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formulaforza · 2 months ago

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miss americana and the heartbreak prince

—09. Sweet Nothing —word count: 8.5k —warnings: none :) love, mack... sorry. SORRY. you can't even begin to imagine how different my life is from when i last updated. SORRY. technically I got paid to write this lol.

Charles turns up to pre-season testing with a gifted case on his phone. It’s from Reid, FORZA CHARLES written in his best handwriting, colored red with his new set of crayons from his birthday. It’s been on his phone since the five-year-old gifted it to him because Reid was too excited about it for Charles to do anything but put it on.

Reid had carefully explained that it was a good luck charm—but that Charles is not allowed to be mad if it didn’t have enough luck, since he had to rush to make it before Charles had to leave.

Reid had played it so incredibly cool ( see: jumping around Chris' kitchen after school squealing like a baby pig ) when Chris had shown him a picture of Charles with the phone case on in the paddock. There’s a certain softness that she feels watching his excitement over something so small, something that gets this kid so incredibly excited because he thinks Charles is so cool. There’s something soft, and there’s also something so incredibly terrifying about it. That she let Reid develop this relationship—even if oh-so-small—with Charles, because now if it goes wrong, if it sours… not only is it going to screw her up in the head royally, but now she’s going to have to explain it to Reid, too. To break his heart, too. She thinks Charles is completely clueless as to the amount of people he’s got completely wrapped around his finger.

Reid, in all his pure and unadulterated joy, insists that Chris call him up so Reid can share in the joy with her boyfriend--because no matter how many times she attempts to explain it to the kid, he can’t fathom the idea of timezones.

Chase has always been so good at navigating them, even though he has ever been only, at most, a few hours off the time at home. He’s never missed a bedtime story or a goodnight kiss if he could help it. They’ve always been so good at it, him and Hannah, that Reid is truly unable to conceptualize why someone away at a race can’t talk on the phone with him.

“He’s sleeping, Reid,” Chris says, shaking her head, and taking her phone back from his grubby hands. “I’m not calling him in the middle of the night.”

“It’s not the middle of the night!” He protests, and he’s not wrong. “It’s just after school time.”

Chris sighs. “But he’s not here. He’s somewhere far away, remember? We talked about this before he left?”

“No! Facetime him!”

She rolls her eyes. They go back and forth for some time like that, her arguing with a five-year-old about time zones. It’s only becoming clearer that there are only two ways for this to end. Either Reid throws the fit of all fits until Hannah gets off work to come pick him up, or Chris calls Charles. If she hadn’t spent all day already keeping five-year-olds from throwing a tantrum, she might have had the strength to endure another grumpy kid. But, she had spent the day on eggshells, so she makes the call and hopes his phone is turned off so it doesn’t wake him up.

Despite her hopes, he answers, even though it’s past midnight there. She’s apologizing before she can even make out the shape of his face on the dark screen. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. His voice is groggy and sleepy and he speaks through a yawn, shaking his head in a dismissal of her apology. “Es-tu…” he groans. “Are you okay?”

“Yes!” She quips. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Reid just wanted to say hello. I promise it won’t be more than a minute.” Momentarily, she considers shoving her nephew into the pantry where it’s dark. Where the bright light of Chris’ kitchen isn’t going to hurt Charles’ eyes in the dark of his room.

“It’s okay,” he smiles, and God. God, he looks so sleepy and sweet and if she didn’t feel so horribly guilty for waking him up, she’d be thinking about how badly she wants to kiss him. He turns on a lamp and cringes at the brightness of it. Her wince is disguised as a smile. “Where is he?”

Here, she says, handing the phone off to Reid, a half-scold, half-warning leaving her lips in the form of be quick. He grabs her phone with the heel of both his palms, keeping his greasy snack fingers off her screen, setting it down with a light clatter onto the countertop, forehead peeking in at the bottom of the screen. “Hi, Chuck!” Reid greets. “Auntie Chris says you’re sleeping!” he giggles.

“Auntie Chris was right,” Charles laughs softly, and now she just wants to kiss him. She doesn’t get to see him sleepy nearly as much as she’d like to, as much as other girlfriends get to see their boyfriends sleepy.

She manages to swallow the guilt gnawing away at her bones, silence the already rehearsed apologies she’ll be uttering the next time they speak, and just listens fondly to Charles entertaining Reid. He's so patient. So kind in his efforts to get close with her family. He doesn’t have to do that—seriously. Most people wouldn’t talk to their girlfriend’s nephew on the phone in the middle of the night. Then again, most people wouldn’t fly a quarter of the way around the world for that same nephew’s fifth birthday party—or travel that same distance for a family wedding on a fifth date. In fact, most people would be so put off by the idea of having to do those things, they would never in a million years entertain the idea of dating someone who lives around the world. Most people wouldn’t, and yet. Charles would. Charles does. Each and every time, he does.

— — —

“So, he comes up to me, right?” She laughs, “I’m trying to give a reading test, and he walks up, and I almost tell him to go sit back in his seat because he’s supposed to be silent reading,” She continues. It’s 12:03 am, at least that’s what her microwave clock tells her. It’s 12:03 am in Georgia and when they’d gotten on Facetime twenty-one minutes ago, he’d told her exactly two things.

One—the car is shit. Two—I don’t want to talk about it.

So, she didn’t ask any questions and instead launched into the story she’d been anxiously waiting to tell him all about since it had happened that morning at school.

“But before I can say anything,” she explains to her phone camera—to him, on the other side of the globe— “He says, ‘Um, Miss Elliott, um, my tooth falled out,’' She grins, and Charles matches her expression because even across continents it’s a contagious smile. It was the first time any of her students had lost a tooth in class, and the room proceeded to erupt into chaos, she would continue to tell him. “It was crazy,” she laughs. “I didn’t know what to do with him.”

“So what did you do?” Charles asks, laughing himself.

“I took him and his tooth down to the office,” she says, half out of breath. “And I let them handle it. I was way out of my depth. The nurse brought him back like, ten minutes later with a plastic tooth necklace that held the tooth all day.”

— — —

Chris is cozied up on the couch with Bean, babysitting the dog for her parents while they traveled to Vegas for her brother’s race when Charles DNFs in Bahrain.

Her heart sinks, through the couch and through the floor and deep into her non-existent basement. It might even go all the way through the world and into Australia to wait for Charles to get there in a few weeks.

Once he’s out of the car and they show him on camera, he looks so annoyed. Defeated and annoyed in a way she isn’t sure she’s ever seen him, and like he could use a hug. A bear hug. She wants to stick her arms through the television and around him and hug him and kiss him and make him laugh and get that look off his face. She wants the car to turn into a person she can fight. To kiss him all over and run her finger through his helmet hair until he forgets about it for a little while. To tell him how she’s sorry. And how she. How she… how she likes him so much.

How, maybe someday. Someday, in a vast and distant future, she loves him so much that it scares her to think about for more than a moment. How—again, maybe someday in a timeline she can't imagine yet—she thinks of him constantly. How he’s burrowed his way into her skin and how every time she sees the color red she doesn’t think of it as angry or harsh or mean, she just thinks of him.

How she loves him, maybe, and it’s wholly terrifying. She hates that she loves him, maybe, because she knows it’s only a matter of time. She’d really, truly hoped he would come to his senses before it got to this point, this drowning slowly in his honey words and soft smile, hoped that he would have found her too much and too messy and not worth all the energy and time and money. But he hasn’t. He hasn’t, and now she loves him, maybe, and has nowhere to put all this fear.

She waits for him to call her, and he does, hours later when it’s got to be the middle of the night there. She can’t keep the time difference straight and has googled it at least half a dozen times today alone.

“Did you watch?” he asks, and he doesn’t sound defeated, not like he had during testing. He sounds… dejected, if anything but normal.

“Yeah,” she says, even though there wasn’t much to watch.

“They’re saying on Twitter I looked hot,” he chuckles, and it puts a soft smile on her face. She pulls her knees to her chest, picking at the lint on the knees of her leggings. “At least I have that going, huh?”

“You always look hot,” she says, her smile growing.

“True,” he says, and he follows it with a laugh. An honest to god laugh that makes her heart swell.

“Besides the obvious,” she says, adjusting in her seat, “It was a good race.”

“It was definitely not a good race,” he chuckles.

Chris continues to pick at her leggings. They’re covered in lint from her blanket and hair from the dog. “Well, I thought it was good. I know you didn’t finish, but… if you had,” she smiles gently. He was on track for a podium. If he had finished.

“But I didn’t,” He sighs himself into a perfect frown.

“Eh,” she waves it off with her hand. “Semantics, semantics. Rose and thorn.”

“Rose and thorn,” he nods, quirking a brow. “What is rose and thorn?”

“Oh,” she shrugs, “you know. Like… take the good with the bad? The rose and the thorn,” she explains. “You were having a good race—rose. You didn’t finish the race—thorn.”

“Ah,” he says, his head dropping down into a chuckle. “Rose and thorn, yes.”

— — —

One thing you learn when you’re the aunt of a five-year-old little leaguer is that every single team is actually just a major league baseball team rebranded for whatever city these elementary schoolers are playing in. Same names, same logos—sometimes they’ll change the color scheme, but sometimes they can get away with keeping it. In Reid’s case, they kept even the color scheme.

Chris supposes this makes her outfit choice for his season opener significantly easier. It’s sunny and sixty-five degrees and Chris is wearing a Detroit Tigers sweatshirt—Navy blue with a white old English D embroidered on the front—and a pair of blue jeans. Reid’s tee-ball team is oh-so derivatively named the Dawsonville Tigers.

It’s Reid’s third year playing baseball, his third year playing tee-ball. Next year, he’ll get to move up to the real little league, which will only give Chase and Hannah a million more practices and tournaments, and games to travel to. Reid is counting down the days until he gets to play with the bigger kids. Chase and Hannah… not so much.

They, along with the rest of the family, have grown relatively attached to the comedy show of a bunch of preschoolers chasing baseballs around a bunch of gravel. Chase is an assistant coach, and he’s been swearing up and down in the family group chat that at least ten of the fifteen kids on the team know they’re supposed to run to first base after they hit a fair ball. At least ten of them, and the coaches are working hard to get the other five on track as soon as possible.

Chris and Hannah sit in folding camping chairs behind the fencing catching up while they watch the show, sipping boxed wine from Hannah’s secret purse-stash in their matching YETI wine tumblers.

The conversation starts with a rundown of the team this year—of the moms, more importantly. Which ones Hannah likes, and which ones look at her like she’s still a nineteen-year-old with a baby she doesn’t know what to do with. It’s a common thing for Hannah, even now that she’s got a settled career and a house and a whole life with Chase. It doesn’t matter, not to the bitter southern housewives with nothing better to do than spend their time hating other women.

It starts there. And somehow, with the quick exclamation of Oh! You’ll never believe what Miss Julie told me about Kacie! The two girls are deep in gossip about someone from high school’s relationship. It always seems to go like this, when Hannah gets this endless well of gossip from work, from the hours spent waiting for bleach to process and colors to develop in the salon.

“But wait, forget about that!” Hannah laughs. “How’s Charles!? Your dad said he had a shit race?”

Chris furrows her brows, swallowing a sip of wine. “My dad knows how his race went?” She asks, and Hanah shrugs. “I mean, yeah, he did,” she chuckles. “Power unit issues, even though they literally replaced the battery and the ECU that morning. They have to replace the whole thing, so he’s going to have to take a penalty next race too,” she sighs, rolling her eyes. “For the ECU that they just replaced.”

Hannah scowls. “That’s fucked,” she laughs, covering her mouth, doing a poor job at concealing her wine giggles. “He’s coming to visit in a couple weeks, right?”

“Mmhm,” Chris hums. “He’s like…” she laughs, “so geeked out about coming to one of these games. I told him they’re so boring, but. He’s adorable.”

“I’m sure he’s more geeked about other things,” Hannah teases, playfully shoving Chris’ shoulder. “Long distance fucking sucks for the sex life,” she giggles. Chris blushes bright red, holding her hands up in surrender before taking a long sip of wine and asking for a refill.

Chandler shows up somewhere between the third wine tumbler and the fourth inning of the baseball game. She’s in her work clothes, complete with the kitten heels that sink into the muddy grass with every step she takes. She taps the opposite shoulder of Chris that she stands behind, and Chris falls for it, turning back the other way to see her, to smile genuinely because they haven’t had the chance to get annoyed with each other yet, haven’t had the chance to get annoyed with each other since they last saw the other at Chase and Hannah’s wedding.

“Are you still with that guy?” She asked, from her seat in Chris’ camping chair. She felt too bad watching her heels sink in and out of the mud, so now she leans against the fencing while Chandler sits. “The French one?”

Chris nods, her arms crossed over her chest. “Monegasque,” she corrects. “But yes. Still together.”

“Hmm,” Chandler hums curiously, picking at her cuticles. “Are you ever going out to see him?” She asks.

“Uh,” Chris sighs, dragging her toe through the gravel, drawing harsh lines and kicking up dust. “I’m gonna fly out for spring break,” she says. “But he wants me away from Monaco.”

“He wants you to stay away?” Chandler asks, and Chris doesn’t miss the tone of voice, eyes darting to Hannah to confirm the condescending tone she already knows she heard. Hannah closes her eyes before she can roll them, and takes a sip of her wine, leaning back in her seat, crossing her legs.

“Not like that, Chan, come on,” Chris sighs. “I don’t want to be there. We don’t want to be there. It’s too hard, everyone knows him there and we don’t want anyone to know me.”

“So, he’s hiding you?”

“No,” Chris shakes her head, pursing her lips together. “We’re being private. He’s trying to protect me.”

“Alright,” Chandler chuckles, putting her hands up in defense. “I’m just saying, I never would have hidden Lex.”

Chris’ head physically recoils, forcing a scoff out of her mouth. Hannah laughs, too. “You literally hid Lex for two years,” Hannah says. “Like, genuinely you hid her from all of us.”

“That’s different,” Chandler argues. “I wouldn’t have hidden her if she was a man.”

“And Charles wouldn’t be ‘hiding’ me,” She says, forced air quotes around the word she can’t come up with a synonym for. “If every woman he interacts with wasn’t crucified,” she defends. “Can’t you just give him the benefit of the doubt, Jesus.” Chandler rolls her eyes and pulls out her phone, answering texts or emails or whatever else is so pressing as a distraction from the current conversation. “Seriously?”

“What?” Chandler spits, rolling her eyes. “I’m just looking out for you, Chris. You don’t have the greatest track record with guys, so forgive me for being hesitant to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

Chris bites her tongue, literally, and purses her lips. She nods, watching the dead serious look in her sister’s eyes with a glare of equal intensity. Finally, after what feels like an eternity of death stares, Chris puts a pretty smile on her face. “I’m really happy you came all this way, Chandler,” she grins, slipping her phone into her back pocket. “I’m sure Reid will be thrilled to see you,” she continues. “He missed you at his birthday party,” she adds, squeezing her sister’s shoulder as she passes, walking away and kicking up gravel when she does it.

Saudi Arabia is no better. He has a great qualifying, but he also has that pesky grid penalty and a Ferrari that just doesn’t seem to have anything even close to race pace. The car just feels… so undriveable. So unpredictable. One corner it’s all oversteer, and the next it’s a completely different car, fully understeery. It’s just. It’s terrible, really, and he’s known it since the first time he got in the car.

It doesn’t help that he spends the whole race stuck behind Carlos, who seems to have just as much pace as he does. He calls Chris that night, so fucking angry, and she gets an earful, one that he immediately apologizes for dumping on her after he’s gotten it all out.

“It's okay,” she tells him. “I’m just glad that your bad days don’t line up with mine,” she joked, and he laughed because it’s impossible not to laugh at her jokes, even when he feels like shit. “Better days are coming,” she promised, and he wanted to believe her, but he also knew this car inside and out.

“Not soon enough,” he told her, and she smiled. He can’t get enough of her smile.

“Patience, grasshopper,” she teased, holding up both her hands in a meditative pose, humming out an ommm.

“You are so dumb,” he giggles.

“Oh, please,” she says, opening her eyes, relaxing again. “You love me.”

There’s a heavy beat of silence. So heavy that it can’t even be blamed on FaceTime lag.

His brain is malfunctioning; heart racing, palms clammy, entire body sweating thinking she knows. Thinking he’s been entirely too obvious about it and not done nearly as good of a job as he thought. You should tell her. You should tell her. Yes. Yes, I do love you. I love you so much I don’t know how to tell you. I love you so much that I’m scared telling you is going to mess it all up.

He can’t tell her like this, though. Not now, when he’s halfway around the whole and every nerve of his body is frustrated. No, it needs to be when he’s with her. Not over the phone. He’s completely clueless as to when or where or what the right time is, but he knows this sure as hell isn’t it.

So, he stays quiet. Because he’s sure if he speaks he’s going to just blurt it all out, and he hasn't kept his mouth shut this long just to say it like this. She’ll have to break the silence. It feels like it takes an eternity for her to do it.

“So, uh, what time does your flight land here, again?” She asks, and his shoulders loosen just a bit.

“Yeah,” he nods, wondering if she can hear his heartbeat through the phone. It seems like it’s the only thing he can hear. “Sorry, uh. Yeah. Let me look,” he says, grabbing his phone from its propped-up place on the hotel coffee table and scrolling through it to find his ticket to Georgia. “Five… ish.”

“What time do you leave?”

“Eight-something?” He says, still looking at the flight information.

“What time is it now?” She asks.

“I don’t know,” he admits. He’s been making a habit of losing track of time with her. “Late.”

“Go to sleep,” she says, her voice playing out of his phone speakers softly. He smiles at her voice, at her instructions, at the fact she cares enough to tell him to go to sleep.

“Yes ma’am,” he says, and then salutes her for good measure.

“Merci,” she giggles in butchered French, and his ears perk up like a puppy, a grin painting itself onto his face.

“Oh?” He laughs. ““Tu parles français maintenant, n'a pas? fille drôle, je pourrais te dire ce que je veux et tu ne sauras jamais mieux,” You speak french now, do you? Silly girl, I could say whatever I want to you and you wouldn’t know any better.

“Goodnight,” she says, ignoring the French they both know she can’t even begin to translate in her mind. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” he nods. “Goodnight, baby.”

“Miss Elliott has to leave right after the bell today, friends,” Chris hums, leaning against the front of her classroom desk, holding a stack of school newsletters. “Do you think we can get our room nice and clean before the end of the day?” She asks, smiling and nodding at the spattering of little yeses and nods. “Okay,” she grins, pointing to the whiteboard. “All of our tasks are on the big board,” she explains, running through each table and their room assignments.

The class stays about on task as a herd of twenty-something five-year-olds possibly can, with Chris reminding them to stay on task—and reminding them what their task is—from her seated spot on the group rug, cleaning up the class library with a couple of other students.

“Where are you going to, Miss Elliott?” Quinn asks her, handing over a book.

“I have to go to Atlanta,” Chris hums, putting the book on the correct shelf. “Do you know where Atlanta is?”

Quinn nods, handing over another book from the pile on the floor. “Far away.”

“It’s not soooo far,” Chris smiles.

“I just have a uncle there.”

“Oh yeah? That’s nice. Do you ever go visit him?” Chris asks.

Quinn doesn’t answer the question. “Does you have an uncle in Atlanta?”

“Nope,” she shakes her head. “I have to pick someone up at the airport.”

“Your boyfriendddd?” Quinn giggles, dragging out the letter sounds teasingly.

“A boyfriend?!” Chris grins, laughing. “You think I have a boyfriend? I spend all my time at school with you!”

“No!” She laughs. “Landry sayed you have a cute boyfriend!”

“What?” Chris giggles, snatching a book from Quinn playfully. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, crazy girl.”

— — —

With the help of her students, Chris manages to get the room put together for the next morning in less than fifteen minutes after the end of the school day, checking Charles’ flight tracking one more time before setting off from the parking lot to the airport an hour away.

He emerges from the sliding doors of his terminal with his bags and a bouquet of flowers. Chris is shaking her head, cheeks already half-pink and mind more than half-melted when she hastily parks against the curb, popping her trunk and hurrying around the back of the car to greet him properly.

“Get in the car,” she giggles, “before they start honking at us!” she says, but Charles couldn’t care less about the angry airport goers behind him, leaving his suitcase on the curb, waiting with his arms already open and a tired, jet-lagged smile on his face.

Chris resists the urge to just throw his entire body into the car and speed away from the terminal, instead hugging him tight, arms wrapping around his frame, slipping into the space between him and his backpack, the plastic casing from the flowers crinkling against her back when he hugs her just as tight.

He kisses her hair hastily, “Hi,” he mumbles, watching her lips carefully.

“Hi,” she smiles, giddy. “Eyes up here, brother,” she teases.

Charles scowls, dropping his backpack off his shoulder and lifting it up into the trunk. “Do not call me brother.”

“Too incest-y?”

“I can get another plane,” he teases, pointing his thumb over his shoulder, and hoisting his suitcase off the curb with his other hand.

“Go visit one of your other girls?” She asks, pressing the button on the top of the hatch to close the trunk.

“See?” He laughs, parting from her just long enough for both of them to get into the car. “You get it,” he says, closing the car door and quickly reaching over the center console to pull Chris into a kiss, muttering something about you did not really think I was not going to kiss you?

It’s a familiar speech he’s given that morning, the same one she’d carefully handed out when he was here months ago. The be safe, don’t get eaten by a bear lecture. That’s not where it ends, though. Chris continues to go on and on and on about her Mom’s birthday party that evening—one of the many reasons he’d decided now was a perfect time for a quick visit—and how he was under no circumstances to go overboard on gift-buying, or even buy a gift at all for that matter.

“I’m going to pick up a card on my way home from work,” she explains, standing at the end of the bed, work bag slung over her shoulder, travel coffee mug in her hand. “And I’m gonna sign both of our names,” she continues. Charles rolls his eyes from the bed. “What?” She laughs.

“Your siblings’ partners…” he yawns. “They get her their own gift, yes?”

Chris hesitates, which makes Charles grin, which forces her to grin. “Yeah, but—”

“No but.”

“But,” she laughs softly. “They’ve been around longer than you.”

Charles scoffs, feigning offense. “Stupid reason.”

“But a reason, nonetheless.”

Charles shakes his head, smiling. Dramatically, he pulls the comforter back over his head. “Goodbye,” he mumbles.

“Goodbye. I’ll see you later,” she replies, her shoes creaking against the floor as she moves through the hallway. “No gifts!”

“100 percent buying a gift, but okay!” he calls back, pulling the covers back down, listening just long enough to hear her car pull away from the driveway before turning the nightstand lamp off and putting himself back to sleep.

— — —

When he wakes up again, much closer to an acceptable morning time, he’s already racking his brain for gift ideas.

It’s an area of life he’s never considered himself particularly strong in. Sometime shortly after the appropriate period of making his Mum a homemade necklace from uncooked macaroni noodles and washable markers, he discovered he was particularly inapt at choosing gifts.

It’s a shame, really, because he’s always felt like a good listener—especially when it came to people he cared for. And yet, every holiday and birthday and anniversary he’s struggling to come up with something besides an outrageously priced bouquet of flowers at the local florist.

Which is why he sits on the sofa, legs kicked up on the ottoman, laptop on his legs as he searches What to get your girlfriend’s mum for her birthday? Birthday presents for Mum. Birthday gift ideas. Birthday gifts for Mums near me. What should you get your mother-in-law for her birthday?

Nothing is right. Everything is too silly or too impersonal or too cheap or too expensive for Chris to forgive him for buying. He’s scrolled through so many pages and so many articles hoping for an idea to spark that he’s starting to go crazy.

Defeated, he closes the laptop, abandoning it on the couch cushion next to him, and dragging his feet all the way to the bedroom, planning on flopping face down on the bed. Instead, he comes face to face with the unmade mess, sighing. He haphazardly peels all of the layers off the bed, stripping the pillows of their cases, tossing them onto the pile of blankets on the floor. With two new pillowcases from the linen closet, he carefully remakes the bed.

But now, there’s laundry. So he gathers up the pillowcases and the plastic purple hamper in the corner of the room and hauls it all to the laundry room. He tosses the entire hamper into the washing machine, and then stares at the shelf of containers. Three look dustier than the orange plastic container, so he picks up that tote and reads the instructions on the side of the box, following them carefully. When he closes the top of the washing machine, the start button glows green. He doesn’t dare adjust any of the settings, pressing the button and saying a soft prayer to the laundry gods.

He pulls the dry clothes from the dryer, putting them back into the hamper—and they’re all white. Fuck. Was he supposed to do that with the pile of clothes he’d just dumped? Too late now. Another prayer to the laundry gods. He heads back to the bedroom, dumping the clean white clothes onto the freshly made bed, and folding away at them. He sorts them out by drawer, checking the continents of each drawer half a dozen times, and puts everything where he’s nearly certain it belongs—first in the closet, then in the dresser.

Sitting atop the dresser are two loose rings and an unclasped necklace. He puts both the rings on the plate of her jewelry stand, and carefully clasps the necklace back together. It’s a thin gold chain with a row of several pearls in the middle. He hangs it gently with the other three pearl-styled necklaces that hang from the top pole of the rack. Pearls, pearls, pearls. She’s always wearing pearls. The next pole has half a dozen bracelets, most with pearls incorporated, and he can’t even begin to count the pairs of pearl earrings in the dish. It’s always pearls, because of what her Mom always says. Pearls make a lady.

Pearls make a fucking lady. The answer to his question has been literally sitting in front of him this entire time. New Google search—re: Jewelers near me.

— — —

Charles is in the kitchen assessing the fridge for snack options when the front door is swinging open at a speed he can’t believe doesn’t result in a loud clattering of the house shaking. “Chuck!” A small voice calls out into the house, followed by another thud, presumably his backpack against the floor of the foyer. The noise continues, heavy little feet running down the hallway through the house, in his direction. Quieter, he can hear Chris, the metal jingling of her keys against the coated aluminum of her travel coffee cup, the click of her shoes down the hallway floor. His name is not Chuck, she hums behind the small boy. “And my name ain’t Reidy but you’s still call me that.”

“That’s different.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Uh-huh,” Chris mocks. “I’m the boss,” she says, calling after the boy as he walks through the kitchen doorway. “I get to do whatever I want!” Chris calls out from another room in the house.

Reid catches Charles’ eyes, squeezing between him and the fridge. He rolls his eyes, twirling his finger beside his head. “You are not the boss,” he insists, grabbing a juice box and a stick of mozzarella cheese. “You are like my stupid little boss.”

Finally, Chris appears in the doorway, shaking her head. Her eyes meet his and he feels himself grinning—an almost embarrassing amount. She looks so pretty, he thinks. So full of life and color. “I’m his stupid little boss,” she says, grinning.

“Ah,” he nods, closing the fridge doors, moving to kiss her hello. “It’s like this, you know?”

“Do not tell me you haven’t gotten a gift yet!” Chris scolds her brother. First, he’s fifteen minutes late to pick up his kid, and then he has the gusto to ask her what she bought their mom for her birthday…. To give to her at the party in two hours.

“Okay,” Chase laughs, “I won’t tell you.”

“Chase!”

“I have like, two hours,” he shrugs, looking at his watch. “Relax.”

“You’re ridiculous!” She insists, rolling her eyes. “Seriously. I got her a new Circuit because she’s always telling Dad how slow the one she has is running. And then I got her a bunch of scrapbooking stuff to go along with it.”

Chase nods, burying his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “And he’s just signing his name?” He asks, looking past her in the doorway to Charles, currently half-engaged in a Mario-Kart battle with Reid. Chris nods.

“Actually—” Charles interrupts, eyes still focused on the game, hands moving with intentional precision over the controller buttons. “About that. I got her one of those….” he trails off, moving one hand to gesture around his neck. “You know. For your… here.”

“Your neck?” Chris questions. “You went out and bought a necklace?” She continues, thumbing at the gold chain around her neck.

“Necklace!” He snaps his fingers, pointing in her direction before immediately flopping back into the sofa cushions, Reid laughing maniacally beside him at the sight of his rainbow road victory. “A pearl necklace,” he adds, holding his hand out to shake Reid’s.

Chris smiles. A pearl necklace. A friggin’ pearl necklace. It’s so simple that it’s stupid, really. It’s dumb. It’s stupid and it’s dumb and it’s cliche, in all honesty—that he is the person to remember a one-off about pearls when he can’t remember anything else.

“Oh, fuck you, that’s good,” Chase groans. “Hannah got her this, like… a cutting board with a recipe burnt into it or something.”

Chris shakes her head softly, still thumbing her necklace. “It’s Meemaw’s brownie recipe,” she says, her eyes glossed over, mind elsewhere.

“On a cutting board? Because brownies famously need a cutting board.”

“Shut up,” she says softly, smacking his chest with the back of her hand. “It’s cute.”

“It’s expensive.”

Chris’s attention snaps back to her brother. “You won like, literally a million dollars a few months ago. But a cutting board for Mom is too expensive?” She questions, raising her brows, crossing her arms over her chest. “You better find something,” she warns.

Chase holds up his hands in defense. “I know. Worst case scenario, I’m a little bit late to dinner, okay?”

“Get out of my house,” Chris shuffles, gesturing to the open front door.

“We’re going, we’re going,” Chase laughs, gathering Reid’s backpack from the floor, and helping the boy tie his shoes.

Chris closes the door behind them, staring at Charles, her back pressed against the cool door. He looks back guiltily, gathering the controllers and putting them on the end table. “I’m sorry–”

“A pearl necklace?”

“Yes,” he nods. “Do you want to see it?”

She shakes her head, moving to join him on the couch, an almost painful smile pulling on her lips as she curls up against him. “I want it to be a surprise,” she hums softly. Charles adjusts underneath her slightly, wrapping an arm around her frame, pressing a kiss into the top of her head.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “I’m just happy you’re here,” she adds.

Is it possible for love to be a pearl necklace?

It’s an easy routine they’ve found—early morning alarms and goodbye kisses and listening to her try to sneak around the creaky floors without waking him up.

Today, he gets a guest pass to a local gym and works out in the corner following a workout plan Andrea had sent him—minus the neck training. That’s not happening alone in public.

After the gym, he heads to a grocery store—the biggest one he’s ever seen. He spends more time trying to figure out where he is in the store than he does actually shopping. Like, how many different kinds of pudding could one person need? A whole wall of cereal? Of chicken? Of milk? Be serious. It’s insane. What was meant to be a quick trip to the store for dinner ingredients has turned into a whole ordeal.

He was just trying to make things easier—for Chris, not for him. It was the middle of her work week and instead of planning a lazy night at home, she’d planned out a million and one things for them to do while he was in town. Charles can’t help but feel like she’s trying to keep him entertained, and it’s a feeling he hates. It’s not her job to keep him entertained. He’s not a toddler.

So, in response to their full evening schedule of a little league baseball game for her nephew, the possibility of some type of family gathering to follow that could last any vast pan of time, he figured the least he could do is make dinner and have it waiting for her when she got home. They aren’t on Reid duty after school, so it will just be the two of them. It can’t be that hard.

He’s in the kitchen, humming along to The Kooks—watching the chicken and pasta and stirring the white sauce when she walks through the front door. “Bonjour bébé,” she says, walking through the doorway into the kitchen.

His head shoots up from the pot on the stove, a smile instantly falling across his lips. “Oh, c’est bien, mon ange,” he says, even though her pronunciation was so forced she’d be laughed out of Paris. She’s trying, and he loves it, and he loves her. So, it’s a good job.

“Really?” She beams. “It was good?”

He can’t help but smile at a smile like hers. “Yeah, very good,” he nods, kissing her quickly.

“What are you making?” She asks, hoisting herself up onto the countertop beside the stove, wafting the air in the direction of her face. “It smells good.”

“Chicken and pasta,” he says. “One day, we are going to make pasta from the beginning.”

“You know how to make pasta from scratch?” She asks.

Charles raises his brows, giggling to himself softly. “To be honest, no. I was hoping you did.”

Chris laughs out loud. “Oh. Well, then. We’re screwed.”

“No,” he frowns. “We’re in serious trouble if I have to be the good cook.”

“I’m not a bad cook!’ She insists, feigning dramatic offense, clutching her pearls, literally. Charles cocks his head to the side, glancing over to her. He smiles a come-on, now smile when she raises her brows in defense, an ache-inducing smile on her face. She is so beautiful it hurts. She is so soft it hurts. She is so, he supposes. End of sentence.

“Et je ne t'aime pas,” And I do not love you, he mutters, leaning over to press a quick kiss into her lips, lingering just long enough to feel her grin.

“En Ingles, por favor, Señor?” She asks, quirking a brow.

“Not a shot in hell.”

“Please?” She frowns, and he actually considers it. Just momentarily, but considered nonetheless. Because what a moment this is. What a time it would be to do it, to say it, to make it known.

Instead, he shakes his head. “Maybe later.”

— — —

“You’re going to want a jacket,” Charles mutters, moving behind her in the bathroom, sizing up her outfit. They’re getting ready to head out to the baseball game, and she’s wearing leggings and a blue sweatshirt with an Old English D on it—one that apparently matches the color and logo of Reid’s team uniforms. He’s opted for jeans, a white t-shirt, and a blue knit zip-up sweatshirt. It’s quite chilly out, and despite the sun peeking through the clouds, it’s windy.

“I’ll be fine,” she says, running a brush through her hair.

They remember to bring a backpack full of snacks, as well as two travel thermos mugs of drinks that are certainly not alcoholic. They forget their camping chairs, though, as well as the sweater Charles had planned on bringing for when Chris decided she did in fact want a jacket. And most importantly, they forget how to keep their mouths shut.

It’s cold. It only gets colder as the sun sets, as the game continues. Neither their drinks nor the bottle of wine smuggled in by another one of the player’s mothers manage to keep the chill off.

Chris stands against the fence that goes around the field with her mom, talking animatedly about who knows what. Charles steals Cindy’s empty seat beside Hannah. He watches as Chase and Reid walk up to them—Reid kicking up a trail of gravel dust with every excited skip.

“Do you want kids?” Hannah blurts out from the seat next to him, and then before even a beat can pass, “Jesus, sorry,” she laughs. “Sorry. Ignore me.”

“No,” he smiles, as soon as he can regain his composure from the blindside of do you want kids. “It’s okay,” he reassures, adjusting in his seat, his eyes lingering on Chris for a moment longer than usual—just to make sure she isn’t hearing this conversation.

“It’s really not,” she laughs, shaking her head, taking another sip of her definitely-not-wine. “It’s just that if Chase and I die, Chris gets Reid. And she’s… I mean. You see her. You know her,” she says. The sentence left unsaid is that anyone who has ever met Chris would know that if anyone was ever born to be a mother, it’s her. “And she really likes you. Like, a lot,” Hannah whispers. “And I like you, too—but I won’t ever like anyone enough to let her sacrifice something I know is so important to her—”

“I want children, Hannah,” he laughs, cutting her off. “Do not worry.”

“You do?”

“Three.”

“And you want to get married?”

He nods again, almost instinctively looking to his girlfriend, because, as he would argue if pressed about it—who else do you look at but your girlfriend when someone asks you about marriage? “Yes.”

Hannah notices his lingering glance, apparently, because the next words out of her mouth are: “To Chris?” Charles cocks his head back over to face Hannah, rolling his eyes when he does it. Hannah nods. “Sorry, fuck,” she laughs, covering her own mouth. “I know, what’s wrong with me?”

“It,” he starts, but then he’s stopping himself because he isn’t exactly sure what he planned to say. “There is nothing wrong with you. You’re just being a good friend—a good sister,” he pauses, looking back to Chris quickly, spinning his ring around his finger. “I don’t think it is the craziest thought, maybe,” he says, and he’s as surprised to say it as Hannah is to hear it. “But,” he holds up a finger and laughs. “Ask me in six months and I bet I can give you a proper answer.”

Hannah smiles, raising her brows, and takes another sip of her drink. “I’m gonna hold you to that.”

“Oh, I’m counting on that,” he says, and now he can stare without care. It’s normal, he tells himself, to think about it all after it’s talked about like that. It’s not his fault that he’s picturing it—his future, her future. Their future together. He thinks that maybe if he squints really hard and takes a step back he can see himself getting married. That maybe she’s there too, in some wedding dress that probably has pockets.

“You’re thinking about it now, aren’t you?” Hannah asks, and it pops into his mindless bubble of crazy. He laughs, shakes his head, and pulls his phone out without saying a word. “You totally are,” Hannah giggles, and he feels his cheeks flush. “Look at you blushing, oh my god!”

Charles rolls his eyes, a smile pulling on the corners of his lips. “Shut up,” he mumbles.

He watches from his conversation with Hannah, watches as Chris stands at the chain-link fence, hugging her own arms and shifting her weight from one foot to the other like she needs to pee, trying and trying to warm herself up with the friction of her own arms.

“Did she bring a coat?” Hannah asks.

“No,” Charles replies. “But she’s half a minute from forcing her to put on mine.”

“She can take mine, if she wants,” Hannah offers, but Charles turns her down.

“No, no,” he says. “I am warm, anyways,” he lies. It’s cold out, but his mother raised a gentleman.

Chris shivers one more time and Charles has had enough of watching her stubbornness. He takes off his sweatshirt and walks up behind her, draping it over her shoulders in the middle of a sentence.

“Hi?” Chris says sweetly, turning to look at him over her shoulder.

“Hi,” he smiles, kissing her cheek. “You’re cold.”

She rolls her eyes but smiles and mutters a soft thank you. Charles hums his response and nods, moves to return to the empty camping chair beside Hannah. Chris reaches out to stop him, catching his hand, his fingers interlocking into hers with a casual ease.

He stands behind her, adjacent to her conversation with her Mother, watching the game through the fence. He’s barely listening, his focus split between the game he doesn’t understand and toying with Chris’ fingers behind her back. “I’ve been learning French,” she tells her mom. Charles smiles.

“Oh really? Where at?”

“Uh, just on my phone. I got this app that you can do lessons on every day.”

“And you chose French because of…” Cindy trails off. Chris nods, her grip on his hand tightening, which really pulls his attention.

“I’m pretty bad but he likes to pretend I’m a pro,” she grins, leaning back into him.

“Well,” Cindy laughs. Chris shivers, moving to put on the sweatshirt instead of just having it draped over her shoulders. “Charles, you shouldn’t be scared to put her in her place.”

“Oh,” he laughs. “No, she’s a quick learner, really.”

— — —

Cindy excuses herself, says she’s going to go and get some hot chocolate to take the edge off of the chill, and asks if Chris or Charles want any. Charles says no, Chris says yes—offers to pay but is denied.

Once she’s gone, Chris is spinning in the gravel to face her boyfriend. “Thank you for the sweatshirt,” she says. “And thank you for not saying you told me so.”

“Are you still cold?” He asks, putting the back of his hand on her forehead like he’s checking for a temperature. It’s chilly, but it's not bitter or wintery.

“Yeah,” she says, swatting his hand from her forehead. “I’m fine, just can’t get warm.”

“C’mere,” He says, pulls her into a tight, warm hug, fully wrapping her up in his arms, running his hands up and down her back. She melts against his chest. “I think it’s Reid’s turn,” he points out, and Chris spins in his grip to face the same direction so he’s hugging her from behind.

Chris whistles, “Let’s go, Reidy!” She calls out, and then quieter, just to Charles. “He’s nervous that you’re here.”

“Hmm?” he laughs. “Why?”

“He wants to impress you.”

They watch Reid’s at-bat, watch him swing and miss on the tee twice without laughing. Chris is talking to Charles about whatever she and Cindy were talking about before he came over, neither of them taking their eyes off the game. Charles kisses Chris’ covered shoulder while he listens to her talk, runs his hands up and down her arms to create some friction.

Reid hits the ball off the tee on his third swing, and Chris actually jumps with excitement. He hits it right to the second baseman, hurries his little legs towards Chase on the first base. Chris cheers through a laugh, her body vibrating against Charles’ chest.

In a pause in the conversation, he wonders if she’s ever been more her than she is right now. At home, with her family, a never-ending well of love and laughter and beauty. He almost wishes that he could just observe her and all that she is, admire the woman he gets to love.

This is the moment.

It has to be. Perfect moments don’t exist but this has to be as close as you can get. “Are you okay?” Chris asks over her shoulder, “Your heart is racing.”

“Yeah,” he nods. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Um,” Fuck. Just say it, Charles.

Chris laughs anxiously, turns around to face him, brows furrowed. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I love you.”

Chris doesn’t miss a beat. “No, you don’t.”

“I do,” he nods. “I’m so in love with you.”

Her face softens, the concern melting away. “Really?” God, she says it so soft that it’s almost a squeak. It hurts him how much she clearly wants to believe him. How maybe, maybe she does. He nods. “I love you, too.”

Charles beams, cradles her face in his hands and kisses her. Kisses her like they’re in love. Because they are. They pull apart in a fit of giggles, his thumb dancing on her cheek, running over a tear. “Are you crying?”

“Shut up,” she says through a smile, turning around to lean against his chest again, wiping a tear from her cheek with a sniffle. It’s cute, he says. “Shhh.”

Through a peppering of kisses on her shoulder, her hair, her cheek, he repeats between each peck. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

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profundcherrylady · 19 days ago

Text

SINGLE DAD!SAE ITOSHI

A/N: CHRISTMAS SPECIAL! Yeah I know it's past New Years and technically mid January, I just took a looong time writing this, hope y'all like it tho.

Warnings: None I think. Just a little swearing.

Contents: Rin being a bad babysitter lol. VERY unrealistic btw there is no way none of this could be like an actual situation that could happen in real life. Very, very bad parenting because WHY would Sae let any of this happen tf.

Description: On a displeasing turn of events, Sae has to spend Christmas eve at work, in Spain. But that's not going to stop his daughter from making her Christmas wishes come true.

"...What do you mean, she's gone?" Sae's voice was starting to sound anxious, even on the other side of the phone. Missing? His daughter was missing on Christmas eve? How could this happen? If he was there, he would for sure give Rin something more than just a piece of his mind for losing his daughter.

"Exactly what you're hearing. She's not here." he explained, still looking around under tables and inside cabinets in case she was secretly playing hide and seek again. "I checked her bedroom, the bathroom, your room, the kitchen... it's like she disappeared on thin air."

"That's impossible. Why did you leave her alone in the apartment in the first place?"

"Because she is refusing to move from her room. Well, she was. Now I have no clue of where the hell she is! You know this is your fault, right?"

"Excuse me? Tell me how I'm at fault for you losing my daughter."

"She wouldn't stop asking about you; she was heartbroken when you told her you'd spend Christmas at Spain without her, saying she wanted to be with you and asking when you'd come back. She was so depressed she didn't even want to eat. I even bought her a bunch of presents but she said it'll not be the same without you here, and you know damn well that brat's spoiled. She wouldn't reject any gifts if she wasn't depressed, depressed."

"First of all, do not call her a spoiled brat." he responded. "Second, fine. Leave it at that and just focus on finding her, where could she have gone to? Somewhere that reminds her of me maybe? She must've left something behind, keep looking!"

"I'm looking, chill." he entered the little girl's bedroom once again. Just as he saw before, it was empty and quiet, no sight of her favorite bunny plushie either which meant she must have gone somewhere. She always took that thing everywhere. He peeked under the bed but there was nothing, then finally stood back up.

A paper.

Rin's eyes widened at the sight of a paper on the bed, and he quickly rushed to read it.

"Rin?" he hushed his brother on the other of the phone. The handwriting was messy and childish so it was definitely hers, and as he read line through line his eyes widened even more.

"Fuck."

"What? What is it? Did you find something?"

"So... you're not gonna like what you're going to hear. She left a note... it says she was heading to you."

"Me?" he repeated, absolutely on disbelief. "I'm in Spain."

"Yeah, she seems to know that." the younger Itoshi continued to read the note, this time out loud. "...'Dear uncle Rin, I miss papa, I don't wanba wait anymore...'? Guess she meant 'wanna'. Uh... 'Chridthsma I dunno how to spell it but you know what I mean. Too lonely! I wanna see papa, so I'll go suprise him. I wanna spend tomoreow with him. Thanks uncle Rin! Plz don't throw out my presents that you bought me. Bye-bye'. And that's it."

"WHAT? She can't come all the way to Spain just to see me."

"You bet she can't; she's under eighteen. Relax, she can't travel alone just like that; she won't go far. I'll just go to the airport."

"Okay... that's true, but she wouldn't give up that easily; I'm pretty sure she knows she can't go on a plane alone, so..." then the realization hit him. "The train."

"What?"

"The TRAIN. She'll take the train from Japan to Europe, then from Barcelona to where I'm at on Madrid."

"Sae be fucking for real. Do you seriously think a six-year-old planned all of that?"

"Believe me, she's capable. She's seen those trains before, and she would for sure be too scared to go to the airport."

"And where do you think she'd get the money to travel?"

"Her allowance."

"You give a six-year-old an allowance?"

"STOP asking questions and go to the train station for her!"

"Okay, relax, I'm heading out."

But unfortunately for Rin, little Mao was already on the train station ready to head out to a whole another continent just to see her father. She had packed well (she broght her stuffed bunny) and ate breakfast before heading out (cookies from the kitchen counter); she was even well dressed for the occasion (she put on her jacket).

She was at the train station now, waving hello to the person selling the train tickets.

"Can I go to Spain, please?" she asked excitedly.

"Well, hello. You're taking a trip with your parents? Where are they?"

"My papa is at Spain." the man let out an 'oh' after hearing that.

"On Christmas eve, whithout his family? Must be something important. I'm sorry, though, I can't sell you a ticket to another country without any parental supervision."

"But... I already got all the way here."

"Sorry, kid, it's against the rules. I mean, if you had another parent or someone that can go with you I'd gladly let you go to Spain and see your dad."

"My uncle already said no... that's why I walked here all by myself... in the snow..."

"Well, if he said no it must be for a reason. What about your mom?"

"She isn't alive anymore. My dad and my uncle are pretty much all I have."

"Oh..." now he was starting to feel bad about this poor kids and her sad puppy eyes.

"I just wanted to see my papa on Christmas eve... he said he'd send me presents but I just wanted a hug from him. That was my only Christmas wish... but I guess it won't come true... hopefully he won't miss new year's too... or my birthday... I don't wanna keep seeing him through a screen anymore..."

"Okay, okay, okay, fine." he gave up; this teary-eyed child was going to kill him from sadness. He couldn't just send her home all sad like that. "Fine... I'll make some calls, I'll get you a train ticket to Barcelona. But you have to follow my instructions, okay? Going to another country is a big deal."

"Really? Thank you, mister! Now my Christmas wish is gonna come true!" the man took the phone aside from him and started making calls to arrange everything.

"Just let me see your passport and we'll see what we can do."

"You missed her? Really?" Sae was exasperated at this point. He was confident that they wouldn't let a kid travel to another continent, but apparently they were more incompetent than he thought.

"Listen, I got here as fast as I could. It's Christmas eve and there's snow all over; traffic was horrible." Rin explained, looking over his shoulder where the person in charge was showing him the security footage where they let Mao buy a ticket and get on the train. "I asked and it seems like her train just left. She bought a ticket to Barcelona and she's now on her way to you, but don't worry too much, they told me they got someone from the staff to keep an eye on her."

"That's not as bad as it could be, but what now? I have a match today, she knows that. I told her I wasn't missing Christmas at home just because. I'm busy preparing but if she's already on her way that I might have to cancel."

"Don't get too ahead of yourself just now, her train just left. It's like 19 hours from now, and it has two connections in Portugal and France. It'll take her a while to actually get to you."

"Still, the game is tomorrow at 2:00pm. I don't know if I can concentrate in training if my child is somewhere in Europe. Just thinking about it is getting me on my nerves... I know I can't do anything until she's here but I still feel the urge to go looking for her."

"Listen, it's going to be fine. Nothing will happen to her on the train and once she gets to Spain she only has to buy another ticket from Barcelona to Madrid and then you can do something about it, but do not call off the game because of this. People are counting on you to show up, you know? Seriously, just focus on getting ready and everything will get sorted out. Even if you don't go and look for her, I think she made it clear that she's going to find her way to you."

"I suppose there's some truth in what you say, but it still doesn't feel like something a responsible parent would do. I'm just worried."

"And you don't think I am? She's still my niece; if anything bad happens to her it'll all be my fault."

"It sure will be, you better take the damn responsibility if something happens to my daughter."

"Why do I bother telling you anything? Whatever, I'll call you later."

"France and Portugal were pretty, right?" the assistant from the train watched Mao as she nodded her head with a smile. "You took a big nap earlier; must feel a lot better, hm?"

"Yeah, but I'd really like to get to Spain now..."

"Don't worry, sweetie. Look, we're already here." she almost jumped off her seat when she heard that, holding her plush bunny tightly. The woman from the train helped her gather her stuff and get off, then sweetly waved her goodbye from the inside of the train. "Take care, okay? You're almost there!"

"Bye, miss! Thank you!" Mao waved as well as the train's gates closed off again, then turned around to head to the front desk and buy a ticket to Madrid.

Looking around, she almost bumped with a couple of people who spoke in a language she didn't quite understand and seemed pretty confused to see a foreigner child alone at the train station. She ignored it, as she was busy being amazed at the difference between this place and her hometown, but she kept going until she finally got the front desk where the person in charge looked down at her.

"¿Qué?"

"Hi! Um... I wanna go to Madrid." she pointed to the screen behind the man, so even though he didn't understand the kid he knew what she was trying to say, and he answered accordingly.

"Madrid? ¿Pero qué quiere hacer una niña en Madrid?" she stared, unable to understand a word, and the man finally sighed. "Mo es mi cría ni mi problema. Toma tu boleto a Madrid."

"Thank you!" she took the ticket handed to her and payed the number on the screen and walked towards her next train.

This was it, she was almost there. So close to seeing her father it actually felt unreal! Even when she didn't even spoke spanish she was there! Just a few hours and she would be able to get that hug from him.

Of course, as the hours passed, little Mao ended up spending Christmas eve on the train, but the wait was worth it. When the sun finally went up and Christmas morning came around, Mao Itoshi arrived to Madrid. The city outside the train station was bustling with energy, with big christmas decorations on the local stors and a crowd of people walking around with their children. And so... what now?

Wait.

...What now?

Where WAS Sae? She didn't know. She knew he was in Madrid and that he had a game later, yet that was all. She didn't know where her dad was staying or where could he be now, aside from the stadium where the football game was taking place later, but she didn't know where that was either. The city was huge and full of people; what was she supposed to do now?

"Um... sorry?" she tried asking around for directions, but of course, the locals didn't speak the same language as her. The brushed her off as soon as they realized they weren't getting whatever she was trying to say.

So she continued walking, trying to find anything that might get her in the right direction. At this point, she was tired again. She was only a child after all; she couldn't walk that much without getting exhausted fast, but she kept pushing through. She was on a mission, and the goal was so close; she couldn't possibly give up now. Even if she was tired and cold and hungry... she didn't have that much time before her father's game started, and then she would have to wait even more for that hug!

After a while she stumbled across a café. She didn't have money on her, but she figured she was tired and maybe they could let her just sit for a little bit and rest so that she could get to Sae faster. She held onto her plush bunny a little tighter as she reached for the doorknob and got inside, just to be greeted by a young (yet older from her perspective) woman.

"Bienvenida!" she looked down at the child, and after a couple of seconds she became surprised that she was alone. Peeking outside the door, there was no sight of any parents or older siblings or any responsible adult. She also took note of the fact that her features didn't seem spanish, although they were slightly familiar from somewhere... "¿Hablas español?"

"Um..." the answer to that question was no. She did not speak Spanish, but she didn't know that's what she was asking.

"Ay, probrecita... no te preocupes, ven." she signaled Mao to follow, which she did, and she was sat on a nearby table. "¿Tienes hambre? Ah, es cierto, que no hablas español. Te voy a traer algo de comer, ¿sí?"

After saying a couple more things she didn't understand, the lady finally walked away, so Mao let herself relax for a moment on the tranquility of the almost empty café. The only sounds around were the soothing wirring of the coffee machine on the back, the television set on some corner and the few people that were in there eating. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, resting her head against the table, when the lady came back with a little baked pastry on a plate. She gestured Mao to not worry and just eat it, but before she could actually say anything else she was startled by the sound of another customer cursing out at the TV.

"¿QUÉ?" he exclaimed again, and so she paid a little more attention to the news on there.

"Y ahora, bueno, la noticia que ha tenido a toda España como loca. A las 2:00pm de hoy estaba programado el partido de fútbol que iba a dar lugar en el estadio de Madrid y en el cual iba a participar el llamado prodigio japonés Sae Itoshi. Ha dado muchísimo de que hablar como jugador; se le quiere un montón en su país de origen, y hoy iba a participar en este partido pero de última hora acaba de anunciar que no puede jugar. Es una locura, escúchenme que tampoco me lo puedo creer. El partido ha sido puesto en espera porque Sae Itoshi se está negando a jugar debido a que su hija está desaparecida. Dio algunos minutos de su tiempo para hablar con la prensa hace poco menos de treinta minutos y declaró que aparentemente de vuelta en Japón dejó a su hija al cuidado de su hermano, es decir el tío de la niña, y que... que ha despertado y la niña no estaba! Y en víspera de navidad, además, es que es increíble. Y para hacerlo peor todavía, la niña dejó una nota en su casa diciendo que fue a visitar a su padre, por lo cual Sae Itoshi declaró que su hija está en algún lugar de Madrid y que no puede jugar hasta que no la encuentre. No me creo que esto sea una noticia real gente, pero aquí estamos. Eh... pues ya saben, estén atentos. Sae Itoshi dejó la descripción de su hija para que quien sea que la vea lo pueda reportar o la lleve directamente al estadio. Es una niña de seis años, tiene el cabello oscuro y los ojos iguales a los de su padre; también dice que lleva con ella un... ¿conejo de felpa?"

"Dios mío!" after hearing the news, the lady was certain. This kid in the café was Sae Itoshi's daughter; her description matched and then it made sense that her features seemed familiar. So she was missing and her father was holding the whole football match until he found her... she had to do something!

She waited patiently until Mao finished her little snack and then approached her again, pointing at the TV where they were showing the footage of Sae declaring the facts of her little runaway. The kid gasped, almost trying to reach out to him.

"Papa!" that she could understand. It was very similar to the spanish word "papá" which meant dad so there was no doubt.

"Te voy a llevar con tu papá, ¿bien? Vamos." she offered her hand, which Mao took as the lady shouted that she was going out for a little bit and got out with her.

"C'mon, Sae, be reasonable. You can't just back out of the game like this! Do you know how many people are counting on you?"

"Yeah, the thing is, I don't give a fuck my daughter is MISSING. I was patient enough; I'm not doing anything until she's safe and sound."

"But... Sae! This game is very important for all of us! You're going to make us lose!"

"So you're telling me... a stupid football match is more important than my daughter's life." now THAT made him rethink his words, although not for long, because there was no way he was going to stay quiet with how much was at stake. But the next thing he said was the last straw for Sae.

"N-No... I didn't mean... fuck, Sae, she's been missing two days! Maybe it's time you consider the other possibilities and move on-"

"What did you just say?" his harsh tone and the darkened expression on his face made the whole room go quiet. "I don't care if you lose the game over this, you hear me? But that's my little girl, and if anything happens to her because of this I could never forgive myself, and the fact that you are even suggesting that she could be dead and that I just 'move on' is making me sick. You want me to play today? You better keep that stupid mouth of yours fucking closed or I'll make sure you do. I don't say things twice so you better listen up. I'm getting out of here to find her, understood?"

"Y-Yeah... I'm sorr-"

"Papa!" Sae's expression instantly switched as soon as he heard the familiar voice call for him, and as he turned around, there she was. Safe and unharmed, accompanied by a few security guards from the stadium. His eyes relaxed inmediately when he saw her ran up to him, then he crouched down and opened up his arms as he saw the little girl going for a hug, and once she was on his arms again, he let out a sigh of relief and held her just a little bit tighter. "I missed you, papa!"

Sae stood back up with her still on his arms, and frowned slightly as he looked down at her again.

"You are in very big trouble, young lady. You traveled all across Europe from Japan, through Portugal and France, just to be here. Do you have any idea how dangerous and irresponsible that was? Do you know what could've happened to you? You could've gotten lost, or worse. I am very disappointed; I was worried sick. You don't even speak spanish and you still managed to get all the way to the stadium." he saw her little smile fade away with his words, and he sighed once more as his eyes softened once again. "You must've really wanted to see me today, huh?"

"I did! Papa, I wanted to be with you on Christmas."

"We talked about this, Mao, I sent you lots of gifts back to Japan and we could always videocall today after the game; you didn't need to do all of this."

"But I did need it!"

"How so?"

"Because none of the gifts were what I wanted..."

"What? That's not possible. I sent you everything you said you wanted; I bought you that dollhouse you said was pretty and the dress you said you wanted for Christmas, there were more plush toys and accessories you told me you liked and things from your favorite cartoons. I don't know how I could've missed anything."

"That's okay papa, it's because those are the gifts from you! I did want those but they weren't my Christmas wish."

"Really? None of them?"

"Nope! They were things I wanted but they weren't my Christmas wish. But don't worry, papa, there's no way you could've known. I wrote it on my letter to Santa!"

Oh.

Didn't he tell Rin to check that as well? Damn it, he missed his daughter's Christmas wish and he didn't realize. Of course it didn't come true if he didn't know what it was to buy it...

"Well, can I know what it is? Maybe there's still time to get you whatever it is."

"It's okay, I already have it! It was a hug from you." and then his heart melted down. How could he still be mad after that?

"You little rascal. Why did you tell Santa and not me?"

"I figured he'd talk to you and maybe you would change your mind and go home. But then I found out what was his plan really was! I woke up yesterday and there was a letter under the tree! And it had money and the train schedule so I could get here today! And then a lot of miracles happened, like the person who sold me the ticket and the nice lady from the train and the café and me getting this far without knowing any spanish!"

"You found a letter with money under the tree? I didn't do that..." he whispered, and he certainly knew Rin didn't do it either.

"Of course you didn't; it was Santa!" Sae rolled his eyes and gave her one last hug.

"It still doesn't mean you're free from punishment. You're grounded for a month."

"Why?!"

"You traveled to another continent without permission and you're asking why you're grounded? Hand over that plush bunny, miss."

"Noooo, not that! I'm not gonna do it again!"

"You bet you won't."

"Don't take it, please! He's my best friend."

"I know." he huffed. "Fine. Now, I'm gonna need you to wait for me; I have a game to win."

#blue lock #bllk #bllk drabbles #bllk fic #bllk fluff #bllk x reader #blue lock drabbles #blue lock fanfiction #blue lock fluff #blue lock x reader #sae itoshi fluff #sae itoshi #sae x reader #sae itoshi x reader #itoshi rin #rin itoshi #rin itoshi fluff #itoshi sae #bllk sae

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tiedyeflannels · 21 days ago

Text

Never Let You Go

Park Jimin x reader

Word Count: 1.4k

Pt.1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 -- Masterlist

Genre: Angst to fluff

A/N: Yo! Not gonna lie, I thought this was going to be the last part, but I guess there'll be one more! Haha! Anyways... Enjoy!

“Hey, Chim! Though it’s the 12th here, it’s technically your birthday back home, so… Happy Birthday! I hope you’re doing well. Sorry I can’t be there for your birthday, but I did get you a gift so make sure to ask Hobi about that, lol! Anyways, stay safe and healthy. I love you!” Sent 8:07 am, October 12th, 2022.

“Congratulations on your Billboard #1!! I am so, incredibly proud of you!! I remember being with you when you were working on the album and all of those sleepless nights you spent in the studio and I’m so glad that your hard work is being recognized the way it should be! I also saw a performance of yours and you looked so cool! I’ll be rooting for you, fighting!!” Sent 12:42 pm, May 1st, 2023.

“Hey, I thought that I would send you message before you go into the military. I know you guys were dreading it, but it’ll pass in no time, so keep your head up! I texted the others to wish them luck in their service, too. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be there to see you off, but I’ll see you soon! Be safe, stay healthy, and do your best, which I know you always do! Good luck!” Sent 10:48 am, December 10th, 2023.

“Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Jimin! I hope you’re well. How’s life been treating you so far? Are you excited for the new year? I been doing well over here. I definitely am a little homesick, but I’ve made some really nice friends over the year, so it’s been fun. I’ve talked to the others, and they said that you’ve been doing well so that’s a relief to hear, but I’d love to hear from you. I’ll be here for you, just send a text, okay? Miss you lots…” Sent 11:11 pm, January 2nd, 2024.

“Hey, Jimin. Uh… I’ll be coming home in a week. I’m excited to see you guys! I-”

I stopped typing I looked at the last text I sent.

“I miss you…" Sent December 25, 2024”.

It had been a week since I sent that, and it was still unread. I scrolled through all of the texts I sent throughout the two years since we had the argument and I had moved, making me heavily sigh.

I deleted what I was writing, figuring that I was starting to lose the energy to keep this up. I sat up and shook my head as I went back to packing my apartment up before going back home early next week. I really can’t believe him…

“Dude. I just got off the plane. I’m on my way to grab my bag. What do you need because you called me six times,” I asked as I approached the luggage carousel as bags started to appear.

“Oh, nothing! I just wanted talk to you,” Jin said happily and I could practically hear the smile in his voice.

I quietly chuckled and shook my head as I watched others take their luggage and waited to see my suitcase.

“Anyway, we sent a car over to pick you up from the airport, so be on the lookout for our driver, okay?”

I nodded, though he couldn’t see me and approached the carousel once I saw my bag making its round.

“That’s sweet, thanks- hold on,” I said, sliding my phone in my coat pocket before getting hold of the suitcase handle and hauling it out of the carousel. Standing it up and pulling the handle up, I started to walk toward the ‘ground transport’ area.

“Anyway, thank you! You didn’t have to do that. I could have ridden the bus home.”

“It was no problem at all! Actually Hobi wanted to make sure you got home safe, so the idea was mainly his.”

I smiled at the concern.

“Aww! Then I’ll make sure to thank him when I get home.”

I followed the crowd as I neared the doors and saw the line of cars outside. I looked around the area to see if I could spot their driver, Mr. Choi, and a man holding a sign with my name written on it with Hobi’s handwriting. I laughed at how unreadable it was, but approached him nonetheless.

Mr. Choi bowed in greeting as I smiled and he led me outside to where the car was stationed. “I should let you go. I found you driver and I’ll be heading home. I’ll stop by to see you you and Hobi tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay! See you soon, bye~” Jin sang before he hung up.

We approached the car and Mr. Choi grabbed my bag to put in the back as the side door of the black van opened and I got in and took a seat on the left side, behind the driver’s seat.

Once situated and Mr. Choi started the car, I turned on my phone and opened Hobi’s contacted as I started typing a ‘thank you’ for sending a car to get me before a voice in the front seat interrupted me.

“So, how was your trip?”

My head shot up as I saw Jin back with a smirk on his face.

I gasped, “You came to pick me up!?” I brought my hands up to cover my mouth in surprise while he laughed and nodded.

“Yeah… I wasn’t the only one that wanted to see you…”

He glanced to the side and raised his eyebrows, hinting at something. My brows furrowed before I heard a happy “Hey, Y/n” from the back seat, making me whip my head at the voice to see Hobi sitting behind me.

“Hobi,” I happily squealed as he made his way forward and into the seat next to mine. I reached over and gave him an excited hug, happy that two of my friends came to pick me up.

“I was just going to text you! How are you guys?”

Hobi buckled him self in as the car started to move, “Good! We wanted to come surprise you.”

I smiled, looking between both of them, “Thank you, that’s sweet! How was that military, by the way?”

They both groaned, which made me chuckled as it reminded me how much the dreaded enlisting.

“Ugh! It was boring and I couldn’t do anything I wanted,” Jin whined.

“Yeah, and I missed the members and ARMY,” Hobi agreed and I nodded.

“Well, you certainly didn’t change at all,” I said.

“Of course we wouldn’t. It was just work we needed to do, but you,” Jin drawed out, pointing a finger at me and gestured to my hair, “Certainly have!”

“Yeah, you look different,” Hobi joined. I playfully rolled my eyes, “It’s just a different hair cut, guys. It’s nothing.”

Jin hummed skeptical, “Was this little decision because of a certain someone?”

Knowing he was talking about Jimin, I sighed and fell back in my seat, “No. It was just something I wanted to try out.”

Hobi’s eyes softened as he looked at me, “Did you ever get to talk to him about what happened?”

I looked down at my hands resting on my lap and sadly shook my head. “No,” I sighed, thinking of everything I did trying to get him to talk to me. “Looking back, I, maybe, tried too hard to get him to talk to me.”

“He wouldn’t talk to us about the situation either,” Hobi, stated as he sunk into his seat.

Jin crossed his arms and disappointedly shook his head in the front seat, “Yeah. He wouldn’t budge anytime one of brought up that he should, at least, talk about what happened.”

A sad smile graced my lips briefly before I rolled my eyes, emotionally exhausted by this whole situation.

“Maybe I should've given up the first time he said that we were over,” I mumbled as I turned to look outside the window and watch the cars pass.

“Listen, he could still come around. Jimin comes out of the military in June,” Hobi tried to look at the positives.

“Mhm. And if he doesn’t talk to you, we’ll hold it over him for the rest of his days,” Jin said, nodding securely as if that was the final decision.

I chuckled quietly and nodded at their statements, though I wasn’t sure how true they would reign. Would Jimin want to talk after the military? Could this be fixed or am I fooling myself?

I sighed, “I guess we’ll see…”

Part 3

#bts fic #bts x reader #bts x y/n #bangtan #bts #bts fanfic #bts x you #park jimin #jimin angst #jimin x reader #park jimin x reader #bts jimin #jimin

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hawthorne-swift-enthusiasttt · 24 days ago

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Unit 919 as obscure google fonts!!!

Hi please don't ask me what this is i don't even know lmao

Anah:

Um yeah so I think both of these fonts just go along with her vibe tbh. Sweet, timid, and a bit prim!

Mahir:

Any fantasy-looking fonts match with him honestly. I found a TON that reminded me of him but I think these two sum him up pretty well.

Cadence:

I kind of like the idea of a handwriting-esque font with her. It's just the vibes I guess. But the first one sort of looks mesmerizing in itself (imo) so it works with her.

Hawthorne:

Hawthorne is basically all the bold fonts lmao. I really think these picks are self-explanatory. Just look at him. He screams BIG BOLD FONT lol.

Morrigan:

I feel like I could have put more effort into hers and relate it to Wunder or something but I like these ones enough so 🤷‍♀ She gives a hand-written vibe about her as well.

Arch:

Sorry for the grainy-ass quality and tiny image but I feel like Arch has a sophisticated yet humble and chill vibe about him (that makes zero sense I'm aware but I was struggling on him ok)

Lam:

I tried to find a regal-looking font for her. Idk if this does her justice but its sort of intricate and mysterious so I think it matches.

Thaddea:

So similarly to Hawthorne, she screams bold in-your-face font. Also can I just take this moment to talk about Thaddea like she's so badass omg I love her <33

Francis:

Ummm I'm really not confident about this one but it's giving fancy menu and Francis is all about food right???? Idk I could do better but I couldn't find anything so whatever :')

BONUS STUFF:

Okay so I found some bonus fonts that I really liked and gave such nevermoor energy so I'm including them.

Nevermoor Christmas:

This one is sooooo battle of christmas eve. Especially the Yule Queen. I kid you not when I first read these books the first thing that came to mind when reading about the Yule Queen was this font. It might be a problem that I have a vast knowledge of random fonts that I relate to my interests but whatever ok I'm only human

Jack:

These have Jack written all over them. Any variation of Cinzel works for him, and Cormorant is similar as well. I think these are quite sophisticated but also stand out. They have a specific flair about them that I just associate with Jack. Super trash explanation I know but at the end of the day all of these literally just come down to vibes.

Hotel Deucalion:

Anyone else think this one is so Hotel Deucalion-ish??? Or at least Jupiter-ish. Like it's fancy but welcoming.

Anyway dudes that's the end of the post hope you liked it. It's funny cause I always say I'm gonna do something productive with Nevermoor content like writing a fic or something but most of the time I just end up with shit like this. Like girl. You are supposed to be making stuff like fanart and fanfic and headcanons why are you doing a Nevermoor post about google FONTS???? lmao

#nevermoor #unit 919 #wundersmith #hollowpox #morrigan crow #hotel deucalion #anah kahlo #francis fitzwilliam #cadence blackburn #hawthorne swift #archan tate #lambeth amara #jack korrapati #john arjuna korrapatti #mahir ibrahim #thaddea macleod #yule queen #nevermoor series #holy shit that was a lot of tags

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luciaintheskyainthi · 15 days ago

Note

Hii, i admire you a lot, every chapter of ECM encourages me a lot, i hope yo are well and im sorry for the bad english in my cuestion😭

Your best writing tips? Everything is valid, whether writing in general o writing fanfics, whatever you think for sure is good, thanks for writing 🙏💗😔

thank-you so much!! I'm glad my writing can do that for you!!

Oh man, I have soooo many things to say, but I'll give you some simplified ones to start with! Buckle up buttercup, this is a long'un!

General Writing Tips:

I know it sounds dumb! But just write. Write a little, write a lot, just try not to get bogged down with it being 'good' or 'bad' or anywhere in between. I'm a firm believer in writing being like a muscle: the more you do it, the easier (and the better) it becomes. And also, crucially, this shouldn't be a time where you do things like... a) hunting for the perfect word b) doing research c) cross reference with a past chapter This is a writing only time! Make yourself place holders (I write XK for words I can't think of, as it's 2 letter that will never appear together so I can CTRL+F it easily! I make comments in the draft specifying what to check or research. I highlight parts I know need LOTS of work) so you can quickly move past what's blocking you and continue writing.

Find a writing habit and environment that works for you. Typing? Hand-writing? Coloured pages? White pages? Dictating? Working in a public place? A private space? (When I start out a story, I often handwrite. And I'll turn back to it if I'm stuck, too. I also write a lot in public, as I find the pressure of other people around me stops me wasting time on my phone... or Tumblr lol).

Get yourself a writing friend! I have a friend I see almost weekly and it's my most productive time of the week (For example, today I wrote 5600 words! Crazy!). Online works too (if you use the pomodoro, you can compare word counts, make a competition of it). If you're doing it IRL, DO NOT expect to get anything done the first time. Or the second time.... but the more you do it, the easier it is for you both to fall straight into writing. (This is the exact same advice I giving to my students about 'study dates' 😉 )

If you find it hard to 'break the seal', then try a warm up. Set yourself a 5-10 minute timer and write based on an activity. E.g. tell a story from the POV of an object in your room! Write a detailed description of your foot! Write a 5 sentence story! Find a picture and write a scene inspired by it! Or get yourself a prompt list and use that. These are all things I would do for students back when I ran a creative writing club at school.

Use the pomodoro system when writing (it's great for studying too!). That's 20 minutes of nothing but writing - no searching up stuff! No looking at your phone! Just writing. Then take a 5 minute break. Then another 20 minutes of writing. Rinse and Repeat! You'd be amazed at how much you can get done!

THIS ONE IS SO IMPORTANT: 👏 The first thing you write is the worst thing you write! That's not just okay! It's expected!! 👏 This is something I tell ALL my students and equally myself. The editing process is SO crucial and honestly, the best thing you can do to improve is - and you'll hate me for saying this! - rewrite your entire first draft. This is why I say, 'don't worry about the first thing you've written'. Because it won't be the end product. (This is why I so often hand-write. Because typing it up then becomes the rewrite.) The re-write is when you should be thinking carefully about your phrasing, and when you can go and do that research. (I will note, I actually don't do this much anymore, but I've also been writing obsessively for 19 years... so do with that what you will (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

Read your work out loud. What reads fine in your head might come out as nonsense out loud. This is especially true for dialogue! The better it flows out your fabulous mouth, the better it reads. I've done this so much I've mostly internalised it, but I always always do my final edit as a read through out loud. All 140+K of ECM has come out my gob at least once.

Actual writing tips:

When it comes to sentence structure and phrasing, one of the best things I ever did for myself was read the book Sin and Syntax by Constance Hale. I don't expect every writer to do so, but I do think it's worth reading (I'd like to specify, I generally HATE reading non-fiction but I found it a valuable read).

Here are a few things to keep in mind when actually writing:

Bad repetition: it's a classic, but overuse of certain words sticks out like a sore thumb. Even now I'll do it and won't notice until the final read through (out loud! See my previous tip haha). That is NOT to say that you should just right click 'synonyms'! It's better to edit the sentence itself, think about whether that word is even necessary before choosing to select another word).

Nuance in language is soooo important. This is why I generally discourage just the right-click 'synonym' option. Certainly in the nonsensical English language, there are subtleties in word choice that are critical to preventing your work for turning into nonsense (something I wish my students would understand!). Think of the different meanings conveyed through choices like house / bungalow / condo / flat / apartment / mansion / Mcmansion. All have differing connotations and can't be used interchangeably. Same with floor vs ground. Make sure you understand the connotations (associated meanings) of the word you're choosing before you use it.

Following on from this, Choose specific nouns and dynamic verbs, rather than relying on your adjectives/adverbs to do all the work. Not ' one storey house': bungalow. Not 'walk tiredly': stumble / trudge. Of course, you don't have to do this all the time and I'm not saying adverbs/adjectives are evil! But I think a lot of writers become overly reliant upon them.

Avoid redundant language. Consider the words that are doing the heavy lifting in your sentences. Is there anything in the sentence that doesn't need to be there because you've already implied it? e.g. Sara trudged tiredly into her bedroom and fell onto her bed. In this example, 'trudged' already implies exhaustion. And one would assume her bed is in her bedroom. Likewise 'fall' isn't the most exciting of verbs. So I'd change it to something like this -> Sara trudged through the doorway to collapse onto her bed. (Note here I'm also thinking of the implied meaning of 'onto' rather than 'into', which would suggest her bed is still made up).

Keep in mind who your narrator is and adjust your writing accordingly. Consider their personality, their background and the influence of their culture on the ways in which they'd think / write things. For example, as Peter is a character prone to ramble, I'll sometimes have him do the same in his narration. And because he's a silly little guy, I'll also have his train of thoughts turn in silly ways. His science background means I'll occasionally throw in a science reference too (though it's not my strongest knowledge base these days! So it requires more research lol). In contrast, Jason's love of literature make him more likely to use 'fancy' words like 'eschew', literary references and more elaborate metaphors. But at the same time, his Crime Alley upbringing means I have him use a lot of contractions. And because I see him as a character who is both a dramatic bastard and a highly efficient guy, I will use a lot of one word, or very short sentences. (If you're using multiple narrators, it might pay to write these ideas down!)

Anyways, I could go on, but it's also 20 to 11PM here and I've already written 5600 words today 🥲 My phalanges are tired!

I at least hope you can find something helpful or encouraging from all of this!

#writing tips #writers on tumblr #writing advice #life lessons with lucia #careful lucia your english teacher is showing

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ohmykiyo · 2 years ago

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🪦 title ; when they ask for a kiss genre ; fluff & romance warnings ; cute bf alert, lowercase intended characters ; sakusa, suna, atsumu, bokuto, oikawa, semi, ushijima 🗝️ jeilly's notes ; idk tbh thinking about sakusa being clingy makes me blush fr and i'm so proud, i finished this in 2 hours LOL, reqs r open!

SAKUSA shifts around uncomfortably as you keep your nose stuck in a book. you flip one page after another and he continues to watch you intently. he frowns and pouts but you don't notice.

"baby can you look at me?" he pouts. you turn to him, finally acknowleding him.

"what is it, love?" you sigh, flipping another page. he frowns at your clear dismissal.

"could you- i mean uhm- can i-" he stumbles over his words, frustration taking over. he's never been one to ask for things, but he can't help it when it's you.

you place your book down, not before bookmarking where you left off. you shift your body to face him completely, and he seems to stutter even more.

you smile, "what is it, baby?"

he doesn't know how to ask, he panics internally before fiddling with his hands. you sense his shyness, and put your hand over his to calm him down.

as if he's under some spell, he calms down almost instantly.

finding some bit of courage in your touch, he lifts his index finger and points at his lips.

you stare for a moment.

then you burst into uncontrollable giggles.

sakusa only watches as he deflates, turning away from you in a fit of irritation. "okay, be like that then, i don't care." he huffs.

you place your hands over his face, forcing him to face you.

you flash him the smile he adores so much, before giving him a kiss.

it was light. feathery, even. and it left sakusa craving for more.

he huffs before a shade of red tinted his ears, then he pulls you in for a few more.

SUNA sits beside you as you study in the school library for an important test coming up. he lays with his head down, facing you, eye boring into the side of your face.

you roll your eyes, "rin, stop staring, i can't focus."

he snickers before pulling out his hand to catch yours. "you're so pretty, how can i not?"

you cheeks flush with red as he finishes his sentence. you snatch your hand away to cover your face in embarrassment.

"you piss me off, hope you know that." you groan. he only chuckles at your remark, returning to his old position.

you then go back to studying. scribbling notes in your neat handwriting every few minutes.

you don't realize it, but your lips jut out in a small, unnoticeable pout.

it sends suna off the edge, wanting to lay his lips on yours.

he watches and watches, but you don't notice the stare he's giving you.

he grows impatient. the fact you clearly don't seem to glance at him makes him rolls his eyes and huff. you hear the little grunts of irritation and turn to face him.

"i can feel your bad energy radiating right now," you deadpan, "what's up your ass now?"

suna shoots you a glare, side-eyeing you in the process.

"what's up my ass is the fact you keep pouting your lips," you look at him in confusion, "you're practically begging for a kiss so c'mere."

you dodge his lips, and he sits there dumbfounded. you break into a series of giggles as he pouts and mutters a little "damn brat" under his breath.

"fine, come here baby." you say, before tugging him lightly. his lips landing right on yours.

he savors the taste of your lips, keeping you there a lot longer than intended.

once you pull away, you're out of breath, and suna's only smirking at your appearance.

you turn away with all shades of pink tinting your cheeks.

and suna knows he'll have your lips on his once again.

ATSUMU whines every five god damn minutes, hoping that it'll catch your attention. the attention which is on your phone, and you're scrolling carelessly on tiktok.

atsumu grunts once again before speaking, "can ya give me like two minutes of your attention, am dyin' over here and ya don' giva shit!"

you roll your eyes playfully, finally turning to your man-baby of a boyfriend. "okay 'tsum, you got two minutes."

"babe!" he yelps, basically sobbing dramatically at this point.

"what?" you say defensively, with a smirk plastered across your face. "you said two minutes, so i'm givin' you two minutes."

he frowns, showing you his infamous puppy eyes. you stare.. and stare.

but you don't budge at all.

"babe, am beggin' ya." he huffs, arms crossing defensively over his chest.

you couldn't believe that this six-foot blonde was pouting like an absolute child.

"fine, what is it, you big baby." you say, placing your hand on his thigh.

this only fires him up even more, craving the touch he hasn't received.

"kiss?" he pleads.

you decide to tease him a little. just a little.

"hmm? sorry, i didn't hear a please." he gets even more impatient as you test him further.

"please, ma angel, i wanna kiss ya." he frowns again, but you finally decide you comply with his wishes.

pushing his hair back and caressing his face, you pull him in for a kiss. it's a little peck, but he only wants more.

so..

he does.

pushing your head down lightly, but just enough to deepen the kiss further.

you push him away lightly.

"there, you got your kiss baby." you giggle.

he craves more, but chooses to wait a bit. leaving his hand on your plush thigh, he stares at you lovingly.

BOKUTO deflates as he witnesses you being quite busy chatting up your best friend.

he was hoping that you'd spend the dinner with him.

he knows it was a team dinner, but he didn't expect your best friend to be at the same restaurant.

he felt ignored, and a little neglected. but, he genuinely wanted to be with you at that moment.

it took a bit, but you finally slide into the booth your boyfriend was in. it didn't take long for you to notice the gloomy mood bokuto was in.

"somethin' wrong, honey?" you coo. bokuto swears he melted at the sound of your voice.

he scoots closer to you, nudging his head into the crook of your neck.

you allow him to, your hand moving up to play with the soft locks on his head.

"missed you." he whispered, scattering light kisses around your collarbone.

you smile, looking down at his cute face.

knowing him all too well, you whisper, "you craving something from me, baby?"

he sits up instantly, staring at you with neediness.

"mhm!" he perks. he waits patiently.

"tell me what you want, honey, i'm listening"

he takes your hand and allows your finger to brush lightly over his pretty lips.

"want a kiss," he says, "please."

you hum in satisfaction, guiding his face unto yours where his lips find yours.

his mouth molds against yours, almost as if he was entirely made for your existence.

he craves you more and more, hands sliding up and down your waist.

you pull away, pecking his forehead after.

bokuto sighs with content as he cuddles up impossibly closer to you.

OIKAWA lingers around in your bedroom, waiting for you to acknowledge his presence.

you're too busy scribbling things he doesn't bother to care about in your notebook.

he waits..

and waits.

and waits...

but doesn't get a hint of your attention.

he was growing agitated at the lack of attention. he could even go as far as saying that you were neglecting him.

he finally gives in, choosing to tap you lightly on the shoulder.

it was only then when you realized he was home.

"oh! tooru, hi babe!" you chirp. you don't even seem to notice the slight furrow of his eyebrows and the pout on his lips.

"i've been here for an hour, y/n." he states. your face contorts into disbelief.

exhaling, you spoke, "i didn't realize.. did you need something?"

yes, he needed something.

he wouldn't say it though. opting to wait until you're needy for him.

he's greeted with disappointment when you don't give him what he wants, turning away from him.

"okay cutie, i'm quite literally going to die here." he exclaims.

you turn to face the little drama queen behind you.

groaning playfully, you ask him, "okay, what is it my love."

"kiss me," he demands, "i haven't received a single one since my arrival."

you roll your eyes, standing up and dragging your feet towards his tall figure.

tip-toeing to reach his lips, you tug his shirt to pull him down.

finally, your lips rests on his, giving his the satisfaction he craved.

SEMI strums his guitar again and again, hoping it would catch your attention.

you don't look at him, because youre busy playing with the cute puppy named bear on his bed.

you baby-talk the sweet creature, scratching behind its ears.

"y/n can you put bear down, i'm literally right here." eita sighs.

you giggle at his remark, looking back at him for a split moment.

"i know, honey, but a few minutes without my attention shouldn't kill you." you deadpan.

he only shoots you a disappointed look that you obviously didn't see.

after a few minutes, you finally get up and sit beside your grumpy boyfriend.

your entire body faces him, "babe, i want a kiss."

he side-eyes you, "okay, go kiss bear then."

furrowing your eyebrows, you just shrug before getting up once again.

you're immediately stopped by semi grabbing your wrists lightly.

"jesus woman, you were supposed to stay here and beg." he rolls his eyes.

"too bad, bear likes me more than you since you didn't wanna give me a kiss."

he blinks, clearly dumbfounded. "i've been sitting here for 30 minutes waiting for a kiss myself."

you shrug again, trying to release yourself from his hold.

"whatever, eita." you pout.

he only tugs your arm gently before you're landing flat on his chest.

he lets out a hearty laugh before lifting your chin up with his thumb and index finger.

staring into each others eyes for a few moments, he finally places his lips on yours.

you deepen the kiss, hands moving up to caress the nape of his neck.

then you push him away.

with a pout, he stares at you. "not in front of bear, honey."

you snicker as he only huffs and looks away. his hand unconsciously coming up to caress your thigh.

you both, in fact, still madeout in front of poor bear.

USHIJIMA wasn't one to ask you for affection.

moreover, it was definitely you who asked him.

but for some reason, the way you were busy chatting up his close friend, tendou, sent him over the edge.

he craved your touch more, and it's almost like he needs it to survive.

he comes up beside you, while you don't even notice his presence. thanks to tendou greeting him, you probably would've taken awhile to even acknowledge him at all.

"heyyy wakatoshi!" tendou exclaims.

your head snaps up at the mention of your boyfriend's name.

you smile warmly, "hi, love."

that was all you said before you become completely immersed in your conversation with tendou. tendou being equally immersed as you were.

ushijima hated to admit it, but he actually felt neglected.. maybe even ignored.

he doesn't know how to steal your attention, and seeing his best friend have what he wants makes him antsy. he feels nervous, fiddling around with the hem of his shirt.

he holds back the urge to wrap his arm around your waist, pull you closer to him, and just kiss you in front of everyone in the room.

he itches to have his lips on yours, but he just doesn't know how to ask.

he taps his fingers impatiently on his side, hoping that you'd turn to face him at some point.

yet, as if luck was on his side, tendou excused himself for a moment, leaving you entirely alone.

and boy did he take that chance.

he stood beside you, snaking his arms around your waist. you look up at him, being quite familiar with his touch, you leaned into him.

he leans down to whisper in your ear, "chatting up my best friend instead of being with me kind of stung, my love."

his deep husky voice had your legs feeling like jello. you motion for him to lean low enough for him to hear you whisper back.

"jealous, honey?" you smirk.

he clenches his jaw before he feels your soft lips kiss it.

he softens at the contact, melting from your touch.

he quickly maneuvers your chin to connect your lips with his.

god, he never knew how addicted he was to you. youre the only thing he'll never get enough of.

you pull away, leaving one last peck on his jaw before leading him back to his teammates.

safe to say ushijima will definitely start asking for more of your kisses.

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snowthedemonfox · 2 months ago

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okay so i need to put my thoughts somewhere before i forget so uhhh heres a quick theory about what ep 6's adventure might be

(i could be extremely wrong though so glitch if youre seeing this and thinking about how wrong i am: i cannot wait to be proven wrong bc i am hyped for episode 6 either way)

so in the ep 4 trailer we can see this suggestions box, and based on Caine's conversation with Zooble in ep 3, i think all future adventures will be based on requests from the cast. like episode 5 being baseball themed. we saw an unfinished version of the stadium in the s1 teaser, and in ep 4 we can see Ragatha with a baseball. if ep 5 is the baseball episode, it'd make sense if she was the one who put that adventure idea in the suggestions box

so then i think we can safely assume the spudsy's adventure, even if it does seem to be rushed by Caine, might've been suggested by Gangle. why? not sure, im guessing we'll be told that in the episode itself, but if she did, then that means that yes, future adventures will be suggested by the character the episode is about

since episode 5 is the last episode that was teased in the s1 teaser, we have little to no info on episodes 6-9. i think its still a bit too early for me to guess what will happen in the final 3 episodes, but i think based on some other things we've been told i can make a safe guess about ep 6

i think it might be a dance themed episode. which, okay, hear me out, i have some more things i want to share with the class:

ONE: this would not be the first time one of Goose's "wait and see" answers would hint towards a future episode's adventure. back in september, before the s1 teaser released, someone asked her this:

which, as we know, a haunted house adventure DID happen in ep 3

(there was also this one, which if the ep 4 theories about someone being high are to be believed, then this one could also be a hint of something we didnt know about at the time. but take this with a grain of salt because ep 4 isnt out yet at the time of writing this)

TWO: "but why would Jax's episode be the dance one?? he wouldnt suggest something like that!!"

well, yes, he probably wouldnt let anyone else see him suggest something like that for an adventure, but who said you had to sign your name on the suggestions? couldnt he do it anonymously without anyone knowing who suggested it? doesn't seem like he's the kind of person to admit something like that

maybe in the episode, someone figures out it was him (maybe recognising his handwriting, since episode 4 has shown us what the cast's handwriting looks like on their spudsy's nametags), and that's what starts to cause problems. the point of the episode isn't the adventure itself, it's about Jax and his issues

THREE: this is the weakest piece of evidence here but im just thinking like, it kind of makes sense that a dance episode might feature a lot of different outfits. maybe Goose was talking about a later episode, but again, i have 0 ideas on what might be happening in those final 3, so my safest bet is that this was referring to episode 6

the only thing i DONT have an answer for, is why ep 6 would be described as "guns":

unless this post was made before the episode 7/8 split (which resulted in a total of 9 episodes), i have now idea how "guns" fits into this theory. we know thanks to the fandomcon QnA that Jax's weapon of choice would NOT be a gun, and would be revealed in canon to be something else. if Jax isn't the one with the gun, why is episode 6 described that way? i have 0 answers for this, and this one word could be the thing that destroys this already flawed theory lol

anyway uhhh post over thats my game theory i hope Jax continues to get worse <3

#the amazing digital circus #tadc #tadc episode 6 #arctic fox speaks

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hughiecampbelle · 2 months ago

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Decomposing (Will Graham Oneshot)

Character/s: Will, Jack mention

Word Count: 1,449

Tag List: @locke-writes

A/N: My loves!!! This is the first fic of the writing event and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out!! Truthfully I had this idea even before the event lol, so I'm really glad I was able to share!! I love complicated relationships and issues within them. I had this scheduled for tomorrow, but ya gurl has no patience, so it's a day early! I would appreciate any and all feedback as this event progresses! Lmk if you'd like to be added to the tag list as well!!! ❤❤❤❤

WRITING EVENT 🔪🩸

Fresh. Fresh wounds, fresh blood, fresh body, fresh relationship. Things are new. Awkward, fumbling hands unbuttoning his shirt, lifting it over his head. He does the same, your arms raised to ease the transition. A laugh, shy and blushing. In bed, between the sheets, trying to catch your breath. Was it. . . okay? A smile. Yes, of course it was. A nod, a performance of understanding. Little left to say. In the morning coffee, eggs. That’s all there is in the fridge. There’s no label, no pet names you call one another. There’s a line you refuse to cross. Bodies panting, laughing, but that’s all it is. Picking your clothes off the floor, disappearing into the shower. He heads downstairs. The dogs eager to greet him. You find him at the stove, the egg crackling in the pan. The steam of the mugs warm your face. Unsure of which seat to take. You’ve never done this before. You followed a pattern. Slipping from his bed before the sun rose. Leaving a note, something witty, without sincerity, closing the door behind you. Go home. Shower. Change. Running late. Find him in the lab with you co-workers. Bodies on slabs. What's left of them, anyways. He doesn’t look at you. He doesn’t look at any of you. Offering a quiet moment, the rest of the team filing out the door, he ways, slipping a note into your lab coat pocket. You don’t react. Your eyes averted, too busy listening to Jack to notice until the end of the day. Something sweet. You know his handwriting even without his signature. You shouldn’t be doing this. You shouldn’t smile at the thought of him. Hoping he’ll look at you, even for a second. It’s against the rules. It’s against everything. And yet. . .

Bloat. The body swells, the gasses of the abdomen created by bacteria. The skin begins to blister. You crossed the line. An unspeakable, invisible line you step over not without hesitation. Not just sex. The last note he left you, sleeping on your desk, folded with your name on it. Will you go on a date with me? Nothing else. You hold it in your hand, reading it over and over again, wondering if it was a joke. No, you conclude, Will wouldn’t do that. Humiliate you. You wait for him in the parking lot, the note burning a hole in your pocket. You don’t know what you’re going to say until the words are already out of your mouth. Does Friday night work? He isn’t perplexed by lack of context. There are no formalities or small talk. He smiles. Says it’s great, that he’ll pick you up around seven. You don’t realize you’re grinning until you pull into the driveway. Your entire closet is thrown across your bed. What message are you trying to convey? That this is a one time thing? That it’s serious from the start? You don’t want to scare him away. You don’t want to get your hopes up. You’re not even sure you want this to turn into anything. Maybe you should have said no. come up with a lame excuse long enough to buy you some time. Let him down gently. Explain this relationship was purely sexual. It isn’t against the rules. No one can stop this date on a technicality. But there are social norms to uphold. If anyone hears about it, if anyone saw you talking, you knew you’d hear about it for a long time. Katz would be cool, kind even, rooting you on. Zeller and Price are a different story. Crude jokes most likely, then invasive questions, vulgar assumptions the both of you would try to deny. Was it really worth the risk?

Active decay. Teeth and nails begin to fall out. Muscles and soft tissue begin to liquify, oozing from the body. He asked you to move in with him. It only made sense. Your lease was up soon and you’ve been official for nearly a year. You spent every night you could with him, too.. You don’t mind the dogs? Others would. The smell when they come in from the rain. Collecting them from the woods, the land, when he sleepwalks, the front door like a gaping mouth. Wide open. I adore them, Will. And you do. Spoiling them with toys and treats. Relief settles over his features. Bring what will fit. Clothes mostly, kitchen appliances and some furniture. He unpacks with precision. Labeling every box. Moving from room to room until your books and his and intertwined, your mugs nestled between his, your clothes folded beside his. It only takes a weekend. When it’s done there’s an air of relief. Not just practical, but a bandaid. Stitches for a wound that won’t stop bleeding. Things weren’t perfect, but what relationship was? Jack knows. You told him together. His face is hard to read, his words unemotional. Don’t let it interfere with your work. Of course, sir. Will squeezes your hand under the table. It went better than you expected. Later, when he can pull you aside, he asks what’s been on his mind. Is it serious? You’re not sure how to answer. At the time, it had only been a few months. You hoped it was. He must’ve said something to him, too. Unusually quiet. Hey, you say, it’ll be okay. He nods. It doesn’t stop the inevitable fight. Jack doesn’t think you’re good for Will. A distraction. A plaything. Do you really believe him? Hurt embedded in your voice. I don’t know. He sounds so small. Later, he will apologize. You will forgive, but not forget.

Advanced decay. Soft tissue decomposes, leaving behind bones, hair, cartilage, ligaments, and byproducts. This is when the bugs begin to feed. You’re not on speaking terms. The team divides and conquers. Katz talks to him. She’s always liked him, checked in with him, puncturing the layers you have worked tirelessly to unfold. Price and Zeller talk to you as delicately as they are able to. Is the sex bad? It’s not worth the effort to answer. Seriously, what’s wrong? What did he do? Are we children of divorce now? You glare at them, the conversation dying. Its final breaths a bloody, gurgled gasp. You regret coming in together. The car ride home is silent. Between here and there, each of you opens your mouths, but nothing comes out. Apologies feel forced. Fake. The issues so tangled, so complicated, you are both the victim and the offender. You go to bed with a gap between you, a rift you’re not sure can be repaired. Things will get better, Katz offered quietly, as if speaking to the enemy. You thank her, though you’re not sure how it will. Time goes on. You can’t live like this and so, you cave in. your conversations are distant, polite, but nothing further. In front of others you are fine. They assume this fight – immortal, infinite – has passed. It hasn’t. He’s become sloppy. He blames you. You can’t shake that kind of thing when your lives are your careers. I don’t know if I can do this anymore. . .

Skeletonization. The body fully liquifies and the bones are exposed. Your things are no longer contaminated. Your books, your mugs, your furniture. Placed peacefully into boxes. You sleep alone these days. It was awkward, at first. Exchanging looks, pleasantries, trying not to have an audience for a show you didn’t realize you were performing. I’m sorry to hear that, Jack states when you break the news. The team, your team, are apologetic, too. It’s over. It’s done. You want to move on. You don’t. The both of you regret a lot of things. Whose fault was it? Yours for saying yes. His for asking in the first place. Maybe it started before that. The coffee you shared, the eggs he made, the steam of the shower. Broke routine. Price and Zeller lay off you for a while. Him, too. They joke about the dead rather than the living. Give it a few weeks, they’ll be back to their usual selves. Will’s right. You smile despite yourself. It could have been good. Your relationship could have survived. At least, that’s what you tell yourself when he is funny, when he is gentle, when is humane. It was already dead, another part of you speaks up, and you know it is right. You could crack its chest and break its ribs, but there was no saving it. There was no bringing it back because there was no life in the first place. Did you love him? Hannibal asks. You did, maybe you still do, but it’s not enough. It never was.

#writing #writing event #will graham #will graham drabble #will graham oneshot #will graham x reader #hannibal #hannibal drabble #hannibal oneshot #hannibal x reader

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suzie-shooter · 10 months ago

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Alex Rider season 3 unhinged liveblog ramblings scribbled during first watch. Spoilers, obvs. (also fair warning, I am not particularly a fan of Tom or Kyra lol)

Episode 1 - Widow

S2 recap trivia - Alex's therapist is Molly Doran from Slow Horses and married to Alan Blunt IRL

Malta: Ok, so we're not just going to pretend it's Venice lol.

Creepy old men already hitting on Alex. Standard.

"After this we're out of leads." How do you even have any leads in the first place? Oh ok, Smithers' phone. Terrible security protocols from him, leaving that much historical classified data on it.

"Find the Widow - surely he could have given you an address?" First thing Tom's ever said I've agreed with lmao

Aaaand within a second he's back to being deeply irritating, okay.

Yassen living rent free in Alex's head, you love to see it.

"They've got this picture of me being the responsible one." Have Tom's parents actually met him?

Ooh Razim mention.

You maybe want to clean that wound before whacking a dressing on it Alex?

"Do you think you'll ever lose your appetite Nile?" Spat my drink.

Damn, no harem pants then. Scrubs up well tho.

Listing Levin in the opening credits than having him be only a S2 flashback should be a warcrime.

Episode 2 - Lab

"This weapon is called pork sword, wait, no, shit, wrong USB."

"Julia Rothman. Definitely a wrong un." Spat my drink again.

Do Crawley and Pritchard not warrant helmets and visors? Are they somehow immune to shrapnel?

So, room 6, wired to blow, yes? It's what I'd do…

Oh yeah sure guys, they're going to still be sitting there, all unmoving in the dark, for sure that's a person, and not a Massive Trap.

Thereeeee we go. Agent mince. Top of your class huh, well you're certainly at the top now, and down the sides and partially out of the window.

I know there's the whole 'characters don't know what genre they're in' thing but you are literally in the 'working for MI6 genre', you are up against people notorious for booby traps and blowing shit up, why the fuck would you touch something that hadn't been declared safe first? Apart from anything else you're fucking up the scene before forensics get there.

"I love you man." Vom.

Alex: breaks into super sekkrit lab. Also Alex: doesn't have the faintest fucking idea what he's looking at, so not really helpful.

COMICALLY LARGE BOMB KLAXON.

Episode 3 - Enemy

"Welcome to Malagosto." OooOOooh.

Maybe I'm just looking at it from a fic writer's perspective but it does seem a massive anticlimax to immediately let Tom and Kyra know Alex is okay? Like, you could have got a good couple of episodes of angst out of that uncertainty.

"Do you want me to kill them?" Oh God yes please.

Why the fuck have they plugged the USB directly into the network rather than an isolated PC? 'Hur dur we checked it first', you literally believe Scorpia are smart enough to not be bluffing about the nebulous death threat but you don't think they could hide something on the hardware? Fuck's sake lads. Amateur hour.

Is this Home Secretary meant to be Suella Braverman? Or Priti Patel maybe lol. (Equal rights and all that, and if it had been a white male character I don't think I would have thought twice about the dialogue but having both your two new female characters be immediately proved wrong/ massively patronised/ blown up ain't hugely comfortable viewing tbh).

HOW MANY FICS INVOLVING ALEX GETTING FUCKED ON THAT BED HAVE JUST BEEN BORN?

"Are you suggesting we break into a dead man's house?" "It's not like he's going to be there." 😂

"He became a very close friend of mine." Fnar.

Omg making Alex read his father's love letters is hilarious.

Alex: you could have faked that news report Also Alex: handwriting can definitely never be faked (how is Alex even familiar with his dead father's handwriting? wouldn't recognise mine)

Ugh please stop trying to make Alex/Kyra happen.

Alex up the vent shaft. I hope they're sitting casually at the top going - you could have just taken the stairs love.

If he's climbing upwards, why is his hair dangling like he's upside down? Have they filmed this like 60's Batman, and he's just crawling along a horizontal set lol.

Alex never once asks about his mother does he. Given the shagger-John route they seem to have gone down you almost think Julia would be in a better shout of getting Alex to switch sides by claiming to be his mother.

And - yeah, Alex's recruitment just doesn't feel that convincing here. Adding Tom/Kyra/Jack so much to the mix has changed the feel of his life a lot, and TV verse Alex has had a lot less fucking over by the Department by this point too. And Rothman feels too creepy to be effectively convincing him of anything.

"I want you to meet your tutor." FUCK YES FINALLY 🙌 (may have rewound that part several times lol)

Episode 4 - Recruit

Nicaragua: 18 years ago OH MY GOD IT'S HAPPENING

Baby Yassen is adorable, I'm in love.

OH MY GOD THAT'S SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE FUCKIN SPIDER THING

OH MY GOD THE REVEAL OF HIM STANDING OVER THE SLEEPING ALEX I'M DEAD

(Ok, I'm calm again. For now. We continue.)

"You killed my uncle" - all the hundreds of ways this conversation has been written over the years and Yassen's just like lol get over it 😂 (here for it tbh)

Rothman: He's one of our best Yassen: One of? Bitch.

Yassen watching Alex train like 👀👀

"Did he ever tell you you're no fun?" Oh you want to have FUN with Yassen do you?

Yassen bitchslapping Alex to fuck, both hilarious and hot.

Oh, you want to be WET wet.

"Matteo's the guy with the blanket." Why is that so funny.

Omg Yassen stepping in to protect his boy and humiliating Nile in the process lol. And Alex doing what Yassen tells him, because of course he does 🥰

"This one is my responsibility" 🥰🥰

"What about love, friendship?" Alex has only known Yassen five minutes and is already down bad.

"Kind of lonely though, right?" Yeah, Yassen needs you at his side Alex, so step up and stop being a whiny little bitch about killing people.

Never get in the first taxi, rule one of espionage.

Yep, called it. Tom's like: I'll have my fucking tip back in that case.

This scene is so dark I have no fucking idea what's going on, I thought Nile had attacked Alex, but apparently not. Is Nile officially part of this exercise or not, it seems really unclear lol.

The power of friendship and sparklerabbits saves the day, apparently. Yawn.

Jesus, we really ATE with this ep, huh.

Episode 5 - Revenge

"Would you rather your arms around me, or my arms around you?" Way to make it creepy Tom you skeevy fuck.

"Can we focus please?" "We're multi-tasking."

Sure Grendel, rock up to the super sekkrit spy base in a massively conspicuous car why don't you?

"Yassen will give you everything you need." Oh I BET he will.

Feels sloppy them not removing the diffuser from the vent tbh.

"What does this say?" Alex hasn't inherited John's neat handwriting then lol. Alex leaning into him like that > me making noises only dogs can hear.

"You've put lockpick?" "I left my last one in Nile."

Ooh, suicide pill, nasty. Kind've pointless though, given they've been left with the evidence anyway.

Yassen in Alex's bedroom again, likely place for him to be.

"I don't want you to fail. I don't want you to die." 🥹💕🥰

Yalex roadtrip, let's goooo.

Disappointed they're not making Alex do the Entrapment infrared acrobatic sequence here lol.

If this is Yassen's idea of a date it definitely needs work.

So no surprise scorpions then? Can't have shit in Detroit Malta.

"Why? Why did she kill him?" Well taking things at face value here he was a highly murderous member of a terrorist organisation, so you know, kind've her job.

Yassen does like a casual lean, doesn't he.

Episode 6 - Target

Alex and Yassen have shacked up in London, hope there's only one bed.

Now they're in the back of a van, SO many opportunities for shagging, they're spoilt for choice.

Yassen's impressed look when Alex reels off all the security details, so proud of his boy.

"What happened to my mum?" Finally he wonders lol.

"And I'm good at it. You could be too." 🥹

"You think Alex killed him?" I mean, he was also there with a notorious assassin, so probably not, y'know.

Domestic Yassen cooking Alex's dinner and also cooking him a gun lol.

Smithers' "How I've missed you" ahahaha. Smithers/Kyra much better pairing tbh.

"He's actually quite good at this stuff." Smithers' little snort lmao

Time for Alex to be blacked up/ dunked in a teabag bath/ gussied up. Although he still looks exactly like Alex afterwards, which feels less useful lol.

"You love him, don't you?" Yassen loves him more. I have to say Alex had far more chemistry with Syl, and frankly for that matter with Tom. I really don't get the Kyra agenda.

"It's a dry hole." Alex's worst nightmare.

Is Alex going to look through Mrs Jones' knicker drawer?

Episode 7 - The Shot

Mrs Jones and her tall murderous hobbit son lol. Otto really looks about 58 here.

Hope they bill him for her fucked up fridge.

Is that Bath? Oh, it is.

Mrs Jones casually throwing Alex back into play lol. Maybe she can have a little revenge for him trying to shoot her.

"Everyone breaks into houses." Jack's face lol

Ewww put him down, you don't know where he's been (Yassen's bed, almost certainly)

"Remember they can't hurt you unless you invite them in." "That's vampires."

Yassen arguing in favour of going to rescue Alex MY HEART

"Sit down. I'm going to tell you a story. About your friend, John Rider." HOLY PLOTHOLE TIMELINE PATCHING BATMAN

"John was embedded inside Scorpia for three years." Not the only thing he was embedded in by the sounds of it.

Alex seems to be hallucinating again lol.

Yassen, maybe psychoanalysing your insane boss isn't the safest thing to be doing?

"It's quite mad Julia." Yassen really gives no shits omfg

"I know my place." Yes, at Alex's side.

I like how Julia thought telling Yassen she'd killed John would do anything other than piss him off lol.

Episode 8 - Invisible Sword

"But you do owe me a new fridge." LOLLLLLL

Crawley feeling like a spare part during this lift convo, hahaha

"Smithers, you can do me some kind of tracker, right?" "Yeah, if you promise to keep it on you this time."

Alex is like ohshit I'm gonna die fr

"Not for the agents. They undid their seatbelts." Eyyyyyyyy 👉

Aww they've given him a little baby assassin outfit, how cute.

Where's Yassen, has he just fucked off to the pub?

"For the head of Scorpia, you're a really bad liar."

Laughing at all the other Scorpia agents having to listen to this convo about their boss like we are not paid enough for this shit 😬

"Everyone else is getting what they want, let me have my cereal."

Protecting his boy to the last. Yassen really is purely on Alex's side, we love to see it.🥰

And OMG HE LIVESSSSSSSS 🙌🙌🙌🙌 (I voted yes in that poll, I had faith lol)

Well that was - far more fanservice than I dared hope for, after the meagre pickings we got in the first two series. Yalex supremacy to the motherfucking end, let's go.

#alex rider #alex rider spoilers #alex rider season 3 #yalex

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