping desperately at the grip around your throat, but he offers no relent. You’ve pissed him off. That doesn’t mean you can stop, can give up. You can’t stop fighting. Can’t stop struggling. Can’t stop, can’t stop, can’t stop-

The gun clicks. You freeze.

“Yeah, figured you’d be more obedient if I did that. Now, get up,” his voice is breathy, from the high of the chase or the hit you delivered, you’re not sure.

You hope it’s the latter. You hope this fucker drops and dies, right on the spot. You’re not that lucky, though.

Ah, your hands are hurting again. Not just the one, but both. Maybe you touched something. An allergic reaction of some sort. It shouldn’t be distracting you, it shouldn’t even be noticeable in the situation you’re in but god. The itchy heat is nearly as unbearable as the evil cretin in front of you.

“You think you’re gonna get away with that? I’m so fucking sick and tired of you whores who think you matter anything. You don’t, and I’m going to help you realise that,” he rants. His eyes are red through the tiny slits in the mask. Angry, dangerous, on the edge.

“Please, look I’m sorry,” you stutter out, stinging hands in the air. You want to run, but you think he’ll shoot if you do.

“You’re lucky I don’t fuck corpses.”

No, that doesn’t sound very lucky at all, actually. No, this seems like maybe it might turn out to be the new worst moment of your life. You don’t think it can get much worse than this, than the next moments that will pass. And it’s too much. It’s too, too much. Your palms are itchy and there’s a gun pointed between your eyes and the goon’s licking his lips and oh my god you’re going to die from an allergy before the bullet and-

And you just want it all to stop. You want it so desperately. You want the man in front of you to disappear, to never exist again, to go right down to hell where he belongs. You just want him gone.

Your hands stop hurting. The burning heat disappears. It’s quiet again. You can’t hear him laughing, the awful slick sound of him licking his lips. You can’t feel the cool iron on your forehead, the heat from his body so close. You can’t smell his sweaty stench. Your eyes open.

…There’s no gun. There’s no man.

You crumple to the ground with a relieved sob. Fisted hands lift to your eyes, as big blubbery tears stream down your face. Your shoulders shake with your cries. Your heart is screaming in your chest, trying to beat out of it. He’s gone, somehow. You’re alive, somehow. You’re not dead with a bullet in your brain, somehow. Somehow, somehow, somehow.

An impossibility. It’s an impossibility, and you’re so goddamn grateful for it.

As always, you don’t give yourself long to cry. Even as your tears still fall, even as you lick them off your mouth, tasting salt and lipstick and fear, you push to your feet shakily. You almost fall over with your hands still tied, shouldering the wall next to you for balance. You don’t have time to cry. No time to process what just happened. You need to get to safety.

You creep back into the main area, heart pounding in your ears, breath hiccuping. You don’t know how long it takes for you to get there. Ten minutes, thirty, maybe even an hour. When you try the staircase door, it doesn’t open. You yank on the handle, grab a chair and try and smash it in, but it stands strong. Fuck. You try the elevator as a last-ditch effort, but the buttons don’t respond.

You press your overheated forehead to the cool metal. Okay. Okay. Okay, okay, okay.

You turn around and storm back into the cubicle space, find one at the edge of the room with a clear view of all the doors, and tuck yourself under the desk. Pulling your knees to your chest, you resist the urge to rock yourself like a baby.

And you sit there, and you watch, and you wait. It doesn’t matter how many hours pass, you are not moving from this spot. It doesn’t matter how heavy your lids feel, how the adrenaline leaving your body has you sagging.

You’re not going to sleep. It’s not safe, and you’re not dying today. You’re simply not.\

You’re not allowed to.

-

A hand touches your shoulder, and you snap awake. Your fist slings out at the would-be attacker, but they dodge it smoothly. When you rear up for another, they move back, hands in the air in a show of surrender. Panting, you don’t lower the fist, your vision swimming.

It’s the Joker. But the Joker wouldn’t back up, right? And the Joker isn’t red, he’s green and purple.

It takes a while for the Joker’s pale, laughing face to disappear. But when you blink and he’s gone, you find someone else underneath. A red mask, a man you think you recognise from TV. A vigilante. God, you hated the vigilantes in Gotham.

Not more than the Joker. Not more than him.

The man stays a safe distance away, gloved hands firmly in the air. He’s tall, really tall. Broad-shouldered, scary. But he’s a vigilante, right?

Is he here to save you? Someone should've by now. The bastard's late then.

He says your name, you think. You can’t hear him properly. Wait no, it’s a nickname, one you haven’t heard in years. You could barely remember your mother calling you that as she tucked you in, as she told you she loved you over the phone, as she disappeared from the world entirely.

You hadn’t let anyone call you that since.

How does he know that name? How does this bastard know your name?

“-hurt? Hey, hey. Listen to me, are you hurt anywhere?” his voice is deep and warbled through the red metal mask, his eyes peering down at you through his domino. You just stare at him, eyes wide, barely breathing.

You need to know how he knows. Unconsciously, your hand reaches up to him, and after a moment, he takes it in his own firm grip. It’s awkward, as you’re still sitting half under the desk and he’s trying to stay as far away from you as possible. Still, his hand is warm through the leather, grounding, keeping you from drifting off into panic and fear. Into your worst nightmares come to life.

Because this was real. It didn’t matter that it was impossible, it was real. You simply couldn’t deny it any longer, this was all real.

You stare at this stranger’s gloved hand like it holds the answers to the universe. It might, in the end. It really just might. It wasn’t like the universe was making much sense at the moment.

“She seems fine. Uninjured, if a bit shocked. Doesn’t seem to have a concussion. Hardly responding anyway,” Red Hood speaks, but not to you. An earbud, you think. Superheroes used wiretaps and things like that all the time, right?

If you could even consider Red Hood a superhero. Everybody knew he had his own gang. Of course, even as your very life is being saved, it’s by a morally grey hero who runs around with crowbars and guns. Ah, you’re crying again.

You told yourself a long time ago that you wouldn’t let yourself cry anymore. And you’d managed it, mostly. You think you’ll give yourself a pass for today, just a little one. You hold this stranger’s hand, and you cry.

You just cry. You cry, and you hold the hand of some stranger you hate, because you have to.

MASTERLIST - NEXT

[redfoxwritesstuff]

A Misdemeanor Of The Heart: Chapter 22 (Human Alastor x Reader)

Chapter Trigger Warnings: UwU Fluff, Angst, implied sexual assault

Prev Masterlist AO3 KoFi

The basket clattered to the ground, spilling containers and napkins. Glass shattered as the cups hit the ground, but you hardly noticed it. Alastor’s foot caught in the basket as he stepped forward, trying to save you from crashing into the front of his car as an uncharacteristic curse dropped from his lips. 

It didn’t do him any good, only crushing the basket as he himself stumbled. The cool steel of the car bit into your back. Pain ripped through your healing ribs as you gasped. The pain faded into the background as Alastor caught himself just a moment before his body crashed against yours. 

His hands landed on either side of you, braced against the hood of the car. You could just feel his chest brush against yours as you took gasping breaths, more out of shock than anything else. 

He was so close now. You could feel him. God help you, you could smell him. Musk and pine with a touch of cigarette smoke. The smell along with his warmth made your head spin. 

“Are you alright?” He asked, not moving away. 

“My ankle twisted was all,” you whispered, eyes darting between his, then down at his lips as his tongue darted out, wetting them. “I just stepped wrong.” 

“I’m glad,” Alastor said, lifting a hand to brush stray hair behind your ear. “It’d kill me if you came to any real harm with me.” 

Alastor waited, watching as your eyes roamed his face. His heart beat in his chest as fire felt like it burned through his blood, threatening to eat away at the resolve he maintained ever so carefully. 

He leaned forward and you tilted your face up, eyes wide, looking so much like a doe caught in headlights. Tempting, god above, you were teaching him what temptation truly meant. If this is what those women felt as they chased after him, desperate for as little as a look, he understood it now. 

A deep sigh ripped from his chest as he rested his forehead against yours, taking in the warmth of your skin and the way you trembled ever so slightly, trapped between him and the car. He should let you up, should give you space to breathe, but it was taking everything in him not to take what distance you had from you. 

He wouldn’t. God, how he wanted to, but he wouldn’t. You had your choices taken from you again and again. He had watched from a tree, fucking helpless as the man you married invaded the sanctity of your body against your wishes. 

Had you ever kissed a man willingly? Even once?

Was there a time when you longed for lips against yours? Was it ever good for you? You had told him that there hadn’t been anyone before your husband. Had you ever longed for his touch at one point? His lips? 

Selfishly, Alastor hoped not. 

What would it feel like to kiss someone he desired? How he wanted to taste your kiss, but you failed to move. He needed distance before he lost his mind, before curiosity burned the last of his resolve. 

Distance. He needed to give you space. Slowly, he did just that, pulling back. As he did so, he noticed your hand resting against his chest. Had it always been there? He didn’t know. He had been so absorbed in the way your eyes darted around his face that it very well could have been. 

You could feel the way his heart beat under your hand. His open jacket covered some of your fingers. Having your hand under his jacket, even just partially, felt far more intimate than the kisses he would place to your temple or the way his hand would linger, holding yours. 

They were not kisses, you told yourself. Yes, they were, your heart screamed back. You didn’t know which was true.

“Why did you pull away?” you asked the question in your heart before your mind gathered control of your lips. 

“You’re married,” he said softly.

“Oh,” you said over him, looking away, shame burning in you as your hand slipped from his chest. “I’m sorry, I-”

His hand wrapped around yours, holding the palm of your hand flush against his heart, ensuring you had no choice but to feel how rapidly it was beating against his chest. 

“I don’t care about that. I only mean to say it should be your choice.” Alastor said, eyes locked on you as he hooked your chin with a finger, pulling your face back to his, ensuring you saw him as he spoke. “I will not be just another man taking from you, forcing you.”

Your choice.

What a strange concept. Tears burned in your eyes as you tried to put your thoughts in order. You took too long, and he was pulling away again, a guarded smile across his lips.

You acted before you could think about it anymore. You only got one life to live. The bible had taught you that lusting after someone that was not your marriage mate was as sinful as the act of adultery itself. In your heart, you know you had already paved your road to hell. 

The fabric of his shirt bunched under your hand as your fingers balled into a fist, grabbing ahold of him as you threw your other arm around his neck. You didn’t know what you were doing, never had you initiated a kiss before, but you’d seen it in films and from couples that actually cared for eachother. 

You pulled yourself up off the car, or maybe you were pulling him down to you. You didn’t know for sure. Then his lips were against yours. His hand, which had left your chin when you moved, hovered in the air for a moment before resting against your neck lightly. 

Would he push you away?

Fingers curled around your neck, weaving through the hair at the nape as he leaned into you. He drug his hand from the hood of his car, wrapping his fingers around your hip as he held you in place. 

Sanity clawed back into your mind as you pulled away, blinking your eyes open as you looked up at him. What would he do? What would he say? You pulled your lip between your teeth as you waited. 

He had said it was your choice and impulsive though it may have been; you had made your choice. 

Alastor’s hands were long, strong, yet elegant. His thumb caressed your jaw and then applied pressure, just under the bone, to encourage you to tilt your head up a little more. 

Then his lips were on yours. You could feel the way he sighed into the kiss, his chest moving with it as the breath washed over your face. His hand wrapped around your lower back, pulling you tighter to him. Your hand ran up his chest, fingers dancing over the collar of his shirt, taking in the soft feeling of his neck.

His hand on your lower back ran up, holding you closer. It seemed with every exhale of air; he pulled you closer as his lips moved against yours, pulling and pushing. Each time his lips left yours for a gasping breath, he was back again.

As you pulled air into your lungs, his kiss pinched your lower lip softly between his lips. Your head spun. Never had you dreamed it could feel so good to simply be kissed. His hair was as soft as you dreamed as your hand slipped along his neck.

Your thumb brushed against his jaw and your head swam at the feeling of a patch of stubble, ever so small and slight. A missed spot from his morning shave, just under his jaw. A speck of imperfection, hardly noticeable unless you ran the pad of your thumb over it. 

Your lips closed around his, returning to the kiss as you tried to better slot your lips together, trying to correct the misalignment. Any thoughts you may have held onto as he showed you what it felt like to be kissed was lost as something warm and wet darted out between his lips. 

You were not sure if he was trying to lick his lips or yours, but the way he felt had you gasping, begging for air. It was intoxicating, more so than any wine you’d drank in your life as you tasted him as his tongue softly swept into your mouth. 

His kiss wasn’t greedy. Nothing about it hurt. Nothing about it was a battle. It was soft, sweet. You were gasping as his tongue withdrew, leaving you to chase it. You flexed your fingers, scratching his scalp lightly in the process as he continued to pull back. 

Your name was a whisper on his lips, his voice ever so thick and naked as he said, “I’ve got to get you back.” 

“I don’t want to go back,” you whispered back. “I want to stay with you.” 

“We must be careful, ma cherie.” Alastor whispered, leaning in and placing a soft, chaste kiss against your lips before stepping back, putting distance between your bodies. 

You softly touched your lips as you stood in the kitchen, the sink filling with hot water. Laurence hadn’t been terribly impressed with dinner, but the cleaning had earned you mercy for it. 

It felt like you were suffocating, waiting for the sound of his office door closing behind him. Alastor had said he would leave you a note, and you just needed to sneak out to get it. 

Warm hands wrapped around your waist, pulling your back to a too wide chest. Bile rose in your throat as you felt Laurence’s hands smoothe around your front. 

Lips that disgusted you brushed against the top of your head in a vile mockery of the lips you couldn’t stop thinking about. 

“Laurence, honey?” You whispered, frozen otherwise in place. 

“I’ve got a business trip tomorrow,” he said, holding you. “It was sprung on me. That’s why I was so stressed this morning.” 

“That’s alright,” you said though you were less and less sure that it was as you spent more and more time with Alastor. 

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, baby.” 

“I know,” you said, guilt and doubt clawing into you. Your husband was here, arms around you, and you kept thinking about another man. Why couldn’t you feel the way you did for Alastor for your husband? 

“The tip will have me gone overnight again,” Laurence said in your ear. 

“Tomorrow night?” You asked, trying to not sound hopeful.

“Tomorrow night.” Laurence agreed, “I’m going to go upstairs and bathe. Be ready for bed when I’m done.” 

“Yes, Laurence,” you said, tears welling in your clenched eyes as you willed them not to fall. It would be worse for you if you cried, it always was. If you took it with a smile, it wasn’t as bad. Sometimes though, it felt like Laurence’s goal was simply to make you cry so he could be angry about it. 

You looked up from the dishes in the sink as you listened to your husband walk toward the stairs, eyes training on the apple tree in the distance. You couldn’t see it, not really with the darkness of night. It felt like Alastor was out there, looking back at you. He promised more that you couldn’t reach out for. Alastor was something you wanted so badly and yet, as long as you were married, you could never have him. 

There was rat poison under the sink, tucked behind bottles of vinegar and cleaning solutions. You put it there yourself, back in the fall. Tears slipped down your face as you questioned how much it would take to be free of the man you called your husband. 

Then your eyes rose a little more while the sound of Laurence’s weight creaked on the stairs. As Laurence turned on the water, running the bath, your eyes locked on a flash of light. It was little more than a spark coming from the darkness around the apple tree. 

You couldn’t kill your husband, Alastor wouldn’t want anything to do with you if you did. A good man like Alastor would never want a woman who killed another, a woman who committed such an ultimate sin. He needed a strong, infallible woman who would help him push forward.

You wouldn’t deserve a moment of his time if you did something as monstrous as murder. Wiping tears you hadn’t noticed falling from your face, you dried your hands on your house dress and walked through the kitchen on the toes of your shoes. Each step was careful and slow, ensuring that the heels didn’t click against the floors as you walked toward the back door. 

Slowly, you opened the door and slipped outside. The sound of crickets and cool night are enveloped you as you glanced up, expecting to see your husband in the bedroom window waiting to catch you. 

He wasn’t. Your bedroom was dimly lit by the gaslights in the hall. You were in the clear. Walking quickly turned into running as you crossed the back garden. It was dark, and you nearly tripped over your own feet and then again on twigs.

It was selfish, a fleeting hope that wormed itself into your heart, but you hoped he was still there. You wanted to see him again, to feel his arms around you again. Even for just a moment, you wanted to feel his kiss again. 

He was gone when you reached the tree. Disappointed huffs of breath puffed between your lips as you stuffed the fleeting heartbreak down. There wasn’t time to be disappointed. He had been there. You had seen the light from a match being struck. 

Reaching blindly into the hole, you found it. There was a notebook and sticking out from it, a torn-out page. Grabbing the page, you unfolded it, heart in your throat as you struggled to find a ray of moonlight bright enough to read by.

“My Darling,” Alastor’s neat penmanship started. “I enjoyed our lunch and dearly hope that you can say the same. It pains me so to return you to that house, knowing what you endure at the hands of another. I’ll be counting down the moments until I may see you again. Would it be selfish of me to check back tonight for a response? Perhaps, though, I must confess I will before I return home for the night.

Until then, A” 

You held the note to your chest, heart beating fast. Next to the notebook in the hole was a lighter to burn the letters, but you couldn’t stomach the thought. Instead, you folded the paper and tucked it into your apron. It was a risk you couldn’t help taking. 

It was dark and you could only hope your penmanship would please him as much as his did you. It pained you that you had no time to sprawl a lovely message to match his. 

“I don’t have long,” you started, crouched next to the tree as you braced the notebook on your knee. “He’s going out-of-town tomorrow for work. He’ll be gone overnight. I want to see you, if that’s alright. I dearly wish to see you again.” You signed the note with your initial, just as he did and folded it, tucking it along with the notebook and pen into the hole.

Would he have been by already before returning home for the night? You didn’t know. You hoped he would be by again, even in this late hour. It was selfish. He needed rest too, but you hoped that flash of light wasn’t him saying goodbye. 

For a moment you felt the need to snatch the paper up and scrawl a declaration of your feelings across the page. Leave it to speak everything you were to afraid to say, too ashamed to say but instead you turned away. 

You’d been out for far too long already. You needed to get back. Laurence would be out of the bath and looking for you soon. Based on how he held you, you doubted he would tolerate your presence being absent from the bedchamber. 

“I’m sorry,” Laurence said, running his hands over your arms, bodies lit by nothing but the moonlight through the window. That too was quickly fading as clouds moved in. 

“You needn’t be.” Your eyes traveled, looking everywhere but at your husband. 

“I’ve been working so much we’ve not been able to make it to the cinema much lately. Even our lunches have fallen off.” His lips moved against your neck as you tried to stand as still as you could. 

“You’ve been working hard,” you whispered. “I don’t hold it against you.” 

“You don’t seem to appreciate how hard I’m working,” Laurence’s voice turned sharp. What you said was wrong. You didn’t know how or what the right thing was, but you had said the wrong thing. 

“Of course I do,” you forced yourself to turn and face him, though you couldn’t make yourself reach out for him like you knew he wanted. 

“Then fucking act like it.” Laurence’s mouth crashed against yours in a hard kiss that seemed to be a mockery of what you had learned a kiss could be. “Icy bitch.” He said as he tore your nightgown down your body. 

It was near the middle of the night as Alastor crept through the small forest, note in his pocket. The cloud cover was far too thick for him to have a hope of reading it, but that was alright. 

It was a note from you. That’s all that mattered. At least, he hoped it was. He knew it wasn’t the note he left, written after he had delivered you to your back door. 

Once he was safely through the trees, he sat on the first park bench he found, tucked under the warm glow of the streetlamp. Oh, how his heart pounded and that feeling in his gut bloomed as he took in your slanting letters, messy from speed and poor writing position. 

Tomorrow. 

He could see you again so soon. He’d have to plan something. Would he take you out for another evening on the town? Perhaps not Mimzy’s. The memory of Laurence there may be too fresh still. 

The next town over? No, he didn’t want to waste so much time driving when he could be with you in a more intentional sense. His home was the only logical decision. He’d have to make something for dinner, make it worth the night in. That would be fine, large home and middle class upbringing aside, you seemed content with the simpler things in life. 

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Fantasy authors fear the landsknecht and his drip

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To Continue -> 18+ Pillowfort (TW: Sex, Nudity, Choking, Marking/Biting/Bruises)

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Transcript under the cut

Nancy Narrates: [I won the bid. My father looked me in the eyes and smiled. My name is displayed all over the media. I had almost everything I could possibly want. So why was I still so deeply unsatisfied]

[door swings open]

Lily: Well. Look at you, celebrating your big win by gazing at the bottom of a bottle. A true CEO in the making.

Nancy: What do you want? Why are you here?

Lily: Wouldn’t I be a bad sport if I didn’t come congratulate the victor?

Nancy: [scoffs] Don’t waste your breath. I’m hardly moved nor am I flattered.

Lily: I didn’t think you had it in you. Who would have thought that feeble, meek woman I met had some bite to her after all? Paying off my guys in Tomarang? That’s pretty fucking low. God, I should sue your ass for everything you’re worth.

Nancy: It’s a man’s game, right? Isn’t that what you said? Take what you want? I deserve this. So I took it.

Lily: What is it that you really want, Nancy? Are all your accomplishments for meaningless gratification or do you truly love being a vile bitch?

Nancy: You wanna know what I want?

Lily: Go on. Humor me.

Nancy: Alright.

Nancy: I want you to kiss my heels.

Lily: [huffs] Wha- what did you just say to me?

Nancy: I said, I want you to kiss my heels. I won, didn’t I? You’ve come all this way to my office dressed in red because you know I’m a winner. I deserve this and now, I want my prize; you on your knees kissing my heels.

Lily: [sneers] Are you asking me or are you telling me?

Nancy: I’m telling you. Now get up.

Nancy: Crawl.

Lily: [panting] What else?

Nancy: [breathlessly] E-else?

Lily: [groans] Fuck. I need you to tell me what to do.

Nancy: I don’t know...I’ve never-

Lily: Do you want me to take this off?

Nancy: Y-yes...

Lily: Tell me to do it.

Nancy: T-take off my skirt. Now.

Lily: Keep going. Tell me more.

Nancy: I-

Nancy Narrates: [Oh God. What the hell am I doing]

Nancy: I want you to take off my panties..