#honestly was a really shitty year so I'm proud I made it

[leftoverlimerence]

Zelloyd - 2024

[spotsspeciall]

Factory meetings - LN4

vol. 2

Lando Norris x fem!reader

summary: Lando makes a move to Red Bull for 2024 and you work in the Red Bull factory. You meet him, and he’s a dick. But something inside you, needs him. 

Notes: Shoutout to @f1goat and the “His teammate” series, for the inspiration!!  Fair warning, I'm talking alittle shit about McLaren, but I am a McLaren girly and It’s all lies, I mean nothing by it! I also made up some gibberish about the car, since I don’t know how everything really works haha. This was also longer than I expected, but I can honestly say I'm pretty proud of it.

warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI. smut, unprotected (wrap it before you tap it folks!) p in v, pet names, language.

word count: 7.3k

masterlist

You had been working at the Red Bull factory in Milton Keynes for 2 years. After getting your degree in mechanical engineering, you grabbed the first opening in Red Bull. And now you had built your way up to your current position. 

You were sitting on the chair, staring at the little metal pieces in front of you. Trying to figure out the best way to puzzle them together, and make the most out of the car.

Your job was to plan, and build components in the car. And when you gained your current position at the factory, you helped with the success of the RB19. 

Working in the factory, you rarely met the drivers. They were here a lot for the simulator and meetings, but your paths rarely crossed. You didn’t need to have contact with the drivers, so you didn’t. Only seeing them from afar, when the whole factory came together for a meeting.

Monday morning, just over a week since the last race in Abu-dhabi, the RB19 had been a huge success. And you were working hard to finish the last details on the RB20 before the new season, working even harder than you did on the RB19. Trying to make the RB20 even better, as impossible as that sounds. 

You had a goodbye party for Checo on Friday, as he was retiring. And Christian Horner had announced that Lando Norris was taking his seat.

You had never met Lando, only seen him when you watched the races. And from what you had heard about him, he was kind of a dick. 

You and the other women working for Red Bull had formed a strong bond, you and the Red Bull media girl, Sophie, were basically best friends. And since she was on the track every race weekend, she had some encounters with Lando. 

She said he was constantly grumpy. He only cared about racing, and the fact that he hadn’t had a win yet, already being in McLaren for 5 years, it started taking a toll on him. 

He used to be a kind and sweet person. Loving to chat to people, and loving the interaction with his fans. He was just an all around loving guy. But when his fist win never came, and 

The McLaren car never got faster. He turned mean and angry, and stopped caring about anything other than racing. And when Christian gave him a nice offer to fill Checo’s seat, he jumped on it, no hesitation. 

You picked up your tools and started assembling the pieces again, to see if your mind had any ideas. 

You had your normal shitty Monday morning, and you didn’t have time to properly get ready. So you were sitting here in the Red Bull work clothes, your hair was up, but it had fallen out of your bun and was falling in your face, and you kept trying to pull it behind your ears. You didn’t have time for either makeup or to put your contacts in, so it was glasses today. But it wasn’t that bad, everyone saw you like this every Monday (and most other days too)

But what you didn’t know was that Lando was visiting the Factory today. To have a tour of the factory, and meet everyone working there. You didn’t hear the door open as you were staring a whole into the piece you just assembled. But you did hear your name being called. 

You turned around and met the eyes of Christian, but your eyes quickly looked over at the man standing beside him. You hurried to stand up and rip the gloves off your hands. Stretching out your hand to shake his. It seemed like he hesitated for a bit before shaking it, staring into your eyes the whole time. 

“I’m Y/N, nice to meet you”

“Lando”

Yeah, he seemed pretty grumpy. 

As you pulled your hand away, Christian started explaining who you were, and what your job was. You didn’t know if Lando was even listening because he was still just staring at you. 

Christian then turned to you and asked you how the work was going. 

“Oh yeah!” You were blocking their view of the piece, so you turned to walk around the table to show them. 

You started explaining what the piece was and what your goal for it was, as you put on a new pair of gloves to show them the piece. 

Putting it back down, Lando looked back at you. A small smile had made its way to his lips. 

“Is that going in my car?”

“Well yeah, it’s going in both cars”

“But, I’ll only drive the car if you’re the one working on it” He was now smirking at you and turned to Christian. “I’m serious” His smirk was gone.

“Don’t worry Lando, I’ll make sure of it” He said with a smile as he patted his shoulder. “We should move on to look at the paint booths” 

As they headed towards the door, Lando turned around before he left. His face was unreadable, and he had a look in his eyes you had never seen. You had never been more confused, and it took you a while to get back into the right headspace for you to finally crack the code.

There were only a few days left before Christmas break, and you hadn’t seen Lando since that first time. 

Today had been a stressful day as you tried to do as much as you could in the little time you had left. You were standing in front of the computer, looking at the readings from a recent test, and there were a few numbers off. The frustration got to you, and you pulled off your glasses, rubbing the bride of your nose. Before you shoved the keyboard away and buried your face in your arms on the desk as you groaned in frustration. 

Lando had one last visit to the simulator before break. And before he left for the day, he decided to see if you were there. He was mesmerized by you when he first saw you. Your hair was falling in your face, and the glasses framed your face perfectly. He noticed that you had no makeup on, but you were absolutely breathtaking. And when you started talking about your work, he saw the passion in your eyes. He felt a small pull in his chest, and felt like his old happy self for just a moment when he looked at you. 

But it quickly disappeared, and he realized his new mission. He needed to have you. 

When he opened the door, he heard a groan as he saw your face land in your arms on the desk. The desk was quite high, and as you were bent over it, your ass was on display for him. 

He had to fight himself to not go right over and touch you. But he still walked over and leaned on the desk beside you.

“Something wrong baby?”

You quickly looked up, shocked that someone was in the room with you, and why were they calling you “baby”?

When you met Lando’s eyes, you rolled your own. You had already made up your mind about him, and you were not surprised he was acting like this. 

You heard a low chuckle coming from him as he saw you rolling your eyes. 

You leaned closer to him, really close. He could feel your breath.

“Don’t call me baby”

You could see he was a little shocked at the closeness, so you smirked to yourself and stretched your hand out to grab your glasses that had landed beside him. 

Leaning back, you put your glasses on. “And if you must know, I didn’t get the result I wanted” 

You pointed to the numbers on the screen. His mouth was slightly open as he still looked a little shocked, but he turned his head to look at the numbers. 

“I don’t know what any of the numbers mean” He turned to look at you.

You laughed before replying “Yeah, I know” 

After closing your front door and throwing yourself on the couch. You pulled up your phone and sent a text to your best friend Sophie. 

“Lando came by the Factory today and called me baby…”

She answered right away.

"BRO!"

“No way!”

“He’s probably trying to get in your pants”

“WHAT?”

“NO HE IS NOT”

“He’s probably just trying to get a reaction out of me”

“Why would he want to get in my pants when he has models drooling over him?”

“Stop it Y/N”

“You are literally drop dead gorgeous.”

“Lando wishes he could get you! But don’t let him use you like that!”

“hahahaha”

“You’re the best Sophie”

“But yeah, he will not be getting anywhere near these sexy pants!”

“YEAHHHH GIRL”

“go piss girl”

“hahaha”

Closing your phone, you laughed to yourself. And when you laid down in bed, and closed your eyes. You couldn’t help when your sleepy brain started thinking about him. 

You looked down. Seeing your naked body, tits jumping at the movement you were making. You saw your hands spread out on the lower abdomen of the man under you. You saw his hands groping your thighs, hips, tits. And when one of his hands traveled up to grab your jaw, you met his eyes. Lando. 

Waking up, you sat up in bed, hand flying to your jaw.

As your breathing calmed down, you realized the dream. Running the images through your head over and over again. And that's when you noticed just how turned on you were. Your panties totally soaked, and you felt hot.

Landing back in bed you groaned.

“Fuck you brain. That was so fucked up”

You rubbed your hands over your face before getting out of bed. Just a few more days of work before break. 

Your brain had sneaked in thoughts about Lando all through the break, much to your dismay. And he always showed up when you were close to an orgasm by your own hand. And one time, his name slipped out in a whisper. But you would try to deny yourself that it ever happened. 

And when it was time to go back to work, you felt like it had been long enough for you to forget everything, just praying you didn’t have to see him for a while.

And you were lucky for once. The end of January was nearing, and you had yet to see him. But you knew it was not long before you would.

The start of February was when the car was launching. And you had worked your ass off to finish the last bits, and the tests and readings were good, great even. 

There would be a reveal of the finished car in the factory, for all employees, before it was going to be a public launch. And you knew reveal day meant Lando. But you would be fine, all of the employees would be there, no way you would have any contact with him. 

And when the day finally arrived you were excited. The RB20 was going to be revealed, a car you helped make, and that was all you could focus on. 

You and Sophie were standing together up at the front of the crowd, looking at the car covered in a protective sheet. Christian got up beside the car and started his speech, and then he reached the moment where he introduced the two drivers for the team. Max Verstappen, the reigning world champion, and the new Lando Norris.

As he walked up beside the car, he was dressed in the Red Bull racing suit, and you couldn’t help but admire him in it. It wasn’t wrong to think the man looked good, incredibly good. You knew he was still an asshole, but you did have eyes. 

Max had his speech, and then it was Lando’s turn. It was a good speech, talking about how he was ready for something new, a more competitive car. He then started thanking the people working on the car, and he locked eyes with you, and held it until he was finished speaking. 

Lando and Max then lifted the sheet off the car to reveal it. And the crowd started clapping. You marveled at the car for a minute, feeling proud. But you felt his eyes on you. So you looked back at him, and you saw that stupid smirk on his face, he then had the audacity to give you a wink. You rolled your eyes at him, and when you looked back at him, he had a genuine smile on his face, and a glint in his eyes. And for just a moment, butterflies fluttered in your stomach, before you were interrupted with Christian speaking again.

You were standing in front of the car, looking down at it in admiration. The “party” had been moved to a different room, where food and drinks were served. And when you found a quiet moment, you slipped away to go look at the car. 

You were all alone as you squatted down to get a better look at the car, and the details of it. You couldn’t believe you had a hand in building it. This was Max’s car, with the big, red number 1 on it.

Standing back up, you felt a hand slide its way to your lower back. Shocked, you turned to look at the person beside you. Of course. Lando. 

He had that typical smirk on his face as he spoke to you in a low tone. 

“Hope you did a lot of work on my car too” “I was serious when I said I will only drive it if you have”

You rolled your eyes again, it was something he really brought out of you. 

“I have!” You put on some fake excitement in your tone. “I even put a little extra work into your car” You gave him a suggestive wink.

“Oh, so my car might be a little faster?” He said in a hushed tone, like you were sharing a secret. 

“Yeah” You nodded at him, and pointed to the car in front of you. “This is your car right?”

He narrowed his eyes at you. “No, this is Max’s”

“Oh shit, guess I put it in the wrong car then” You shrugged your shoulders as you couldn’t hold your laughter anymore. 

You turned to walk away, leaving the hold he still had on your lower back. The place where his hand had been was burning hot. And when he saw you taking quick steps to get away, he hurried to follow after you. 

“Baby, that was not nice” He said with a small pout as he finally caught up with you. 

You stopped in your tracks. “I told you to stop calling me that” 

“Oh you look cute when you’re angry” His amusement was clear on his face. 

If you weren’t angry before, you sure were now. You groaned as you started walking away from him again. And before you entered the door to the party, he shouted to you.

“Can’t wait to see you again soon baby!” You could hear the grin on his face. But you just opened the door and walked inside, hoping to not see him for the rest of the night.

Just a week after, you were back at work, looking over some data on the computer, when you heard a knock at the door, and then it opened and closed. 

Turning around, you were met with Christian. “Oh hey Christian!” “Wasn't expecting you to be here!”

He smiled at you, “I am here to ask if you’re free to have a meeting in my office?”

“Right now?”

He looked down at the expensive watch around his wrist. “Yes”

“Um, yeah sure!” “I’m just going to-” You trailed off as you pressed a few buttons on the computer, before turning it off and walking towards Christian. “Shall we?”

Sitting down in the chair opposite his desk, it all started to become a little intimidating. You waited for him to speak as he looked at a few papers, before lifting his head and meeting your eyes. 

“Y/N” “First, I want to formally thank you for your work on the RB19. You made the car what it was. Great work” “And I also want to thank you for the work you’ve put into the RB20. I know it will be even better than the 19” He smiled at you, and you smiled back as you nodded, silently thanking him for his words. 

He continued, “I have been talking with Lando Norris, and after he had a test in the car, and felt how it worked. And after he also saw how you worked on it, he has asked for you to be his no.1 mechanic.” He paused, waiting for your response.

“No.1 mechanic? as in, at every race, in the garage, being the head mechanic on his car?” You were shocked, confused.

“Yes.” He gave you a warm smile. “When he suggested it, I totally agreed.” “It would be a perfect job for you, and with all the work you have put in, the least I can do for you is to give you a chance to be with the car at every race.” “So, do you want the job?”

You didn’t even think about the fact that Lando was the one to suggest the job for you. You just focused on the fact that you could be the no.1 mechanic. 

“Yes” “Yes I do.” A big smile grew on your face.

“Perfect!” Christian clapped his hands together, and picked up the papers he previously looked at. “Take the time you need to read through them before signing” 

Taking the papers in your hands, you read through it. And everything looked perfect. So you signed where you needed to. And handed the papers back to Christian. 

“Thank you so much for this opportunity!” “I can’t wait to get started” You couldn’t stop smiling.

“Good!” “Can’t wait to see you on the track”

He then told you the plan heading forwards. You had plenty of meetings coming up. You needed to know what to expect in the garage. And you had a few meetings with the people working in the garage. And after all of that was finished, you were headed to the pre-season testing in Bahrain. 

Arriving in Bahrain, you felt prepared. And you were even more happy to finally join Sophie at work, as you walked into the garage together. 

Testing had been going pretty great so far, you only needed to do a few tweaks on the car to see if the performance was different. 

On the other end, Lando had been tolerable. He had his usual flirty, teasing persona around you. But now that you worked together in a small garage, he had toned it down a bit, much to your pleasure. 

But when you got a moment alone, he always sneaked up on you and rested his hand on your lower back, called you baby, and did everything to annoy you. Much to your frustration.

You had been single for a few years. And you hadn’t slept with too many people after. But now it had been a really long time since last. Too busy at work to even care, but you were growing more and more pent up and frustrated. And this asshole resting his hand on your lower back was not helping. It was also not helping that he looked drool worthy all the time.

What was helping, was the fact that he was just that, an asshole. But you had no excuse for yourself when you were alone at night, and you just stopped caring. It made you cum fast, and you were happy with that. So you kept thinking about him every time, while whispering his name under your breath. 

It was the fourth race of the season, and you were in Japan. The previous races were good to Lando, who had gotten a podium on each one, but no win yet. But he was good in Japan, he knew this could be the one.

It was early on Thursday, and when Lando walked into the garage, he found you working on the car, alone. 

You were so focused as you lay bent over the nose of the car, trying to screw something that was in a tricky position. When Lando saw the sight of you like that, bent over, legs spread, he felt his dick twitch. 

He quickly turned his head to look around for the sign of any people, seeing no one, he walked up to you, close enough so your feet were almost touching. Looking down at you, he noticed you still didn’t know he was there, so he cleared his throat to get your attention. 

When you heard the sound, it spooked you, and you went to stand up from the compromising position you were in. But you didn’t know someone was standing right behind you. So when you lifted yourself off the car, your ass hit something, someone. You felt a pair of strong hands grab onto your hips to stabilize the both of you, as your back was now flush against his chest. When you looked down at his hands, you saw his watch and bracelets and immediately knew who it was. 

You heard a low groan coming from him, right by your ear. And you felt a bulge grow right where your ass was resting against his crotch. You panicked, and shoved yourself back to knock his balance off so he would get off you. When he did, you turned around to look at him with anger in your eyes.

“What the fuck was that Norris!?”

You didn’t even let him answer before you turned to storm out. Two reasons why. First, you were flustered and could feel your face heat up, and you did not want him to see that. Second, feeling his hands hold your waist, and the bulge grow in his pants, you were already soaked and horny beyond belief, and you did not want to be around him in a state like that. 

Lando stood there, a little shocked, and flustered. He pulled his hoodie down to try and cover up the bulge in his pants, as he headed towards his driver room.

It was time for a car check. And you were picking up the steering wheel to put it in the car. When you turned back around to go over to the car, you saw him.

Lando was standing in his seat, and you watched him lower himself into the seat, holding onto the halo with a tight grip.

You almost dropped the steering wheel in your hand, as your eyes focused on his hands. You had to literally shake your head to get back to the right headspace.

You walked over to the car, and looked down at Lando looking around the cockpit, trying to get in a comfortable position. After he found it, he looked up and his eyes met yours.

His eyes were shining from the lighting on the ceiling. And the feeling that arose was butterflies hidden by anger. Why the fuck was he so breathtaking, but also such a dick. Fuck him. 

You clenched your jaw as you kept eye contact with him. 

“You gonna hand me the steering wheel love?” There was that stupid smirk again.

You narrowed your eyes at him in anger, and handed him the wheel. He clicked it in place, and looked back up at you and told you something he wanted changed on the car. 

Luckily for you, when he started talking about the car, you went straight into work mode. Not a single thought about Lando in your brain. (Only far in the back)

He pointed to show you something that was underneath the steering wheel, right over where his legs rested. And you couldn’t see it. So you stepped farther towards the back of the car, to see it more from his angle. You grabbed a stepping stool that was standing close by, and leaned over the halo. You face resting just beside his. 

“What was it again?” You asked him, surprisingly calm, but the working Y/N was in control right now.

He pointed again, and started explaining it. And you stretched a hand out to point to it as well, making sure you understood each other. 

Lando didn’t expect you to get that close. And when you stretched your hand out and got even closer, he turned to look at you.

You felt his hot breath on the side of your face, and you could tell in your peripheral that he was looking at you. So you turned to look at him. Your faces so close that your noses almost touched. 

But somehow, you kept your cool. “I can fix that for you Lando, you just need to get out of the car.” You smiled innocently at him as you leaned back and stepped away. 

When he stepped out, you got your tools ready and lowered yourself into the seat, needing to sit there to get the best access.

As you worked away, Lando stood by the side of the car, arms folded against his chest. There was something going on in his body that he couldn’t recognise. He was still feeling the effects of what happened with the two of you earlier. But there was something different there as well.

On Sunday, you found yourself standing in front of the mirror in the public bathroom. It was not long before race start. And you were staring at yourself in the mirror.

You were angry, frustrated and way too fucking horny. Last night, you caved, again. Imagining your fingers were his. You used it as a way of getting the anger out, and it worked. 

But your brain was on overdrive and everything was threatening to boil over. Looking at yourself, you took a deep breath and nodded to yourself, heading back out, ready for work, trying to ignore everything and hoping it would be fine. 

You were sitting on the pit wall, as you watched them line back up on the grid after the formation lap. And Lando lined his car up on P1. Max lined up in P4, unlucky in Q3.

The race start was good, the top 5 drivers staying as is. Lando keeping the lead until halfway in the race, Lando boxed to get new tires. And when he moved his way back up the grid again, you heard his voice coming on the radio.

“Something is wrong.”

“The gears are not working properly”

You turned to Lando’s race engineer sitting to your right. You nodded at him, and he nodded back, a silent exchange you both understood. 

He contacted Lando to tell him he was looking into it, and would update him as fast as possible. 

You looked at as much of the data as you could, as fast as you could. And there you found it. Between all the numbers and graphs, there was one thing off. 

You contacted the race engineer on the radio, and pointed to the mark on the screen. He saw it, and you both knew the solution. Luckily an easy one, as he only needed to press a few buttons on the steering wheel to change modes. 

The race engineer nodded at you again, but this time, in a way that signaled you to tell Lando. So you did.

“Lando, mode 6, and give it 3.8”

“Understood”

“Thanks Y/N”

You felt like you could hear a smile on his face, but probably not. Right?

When you looked back at the data, you saw everything was fine. And not long after, Lando radioed back to say it was good, and he was ready to get back to the chase.

And he did just that, climbing his way back up. Lucky for him, Max had pitted not long after Lando, making Lando ahead of Max in the race. 

You were anxious for the last few laps. He had gotten back into P1, and had made a reasonable gap back to the driver behind him. 

The screams you heard on the radio as he crossed the line first, almost made you deaf for a minute. And you had a big smile on your face as you celebrated with the crew on the pit wall, proud of the car you helped in making. 

You had gotten the car back to the garage after watching the podium. You, and two other mechanics were pulling the protective sheet over the car. You tried to keep your mind focused on the task at hand, but the image of Lando getting champagne poured on him was seared into your brain. But when you were done with everything, thanking the mechanics before you stepped back. You heard someone entering the garage. 

In walked Lando, soaked in champagne and still dressed in his racing suit that was hanging around his hips. When he saw you, he actually smiled. And seeing him like that, you couldn’t help the heat settling in your core.

He almost ran over to you and wrapped his arms around your hips. He lifted you with him in a tight hug, your feet far above the ground, you had to grab onto his shoulders for support. 

“There’s my no.1 mechanic!” 

His voice was muffled as his face was resting directly against your boobs. 

And when you squeezed his shoulders in reaction, he looked up at you as he still held you tight. You couldn’t get any words out. But as he looked up at you, he smiled. A genuine, lovely smile. But something else was shining in his eyes, and his pupils dilated. 

He felt you started to slip out of his arms, so he readjusted his grip. He got a firm hold on your ass, and when you felt it, everything boiled over.

“Let. Me. The Fuck. Down.” “Now.”

The mechanics stood there in confusion until they heard that. They shared a look, and hurried to leave the garage. Avoiding you screaming at Lando.

Lando heard the threatening tone in your voice, and he immediately lowered you to the ground. 

When he stood back to look at you, he opened his mouth to say something. But you were quicker.

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME NORRIS? YOU CAN’T JUST LIFT ME UP LIKE THAT! AND NOT TO MENTION WHAT HAPPENED THURSDAY MORNING! YOU’RE MAKING ME GO CRAZY!” You basically screamed at him, with your finger pointing at him in anger. But you weren’t finished. 

“You’re the one who wanted me to have this job, and you’re usually rude and mean, but then you’re teasing me and acting all flirty?!” “You’re so fucking confusing!” 

Your brain had exploded at his point. Every feeling that had been pent up for so long, finally boiled over. And since everything hit you, you felt yourself grow wetter and wetter by the second. You let out a heavy breath and lifted your hands to hold onto your head in frustration. 

Lando had just taken it all, with his eyebrows lifted in shock. He was making you go crazy? His mind was running, what did you mean? He didn’t know what to do, what to say. But then he saw the small movement you made, and the look on your face. A smirk making its way to his face as his eyes got even darker. 

While in your frustration, your body just acted for you. And as you were standing there, looking anywhere but at him, your face red and hot, your whole body on fire. Your thighs squeezed together for some desperate neediness for something, anything. 

And when that caught Landos eyes, he took two long steps towards you. His arms wrapping around you, the palms of his hands resting on the top of your ass. 

When he was suddenly in front of you, so close. You dropped your hands in shock, and just stared into his eyes, then his lips. They were slightly parted, and you saw the quick moment his tongue darted out to lick his lips. Before you quickly looked back into his eyes, cursing yourself for the moment of weakness. 

When you locked eyes again, his eyes were dark, looking down at you. Lando had no patience left. He shoved your body hard, into himself. You chests touching, and the grip he had on your ass, where he was holding you tight against him, you felt almost every detail of his already growing bulge through his pants. If you weren’t soaked already, you sure were now. 

You had no control when you let out a small moan at the contact, and that was all Lando wanted, and needed to hear, as he leaned down to capture your lips in an aggressive kiss.

It was like he was hungry, starving for you. And Lando had wanted you since he first saw you, and with the months that had passed, it all came crashing down at the same time.

The kiss was messy, teeth clashing and rough. But you loved it, feeling another moan slip out of your throat.

As you moaned, Lando took the chance and slipped his tongue inside your mouth, your own immediately tangling with his. It was harsh, but so full of passion. His hands were guiding your hips in a way that gave him some much needed friction. And when your hands slid up to grab onto the hair at the back of his neck, he let out a low groan. 

You couldn’t take it anymore, and you pulled on his hair, so you disconnected. Your breathing was heavy as you looked up at him. He was breathing heavy too, and his lips were wet, and slightly red. His pupils blown wide. God, he looked so fucking good, you almost wanted to go back to being angry at him. just because of how hot he was. But you didn’t, he spoke before you could do anything.

“Shit, I need you.” His eyes darted all across your face, looking for any type of reaction. “Please”

He looked so desperate, and he sounded even more desperate. He was begging you. 

Fuck it, you needed this too. “Your driver room” “Now”

He was quick to grab your hand and pull you after him.

When you finally entered his driver room behind him, he turned around and closed the door behind you. And when he turned back around, he took long steps towards you, until your lips met again. 

Neither of you could control the sounds coming from the both of you. His hands were everywhere, grabbing onto what he could. You hands found his hair again, grabbing it, earning a sweet sound from him. 

He walked the both of you backwards until the backs of your legs hit the small couch. He spun the both of you around, he sat down and pulled you to sit on top of him. 

When you sat down, Lando looked down to where your hips met as his grip on your ass moved your hips, grinding yourself onto him. You lifted both of your hands to hold onto the sides of his face, and made him look at you.

When Lando looked at you, you almost took his breath away. Your cheeks were tinted pink, and your lips were open, breathing heavily. Some of your hair had fallen in your face and your eyes were shining as you looked at him, he swore, you were a goddess. His hands slid up to hold on to your waist, and he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth in a way to try and control himself. But he lost it the second you whispered.

“Just fuck me already”

His hands immediately found the hem of your Red Bull shirt and pulled it over your head. You understood the signal and stood up from his lap and went to pull your pants off, as he pulled the fireproof shirt over his head. 

You were standing in front of him in only your underwear as you looked at him hurrying to pull his race suit and the fireproofs of his legs. When he finally did, he looked up at you, and you swore you could see his dick twitch in his gray boxers. 

Your confidence grew in you, so you went to take your bra off. When it hit the floor, you could hear him muttering under his heavy breath “Fuck”. Next, you hooked your thumbs in the waistband of your panties and slowly pulled them down. 

It had been awhile since the last time someone saw you naked, but with the reaction Lando was giving you, his eyes looking at you like you were a goddess. It made you feel beautiful, and so powerful. So you stepped forward until you were right in front of him. His eyes kept shifting from your face to your tits. 

You sat down in his lap again, your knees resting beside his hips, and your core just barely touching the outline of his dick in his boxers. When you leaned down to capture his lips again, you lowered your hips until you felt his covered dick resting between your folds. And because of the much needed friction you got. You moaned into his mouth. 

The kiss was much slower and careful than before, frustration replaced by the need to really taste each other. His hands had found a tight hold on your hips, as he tried to guide them to move. 

“Baby, you’re soaked” He said as he looked down at where you were resting above him.

Lifting your hips, you saw that his boxers were absolutely soaked because of you. And you felt your face heat up even more. 

“Fuck, I can’t wait anymore” “You reckon you’re ready to take me?”

He looked up at you, and you felt stunned. Just nodding wildly at him, his smirk grew. He looked down again, and pulled his boxers down enough to free his dick. Springing free, it hit his abdomen. You stared down, bewildered. How was he supposed to fit?

His hands found your hips again, and he guided them to rest right above him. One of his hands wrapped around his dick, and he moved his hands up and down a few times, as he looked up at you. You were staring down at his hand wrapped around himself, and you felt your pussy clench, waiting to finally have him inside of you. 

He moved his dick so the tip was resting against your hole. Looking up at him, he still had that smirk on his face. 

“Think you can handle it?” 

You didn’t reply before you dropped your hips down until he bottomed out inside of you. His pelvis hitting your clit. You both moaned simultaneously. The stretch was a lot, he was big, and you hadn’t had a dick in you for ages. But God it felt so good. 

Lando swore no one had been able to fit around him so perfectly, and when you took all of him, he felt you clench around him, almost holding him in. He felt another moan slip out of him. His mouth was hanging open in awe as he looked at you. Your head was tipped back, eyes squeezed shut in pleasure.

“Shit, you don’t know how long I’ve wanted you” He almost whispered.

He slid a hand up to hold on to the side of your face, tipping it down to make you look at him. And his other hand gave your hip a squeeze. 

“Please move”

You didn’t have to make him beg for you, he just did on his own. Was he really this weak for you?

A smirk grew on your face as you wanted to know just how weak he was. You just grinded your hips slowly, and you watched his face as his eyebrows furrowed in pleasure. You kept your small movements up, but he tried to lift your hips up and down on him. But you were stubborn, and you didn’t budge. 

Your hands grabbed onto his shoulders, as the movement was so good for you. Your clit getting friction everytime you moved back and forth. Your breath coming out in whimpers. 

You closed your eyes again, but opened them when you felt his hand on your face again. The look on his face was pleading. 

“Please baby.” “I need more” His voice was so soft and sweet, and you couldn’t help the smile on your lips. 

“Say it again.”

“Please please please please baby”

His hands were running up and down your torso as his eyes were locked on yours.

You gave in and moved your hips up to slam them back down. And the groan that made its way out of lando could’ve made you cum already.

You couldn’t hold back anymore, as you kept up the rhythm, riding him with your hands gripping his shoulders. His hands slid around to your ass and grabbed a hold as he helped you move up and down on his dick, and his hips moved up to meet yours. 

You knew the door to the driver room was pretty thin, so you bit your bottom lip to try and hold back some of the sounds threatening to escape. Lando noticed, and snaked a hand around to circle his thumb around your clit. He saw it on your face, the effect it had on you. But he also felt it, as you got even tighter around him. You didn’t moan from it, but he sure did. 

You were so focused as you tried to keep quiet, but with the added pleasure it was so difficult, also because of the sounds he was making.

“Come on baby, let me hear you” He said in a low tone, as he was looking up at you.

That broke you. And he got the sounds from you that he desperately needed to hear. 

As you looked down at him, you saw his eyebrows scrunched together as he was staring at himself disappearing inside you, and his mouth was hanging open. You lifted one of your hands and ran it through the wet curls on the top of his head, still soaked in champagne and sweat. 

You grabbed a hold of them and pulled his head back to make him look at you. All of the feelings you had for him came rising to the surface, just as you felt your climax closing in. The feelings of anger and frustration. So with gritted teeth, you spoke.

“Fuck you.”

He enjoyed that.

“You already are sweetheart.”

You gave in and sped up your rhythm. And his thumb moved faster and his grip on your ass tightened. Your hand slid down to cradle his jaw. You ran your thumb across the facial hair growing on his chin, before you pulled him in for a searing kiss before your climax hit like a brick wall. 

You disconnected from the kiss and tipped your head back, eyes screwed shut, as your vision was going white, and you whispered a quiet “Fuck, Lando” as you came. 

Lando felt you tighten around him as you came, and he looked up at you, mesmerized, as he saw your face contourting as you came around him. And he followed right after, coming inside you. 

You felt him filling you up, and his thumb had slowed down, but was still rubbing soft circles helping you come down from your orgasm. After a few seconds of catching your breath, as he did the same, you opened your eyes to look at him again, and he was already looking at you. The ghost of a gorgeous smile on his face. 

His hands rested on your thighs, and his thumb rubbing soft circles again. Neither of you said anything, you just looked at each other.

“You’re going to be the death of me” 

He was whipped.

Notes: I realized this could be made into a series or something. So let me know if you want more!! Thank you for reading<3

[runningfrom2am]

in this life or the next

summary: It's the seventy-fifth annual Hunger Games, and you were just unlucky enough to get picked; but lucky enough for this Quarter Quell to feature pre-selected teams. You get paired up with District One's pride and joy, the one and only Rafe Cameron.

pairing: rafe x fem!reader

wc: 15k (oh my LORD)

tags/warnings: its the hunger games so like... yeah... violence and gore and stuff. definitely swearing, spoilers for the og Hunger Games movie I guess (but also not bc i changed it up a bit- you'll see), reader has a special talent that i won't spoil here, Rafe is lowkey a dick at the beginning, Ward being a shitty dad (what's new). also this isn't thoroughly edited bc.. its 15k words and i'm lazy.

masterlists // nav // requests

join my taglist here

a/n: hello lovelies!! oh my gosh i have been slowly chipping away at this for actual literal months, and i am so proud of how it turned out!! i’m really glad i could finally post it by my birthday!! (i’m 23 wtf??)

thank you so much if you're going to put in the time to read this, but it honestly means a lot to me that you've made it this far. reblogs and likes would be so appreciated and let me know your thoughts in the replies! i really, really hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it. let me know if you want a part two of what happens post games, bc i think i left it at a minor baby sized cliffhanger. anyway, i’m off to eat cake now! enjoy!

Staring blankly out at the crowd in front of you, you attempt to process the echoing of your heartbeat in your ears.

"I'd like us to give a round of applause for our brave, brave tributes this year, and wish them the best of luck in this year's quarter quell!" Your attention is drawn to the woman next to you, the District Five escort, Opal, dressed head to toe in bright yellow. A universally happy color- what a joke.

The crowd is mostly silent and you can't bear the thought of even glancing in the direction of your parents. You turn silently as you're ushered back into the building from the stage, tripping slightly over your feet as the shock sets in. People are talking, possibly to you, but you can hardly hear a thing. You almost made it. You were almost eighteen- one more year and you would have been free.

You were granted the briefest of goodbyes to your family, but you were tempted to even turn that down. An action you regret not taking as your parents walk into the room, your mother with tears already coating her cheeks and your father trying to keep a strong resolve for you and your siblings.

"We'll see you soon, Bug. Remember we love you," He whispers into your hair as you sob into his shoulder. You know he doesn't necessarily mean in this lifetime.

Your tunnel vision settles back in as you're walked out of the room, glancing one last time over your shoulder only to see your dad's shoulders shaking from his silent cries as he turns his back to you.

You are quickly pushed onto the train taking you out of District Five, ignoring the other three tributes and your mentors as they talk. You just stare out the window with tired, red eyes and say a silent goodbye to the home you're already sure you'll never see again.

"Y/N..?" The girl next to you says, tapping you on the shoulder and making you jump.

"Hm?" You hum your acknowledgment, looking at the girl beside you. She's only a year older than you, and you went to school together for years; Maisie, you remember.

"I just wanted to make sure you hear them," Maisie whispers, gesturing to Opal as she starts to explain what the premise of the games is this year.

"So," she claps her hands together, clad in tacky yellow gloves. "I'm sure you have noticed that this year there are four of you, and you'll each be paired up with another tribute to compete. Not necessarily from your own District, but, anything is possible, I suppose. The exciting news is that there's a possibility for two winners this year! You and your teammate will be given a score throughout the games, and if your score as the final two is above ten, you will both be crowned victors!" The woman says excitedly- like it's a good thing.

"And if we don't have over ten?" The boy sitting across from you asks flatly.

"Well... the games shall continue," Opal explains vaguely, but you know what that means. You've seen it before.

"Okay, well, how do we get a good score?" The boy asks.

"I-" The escort starts, hesitance clear in her tone as she's quickly interrupted.

"You kill people," Your female mentor answers. She's leaning her elbows on the end of the table, standing with a knife in her hand, spinning it around like it's some kind of toy.

Your eyes drop from her form, staring down at the table in front of you, suddenly remembering your glass of water and quickly grabbing it when you realize your mouth has gone completely dry just from the idea of what's to come.

You arrive at the Capitol in the middle of the night and despite this fact, the crowds are still there. You didn't expect this, even though you've seen it on the beat-up television in your living room every year. It feels less real, somehow, when you're the one getting pushed through the crowd, not knowing what to do besides give awkward smiles to people yelling your name.

Your room is beautiful. You've never seen anything like this, but you can fully customize it at will with a remote, and this level of technology fascinates you. You spend hours flicking through different images that can appear on the walls, surrounding you in another world. Exhaustion and the sound of an artificial thunderstorm put you to sleep with the remote still resting in your palm.

"Up, up, up, my dear! We've got a big day ahead!" Opal's cheery voice startles you awake from your less-than-cozy spot on the floor. "There's breakfast on the table then we've got to get you down to prep, so hurry up, please." She says, and just like that she's gone, no doubt off to wake the other District Five tributes in a similar fashion.

"You're going to be meeting your teammates for the first time today so you can train together- gosh isn't that just so exciting!" Opal claps as you all stand in the elevator. There's a silence that follows as you and Maisie just nod, not excited about the whole idea. You're about to meet someone who will either be spending the last days of your life with you, or be killing you themselves, and you're not fond of either.

"This way you'll get to train together first, which I do believe to be a very generous act on behalf of the game makers." She adds, making you roll your eyes. How considerate. The most you can hope for is someone who is capable, and preferably someone who isn't in the twelve to fifteen age range, having seen that there were several drawn from different districts.

You shift on your feet as you try to adjust to the uncomfortably tight catsuit they squeezed you into, covered in what must be sapphire and diamond rhinestones, pinching your skin with every slight movement. Gold accents line the seams of the suit, extending out into something that resembles wings and lightning bolts protruding from your back. District Five; power. You get it, but we're the diamonds necessary? You hardly take note of the varying outfits you're surrounded with from the other kids in your district, before Opal is guiding the four of you up the line of extravagant carriages you're meant to parade out on for the people of the Capitol to fawn over.

You take note of where all of the other tributes from Five are lead, guessing based on the order of carriages that Maisie got paired up with another girl from Eleven, and the boys somehow ended up paired together. There must be some sort of personal aspect to this decision, considering you have watched those two boys fight back home. You're last, and Opal looks at you excitedly as you follow her up, and up, and up- to the very front of the line.

"Surprise!" She grins, clapping excitedly as you approach the very first carriage. "Y/N, getting paired with a career is huge. Your odds are good already, your partner has trained his whole life- he even volunteered."

"Sucks for him." You mutter under your breath as you get closer, eyeing up the boy in front of you, wearing an almost matching outfit. All the rhinestones make sense now, blending power with luxury could only mean as much.

"Y/N Y/L/N, meet Rafe Cameron. He'll be your teammate in the games." She smiles as she introduces you.

"Hi." You say quietly, taking his hand as he holds it out to you to help you up onto the carriage.

"Hey." He mutters, avoiding your gaze. It's off to a rough start for him for sure, seeing he's being paired up with someone from an outlying district must be daunting, when for you it should be exciting. Rafe did volunteer, yes, but he doesn't want to risk any kind of attachment- despite what the people of the Capitol want for their entertainment. He wants to come out alive, he doesn't care so much about who he's with.

"Okay, Y/N, remember to smile, please." Opal reminds you and you nod, looking down at her as you hold onto the handle in front of you.

You promise her with a nod, willing to do almost anything at this point to win the favour of possible sponsors. Again, your odds look better next to a career on that front, as well.

Quickly everyone is cleared away from the horses and the carriages and you start moving, catching you off guard and you stumble a little, readjusting your grip on the railing. "Careful." Rafe says beside you, quick to reach out to steady you if you needed it. You think you see the smallest of smiles on his face, but that must have just been your own mind trying to find comfort in anything around you.

"I got it." You whisper, blushing slightly. You've been with your teammate for all of a minute, and you're already proving yourself to be clumsy.

The lights hit your eyes the same time all the cheering does, being the first carriage, it's already so loud you can hardly hear yourself think. You snap out of it quickly, plastering on a smile once you see your own face on a giant screen ahead of you, you don't even look like yourself anymore. Your eyes land on the screen adjacent to the one showing you, seeing Rafe as well. He's smiling too, clearly having headed Opal's advice, or his many years of training is getting to him and he's excited. You really don't know. Then his head turns, and you turn your head as well, making dead eye contact with him for only a moment before he's looking past you into the crowds, taking in the moment.

When you finally get out of the extremely public eye and back into the building you exited from, you feel like you can finally breathe again. Not fully, in the tight, rigid suit they had you dressed up in, but more than you realized you were with all that yelling in your ears and lights in your face.

"District Five, right?" Rafe asks you as you're both stepping down and you nod. "Jeez, you don't talk much, do you?" He follows up with, taking a water bottle from someone who's walking by with them.

"I talk." You reply quietly. "Just... not much to talk about at the moment."

"The shock? Yeah, that'll do it." He nods, taking a sip from the water bottle and holding it out to you. You shake your head and push it away, making him shrug. "Shitty bust when you're not a volunteer."

You just stare at him, taken off guard by the comment. "That being said..." He leans in closer to make sure no one else hears. "I've been waiting my whole life for this, so don't ruin it for me, yeah?"

You pull back away from him and just nod again, not wanting to get on his bad side already. He won't be the one to kill you, probably, but it would still be nice if you spent your final days without your teammate hating your guts. "Thanks, darling." He smirks, patting your shoulder and brushing past you to go to the elevators.

The next day, bright and early yet again, you have your first day of training. You're sure Rafe won't even need it, but you certainly will. Your mentor told you he will likely be using it to size up the other tributes, especially considering there is a staggering amount of them this year, and you will need to focus on survival skills. Only survival skills, if you had to pick one thing- and your mentor drove that into your head until it was all that was echoing in your mind when you entered the training center.

After the trainers speech which ironically tried to do the same thing, you beeline straight for the fire making station. You're shocked to see almost no one else listened, definitely none of the boys, mostly lining up to show off their physical strengths, likely to try and intimidate each other. You'd be lying if you said it wasn't working.

You look up as you hear echoing laughter coming from the other side of the room, eyes scanning over the wall lined with silhouette targets, and racks with an array of weapons before landing on your teammate, laughing away with the other career tributes over a joke you didn't hear. He's got a spear in one hand, leaning his weight on it as his head drops back with laughter. You shake your head to get back on task, rolling the rough wood in your palms in hopes of making a spark. Good to see at least one of you is having fun, especially in your final days.

After a few minutes you get it, sitting back into your calves where you were kneeling on the ground, taking a breath of relief as you're satisfied with your success. You glance around to see how others are doing, giving a small smile and wave to Maisie when you see her, reading a book about different edible plants and trying desperately to memorize every image. You watch as Rafe takes the same spear he was leaning on before, hurling towards one of the targets. A direct hit, right in the chest, slightly right of the centre. You jump a little at the sound it makes on impact, looking finally at the boy who threw it.

He's pacing, huffing and looking a little frustrated with himself. A little to the left would have been perfect, but it was a kill shot nonetheless. There would be no coming back from that, and you count yourself lucky that it likely won't be you in place of the target in the games.

You quickly put out your fire and try again, making sure you've got the hang of it. You'll sit here all day if you must. After three more successful attempts, you're satisfied for the day, deciding you'll return to that station tomorrow and try again. You get up and brush the dirt off your knees, trekking over to where they have supplies to make game traps. You've never done this before, but there's no better time to learn, especially since your teammate has shown no interest in survival skills so far today.

"What are you doing?" Suddenly Rafe is standing behind you, as you're once again kneeling on the ground attempting to get the trigger on your bladeless trap to work.

You jump a little, startled by someone talking to you. "Uh, trying to make a snare, I think." You answer, turning to look up at him.

"Looks good." He nods, crouching down next to you. "Uh, isn't there supposed to be a blade or a spearhead or something on that piece?" He says, pointing to it.

"Well, yeah, I just didn't want to stab myself by accident." You laugh slightly, trying the trigger again- and this time it works, snapping forward into his arm.

"Ouch, yeah, fair enough." Rafe chuckles, rubbing the spot on his arm where the wood made contact.

You just nod and begin to reset it to test it again. "What if you can't get any of this shit in the arena?" He asks.

"What, a stick?" You ask, hitting the trigger one more time, sending the stick into his arm again, which he had decided not to move.

"Ow! Yes, a stick. We don't know what it will look like." He rubs his arm, examining the trap you built closer now.

"Then we're screwed I guess." You joke, leaning back on your calves again, watching him dissect it piece by piece to figure out how it works.

"So, is this like, your thing?" Rafe asks, and you tilt your head at him as you think it over.

"My thing?" You ask, unsure entirely what he meant. "I've never made one before, if that's what you're asking."

"Really?" He seems shocked by this.

"Uh, yeah, really. Unfortunately for you, you got paired up with someone who has zero survival or combat skills."

Rafe looks at you, a smug grin crossing his features. "Ha ha, very funny." He clearly thinks you're joking, but you're definitely not.

"I'm serious." You say, confused as to why he doesn't believe you.

His smile falters, replaced with wrinkles of confusion on his forehead. "But- I just watched you look at the instruction book for no more than like, three seconds before sitting down to make this."

"And..?"

"If you've never done it before it's supposed to be harder than that."

"Well, I've seen other people do it on TV and stuff every year for like, ever." You shrug. "I've just got a good memory, I guess."

Rafe nods, looking at the deconstructed trap in front of him for a moment, thinking about the implications of this. How far does this go? Could he use it? He'd never dreamt of having to work in a team in his games, but maybe it would benefit him after all. "Come with me." He stands up, and you follow as he paces over to two big screens, covered with a large array of different symbols.

"Try this, I just want to see something." Rafe says, standing next to you with his arms crossed as you quickly look over the screen, reaching down toward the one in front of you. You notice quickly that the screens mirror each other, all the images placed in the same spots as they are above. You look up at your teammate briefly who nods at you and then you tap one, watching it disappear from both screens before you tap the matching symbol. It's a matching game.

Your eyes are locked on the top screen as you tap away at the bottom one, quickly making all the images disappear one by one. It takes you no more than a minute to get rid of them all, and then a timer appears on the screen replaying your every move in real-time. Forty-two seconds. Were you really going that fast?

"Neat." Rafe says to himself, nodding as he watches it replay on the screen. That was impressive, sure, but his mind is straining to find a practical implication for this in the arena. "Go back to survival stuff. Learn as much as you can." He settles on, turning and walking off back to where he was before, returning to combat training.

The four days of training fly by insanely fast, and that's likely due to your dread of what's to come. you've got through everything in survival no less than three times, and you're pretty sure last night you dreamt of plants and making a fire. Not surprisingly, Rafe has left you pretty much alone the whole time, but you did watch from a distance as he cycled through every weapon the training center had to offer, proving he's almost mastered every last one. Of course, with over ten years of training, anything less wouldn't make sense. What scares you is the other careers showing a similar skill level to that of your teammate, but he seems to be on good terms with them. Again, maybe this would be a good thing in the beginning of the games.

You sit down for your last day of making fires and fishing hooks, working solely on memory since day one, you're feeling pretty confident that the elements or exposure won't be what takes you out- but you don't know if that's a good thing or not. You just hope your death will be quick.

"Y/N, c'mere." Rafe is suddenly calling to you, motioning for you to join him in the combat area. Not seeing much of a choice, and not looking forward to another day of doing the same thing over and over, you listen.

You make your way over, avoiding the gaze of other tributes who are looking at you like you're about to make a fool of yourself. It's possible you are. "I want you to learn how to use this." He says as you walk up, holding out the handle of a knife to you.

You take it, turning the sharp blade over in your hand. "I thought you were the weapons master." You joke, looking up at him briefly.

"Well, I need you to make fires and shit so you have to stay alive somehow, and if we get separated or something I need to know you can at least defend yourself. These are good from a distance and up close, but remember that any weapon you have they can take and use against you. So keep distance whenever you can." He answers, pointing over to the target about fifteen feet away. "So, throw it."

You look over to where he was pointing, adjusting your grip on the handle as you nod, taking in the information he's dumping on you. He is probably right, especially since you don't think he plans on protecting you himself. Why would he? If you die, he can still win without you.

You lift your arm over your shoulder, closing one eye to narrow down your aim before throwing it hard towards the target, which the knife bounces off of and clatters to the ground. You and Rafe both turn at the same time to look at the group that's laughing at you, the clang of the metal on the cement echoing loudly in the vast space.

"Don't worry about them. They're not there." Rafe is quick to grab another one, handing it to you the same way. "Try again, this time, hold it like this..." He says, grabbing your hand and placing your fingers in the correct spots on the handle. "Keep your wrist tense and straight, don't flick it or anything. Yeah, like that." He nods, taking a step back.

You look over how you're holding it, committing the feeling and finger placement to memory before raising your arm again. You throw it again, and this time it sticks, but your aim is off and it ends up in the target's leg. You look over at Rafe, unsure if you're hoping for approval or just satisfaction. "That's perfect." He nods. "Not a death blow, but that'll buy you time to get away. which is all you need."

"Okay." You agree quietly.

"Would it help if you watched me?" He offered, already grabbing a new knife while you nod. "So, you want to follow through with the throw, your shoulders should end about here if you're doing it right. You get more power that way, and better aim." He explains, standing with one foot forward, parallel to the target.

You step back to watch his strategy, noting the way he held the blade and his form when he aimed to throw it. He lets it fly from his fingers as his shoulders fall forward, smirking to himself as it hits the bullseye circle, right in the chest.

"You got it?" He asks, standing up straight again. You nod in response and he's handing you yet another knife to try again.

You go back and forth for hours, not caring that you're keeping anyone else from practicing. You're not the best at it, but it's become muscle memory now, and every time it sticks, most of the time hitting the silhouette somewhere. You tried the moving targets briefly, the gold, pixelated figures running at you quickly. You were immediately overwhelmed, and Rafe ended up having to step in to help. He said after that the minimal skill you had would be good enough to get away, and that is all you would need. You just have to focus on that.

You didn't talk a lot, besides taking a few short breaks to gather the knives and his arrows as Rafe explained the pros and cons of every weapon they had present, showing you briefly how to use some of them. Mostly how to defend yourself against them. It's hard for him to sum up years of training in one day, but he's dead set on the idea that you won't need most of it- just having to focus on keeping the two of you sheltered and fed, he can handle the rest; hopefully.

You sit outside the training center next to Rafe, waiting for your name to be called. It was the youngest female tribute from his district first, so if you had to guess, you would be third and fourth to go, which doesn't buy you a lot of time to decide what to do to best show your skills.

"What are you gonna do?" You ask, whispering in the deathly quiet room.

"Huh?" Rafe hums, leaning closer to hear you better.

You clear your throat, before speaking this time, unsure if you were clear enough. "What are you gonna do? Like which skill?" You clarify.

"Oh, uh..." He mutters, adjusting how he's sitting as he thinks about what to say. "I'm just going to cycle through some different weapons, different distance targets, I think. My mentors want me to show like, a variety of what I can do."

You nod at this, making a mental note of that. Maybe you should do the matching game and then try the knives. Opal told you that you would be scored both individually, and as a team. You hope you won't bring down his score too much, since you know he's aiming high. You planned on going for a mid-level score, not to be seen as a threat but also not as an easy kill. A perfect six would be your ideal score. "What about you?" Rafe interrupts your thought process.

"I'm not sure." You answer honestly.

"You should do your survival stuff. That will improve our team score, if we show them we have strengths at both." Rafe suggests. That's not actually a bad idea. Your individual score will likely be lower, but that's a risk you're willing to take.

"Yeah, I'll do that."

You ended up scoring a six, the judges obviously not seeing you as any kind of threat. This is what you expected, though, and you were correct about your group score as well. Rafe and you together scored a ten. On his own, he scored a ten, so you hadn't affected it in the way you feared. This left you reeling over the idea of other tributes seeing you both as a threat as you stand in yet another extravagant dress, waiting in line to be called out for your interview. The games were tomorrow, and the last thing you wanted was to get in front of a crowd and subtly plead with them to let you live, to send you gifts, and to give you their sympathy.

So far it's been in the same order they called everyone for assessments yesterday, which means you would be next. Rafe stands behind you, arms crossed in a suit that looks more expensive than any you've seen back home in all of your life, but he looks comfortable in it. Your dress is once again covered in rhinestones, and your waist is cinched in so tight you can hardly breathe as it is, so you're not looking forward to going on stage.

"Our next tribute, welcome to the stage from District Five, Miss Y/N Y/L/N!" You hear the familiar voice of Caesar Flickerman calling you out and some guards usher you forward onto the stage, very briefly glancing over your shoulder at Rafe.

You're quick to smile as you turn back around, giving a small wave to the host and then out to the audience as they cheer for you. For a brief moment, you feel as if they don't plan on watching you die as early as tomorrow, you feel as if they're rooting for you. "Hi!" You say as you get closer and Caesar stands up to greet you, shaking your hand and giving you a quick hug before gesturing for you to sit down across from him.

You look around the large theatre, spotting every camera you can. Your family is out there watching, somewhere, and you know they'll see right through this show you have to put on. You wish they wouldn't. You can picture so vividly your living room back home, with your parents and siblings scattered across the couch and the floor watching you with bated breath, they can see you- and on some level, you can see them too.

"Miss Y/L/N. Thank you for being here." Caesar sighs, reaching out and patting your hand where it sits on the armrest next to you.

"Well, I didn't have any other plans for the night, so..." You shrug, making him laugh. Laughter echoes from the audience and you smile, hoping that your plan to win people over is working.

"What? A beautiful girl like you?" He asks after he's done laughing. "You weren't planning on spending some of your free time with your teammate?" As if you got even a minute of free time since you've been here.

"Well, I guess we'll never know." You chuckle, looking back at the boy where he stands in the wing, giving you a small smile.

"Now listen, Y/N, Rafe is..." He has to stop after mentioning his name as cheers erupt again, laughing as he waits for the audience to quiet down. "Your teammate is, as you may have guessed, a popular face in the Capitol right now. Are you feeling lucky about your pairing?"

Rafe crossed his arms as he watches intently, feeling smug about his odds, especially now knowing the Capitol's opinion of him. He knows his dad is back home watching, full of pride that his son has become a fan favourite.

"I am." You answer honestly. "He's very talented."

"And handsome, don't you think?"

"I mean, who am I to argue with the people?" You joke, waving your hand dismissively as you hear the cheers pick up again. "Besides, his looks won't save us. We will save ourselves." You add seriously.

Caesar nods in acknowledgment, showing that to an extent, he agrees with you. "Well, I hope that you are right, dear." He smiles, getting up to signal you've run out of time. You stand as well, taking his hand as he holds it up above your heads. "It was so lovely to meet you, and may the odds stay ever in your favor. Y/N Y/L/N, everyone!"

You smile and thank him quietly, waving to everyone with both hands as you walk across the stage to exit on the other side. You take a few deep breaths as you step into yet another waiting room, watching the screen as Rafe is called out right behind you.

Rafe sits down on the chair across from Caesar after his introduction, which allows a few moments for the audience to quiet down. He smiles proudly as he rests one of his feet on his other knee, bouncing his leg with anxiety. He hopes it's interpreted as excitement. "Rafe." Caesar smiles at him, sitting back down as well. "I'll be honest, I have been so excited to finally meet you."

"It's good to meet you too." Rafe grins, chuckling slightly at the few whistles he gets scattered from the crowd.

"You got a fabulous score, how are you feeling about that?"

"Really good, yeah. Obviously I've been waiting my whole life for this opportunity, so it feels amazing to see it all paying off." Rafe answers, focussing on keeping the confidence in his tone.

"We can tell, can't we?" Caesar laughs, riling up the audience again, making Rafe laugh to himself as he softly shakes his head. "Yeah, yeah. So, with all this planning you've been doing, how do you feel about getting paired up? You probably expected to be going in solo."

"I did, for sure, but I don't think this is a bad thing." Rafe admits.

"Oh, getting along well with your teammate?" Caesar asks, a hint of suggestion in his tone.

"Yeah, we get on really well." Rafe exaggerates your relationship a bit, knowing it will earn you more sponsors, and maybe keep other tributes away from you in the games. "At least I think we do, I'm not fully sure about her thoughts on me, though."

"You scored incredibly well together, despite Y/N having a fairly average score on her own. What are your thoughts and feelings on that?"

Rafe chuckles as he leans forward a bit, pointing out to the audience as he speaks. "Don't underestimate her based on the score. I won't give you any spoilers, but trust me, don't overlook her. She's got as good a shot as any of us. Maybe better."

Caesar makes a surprised expression as he nods. "Well okay! Does she have some sort of secret weapon we should be worried about?" He chuckles, gripping the armrests and looking around as the audience laughs.

Rafe just shrugs in response, smirking slightly, which you can tell the audience just eats up. You're trying to decide if this is good or bad for you, though, as you watch, gnawing at your nails in anticipation as you stare at the screen.

"Okay, alright, don't spoil anything then." Caesar laughs. "It'll make for a better show, and I can get behind that."

After a moment of waiting for the cheers to die down, Caesar speaks up again. "Rafe, if I can ask, I know your father has a lot of influence in your district- how is he feeling about your selection for the games?"

You furrow your brow a little bit as you look at the screen, finally learning something interesting about your teammate. If he's from a prominent family in District One of all places, that would certainly explain his attitude. Rafe, on the other hand, doesn't want to talk about his father at all- but of course they would bring him up.

"Yeah, of course." Rafe replies, shifting in his seat. "He's thrilled, it's a huge honour to be here, and to be the first out of his children to be chosen is really special to me. I just hope I can make him and my sisters proud, he's always encouraged us to volunteer."

"I'm sure that you will." Caesar smiles at him. "I hope I will have the honour of hosting one of your sisters on this stage one day, as well."

Your stomach churns just watching this. How can any father who loves his children want this fate for them? This was your father's worst nightmare. You watch as Rafe nods with a smile, and you can see behind his eyes that he doesn't want that, not at all.

The audience cheers as they both stand up, shaking hands before Rafe leaves the stage, a cocky smirk on his face as he waves and winks at the audience. Before Rafe makes it down to the waiting room, you're grabbed an escorted out, heading for the elevator back to your room.

You can't eat, but you know you should. This will likely be your last meal for a while. You decide on just taking a large bowl of fruit and toast to your room, trying to get it down slowly with all the nerves, while you have a bath. Your parents never let you eat in the bath. It's hard to get out knowing this is likely the last bath you'll ever have.

The morning goes by in a blur, you feel Opal's arms around you as she hugs you goodbye and wishes you luck. You know you'll need all of it. You stare down at the ground in front of you as you're pushed onto a plane, of sorts, along with all the other tributes. Once you're sat down, you look around at everyone else. You remember all of their names as you scan over their faces, but you wish you didn't. You get stuck on one of the girls from District Eleven, Hope, who was only thirteen.

She's shaking, and you can see that from where you're sat down the row from her. She reminds you of Rue, the tribute from last year. Her death was a tragedy, it broke the hearts of everyone outside of the Capitol and the career districts. Hope's curly hair sat in a bun on top of her head, and tears fell down her cheeks as she sniffled. She got paired up with a girl from Twelve- the lengths the Capitol will go to to make a mockery of last years games will never cease to amaze you.

"Hey, you look a little pale." Rafe whispers, leaning close to you. You didn't even notice him sit down on the other side of you.

You shake your head slightly, looking down at your knees. "I'm fine."

"Don't think about it." Rafe instructs you, holding his arm out for the tracker to be injected as a guard approaches with the device.

You wince as you hear it get shot into his arm and he chuckles, shaking his arm off to ease the sting. You raise your shaking arm as they hold their hand out expectantly to you. You don't know what it is they're putting in you, but you've never been fond of needles. This is a million times worse. "It's not that bad," Rafe tells you, and you squeeze your eyes shut as you feel pressure on your forearm, followed by a sharp, stabbing pain. You bite your tongue to keep from making a sound, dropping your arm onto your lap as they quickly walk away.

"What did they do?" You ask him, trying to keep a steady tone.

"It's a tracker, so they know where we are in the arena." He explains quietly. You were the only two talking, and you notice it's earning you glares from several other tributes. Rafe notices this as well, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms, taking this time to size everyone up.

The plane takes off, and before you know it, you're landing at the arena on the outskirts of Capitol property. You wonder if you're close to the ocean, not that you'll get to see it anyways.

You're paraded off of the plane, still trying not to let it show how afraid you are of what's to come. You make the briefest of eye contact with Maisie as she's pulled towards a different hallway, and neither of you have it in you to smile anymore.

"We've gotta get supplies, that's our first move." Rafe says to you as you're led out of earshot of other tributes, into your own hall.

"My mentor said to run." You reply quietly.

Rafe scoffs, shaking his head. "Your what, one mentor said that? Cool. I have fifteen that are still alive and well enough to show up every year. I think we should get supplies." He tells you firmly, but you know that will get you instantly killed, maybe not him, but you stand no shot. "Just stick with me if you want to live."

You just nod a little bit, glancing at him again briefly before you're directed into a separate room across the hall from him. His pedestal will be next to yours, which is a bit of a relief. Your stylist quickly instructs you to strip, and then she helps you into the uniform you assume you'll all be wearing. It's exactly the same as last year, you notice this quickly, but with a '75' logo embroidered on the chest where the District Twelve tribute had her pin placed. Katniss, you remember her name was. She had volunteered for her sister, and at the time you contemplated heavily on whether or not you would do the same. She was so, so close to winning- to getting to see her sister again, but she and the boy from her district, the final two tributes, ended up committing together rather than giving the Capitol their Victor. It was an admirable stance, but you couldn't imagine what that was like for her family, and his.

You step off the concrete floor once you're dressed, instructed to get into the pod that will lift you up into the arena; a glass elevator. Your stylist says nothing to you as they walk out of the room, the glass door sliding shut in front of you. Your knees get weak as you realize you are totally, completely alone, and likely no more than twenty minutes from dying. You think of your family, your siblings, your dad- and the last words he said to you. You'll see him soon.

Your thoughts are halted when the elevator starts to move, lifting you up as the ceiling falls away and you can see sunlight coming through. You squint and shield your eyes as you try to look up to get a better grasp on your surroundings before you can even see anything. Once trees come into view you're frantically looking around, trying to process as much information as you can, and quickly. It's exactly the same as last year, but from what you can tell, flipped in reverse, and made larger to accommodate twice as many tributes. Or everything on camera last year was flipped. There's a silver cornucopia in the middle with the timer that's immediately counting down and supplies inside and scattered around the field in front of you. Rafe is to your right, and a boy from Seven on your left. He scored a six, the same as you, so he's not the biggest threat to you immediately.

You adjust your stance, getting ready to run once the timer hits zero. In what direction, you don't know yet. Rafe wants you to run to the supplies, but statistically, the most deaths will happen in the next five minutes and you don't want any part of that. The supply bags and weapons spread out on the grass are all the same too, by the looks of it. The closest bag to you got picked up by the girl from Seven last year, and it didn't have much of anything helpful. If you're remembering right, it had a rope and some matches, and that was it. It definitely would be useful, but you know you can do better. There should be a bag four pedestals to your right, with a water bottle, an emergency blanket, a fire starter, a first aid kit, and a knife. Right now, that's the one you have to get to. That's your best bet.

Ten, nine, eight... The timer ticks down to the final seconds as you look over at Rafe, who's already looking at you. You point to the bag as your eyes land on it on the other side of him across the field, and he looks at you confused. He's closer, he has a better shot, but you know he won't take it.

Rafe is confused, following your finger and spotting the bag. Why would you want that one specifically? There are others closer, he doesn't feel like now is a time to be picky.

Four, three, two...

Your ears ring with shock as the clock reaches zero, and you're watching most of the other tributes booking it for the center. No one has seen your bag yet as you jump down, beelining across the field and narrowly brushing past Rafe in your move for the small backpack. He stops to let you pass, almost crashing into you head-on. He doesn't have time to worry about you, so he continues on his path to the middle, but he's lost time. Precious time that he doesn't have to lose right at the beginning of the games.

He gets into the bloodbath that the cornucopia has already turned into, looking back over his shoulder quickly as he grabs at any weapon he can get his hands on. He quickly has to sacrifice the blade he just grabbed when he hears footsteps quickly approaching from behind him, turning quickly and plunging it into the boy's chest. He doesn't think to look at who it was.

Cannon's echo around you, and you're counting how many internally as you get to the bag, reaching down to grab it as you run past, trying not to slow down. You look back over your shoulder, hoping to spot your teammate somewhere, but you can't see him. You're scanning the area, blocking out the blood you see flying and scattered along the silver metal of the cornucopia. You can hardly hear any screams over the sound of your heartbeat pounding in your ears. You can't help but watch as the girl from Three jumps on who is supposed to be her partner, a girl from Twelve, snapping her neck in a second. Within moments, she just drops to the ground next to her- another cannon following. That makes a strong incentive for working in teams. At least Rafe won't betray you early on.

You freeze up for a moment, stopping to scan your surroundings. You still can't find Rafe, taking in the number of bodies scattered around the cornucopia and a few tributes running into the tree line. At least some people were smart. Something flies past your head, making you jump back a step as you look up ahead of you. Within an instant, you're being tackled back by the body of the boy from your district.

"Y/N, fancy seeing you here." He chuckles darkly while you try and fight him off.

"Don't!" You squeak out, him pressing his forearm down against your throat on the ground.

"I've wanted to do this since the second they called your name." He growls, shoving you down again.

"We can help each other, Jack..." You say weakly, clawing at his arm.

"You don't need me. You've got your career boyfriend- and whatever your secret weapon is." He scoffs. "You don't have a secret weapon, Y/N. He's bluffing and he won't convince us."

You gather all your strength and knee him in the crotch, scrambling to get away as he fumbles for just a moment. "God- you are a bitch!" He shouts, grabbing for your ankle just has you pick up the knife he had thrown at you. You grip it the way Rafe had shown you, quickly shoving it into Jack's leg. You just needed to get away.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" You exclaim, backing away quickly. Jack doesn't say another word, cutting his losses and getting up to make an escape for the woods. You hope he ends up okay.

You make your break for it as well, running back towards the woods as you once again scan your surroundings for your partner.

Suddenly you're on the ground, having run straight into the side of one of the pedestals and falling over it. You yelp with the sudden impact of the ground, scrambling to get up and continue when suddenly someone is grabbing your jacket, slamming you into the pedestal again. You scream, trying to shove them off, but they're much stronger than you. "Jael! Wait, wait- Jael!" You make out your own voice yelling the boy's name, which makes him falter. He's the oldest tribute from Eight- he seems shocked you even know his name.

In the moment when he loosened his grip, he jerks forward and then falls over you, a cannon booming making you gasp as you panic to get away. Rafe is quickly running towards you, slinging the bow he just used over his shoulder and yanking the arrow out of the boy's back. "Y/N, let's go!" He shouts, motioning for you to follow him as you continue toward the tree line, both of you keeping an eye on what's happening behind you as you disappear into the woods.

"Let's stay close, but not too close," Rafe suggests as soon as you feel safe enough to slow down, your chest heaving with the exertion of energy and boost of adrenaline. He glances at you briefly, then does a double take. "You okay? Are you hurt?"

You shake your head, coughing to ease the stinging in your throat. "I'm fine. You?"

"Good," Rafe answers, slowing his pace to match yours.

"We, uh, I think we should go the other way." You say, looking around to try and mentally place where abouts you are.

Rafe stops and furrows his brow at you, seemingly frustrated by your resistance. "Why does it matter?"

"The arena, it's the same as last year. Exactly the same. Just, scaled up a bit." You explain. "We should head south, that's where the river is. We'll need water soon."

Rafe laughs slightly, his demeanor changing as he places his hands on his hips and looks at you. "No shit," He says, truly surprised and impressed that you could tell. A lot of the games tend to look like this, and he would never notice a repeat arena down to the rivers if it punched him in the face. Your 'secret weapon' is already paying off. "And you could tell that right away?"

"Yeah, I mean, I guess so. The bags were all the same, everything was laid out the same. I bet there's a river down south." You nod, having a sudden realization. "We should get to that cave- the one the tributes from Twelve holed up in last year. That'll be a good, stable shelter. We can pretty much wait it out." You say, starting to walk in what you believe is the right direction.

"No," Rafe replies, making you stop in your tracks. "Unless you want me to have to kill you in the end."

"Oh, right." You forgot about that part, keeping score. "We're still going to need somewhere to sleep, though."

"Yeah, we'll find it anyways." Rafe nods, carrying on in the direction you started heading. You follow a few steps behind, keeping a bit of distance in the somewhat awkward silence that fell over you two after his comment about having to kill you.

You walk in the thick of the woods for about an hour before you feel like you're reaching the river. You can feel it under your feet, the soil is slightly softer, and the trees a little more green.

Cannons interrupt your thoughts a few times in the hike, totaling up to twenty-three by the time you reach the riverbank. "You were right." Rafe chuckles, mentally disparaging any skepticism he faced during the long, quiet walk.

"Thank god." You giggle, dropping your bag and crouching down to dig through it, hoping for a water bottle. You were right, everything you expected was accounted for.

"Why that bag?" Rafe says, already sitting down on the rocky water's edge to rest for a moment.

"Huh?" You question, unsure you heard over the shuffling of the bag while you zip it up.

"You pointed to it, during the countdown. Why did you want that one?"

"Oh, uh, like I said they all looked the same as last year, and I hoped I remembered what was inside." You say, laying down to reach into the water and fill up the bottle.

"Were you right?"

You nod with a small smile, sitting back up and holding the bottle out to him as you cross your legs.

"That's actually insane." Rafe shakes his head in disbelief as he takes it, downing just about everything in it before handing it back.

You take it and refill it again for yourself. "I'll choose to take that as a compliment."

Rafe wouldn't admit it, but at this moment as he's watching you drink, he's grateful that he got paired up with you. But now, that it's been shown on national television that you know the arena in and out, he wonders what obstacles the gamemakers will desperately throw your way.

"We should keep moving. I feel like a sitting duck out here in the open, I don't like it." Rafe mutters, checking his attitude as he stands up. You're quick to fill up the bottle again, following behind him yet again as the arrows in his quiver rattle together against his back walking over the rocky and unstable terrain, knife gripped tightly in his hand.

You wonder to yourself how he's feeling about leaving behind his predestined alliance of the career pack, but with the factor of most of them being paired up with other districts, it was already too unpredictable. You wouldn't have stuck around either.

The sun started to set as you followed the river upstream. You didn't want to settle without some kind of shelter, and you were committed to finding that cave before you could relax. You could tell that Rafe had the same idea, his steps ahead of you gradually picking up speed with the bow still gripped firmly in his palm.

"It's a beautiful sunset." You speak your mind before thinking, desperately wanting to fill the silence.

Rafe just hums in response, looking up only briefly before training his gaze once again on the ragged rocks at his feet and continuing on. "What's it like in District One?" You ask.

"Fine." He replies coldly. You aren't sure what you expected, but this response was pretty on par. You knew you had almost no chance of survival, so it would at least be nice to get to know the person you spend your final days with, even if he would be the one to kill you in the end.

"I've never been, but I've heard it's... nice." You've only ever heard about it from the perspective of other bitter individuals from Five, jealous of the cushy lifestyle everyone knew they must have lived.

"Yeah." Rafe agrees, clearly not wanting to discuss it.

"What are your sister's names?" You ask, deciding to push a little bit. It's not like he can kill you just yet.

Rafe sighs, but answers anyways. "Wheezie and Sarah."

You're shocked that he answered at all, but you could tell in his interview that he has a soft spot for them. "Cute." You nod, smiling to yourself. "Is Wheezie a nickname?"

"Yep, it's short for Louise."

"That's adorable." You grin, shaking your head.

"Hey, look. There." Rafe says, changing the subject and pointing down the rocks, where there's a small opening under a ledge.

"That's it!" You exclaim, deciding to drop the topic of his sisters in favour for finding your shelter for the night. You rush past him, watching your step as you climb down into the small cave.

Rafe quickly draws his bow, slowing down and peaking into the cave and bracing himself for your screams. How could you be so careless in a game like this? He doesn't understand your lightheartedness, your somewhat positive attitude, and your ability to make small talk despite the circumstances. "Hey, careful!"

"It's perfect!" You call back out as you look around, and Rafe steps down carefully, looking around more carefully than you had. He relaxes once he's satisfied that there's nothing down there waiting to kill you.

"Nice, okay." Rafe nods to himself, and you both get to work making a small fire near the entrance, hidden from view.

You take off your jacket and roll it up, using it as a makeshift pillow as you lay next to the fire, staring at the orange flicker of the flames you made.

Rafe is sitting across from you, knees tucked up to his chest as he does just the same. His mind is absolutely reeling- he needs to find something to eat, and soon. That will be the first thing you'll do in the morning, he'll have to employ your help to find something edible. "How are you with making traps?" He asks.

"I can do it." You reply, sitting up and leaning on your elbow so you can see him. "I'll set some up in the morning."

Rafe nods a little bit. He already knew you could, of course, but he's wondering about the logistics of how they work. "So like... hypothetically, would they work the same if you made them bigger?"

"Like... human-sized?" You ask, catching on to what he's suggesting. It's not ethical- but nothing about this game is. For you, this would definitely be preferable to fighting other kids to death over and over again.

Rafe nods, adjusting how he was sitting and crossing his legs.

"Yeah. I can't see why not." You answer. "It would be harder since I've never done it, but I think it could work."

"Then I say we try it."

The next day, you wake up as the sun rises and the light beats down on you from the entrance of the cave. You didn't sleep comfortably, that's for sure, waking up twice throughout the night to the sound of the cannon. That's twenty-seven. You wonder how many teams have already reached their ten-kill quota, you imagine someone in the career pack already has. Both times when you were startled awake, Rafe was standing at the cave entrance, bow drawn as he squinted into the darkness, hoping that whoever was out hunting other tributes wasn't nearby.

You sit up slowly, stretching out your tired limbs as you look over to see Rafe, fast asleep with a blade in his hand. You should let him sleep, and get to work on finding something to eat, and making some traps.

You grab one of the knives Rafe somehow collected from the bag laying next to him as quietly as possible, sneaking outside and taking in your surroundings. The sound of the river flowing and the smell of morning dew was amazing- you wish you could truly enjoy it in different circumstances.

You quickly get to work tracking down something to eat, landing on a few different plants you know to be edible. You're trekking through the woods near your cave when you come across an apple tree- making you pause as you look it over. It looks out of place- and maybe no one got close enough to it in the games last time that you wouldn't have seen it, but that seems unlikely. It must be new; it makes for the perfect place to try and set up a trap for the next hungry tribute who would be unfortunate enough to wander too close to your hideout.

You're digging a hole in the ground with your hands, avoiding the roots of the tree and sticking in some sticks you sharpened when you hear a twig snap behind you. You freeze, hoping that by some miracle, it's just an animal. You slowly turn your head to try and look, picking up the knife from the ground next to you and holding it tight.

"Just me." Rafe's voice relaxes you, and you stand up, brushing off your knees.

"You scared me." You admit as he takes to looking down into the hole you just dug.

"That looks... awful." He chuckles, patting your shoulder. "It won't kill, but it'll slow someone down enough that I can finish the job."

You nod slightly, staring into the dirt as well. You hated the idea that you were crafting something intentionally to bring harm to another person, but realistically you have no choice. "We'll set up more, along the riverbed and closer to the career pack. We can't monitor them all at once, though- can you make more fatal ones next time?" Rafe asks, pointing back towards the river to accentuate his point.

"That depends, how many arrows can you spare?"

The next few days saw the death toll rise to thirty-six. You kept track every night, scratching their numbers and names into the walls of the cave despite being able to remember anyway. You viewed it as a small memorial, Rafe saw it as a timer ticking down to when he'd have to kill you.

Your first trap had worked on one person, their screams of pain from a cut-up leg summoning your teammate back to the apple tree. He insisted you stay behind as he finished what you started. You had to reset several other traps as well, closer to the cornucopia.

Rafe would never admit it, but he was really starting to like you. He didn't want to hurt you- he was worried the traps wouldn't do enough. The passive approach you so preferred wasn't what he expected, and he knew his dad would be disappointed in him. But Ward would never understand.

He sighed as he poked at the fire with a stick, leaning his head back against the rocky wall of the cave, another cold night ahead of you.

You had your head laid on his lap, his thigh replacing the thin material of your coat that you had been using the last few days.

"How old are your sisters?" You ask out of nowhere, prompting him to look down at you. He had thought you fell asleep a while ago.

"Why does it matter?" Rafe replies, and you just shrug a little bit.

"Gives us something to talk about."

"Fifteen and Eleven." He relents.

"Hey, me too." You smile a little to yourself.

"You have sisters?" Rafe asks. He never asked much about you- he didn't really want to know, in the case he had to kill you.

"Yep. And a brother." You nod, sitting up a little bit. "He's older though, he aged out last year."

Rafe finds himself clenching his jaw. He can't hear that- to see you as a little sister. He doesn't want to imagine what it would be like to see his sisters face the same fate. "Lucky guy." He says quietly.

"Why? I thought it was a privilege, and all that." You chuckle.

"Well, yeah, but not for most. For the outlying districts like you."

"At least you get it." You agree. "How does it feel? Now that you're here, I mean."

"Scary." Rafe admits, throwing caution to the wind now with what his father will think. "Not what everyone tells you it'll be like."

"Is that because of me?" You ask after a few moments, and he nods slightly.

"Not in a bad way, though. It's just different. I expected to be on my own, to die alone, or kill my allies if I had to. Now... I don't know that I have to. Or if I even could." He can practically hear his father shouting at their large screen at home, or storming out claiming he was an embarrassment. He was told his whole life to never show weakness, to 'be a man', but now, at the end, that doesn't matter to him.

"I won't take it personally." You giggle softly, voice shaking as you try to make light of it. "My family won't either, I don't think. Maybe my dad, at first, but eventually he'll understand. They'll forgive you." You try and ease his mind, knowing that in the case that Rafe does win without you, he'll have to face your family in the next month or so during the victory tour.

"I wouldn't ever expect him to." Rafe tells you, tossing his stick into the flames now. He feels sick hearing you talk about it like it's inevitable- but if he has anything to do with it, you'll be coming home with him.

"They're good people." You assure him.

"Don't say that." Rafe chuckles, shaking his head. "I would never forgive myself."

"Okay, fine. They're awful. Just... the worst." You smile, looking up at him and resting your chin in your hand.

"That's better. Thank you." Rafe laughs, poking your forehead and gazing out onto the river as the flames illuminate the water.

In the morning, you're awoken to something brushing your leg. You groan and roll over, head landing once more on Rafe's extended arm underneath you. At least he was finally getting some sleep, pretty much unable to close his eyes since you set foot in the arena. You feel the brush again, followed by something moving on your arm, several things, suddenly, and your eyes fly open and look down when you remember where you are. You let out a scream, scrambling to sit up and pushing yourself back against the wall.

Rafe wakes up quickly, scrambling for the bow next to him when he realizes it won't be any help. You're surrounded by and quickly almost covered in a sickening combination of snakes and spiders.

You're still screaming, trying to shove the creatures off of you. "Come on- come on!" Rafe is yelling at you, grabbing your arm and pulling you towards the exit. You don't get the chance to grab your back and you regret that as you're jumping into the river in attempt to get the spiders off of your skin and out of your clothes.

You're breathing heavily as you come up for air, and Rafe is quickly there, brushing his hands over your hair to make sure every last spider is gone. He looks back at the entrance of the cave, chest heaving like yours as the bugs and snakes spill out of it. It sends a shiver down his spine- he was never a fan of snakes.

"I guess that's the gamemakers telling us enough was enough." He sighs, gently pulling you towards the shore again a safe distance away. "Are you bit?" He asks once you're a safe distance away.

"I don't think so..." You reply, hiking up the ankles of your pants to look at your calves and over your bare arms as you sit on the shore. "You?"

Rafe shakes his head, doing the same. "It was probably just a warning. We have to move." He quickly lowers his pant leg over the puncture wounds in his leg, hoping you didn't see. If it gets worse, he'll tell you. The bite itself didn't hurt much, so if it's going to be fatal, he's glad he won't have to hurt you.

Rafe helps you up, leading you up towards the tree line. "They probably want to push us in toward the other tributes, I think we should go with it before they throw something worse at us." You, the two of you now left with nothing but what you had on you, along with Rafe's bow and a few spare arrows.

He nods. "It's our best move anyways. How many tributes are left?"

"Twelve including us." You answer quickly. "There's Avril, a boy from six, Maisie, she's from my district, most of the careers I think are still in it but not their teammates," You begin to rattle off the list,

"I don't want to know names." Rafe cuts you off, and you understand why. He's been doing all the dirty work, and part of you knows it's because he's hoping to have time to learn names and feel guilty about it later. Right now, he can't afford to see them as human.

"Right." You agree. "It doesn't really matter, anyways."

"Do you know scores?" He asks, walking alongside you now.

You nod, beginning to list off all the remaining tributes and their scores, from lowest to highest. The lowest being you- and the highest being ten, shared by Rafe and a boy from district two.

After hearing two more cannons that day, and checking all the traps you had set, you're circling back to the river to be near fresh water before you set up camp again. You don't have your water bottle anymore, or anything to set up any kind of shelter with, you do your best. You set up a fire, Rafe insisting that if it draws other tributes to you so be it- he's ready for this to end just as much as you, but you don't want to rush into your death or an ambush. It's safe to say you won't be sleeping tonight.

You didn't sleep, but at least, curled up under a tree, the night sky was beautiful. The stars seemed realistic, and you wondered if somehow they were real. Between the two more cannons that struck overnight, you still wondered if you were somewhere near the ocean, or somewhere closer to home. While you're sitting next to each other in a peaceful silence, both admiring the vastness of the night sky, you hear a ringing sound coming from above.

Rafe quickly stands, reaching for the small silver pack with a parachute before it hits the ground. He's quick to open it as you stand up, looking into the container. You grab the small card, tilting it into the light of your fire to read it.

For our Y/N,

Keep fighting. Please come home to us.

Love You Always, Dad

Tears form in your eyes almost instantly, your hand coming up to cover your mouth. "It's just a water bottle and some kind of granola bars... or something." Rafe says, turning the water bottle over in his hand.

He looks up at you, frowning when he sees how upset you look. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." You quickly shake your head, wiping your eyes. "Uhm, it's from my dad."

The fact that your family could spare enough money to send you something in the games at all was amazing to you. You heard horror stories of the astronomical prices of trying to send something from outside of the capitol, without the status and funds of a sponsor.

"Oh." Rafe replies, handing you the tin and bottle now, taking the card from you gently. He reads it over slowly, and over and over again. His family had seemingly endless amounts of money, and they had sent him nothing. He knew his father viewed it as cheating, and that you shouldn't need any kind of help to win. If he loved him, though, that wouldn't matter. He should be willing to do anything he could to keep his son alive. The way your parents did.

"My mom made these." You sniffle, grabbing a small bar from the container in her hand. "They're my favourite, she only makes them on birthdays or special occasions." You explain.

"That's... that's really nice." Rafe says, putting the card back in the tin. He doesn't know how to handle this, or what to say.

You smile sadly as you sit back down against the tree, placing the tin on your lap as Rafe joins you. "Here." You hold the bar out to him.

"They're for you." Rafe shakes his head, pushing it away.

"They're for us." You insist, holding it out to him again. "They wouldn't have sent two if I wasn't meant to share."

"Thank you." Rafe smiles genuinely, for the first time in weeks as he takes it. He's starving, having eaten only small amounts of meat and plants over the last week or so, so he's quick to take a bite. It's sweet, more so than he expected. He never thought he could enjoy sugar this much.

"No wonder they're reserved for celebrations, hey?" You giggle, having intently watched his reaction.

Rafe nods. "Yeah, it's really good. Super sweet." He says, mouth still full. You grin, satisfied as you take a bite of your own.

The night flew by so quickly, you're feeling as though it must have gotten shorter. The sunrise went by fast too. You're guessing the gamemakers and the viewers were getting antsy. To be honest, you were as well.

Renewed with your energy the sugary baking your parents had sent, you set about gathering food and water, while Rafe goes on to check a few of your traps to see if they needed to be reset. He could do it on his own, but he liked watching you do it, working the ropes between your fingers and tying intricate knots, pulling back on the stick used to trigger the arrow. By the afternoon, having taken a mental note of the amount of cannons that had fired. It was a few, at least. You must be getting down to the end. He prayed it wasn't you, but the cries of some kind of mutts in the distance right before the cannons lead him to believe that you were fine- but he should be getting back soon anyways.

You were wandering down to the water, reluctant to leave your camp, but you knew water was a priority. You were just filling up the new bottle when you heard a scream. It sounded like a boy. You quickly look back over your shoulder, noticing it was nearby. Toward the apple tree. You stand slowly, looking around as you attach the water bottle back to your side with a carabiner, reaching instead for the knife Rafe had left with you. God, you hoped it wasn't him. The absence of a cannon gives you hope, though.

You quietly head in that direction, watching your step so your presence isn't detected. When you get closer to the tree, you hear crying. Painful crying, as you're faced with the reality of the trap you set.

You watch from behind a tree as the boy from eight tries to pull his leg up from the ground, screaming out again as the sharp sticks dig into his flesh. You should go get Rafe- you feel guilty, but you can't kill him yourself. You turn quickly, and before you can get a step away you're face to face with one of the other careers- a sword held up against your neck.

"Don't move." Blake says, a smile that can only be described as evil spreading over his lips.

You try and scream out for help, hoping Rafe was still in earshot but a hand is quickly covering your mouth. "Not yet." He whispers, shaking his head. "We've got a plan, it'll be fun. You wouldn't want to ruin that, right?"

As Rafe gets back to your small camp, he expects to see you there waiting. He scans the trees above him, wondering if you had climbed up for some reason. He calls your name when he doesn't see you, brow furrowed. You definitely should be back by now. As he's heading down to the water to look for you, he hears a cannon, which at this point wouldn't bother him- if it wasn't for the scream that followed after. It was you. No doubt in his mind that it was you. With his bow drawn, he's moving quickly towards where he heard your voice, throwing caution to the wind.

You scream again, crying as the tip of the sword is dug into your shoulder, laying down next to the apple tree. You can't help it- but you don't want their trap to work. You don't want Rafe to come, so you bite your tongue until you taste blood, hoping to keep quiet. "It'll only get worse for you if you don't scream, Y/N/N." Blake scolds you, digging in the blade more. "He has to hear you." He adds through gritted teeth.

You hear a twig snap just outside the small clearing, and Blake is quickly turning to look with the sword still pinning you to the ground. "Rafe it's a trap!" You shout, hoping that it's him.

Rafe steps out then, into full view with his bow drawn as he aims at the boy in front of him. When they first met, he knew they would have been good friends if they met anywhere else. "You won't shoot me." Blake chuckles, and Rafe quickly readjusts his grip.

"I will." Rafe says sternly, pulling the string tighter as Blake moves the sword to hover over your chest. Over your heart.

"If you shoot, the last of my energy will go into killing her. I don't think you want that." He shakes his head, smiling smugly.

"I don't care." Rafe says, making your heart clench. You know that you're friends, at the very least. He does care. He's bluffing- you have to believe that.

"If you didn't care you would have shot me already." Blake calls it, and Rafe tenses up, looking down at you only briefly.

"Then what do you want?" Rafe spits.

"Oh, nothing. I just wanted you to watch." Blake shrugs. "Just makes it a little more fun, you know? But don't worry, you'll be next." You know he just wants to prove himself, somehow, not having scored as high as Rafe did. You wonder if his family was somehow similar- that he needed some kind of approval that he thought he might find through sadism.

Rafe looks down at you again, and you just nod, tears streaming down your temples to your ears. He quickly readjusts before letting the arrow fly, planting straight in the shoulder that held the sword as you quickly roll over, slicing across your chest and shoulder in the process. It was well worth it.

Rafe fires another arrow into his chest, not taking any risks and the cannon quickly follows as he rushes to your side.

"Are you okay?" He's asking, hands hovering above you as he's kneeled next to you, unsure what to do.

You nod, still biting into your tongue as blood continues to slide down your skin, dampening your now torn up clothes.

"It's not that bad." Rafe says, looking over the cuts as best he can, but you wince when he pulls the fabric away. "You're gonna be fine, alright?"

"Yeah, yeah..." You mumble, letting your head fall back against the brush below you. Rafe is quick to take his coat off, using it to push down on the deepest part of the wound on your shoulder, trying with his other hand to apply pressure to the rest of it. You try and focus on your breathing, rather than the pain, but it's hard when a significant amount of weight is being applied to your shoulder and chest.

"I'm sorry, I have to." Rafe tells you, jaw tense as he lifts his coat to check whether or not the bleeding has slowed. You didn't even realize you were crying.

After a few minutes, he's lessened the pressure a bit, still holding the fabric firmly over your skin. "You could have ran." You mumble, voice hardly above a whisper.

"I wasn't gonna leave you." Rafe shakes his head, gently peeling away his now blood soaked windbreaker.

"You at least shouldn't have saved me. Not much point in that, is there?" You smile softly, trying to sit up and Rafe is quick to help.

"There is. You have to win." He mutters.

"I'm not winning, Rafe." You smile sadly at him. "Infection will kill me if you won't, and if no one else does first."

"No, they'll fix you up. This cut will be gone in a week, the technology they have is-"

"Rafe." You grab his attention again and he looks up to meet your eyes. They seemed to suck in all the light of the sunset above the two of you, reflecting back at him in a way that makes his breath hitch. The thought is cut short, however, when you say something that breaks his heart. "Don't give me hope like that."

"Why? You're gonna go home. I mean it." He promises. "I'll make sure of it."

"I don't think we have enough." You remind him sadly, a small smile still evident on your lips as you reach up to cup his cheek in your palm. "I never expected to go home. I'm okay with that."

Your friend shakes his head softly. "That doesn't matter. You have your family to get home to, I read that note from your dad. They need you, I can see that. For me, these games are all I was raised for. I have nothing left for me after this." He admits, avoiding eye contact with you.  "I could never forgive myself if I didn't get you home."

Tears are forming in your eyes again as you look up at him. The world is watching, and in this moment of vulnerability you feel that more than ever- despite the quiet sounds around you being only the rushing water in the nearby river and the birds chirping around you. "You're a good person, Rafe." You smile at him, watching as he gently raises his hand to yours, grabbing it in his own. "I hope you know that."

In this moment, you settle on the idea that you would die for him. You never understood last years tributes, honestly, how they were willing to die for each other instead of getting home to their own loved ones, but now you do. Completely.

Without a second thought, you find yourself leaning closer, Rafe doing the same as he kneels next to you in the dark. Your eyes meet once more, lips only an inch from touching when you hear a howl in the distance, and you snap your head to the direction it came from. "The Mutts... Already?" You say, scrambling to get up and ignoring the pain in your shoulder.

"I- I heard them earlier, they sound far away." Rafe says, trying to calm you.

"You heard them? You didn't tell me?" You ask, frantically grabbing his bow from the ground and handing it to him as he goes to pull the discarded arrows out of Blake's body.

"I didn't think it mattered!" He defends, trying to hide the panic in his voice.

"There were four left last year when they sent them out. I think... yeah I think that's right. There's four of us. We have to run." You say in a panic, pulling on his hand. "Our best bet is making it back to the cornucopia."

"It'll be too open- can't we climb a tree or something?" Rafe says, following after you as you're running through the bush now in the direction of the open field.

"I don't know if that will work, but I know we'll be safe there." You explain like it's obvious. "We have to risk it- and if you can get to the others first, if they have the same idea, we'll be at ten."

You're out of breath already, adrenaline pushing you through as you hear scattered barking getting steadily closer after one more cannon. Part of you wants to stop, turn, and force Rafe to take the win if you couldn't have it, but with any hope left, you have to try and get back to where this started. The traps was an unfortunate choice in how you got your kills, because you couldn't keep track of how many since by the time you got around to checking them, the body's would have been airlifted off if it wasn't a misfire. If you had to guess, though, you were sitting at eight.

Rafe is running similar calculations in his head as he lets you lead him by memory straight to the field, mind short-circuiting as he sees the silver moonlight reflect off the cornucopia.

You sprint across the open field, blood pouring from your undressed wound again with the intense exertion of energy. Rafe doesn't pass you, though, despite you expecting that he would. You have tunnel vision as you make it to the metal structure, practically slamming into it before you can even stop. Rafe is quick to lift you and shove you up, both of you looking over your shoulders as you struggle to hold onto the edge, kicking the sides to hold yourself up.

You finally get up, reaching down to help pull Rafe up. He grabs onto your arm for leverage, mostly pulling himself up and you wince as you feel the tension from his weight in your cuts.

You flop down onto your back on the cold surface as he climbs over you, immediately standing up with bow drawn as he intently scans the surrounding area. He's only got the two arrows left, which makes him nervous if that's all he has to defend the both of you with.

You try to settle your breathing, which only lasts for a moment until the sky lights up with the recap. You miss your cave, where you could contribute to your memorial, especially seeing the face of Maisie flash above you on the sky while the anthem plays.

You close your eyes, just listening to the music now until you hear barking just outside of where Rafe can see, and you're quickly sitting up. He draws the bow tighter, aiming in the direction the howls came from just as someone pushes out into the clearing. Rafe is aimed straight at them, bow string pressed to his cheek. He's getting dizzy, and quickly. His aim can't fail him now, he doesn't have that option.

You watch them, in the dark you think it's the other boy from district one, and in your exhaustion you can't remember his name. You wouldn't dare say it, anyways. He's screaming for help, a call you know you can't answer, and you watch as they stumble on their feet, shoes and hands digging into the ground as they try to get up, just ten or so yards from you by now.

Rafe wants to shoot just then, it would be as simple as letting his finger loose and the arrow would fly towards its target. It would be a merciful end for the boy he's trained with for years now, only a couple years younger than him. The muscle in his jaw is aching from the tension he's put on it when he forces himself to let go. He has to do it, for himself, if he wants to go home.

He misses. The yelp of one of the mutts tells you it landed in a paw or back, and you look up at Rafe who's already drawn his second. "Rafe!" You cry out, pushing yourself up onto your feet and standing behind him now.

He hates to admit that your empathy has rubbed off on him. Watching you every night carving seemingly endless names and numbers into the rocks that lined the space you stepped in. He recalls waking up one morning and seeing your name and his carved in as well, closer to where he laid by the fire, his underlined and yours with a heart at the end. Like a signature on the top of a math test. He had wondered if you always wrote your name like that, and in this moment as he releases the bow again, he knows he has to find out for himself.

It happened so fast, the mutts knocking down the boy and the arrow flying from Rafe's shaky hands into where he should have been right as the cannon sounds. You don't know that it was Rafe's arrow that did him in.

"No..." You mumble, clamouring forward and onto your knees again to look over as the boys body is torn apart by the mutts. "You had to have done it. You had to." You say, trying to get a better view.

In a second, Rafe's arms are around you and he's pulling you back from the edge, sitting now behind you with his arms wrapped tightly over your body. "It's okay.. it's over." He mumbles, kissing the side of your head as the sunlight comes over the trees. He's fighting off the urge to vomit, everything spinning around him now.

You sit with him, gripping onto his arms and crying. Nothing is happening, so you must not have made it to ten. You feel sick- your heart is in your throat and suddenly you're really hot, moving away from him to look over the edge again, this time incase you have to throw up. You freeze, looking over to where the boy's body once was. The second arrow was in the ground. He missed again.

Rafe sees it at the same time as you. He sighs, hanging his legs over the edge. "Shit... Y/N, I'm sorry." He mumbles, gently reaching over to rub your back.

"No, no. It's okay." You insist, sitting up next to him. "I knew this would happen."

"I'll get you home." Rafe says, sliding down the side of the cornucopia before you can stop him. He stumbles the landing, swaying in his walk as he heads towards the arrow lodged into the dirt.

"Wait! Wait, wait, Rafe!" You're sliding down after him, running to his side and grabbing his arm before he can get to the arrow in the ground.

He turns to you quickly, hand on your cheek and he's pressing his lips to your forehead. "Sit with me?" He asks, knees already giving out as he falls to the ground.

You're instantly on the ground beside him, practically holding his head up with your free hand as you search him visually for some kind of injury.  "What happened? Are you hurt?"

"Uh, I guess so." Rafe mutters. "Snake bite. I think."

"You didn't tell me? I could have fixed this, I could have helped..." You ramble on, his eyes dropping shut now. "Hey, eyes open."

"It's okay. Just sit with me..." He says again, smiling weakly. "Wait with me... please?"

You nod, sniffling as you fight back the tears that want to fall. "Yeah, of course. I'll stay."

Before he closes his eyes, the music starts again and your eyes are drawn up to the sky after you notice Rafe is looking first.

Then, begins a similar slideshow of faces you recognize. Ten in total. Rafe's eyes flicker with slight recollection, remembering any kills he made himself and you gasp when you see Jack. Whatever damage you had done when he tackled you on the first day must have killed him. "Rafe.." You mumble, lowering your eyes to meet his. "I think we won."

Your point is accentuated by the voice of the head gamemaker over some unseen speakers. "Introducing the Victors of the Seventy-Fifth Annual Hunger Games!"

"We did it." Rafe laughs weakly, squeezing your hand.

You fully ignore the aircraft hovering down in front of you on the grass, turning your head to look down at him. You don't say anything, neither of you do, and you finally feel your lips against his. The kiss is bad, it doesn't really work when both of you are stuck smiling ear to ear, but you don't care one bit. The only thing that matters is that you got this chance at all.

Rafe pulls away from you slowly, using all the strength he has left to lift himself onto his feet as you steady him. "He needs help!" You shout to them, and you're quickly being lead onto the plane.

"They've got really good technology," You mock what he said to you just the day before. "It'll be like it never happened in a week, okay?" You chuckle, feeling waves of happiness, worry, and relief all at once as you quickly wipe away a tear with your free hand, other arm wrapped tightly around Rafe's waist to hold him up.

He laughs, and you lean into him more, your forehead against his shoulder as the aircraft door slides shut behind you.

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[hippolotamus]

Sentence Sunday ✨

I can show you lies 'Cause I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my shit They said, "Babe, you gotta fake it 'til you make it" and I did Lights, camera, bitch smile, even when you wanna die I was grinning like I'm winning, I was hitting my marks 'Cause I can do it with a broken heart

Beloved mutuals and pocket pals... I honestly don't know what to say for myself. This is a case of 'I listened to a song too much, I had an idea I knew I was never gonna write' turned 'I'll just throw it out as a prompt' --> 'I'll just make a moodboard' --> 'Oh god, I've written over 1k words in place of a summary'. SO. Have... whatever this is, T Swift influenced Buddie actor au. Under the cut to save your dash.

Honestly, if the world still exists in the morning, Eddie Diaz doesn't really give a fuck. His girlfriend left, claiming he's still not over his late wife, and his teenage son, the last thread connecting him to said wife, went to go live with his grandparents. After, of course, blaming Eddie for pushing 'yet another one' away. Christopher wouldn't even look at him before he went.

Then there's Anita Mills, his agent, who is probably a few blood pressure points away from a stroke at this point. Assuming she doesn't fire him first.

Let her, he thinks, grabbing a bottle of Maker's Mark from the cabinet. He has a string of blockbuster films to his name, not to mention a commendable collection of Oscar's and Emmy's. Not that they made his parents proud or kept his wife from leaving him before she died. But they exist as proof that he's had a successful career. Between investments and liquid assets he has more money than he would know what to do with in a hundred lifetimes. So, fuck it.

Eddie breaks the wax seal and twists off the red cap. He doesn't even bother with a glass, not really seeing a need. He's never been a big drinker, but lately his tolerance has grown considerably. Indulging until he passes out seems like an ideal use of his time right now anyway. If he wakes up after? Well, he'll consider that a success.

------------------

"Hey! What the hell?!" Eddie manages, coughing and trying not to choke on the ice cold water hitting his body. He opens his eyes to see Mills towering over him, glowering and holding an empty vase. He swipes a hand across his face. "Seriously, Anita, what the fuck was that?"

"I don't know, Eddie, you tell me." She disappears for less than a minute, returning with a hand towel she unceremoniously drops on his chest. "Help me out here. What's today?"

He wriggles himself to something resembling sitting and leans back against the coffee table. "What's today?" He parrots back dumbly.

Anita crosses her arms and quirks an eyebrow. "I asked you first."

Today, today, today. Where was he supposed to be- "Shit! The interview with, uh, fuck." He snaps his fingers and racks his brain trying to remember a name or a face. All he knows is they're important.

"Claudette Collins. Very good, Eddie, you got it part way."

"Give me ten minutes, I'll put myself together and we can go," he says, fighting the violent wave of nausea that hits as he scrambles to stand up.

"Save your poor carpet from getting puked on and sit the hell down."

"What? No, I can-"

"Eddie," Anita interjects, "the interview was five hours ago. The interview with the Claudette Collins. The one that took me months of phone calls, groveling and cashing in favors to get for you."

Fuck. "Anita, I'm so sorry. How-"

"Save it." Anita holds her hand up, effectively silencing him. It takes him back to being seven years old and having to explain why his dad's truck had an enormous dent in it. She rests her hands on her hips, pacing back and forth as she purses her lips. Eventually she sits in the leather armchair situated in the corner. "Eddie, you and I have known each other a long time. A long time. I've been your agent since you walked into my shitty office back in Dallas. Given your impressive display of awards, I'd say we've done pretty well together."

She inhales sharply, rubbing at her temple. Anita doesn't mince words, it's part of why he's always liked her. He never has to question where he stands. She says 'jump' and he knows exactly how high. It's not difficult to guess what's coming next.

"Eddie, I know you're going through a rough patch. What you're dealing with is hard enough without seeing it splashed on every tabloid and trashy website. Not to mention none of those places knows the real story, so it's all a bunch of 'she said he might have said' bullshit. But you've made it through tougher things." Anita doesn't need to clarify that she's talking about Shannon's death and how his parents tried to take Christopher. "I don't know what's happening this time, but I need to take a step back. My wife has made it very clear that all of my attempts at stress management are not working and that if I can't get it under control I shouldn't be surprised when I come home to an empty house. So."

Eddie swallows, waiting for the inevitable and cursing himself for pretending he wouldn't care.

"I've talked to a few friends in the business and found someone willing to take you on."

What?

"What? You're not firing me?"

Anita's features soften. "Technically, yes. I am very much dropping you like a scorpion I found in my boots. However, like I said, I found someone willing to work with you. The name is Bobby Nash. He runs a smallish agency but don't let that throw you. He's cobbled together some pretty impressive talent. I assume you've heard of Evan Buckley?"

Eddie scoffs. "Of course I have. Who hasn't? Christ, he's everywhere you look. I can't pass a damn bus stop without seeing his face." A few details begin to click into place within Eddie's muddled brain. "Bobby Nash is his agent?"

"Sure is. And we all know the stories about Evan's past aren't the type you trot out at parties. My advice is that you don't look a gift horse in the mouth, go with Nash and do whatever he tells you to do. He even has a role in mind for you, costarring with Buckley. What do you say?"

What else was there to say? If Eddie didn't want to get blacklisted or wind up as some washed up tragic Hollywood story, being gossiped about where everyone - including his son - could see what a failure he was...

"I guess I say- when can I meet him?"

"Good answer." Anita clasps her hands together and gives him her signature smirk that tells him she approves. "Just leave everything to me."

Up to this point, Eddie has trusted Anita implicitly with all the messy business that comes with having him for a client. Why stop now?

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@shortsighted-owl @eddiebabygirldiaz @queerbuckleys @bi-buckrights @elvensorceress

@bucksbiawakening @giddyupbuck @hoodie-buck @indestructibleheart @ladydorian05

@lemonzestywrites @monsterrae1 @statueinthestone @slightlyobsessedwitheverything @the-likesofus

@thewolvesof1998 @watchyourbuck @welcometololaland @wildlife4life and anyone else who wants to 😘

[dollarstoreartsupplies]

OKAY here is the completely nonserious percy jackson npmd au thats been taking up space in my brain for weeks now because it simply needs somewhere to go:

New campers-

Stephanie Lauter:

I'm not overcomplicating this one: Steph is a daughter of Aphrodite

Solomon Lauter saw the hottest woman at some party where he was campaigning, and he’s is nothing if not ‘passionate’ and successful (by design) so it worked out

As far as Steph knows until her teens her mom ran off on her dad when she was a baby, and that’s fine, she doesn't give a shit, she’s never looked into it

Until, when she’s sixteen (because somehow she’s made it this long) Grace Chasity starts a rumor, her dad sends her to Abstinence Camp and the monster in the woods chases her right into camp halfblood

She gets claimed pretty promptly and Is Not A Fan

She’s thinks it’s pretty sexist and conceited and stupid and problematic for a whileeeee and refuses to look into it any more than ‘pink and pretty and misogynistic’ which like, doesn’t go well for her but she’s nothing if not stubborn

She’s fluent in French because of her mom but she doesn’t know that until she gets to camp and is genuinely so pissed off that the one school subject she thought she was good at isn’t even on her own merit

She’s got some vague appearance manipulation stuff, and once she realizes she does she exclusively uses it to change her hair color and make her eyeliner look good

She’s probably like camp way more if she knew about it earlier but the combo of her had having kept it from her and who her mom is and all the stupid games/worship expectations piss her off and she bails on most of the events/training/campfires out of spite

She definitely uses some close up weapon like a dagger or short sword

Grace Chastity:

Grace is a daughter of Ares 

(Her finding this out goes very poorly)

Im ngl i feel like somehow Ares ended up with Mark Chastity, I refuse to examine this thought but i think Mark Chastity had his first gay experience and woke up the next morning with a baby there somehow because Ares thought it would be hilarious and wanted to see what would happen

She gets chased to camp with Steph from Abstinence Camp and is fucking livid, the whole thing is insanely scareligious and ridiculous and everyone there is going to hell and she is so heated that Ares, once again thinking it’s really funny and slightly proud, claims her on the spot

Grace Chastity is out here with her sacreligious two gay dads

She really resents specifically who her dad is because in her head she is made for peace and love and spreading the word of god, she hates the idea of war or violence on principal, so she spends a lot of time at the strawberry fields or Pegusus stables because she does really like the flying horses :)

She refuses to take place in any camp activities or training and all her siblings hate her

At a certain point she’s able to harness a level of odikinesis (enhancing feelings of hatred and war) and it doesn’t go well

Chiron honestly is forcing her to stick around because he’s REALLY so very nervous about how the fuck it would go to have Grace loose on the mortal world right after she finds everything else

Her weapon is an axe

Obviously

AND THEN we’ve got the established campers-

Peter Spankoffski:

Okay so forgive me for my special little blorbo-fication of my guy but:

Pete’s a son of Nyx

He super fucking shouldn’t be, there aren’t demi-god children of Nyx, just monsters and minor gods, but him and Ted were kind of just… thought experiments? Like she was bored and very curious so she took a really shitty human and had a child with him (Ted) and then, in what Nyx’s head was barely any time at all but in human years was straight up 18 years, has another one (Pete)

Ted raises Pete for a couple years, but children of Nyx in general are just bad omens, and human children of Nyx who probably shouldn’t exist are no exception, so they get hunted down by monsters hard

Ted dies or disappears by the time Pete’s ten or eleven and he ends up at a camp

He’s a year round camper and lives in the hermes cabin because obviously Nyx doesn’t have a cabin (look okay i know that percy fixed that, but that bit of lore where any unclaimed or minor god children live at the hermes cabin is so fucked up and rife with angst and hurt/comfort potential is too much for me to resist so this is a universe where percy jackson does not exist)

His luck is horrible, like it’s a magical demigod ability how horrible his luck is and he’s well on his way to systematically having broken every single one of his bones one by one, they know him so well in the apollo cabin

NO ONE (and I mean NO ONE) likes him and he’s considered a camp wide jinx so he takes one for the team and personally exempts himself from any team events like capture the flag because no one is willing to have him on their side

A lot of newer campers generally assume he’s an Athena kid because he really enjoys learning/strategy/by-the-book stuff because it’s a lot easier than trying to get involved with the more dangerous athletic shit 

Because his mom is the goddess of night he’s very into outer space

His weapon is a bow and arrow, but he’s pretty good with most range weapons/anything that he can calculate aim for 

Ruth Fleming:

Ruth is a daughter of Demeter and she’s pissed about it

Her dad told her about being a demigod a couple years before she went to camp but he didn’t know who her mom was so she got very very into greek mythos and shit and was convinced she was a daughter of Athena or Aphrodite or someone else nine-year-old-girl-cool and was fucking devestated when it was the goddess of farming

Like, she’ll do all the things she’s expected to (helping in the strawberry fields, weeding, etc..) but she’s going to complain about it

She doesn’t even have any cool powers to go with it!!! it’s so unfair >:( 

She’s also involved with the camp’s theater department and is convinced it’s rigged against her because of who her mom is in favor of Apollo and Dionysus kids (in fairness…. it probably is) which is why she’s always stuck on tech 

She’s definitely got a crush of Richie’s dad

She’s a summer only camper for sure, monsters don’t hunt her down for any reason in particular or en mass so she can get away with it and fight off the ones that do, but she does kind of take offense to the fact that even monsters don't want her (even if they’d just kill her) 

Her childhood greek mythology obsession carries over so she knows every dumb little detail about every myth and will bring it up unprompted

Her main weapon is just a celestial bronze sword but i feel like when she first got to camp at 12 she bribed a child of Iris to change the color of it so it looks like… rose gold lmao

Richie Lipschitz:

Richie is a son of Dionysus

And sure, okay, I know what you're thinking: that doesn’t really fit…?

But to that I say oh boy it does, just not for Richie

For his twin brother Trevor however– 

Richie is kind of like the black sheep of his cabin, not that there is many of them, because his brother is perfectly cookie cutter what a Dionysis kid should be (he’s a theater kid, he throws good parties, he’s generally popular) and Richie is not

They both started camp at probably 10-ish, a little earlier than traditional because there were two of them which drew more monsters

His eyes are violet though which he thinks is very cool so he dyes his hair purple to match them

He sorta-kinda has chlorokinesis, specifically for grape and strawberry vines, which a. he also thinks is very cool, and b. he uses as an excuse to get out of training so he can hang out with Ruth

He's also really good at swimming and trying to work up the courage to ask his dad if he'd possibly be able to grant him the ability to turn into a dolphin but just like... only when he wanted tot and he could turn back

He really wishes his was an Apollo kid (though, obviously he’d never say that out loud) because of the artistic stuff, so he sort of just tries to gaslight everyone that because his dad is the god of the Arts that includes physical art like drawing so obviously that’s why he’s good at it

He’s a summer-only camper too but for the dumbest reason; their parents gave the twins a choice, but Trevor wanted to be able to go back to school to do school plays and Richie can’t watch anime at camp so they chose summer only

His weapon is just a normal sword but he’s campaigning to get a child of Hephaestus to make him a Katana

(They’re all three kind of outcasts in terms of their own godly parents, because Ruth and Richie don’t really fit the mold of ‘normal child of [blank]’ and Pete’s kind of just generally disliked because of his parentage, so they all sort of came together as friends out of necessity but now they’re just actually buddies and they hang out)

anyway who knows if ill do anything with this but its FUN and id love to talk about it forever they're just little demigod losers I love them

[iamfuckingsorry]

i'm sorry but like. i played the game for the first time like a month ago (and it absolutely wrecked me, it was beautiful), and i just can't stop thinking about this and i need to get it out. but like, kim, what the fuck is the deal with kim?

like, he's just such a weird little man with such a weird little collection of character traits, but also he's just so fucking perfect.

like, kim. he spent 15 years being a cop in a department he fucking hated but he just stuck it out. he is so done with teens he basically refuses to speak to them unless he absolutely has to, but he still spent 15 fucking years in that section, refusing to give up. he's proud to be a revacholian and to protect the city now, but did he feel this way when he joined the RCM? or did he join to prove to everyone that even a monkey fucker like him could be revacholian? or did he join because he got kicked out of the orphanage he grew up at and didn't have anywhere else to go? or was there a different reason altogether?

and look at him now. he's presumably one of the best cops in his precint (i'm sure he mentions something about this early on in the game but i honestly can't remember), and one that seems to mostly play fair and genuinely care, which doesn't seem to be that common at all. and he's proud of this and strives to always be professional and calm and collected even if he doesn't always fully manage. he keeps himself in check first and foremost, and seems to try to keep everyone at an arm's length and not engage in personal discussions, even though he will often indulge harry if directly asked.

and so far it all makes sense, right? he's been treated like shit all throughout his life, dealt a fairly shitty hand, an orphan, an immigrant, a homo, possibly visually impaired (has he always needed glasses? was he able to get them as a broke-ass kid with no one to speak on his behalf? or did he grow up never able to see properly, struggling in school because he could never read the board or react in time when people threw shit at him, made fun of by both teachers and classmates?), mocked and ridiculed, and he's had to fight hard to get to where he is now. and he desperately needs to keep it this way, so he works hard and sticks to the rules and keeps his distance from people, and he puts a stop to everyone and everything that people could make fun of (no, harry, you will /not/ call me kimball, you will call me Lt kitsuragi, no, harry, you will /not/ tell anyone about the ice bear fridge, i will /not/ be known as the ice bear cop). but he's also mostly a genuinely nice and compassionate person and he really cares, as long as people are at least trying to do good.

but also…

he basically wears period cosplay to work. like. for real, he clearly wears his fucking pilot jacket so often that having the RCM insignia sewn onto it was the most logical choice. he is so obviously into planes and cars (but he's too blind to be a pilot :), do you think he used to hate himself as a kid not only because he was poor and abandoned by everyone and "an immigrant" but also because not even his own fucking body would let him be what he wanted to be), he has an extremely expensive vehicle that's his, his only, and not even really needed for the stuff he does at work the majority of the time. he clearly had to have a chat with his boss at some point in time and justify this purchase and why the car should be permanently assigned to him and him only, and even if i'm sure he had a bunch of actual reasons you can't convince me that his boss and all of his colleagues weren't all aware that really, he just wanted a fast fucking car and had an excuse to get it. and clearly the higher ups like him enough to indulge him, because surely no one would be actually fooled? why would a crime investigator get it and not, like, the fucking traffic guys chasing drunk drivers and illegal racers every night?

and like, in some ways he fucking owns it, doesn't seem to give a fuck, he's who he is and if people don't like it that's not his problem. but he's also embarassed about listening to that fucking radio station. but he also drives a sports car and wears driving gloves and a pilot jacket, of course he's listen to that fucking radio station. but then he also does newspaper crosswords. like, he seems to put a into maintaining this facade of professionality, but he also really doesn't fucking care when it comes to a lot of the stuff, it's great. except for the extremely random stuff that he does care about and can get extremely flustered about momentarily.

and it feels really out of character in a way. he works so hard on keeping himself in check at all times, representing the RCM in a good light and making sure both him and others get treated with the respect they deserve. he smokes one cigarette a day to keep proving to himself he can keep his vices in check, for fuck's sake. but then it's like he just picked one (1) part of his personality where he just went like, fuck it. Fuck it, I work hard for this shit and I deserve to do what I want sometimes too, and this one fucking thing is innocent enough and safe enough, and I don't give a fuck, I deserve /one fucking thing/ and I'm gonna get it. I'm getting the goddamn jacket and the Kineema and if people have a problem with that, they can go fuck themselves. I /need/ this one thing and I. Am. Getting. It.

(it's clearly a big part of his personality, but do you think there were other massive interests in the past, or maybe there still are others he isn't as open about with? Things he thinks would undermine his career and reputation? Past hobbies he abandoned because if anyone found out, that would be the end of his career at the RCM, even though for anyone else who wasn't a stupid fucking immigrant who can't even see right it would be a funny little detail?)

anyway.

i'm just like. stay the way you are, my weird little man. you're great.

[vanishingcherry]

Hey Leah, hope you’re doing good. If you’re taking requests, please could I get either Charles or Lando x fem reader. I had a really shitty day and my friends seem really distant and I feel super sad. Thank you x

PIANO LESSONS

pairing: charles leclerc x reader

author's note: heyy! im so sorry about your day... i hope you're feeling better now 🥰. im sorry its a bit late, ive just been in a writing slump and didn't have anything finished. ive had this in my drafts for a while tho so here you go!

masterlist

๑ ⋆˚₊⋆────ʚ˚ɞ────⋆˚₊⋆ ๑

It was summer break, which meant Charles was home for over 2 weeks and you had him all to yourself. Granted, you did have days in which you would go out with family and friends, but it was a manner of speaking. It meant that you would be together almost 24/7 for days at a time, something rare in his career.

That was why the two of you had pre-decided to make the most of it. Charles felt guilty sometimes, about not being, in his words, the boyfriend you deserved. Although you had told him multiple times that he was perfect, he held on to that insecurity, which is why you went along with everything he planned, knowing that all he wanted to do was spend time with you.

You could honestly say you had been on more dates in the last week than you had so far in the year. There were the simple dinner dates, movie dates, hiking dates and also the more unique ones, such as the one that ended with, for some reason, throwing paint on each other.

But with all that, there were also the more quiet days. The days in which the two of you would stay in your apartment all day long. Those were your favourite days. There was something special about being able to wake up late, not having to worry about work or some sort of event.

"Have you been awake a while?" you whisper, shifting so that you would be closer to him, tucking your head under his own as he continues to run his fingers through your hair.

"Ouais." he murmurs. Yeah. "Mais c'est bien. I like looking at you."

It was another one of these days, and you were coming back from the kitchen with a snack when you heard the soft notes of the piano. Smiling, you switched off your phone and walked into the makeshift studio you and Charles had converted a guest bedroom into.

He had taken piano lessons during quarantine, and you had never been happier with his decision. There would be times in which you would come home from work, the sound of music immediately putting you in a state of relaxation.

You stand in the doorway, watching as his fingers dance across the keys. A few minutes later, when he stops playing, you walk over and sit next to him.

"What piece was that?" you ask softly, not wanting to speak too loud. You rest your head on his shoulder, offering him a chip from your bowl.

"Did you like it?" he replies, answering with a question of his own.

"Yeah, it was beautiful. I loved it."

"It's mine. I made it." he admits sheepishly. "I was just trying something out."

"REALLY? Oh my god, amour!" Your eyes widen at his words, head turning towards him in disbelief.

"Yeah. You actually like it?"

"Yes, of course! Oh my god, bebe. How did you- I'm so proud."

He shyly smiles at your praise, before piping up. "Do you want me to teach you?"

"Your song?" you ask, clearly excited.

"Well" he starts. "Maybe not my song right now, but I can teach you an easier song... and then we can work up to my song?"

"Ouais! I can't believe I never thought of that before."

He smiles at your enthusiasm before wrapping an arm around your waist to pull you closer to him. He then gently takes your hands, placing them on the keys, keeping his fingers over your own. He looks at your expressing for a few seconds, unable to stop the smile from creeping on his face as he realises just how special you are.

"You press this finger and this finger at the same time, and hold it for a second" he directs, after shaking his head to focus, pressing down on the right keys.

You follow his directions, going over ever note a few times before moving on. He was patient, overly so, helping you with the biggest grin as you ask him to repeat the last few steps.

Before you knew it, it had been over an hour, and you had learnt quite a bit of what Charles was teaching you. At this point, both of your attention spans were low, and there wasn't a lot of playing going on. Rather, it was you trying to get through the last few notes before a break while Charles lightly tickled your sides, proving to be an annoyingly cute distraction.

"I think I'm done for today" you sigh, shifting slightly to rest your back against Charles.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm tired." you say.

He nods sympathetically before standing up and pulling on your hands to make you do the same.

"You go to bed and put something on the TV, okay? I'll make dinner and be there soon."

"Are you sure? Do you want me to help?"

"It's just pasta" he replies, shrugging and lightly pushing you in the direction of the bedroom.

"Okay... but I want mine al dente", you emphasize. "Not croccante"

liked by arthurleclerc, scuderiaferrari and 309,857 others

yourusername thanks for the piano lesson @.charlesleclerc

view all 8,547 comments

charlesfan oh to have charles as a piano teacher

scuderiaferrari couple goals

ynfan AUS23 yn's pov when

charlesleclerc of course ❤️... same time tomorrow?

↳ yourusername i'd love to

[saintjosie]

honestly don't even apologize. emily's takes have been incredibly white supremacist for a WHILE. as a woman of color it's literally not your job to apologize to white people for calling out their bigotry <3 I'm sorry any of those disgusting people made you feel like you had to apologize!

i really appreciate that! but in retrospect, i think that my handling and approach to the situation could have been better. i am usually pretty level headed and i definitely let my anger get the best of me the other day.

i am a trans woman of color yes, but i also have privilege. i am east asian and that carries privilege relative to having dark skin. i have pretty privilege, and passing privilege, and i am an able bodied skinny bitch in good health. and while i didn’t have the privilege of growing up wealthy, i am smart and was recognized for it all throughout my life. i didn’t have to pay for college or grad school and i’ve had well paying jobs with benefits.

it’s such a slippery slope to use identity politics as a get out jail free card for shitty behavior and that’s exactly what demily’s fanatics are using to defend her. and they all say the exact same things repeatedly because they are repeating what demily has said to excuse herself.

several years ago, in the first few months of being on tiktok, i got into an argument with someone in my comments. and it got heated because they very aggressively presented disagreement to something i made a video about. but several people pointed out that i was just using my identity with no justification. and they were right. it was ugly and i hated it. i apologized for it and i never want to make that mistake again.

and so whether or not i was right, it doesn’t matter because i behaved in a way that i am not proud of and want to do better. that’s enough reason for me to apologize.

i won’t stop calling out privileged bullshit when i see it because that’s something i’m passionate about. but in the future i will try my best to be more selective and kinder in my approach.

[mel-155-a]

I fucking hate being trans and also transitioning was the correct decision and I have no idea how to square those two things.

Hormones took way too long to do way too little, almost twelve years down the line I still get constantly misgendered, my tits are...fine. I guess. Average, which is honestly more than I expected so.....woo.

Vocal training makes me suicidal and a significant majority of the people offering it are actually offering extremely overpriced singing lessons when they aren't even qualified in anyway to do that beyond "being good at singing". I'm still stuck in a shitty cycle of trying it and failing hard every couple of years, because my voice makes me cry when I fail to disassociate properly from it in my day to day life and actually hear it.

It took me ten years to get the first stage of a colovaginalplasty in July, and it's been three months of pain, frustration, anxiety, and fear as my reward for the previous ten years of endless humiliation and stress that was constantly getting fucked with by surgeon's offices and insurance companies. I have never been particularly horny, but even for me, three months of any kind of masturbation or sex being complicated and difficult to get anything out of is a whole fucking lot to deal with.

I am getting the second stage in December, and the wait is hellish and the healing process is going to be worse, another extended painful, frustrating, anxiety and fear inducing healing period that will likely last at least a year, maybe longer. And it may or may not be over at that point, I might need revisions which will require more healing and frustration and pain.

I could try to get some kind of FFS so I could look in the mirror without cringing, but god, MORE surgery? Having to go through another years long process to try and force an insurance company to cover it, only to get the chance to be miserable for a year or more? Yeah, sounds great. Just what I wanted.

Make-up is a no go because of the face stuff, clothes generally don't fit me because I am a freakishly large 6'3" 230 something pound giant, and even when I do find something, a new skirt might feel good for an afternoon if I am really lucky. Getting misgendered in it regularly lasts forever.

And the trans community is just FUCKED. I know I am a traumatized, depressed, downer pretty regularly, and that is after ten years of therapy and trying really hard to get better. There are quite a lot of trans people who have not had the chance to do that ten years of work on themselves and oof. It shows. It's not their fault, but god is it draining to constantly be around.

Add in the fact that I am a trans woman who has the gall to not be bright, happy, and conventionally attractive, that I am not the girldick sex bunny AND I am also not the humble non-passing ogress who is none-the-less so proud and happy to be trans, who has pride flag everything and a dozen Blahajs around and just...ugh. I can feel people just waiting for a reason to make the call-out posts and when I eventually come across them where they think I won't see, I just want to never talk to anyone again.

Nothing about being trans is good for me. It is all an exercise in misery both internal and external that I can never escape. But it was also the right choice, not transitioning was worse. What the fuck do I do with that?

It's made even worse because I feel like I am "betraying the cause" or something, hurting all the other vulnerable trans women around me and the non trans femmes I love and have in my life, by being this just constantly screaming pain parade. That there should be a finish line to all this and I should have reached it by now, and been able to come back and happily report to everyone else that their time wandering in the desert will end as well.

I am just stuck. I don't have the resources or ability to disappear into the background and leave being trans behind except as a historical footnote, and it's all so normalized that any joy or novelty is long, long gone, leaving just the pain. I am not sure the joy and novelty were EVER there for me personally. If they were, the memories are so distant and faded as to be meaningless.

So...what the fuck do I do? There isn't a Transition 2 to get me out of the rut. This is just my life. And it fucking sucks.

I feel really apprehensive about posting this, I feel like people will be weird about it. But I am pretty sure that I can't be the only person who feels like this. Who feels stuck, left behind, and unwelcome because they are miserable with the thing that they are constantly told should have saved them. So, if that sounds like you, you aren't alone. I don't have any answers either, but we can have a little pity party together I guess. Wooooo.

[carnage-cathedral]

i really hope that the shitty anons back off, you deserve to be happy about your ed recovery and the fact that you're better now /gen

(also getting angry at people for in-sys relationships or exhibiting symptoms of disorders is insane work)

our anons are always working overtime at the bullshit factory for sure

honestly, I'm pretty proud of the strides we've made in the past year, especially the ed recovery (which, by the way, was made possible because of Ben and Seb dating because Ben was the one actively fighting off the ed thoughts with a stick. kinda off topic but a lot of the time in system relationships actually have a purpose and are beneficial for the health of the entire system and whatever)

thank you so so much anon. supportive messages like this mean a lot because it confirms to us that other people see the progress we've made and that it is paying off! so thank you!

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

NEW FIC: and here, too, am i

HI - this wormed into my brain and made its way out onto paper, and I'm pretty proud of where it's going! Chapter One of 'and here, too, am i' - a fluffy but also somehow angsty Buddie married fic.

Summary:

Six months into their marriage, Eddie is still struggling to decide whether or not he wants more kids, when he knows Buck does. The universe may not scream, but it certainly talks.

Snippet:

“So you know how Karen and I have kept in contact with some of the other foster parents we met before adopting Zoey?” 

Eddie nods. “Right.”

“Well, we became good friends with this one couple, Nicole and Brandi.” 

“Okay,” Eddie says, unsure what any of this has to do with him. 

“They just got this new placement, a baby, and they noticed something was up with her. Took to the pediatrician, and long story short, she’s been diagnosed with CP.”

“Oh,” Eddie blinks. “Oh, wow.”

“Yeah,” Hen sighs. “Bio parent apparently had no idea she was missing milestones. Anyway, they obviously want to do what’s best for the kid, but they’re a little overwhelmed and scared. I was hoping, maybe, you and I could go to coffee and talk with them? You’ve put Christopher in all these fantastic programs over the years, and I know with Carla, you’ve had a lot of support.”

Eddie nods. “Yeah. I mean, I wasn’t there when he was a baby. I honestly… I don’t really know what that was like for Shannon.”

“I know,” Hen says softly. “I was just hoping you might consider making yourself a resource to them.”

Eddie worries he’ll be kind of a shitty resource.

[ninjagirlstar5]

I was in the mood to draw Minako Tomori, and so I did. I put her in this melancholic pose while dressed in casual clothes, like she's hanging out in public, but she started getting distracted by past regrets...

Her casual clothes are based off of this sprite edit I made of her for my fanfic:

There's no tattoo-covering-a-scar on her shoulder in this sprite cause I literally just came up with that headcanon yesterday and this sprite edit is almost a year old (I just never posted it until now). Not that you would've seen it that well from this angle anyways.

Her tattoo is based off of the flower, Sakurasou or the Japanese Primrose, btw. Kinda proud on how it turned out, ngl, as I'm not really that good in designing tattoos for characters. ^^;

Anyways, I made an off-the-cuff Minako Tomori analysis under the read more, oops:

I've been seeing a lot of Tomori family talk lately and that made me start thinking of Minako again as she's, well, kindof my favorite out of the 6.5 crew next to Dr. Ando (which led to me making this drawing of her). Now, I'm not defending her in how she raised Kizuna or her horrible attitude or anything like that. She's pretty horrible in DRA 6.5 and she gets called out on multiple times by Ryutaro and even Dr. Ando, and rightfully so. But man, from what I can understand in DRA 6.5, she's clearly a goddamn mess. From all the smoking she does to (badly) cope with the stress of dealing with her failure of a marriage to a shitty husband who is also a shitty dad, to constantly cheating on him cause she'd rather be anywhere but with him and can't divorce him due to collateral so she's just legally stuck with him so she goes off to find other men (usually younger but at least they're of age) to ignore her problems at home, puts importance on money because she's the only one trying make sure they have a fuckin' roof over their heads cause her husband is too busy gambling and drinking all their money away, and probably put importance on her appearance more than anything else cause it's one of the few things she can control about herself and feel confident in (and even then, she can't stop the passage of time that is old age). And all of this, plus how she interacts with Ryutaro in her Talk sections (a.k.a. her FTEs) by constantly calling him brat and trying to get him to go away, and no wonder Kizuna turned out the way she did. She had a dad that was never there for her or his wife, refusing to take responsibility for anything and just focuses on himself, and her mom is dealing with SO many things that she's constantly stressed about money and her appearance to the point that she's unable to be emotionally supportive to her daughter in any healthy manner that her flaws, her own attitude about men, and her beliefs in money and appearance is all that matters just ended up trickling down to her daughter and influencing her in a way that it turned her into the messed up girl she is in the short time we got to know her in DRA. Like, holy shit, Minako. You're an asshole of a parent, but when you really think about it, the poor woman got the short end of the stick in life and that really affected how she acted in raising her daughter. Again, not defending her as she's still a bad influence but it's hard not to pity her when she's left to do all the work herself, from parenting, to working, to just trying to take care of herself (by coping in very bad ways)...It's not an enviable position, that's for sure. But honestly, that's what makes Minako so interesting to me. She's not a good person, far from it, nor is she the "better" parent in this scenario. But she still cared enough about Kizuna to follow a suspicious note and getting kidnapped in the process, even when it had the underlying motivation of deciding that she had enough of her shitty husband and took the opportunity to run away from him. And whenever the other characters, particularly Dr. Ando, call her out on her nonsense, I think she gets struck silent in response. Like their words are genuinely getting to her and making her question the way she acts.

And you know what fucks me up the most?

The implication that, between finding out what happened to Kizuna and the rest of the class in DRA post 6.5 upon getting rescued and before the events of SDRA2, she actually changed and improved as a person. Minako, while she is gossiping in the epilogue, is a lot more nicer and friendlier here, is giving us a rundown of what happened after the Utsuroshima Killing Game and the rumors surrounding it to Midori, and making light-hearted jokes in an attempt to cheer Midori up by making fun of herself. And when Midori starts to cry over Teruya's death, Minako's sprite goes sympathetic and concerned and it fades to black for awhile and we come back to Midori reassuring Minako that she's feeling better now with the implication that Minako was trying to comfort her through her mourning. And then she gives out some pretty sound advice, even when dropping this bit in the process:

(The translation is an unofficial version and this bit of dialogue appears at the 3:55 mark.)

"...Go ahead and cry your heart out. You're still young, so you don't have to pretend you're strong."

"With age, the tears won't come even if you want to cry, so when you feel the need to cry, cry."

Which, OW to that last one.

Like, imagine going through so much shit through your life as an adult that you can't even bring yourself to cry about it. You just go, "Yep, this might as well happen," with all the apathy and frustration you can muster in your body.

And when Midori goes to leave to talk to the criminals, Minako has the sense to go "That's a bad and dangerous idea, Midori, don't go alone!" and points out that she JUST got out of the hospital and hasn't fully recovered yet. She even tries to convince her to stay by asking her to continue talking with her cause she's bored. (And, well, I can believe that, even when she's speaking some common sense.) But it clearly rubbed Midori the wrong way as she seems to want to be useful in any way she can, regardless of whether or not her life gets put in danger, so she goes anyway. Aaand Minako complains about Midori's parents not teaching her to treat her adults with "respect," and has brought up "worrying over Keisuke getting a scratch on his pretty face" earlier in conversation, which shows that she's still a flawed person. But I consider that good writing as just because she's a better person now, that doesn't mean her flaws are just going to go away or disappear suddenly. Taking away a character's flaws in order to make them a "good" person will only make them bland, boring, and flat as a paper. Flaws are meant to help characters be more nuanced in personality, and Minako still being abrasive is good as it's a flaw that is a part of her to be aware of and keeps her character recognizable despite the implication that she's trying to do better now. And when Midori gets kidnapped, she immediately runs over to Ryutaro and Keisuke to tell them what happened, calling Ryutaro "kid" in the process, and showing fear for Midori's safety. I don't know if the translation between Kid and Brat is any different, but it's a step up from brat, at least. (And honestly, I can see Minako using "kid" and "brat" as a more affectionate nickname to Ryutaro over time since she comes off as the type to show affection through teasing.) And to top it all off, the cigarettes from her DRA sprites have been replaced with lollipops in her SDRA2 sprites, and candy is a common way of trying to combat addiction to nicotine.

In other words, the way Minako acts in SDRA2 shows that she's trying to be a better person, even if that development happened between games. (And frankly, we shouldn't just stop everything in the epilogue just to have a flashback of "here's why so-and-so acts like this now!" Like, that would just kill the pacing of the epilogue and defeats the whole purpose of a time-skip between games.) It's just a shame that Kizuna's death was the wake-up call that put her on that track to growth in the first place (alongside the call-outs). It's through the death of her own daughter and what led up to it and why she acted the way she did in that moment that made her stop, take in the call outs she's been dealt with throughout the 6.5 chapter, and go, "Oh. I've been a shitty mom and that played a part in how Kizuna acted and led to her death." Cause think about it: if Kizuna was never concerned about her appearance, if she never had this belief that she had to extort others in order to benefit herself, whether it's men for money, affection, popularity, attention or anyone else for anything else, DRA's Chapter 2 probably wouldn't have happened the way that it did. It may not have prevented Kizuna from dying at some point during the killing game, but her behavior was something that she learned and inherited from Minako. And that realization had to sting for her as she not only lost her daughter but had to come to terms with the revelation that it was indirectly her fault for influencing Kizuna in a way that made her a terrible person that decided her only option to survive was to try and kill (which backfired on her hard). But unlike some people, who would double-down on their behavior or just grow worse through their grief, Minako seemed to have reflected on everything up to that point and decided to grow as a person instead. But even though Minako is trying to be a better person now, she can never make it up to her own daughter that she messed up the most. Because that chance is forever lost thanks to death itself.

Reflection is important, because if you don't do that much, you'll never realize what you've done wrong until it's too late and the chance to make it up to your loved one is forever stripped from you.

...At least, that's how I've interpreted Minako Tomori.

[bells-of-black-sunday]

Hello, I am too making one of those reflection of the year posts. Wall of text below.

I do want to take time to reflect on my year this year, there's been some ups and downs, but over all I think everything is for the better. I do think both my art and writing has improved massively and I even got back into reading by finally getting my library card! I've even made some pretty great friends and hope to continue those bonds into the future whatever it may hold. I love all my new muse relationships too!!

Regardless of what drama plagued my life a few months ago and I am going to briefly yet vaguely talk about it to try to be respectful still, because honestly I don't really care about it anymore and it was a pretty big part of my life this year. I do think ending that relationship was genuinely for the better for me. I constantly had my boundaries over-stepped and ignored to the point where I felt like I was being isolated and got severely depressed. It's why my motivation to write tanked for a few months even before that incident, because just existing depressing for me and checking dash just made it worse.

I'm sure anyone can attest to this, but when you're in what feels like a one-sided friendship it's extremely mentally draining regardless of whats said or done. Don't get me wrong, I still have my own issues I'm working through from that friendship and I don't wish ill will on anyone, I know I wasn't a saint either. Honestly I'd rather just get back to playing with my dolls instead of being dragged through more drama just in the public eye this time, but I do think everything happened for the better for me. While I am sad over losing projects I put so much time and effort into, my dash is so much more enjoyable and I'm so excited to be writing long form content again.

I'm forever grateful to everyone who reached out to make sure everything was okay or gave me the space I needed. I'm even more grateful for my offline friends who supported me all the way and have validated a lot of my feelings and dragged me out to do stuff with them, so I didn't feel so alone. Genuinely I've had more motivation than ever and I think it reflects that in how I've been in my mutuals inboxes a lot more recently and have been more active in general even with the Holiday business I've had.

I really have so much new inspiration for my own ocs and their world, I honestly hope that this year I'll finish the website and blog for that side of things, so maybe I can get into writing short stories again. Even if there was no one who cares about my ocs, I'm still extremely proud of my work and I'm excited to to finally feel like I'm allowed to enjoy my own things again. I deserve to take up space, I don't have to make myself so small and shove myself into a corner, I can exist and be myself. I'm not trying to be sappy, but I don't know, while shitty things did happen I'm still optimistic about the future which I haven't felt in a long time.

Whatever happens in 2025, I'm ready for it unless something extremely shitty happens then I'm not. Still!!! I'm sorry for getting super sappy on your dash, but for the first time in a long while I am happy and excited. I love reading everyone's threads and all the character arcs y'all have been writing. I love you all, please take care of yourselves this year. ❤️

[very-gay-poet]

Hi!

I just read your pinned post, after reading your post on the writers group page which we are both in and I just wanted to say your fic sounds very exciting. I am also working on a huge project of writing marauders years 1-7, plus the war, plus beyond (hopefully). Anyways what you said about JKR hating your fic resonated strongly with me. People often complain about having to tag the Harry Potter (JKR) fandom on Ao3 because they don't like her, and I say, I'm proud to tag it because I've created something she would HATE! *Cue Evil Laugh*

It's like a big double fingered bird.

Or a stinky cow pie on her front porch.

I hope your writing is going well. It's really hard work. But I love it. I'm hoping to move through the original seven books eventually but I'm following canon events :( I'd like to write from anyone's POV but Harry's though. And then I want to do some uplifting afterlife stuff because all my characters die.

Do you have a time goal for when you plan to start posting?

omagosh hello!!!! I'm so excited to read your fic honestly it sounds like its something I'd enjoy!!! lmk when it comes out!!! It sounds really good if you could tell me a bit more about it (if thats cool ofc) about like what ships you'll be doing etc etc (I can NEVER find anything detailed on remus's pov in PoA always just a summery :( like I WANNA KNOW WHAT THAT SAD GAY MAN THINKS D:)

anywasy THANKYOUSOMUCHAHHHHHHHH I originally started this idea with a "what if" in Harry Potter and then it kind of spiraled into spite-fiction (you see what I did there? ;D) and it means the world to me honest, when I read this I was smiling all day <3

I really don't like JKR for obvious reasons but also because like??? she gave us nothing??? I honestly don't understand how she's missed the point of HER OWN STORY so hard and tbh it seems like she was more interested in writing Tom Riddle and his backstory, not Harry's. I think she should've made a Tom Riddle story she just seems to write better for him than any other story line (not to mention how complicated she made it how much time she put into the villain's origins story instead of her MCs and how he was the most fleshed out character in all of HP but that's just my opinion) her writing is flawed, her plot were eh, basically none of the characters had any kind of character growth/ arc and they felt like cardboard not even mentioning a bunch of shitty stuff in there as well as, ofc, how there's NO FLAVOR. All of them are just straight white cis people (mainly men too???? like where's the feminism in the self proclaimed "feminists" writing???) and only included any kind of diversity when it was more acceptable (don't even get me started on Dumbledore being reveled gay but she killed Remus Sirius and Tonks off bc they were too camp when she was writing it) and beneficial for HER. not to mention all the misogyny, anti-Semitism, racist stereotypes, and harmful gay stereotypes and just plain bad writing like AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

about the "my favs dying" OMG YESSSSS literally EVERY SINGLE BOOK IVE READ my favs die :( I know its on purpose but like :(

I'm so thankful for your kind words they really did make my day and I do truly hope you'll push through and remember you've always got my support bbg <33333

as for a timeline I'm trying to get organized right now and its a NIGHTMARE. but thank you still have the best day you beautiful rays of sunshine and may Apollo like you enough to put you in his good graces <333

[sunrizef1]

I'm sorry, but something about what the other anon said about Logan kinda gave me the ick in some parts so I felt the need to write this. I think Logan's situation is no where as straight as a line as they made it out to be, and in part I feel like you kinda have to be American to understand certain things. I heavily agree with you on how the "Americaness" is pushed onto Logan. In my opinion, Logan isn't even all that American? Like he's very toned down (which makes sense as he spent the majority of his teenage years + early adult years in Europe, and not in America). Even then, why can't he be proud of being American? We see other drivers like Carlos, Checo, and Guanyu to just name a few use this same very tacit! Williams is no where near as popular as a team as it used to be, and Logan being American brings in more fans and sponsors. I think the huge personality change from now to Prema is also BECAUSE of the ridicule he faced for being American. Americans in general have this pre-connotation of being very cocky which was dragged along with him during his rookie season, and coupled with the fact that his first year did not go very well it's no wonder he's not showing his personality as much. The other anon honestly said it themselves, you only know American stereotypes. When has American pride became synonymous with being a Republican? I don't want to become very political, but I think the bottom line is don't really comment on another countries politics that you clearly don't know a lot about. Also the gun part? That's just plain rude. I don't think we've ever heard of Logan saying he even owns a gun. Once again, you're laying hurtful and may I mind you ignorant stereotypes on him.

I do agree with his family being problematic though (The long history of America and their oil wars), and their undeniable ties to Trump (who I also don't agree with and his many, plainly stated, evil policies), but I think you also have to realize that almost all the drivers are shitty people and have questionable backgrounds. To come after just Logan for his family ties to a party is just you being silly.

The whole ask just seemed very insensitive IMO.

Yeah, there's fully compilations of Logan being “european” so to say lol. He often talks like someone who's been raised in Europe for their formative years, which he was sooo

Like if you think that Logan is “so american”, I know people who would give you a heart attack lmao

Just down south, horse-wrangling, truckers who play Willy Nelson songs on their guitars and have never taken their hats off their mullets in public lmfao

And yeah, American politics is one of those things where I refuse to listen to other countries opinions about it because, unless you've lived here, you don't really understand.

And I hate trump. But, also, this is one of the reasons I don't attach to the drivers.

Most of them, probably not wonderful people. Probably don't have wonderful families who I'd always get along with. But Im not cheering for those people, I'm cheering for car number 2 and that's really all I care about.

It always great to have some level of separation from the drivers, or celebrities in general, because a lot of them suck as people and I'm not about to get emotionally attached to someone who turns out to suck real bad.

(Lewis gets a pass in my book but, again, whole other explanation)

[spongebob-connoisseur]

"uUhHh AcTuaLLy sTePhEn HiLLeNbUrG wOuLd'Ve HaTeD-" no literally just stfu

the staff are trying their best to make an entertaining show and he would be very proud of how they added their own touch to his show PLUS this show is literally hurting nobody they're just switching things up a lil bit

but yeah go off about how the show hasn't been as good as the eps you saw 20 billion years ago when you were literally in the target demographic bc the creator is dead and his friends/co-workers are """ruining his legacy"""

yeah real mature argument you got there buddy 😐

Tbh ur right but also I'm mildly confused if you mean this as a general response to the fans or me specifically because I used to be against the spinoffs and stuff years ago though I realize I was wrong and I love the spinoffs now but my old posts are still out there :/

Still I agree, Hillenburg left the show in the hands of the crew, particularly people who worked on the show since the beginning. He never said no spinoffs, he said he didn't see any, this interview that's often misquoted is from almost 15 years ago. Even the ex crew members who were critical of the spinoffs said cartoon reviewers twisted their words.

We do know Hillenburg was involved with kamp koral. Literally the 3rd movie was in CGI as a test to see how CG would work since Hillenburg was skeptical of it but he ended up liking it. The 3rd movie was in production since 2016, Hillenburg was CERTAINLY involved in it. The movie was originally set to come out in 2019 but kept being delayed. It did finally come out in 2020 but a year delay isn't enough to create the whole kamp koral concept. It was conceived while Hillenburg was alive. We KNOW so because the literal concept of Spongebob going to camp was his idea. Hillenburg loved camping and thr outdoors. It was something personal to him. It's actually really unfair how much the show gets dragged due to misinformation and inflammatory statements done by cartoon reviewers. I'm not a fan of kamp koral but I'm being honest when I say it was treated REALLY unfairly.

All this drama about Hillenburg's legacy ended up causing so much damage. Do you have any idea how many crew members were harassed and sent death threats over this? Some privates their social media, some abandoned their social media. Someone said Spongebob fans are the sonic fans of cartoons. Tbh I don't think they're that bad but they honestly have a shitty track record that are sometimes ENCOURAGED by some cartoon reviewers. I've been into the show's online fandom since I was 13, you cannot believe how many times there was drama over fans sending death threats to the writers. I can't even count it on my fingers.

People wonder why the Patrick Star Show made fun of cartoon reviewers but y'all don't know how hostile some people were.

Also for the record I'm not against being critical of the show. I've done so many times in the past myself. But at the end of the day, this show is people's jobs, they have their own lives, be respectful and be reasonable. Of course this is the internet so those two qualities are hard to find on here but I'm just saying.