#i just want to be over it!!!! but this could go on for years knowing from experience

[inkskinned]

i. when i was 19 and in a very hetero relationship, i fell in love with Andrea Gibson.

ii. we were poor so i was going to community college and also working a full-time job. i was miserable. the nicest thing that happened to me during that time was that someone bought me a free coffee. i had been sobbing in the corner of the library. she said you look like you needed help. i was so sad at the time that i was looking for "the sign". almost like a mantra, i'd say things like if there's a nice sunset, i won't kill myself tomorrow.

iii. you know, in all that time, i never wanted anything. the idea of desire was so foreign to me that i couldn't conceptualize a favorite color. what is want in the voidspace?

iv. andrea was the first, is the thing. i found their work on button poetry. i watched a poem once and then twice and then sat back and thought to myself - what i had been writing was not poetry, it was reaction. what andrea was writing was poetry. i knew it had to be, because it burst inside of me. i looked down and a hole had torn open. there was nothing for it. i put my hands inside the wound and started to pull.

v. it was slam poetry and then pretentious poetry and then esoteric poetry and then the black mountain poets and then tender buttons and then back to slam again and then back to the classics and theory and the academic shit and then finally thank-god understanding started dawning and then upwards into contemporaries and inwards into why aren't i writing something real and then realizing i never understood anything then crying about three syllables that don't sound right and then sunning myself outside of the emily dickinson house and then back to slam and back to the roots of it and backwards into -

vi. and the joy! holy fuck i wish i could tell you about it. on the back of ink came life. it was community and safety and pushing limits. it was saying oh yeah no i'm gay and oh shit i'm nonbinary. it was a cliche; life like a map just exploding. because i knew - i had my thing. wherever i went, so too would come writing.

vii. on saturday i reached 7,700 poems on here. i made myself a gin and tonic to celebrate. i have been writing seriously, almost-every-day, sometimes multiple times a day - for over 10 years. i started this, became this - because i saw someone stand on stage and say something i knew to be poetry.

viii. andrea died today, july 14th, 2025, at the age of 49.

ix. i will never have the words for what they gave me.

[yogirl-willow]

The Crimson Pact | Part 10

Characterizations | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

SoulBond!AU

Pairings: Yandere!Saja Boys x F!Reader

Synopsis: You were never supposed to remember them.

Four hundred years ago, a pact was made—a blood-soaked bond tying five demons to one human soul: yours.

They’ve waited lifetimes for your reincarnation, cursed with obsession, tethered by fate.

And now that you’ve returned?

They’ll burn the world before they let you go again.

Warnings: Explicit Smut / NSFW. Minors DNI (Do Not Interact), Fingering, Touching, Penetrative Sex (P in V), Breeding Kink / Creampie, Size Kink, Praise Kink, Soul bond with the Saja Boys, Yandere themes!, obsessive behavior / possessiveness, romantic psychological tension, intense emotional fixation, yearning, dark romance.

A/N: Here's part 10! Thank you to everyone who sent over messages and comments. I'm so glad so many of you are enjoying my series. Plot rolls in the first half of this, and there is smut at the end. :) Next chapter will also have smut just because I didn't want to rush any of the moments once again. But the plot and conflicts will really get rolling from here. I hope you all enjoy this one!

───────── ༺🜃༻ ─────────

The Saja boys are all demons.

They are wrath and ruin. Jealousy and death.

And yet, before her, they kneel.

Because she is the Heart. Because her soul is what keeps them from unraveling into true monsters. Because they were bound by her love and her curse.

They don’t just crave her—they depend on her. Without her presence, their minds deteriorate. Their bodies decay. Their hunger becomes unbearable.

Only Y/N’s touch tames the demon inside.

────────── ⚘ ──────────

Names (For those who get confused): Haneul (Abby), Seoha (Romance), Hwimori/Hwi (Mystery), Seungho (Baby)

────────── ⚘ ──────────

Part 10:

Every Version of You

The bass thumped through the Huntrix penthouse, shaking the mirrored walls as Mira struck the next beat of the routine. Her cropped hoodie flew with each sharp turn, every kick hitting with fierce precision.

"One, two, spin, down—Rumi, Zoey, hit the arm combo together, please!" Mira barked.

Zoey huffed, brushing sweaty bangs from her forehead. "You're acting like we're going to war."

“We are,” Mira snapped. “This is Takedown, remember? Demon-dissing choreo has to be sharp. Idol Awards are in a few days. We’re not just performing—we’re making a statement.”

Rumi held her pose, chest heaving. Sweat dripped down her temple. “It’s just... hard to focus with everything going on.” She flopped onto the couch dramatically. “Speaking of which... has she replied yet?”

Mira paused, lowering her arms slowly. “Did she see your message?”

“She read it,” Zoey murmured, checking her phone. “No reply though.”

Mira exhaled sharply, arms crossed. “So she’s alive, at least.”

“Or...” Zoey’s voice trembled. “What if they just have her phone? What if she’s being controlled? Or trapped? What if she’s being held hostage?!”

Mira’s fists clenched. “If they’re keeping a human hostage—”

Zoey added, horrified, “What if they’re doing horrible things to her—”

“Oh, I think she might enjoy that...” Rumi muttered under her breath.

Both heads snapped toward her. “What was that?” Mira asked sharply.

“Nothing!” Rumi said quickly, brushing hair behind her ear. “Just... we don’t know the whole story.”

Zoey frowned, concern dark in her eyes. “Do you really think she’s okay?”

Rumi looked away. “Look... based on what we saw—they were protective. Obsessively, even.”

“That could be an act,” Mira snapped. “Demons don’t feel. They mimic. That’s how they manipulate humans.”

“You don’t know that.”

Mira narrowed her eyes. “Why are you defending them?”

“I’m not—” Rumi said, too quickly. “I just think... maybe we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

The silence that followed was thick and tense. Zoey looked between her two friends, biting her lip in apprehension. “Okay, okay, let’s chill,” she said, forcing a weak smile. “How about we call it a day? Tomorrow we can try tracking her—maybe check traffic cams near her café?”

“She hasn’t been to her café,” Mira said coldly. “It’s closed. And her apartment? Empty for weeks. What else do you need? She’s with those demons.”

Then, quieter, sharper: “What if she knows?”

Rumi’s stomach twisted.

“What if she knows what they are—and still stays with them?”

Rumi didn’t answer. Maybe… she does know. Really know what they are, and yet… chooses to stay?

The girls filtered off to their rooms, tension unresolved. Mira’s footsteps were sharp and angry, Zoey’s slow and tired. But Rumi stayed.

She remained seated on the floor of the practice studio, knees curled to her chest, the city glowing behind her through the glass. Her muscles ached from hours of choreography, but her mind refused to quiet.

She could still hear Jinu’s voice. "We’re soulbonded."

There was something in the way he said it. Not just conviction, but reverence. Like the word meant more than the world itself. Like the bond wasn’t just real—it was sacred. And the others? The way they looked at you, hovered near you, protected you like something precious? It wasn’t just possession.

It was devotion. And maybe it was all a lie. Maybe Mira was right…

But Rumi couldn’t stop wondering: What if it wasn’t? What if demons could feel something that deep? That powerful?

What if… her father had felt it too?

The thought hit her harder than expected. It had been something she tried to brush off for days now, ever since Jinu had told her about the soulbond. She’d never known her parents. Just flashes in half-dreams and a handful of secondhand memories from Celine. But now, watching the way you looked at the boys—and how they looked at you—it stirred something in her chest.

Something unshaped. Undefined. Longing, maybe. Or just the ache of not knowing. Could her mother have loved like that? Could she have fought for something that impossible?

Rumi exhaled shakily and rubbed her arms, feeling the faint, cursed heat of her demon marks just beneath her skin. They had always marked her as different. Not enough of one thing. Too much of another. A walking half-truth Celine refused to explain.

She had tried asking before. Dozens of times. What was my mother like? Why did she fall in love with a demon? Who was he? Each time was met with silence. Each time: “You don’t need to know.”

But now Rumi did. She needed to know. Not just for herself. But for what was coming.

If you were really soulbonded to demons… If a bond that powerful could change the rules, rewrite the laws they’d lived under their entire lives— Maybe her parents had tried too. Maybe there was something they left behind.

And what if… that soulbond was somehow tied to their demise. She had to know- is that the same fate that awaited Jinu? The same fate that awaited you?

She stood slowly and walked to her bedroom closet, where a weathered duffel bag lay tucked behind rows of performance shoes. From its inner lining, she retrieved a small brass key—one she had stolen years ago from Celine’s drawer, hidden away on instinct. The key to a locked chest in her old childhood home. The one Celine had told her never to open.

Rumi stared at the key for a long moment. Then, she curled her fingers around it and whispered to the empty room:

“I’m sorry, Celine. But I need the truth.”

────────── ⚘ ──────────

The scent of sesame oil and gochugaru fills the air, warm and rich, as you perch on the edge of the kitchen island in Haneul’s oversized shirt, your bare legs swinging gently. Haneul hums quietly as he moves through the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, muscles still slick from earlier, now focused as he stirs a steaming pot.

“Kimchi jjigae tonight,” he says proudly, ladling a bit into a spoon and holding it up to your lips. “Taste this for me?”

You lean forward, letting him feed you. It’s spicy and savory, exactly how you like it. “Mmm. That’s perfect.”

“Perfect’s what you are,” he says, wiping the corner of your mouth with his thumb. His voice lowers, brushing with something more carnal. “I still haven’t recovered from earlier, y’know.”

You flush. “You’re not supposed to say that while cooking.”

“I can multitask,” he smirks.

Just then, a pair of warm hands glide around your bare thighs. You jump slightly as Seungho presses a kiss to your cheek from the side. He was shirtless, leaving his lean muscles out for you to admire. For someone who’s nicknamed “Baby”, he sure didn’t look it when he was dressed like this without the sweaters.

He slides between your knees, gaze half-lidded, teasing. “God, you look good like this,” he murmurs. “One of our shirts, no shame… You trying to kill me, baby?”

Your hand goes to push him away, but your smirk betrays you. “Just sitting here.”

“Yeah, and I’m just breathing,” he deadpans, “but apparently that’s a sin too.” His hand squeezes your thigh. “Keep testing me and see what happens.”

You giggle, clearly not sorry. Before he can get carried away, the front door bursts open.

“We’re home!” Seoha’s voice sings.

You hop off the counter just in time for Jinu’s arms to catch you mid-run. He pulls you into him like he hasn’t seen you in weeks, burying his face into your neck. “Missed you, baby,” he murmurs, kissing your shoulder.

Seoha’s next, sweeping you up and spinning you dramatically before peppering your face with kisses—forehead, nose, cheeks. “I nearly died from missing you,” he sighs, as if wounded. “I considered throwing myself into traffic.”

“Dramatic as always,” you roll your eyes, laughing.

“And yet you keep coming back to me,” he says smugly, carrying you bridal-style back to the kitchen. Seungho is already setting the table, now with a shirt on. Seoha plops down and keeps you seated firmly on his lap.

“So,” you ask, “what were you guys out doing?”

“Logistics,” Jinu replies. “Stage cues, wardrobe adjustments, dealing with sponsors. Idol Awards are in a few days.”

You blink. “It’s that soon?”

Haneul sets down a plate in front of you—steaming rice, kimchi jjigae, marinated beef, banchan laid out lovingly. You try to shift to your own seat, but Seoha tightens his arms around you.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he whispers into your ear, voice low and territorial. “Not after being away from me all day.”

Your face heats as you squirm in his hold. “Where’s Hwimori?” you ask, trying to redirect the attention.

“Studio,” Seungho says, grabbing another pair of chopsticks. “Hasn’t left it since noon.”

“He’s still working?” You frown. “He hasn’t eaten?”

“He never eats when he’s focused,” Jinu sighs. “Like a damn wolf on a hunt.”

Moments later, Hwimori finally comes down. His hair’s tousled, shirt inside-out. He pads over silently, bending to kiss the top of your head. You soften at the gesture. “You haven’t eaten anything, have you?”

He looks at you, startled. Then grins. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” you scold lightly. “Sit. Eat.”

His gaze dips to your hands as he picks them up to press soft kisses across your knuckles. “Your care for me is more filling than any meal, Y/N,” he murmurs, almost bashful—except for the glint of heat in his eyes.

You blush, looking away. "You say the creepiest sweet things..."

Dinner begins. Laughter, gentle clinks of chopsticks. They argue over which brand of soju is superior. Seoha tries to spoon-feed you until Jinu takes over with more finesse. Seungho complains, “You’re all obsessed,” to which they all agree.

“You are too,” Haneul deadpans.

You ask casually, “So what song are you performing for the Idol Awards?”

Hwimori looks up from his bowl. “It’s a new one. I’m halfway done with the mix.”

“Ooh, can I hear it?”

A pause. Their reactions don’t match your enthusiasm. “It’s not finished yet,” Seoha says quickly.

“You’ll hear it soon,” Jinu adds with a reassuring smile.

Your brow furrows—but you brush it off. Hwimori leans over to you. “Come to the studio after dinner,” he says. “I’ll show you.”

You nod, heart skipping a little.

The kitchen is filled with the comforting clatter of chopsticks and soft laughter, the scent of kimchi jjigae still thick in the air. You’re tucked on Seoha’s lap all throughout, your legs curled beneath you, a half-eaten spoonful paused in your hand as you watch the boys move through their dinner routine like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Jinu reaches across Haneul’s plate to steal a piece of beef. Haneul slaps his hand away without looking up.

Seoha rests his chin on your shoulder and softly nuzzles into your skin, murmuring, “You’re my favorite side dish.”

Seungho groans. “You’re disgusting.”

They argue. They tease. Hwimori eats quietly at the edge of the table, chopsticks in one hand, notebook beside him, already jotting lyrics and notes between bites. No one tells him to stop. No one complains that he’s multitasking again. You chew slowly, eyes drifting between them. And then you stop eating.

Something about this moment… it feels too good. Too quiet. Too normal. You set your spoon down and lean back slightly into Seoha’s chest, gaze flicking toward the warm kitchen light above the table. It bathes the boys in gold—catching on the edge of Hwi’s silver earring, the subtle curl of Jinu’s ink-black hair, the sweat still lingering on Haneul’s collarbone.

And you think— “This doesn’t look like a house full of demons.”

It looks like a home.

You glance at the sink, where Haneul now rinses a pot. Jinu has a towel draped over one shoulder as he air-dries dishes. Seoha’s rubbing a spot on your ankle like it soothes something in him just to touch you. And Seungho is yelling at the rice cooker as if it’s personally offended him.

You close your eyes for a moment and listen to the mundane sounds of it all—water running, footsteps padding on the floor, laughter, the scrape of porcelain. ‘Is this real?’ you think. ‘Or is this… something they’ve created for me? Something they’re maintaining so I don’t run?’

You remember what they said. How they’d waited lifetimes. How they knew you from before. How they love you, need you, worship you. But you also remember how you woke up here. The pain. The fear. The sheer loss of control.

‘They say they love me. But do they love me? Or the version of me they’ve carried for centuries?’

You swallow, suddenly unsure of your own heartbeat. The soulbond pulls tight in your chest like thread wound too firmly around your ribs. You can feel each of them—every glance, every flicker of emotion—and it’s overwhelming how much they feel. For you. But…

‘What if they’re just in love with the memory of me? With someone I don’t even remember being?’

You think of your past lives. The fragments that flicker in your dreams. A hand in yours. A kiss in the dark. Blood. Fire. Death. Always ending in death.

‘Do I even have a choice in all of this? Or is fate choosing for me?’

You open your eyes again and see Jinu watching you. Noticing. As always. His expression softens as your eyes meet. He doesn’t say anything, just sends you a smile that feels like it was forged in a lifetime of waiting. One that says, ‘We see you.’

Your chest tightens. Because you know what you're afraid to admit: ‘They make me feel safe. Even when they shouldn’t. Even when I know what they are.’

And still… Am I just playing a role? Or is this… actually love?

Your fingers brush your thigh, grounding yourself. Seoha murmurs something into your hair, and Haneul walks by and drops a sweet kiss to the crown of your head. Seungho brushes his fingers across your lower back in passing, almost unconsciously. They touch you like they need to make sure you’re still here.

And in that moment, you don’t have an answer. But you want to believe. You want this to be real. And maybe… just maybe…

You already do.

From the corner of your eye, you see Hwimori pause in the hallway. His fingers tap the doorframe, hesitant. His voice is soft, almost shy. “You coming?”

You blink up at him. His golden eyes catch the light. And just like that, the ache eases. “Yes,” you whisper. “I’m coming.”

His fingers find yours before you’ve even stepped into the hallway. Delicately, he laces your fingers together like he’s memorizing the shape of them, then brings your joined hands to his lips and kisses your knuckles as you walk, eyes still fixed ahead. You swear you feel something in your chest flutter and curl at the gesture—quiet, unassuming, and completely devastating.

You don’t say anything. You just follow him.

Hwimori leads you gently through the dim apartment, the distant sound of dishes and laughter fading behind you. The studio door opens with a soft click, and the scent of sound foam and something faintly like cedar greets you. Inside, the room glows with a soft blue light from a large curved monitor, its screen filled with waveforms and sound levels. There’s a single black desk chair facing the setup, and handwritten notes scattered across the desk—some in Korean, some in English, a few in what looks like ancient runes.

He sits first, pulling you without a word into his lap. You settle there, curling comfortably against him, thighs warm over his, his hand never leaving your waist.

“This is where you work?” you murmur.

He nods against your shoulder. “Mhm.”

Your eyes roam across the workspace. “And this is where the magic happens?”

Hwimori hums again, the softest smile pulling at his lips. “Kind of. Jinu writes most of the lyrics. I handle the production, mixing, layering. Sometimes I add vocals.” He reaches to adjust a dial, the screen blinking in response. “This one’s still a work-in-progress.”

You tilt your head, reading the title scrawled in the corner of the page next to the monitor. “Your Idol.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Ominous.”

He gives a sheepish shrug. “Did you want to hear a little of it? I haven’t added in the final vocals yet.”

You grin. “Aren’t you cutting it a little close for the Idol Awards?”

His hand lifts, brushing a strand of your hair behind your ear. The gesture is tender—unconsciously so. “We’ll be singing live,” he murmurs. “This is just the backing track.”

You hum in understanding, but your eyes linger on his face. He’s usually so quiet, almost shadow-like. But in this space, surrounded by his work, his music, his presence feels different. Grounded. Whole.

He reaches behind you and gently lifts a pair of large over-ear headphones. “Here,” he says, placing them carefully over your ears. The size swallows your head a little, and you catch him smiling as he adjusts them.

“What?” you ask, your voice muffled.

He chuckles, leaning in to press a kiss to your nose. “You just look so cute.”

Your cheeks heat instantly, and you shift in his lap—just slightly. He doesn’t let you move far. His hands settle more firmly on your waist as he hits play. The first sound is a whisper.

Dies irae Illa…

A chant. Ethereal. Latin. So far removed from the sparkly, bubblegum tones of Soda Pop that it doesn’t even feel like the same group.

The low rumble of a bass begins to rise beneath the vocals. Haunting. Slow. Then the drop hits—hard, distorted, angry. Layers of eerie harmonies weave in and out, and a new pulse sets the rhythm. It's darker, heavier… yet oddly beautiful.

Your spine straightens instinctively. This doesn’t feel like an idol song. It feels like a warning.

After a minute or two, you carefully lift the headphones off, holding them in your lap as the silence returns to the studio. “It sounds… so different,” you say, your voice small.

Hwimori nods, looking straight ahead, eyes flickering with something unreadable. “Jinu wanted to try something new.”

“Are you guys rebranding?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Just hums quietly. “Something like that.”

You look at him then—really look.

Under the low studio light, his lashes cast shadows on his cheeks, and his bangs fall over his eyes in a silky curtain. You can’t help but reach up, brushing the corner of his hair. His eyes widen slightly, but he lets you. Your fingers tuck some strands behind his ears, revealing more of the amber in his gaze—molten, unblinking, completely focused on you. “You’re beautiful, Hwimori,” you whisper.

He exhales like you’ve struck something inside him.

Then—without a word—he buries his head against your chest, arms wrapping around your back as if he can’t bear a second more of not being as close as possible. You feel his breath stutter. Feel the silent emotion he doesn’t know how to say.

You stay there, letting the music fade behind you, and hold him like he’s always been yours. Neither of you speak for a long while. Just the soft whir of the monitor, the warm hush of breath between you. There’s a peace in it—a rare kind. But even in the quiet, something lingers. A hum beneath your skin. And he feels it too.

“I felt it,” Hwimori murmurs, voice muffled into the fabric of your shirt. “At dinner.”

You blink, confused.

“The way your heart pulled,” he clarifies, lifting his head slowly to look at you. His eyes are searching, soft. “You felt uneasy.”

You stiffen. There’s no use denying it—not to him. He sees right through you, like he always has. You look away, but his hand finds your cheek, thumb brushing gently over your skin, coaxing you back to him. You turn your gaze slowly, and he’s already watching you like you’re the only thing he’s ever needed to see.

“You were quiet for a little bit,” he says. “But not the kind of quiet you get when you’re sleepy or full. It was the kind that hurts.”

You flinch. Not because he’s wrong, but because he’s so, so right. You don’t answer, and you don’t need to. Hwimori’s fingers gently reach for your cheek, brushing your hair behind your ear. His touch is impossibly tender. His gaze steady and warm.

“You’ve always been like that,” he says softly. “Since before you knew my name.”

You tilt your head.

“There was one night,” he continues. “From a long time ago. You were just a girl in a little village, taking care of too many people with too little help.”

A memory stirs. Familiar but distant. “It was after a long storm,” Hwimori says, voice laced with something warm. “Your roof leaked. The firewood got soaked. You’d spent all day patching it up with your bare hands, and you still went to the river to wash your siblings’ blankets by moonlight.”

You suck in a soft breath. He hadn’t been visible then. But he’d seen.

“I followed you there, like I always did. And you were singing to yourself, – albeit, a little off-key,” he chuckles, and you huff a soft laugh. “You were humming just to stay awake. Kneeling in the freezing water, shivering, hands raw. I could tell you were exhausted. Your voice was shaking.”

He pauses, as if savoring the memory. “And then a rabbit came to you. It was limping. Barely able to move. I thought you’d ignore it—you had enough to worry about. But you just… stopped everything. You dropped the blanket, picked up the rabbit, and tucked it in your coat.”

Your throat tightens. “You stayed like that, holding it. Rocking it. Whispering, ‘You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay,’ like it was your own child.”

His voice drops to a whisper. “That’s when I knew,” he says. “That you had the gentlest heart I’d ever seen. Even after everything life had done to you, your instinct was still to love. To care. Even when you had nothing left.”

You can’t breathe for a moment. He presses his forehead against yours. “You made me want to be something more. Something that could hold you. Protect you. Stay beside you. That was the first night I had ever desired to be more. To be felt. So I could feel you.”

You don’t realize tears have welled in your eyes until he brushes them away with the soft pad of his thumb. Hwi’s words hang in the air like the final note of a love song — quiet, aching. His eyes shimmer, blinking slowly beneath your gentle touch.

You stare at him, overwhelmed. And then… The doubt creeps in again. It’s a quiet voice, but sharp. Your fingers still on his cheeks.

“What if…” your voice cracks slightly. “What if that wasn’t me?”

He blinks.

“What if the girl you saw that night—the one who rocked a dying rabbit to sleep—was someone else? Someone better? I might be her soul, but I’m not her. I don’t remember that life. I don’t sing at the river. I haven’t—haven’t done anything like that. I’m not soft like she was. What if you’re feeling all these things for someone that doesn’t exist anymore?”

Your heart aches at the words. And you hate that you mean them. You try to look away, but he catches your chin—gently, like a thread of silk. He doesn’t force you to meet his gaze. Just holds you still, holds you softly.

And he whispers: “But you are her.” His thumb brushes your cheek. “You’re the same soul who reached for a broken thing instead of turning away. You’re the same heart that gave kindness without needing a reason. You still do. Every single day.”

You tremble slightly, lips parting. But he isn’t finished. “I didn’t fall in love with a girl who sang to the river. I fell in love with the soul that chose to love, even when it hurt. Even now—when you could hate us, when you should be afraid—you still sit here with your arms around a demon and ask if your love is real.”

He leans in slowly, forehead pressed to yours, and his voice drops lower.

“That’s you. That’s always been you. No matter how many lives we live. I’ll always know you. Even if the world forgets. I’ll know your soul, and how it calls for me. And I will always answer.”

Tears blur your vision as you swallow hard. He smiles softly—barely there, but achingly real. “You could cut your hair, pick up new hobbies, forget how to sing, fall in love with different books, dress differently, dream new dreams…”

His voice lowers, “And I would still find ways to love every version of you. Every change. Every chapter. Because it’s still you. Your soul is eternal. And I was made to follow it.”

His thumb brushes away a tear that slips down your cheek. “That’s what love is, isn’t it? Not clinging to who someone was—but choosing them again and again, as they become. I’ve done it for centuries. And I’ll do it for as many more as you’ll let me.”

And then he whispers—almost breathlessly— “My name is Hwimori… because I needed a name to worship you with. It’s the name you gave me. As long as you call me, I will always answer. In every life.”

You break, tears fully running now. Your heart hurts in the most beautiful way — with the kind of love that makes your whole body ache. A sound escapes you- half sob, half chuckle in disbelief. It was almost unreal, the love they had for you. The love Hwimori had for you. The love you were starting to remember you had for him, and the love that was growing rapidly in your chest for all of them.

“You say the most beautiful things…” You say breathily, hands wiping away your tears. You reach for him again. His face. His eyes. You unclip your hairpin and clip his bangs back fully, needing to see all of him, this creature made of devotion.

His eyes are breathtaking. Violet and gold and amber, like the inside of a star. Lashes long, silver, like dust spun from moonlight. And all of it—all of him—was made for you. This soulbeast became a man just to stay by my side.

Your loyal, wild-hearted creature. The one who never asked for anything but to be near you. Your lips brush over his eyelids. He shudders. A soft, needy sound escapes him—barely a breath. 

You kiss the other. He exhales like he’s letting go of centuries of longing. Then his nose. His cheeks. His jaw. And when your lips finally meet his— He melts.

He melts into you like you’re the only thing he’s ever needed. The only warmth he’s ever known. The bond between you hums, low and deep, like a drumbeat just beneath your ribs. And in his kiss, there is nothing but truth. 

It starts slow. Hwimori kisses you like a creature in worship, his lips brushing yours in soft, fleeting touches. Then he deepens it, and it changes. Desperation curls at the edges. His tongue traces your bottom lip before claiming your mouth fully, and you feel it—his need, his hunger, his aching loyalty. 

Like a beast starved, yet patient. Like he’s memorizing the shape of you, the taste, the scent. His hands glide along your hips, pulling you tighter against him. You gasp slightly as you feel the heat of his arousal press up beneath you through his clothes. Your thighs clench instinctively.

You shift in his lap, just enough to grind against him—slowly, deliberately. His breath catches, and a low whimper escapes his throat, sharp and broken.

“Ah… d–don’t do that,” he pleads, his voice ragged. His fingers clench at your hips, claws nearly unsheathing. “You don’t know what you’re waking up in me, my love…”

Your eyes glint with a teasing defiance. So you do it again. 

And he breaks.

With a growl, Hwimori stands in one smooth motion, lifting you effortlessly. You squeal softly in surprise but he doesn’t release your lips—not for a second. He walks you across the studio and lowers onto the velvet couch with you straddling him, breath hot and wild. His hands roam beneath your shirt, sliding up your back as he kisses you harder—possessive, trembling with restraint.

“Is that what you want?” he growls softly. “To see what I become when I stop pretending to be tame?” 

───────── SMUT ─────────

He lifts your shirt in one motion, leaving you bare save for the thin fabric of your panties. His breath hitches as he looks at you—chest rising, flushed, vulnerable. Worshipful silence falls over him for just a second. His gaze travels up—devouring you slowly—and when your eyes meet, it nearly steals the air from your lungs.

There’s nothing human in his expression. Just awe. Hunger. Adoration so intense it borders on unhinged. His hands grip your thighs, fingers trailing up, rough and hot all at once. “You’re mine,” he breathes—low, almost like a growl against your skin. “You’re my soul. My everything. The reason I even have this form.”

You lean forward to kiss his neck, pressing soft kisses against his pulse. You couldn’t help yourself. Not when his face looked like that. Flushed, needy, and oh so beautiful you could combust. He shudders beneath you.

Your hands slide beneath his shirt, fingertips brushing his skin. He moans—a raw, choked sound—and you feel the muscles of his torso tense beneath your touch. You peel the fabric off him slowly, revealing the sculpted lines of his chest and arms, and your breath catches at how perfectly carved he is. Like a statue built to guard you.

You kiss down his chest, lips leaving warm trails as his hands grip yours tightly, long fingers intertwined with your own. He trembles beneath your mouth.

“I love it when you touch me like that,” he murmurs, breath shaky. “It makes my skin sing. Makes my heart believe I’m not dreaming you.”

You feel him twitch beneath you as your hips move again, wetness pooling between your legs. Your mouth curls into a sly smirk. “Lucky for you, I can make those dreams into a reality.”

He groans at your teasing, eyes alight with fire. His mouth finds your neck, biting softly—claiming. You gasp as you feel his fingers trace the line of your damp panties. He groans, “You’re soaking. Just from my voice? My fingers?” His voice dips into a snarl, “This little body is desperate for me, huh? You were made to take me.”

The sound of his voice, so heavy and laced with desire almost makes you cream. You nod obediently, bottom lip captured beneath your teeth. “Uh huh,” you mutter faintly. 

He slides your panties to the side and growls low in his throat as he feels how wet you are for him. His fingers glide through your folds before slowly sinking one inside you. You cry out softly at the sudden stretch, clutching onto his shoulders. 

“So tight,” he pants, pressing his forehead to yours. “Always so tight for me. You let me in so easily… like your body already knows me.”

A second finger joins the first, and he begins a slow, precise rhythm, watching your every expression like he’s memorizing your ruin. His thumb brushes your clit, and your body jolts in response.

“Hwi,” you moan, kissing his temple as your eyebrows furrow in pleasure. “It feels so good. You feel so good-”

He growls in satisfaction, your name leaves his lips like a prayer—hoarse, wild. “I can feel you through the bond,” he gasps. “Every pulse, every squeeze—fuck, it echoes in me—I’m going insane with it—”

Your walls tighten around his fingers, your breath stuttering. You grip his hair and moan into his mouth as he kisses you through it, slow and deep and so loving it aches. And when you come undone, trembling, pulsing around his fingers—he kisses you like he needs it to survive. Like your pleasure is oxygen. Like he feels the intensity of your undoing.

He pulls back only when your body softens against him, watching you pant and tremble in his lap. Then, without a word and without tearing his eyes off yours, you watch as he raises his hand to his mouth and licks his fingers clean—moaning low, possessive heat flashing in his eyes.

“Every drop of you is mine,” he growls, licking the corner of his lips. “You taste like spiritfire. Like everything I’ve ever wanted and could never reach—until you let me.”

His words send a jolt of arousal through you. Endless heat pooling at your core. For him. A sudden idea pops into your head. You barely recover before you lean forward, lips brushing his neck, your hand drifting low with intent. He freezes as your fingers brush his waistband.

“What are you doing?” he asks, voice husky, breathless.

You smile softly, gaze heated. “You’ve tasted me,” you whisper. “Isn’t it only fair I get to taste you?”

His eyes go wide. “My love… you don’t have to—”

You kiss his neck, then down his torso, across his abdomen until you plant a kiss on his hipbone and feel him twitch. “I want to,” you say. “Let me give you a preview of your birthday gift…”

He groans, head falling back as your fingers slide beneath his waistband, breath shuddering with anticipation. Your fingers wrap around him—thick, flushed, twitching with need—and stroke him once, slow. 

Hwimori’s head snaps back. A breathless moan rips from his throat, desperate and shaking.

“Gods—your hands,” he pants. “Soft… warm… like they were made just to touch me…”

You pull the waistband of his shorts and his cock springs free. Hot and huge against your face. Hwi looks down at the sight of you kneeling before him in awe. Watching how you look so pretty next to his aching shaft. He brushes a lock of  hair behind your ear lovingly. 

You stare at his member before you, albeit a little bit intimidated as there’s no way that’s all going to fit in your mouth. As if he could read your mind he says gently, “You don’t have to baby. You can just take what you can, or even-”

His sentence it cut short as you lean in, tongue trailing up his length in one long, slow stroke—and he chokes on a groan so wrecked it echoes in your chest. “F-fuck—” His thighs jerk beneath you. His claws tear faintly into the couch cushions, muscles trembling. “Baby, don’t—don’t tease me like that—”

But you do. Again.

Your tongue trails ever so slowly from the thick base all the way to the tip, swirling around the head of his shaft. Hwi’s head tilts back in pleasure, a helpless groan escapes him as he clutches his hands tight against the couch. 

You look up at him through your lashes prettily, “But it’s so fun seeing you like this, Hwi…” 

Your fingers flutter against the base and corners of him and it has him bucking his hips in desperation. Now you understood why they liked seeing you beg so much… this kind of power was something you could get drunk with. And seeing Hwi’s desperate reactions, how crazy you’re making him right now, was one of the hottest things you’ve ever seen. 

"Fuck baby you're driving me crazy," he groans, “My love, please—”

You take him into your mouth—his tip brushing the back of your tongue—and he gasps. His whole body tenses under your touch. Then he breaks.

A cry, ragged and raw. His hands fly to your hair, trembling fingers carding through the strands, gently cradling the back of your head like you’re something sacred. “Fuck,” he groans at the feel of your hot mouth wrapped around him. He’s never felt this kind of pleasure before in his life, and it was driving him absolutely mad. 

His hips buck just slightly—restrained. Worshipful. Still trying to hold himself back for you. He was quite girthy, so you took what you could in your mouth and used your hands to cover the rest. Your fingers wrapped around him, twisting in opposite directions. 

“You don’t know what you’re doing to me,” he breathes, voice barely coherent. “You’re too much—I can feel everything—every flick of your tongue, every sound you make—gods, your mouth is heaven—”

You suck gently, cheeks hollowed, lips slick around him—and he keens, hands trembling. His body begins to shimmer. Veins glowing faintly beneath his skin. Ethereal demon markings pulse along his torso, crawling upward like wildfire. His beast is showing. His restraint, unraveling.

“You’re not just touching my body,” he gasps. “You’re inside my soul. I can feel it—every moan you make, I feel it in me, like I’m the one falling apart—fuck, baby—please—”

He thrusts gently into your mouth, hips rocking upward with a soft growl. The sounds he makes—raw, primal, completely lost in you—only make you want to worship him more. His hands are tangled in your hair, pushing you down gently to take more of him. You loved the sounds he was making. You loved how good you were making him feel. You look up at him from under your lashes and moan at the sight. 

His face, flushed with heat and eyes hot with desire, looking at you like you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Like he’s careful not to break you but also holding himself back from thrusting in too deep into your mouth. He looked like you were undoing him from the inside out. You moan at the beautiful sight of him and he tips his head back hotly at the vibrations wrapped around him.  

But then—his grip suddenly tightens, trembling.

“Stop—baby, stop—” he whimpers. “I’m gonna cum—gods—I can’t—”

He pulls you off with a wet gasp, eyes wide, chest heaving, cock glistening in the low light. He’s panting. Shaking. Eyes blown wide with lust and love and awe. You’re confused for a moment, a quick flash of insecurity rushes through you. Did he not like it—

“I need to be inside you,” he says, voice hoarse. “Now. I need it—I need you. Please—please—”

Oh.

He pulls you into his lap again, cradling you like you’re fragile. His face was filled with need and so much yearning. He wanted– no, needed you wrapped around him. Badly. 

You smile slightly. He was so cute like this, and so hot. You shift on top of him. His hands fly to your ass, desperate and needy. You tilt his head up. Eyes molten pools of gold and violet. And without breaking eye contact, you line him up beneath you, and slowly, slowly, you sink down onto him.

And it shatters him.

Hwimori moans—loud and aching—head falling back, mouth open in a soundless cry. His claws dig into your hips like anchors, and his whole body trembles. You look at him, mouth parted slightly at the huge stretch of him sinking deeper into you. You moan and whimper at the feeling.

“You’re so warm—tight—fuck, I can feel your soul—” he gasps, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. His hands guide your hips lower, sinking himself deeper inside you. You feel as if there was no end. Every inch sinks in deliciously with a stretch, reaching places within you so deep it almost has you seeing stars. 

You both grunt as he bottoms out, your head sinking into his shoulder as he stills inside you, allowing you to accommodate the sheer size of him. 

“You feel incredible – fuck.” The last word is broken, shattered. 

You start to move—slow, deliberate—rocking your hips against him with sensual grace. He gasps softly at the friction, hands tightening on your waist like you’re the only thing anchoring him to this world.

Then his eyes meet yours. Wide. Wild. Awestruck. Shining like he’s beholding something holy. “You’re inside me too,” he whispers, voice trembling. “Every part of you… your heart, your voice… it’s echoing in my chest—I can feel you in my soul…”

“Really?” you breathe, stunned by the depth of it and his connection with you. Your body trembles. He nods, mouth parted, lips pink and kiss-swollen. “It’s like the bond has no beginning or end. Just you… burning in me.”

You lift your hips—slow, torturous. His cock drags along your walls and you feel him twitch inside you, thick and hot and pulsing. Then you drop your hips again, taking him deep—and he moans. It vibrates through both your chests, your moan echoing right after, the soulbond creating a perfect feedback loop of heat and pleasure.

You start to ride him—slow at first, letting him feel every wet drag of your walls. His hands explore you like he’s mapping the surface of a dream. They roam up your thighs, over your hips, along the delicate curve of your spine. He cups the back of your head with one palm, the other pressing into the small of your back as if he could hold your soul there forever.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” he murmurs through gasps. “So powerful. So fucking mine.”

You roll your hips harder, drawing circles with your pelvis—and his eyes flutter, his body arching up into yours. Then you lean close, kiss his throat, and moan his name softly into his skin.

And it breaks him.

With a snarl, his hands shoot to your waist. He growls—a deep, primal sound—and in one quick, fluid movement, he flips you.

You barely register the shift before you’re on your hands and knees, breath caught in your throat, his chest behind you, his cock pressed at your entrance from behind—hard, throbbing, wild with need. And then he drives into you.

Hard.

You cry out, hands fisting in the cushions for support as his cock spears deep, reaching places unknown in this new position. The sheer force of his thrust makes you jolt forward—only for his arms to pull you back again, anchoring you against him.

He finds his rhythm. Deep. Powerful. Devastating. Like an beast on a mission to claim.

“Your scent,” he pants, voice guttural, animal. “Your voice—your fucking moans— they make me crazy. I want you messy. I want you needy. I want you like this every day.”

He’s slamming into you now, sweat-slick and burning hot. You cry out as his hips meet yours with obscene sounds, your skin echoing against his like drums to some ancient mating rhythm. His demon patterns were on full display now, no longer able to hold back any longer his primal urge to mark you, to claim you. 

You arch back into him, sobbing out his name again and again—and it shreds what little restraint he had left.

He growls, fangs bared, and pushes your chest down flat into the velvet. Your cheek rests against the cushion, stomach flat against the couch, hips raised high as he looms over you, his weight pressing your back flat with his own.

Now he’s fucking you in earnest. Hard. Fast. Possessed. His lips drag across your spine, fangs grazing the curve of your shoulder. Your cries are muffled against the cushions. His nose presses into the crook of your neck, inhaling you like it’s all he needs to live.

“You were made for this,” he snarls, breath shaking. “To be mine. To take me—all of me. Gods, you fit me so perfectly. So fucking perfectly—”

Your moans crack into gasps, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes from the sheer intensity. “Yours,” you mumble, almost deleriously against the velvet. “I’m yours, Hwi-”

Every thrust punches a cry from your lungs. Every kiss down your spine lights up your nerves like lightning. Your walls clench tighter and tighter—every stroke inside you driving you closer to a cliff you can’t see the bottom of.

“Let me mark you,” he begs. “Please. Let me leave something of me on you.”

You nod, helplessly. And he bites down on the side of your neck—not enough to break skin, just enough to claim. Your back arches under him, body trembling as he groans against your skin.

“I want you warm and full and mine,” he growls. “Let me fill you. Let me stay inside you.”

You scream his name as your orgasm crashes over you—twitching around him, sobbing, shattering. White hot pleasure sizzles down your spine and in your core as you close your eyes at the sheer intensity of it. The bond explodes in your chest. Your pleasure echoes into his—his hips falter, then slam one final time—

He moans your name as he cums. Buried deep. Hot, thick, endless.

He jerks as he empties himself into you, cock twitching inside your still-clenching walls, his breath catching as his entire body locks above yours. You feel every spurt of him flood you—so full you feel it dripping down your thighs. 

His hands have yours pinned by your head, fingers intertwined and tight against yours as he crashes through his release. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t pull out. He just collapses over you. Breathing ragged. Arms caging you beneath him possessively.  Nose in your neck.

And you—soaked, trembling, filled and full of him—let yourself melt beneath his weight. Safe. Claimed. His.

──────── SMUT ENDS ────────

“I’ll never let you go,” he breathes against your skin. “Even if all that’s left is instinct… I’ll love you in every form. Every time you’re born, I’ll find you. And I’ll love you again.”

You turn your head to meet his eyes, breath still shaking. “Yours, Hwi. You have me.”

His kiss is searing as he presses it to your cheek, your ear, your temple. And he whispers, broken and beautiful: “Mine.”

The bond pulses one last time. Then it quiets. Wrapped around each other. Hearts tangled. Souls glowing. 

Beast and tether.

His weight is still pressed against your back—hot, heavy, anchoring. But his thrusts are gone now, replaced by slow, trembling breaths against the shell of your ear. The room is quiet, save for the soft hum of the bond and the thunder of two hearts tangled together.

You feel his arms tighten around your waist like he’s scared you might slip through them. “Hwi,” you whisper.

He doesn’t speak at first—just buries his nose into your hair and breathes you in like a prayer. Then, softly, brokenly: “Thank you.”

You blink. “For what?”

“For… this. For you. For letting me—” His voice cracks. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to feel you like this. Not with skin. Not with hands. Not like this…”

You turn in his embrace, and he lets you, gently helping you onto your back. He hovers above you, eyes shining with something too big to hold. “I was never supposed to be this,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “I was a spirit. A guardian. A thing without touch, without form. But I would've given it up a thousand times over. I did—for you.”

He lowers his forehead to yours, his silver lashes brushing your skin. “If falling from grace means I get to hold you like this—love you like this—I’d fall every time.”

Your throat tightens, your heart breaking and healing in the same breath. “You’re not fallen,” you say, gently brushing his cheek. “You just… came home.”

He swallows hard, eyes closing at your touch. He kisses your palm, your wrist, then your chest—over your heart. And stays there, listening. “I’ll love every version of you,” he murmurs against your skin. “Even the pieces you haven’t met yet. Even the parts that change.”

You take his face in your hands, and he melts into them, leaning into your touch like it’s the only thing keeping him alive. “Thank you.” You say, “For always reassuring me. For loving me like this. Hearing you say things like that, makes it sound too good to be true.” You sigh, “I can’t believe you want to be mine-”

“I only ever knew how to be yours,” he says, voice trembling. “I don’t know how to be anything else. And now that I’ve had you like this… I can’t go back.”

Your breath hitches.

“I live to worship you,” he whispers. “To care for you. Provide for you. Cherish you. Love you. Every version. Every life. Every shape you take.”

Something in you shatters. You let out a soft sound—half sob, half laugh—and press a thousand kisses to his shoulder, his collarbone, his cheeks, his hands. 

“You don’t know what that does to me,” you whisper. “To be loved like this. After years of solitude. Loneliness…”

He hushes you gently, laying his head against your chest as you softly play with his hair. “I’m here now,” he says. “You won’t ever be without me. Without us.” 

His arms tighten again around your middle. His voice is quieter now, small and honest. “I won’t just stand by this time,” he promises. “I won’t let the world take you from me again. I don’t care what I become. I’ll fight fate, gods, time—everything. I’ll bare my teeth and rip the stars down if they try to take you.”

You smile faintly through the warmth in your chest. “Sounds like my beast.”

He grins, eyes glassy with emotion. “I’d burn the sky just to keep you in my arms.”

Then he shifts, wrapping you in his shirt and lifting you in his arms. Your head rests tiredly on his shoulder as he walks and carries you to your room. 

Opening the door, he walks over to the bed and places you on it gently. He gets in right next to you—pulling the blanket over both of you, wrapping his arms around your waist and tucking you close until your legs tangle and your bodies settle in perfect symmetry.

He presses one last kiss to your forehead and whispers, “Sleep now, my love. I’ll guard your dreams.”

And you do. Wrapped in his warmth. His scent. His soul.

Belonging. At last.

TO BE CONTINUED

───────── ༺🜃༻ ─────────

A/N: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Mystery/ Hwimori gets his turn on this one. Wrote this with all my Hwimori girls in mind. I figured his go would be a bit different as he's a soulbeast and always had this type of spiritual connection to the reader. Seeds of doubt slowly creep into her mind in this one as well. Hwi silences them for now, but who knows where they'll go in the next chapters. I think you all know who comes next ;) Let me know what you guys think, and as always, thank you for reading! Much Love, Willa x

───────── ⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆ ─────────

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[akajustmerry]

the most significant source of antisemitism on earth right now is zionist ideology, point blank. Zionist ideology is not and never has been mutually exclusive with Jewish people. Zionism, however, is an ideology that Zionists go to great efforts to make synonymous with Jewish people. Not all Jewish people are Zionists, and not all Zionists are Jewish (see: every US president). But Zionists want nothing more than for people to believe that a Zionist state must exist because of negativity toward Jewish people. And do you know what is making the world view Jewish people negatively right now in this very moment? look no further than the IOF soldiers burning the star of David into the heads of Palestinian hostages, look no further than the self-proclaimed Jewish ethnostate where people protest in the streets for their army's "right to rape" Palestinians, look no further than the spineless world leaders co-opting the definition of antisemitism as a means to squash freedom of press and speech in the name of "Jewish safety", look no further than a rogue Jewish nation of violent settlers who call Palestinian babies terrorists, look no further than the Israeli WhatsApp group chats with 10s of 1000s of members mocking the mutilated bodies of Palestinians, look no further than the IOF soldiers proudly displaying their menorahs in the rubble of Palestinian homes and lives they've destroyed, look no further than the Israeli lobbyists throwing money at foreign governments so their policies are sympathetic to an ethnostate committing genocide - I could go on but I'm so tired. I'm exhausted. I'm sorry, but antisemitism is not a unique form of oppression that deserves priority over any other. yes, antisemitism is a very real and harmful form of systematic prejudice, but it is not more important than anything else. zionists' effort to elevate antisemitism above all other forms of bigotry, and most grousomely and unforgiveably, elevating antisemitism to take precedent over the lives of millions of Palestinians and Arabs in the form of genocide by Israel is the biggest source of antisemitism on Earth. i don't really care who I piss off by saying that anymore. I just watched a video of a Palestinian man weeping over the limp body of his wife, and her brain matter was all down his shirt, and it's not even close to the first or last video like that I've seen today. But what are the majority of world leaders who could make a difference to this doing?? cracking down on "antisemitism" by equating it with anti-zionism so they can gut what little free communication rights we have for the purpose of protecting a Jewish ethnostate as it murders Palestinians and Arabs en masse!!! if, after almost 2 years of watching video after video of soldiers proudly wearing Jewish iconography as they torture, rape, and murder Palestinians at large, your main concern is STILL negativity toward Jewish people, there's something really fucking wrong with your priorities. you've fallen for the propaganda. you're racist. the defeat of zionist ideology, ending the existence of a terrorist Jewish ethnostate, and freeing Palestine from Israeli-zionist tyranny will also kill one of the most significant sources of antisemitism in the world. Recognise that, and prioritise liberation for Palestine from genocidal zionist colonialism. Or don't, and hope the shame doesn't brittle your bones. if you hate Zionists, zionism and Israel giving Judaism and Jewish people a bad rep, consider putting an end to the state of Israel and the ideology it represents, instead of blaming and punishing the ideology's victims.

[mickyschumacher]

more sub Oscar pleaseeeeeee

[DEAR GOD!]

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: silverstone has left a sour taste in oscar's mouth and he wants you to get it out. or in which oscar decides to call in a favour.

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: 18+ (minors dni), some fluff, sub!oscar, mentions of alcohol, oscar worshipping you, younger reader, praise kink (m/f receiving and giving), oral sex, eating out, fingering, squ*rting, p in v, unprotected sex (use protection plsssss), breeding kink, mutual and multiple orgasms, overstimulation, slight breastplay // poorly proof-read

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: oscar piastri x driver!fem!reader

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 3.4k+

𝐀/𝐍: just had to post this bc i've been salivating over this so here you go! sorry for the wait honey! hope you like it as much as i liked it! also notice how i've done two silverstone pieces and they're both about oscar... am i jinxing him?

🏎️ 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 | ⚽️ 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

Oscar stood outside your hotel door in Monaco, swallowing the nerves he had built up. It had been two days after whatever had happened in Silverstone.

God, he didn't know what to do.

The emotions he had experienced in the past forty eight hours alone had him melting down. 'Iceman' they called him. Emotionless. Cold. He felt sorry for those who couldn't differentiate the trait of a sociopath and he who could regulate his emotions.

Oscar was angry initially. Fuming. He couldn't understand why he had even received the penalty. It was the only reason he had so desperately asked to switch on the radio. He was never desperate.

But after looking at the footage from various angles and drivers, he was inclined to agree. And although he might've argued ten seconds was still a little too harsh, it was over. What's done was done.

Yet... he couldn't get it out of his mind. No amount of exercise or mediation (as his mother so kindly provided) was helping. So he was calling in a favour.

Oscar sucked in a sharp breath, taking a step forward to knock on your door before stepping back. While he waited for you to answer, the dread immediately began filling him. Was this wrong? Would you even say yes?

This favour... he had incurred it after you had gotten a bit too carried away with the drinking when you had won your first race this year. To be honest, you still barely remembered the night. You drank, you danced, you cheered... and the next moment, you were waking up with Oscar dealing with your hungover-self in your apartment.

Embarrassed as hell, you had tried to get him out of your apartment as quick as you could, pushing him out, saying something along the lines of "I owe you."

Before Oscar could overthink any further, you opened your door, brows raised and lips parted. You definitely weren't expecting him.

"Morning," Oscar greeted, shifting on his feet awkwardly while he took in the little black sundress wrapped around your body. Not even wrapped, it clung to your body oh so nicely. Oh Christ.

You smiled softly. "Morning," you responded. "What's up?" You queried, leaning on the frame of your door.

Oscar pursed his lips. "Um, well, you know how you got shitfaced in Monaco a few weeks ago? Well–"

You sighed, leaving the door open as you retreated back into your home. "Thin ice, Oscar. Thin ice," you mumbled loudly, cheeks already burning at the memory. You didn't want to try and remember any of it.

Being hungover was hell enough. But after winning in Monaco and having the Oscar Piastri help you home... it was a new sort of purgatory. One you weren't willing to tread.

Being hungover wasn't even the problem.

The problem was Oscar and the way he looked at you.

You were a rookie driver. Three years younger than him. You had raced each other at different times before. You knew his sister well too. You had never even considered him as something more than a friend or co-worker until this year.

Being on the same grid meant seeing him everywhere. You had lost count of how many times the McLaren team had dragged you to help the boys with their social media. More times than that, you had caught him staring at you. Eyes soft yet dark, full of want. At first you thought you were imagining things. But when your publicist pulled you aside and asked why Oscar staring at you like he wanted to consume your very being, your beliefs had been confirmed.

Even worse, Oscar had gotten out of a long term relationship months ago. So with the way he looked at you, the last thing you wanted to be was a rebound. That's exactly what you needed. Be a young rebound co-worker for a leading potential World Champion. Not.

"Right, well," Oscar walked after you, closing the door behind him while he removed his shoes. "I... you said you owed me."

You looked at Oscar through your eyelashes, taking a seat next to your kitchen counter. You chewed on your lip, raising a brow. "You mean like a favour?"

Oscar nodded quietly, memorising the way you crossed your legs and looked at him, teeth grazing your plump lips. He blinked, shaking his head lightly. "Silverstone's killing me. I can't get my mind off it."

You tilted your head, leaning on the counter. "How am I supposed to fix it?"

Oscar's mouth opened but nothing came out. Fuck... he didn't know if he could actually do this. Not when you sat in front of him like this. Ready to devour him.

"I know you don't what to hear it but when you were drunk," he sighed at your groan. He stepped closer to you, invading your space. "When you were drunk," he repeated, "you said something and I think I need it." Right now. Tomorrow. Next week. He didn't want to put a time limit on it.

"Oscar, please," you closed your eyes, trying block out all the memories.

"You have to remember it if you keep stalling, ___," Oscar mumbled, brown eyes staring hard at you.

You swallowed thickly. It was the only part of Oscar bringing you home that you remembered. The reason you had been avoiding him in the paddock for weeks now.

Oscar breathed, inching closer to you. "You said you wanted to fuck me. Have me on my knees. Eat you out till you couldn't remember your name. Ride me until I begged you to stop. I need that."

You sucked in a sharp breath, visibly clenching your thighs together. Fuck. His voice was shaking. You did say that. You had said it because Oscar looked so beautiful in the moonlight. You had said it because...

"I was drunk–"

"Drunk words, sober thoughts," Oscar retorted simply.

You wordlessly watched Oscar sink down to his knees, his hands skimming the fabric of your dress and your exposed thighs. You could feel your heart thud in your ears, whirring loudly while you spotted the semi-bulge in his pants.

"Please," Oscar murmured, pressing a kiss to the inside of your calf. "I want to taste you so bad," he breathed out, fingers drawing idle circles on your skin. "I want you to feel good, princess."

You involuntarily shuddered at the nickname. He threw it around the paddock all the time. Teasing you. But today, he was on his knees, pleading you.

"Oscar..." you whispered, swallowing the saliva built up in your mouth. He was making the mess between your legs even worse. "We can't. We work together. Our contracts–"

You could feel him huff with amusement against your legs. "Fuck the contracts. Everyone knows within a five hundred metre radius knows."

"Knows what?" You whispered.

That same boyish smile you saw that night sprawled onto his face. The sheer seriousness swarming his eyes as he looked up at you. "That I worship the floor you walk on."

Oscar watched you blink, silent for a moment. Quietly, you opened your legs, revealing a peak of your matching black panties. His mouth fell open as you spoke with a small smile, "I hope you don't make promises you can't keep."

"Christ," Oscar rasped, leaning in, hands grasping your thighs, your skin spilling between his fingers driving him crazy. He pushed your legs further apart, black dress riding higher, teeth sinking into his bottom lip when he spotted the damp spot of black on your panties. "Look at you," he croaked, hot breath skimming past your core.

He breathed in the smell of your arousal and God, he could've sworn his cock twitched. So intoxicating.

Your body lurched as he pressed his thumb on your clothed pussy, rubbing you gently. Oscar couldn't take his eyes off it. "So wet... does my devotion turn you on, princess?" He queried not in jest but pure intrigue.

"Shit," you mewled, hands clenching the edge of the kitchen counter tightly as Oscar pushed aside the drenched fabric and was immediately greeted by the warmth of your folds. He smiled, gathering all your slick with this thumb, grazing past your clit to capture the look of your hazed eyes.

Oscar said nothing, hooking a finger on your waistband before pulling down your panties, leaving it on the countertop before spreading you once again. His head dipped between your thighs, tongue taking a long stripe. You whimpered at the hum vibrating through your body.

"Taste like heaven," he gasped before plunging his tongue back into your pussy, nose nudging your clit as he lapped at you.

Your head fell back, pleasure swirling around you while your thighs clenched around his face. He was drinking you, taking all he could while he explored every single crevice he had been jerking off to for months now. How many times had he come in his driver's room under the guise of Lando's loud music, imagine your pussy on his tongue? Too many perhaps.

Your hands flew to his brown locks, trying to grasp the sheer pleasure running through your body as if it was tangible. Your eyes fell to his, tongue dragging up your folds before circling your clit while you instantly spotted his blown pupils.

You think he was humping the air, that's how turned on he was. But you couldn't tell. Not when he sucked your clit to gently yet firmly, a precision you had never even been to get on your vibrator. "Feels so good, pretty boy."

Oscar moaned against your pussy, cock straining in his pants at the name you had given him. He adored the thin sheet of sweat on your skin. You glowed above him, lips red from the way you bit them, nipples hard through your dress. Fuck, you were killing him.

He could only tighten his grip around your thighs, bringing you closer if possible, eating you like he was a starving man. The edges of his mouth drooling for you. He could feel your hips jerk and grind against his lips, your moans turning into incoherent gasps. White stars were clouding your vision while the sounds of Oscar slurping your pussy filled your apartment.

"Oscar," you breathed, lower stomach tightening, "I... fuck!"

Your legs trembled around his face, air evaporating from your lungs as you continuously ground your hips, taking every wave of pleasure rolling over you while his groans reverberated within your core.

While Oscar wasn't done, still lapping at your sensitive pussy, you grabbed those brown locks, forcing him to stop and look at you. Your core throbbed at sight of his face, shining with your arousal, chest heaving like he was finally breathing.

"Let me ride you, pretty boy," you breathed, pushing yourself off the chair, not forgetting to grab your panties. You watched him slowly stand back up, your index finger under his chin, his brown eyes solely focused on you.

"Yes, please, please," Oscar rasped, moaning when you grabbed his collar and pulled him towards your bedroom. The small trip had you press your lips to his, his hands immediately resting on your waist, bringing you closer while his tongue explored your mouth. The flavour of you fell all over your tastebuds.

Dear God... you weren't ever going to forget these lips.

Oscar whimpered at the rub of your hands on his ears, fingernails moving down his neck teasingly. You walked through your bedroom door, hands moving to push him onto your bed. "Take it off," you breathed. "Take all of it off."

Oscar scrambled at your orders, removing his shirt off with one hand – the other undoing his belt. He only sped up as you removed your pretty sundress, revealing your bare body to him.

"Oh fuck," he whined, eyeing you in awe while he finally removed his boxers. Goosebumps littered his skin. He was awfully aware of the way you were looking at him as he laid on your bed. Memorising him.

Your eyes fell to his cock. The pretty thing standing straight, slapping his stomach, red and sore – dribbling pre-cum like there was no tomorrow.

You grinned to yourself. You crawled onto the bed, Oscar watching your every move. Your hands trailed over his legs, moving up and up, grasping his thighs while your hot breath grazed over his cock, leaving him squirming.

You looked at Oscar, tilting your head, eyes wide like a doe, innocent thought you were anything but. "I'll let you choose, pretty boy," you murmured, hands roaming his chest, leaving him breathing unevenly. "There's a condom in my purse. Or... you can have me raw."

"Raw," Oscar said almost immediately. His voice torn. His chest heaved. He leaned up, kissing the column of your neck. "Please, please, please... raw. Fuck, I wanna feel you so bad, princess.'

You smiled, pleased. You pushed his back onto the bed, thumb trailing his swollen lips. "Such a well mannered boy. You deserve a reward."

You didn't give yourselves any time to adjust. No more teasing. You couldn't. You needed to feel him too. You hovered over him, legs on either side of him while you grabbed his cock, aligning it with you.

Oscar had to remind himself to breathe at your touch and not just cum already. He swallowed thickly, eyes glued to the space between your drenched pussy and his hard cock. You slowly sunk down on his cock, walls stretching to adjust to his thickness.

"Fuck," he cried out, hands flying to your hips like he needed to steady himself. Shit... you felt too good. He wouldn't last long.

"So big, pretty boy," you praised, moaning quietly at the way he filled you. You could feel him everywhere. So deep.

"Feel so good," he grunted out, trying to prevent himself from moving already.

You chuckled lightly. "It's okay, Osc," you cooed, patting his cheek softly. "You can come if you want. I'll just make you come again and again and again..."

Oscar's cheeks and ears flamed at your words. His stomach churned as you lifted your hips, coming off his cock before slamming down. "Shit," he mewled, head lurching forward into your breasts. The feel of your pussy clenched around him like a vice and it was driving him crazy. He could feel every part of you pussy, hips flushed with yours while the tip of his cock nudged your cervix.

Oscar watched you ride him, your body moving up and down like you were imprinting your name on his cock. Your breasts bounce against your chest, enticing him to suck them, praying it would silence his moans.

Your hand travelled to his locks, grasping his hair while the moans tumbled out of your lips.

"Tell me," he breathed against your breasts, cock pulsing in your pussy. "How do I feel? Tell me I feel good."

"So good," you groaned, eyes clenched, grinding your hips against his cock. "So deep, I could let you breed me."

Oscar's hips began fucking up into you, whimpers escaping his throat. "Yeah, you like that? Wanna come in me, pretty boy? Coat me from the inside? Let me know what's mine?"

"Yes," he whined, stomach clenching at the sight of the cream ring around his cock. The weight of you was fully resting on his cock, taking in every inch of him. The sounds of your skin slapping against one another filled the air.

Oscar swallowed, bringing his thumb to your clit, cursing at the way your pussy tightened around him even more. "Come for me, princess. Show me how good I make you feel."

Your jaw went slack, moans turning silent, vision blurring as your body trembled and convulsed around his cock, hips bucking to ride out the high. "F-Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

Oscar moaned, his own hips increasing the pace. His hands gripped your waist tightly, your folds clenching over him still. "Shit, I'm going to come!"

He tried to hold off, thumb rubbing your sensitive clit in quick circle, rubbing your arousal all over you. "Come with me, please, princess," he panted, cock filling you in all the right places.

Your eyes rolled back, body shuddering once again while you felt his hot cum spill into your walls, his hips stuttering up into you. You fell against his chest, your own heaving.

Oscar pulled out of you gently, watching his seed drip out of you. He moaned, lifting you so you sat on the bed. He spread your legs, fingers collecting his cum before spreading it around your puffy pussy.

Your body shivered, overstimulated. You sunk your teeth into your lips when you felt Oscar push his cum into your pussy, three fingers pushing right into that spot.

"O-Oscar," you stuttered, walls clenching around his fingers while your hand reached out to grip his arm.

"One more, please," Oscar begged, fingers thrusting in and out of you. Curling and rubbing your insides. "I can make you feel so good. Look how you take my fingers. Just like my cock. Like I was made for you."

"Oh fuck," you moaned, hand tightening around his arm. The obscene squelches of your pussy told you both what you knew: you were so fucking wet.

His fingers plunged into you, thumb circling your clit. His speed increased, digits curling into your g-spot. Oscar groaned. He could feel your pussy pulsing around his fingers.

"Oscar," you panted, almost drawing blood from your lips, feeling him coax the liquid from you.

A cry fell from your lips, thighs shooting to clench around his hand while your legs trembled. Your vision was entirely white. Mouth open, pants eerily silent as heat flooded from your pussy, hot liquid coming out in spurts from your folds, onto his hands, and the mattress.

Oscar, who had been rutting his hips against the bed quietly, felt his cock twitch, his cum spilling again at the sight of your juices drenching him. "Oh my God," he whined, eyes shut, riding out his orgasm.

"Christ," you swore, head falling back to your pillows while you tried to catch your breath, legs collapsing while Oscar fell next to you.

You turned to him, sucking in a sharp. "You made me squirt," you breathed out in disbelief. "I came four times," you sighed, shuffling closer to him.

Oscar smiled gently, tucking your hair behind your ears. Both of your bodies stuck to the blanket, sweat, his cum, and your juices covering the both of you. "That was just four. I can give you eighty one."

You rolled your eyes, smacking him lightly. "Piss off," you chuckled, feeling his body shake with amusement as well. You pursed your lips, caressing his cheek. "Still feeling shit about Silverstone?"

"What's Silverstone?" He queried, a dry smile on his face as he pulled you closer to him.

You grinned. "That's what I like to hear."

"You wanna hear about Monaco?" Oscar teased, pressing his lips to your shoulder.

You groaned, cheeks burning as you tried to get out of his arms. Oscar laughed softly, keeping you close to him. "Okay, okay," he murmured. "Now let me at least take you out on a date. I'm not usually a sex first guy."

"What can I say? I bring the worst out of people," you quipped with a cheeky grin, tapping his nose lightly.

Oscar smiled while you sighed loudly, hand idly rubbing down your body. "Our publicists are going to kill us," you mumbled, already fearing the wrath of your own.

"It'll be fine. Everyone already knows how much of a loser I am for you. They'll probably be relieved, if anything," he snorted. "Have I mentioned that I really like you yet or..."

"Not really," you commented, warmth spreading over your body at his words.

Oscar grinned, clearing your face of any loose strands to he could see you clearly. "Well then," he whispered, thumb trailing over your lips. "I really really really like you."

You smiled. "I like you too... even if you're an absolute idiot."

"Okay... rude," Oscar nudged you, still grinning.

© 𝐌𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐘𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐔𝐌𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

I’m curious—is there an in-universe reason why Bismuth’s gem is at the leg ship instead of Lion’s mane? Or is it a meta decision made so Bismuth can play a role in the story without Rose bringing her out herself?

Great question!

I was hoping someone would ask this, because I set it up this way SPECIFICALLY. And also because all I've seen for the past 6 years is assumptions that Bismuth will be where she was in the show - in Lion's mane.

But here's my question to you all:

Why would Bismuth be in Lion's mane if Canon!Steven doesn't exist?

Let's rewind the clock and go back into the universe where this all started -

In the episode Lion 3 - Straight to Video, Steven enters Lion's mane for the first time. There, he finds a mysterious pocket dimension filled with what appears to be Rose's stuff. The flag, the sword, a t-shirt, Bismuth, yes........ but what ELSE?

The tape.

The tape specifically labeled to and made FOR Steven. Steven's tape. Yes, that tape.

IF Rose left the tape here, we can reasonably assume she hoped Steven would one day find it. Along with the OTHER items she left there, including some things that were important to her and Greg.

And including......Bismuth.

Bismuth, who is NOT in the locked chest. Bismuth, who is just hanging out by the tree. Not that far from reach. Very much in plain view.

So, we can safely assume from this that Rose LEFT Bismuth in Lion's mane for Steven to find. She knew she could never reconcile with Bismuth. She hoped Steven would be able to, instead.

Now - WHY is this important?

Because in this AU, Rose has not prepared Lion to be an inheritance box for Steven. Undoubtedly she keeps stuff in his mane - but why would she keep Bismuth in there?

Canon Steven, once he discovers it, uses Lion's mane as a personal storage locker. I have all my tokens on the bet that Rose was the same. She was diving in and out of that thing enough to make Lion annoyed, probably.

But ask yourself this - if you were Rose Quartz*

* The same Rose Quartz who has a built-in-trauma response of running away like a gazelle, who solved nearly every problem she had by hiding it or hiding FROM it, putting it up on the 'we're not thinking about that' shelf, chanting to herself "I do not see it"

If you were THAT Rose Quartz...

Would you REALLY be keeping Bismuth's bubble in the SAME space as your favorite knick-knacks?

Would you want to be seeing that bubble EVERY TIME you reached into your Lion for a pizza?

And look, yeah, I know she's a masochist who revisited her shattered and corrupted friends' bubbles frequently and pondered over how things could have gone differently, so there is an element of "I will purposefully subject myself to Guilty Self-Flagellation" but come on

Wouldn't you rather put Bismuth's bubble somewhere FURTHER AWAY for safekeeping - in a place that you can safely visit ALONE (or maybe never go back to at all), without ever fearing that someone ELSE could potentially discover it? In a place where you KNOW the Crystal Gems will never venture?

I think I've made my point But Wait

There's More

My other point is - Bismuth has been bubbled for like 5000 years, ever since her fallout with Rose, right before Pink's shattering.

And Lion? How long has he been around?

Well, there's less information, but if we presume that THIS lion Pride contained the future Pink Lion...

and indeed it DOES because the Lion that licks Buddy awake has a heart shaped nose

...we can safely guess that Lion was ONLY turned Pink MUCH later. Buddy's Book takes place circa 1837 - 1841, which sets us back about 100-150 years, give or take - that's approximately how old Lion is.

So where was Bismuth's bubble for the 4850 years BEFORE Lion existed?

Again - my answer would be "Somewhere Very Remote, where the other Crystal Gems would not think to go back to".

Hence.

Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.

[honey-on-your-tongue]

Insecure (sfw)

Request by @r1s-y0ur-s4anity I'm so sorry it took me so long babe! Hope you enjoy 💛

Simon’s body is covered in scars. From his years of hard work, from too many missions, too many close calls. No matter how big and burly he is, he can’t look past the scars. How could anyone ever think him attractive for it?

But then there’s you. You perfect being, so sweet and kind and smart and funny. Perfect, that’s what you are. And Simon loves you, and he always marvels at the fact that you allow him to be yours. But the doubts remain, threaten to drown him whenever he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

Like today. He’s just showered and was going to get dressed, but the image in the mirror makes him recoil.

He stares at his reflection, eyeing every scar, knowing each and hating them. They ruin him, take away whatever attractive qualities he may have.

You walk into your shared bedroom then and catch him staring, dripping water onto the floor, towel low around his waist.

You walk up to him from behind and hug him, your hands on his strong chest. You feel him tense up at your touch and your eyebrows furrow.

“You okay, Si?” you ask gently, breath fanning against his back.

“’m fine,” he murmurs. “’s just…all these scars got me looking like…”

You wait. When he doesn’t finish his sentence, you step in front of him so you can see his face. “Looking like what?” you prompt.

He shakes his head, avoiding your gaze. “Like the kinda man that you wouldn’t want. There are so many hot men out there, love. You chose the ugliest one.”

Your heart breaks, tears right down the middle and the pieces fall into your stomach, making you feel almost nauseous.

“What? Si, what are you going on about?” you ask, grabbing onto his arms.

“I ain’t the kinda man that a girl like you should be with,” he says quietly, meeting your gaze now. You see the pain in his eyes, a storm that traps him. “You could have anyone else.”

“I don’t want anyone else, I want you.”

He shakes his head. “But these scars—”

“Are part of you,” you cut in. “Every scar is a story, Si. A victory. Another time you made it out alive so you could come back to me,” you say quietly, eyes trailing down his body, finding every scar. You know them by heart, your fingers have traced them countless of times. How could he possibly think they’re ugly? They’re perfect on him.

You look back up at his gorgeous face to find he’s unconvinced. You grab his face in your hands, pulling him down some so you can kiss the scar on his forehead. “I like this scar.” You kiss the one on his eyebrow. “This one.” The one on his cheek and the one on his jaw. “I love all your scars, Si. What do you see in them that you don’t like?”

He doesn’t answer. So you keep kissing. The ones on his shoulders, the ones on his chest, on his ribs, they’re all over his torso, and you kiss each one. You move to his back, kissing the ones on his shoulder blades, on his sides. You kiss the ones on his arms, on his hands.

By the time you’re done, he’s crying. Silent tears that just roll down his face. No sobs, no sniffles, just a quiet storm breaking past the usually calm and cocky mask he wears.

“Si,” you say quietly, grabbing his hand and leading him to the bed. You make him sit on the edge and hug him. He’s quick to wrap his huge arms around you, burying his face into your chest as he cries. He still doesn’t make a sound. “Si, I love you, no matter what. I love your mind, your dirty humor, your silly jokes, your voice. I love the way you look at me, and how you touch me, and how you’re always there for me. I love your face. I love your eyes, and your mouth, and your neck, and your shoulders, and your arms and hands and I love every scar on every inch of you. I love everything about you, the physical and the soul. I love all of you, Si, no matter how many scars. No matter how ugly you think they are and how ugly you think they make you, I love all of them. Because they’re not ugly, and neither are you. God, Si, you’re so far from ugly. You are the hottest man I’ve ever seen. And you’re an amazing man, perfect for me. And I love you.”

He looks up at you, eyes broken and filled with tears. You caress his face gently. “You mean that?” he asks quietly, voice rough.

“Baby I would never lie to you. Especially not about this. I love you and all your scars, and I always will.”

---

Taglist

@booboobear-12 @lilychristine01 @smzyyx @mxsatorisimp @akkahelenaa @crypticlxrsh @m-0-ssy-m-3-ss @actualpoppy @dawnnightshade666 @dethspllz @massivecandycrusade @mentally-unstable-hottie13 @shushyoudontknowme @readinggeeklmao @despairingrat @h0lydrag0ns @poseidonsbichild @sillylittlereader @vanillarosekiss @jangles-the-clown @lem-hhn @doubledizzy22 @http-bell @readingthingy @velvetdimond @thegaywitchofwhimsy @weaniebeaniebaby @havoc973 @lucienofthelakes @keiminds @8pmismybedtime @i-wanabe-yours @happysmappy @jp600fox @moonbluff @hobiebrownenthusiast @dragons-flare @canyonmooncreations @foxintheferns @dreamland08 @fertilise-me @dravenskye @hobiebrownenthusiast @liidiaaag @viviansvault3 @alwayzmsbehavn @nicolebarnes @tysukier @icouldntthinkofanythingclever  @cd-mr

*if you wanna be added to my Ghost taglist, lmk 💛

---

Ghost masterlist

[piastriprincess]

lovesick all over my bed  ⸻  lando  norris  x  reader  .

featuring  lando  norris  ,  new  relationship  ,  sickfic tw  illness  (non  major  just  gross  again) word count 2.5k author’s  note  the  HIGHLY  requested  part  two  of  burnin’  up  (for  you  baby)  is  here  and  she’s  beautiful  …  this  time  lando  is  taking  care  of  reader  <3  thank  you  guys  so  much  for  loving  these  two  ,  i  can’t  tell  you  how  much  it  means  to  me  that  you  like  any of my  work  enough  to  ask  for  more  .  special  thanks  as  well  to  @tsunodaradio and  @daydreamsharry  for  the  inspiration  for  this  one  !!  as always lmk what you think !! title  is  from  slut!  by  taylor  swift  (i’m  really  in  a  taylor  writing  era  aren’t  i  …)

The thing no one warns you about when you start dating your best friend is that they somehow become even more insufferable when you’re sick. 

You and Lando have been officially together for six days. Six days since he woke up and remembered absolutely everything he’d said in the feverish haze of the day before, poking you in the side until you opened your eyes so he could nervously ask you if you wanted to “give it a proper go.” Six days of napping tangled together, of sharing lazy cough syrup kisses, of nursing him back to health. One hundred and forty-four hours of learning how to be something more than friends. 

Not that you’re counting, of course. 

The thing is, being Lando’s girlfriend is not all that different from being his best friend. You still steal his hoodies. You still bicker with each other about what takeout to order. He still tells stupid jokes just to see you roll your eyes. Now, he just kisses you after you inevitably laugh at them anyway — soft, tentative, like it’s still surreal to him too. Nothing changed, and yet everything did, all at once. It surprised you, how easy it felt right from the start.

Easy, that is, until you started feeling the telltale scratch in your throat, throbbing pressure in your head, and exhaustion that sunk bone-deep. Easy until you had to come up with a mundane excuse to flee your new boyfriend’s apartment and go home so he wouldn’t see you getting properly sick. Easy until he woke up this morning apparently completely fine, and you woke up feeling like you’d been hit by a bus.

You’ve been back at your place for under twelve hours, and you already feel a hundred times worse. You’re curled up in bed, buried under every blanket you own with an episode of trash TV queued up that you barely have the energy to pay attention to, when your phone buzzes on your nightstand with another text from Lando.

[10:30 AM] barely coughed AT ALL this morning [10:31 AM] live look at my immune sistem → 🐶 [10:32 AM] get it?? cos i got that DAWG in me [10:49 AM] wanna grab lunch later?? that new place by the harbor?? [11:03 AM] stop ignoring me i miss youuuuu xxxxx

You stare at the messages as your episode of Love Island plays on, forgotten. The sappy part of you wants to say yes just to see him, but the much more rational part of you knows you can barely sit up without feeling dizzy. 

There’s something else, too. The thought of him seeing you like this — in yesterday’s clothes, unshowered, looking properly awful — sends your stomach roiling with something like nerves. Which, objectively, is ridiculous. You’ve been best friends for years. He’s seen you after your worst hangovers, your biggest heartbreaks, even during the Great Food Poisoning Incident in Baku 2022. But it feels… different now, somehow. 

When you were just friends, being gross around each other felt like a badge of honor, some kind of award you could pin to your unshakeable bond. Best friends through anything. Now that you’ve crossed the invisible threshold into something more, you can’t silence the tiny, annoying voice in your head that’s wondering if he’ll look at you differently. If seeing you like this might make him reconsider before you have the chance to really get started together. 

You sigh. Roll over. Tap out a quick response.

[11:05 AM] sorry bub i can’t [11:05 AM] i think i caught your plague :(

He texts back almost immediately:

[11:06 AM] WHAT [11:06 AM] why didn’t you say anything??????? [11:07 AM] is that why you left so fast last nite [11:08 AM] im coming over rn

Exactly what you were hoping to avoid. You groan, typing as fast as your sluggish fingers will allow.

[11:10 AM] lan i’m fine!!! promise [11:11 AM] stay home stay well

His reply pops up before you can even put your phone down.

[11:11 AM] too late i’m alredy in the car! [11:11 AM] see you soon love xx

You let out a sigh, muffled into your pillow. Of course he’s coming over. Of course he’s acting like a new boyfriend who has something to prove and completely ignoring your very reasonable request. 

You’re in the middle of contemplating the opportunity cost of dragging yourself to the bathroom and washing your face so that you look marginally more human when you hear a key turn in your door. Probably the spare key you gave him years ago after one too many times of banging on your door at 3 AM after Jimmyz. You mentally kick yourself for that moment of weakness as the door slams shut; you’d take a hundred more nights of interrupted sleep if it prevented Lando from seeing you like this right now. 

“Hiiiii, love,” he singsongs, voice carrying down the hallway to your room. “I’m coming in. Hope you’re decent.”

You are affirmatively not decent. You can feel the grease in your hair, damply matted to your forehead. Your nose is achy and probably rubbed red-raw by now. You’re practically drowning in one of Lando’s old hoodies, holes at the cuffs, front pocket filled with used tissues. 

“Lan, you can’t,” you croak, pulling your duvet over your head. “You don’t want to see me. I’m disgusting.”

“Impossible. I always want to see you,” he calls, undeterred, and you can hear his footsteps getting closer. “Also, I’ve seen you vomit tequila all over the sidewalk and my shoes after Miami last year, so I think we’re past the point of you being embarrassed around me, yeah?”

“That was different! I was drunk, not diseased.”

“You’re not diseased, you muppet, you’ve got the flu,” he says softly. The mattress dips slightly as he sits beside you, and you can feel his hand smoothing over the duvet where your head is. “Come on, love, covers off.”

“No,” you say, voice muffled through the bedding.

“Please? It’s been, like, a whole day since I’ve seen you. I miss your face.”

Unfortunately, fifteen years of friendship means he knows exactly what to say, exactly which button to push to get you to cave. Despite yourself, you peek out from under the covers. Lando is sitting on the edge of the bed, faded tee clinging to his biceps, cheeks pink from the sun. He looks annoyingly healthy. Practically glowing, the bastard.

“There she is,” he murmurs with a smile that’s impossibly soft, eyes crinkling at the corners as he looks down at you. “My pretty girl.”

You frown, pushing the covers off. “Don’t flirt with me when I look like death.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. I will flirt with you any day of the week, in any condition,” he scoffs theatrically. “In fact, I think flu-you is extra cute.”

“You’re ridiculous,” you rasp, as your heart does something like a backflip in your chest.

“Well, that’s tough for you, ‘cos you’re stuck with me now,” he replies lightly. “Your personal nurse, until you get better.”

You push up onto your elbows. “Lan, I’m serious. I’ve got tea in the kitchen and cough syrup in the medicine kit and, like, three full boxes of tissues. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” The speech probably would have landed better if you didn’t immediately dissolve into a coughing fit that wracks through your body, leaving you breathless. 

“Right,” he says, clearly unconvinced. “Tea in the kitchen, yeah? Have you made any of it?”

“Well, no, but —”

“Taken any of that cough syrup?”

You scowl. “I was going to. Eventually.”

He gives you a knowing look. “And how many of those tissues are currently living in the front pocket of my hoodie?”

You glance down, grimace slightly. “That’s not the point.”

“It’s exactly the point,” he says softly, smoothing your hair off your forehead. “It’s okay to let someone take care of you. Stop being stubborn.”

“I’m not being stubborn, I’m being practical. Look, I know you want to help, but I’m completely gross and miserable and I promise, I can —” 

“Love, I get it,” he interrupts, grabbing your hand and lacing your fingers with his. “I know you’re tough as nails and you don’t need a nurse and you can do it all yourself. But you don’t have to. I’m here and I want to take care of you like you did for me. Please, just… let me?”

He’s rubbing his thumb over your knuckles, and his eyes are full of the kind of tenderness that makes your chest ache, and it’s like the fight goes out of you all at once. You sigh, flopping back onto the bed (half for dramatic effect, half because it’s starting to make you dizzy to hold your head up for so long). “Ugh. Fine. You’re very persuasive when you want to be, you know.”

His smile lights up his entire face. “Right? It’s one of my many talents. Up there with driving fast and being absolutely devastatingly handsome.”

“Don’t forget humble,” you say dryly.

“The most humble,” he agrees cheerfully, leaning over to give you a kiss on the forehead. His lips are cool against your skin, steady and sure, and somehow they make you feel a little less awful. “Right. First things first, you’re getting a proper shower, because I know you’ll feel better clean, and while you do that I’m going to make you something to eat.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You nearly burned down your apartment trying to boil pasta water, bub. What are you about to terrorize my kitchen with?”

“Your mum’s weird soup,” he shrugs. “Already called her for the recipe. Reckon it’s not too hard.”

You blink at him, surprised. “You called my mum?”

“Well, yeah,” he mumbles, sticking his hands in his pockets shyly. “I knew it’s what you’d want. That’s what people do when they lo-” 

He stops short, color flaring high in his cheeks. “When they care about each other,” he finishes, eyes darting away from your face to the floor. 

When they love each other. It’s not like he said it, not really. But he almost did, and even though you’ve only been officially dating for less than a week the concept isn’t nearly as frightening as it should be. You don’t say it either, not now. Your fingers find his, though, and you squeeze his hand gently, like you’re telling him me too without saying anything at all. 

“Okay,” you say finally as you sit up slowly, trying to sound normal despite your racing heart. “Shower it is, then. But I swear, if you mess up my soup…” 

“You wound me,” he says, dramatically clutching at his chest. “I’m going to make you the best weird lemony broth thing this side of Somerset.”

You snort, rolling your eyes as you get to your feet. But as soon as you stand, the world tilts sideways and you wobble dangerously. Lando’s there in an instant, steadying you against him. 

“Careful, love,” he says softly into your ear, hands bracing on your waist. 

“I’m fine,” you mumble even as you cling to his arm like a lifeline. “Just a head rush.”

“Are you gonna be alright to shower alone?” he asks. “Because I could definitely supervise. You know. For medical reasons.”

“Lando Norris,” you gasp, faux-scandalized.

“Nursing purposes only,” he grins down at you, goofy. “Naughty nursing purposes.”

“Ew, freak,” you snort, shoving him lightly on the chest and heading to your bathroom. 

“Still not hearing a no!” he calls after you, his giggle echoing down your hallway from the kitchen.

By the time you emerge from the shower fifteen minutes later, hair damp and feeling vaguely less awful than before, Lando’s ladling soup into an ugly kangaroo-shaped mug he got you in Australia years ago and you promptly buried in the back of your pantry. “Perfect timing,” he grins, holding out the mug to you. “Bon appétit.”

You take the mug, inspecting it carefully as you settle onto a kitchen stool. “This actually smells right.”

“Oi. Have some faith, please,” he protests. “Your mum gave me very detailed instructions. Don’t think I’ve ever had so many directions on how to cut up ginger.”

You take a tiny sip of the soup. It tastes perfect — like home and comfort and being cared for. You close your eyes for a moment just to savor the taste, the feeling of being known so well. 

“Is it okay?” Lando asks, eyes wide like he’s terrified he’s somehow managed to mess it up. 

“It’s perfect,” you admit. “Thank you.” 

He beams so bright it feels like you’re looking at the sun. “‘Course, love. Anything for you.”

You finish the soup slowly, your boyfriend watching the entire time, claiming he can see the nutrients working their way into your system. You try to protest that’s not how it works, but you’re too tired to keep up the banter for long. He senses it immediately, and you let him lead you back to your room, draping your weight across him as your world goes soft around the edges. 

“Budge over, yeah?” Lando grins as you crawl under your duvet, kicking off his sneakers before climbing into bed beside you and unpausing your episode like he’s in it for the long haul. “So. What’s going on with Harry and Helena?”

You’re just drowsy enough to gravitate into his side, resting your head on his shoulder and throwing your leg over his waist. “Who knows with those two,” you say, stifling a yawn. “But they’ll recouple, I think.”

He giggles softly, fingertips tracing against your thigh. “You’re tired, aren’t you? I give it ten minutes before you’re out cold.”

“No way, there’s a recoupling at the end of this episode. ‘Sides, I’m not that tired,” you mumble. But even as you say it, your eyelids are getting heavy. The combination of his warmth, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, and the comfortable weight of his arm around you is better than any medicine you could buy.

“Sure, love,” he agrees, fingers threading gently into your hair. “Whatever you say.”

Apparently, he knows you better than you know yourself, because by the first commercial break, you’re fighting to stay awake, curling further into his chest. 

“‘M sorry. You’re so gonna get sick again,” you mumble, practically on top of him and burying your face into the crook of his neck as your eyes finally slip shut. 

He sighs happily against your skin. “Totally worth it.”

[butyoudidthis4what]

She's Here Part 2

Michael "Robby" Robinavitch x F!Reader

Find Part 1 here!

28.8k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CW: age gap relationship but gap unspecified; teasing Robby about his age; arguing; discussion of/about sex; allusion to PIV and oral sex; implied protected PIV sex; allusion to Robby having a breeding kink; reader was punched (no real description); potentially incorrect medical procedures and recovery; blood; seizures; passing mentions of stitches and staples; brief slightly graphic medical description; brain surgery; TBI and effects thereof; facial fracture; discussion of PittFest; discussion of what happened to Leah and Adamson; compartmentalization; regret; discussions of death/dying/coding; anxiety; heavy emotional angst; crying; alcohol; grief; active suicide risk Robby; suicidal ideation; depression; anger and irritability (at times intense) as depression symptoms and manifestations; a detective shows up very briefly; no use of yn or related

Series Summary: The day of PittFest becomes unbearably worse for Robby. A little over four months into the relationship you've both been waiting years for, you find Robby on the floor of pedes. When Langdon throws it in his face, Robby assumes you betrayed him and doesn't react well.

AN: Thank you for all of your support on Part 1 and your patience waiting for me to get this out!! I truly appreciate it. I'm kind of nervous about this one but not really sure why. I hope you enjoy and it was worth the wait! And thank you so much for reading!!

“Robby I have to go, but just get here as quickly as you fucking can, okay?” 

Robby isn’t able to get anything out before Jack hangs up. He knows he needs to move, needs to start running back to the hospital but he’s stuck standing in your apartment with tears streaming down his face. 

Adamson. Leah. And now you. Another name on the list of people he’s killed on this date. 

Because Robby is sure you’re not going to be alive when he gets to the hospital. Or that if you are it won’t be for long. Even after he broke your heart and got you killed he could see you trying to be nice to him and waiting to die until tomorrow but he’s not sure he wants that. 

Robby’s eyes roam your kitchen to your fridge. You have a strip of photobooth photos of the two of you hanging up with a magnet. You look so happy. He looks so happy. You both look so in love, even if you hadn’t said it yet. It brings him back down and he realizes he has to go, he needs to try and get to the hospital in time to either help save you or say goodbye to you. 

He walks quickly back to your front door and locks it before running down the stairs and back out onto the street where he starts sprinting again. He takes every shortcut he knows, anything to shave off even just a couple of seconds. The adrenaline coursing through him is giving him the ability to keep up his sprint and he knows when that adrenaline crashes, it’s going to crash hard. 

There’s the briefest second of relief when he finally sees the ambulance bay doors. He’s almost to you. 

He comes running in through the doors looking for you or for Jack. “Where is she?” Robby yells the second his eyes find Jack on the opposite side of the hub.

Jack’s head snaps in Robby’s direction like he’s been here waiting for Robby. He starts to walk toward Robby who has lessened from a sprint to a partial run. Jack holds his hands up and steps in front of Robby, putting his hands on Robby’s chest to catch and slow Robby down for a few seconds before removing them.

Robby thinks he might be sick. Because Jack isn’t working on you. And Jack isn’t greeting him with a reassuring ‘she’s alive.’ And Jack isn’t leading him toward a trauma room or toward the elevators to go up to an ICU or OR or whatever other floor but off to the side toward one of the more secluded empty rooms. And everyone is looking at him not with hope but with sympathy that feels more like pity. 

“Jack. Please.” He can’t even begin to try and catch his breath. “Please don’t take me into some room and tell me she’s dead. Please.” His voice breaks on the last please, a prayer and a plea to his best friend to not fucking do this to him. 

Jack shakes his head. “She’s alive. I’m not taking you to any room to tell you she’s dead. I just didn’t think you’d want to do this in front of everyone.” Robby lets out a barely muffled sob of relief. “She’s up with neuro. Dana’s in observation. She’s not alone okay? But it’s ba-”

“Brain surgery? Oh jesus fucking christ.” Robby takes off for the elevator, Jack right behind him. “I need to see her.” 

“Robby, hey,” Jack tries to get his attention as he presses the elevator call button over and over. “Are you sure you want to see her like that?”

“Yes.” There’s no real thought to it. Because to Robby it’s not even a question. The doors open and the two step in, Jack hitting the button for the right floor and then the door closed button. “What are her injuries?”

Jack pauses for a second. “It’s bad, Robby.” 

Robby’s stomach twists again. He knows what it means when Jack says something is bad because of how rarely he uses it. For Jack, bad is the worst. 

The elevator arrives at their floor and they both step out, Jack pulling Robby over to the side of the hallway with him. Jack lets out a breath. “Longitudinal basilar skull fracture, depressed skull fracture along her left parietal and temporal. Massive subdural hematoma, easily the biggest I’ve ever seen on a patient. Tripod fracture on the right.”

Robby shakes his head at Jack, more adrenaline pouring into his system and making him shake a little. It feels like he can’t breathe. “What else?” he whispers.

“Scrapes and bruises, nasal fracture. Cut on her face that I’ve made sure Plastics will stitch.” Jack gives Robby a couple of seconds to take it all in before nodding in the direction of the observation room for your OR. “Come on.”

They finish the short walk to the door and Jack opens it, walks in after Robby. 

“Hey,” Dana says softly as she stands and approaches Robby to give him a hug. “She’s hanging in there.” 

Robby barely hugs Dana back, too focused on looking at you. Because seeing you, seeing you in that chair with your head bolted into place, intubated, face already incredibly swollen and bruised, seeing you makes it all too real. “Oh my god,” Robby whispers. “Oh my fucking god.”

“I know,” Dana murmurs, standing next to him and rubbing his back. 

“I…She…” Robby shakes his head and swallows hard. He has to turn around and he hates himself for it, feels like he’s abandoning you once again but he just can’t. He lets out a half-broken sob as he puts his face in his hands. 

“Sit down, yeah?” Dana leads Robby over to one of the seats while Jack turns the monitors and speaker off so Robby doesn’t have to see it up close or hear it. 

“How long has she been in surgery?” Robby whispers after a minute, dropping his hands in his lap and sniffling. 

“She went up a minute or so after I hung up,” Jack tells him. 

Dana takes the seat next to Robby. “They’ve evacuated about half of the hematoma.” 

Robby gets dizzy at that. The hematoma he just saw on your brain was still huge. He figured you hadn’t been up here that long and they were just getting started. “That was half of it?” 

Neither Dana nor Jack say anything. There’s not much to say at this point. Like Jack said. It’s bad. 

Robby wipes away a few tears and can almost feel the wall his mind builds around him and everything growing numb. “What was her GCS?” He watches Dana and Jack look at each other, neither answering. “That bad?”

“It wasn’t great,” Jack says slowly. “We burr holed her downstairs and once we got the ICP down her GCS came back up. Then I called you and while I was talking to you she seized and her GCS dropped again.”

He just nods. He doesn’t push for the actual numbers. They don’t really matter right now anyway. Robby doesn’t know if five minutes or five hours pass as he sits there, lost in his head and wishing he could just go to sleep and wake up and have you in bed next to him and none of this be real. He’s not even fully aware of Dana squeezing his shoulder and slipping out of the room. He’s stuck in his thoughts, replaying all of your best moments together and then him breaking up with you in that supply closet, over and over and over. 

It’s only been six or so minutes of Robby lost to his thoughts when he finally pulls himself free enough to look at Jack. “What happened?” 

Jack sighs and takes a seat, leaves one chair in between him and Robby. “Not super clear. Based on her injuries and where she was found it looks like she got punched from the side and fell and hit her head on the curb. Mugging probably, she was missing her backpack and phone.”

“How long was she down?” Robby mumbles.

“Don’t know.” Jack shakes his head. “A while I would guess. Her body was hidden by a car to anyone driving by and where she was found isn’t a heavy pedestrian street at night.”

“Where was she?” You couldn’t have been on your way home, Robby would’ve seen you while running there. Unless you’d already been picked up. 

“Paramedics said she was about a block west up and a hundred feet or so down from Harry’s bodega.” Jack tells him. “I don’t know, obviously, but it feels like she was trying to get to a busier street to walk on.”

Robby nods. The two settle back into silence. Robby can hardly fathom you just laying there on the sidewalk growing closer and closer to death all alone. He wonders how long you were conscious for. If hitting your head on the curb knocked you out or if you had to lay there knowing what was slowly happening to you, if you had to watch them take your backpack and feel in your pockets for your phone. 

That line of thought brings Robby to a natural worry. What if whoever it was hurt you even worse? What if taking your backpack and phone wasn’t enough? He almost gags at how hard the nausea hits again. “Jack. Was she…” Robby looks at Jack with a horrified expression. He can’t bring himself to finish the question, to say the words, but Jack knows immediately. 

“No,” Jack shakes his head emphatically, “Dana checked. There were absolutely no signs. And the paramedics said her clothes looked normal, not like someone had tried to put them back on an unconscious body.”

Some relief floods Robby’s system at that news. “How the fuck-” Robby presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “How did she even end up here? We should’ve been closed to trauma.”

“Paramedics recognized her,” Jack says quietly, “knew she needed to come here regardless of our status.” 

Robby doesn’t respond, just shakes his head a little and closes his eyes again. He keeps praying he’s going to wake up and this entire day will have just been a horrible nightmare but he knows he won’t. He knows this is his reality. He knows what he lost. 

“I killed her,” he whispers, just loud enough for Jack to hear. “I killed Adamson, and then I killed Leah, and now I’ve killed her.” Robby swallows down a sob. “I killed them all and I killed her after I broke her heart for no reason, and I don’t know what to do with that, how to, how to… This is my fault Jack.”

“Robby,” Jack lets out a breath as he looks over at him, “I love you brother, but you are not god. You didn’t kill Adamson. You didn’t kill Leah. You didn’t kill her. She’s still alive and we don’t know if she’s going to die. The world is fucked up Robby. Fucked up things happen. Disease and violence happen. I get why you feel like all of those things are your fault but they’re not.”

He shakes his head at Jack and looks back down at his lap. Jack just doesn’t understand, can’t see it. Maybe Jack does and is just lying to him as his friend trying to make him feel better. Because it’s hard for Robby to believe Jack that he isn’t to blame. Especially about you. If he hadn’t broken up with you then you wouldn’t have left and you wouldn’t have been assaulted. But he did break up with you.

Robby replays the night in his head again. He gets to being on the roof with Jack and realizes that Jack let you leave. You told Jack you were leaving and he didn’t stop you. Robby knows his thoughts are wrong and that Jack has no responsibility for any of this, but Robby needs someone to be angry at if he can’t be angry at himself. 

“Why’d you let her leave?” Robby spits the question venomously. 

“Excuse me?” Jack raises his eyebrows at Robby.

“Why’d you let her fucking leave?” He glares at Jack. 

“I didn’t let her do anything. She’s a grown adult and an attending whose shift was well over. We didn’t need her anymore. So she left.” Jack stares back at him, seemingly unperturbed by Robby’s glare. 

“Well if you asked her to stay until after that debrief maybe she wouldn’t have left and I could have talked to her-”

“No, Robby.” Jack shakes his head. “I understand you’re grieving and deeply upset and a lot of horrible fucking things have happened today, but you do not get to blame me for this just because I’m trying to stop you from blaming yourself.” 

Robby looks away from him again and is quiet. “You’re right, I’m sorry,” he whispers. 

“It’s okay, I get it.” Jack reaches over and squeezes Robby’s shoulder. “You know I do,” he whispers. 

“She’s not going to wake up is she Jack?” Robby slowly looks over at Jack with tears streaming down his face as the numbness he’d gotten himself to starts to fade and he’s left with overwhelming grief and sorrow. 

Jack’s quiet for a few seconds. “I don’t know, Robby. She’s young. That’s heavily in her favor with all of this. We got the swelling and pressure down quickly once she got here.” 

“Yeah,” Robby huffs, “but who the fuck knows how long she was out there. It had to have been at least an hour if not closer to two. That’s a long fucking time to have blood on the brain and a high ICP, Jack.”

“It’s hard to know Robby. It’s hard to know how long and if the bleeding and swelling started immediately or if it took time to come on or what.” Jack nods slowly. “But we both know she’s stubborn and a fighter.” 

Robby scoffs. It’s at himself and not Jack’s admittedly correct observation about you. “She doesn’t think she has anything left to fight for.”

“Yes she does. She knows she does.” Jack looks like he’s debating whether to say more. 

“What?”

Jack lets out a breath. “When her GCS came up, before we intubated her, she started repeating your name. Michael. So I think she knows she has a lot to fight for. Has you to fight for.”

The thought slams into Robby. You were saying his name. That’s the word your injured brain came up with. His name. His fucking name. Michael. 

Robby’s phone buzzing in his pocket distracts him from his thoughts for a few seconds. He goes to pull it out of his pocket but stops as the realization hits him. “She called me Jack, she called me. Right after I spoke with everyone, she called me. Twice.” He stands up and starts pacing the length of the room. “She might have been trying to get to a busier street like you said because maybe she was being followed or something and she knew she was in danger and that’s why she called me. For help. And I, I sent her straight to voicemail and then just let it ring. I ignored her. I ignored her.”  

“You don’t know that Robby,” Jack shakes his head, “I know it’s hard but you have to try not to let yourself go there. She could’ve been calling you for any number of reasons.”

“No, Jack.” Robby stops pacing near the wall at the far side of the room from Jack. “We both know that she called for something related to what happened.” He can feel the adrenaline start to crash as he looks back down at you in surgery. “She called because she needed me and I wasn’t there.”

He’s thankful when Jack doesn’t try to argue with him on this one and just lets him have it. Robby focuses on watching what they’re doing to you while he thinks about you. How much he loves you, how perfect you are for him, how beautiful and smart you are, how lucky he is just to know you. And then another realization hits him. 

He never told you he loves you. 

The adrenaline crash finally hits him. Robby turns away from the window and steps backwards until he hits the wall and slides down it, just like he did in pedes earlier today. But this time you’re not coming to find him. You might never come to find him again. “I never told her I love her,” he manages to get out clearly enough for Jack to hear before he starts sobbing and slips into a total breakdown, finally letting himself sob freely even more than in pedes earlier. Robby breaks all the way down, comes completely unglued because he can’t get the grief and hurt out fast enough, and what he does get out is immediately replaced. 

“She knows,” Jack says quietly as he sits next to Robby and leans back against the wall. 

Robby lets himself lean against Jack a bit just to feel someone else even though he doesn’t think he deserves any comfort from anyone. This is all his fault. He made this bed and now he has to lay in it. “I never told her Jack, she’ll never get to hear it from me, I’ll never know she heard it,” Robby chokes out between sobs over and over. “I never told her I love her.”

The two sit there until Robby cries himself out and for a bit longer after while Robby tries to pull himself together. By the time they get up you’re out of surgery and settled in a room in the neuro-ICU. 

“Dana and I will be downstairs. Call or text if you need anything,” Jack tells Robby as they stand outside your room.

Robby nods distractedly at Jack. “Yeah thanks,” he mumbles as Jack walks away.

He forces himself to open the door to your room and step in, closing the door behind him and walking towards your bed. “Oh god, Kid,” Robby lets out through a shuddery breath as he gets close enough to really see you. He saw you from a distance in the OR but that was nothing compared to seeing you close up.

The bruising and swelling is some of the worst Robby has ever seen and it’s you. They stitched your cheek well. Your incision looks good too all things considered, the drain they left in isn’t too full. You’re intubated, hooked up to more monitors and drugs than Robby cares to look at right now. But this is you. Robby is looking at you and seeing all of this. This is you. 

He thought he had truly cried himself out, that he didn’t have any tears left but somehow more find him. “I’m so sorry,” he sniffles as he pulls a chair over close to your bed and sits in it. He takes your hand so gently, holding it between both of his like he’s holding the thinnest piece of glass that’s waiting to be broken. Robby rests his forehead on the back of his top hand as he lets more tears fall. “I’m so sorry for everything, I love you so much and I need you to come back to me.” 

Robby pulls his head back up to look at you, finally lets himself squeeze your hand a little. “I need you. I really fucking need you, Kid. So please. Please come back,” he hiccups out, close to giving into his sobs once more. 

He tries to think back on what you look like normally, when you’re not this bruised and swollen and don’t have stitches or partially shaved hair or an incision on your scalp or a drain. The only image Robby’s brain will conjure up for him is the expression on your face in the supply closet earlier today. How the more he spoke the more upset you became, how the sadness and heartbreak took over all of your features, how your tears slid down your cheeks and your lips trembled. 

It’s all he can see and it triggers that memory to start playing again. Him breaking up with you in that supply closet. Him being needlessly mean. Him refusing to listen to you. And it hits him like so many other realizations have tonight. What’s likely to be the last thing he ever said to you.

No, you don’t get to call me Michael. Or Robby. It’s Dr. Robinavitch to you.

Robby holds your hand against the side of his face as he rests his head on your thigh and lets himself sob again. Because what the fuck else is he supposed to do. 

A couple of days pass. They’re able to wean you off the ventilator so you’re breathing on your own now and you’ve been stable the entire time. Robby knows how good that is, how good of a sign it is. But it’s hard for him to appreciate when you’re still unconscious and not really here with him. He wants to talk to you. Tell you that he loves you and he’s sorry. He wants to work it all out, to have you forgive him and get better and go home with him and get engaged and married and grow old together. He says it to you over and over, to your unconscious form. But that’s not the same. He doesn’t know if you’re hearing him. 

Time passes slowly. He reads on his phone sometimes. Jack and Dana come to visit frequently and most of the ED has stopped by for at least a couple of minutes by now so that breaks up the days a bit. 

But Robby’s pretty sure he spends most of his days just watching you and replaying your last day together over and over in his head. Ruminating on what might be the last thing he ever said to you. No, you don’t get to call me Michael. Or Robby. It’s Dr. Robinavitch to you. Ruminating on how sad and destroyed you looked.

The buzzing of his phone pulls him from his thoughts. 

D - Can I get you anything? Coffee or water?

He’s been given multiple cups of coffee over the last couple of days. Nobody has asked. They’ve just brought him cups figuring he needed it or that it would be some small gesture of comfort. He didn’t think much of it. But seeing the word in Dana’s text makes the memory hit him hard.

That coffee. That fucking coffee he made that morning that lead to him accidentally hurting you and the two of you having a little tiff. And he used the coffee as an excuse to say no and now he might have turned down his last chance to ever be intimate with you, to ever be that close to and with you. 

And that coffee is still sitting there. The mug he poured himself and the carafe. He has to go home to it. It’ll be sitting there waiting and ready to taunt him when he has to walk in his front door without you. Without you in his life. Without you in the world. With you in the morgue. 

Robby isn’t sure if he’ll ever be able to drink coffee again. 

He doesn’t reply to Dana immediately. Can’t bring himself to. Robby puts his phone back in his pocket and looks at you. Your fingers moving catches his eye and he stands, heart rate speeding up as he watches you open and close your hands. 

“Kid?” He grabs your hand and wraps it in a fist around two of his fingers. “Can you open your eyes for me? Or squeeze my hand?” You do neither and Robby’s heart sinks. But he keeps talking to you, keeps trying to coax you back to him. 

A few minutes pass and Robby wants to sob with joy for once when you flutter your eyes open. Everything is too much. It’s too bright and too loud and god everything hurts. You think you might be sick. But as you adjust you finally start to really hear noise. It just kind of sounds like gibberish though, you don’t know what any of it means. You also realize you have no idea where you are or what happened and that scares you. Your eyes focus and you realize Robby is standing by you and crying, and while him crying worries you, you’re just relieved to see someone you recognize, someone who cares about you. 

“Mic-” You stop yourself and lick your lips before trying to speak again. Because for whatever reason that’s the memory that comes into your mind first. “Dr. Robinavitch.” His name is heavily slurred and difficult for you to force out, but Robby knows exactly what you’re saying. He knows you started to say Michael and caught yourself. 

So he knows that you remember. That some piece of you remembers what happened. He shakes his head at you and squeezes your hand. “Hey, Kid, no. No, please. You can call me Michael. Or Robby. Whatever you want, okay? I’ve been so worried about you.” 

Your eyes flutter shut as another wave of tears soaks Robby’s beard. A searing pain worse than anything you’ve ever felt before hits your head and you wince and groan as everything fades back to black. 

“Kid? What’s wrong? Stay with me, yeah?” But Robby knows by the way your body goes limp that you’re unconscious again. “Fuck,” he mutters. He knows that’s not unexpected, but he was really praying you would be one of the ones who just wake up and are fine. And he realizes he just had his opportunity. That the first words out of his mouth should have been that he loves you. But they weren’t, he didn’t say it at all. And now you’re unconscious again.

He lets go of your hand and steps away from your bed, planning on pacing a little as he texts Dana and Jack to let them know you woke up briefly. Robby doesn’t get the chance though. Because as soon as he pulls out his phone your intracranial pressure monitor alarm goes off and you start to seize. 

Robby gives you one last lingering kiss before pulling out of you with a groan and falling onto his back beside you. He takes off the condom, ties it and tosses it in the trash before settling in next to you and pulling the sheet up and over you so that you don’t get cold. 

The two of you finally just had sex for the first time and Robby already knows your pussy is like a drug to him. He’s never going to be able to get enough, is constantly going to think about it. He bets your mouth will join it. 

His hand closest to you splays out over your tummy, something that feels, and is, protective and possessive. His other hand comes up to rest behind his head against his pillow. He knows he’s grinning like a love sick idiot. 

“I have a confession,” he says through soft pants as he continues to come back down. You can hear that love sick idiot grin in his voice.

“Oh yeah?” you sigh happily, still panting a little yourself.

“After that, I kind of really regret waiting until you were an attending,” he chuckles. There’s enough of a teasing lilt to his voice to know he’s not being completely serious, but some seriousness rings through. 

You scoff at him and grab your pillow under your head, turn onto your side as you hit him with it over his chest and stomach. 

“Hey!” He grabs the pillow from you as he turns on his side to face you. “What was that for? That’s just how good the sex was!” He gives you a look before giving you your pillow back. 

“That’s why you regret waiting until I was an attending? The sex. Just the sex?” You fake pout at him.“Not me in general? Dating me? Kissing me even? It took you until being inside of me to regret waiting?”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that and you know it. It was just a funny joke.” He smirks at you as you roll your eyes at him playfully. “You think the sex would be that good if the chemistry we have with our clothes on wasn’t here? If I didn’t love spending time with you and dating you and kissing you?” 

“You know, you never asked me if the sex was that good.” You smirk at him now. 

“Oh,” Robby laughs, leaning in and kissing you for a second and then letting his lips ghost yours. “You’re not really trying to tell me it wasn’t. Because I think the scratches on my back and how hard your pussy squeezed me when you came on my cock and how you were crying my name beg to differ.” 

You smile as you shiver a little at the memory. “I never said it wasn’t, I merely pointed out that you didn’t ask.” You give him another kiss. 

Robby pulls back and looks at you. “Was it good? Was it worth the wait?” He pauses for a second but then gets it out. “Was it better than with him?” The teasing nature of the first two questions gets watered down with the last. There’s some real insecurity there. Robby just knows the guy you went out with and slept with was fit and closer to your age. 

You smile at him fondly, run your hand up and down his side. “Better than I ever could’ve hoped to imagine, Michael, and trust me I did a lot of imagining over the last four years. So it was more than worth the wait.” You let your hand slide up his chest and neck and cup his face. “And yes, it was better than with him. Because you’re better in bed than him and because you care and because there’s something real here and because I’m more attracted to you. Which I think is something I’m just going to have to show you.” You can both see him blush and feel the heat coming off his cheeks under your hand. “I didn’t mean to ruin it and make you insecure. It was amazing. You were incredible. I’ve never had that good of sex and I’ve never been more attracted to and turned on by a man in my life. I promise.” 

Robby puts his hand over yours and smiles. “You didn’t ruin anything and believe me you weren’t what made me insecure. That’s all self-driven. I just know I’m older and my body is much… different.”

“It is yeah.” You nod, pull your hand from under his and run it down his neck and chest and tummy, lick your lips. “It’s much fucking better.”

He just laughs. “Whatever you say, Kid.” 

“Good, yes. Remember that. Make that your mantra.” You nod as you laugh with him. 

The two of you keep chatting as you wait for him to recover, waiting to be ready to go again. You’re planning on staying the night and neither of you work tomorrow or the next day so you have plenty of time to explore each other. The conversation eventually ends up turning to sex and likes and dislikes and would tries and wheres and whens. 

“How do you feel about shower sex?” You smile at him curiously. 

Robby lets out a soft chuckle. “I feel like I’ve been an emergency room physician too long and know better.” 

“So no?”

He lets out a breath. “It would really depend, but I really doubt it. Not penetrative sex at least. Oral… I think I could be persuaded quite easily.” 

“Oh, good to know.” You flick your eyebrows up at him suggestively. “Bathtub sex?” 

“Sounds great.” He nods. 

“Car sex?”

He lets out a small laugh that reflects the way your question took him a little by surprise. “It would depend on when and where exactly, I suppose. But not a categorical rule out by any means.” 

You make a face of consideration and nod before smirking at him because you know this one is going to pull a reaction. “On-call room sex?” 

“Ha!” Robby lets out a surprised laugh and thinks about for a second, a slight blush creeping up. “I mean I would never say never but I, I don’t know. It’s so, I don’t know. I don’t know.” 

You hum in acknowledgment. “Hospital roof sex?” 

He shakes his head at you and your questions but thinks about it for a second. “Maybe. At the right time. Maybe.”

“Quickie in someone’s bathroom?” 

“Depends.”

“Whiskey dick?” 

“Oh my god,” he laughs under his breath, turning his head into the pillow for a second as a deep blush creeps up his chest and neck to his cheeks. “Not that I can recall, but it’s been a bit since I’ve been inebriated and really tried to do anything.” 

“Okay, so we need to experiment with that. Got it,” you giggle. “Alcohol can make me a little slutty sometimes.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” He reaches out and pinches the side of your ass teasingly. “I’ve seen you get quite drunk before. More than once. I’ve even made sure you got home safely on more than one occasion.”

You grab his hand with yours so he can’t pinch you again. “True,” you sigh. “Such a noble gentleman not taking advantage of me. Not that I’d have minded.” You laugh and Robby just shakes his head at you as he smiles, the corners of his eye crinkling so perfectly. You sit there looking at each other in silence for a bit, your fingers playing with his absent-mindedly. “Remember celebrating my champagne tap?” 

“Of course,” he chuckles. “How could I ever forget the two of us sitting on the hospital roof drinking nice champagne straight out of the bottle with some stale cheez-its we scrounged from the breakroom?” 

“Oh god, those cheez-its were so fucking stale,” you laugh. 

“They were pretty fucking bad.” Robby pulls his hand from yours and cups your cheek this time, growing more serious. “I was so proud of you. First tap and zero red blood cells. I got you good champagne. Normally I just get something cheap. Don’t tell anyone.”

“And here I thought you got me good champagne because you liked me.” You smirk but it fades into a fond smile quickly. “That was one of the best days and best nights of my entire residency.” 

He raises his eyebrows at you. “Yeah?” You nod at him. “Why?” 

“I don’t know.” You shrug. You absolutely know, it’s just hard to explain. “I laughed so hard I cried several times that night. I left feeling human again. Like I was more than just an intern. And you did that. You made me feel like that. And earlier in the day, when we were on shift you made me feel like a doctor for the first time, and a good one at that. There’s not a ton of good vivid memories from residency, but I distinctly remember getting home and thinking how on that one day you’d made me feel like a real doctor for the first time ever and like a real person for the first time since at least before medical school.” 

You look a little misty eyed because it truly was a day and night that meant so much to you. You’ve wanted this man for so long and now that you have him you’re never letting him go. Robby looks at you with the softest smile and devoted eyes, the two of you sharing the moment. You break the silence with a soft chuckle. “If I hadn’t already been down hopelessly bad for you that sure would’ve done it.” 

He laughs through his nose at that, blushes a little. He just can’t believe you’ve wanted him as long as he’s wanted you. “That night is special for me too. It’s one of the best memories I have at the Pitt. Or in general, honestly.” 

“Yeah? Why?”

His answer comes quick but breathtaking in its admission and simplicity. “Because I was just myself and it was enough for you. And I’d never really had that before.” Both your and Robby’s eyes grow glassy. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to. You know what he means. That it was easy and he could be unfiltered and himself and knew he wouldn’t be judged. 

“Michael,” you whisper. You take his hand from your cheek and kiss at his palm and the back of his hand and knuckles before squeezing it and looking at him. “You weren’t just enough, you were more than enough. You’ve always been more than enough. You always will be.” 

You scoot closer and press your bodies together as you kiss him, trying to pour into him how much more than enough he truly is for you. The two of you stay like that, just making out and being close until you have to pull away a bit for some air.

“We should share champagne and stale cheez-its on the roof together more often,” Robby teases, his arm winding around you. 

You smirk at him and raise your eyebrows. “Could do that before the hospital roof sex.” 

“Stop it.” He let out a fake groan and rolls his eyes playfully as he rolls you on your back and hovers over you.

Your smirk grows. “Make me.”

Days pass. They turn into weeks. Weeks turn into a month. 

The seizure you had was due to a sudden spike in your ICP so they did a craniectomy, removed a piece of your skull to help relieve the pressure on your brain and accommodate the swelling. 

You’re not brain dead. You’re in a coma. You’ve been in a coma for over a month now. 

For 41 days. 

41 days without you. 

41 days Robby hasn’t been home. 

Because he can’t bring himself to go home. He can’t face that coffee. Can’t face all of your things that have made their way to his place over time. Can’t face walking in without you. 

Initially he had to fight to be able to stay overnight with you while you were in the neuro-ICU but he was one of the hospital’s own so it hadn’t been a particularly hard fight. Jack and Dana promised one of them would stay the night with you and convinced him to go to Jack’s place a few times to get some real sleep on a real bed. He managed to get one of the nicer cots brought to your room so it isn’t like he’s sleeping in a chair, but still, it’s a cot and he gets woken up during the night when your nurse comes in to check your vitals and look you over every couple of hours. 

He had Jack go to his place to get him clothes and toiletries and your shampoo and conditioner that was in his shower. He gave Jack specific instructions not to touch the coffee on the counter. He had to face that eventually. He had to be the one to deal with it. 

Having any of your stuff at the hospital felt wrong and like tempting fate but once you were cleared to have your head moved enough to deal with your hair, Robby started doing it for you every few days so that it didn’t get matted. He made sure to leave it in a style that would help prevent matting too. He also helped bathe you too, meticulously using a sponge to clean your skin so that when you woke up you wouldn’t feel gross.

There were at least some positives over the 41 days. You hadn’t had another seizure. As far as they could tell you had normal sensation in all your extremities. You had surgery to repair your tripod fracture on day 9 and it had gone fine. The swelling in your brain subsided and your ICP decreased and returned to normal so they were able to do a cranioplasty to put the piece of your skull they had removed back in and remove your drain on day 23. And on day 35 they were able to extubate you and you’ve been breathing fine on your own since then. 

Robby thought that was going to be the turning point. That you’d wake up soon after. But no. You haven’t. It’s getting harder and harder to believe that you will.

He’s still not drinking coffee. It’s either black tea or a Redbull he tries to pace drinking and not just chug. But sometimes he does because the heart palpitations caused by 111 mg of caffeine hitting his system all at once give him something physical to really feel. Something other than the nausea and the tension making him ache all over and pop a concerning amount of ibuprofen.

He listened to Dana. Somewhere around day 10 she told him that he might want to think about going back to work, to save his time off. And so Robby forced himself to go back to work on day 15. He knew she was right, that he’d want the time off when you woke up and really needed him. 

If you woke up.

If you needed him. 

Robby’s still terrified you’re going to wake up and tell him to get out. That he broke up with you and made that bed and he has to go lay in it. That what happened to you doesn’t change anything. That you’ll find other people to help you. He spends just about all of his free time with you despite his worries, only excepting the few times he’s gone to Jack’s to sleep. He has to. He loves you and doesn’t know how to exist in the world without you and this is the only way he can have you right now. 

He also listened to Jack and started therapy. If he’s honest with himself he knows it’s already helping. He can already feel the difference in how he thinks and feels and interacts. Jack and Dana have both commented on it. He’s ready for you to wake up and hopefully see and feel the difference, see that he’s not just willing to work on himself but that he’s actually doing it. He hopes it’ll help you forgive him. 

Robby’s off today so he’s sitting in his chair beside you in your room like he normally does, plays with your fingers absentmindedly as he reads out loud for the both of you. At first he thinks it’s just him imagining things again, because god knows he’s imagined your fingers twitching against his and your hand squeezing his more than once or twice over the last 41 days. 

He always checks though, he always has to. Just in case it’s real. He lets go of your fingers and rests them on the bed. And this is that just in case. Because it’s real. Your fingers are moving.

“Hey.” Robby stands up and leans over you, brushes his thumb over your forehead lightly and takes your hand back, squeezes it. “Can you open your eyes for me, Kid?” 

You don’t, but your fingers twitch in his hand again and he’s sure he can see your eyes moving under your eyelids. He looks over you and sees your other hand moving, your feet too. 

“Come back to me, Kid, yeah?” Robby puts his hand in yours gently. “Can you squeeze my hand? Try for me, hm?”

There’s nothing for a second but then he feels you try to. It’s undoubtedly incredibly weak but it’s still following a command. “That was so good Kid,” Robby praises you, already getting a little teary. “Try to come back to me. Follow my voice.”

Your head moves a little but quickly stills, face pulling up in a slight grimace. “Can you make a fist with your other hand?” He’s desperate for you to open your eyes and talk to him again, but he’ll take this, take you following commands, take knowing you’re in there. 

Robby knows that even if you do open your eyes, there’s no guarantees. No guarantees you’ll recognize him or be able to speak or that your personality will be the same or that you’ll be cognitively the same. But you’ll be awake. He’ll be able to look in your eyes again. 

There’s a little delay again but he watches as you do your best to make your other hand a fist. You don’t get particularly close to an actual fist but you very clearly are trying, are responding to his command. Robby knows he should call your nurse so she can page your doctor but he’s worried if more people come in and you get overwhelmed you’ll stop. 

“Good job, Kid,” he murmurs, squeezing your other hand a little. He lets it go and walks down to the end of your bed, pulls the blankets up a little so your feet are free. “Can you press down with your feet? Like you’re pushing the accelerator?”

After a couple of seconds you do. It’s weak and there’s not a ton of movement but there’s some. There’s some and that’s hope. Hope enough for Robby. 

“Good, that was good. I’m so proud of you.” He pulls the blankets back over your feet and walks back to the head of your bed. “Can you open your eyes now, Kid? Come back to me all the way, hm?”

The words feel a little wrong in his mouth. They have every time he’s asked you to come back to him. Because Robby knows he has absolutely no fucking right to ask you that. Not after the way he spoke to you and treated you. After the last thing he said to you. But he asks anyway. 

“You’ve done so good. I’m right here, okay?” He grabs your hand again. “I’m with you. So open your eyes, yeah? Let me see you, let me see your pretty eyes.” Robby watches as your eyes continue to move behind your eyelids, and he sees your lashes flutter like you’re trying to open your eyes. “Good, that’s good. I know you’re trying for me, thank you. Thank you, Kid. Just keep trying. Come back to me. Open your eyes.”

Your hand squeezes his a little harder than it had previously had and that’s what breaks him, a few tears running down Robby’s face that he’s quick to wipe away. 

“Come on Kid,” his voice is thicker with his tears than he’d like it to be. “You can do it, I know you can. Open your eyes for me. Open your eyes for me, please. Please.” He’s pleading now. 

Robby whispers your name and words of encouragement as he watches your eyes continue to move, lashes continue to flutter, more and more. And then it happens. Your eyes flutter open. It’s for less than a second though as you slam them back shut and pull away, grimacing at the pain. 

It’s too fucking bright and everything fucking hurts. Despite it seeming like you were slowly coming back to, for you it feels like consciousness slams back into you all at once. There’s suddenly so much light even through your eyelids and so many sounds and it smells like Robby and the hospital. You’re hyper aware of whatever it is you’re wearing and the blankets over you. It’s overwhelming. It’s too much. 

Robby laughs through a sob. “Hi Kid.”

You keep trying to get your eyes to stay open but struggle to. You squeeze Robby’s hand and lift one finger, trying to point at the windows. You struggle to process how unbelievably weak you feel. You’ve never felt like this before, where it’s hard to even move a finger. It’s scary. Everything feels so scary right now. You don’t know why you feel like this, aren’t sure where you are. But you know Robby is here with you and that gives you some comfort because you trust him not to let anything happen to you. You know him. Recognize him.

It takes him a second to put it all together, but he moves fast when he does, almost running over to lower the blinds over your windows and dim the room lights. “That better?” He asks as he returns to stand at the top of your bed, slipping his hand back in yours. 

It takes another couple of minutes for you to really get your eyes open and keep them open, in part because you’re trying to acclimate back to awareness, but eventually it comes.

You blink a few times as he comes into focus, your eyes looking around the room a little before landing back on him. He’s smiling at you as tears stream down his face. More fear seeps into you at his tears because you don’t understand why he’s crying. You don’t understand anything right now. “Michael.”

Your voice is nearly unrecognizable with how weak and raw and cracked it is but Robby beams at you. You thought you’d seen him beam at you before but no. He’s never smiled like this at you before. He’s looking at you like you think he might on your wedding day. Like you’re everything to him, the only thing that matters and his whole world and life. It’s contagious and you can’t help but give him a small genuine, but weak, smile back. 

He lets out another sobbed laugh when you smile at him, more tears streaking his face. You calling him Michael gives him hope. That you’ll forgive him and the two of you will be okay and that you’re going to be okay and recover well. That you’ll have the future the two of you have talked about before, marriage, maybe a kid or two running around the house you buy together. 

“Hey, Kid.” He squeezes your hand again and leans in and presses a kiss to your forehead. “I’ve missed you.”

You furrow your brows at that a little as he pulls back. “What?” You start to cough a little and groan a little at the pain. It just makes you more scared.

“Here,” he says quietly when you stop. He puts his hands in the right position on your neck. “Can you swallow?” Focusing on you like this helps his tears stop. 

Getting your brain to execute the task feels harder than the actual act itself but after a few seconds you do without much of a problem. Robby deems it good enough for some small sips of water. He grabs the cup of water he changes every few hours just in case and grabs an empty needleless syringe from his pocket. He draws a bit of the water up and brings the syringe to your mouth. This way he can control how much you’re having at once, yes, but he also doesn’t know if you’re able to use a straw yet and just wants to get you some relief. 

You take the small dispenses of water he gives you greedily, swallow them down without any issue. “There you go,” Robby murmurs as he finishes giving you what’s left in the syringe. 

“Thank you,” you whisper. Your voice is still pretty raw and it hurts to hear far more than he thought it would. He thought he’d feel sheer relief hearing it again, and he does, there is so much relief in hearing your voice. But it’s also partially a reminder of everything that’s happened. “What happened?”

Robby grabs his chair and pulls it back over to the side of your bed and sits. “When you fell you hit your head-”

“When did I fall?” The confusion is clear in your voice. 

Robby’s stomach twists a little, his smile faltering. You don’t remember. It wouldn’t be surprising for you to have some retrograde amnesia, he tells himself. It doesn’t mean it’s permanent. But he needs to know. 

Robby needs to know what the last thing you remember is. In part because that’s where he’ll start telling you what happened and in part because he needs to know if you remember the supply closet. Because now he’s not sure if you called him Michael because you heard him before you had your seizure or because you don’t remember the supply closet.

He clears his throat. “What’s the last thing you remember?” he asks gently. “Don’t strain yourself, just whatever you can think of.” 

You try to think back but it’s hard. It feels like you don’t know how to think in a way, like you can’t get your mind to move out of the present and what’s directly in front of you. 

Robby can see you struggling and prompts you to see if it’ll help. “Do you remember any of the PittFest MCI?”

His prompt helps, gives your brain something to wrap itself around and it slowly feels like you can think again and the memory comes back. “Pedes. After Leah died. I remember sit, sit, sitting and talk, talking with you and then we got up and went back to it.” You’re having some trouble with your speech. It’s not that you can’t think of the words, it’s that you can’t seem to get your mouth to say them how you want. It just makes you more scared. What if it’s always like this? “But nothing after you thank, thanking me and wal-, walk, walking away.” 

You look over at him and shake your head a little despite the increase in pain it causes. “Are you okay?” You start to get a little worked up about it, about whether Robby is okay. Not about yourself. Your focus completely shifts to him. “I’m here for you. We can talk.” You try to reach your hand out for his but your arm doesn’t move the way you want it to. 

It’s just something else that warms and breaks Robby’s heart. Here you are in the hospital having just woken up from a coma with a severe TBI and you’re worried about him. Like really worried and starting to get worked up which your body absolutely doesn’t need right now. 

“Hey, I’m okay.” He gives you a reassuring nod and takes your hand, he saw you trying to move it toward him. “I’m okay, I promise. We can talk eventually, yeah, but right now I’m not worried about that or myself.” 

You calm down a bit hearing that he’s okay. But you know he’s not worried about that or himself because he’s worried about you, and you hate that for a number of reasons. You hate it because it just makes the fear come back into focus. You hate it because you’re making him worry, causing him pain. You hate it because he needs to focus on himself and healing. And you hate it because you don’t understand it, don’t have any idea why he’s worried about you. 

“What happened?” you whisper again. 

Robby takes a deep breath in. You’re calling him Michael because you don’t remember, not because you heard him before you seized and it’s a little sign of forgiveness. You don’t remember him breaking up with you, the way he treated you. A part of him doesn’t want to tell you. Wants to bet on you not remembering that part ever and him getting away with it almost, being able to pretend it didn’t happen. But he knows he can’t. He’d never get over the guilt of lying to you, because it would be a huge lie by omission. 

But Robby also knows he can’t tell you now. Not right now. Not when you just woke up. Because he can’t risk you getting escalated and the additional strain it would put on your body. In a day or so. He’ll tell you in a day or so he promises himself and you. 

“We’re not entirely sure. After the MCI you were walking home and we think you got punched from the side and fell backwards and hit the side of your head on the curb. It was probably a mugging, your backpack and phone were missing.” He squeezes your hand gently. “You were down for a while but once you were found you got brought here and Jack got you stable. Longitudinal basilar skull fracture, depressed skull fracture along your left parietal and temporal. Massive subdural hematoma, tripod fracture on your right. Some cuts and bruises, broken nose, you had a cut on your face that needed stitches. Jack made sure Plastics did it. Stitches are out already. Obviously you had surgery to evacuate the hematoma. You woke up briefly, for just a few seconds, and then seized from high ICP. Craniectomy, cranioplasty. They got your tripod fixed. Stitches and staples are all out.”

You look away from Robby while you try to take all of that in. Your head is swimming. On the one hand you’re relieved you know what all that shit means still given the severity of your TBI. And it explains the weakness you feel, why your head hurts, why Robby is worried, why he did a quick swallow test, why you’re struggling to get some words out, why you felt like you couldn’t think and your apparent retrograde amnesia. On the other though, holy fuck it’s a lot to take in. Hearing everything you went through feels like more than your injured brain can handle or process. 

That last part sticks out to you though. All the stitches and staples are out. That means time has passed. A decent chunk of it. 

You look back at Robby and swallow hard, think to yourself it’s a good sign that you can. “How long?” you whisper. 

You recognize his furrowed brows, crinkled sad eyes and frown for what they are, sympathy, an indicator of hard news to come. But a part of you can’t help but feel like it’s a look of pity. Like he’s here because he feels bad for you. “You were out for two days initially. After you seized… 41 days.”

You knew it was going to be long from his expression, but you didn’t expect a month and a half. “Oh my god,” you gasp quietly. “Michael, that’s so long.” 

Your pained and horrified expression kills him. More and more pieces of him are breaking off inside and he feels it, feels each one. He can only hope that there’s enough good in your recovery for them to heal back over. 

But the second you start crying he does again too. “I know, Kid,” he whispers. “I know, I’m so sorry.” He stands back up and gently wipes away some of your tears. “Can I kiss you? Please?” His eyes tell you just how badly he needs you to say yes, how he’s been sitting here for that month and a half needing to kiss you, needing to see your eyes and hear your voice. 

“Yeah,” you sniffle and he helps wipe away more tears. “Please.”

He gives you a watery smile before leaning down and pressing a soft kiss to your lips that you’re finally able to reciprocate. It’s more than one. You knew it would be and you’re glad it is, you need to feel close to him. It’s like your body and mind missed him, missed the way his lips felt against yours as you kissed him back, is still missing the feeling of cuddling with him and sleeping in his arms and hugging him. It brings tears to your eyes but you’re too tired to cry. After at least a dozen kisses Robby rests his forehead against yours. “I love you. I’m not just saying that because of all of this. I’ve been in love with you for a while now, I just never found the courage to say it.” 

His admission catches you off guard, his words so unexpected. But it warms your heart, makes butterflies flutter in your stomach and your chest tighten in a good way. He pulls away to look at you, his stomach in knots about whether you’ll reciprocate. “I love you too. Have for a while now.” The smile you give him is weak but genuine and it has him beaming at you. 

“Good,” he whispers before leaning back in for another few kisses. 

You turn your head to the side a little after a few. “I’m sorry but I… I’m really tired Michael.” You want to say more, want to ask him to get in bed but the exhaustion has hit and words and speaking suddenly feel so hard and your brain hurts. So you don’t. You can’t.

“I’m sure you are, just get some rest, okay?” He pulls his head away and smiles at you. He’s glad your eyes are already closed because he wouldn’t be able to even try to fake a reassuring smile right now. The terror he feels at you going back to sleep and slipping back into a coma has to be written all over his face. “I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise.” 

You don’t reply, have already drifted off. Robby calls your nurse and lets her know you woke up, asks her to send your doctor in. She does and Robby and your doctor discuss you, what you were like, what Robby observed. Ultimately they decide to let you rest and not wake you for more tests. 

It’s a few hours later when you shift on the bed more than you have before. Robby can tell it’s a similar movement to what you do sometimes when you wake up at home so he stands from his chair and squeezes your hand gently. 

After a moment or so your eyes open again, find him quickly. “Michael.” It’s truly croaked out.

Everything is too much as you return to consciousness. Too bright and too loud and you can feel everything touching you, all the fabric and plastic tubing and wires. You recognize it as a hospital. 

“Hey, I’m here,” he smiles at you. “How are you feeling?”

“Weak. Where…” You take a couple of heavy breaths as you look around the room, brows furrowing and lips pulling down. “Why am I in the hospital? What happened?”

You’re scared. The room doesn’t reveal any clues about why you’re here. All you know is your head hurts, everything seems to hurt and moving any part of you feels like pushing a boulder around. You’re so weak you can barely get a hand into your lap from where it rested on the bed. And Robby, he was happy when you woke up but you could see the concern in his brown eyes, could see his own worry and knew it was for you. 

Robby stiffens, heart starting to slip into his stomach, a feeling of dread settling in even though he knows some anterograde amnesia wouldn’t be the end of the world and would likely go away. “What do you mean?”

You look back over at him with that same expression, eyes widening a little as the fear and panic set in, his frightened look only making it worse. “What happened?” 

“You don’t remember us talking about this earlier?” He tries to keep his voice steady and calm because he can see how scared you’re growing.

Your chin trembles and tears start to slide down your cheeks. “No.”

“Okay, okay, that’s okay. It’s okay to not remember right now.” He’s able to set aside his concern at this development to reassure and comfort you, hiding his own fear well enough that his smile is actually helping reassure you. He wipes some tears from your face again. “Don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll tell you what happened.” 

He repeats the story, tells you how long it’s been. But this time you don’t focus on that as your head spins. You’re too caught up on the fact that you and Robby apparently had this conversation before. 

“And now I can’t rem, re, remem,” you huff, frustrated with yourself and your inability to get the word out easily, “remember.” 

Robby nods. “The anterograde amnesia could be temporary. So could your retrograde amnesia. Mostly likely they both will be temporary. What’s the last thing you can remember? Don’t push yourself, just whatever you can remember.”

You try to remember, try to do what he asks. But your brain doesn’t seem to know how to think, doesn’t know where to begin. It hurts trying to remember, and feeling like you’re unable to think scares you into shutting down this time. “I don’t know and think, thinking is hard. I…”

“Okay, it’s okay.” He’s still smiling at you, can tell you won’t be receptive to a prompt this time. “We don’t need to worry about that right now. You should get some more rest, okay? Let your brain rest.”

You try to squeeze his hand lightly, get enough pressure behind it for him to notice and glance down at your hands, his smile widening. “What if I don’t remember?”

Robby looks back up at you. “Then I’ll tell you again, I promise.” 

“You shouldn’t have to,” you whisper. 

“Not about should or shouldn’t, Kid.” He kisses your forehead, hopes the gesture will feel familiar and comforting. “If that’s part of how you need me right now then that’s part of how I’m going to help you.” 

You look over at the window. He pulled the blinds back up when it got dark. He likes staring out of it sometimes. There’s something vaguely soothing about looking out and down on the city. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“Okay,” he nods, watching you get lost looking out the window. “I’m going to get your doctor, okay?”

You hum at him in response. Robby’s able to tell your nurse you’re awake again but resting and gets told your doctor is in an emergency surgery but will be by as soon as he can. Robby wants to keep talking to you, wants to have you talking to him but he knows you need to rest your brain so he sits quietly with you, strokes the back of your hand with his thumb. 

If asked you wouldn’t be able to describe how it happens or when exactly it started to happen. Twenty or so minutes after you woke up looking out the window grows unfamiliar, your surroundings suddenly new again. You look around the room, recognize it as a hospital room. Recognize Robby sitting next to you as you look at him. “Michael?” 

“Yeah, Kid?” Robby’s heart sinks further. He knows what you’re about to ask, recognizes the all too familiar look of confusion and panic in your eyes. You haven’t even slept. You were awake and it just slipped away from you. 

His expression has your heart mirroring his and sinking. It feels vaguely like you shouldn’t need to ask, like you should know already. But you don’t and you’re scared not knowing or understanding anything or what’s going on right now so you have to ask. 

“Why am I here? What happened?” 

“Do I finally get to know where it is you’re taking me so that I can dress appropriately?” You ask Robby as you open the door to your closet. 

“Jeans and a shirt will be more than fine.” He motions to himself. “Look at what I’m wearing.” 

“Michael,” you whine a little. “That’s unhelpful. Like a t-shirt or are we talking a blouse or something even a bit fancier than that? And I just want to know. Why the big surprise?”

“A t-shirt will be okay. You could do a blouse if you wanted but you don’t need to.” He stands from the edge of your bed and walks up to you, wrapping his arms around you. “And it’s a surprise because I enjoy teasing you,” he murmurs. “But if you don’t put some clothes on over your bra and underwear soon you’re never going to find out what the surprise is because we won’t make it out the door.”

You swallow hard at his words and Robby’s able to watch your eyes widen as you contemplate his last sentence. “Fine,” you huff, “I’ll just get dressed with no information and hope I don’t end up looking ridiculous!”

Robby chuckles as he lets you step out of his arms and into your closet. “I promise you will not end up looking ridiculous.”

“Famous last words,” you deadpan at him. 

The date starts with dinner at a casual restaurant in the city. 

“Jake asked for my PittFest pass earlier today so he could take Leah instead.” Robby shakes his head at you. You guys are at your table sipping drinks and waiting on your food. 

“Oof,” you say with a sympathetic and somewhat teasing smile. “Ten days away and he wants the girlfriend over the stepdad. That’s rough.”

Robby shrugs it off. “It’s all good. I was a teenage boy once. I get it.” 

You nod at him, growing a little nervous. When he made plans to go to Pittfest you said you were okay working that day. That day. “What are you going to do to keep yourself occupied?” You try to keep it casual.

“Work,” Robby says simply, like it’s not a big deal at all. You raise your eyebrows and tilt your head, mouth opening a little. He shakes his head. “Don’t look at me like that. I have to face the day eventually.” 

“I mean, no,” you shake your head at him, “you don’t. It can just be a day you don’t work. In perpetuity.”

He keeps shaking his head. “I don’t want it to be.” 

You can tell he doesn’t want to have this conversation right now, doesn’t want to talk about this ever really, but much less while on a date with you. He doesn’t even have to ask for you to stop and move on. You just read it on him. And you respect it, nodding at him. “Okay.”

“Thank you.” He gives you a small smile. “For not making it a thing right now.” 

“Of course.” You return his smile. You both turn your heads to look at your waiter as he sets your food down and tells you to enjoy. 

“Okay,” you clear your throat as you and Robby walk out of the restaurant. “Where to next?”

Robby grabs your hand and laces your fingers together. “This way.” He nods his head to the right. 

You give him a look. “You’re not going to tell me are you?”

He smirks and bobs his head a little while he speaks. “I’ll let the establishment’s sign tell you.”

You snort a laugh. “The establishment’s sign?” You bump your hip with his as you stop at a crosswalk and wait for the light to turn green. Cars race by but there aren’t any other pedestrians near you. “Sometimes I forget just how old you are and then you remind me.”

Robby scoffs but smiles. He stoops down to your level, something you normally hate when he does. But the smirk that has pulled up as he stooped makes it hot. “Yeah,” he leans in so you can feel his breath on your lips, drops his voice low “and you fucking love it. Get all worked up about how much you love my body and crow’s feet and how hot it is that I’m going gray everywhere. So yes,” he closes the distance between your lips and gives you a searing kiss that’s made all the better by how shocked you are that he’s kissing you like this in public. “I’ll let the establishment’s sign tell you.” 

You’re wired for him as you think about what he just said and how he said it, the physicality of it. “What if the establishment was one of our apartments?”

He laughs as he tugs you along gently when the light turns. “Yeah, we’ll get there eventually, Kid. Don’t you worry about that.” 

You nearly stop walking in the middle of the street at the insinuation. “Does that mean you have like… bedroom plans for us?”

Robby glances down at you, a smirk ghosting his lips. “Oh, I have a plan or two in mind for you, yeah.”

You swallow hard. “Okay, so, see, I just really think that your apartment should be the next establishment.”

He shakes his head at you and the two of you continue to walk.  

“Pins?” You look at the sign as Robby slows in front of the building.

“Yeah,” he nods, “you ever been?”

“No, but it’s been on the list of places to go.” You smile brightly at him, excited to finally get to try the place. “I was trying to get a group from work to come here because who else was I going to go with, you know? Just never happened.”

“Well good, I’m glad to know you’ve wanted to try it.” Robby opens the door and holds it for you. 

“Have you been?”

Robby nods. “I took Jake once when it first opened a couple of years ago. I remembered they had shaved ice cocktails and immediately thought of you and knew I had to take you. So here we are.” 

A heavy dose of butterflies hit your stomach. He thought of you. You know he probably does a lot just like you do about him, but hearing him say it is different. You stop walking and turn so that you and Robby are chest to chest. “It’s very sweet of you to think of me like that.”

You push your lips out for a kiss that Robby happily gives you, basking in how happy and excited you look to be here. “Where would you like to start,” he nods to cut you off as you start to answer preemptively, “after we get you a shaved ice cocktail?”

“Mmmm,” you hum as you look around. “Well, that depends on how competitive you’d like to be Dr. Robinavitch.” 

“Oh it’s Dr. Robinavitch now that things are getting competitive, is it?” he laughs. 

“Does the deflecting mean you’re scared to go up against me in anything here?” you grin slyly. 

“Not at all, Kid. We can start however competitive you’d like. I’ll win whatever it is.” Robby gives you a matching grin as he grabs a drinks menu and hands it to you. You roll your eyes at him affectionately and tell him which drink you’d like with a please and he orders them and pays. “Thoughts on what’s first?” Robby asks as he hands you your shaved ice cocktail. 

You’re still looking around. “Yeah, I’m trying to figure out which things I really want to do and then order them from most to least difficult to do while tipsy. Probably anything requiring movement we should do first so we don’t even risk injury because I’ll be very annoyed if we end up at work tonight. So duckpin bowling, bocce, ping pong. The arcade games and pinball are far more stationary.”

“You’re very smart, you know that?” 

You stare at him for a second. You’re not good with compliments most of the time, especially about your intelligence. “I’m saving us both and just going to ignore that question.” You immediately take a bite of your shaved ice and decide as you finish it. “Let’s start with bocce. Something nice and competitive.” 

“Alright, Kid, but don’t get mad when you lose,” Robby challenges.

“Please Robinavitch,” you snort and roll your eyes at him teasingly. “My ball handling skills are far superior to yours.”

You’re both quite tipsy later in the evening when you see the photobooth. All being tipsy does is augment how you feel about each other when you’re sober and has you showing it more in the way you look at each other, has you both giggly.

“Michael, look! Let’s take photos!” You point to it, grabbing his hand and pulling him along.

He chuckles at your enthusiasm and pays on the side of the machine before literally folding himself in the photobooth with you. “Okay, so what poses do you want?” 

“Just whatever,” you giggle. 

“Just whatever?”

“Yeah, whatever we happen to be doing when it takes. Look at the camera Michael!” You pull at his shirt to get him in frame with you. 

Once you’re done you leave the booth and wait for the strips to print, he’d gotten two, one for each of you. You grab them and then spot a bench and walk over to sit on it while you look at them, Robby right behind you.

You get five photos. The first is both of you looking at the camera, the second Robby looking at you, the third you looking at Robby, the fourth you kissing and the fifth you looking at each other. You both look drunk on love and each other in every single one. Your feelings for each other are nearly palpable just through the photo paper. You look like you’ve been together for years, not a couple days shy of four months. 

“Aw, they’re so cute! It’s perfect! I’m hanging mine right in the center of my fridge.” You hand Robby his copy and watch his face light up as he looks at each photo. “What’re you going to do with yours?”

“Keep it in my wallet.” He winks at you. 

“That’s very, very sweet, Michael. Very old school. I like it.” You lean into him and kiss his cheek. “I want you to know that I was going to tease you very dirtily right then, but I controlled myself.” 

“Oh yeah?” he smirks, “what were you going to say?”

“You said ‘keep it in my wallet’ and winked at me and I immediately thought, oh so jacking off in the on-call room is okay, but sex in the on-call room is where you draw the line,” you giggle, very pleased with yourself. 

He chuckles and shakes his head at you. “That is not why I’m going to keep it in my wallet, nor is it why I winked at you.” You look at him with feigned disbelief. “I just like the idea of having a photo of you in my wallet and this fits in the billfold and I winked because I knew you were going to make some comment including the word old.”

“Well shit,” you let out a long breath. “I’m getting predictable.”

“Believe me, Kid, predictable is one of the last ways I would describe you,” Robby laughs. “You have no idea just how on my toes you keep me.”

You lean in close to him. “Yeah, but you love it,” you breathe against his lips. You smirk as you pull away and stand up, ready to head back into the arcade. “Keeps you young.” You wink at him. 

It takes about five days for the anterograde amnesia to go away. The longest five days of your life. Robby had eventually written everything down on a little notecard for you to read when you forgot what happened and why you were in the hospital. He didn’t mind telling you, at all, but he could see how much you hated having to ask. All sorts of therapies start that week. Speech, physical, occupational. You get moved out of the neuro-ICU to just neuro. More scans are done, a recovery plan drawn up. 

Now at least you can remember the plan and why you’re in the hospital and why you’re doing all these different therapies. You’re still struggling with some words, have trouble pronouncing them or getting them out. You haven’t gotten to relearning to walk yet, you’re still bed bound for the most part. 

Robby is there with you for all of it and sometimes you can’t decide if you like that or not. It’s not about him but about how all of this makes you feel and how having him see you like this makes you feel. Because it’s nice having your boyfriend help you with various exercises, nice to have him being the one moving your legs and arms and helping you stretch, to know he cares enough to be involved. But it’s also embarrassing, having him see you like this, having to watch him do it and know that he knows how weak you are, how much you can’t do for yourself, how much you’ve lost. You know that’s just you and how you feel and that Robby doesn’t care, that he wants to be here doing this all with you and thinks you’re strong for it all. 

Now that it’s been a day and a half since you started forming new memories and he’s convinced the anterograde amnesia has resolved, Robby knows it’s time. Your retrograde amnesia hasn’t resolved much, you still can’t remember much past walking away from him when you left pedes. So he has to tell you about the supply closet now, no matter how much he doesn’t want to. No matter how terrified he is. 

He’s not sure what he’s going to do if you kick him out, if you never want to see or speak to him again. He knows it won’t be that simple, that it’s not going to be a black and white thing where you’re either okay or you’re done. But it wouldn’t surprise him if you wanted space from him. Robby hates himself for it but he would struggle to give it to you. You don’t realize it but you’re part of what’s holding him together right now. Yes, therapy is helping him, but having you in his life, both in general and to focus on your recovery, is helping him keep it together and not spin out. You’re his reason to hold on and stay grounded and here. You give him purpose. 

“I really hate this,” you mutter as you keep repeating the physical therapy exercises they’d given you to help you with moving your arms. You can move them normally for the most part but it’s hard and they’re weak and sometimes it’s not quite completely normal at all and occasionally you just can’t. Everything about you is a work in progress right now. You hate that too.  

“I know, I’m sorry. You should take a break though, the line between pushing yourself productively and exhausting yourself so that it’s ultimately unproductive is fine.” He looks at you over the top of his glasses from where he’s sitting and reading in his chair. 

You roll your eyes playfully even though it hurts a little. “I think you just want me to be done so that you can come get in bed and have cuddles.” You give him an impish grin. 

He smiles and shakes his head at you, takes off his glasses and sets his paper aside. He’s not ready to lose this. The relative normality of your relationship. Your happiness and affection. Robby realizes he’s not ready to break your heart. Again. To have to spell out for you how he did the first time.

You stop your exercises, focus on moving yourself over in bed but Robby stops you. “Not quite yet, okay? I have something I need to tell you first.”

You furrow your eyebrows together and cock your head at him. You can already feel the panic rising. “What’s wrong?” 

As he moves his chair closer to your bedside again your mind whirls through what it is he could need to to tell you. Maybe he’s done with this. With you. With how much work you are right now. It would make sense, you’d understand it. It has pretty much taken up most of his life and it’s not like he’s getting much back from you right now. You try to be there for him emotionally, try to listen when he needs to talk. 

But he hasn’t been talking a tremendous amount about how he’s doing and how this is making him feel. And you’re sure in part he feels like he can’t because he thinks it’ll add stress to you and in part when is he supposed to talk to you? You’re in physical and speech and occupational  therapy for large portions of the day and still get tired pretty easily so you’re frequently napping after. 

And on the physical side you have very little to offer him other than kisses and cuddling in bed. You know he doesn’t give a shit about that side of things and that he’d never leave you because you couldn’t do much physically, but it still crosses your mind. 

Robby sits down and looks at you. The look of concern and rising panic on your face is what gives him the ability to just jump right into telling you. “After pedes, and after the MCI was over, Langdon and I had it out in the ambulance bay. He threw me being on the floor in pedes in my face. I… I assumed it was you who had told him. So I found you and dragged you into the supply closet and I,” he shakes his head, looks away from you even though he knows he shouldn’t. “I was awful to you. Truly fucking awful. And I regret it constantly.” Robby pauses. “Is this bringing back anything for you?” 

“No,” you whisper, still looking at him even if he won’t look at you. 

“Okay, I just wanted to check.” He takes in a deep breath and lets it out. This is going to be the hardest part. Telling you what he did. Having to confront it for himself even though he spends a significant portion of each day thinking about it. It’s different having to tell you. 

“I said I couldn’t fucking believe you and asked how you could betray me like that. By gossiping about me. I told you that there were a lot of people I’d expect to gossip about it or could see doing so but never did I think you would.” Robby finally looks up at you. “You had no fucking idea what I was talking about because you didn’t gossip. You didn’t tell anyone. And I yelled at you about that, about you pretending to not know what I was talking about because I was convinced you did know, that you had done it. I told you that you were trying to be the victim. I finally said I’d spell it out for you and told you that I knew you told Langdon or someone about what happened in pedes. You tried to speak and tell me that you knew I wasn’t going to believe you but that you didn’t talk to anyone about pedes and never would.”

“I wouldn’t.” You’re still whispering but it’s emphatic, almost pleading. Because as much as it’s hurting you to hear all of this you still want him to know. Need him to. 

“I know. I knew.” He nods his head. This next part is going to hurt. You can tell by the way he pulls away from you, like he needs distance to cushion the pain he’s about to inflict, on you and himself. “I cut you off and asked how else Langdon would’ve known.” He swallows thickly. “And then I broke up with you.” 

“What?” It’s whispered so quietly he barely hears the question. Your tears are spilling down your face the second they hit your eyes. You hadn’t been holding hands but you pull your hand away from the side of the bed he’s sitting by. This isn’t what you expected him to need to talk to you about. You could never have fathomed it, you’re not sure you can. Part of you wonders if you’re dreaming or maybe hallucinating, part of you hopes for either of those. But you know neither is true. It gets hard to breathe. 

Robby nods at you, looks like he’s at war with himself, chin trembling and eyes full of self-loathing. A few tears slip down his face and he sniffles hard. “I told you we were done because I’d never be able to trust you again. I said that we had waited all this time, that I had waited all this time and you threw it all away before we hit six months. I asked why, told you I didn’t understand.” 

You let out a small sob and the sound kills Robby. He hates it when you cry. It’s even worse when it’s because of him. You try to keep it together but you can’t, the thought of him breaking up with you and not being here too much for you to compartmentalize and keep inside.

“And then I finally let you talk. And you were so you about it,” he laughs out a small sob. “You were so much more than I deserved in that moment, treated me far better than I deserved. You said you knew I wasn’t interested in listening to you but that you didn’t and would never tell anyone about pedes. You told me you loved me and that you hadn’t told me because you felt like I wasn’t ready to hear it or say it or that maybe you misread things and I didn’t or don’t love you.” He shakes his head because it was and is so untrue. He did and does love you, you hadn’t misread anything.

“You said you were proud of me for pulling it together in pedes and that one day you hoped I’d find out you were telling the truth and didn’t say anything to anyone.” Robby swallows down a sob. “And then you said you loved me. Past tense. That you were proud of me and I should be proud of myself through all my hurt. You ended with Michael, by saying my name. But I didn’t take anything in. I just told you no. That you weren’t allowed to call me Michael or even Robby. That I was Dr. Robinavitch to you. And then I left you in the supply closet. You ended up leaving the hospital and you called me, as you were walking home. And I didn’t answer. Deliberately. And if I had maybe none of this would’ve happened.” 

You feel sick, have to look away, not because of what he just said, because of all of it. You don’t blame him for what happened, even if he didn’t answer your calls. It’s a lot to hear at once. He broke up with you. What does that even mean for right now? You don’t even remember. He could have just not told you but he did and even in your haze that sticks out to you. 

When you pull your eyes from his and don’t say anything Robby continues. “I didn’t bring it up while you were still struggling with the anterograde amnesia because I didn’t want you to have to experience whatever emotions this brings up more than once. I didn’t want to keep putting you through that. Genuinely. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell you.” He wants to reach out and take your hand, squeeze it reassuringly but he knows you don’t want that right now. “I’m telling you now that you can remember because not telling you felt like a lie, and I just thought you needed to know. So that you could decide what you wanted to do, if you want me to stay or go, how this changes things, if it does.” 

You’re quiet for a moment as you fight through all of your thoughts and then shake your head slowly. “I don’t know,” you say softly and shake your head. Because you don’t. You don’t know what to say or think or do. You’re not super sure what exactly your brain is even doing with all this information at the moment. It feels like it’s just there.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am. How much I hate myself for it. For all of it. For speaking to you how I did, for what I said, for not listening to you and for thinking you would betray me. There’s no excuse. Not a single one. It doesn’t matter how bad the day was and where I was at mentally. I am so sorry, Kid. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you and earning back your trust.” Robby can’t bring himself to offer to leave if that’s what you need, to say that he’d understand if you needed him to go. He would. But he doesn’t want his suggestion to prompt you into asking him to leave or kicking him out because he’s not sure he’d survive having to leave you.

You’re quiet as you try to process or do something with everything Robby’s just told you. You bring your hand to your face slowly and wipe some tears away as you try to get rid of some of the big hiccuped breaths that slip out. 

You finally look back at him. “So we weren’t even… a couple? When this happened?”

“No,” he shakes his head and sniffles, “not technically.” 

“But we are one now?” 

“I,” Robby pauses. He’s not sure if he knows. In his mind you are. But he knows that for the last week he was able to just kind of pretend the supply closet breakup didn’t happen. That’s not true anymore and he doesn’t know where that leaves the two of you. Because right now you’re you before it happened. And so he doesn’t know what happens to the you he broke up with who believed you were broken up. He doesn’t know what happens to that conversation, if it still exists in a sense. If it still happened between the two of you. It’s so intangible and hard to wrap his non-injured brain around so he can just imagine what it’s like for you. And on top of it you can’t even remember. 

“I don’t know. I want us to be. In my mind we are. But I guess I don’t really know if we are. There’s a version of you in there who thinks we aren’t together. But she’s not here and so I don’t know how it works with you not remembering. I don’t know how it works now that I’ve told you.” He lets out a breath. “I guess it’s kind of up to you, Kid.”

“Oh, I…” You shake your head but grow quiet again, your tears having at least stopped. This entire conversation, everything Robby has told you, it’s all way the fuck too much for your brain right now. It’s hurting you. Emotionally, yes, obviously. But physically too. Your brain and head literally hurt as they search for where to even begin to try to make sense of and process this. It’s a scary feeling, not feeling like you can’t really control your mind. 

Your silence gets to Robby. He desperately needs to know how you’re feeling, where you’re at. If you still love him. He knows it’s selfish and that this isn’t about him and how he feels but he can’t help himself right now.

“Can I ask,” he breaks the silence, interrupts your spiral which you’re kind of grateful for. “Do you um, do you still love me? You went from love to loved when we were talking in the supply closet. So I was just wondering if you do.”

You nod slightly. “I… This is… Yes. I do. The me here with you now, of course I do. But I don’t remember, Michael. I’m sorry. I don’t know if the me you left in the supply closet… I don’t know if that me meant to say loved or if it was an accident. I don’t know.”

“But even knowing right now? You still do?” He looks shattered at even just the thought that you might not.

“Yeah. I love you, Michael. I do. The love I have for you, the way I love you, it doesn’t just go away like that, over one thing. And I don’t know for sure but, I’m me before the supply closet thing I guess and I don’t think that would have made me just abruptly stop loving you even after the supply closet. It doesn’t work like that.” You can see the relief ease some of the tension in his body and you’re glad for it. He’s too tense normally and you hate the thought of him being more tense because of you, even with what you just learned. 

“Thank you,” he whispers. “I love you too. I love you so fucking much, you have no idea. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry the way I treated you didn’t reflect that. Because I loved you then too, of course. I’m sorry, I’m really fucking sorry.”

“I know you are, and I accept your apology right now.” You look away from him for a second and let out a breath before returning your gaze to his. “But Michael I’m going to be honest, I don’t know how to feel really. I think I know how I should feel, but it’s hard to when I’m just hearing about it. I don’t remember how I felt or what exactly happened and what it was like and I don’t know what it means for us right now. It’s hard and it’s all hurting my brain right now, so can we just… not talk about it for now? I’m sorry. I know that’s unfair to you. I’m just getting really tired and feel like everything’s being pulled from under me a little. Do you want to go? Is that part of why you told me? To make me tell you to go?”

“God no. No. Absolutely fucking not. I don’t want to go anywhere. I don’t want you to tell me to go anywhere. The thought of that is terrifying. I would understand if you needed me to, but no,” he shakes his head in emphasis, “I don’t want to go anywhere. Ever. I never want to leave your side ever again. I want to be here with you, be your boyfriend and take care of you.”

You can’t deal with this anymore right now. With trying to sort out your thoughts and feelings about it all. It’s too much for your brain. You feel too alone even though Michael is right next to you. You just want him. To feel him and be with him and have it all be okay and for none of this to be happening. 

“Okay. Good.” You start to shift over in bed a little bit. “I just can’t right now, with this, it’s too much. Can you just get into bed please? I just want to rest on you, if that’s okay? I feel very alone with you in the room and I hate that feeling, so can we just… be together in bed right now?”

“Of course, Kid.” He’s quick to stand and push the chair back, help you move over in bed and climb in next to you. It’s like he’s worried you’re going to change your mind before he has the chance to hold you. 

The two of you settle into one of the positions you’ve found to work well. You rest your head on his chest and close your eyes, focus on the repetitive beat of his heart, the way his warmth seeps into you wherever you’re touching, how his scent overwhelms you, how his hand feels rubbing up and down your back, how he kisses the top of your head over and over. How loved he makes you feel. 

“I love you Michael,” you whisper as you flirt heavily with sleep. 

Robby smiles to himself, gives the top of your head another kiss. “I love you too, Kid. Just rest now.”

You do. You rest on him a lot the next couple of days. Eventually you find some words and the two of you talk a little more about what happened. It’s hard to figure out, to decide what you are or aren’t. It’s hard for you to figure out how to heal from what happened in the supply closet, both individually and as a couple, how to move on from it, and how to work through it together when you don’t remember it. How can you process or heal from or move on from or work through something you can’t remember? Robby telling you just isn’t the same. 

Even after you talk and say you’re together and going to work through what happened, it doesn’t quite feel real. The reality you both come to accept is that it’s extremely difficult to work on repairing and healing a relationship while basically living in a hospital. Everything is artificial. You’re together all the time. There is routine but not true normalcy. 

There are moments of happiness, yes, but it doesn’t seem to stay. There are moments where things really do feel like they used to, where they feel like how things were before any of this. There are moments where it gets close to that feeling and seems like you’re working your way back there, like you’re healing. And there are moments where you just feel like two people who used to be together sitting in a room and awkwardness infests the silence in a way it hasn’t between the two of you ever before.

It’s like there’s something between the two of you preventing you from really feeling like you’re together and it’s hard to know what exactly it is. If it’s what happened in the supply closet or if it’s because you’re at a hospital and so you’re relationship is almost stunted in a way, you can’t be a totally normal couple here, there’s no privacy, you can’t go on dates, you’re still recovering, or if it’s something totally unrelated, or if it’s you struggling with how to do anything about something you don’t remember, or if it’s the depression that’s starting to settle in you. 

Because settle it does. 

Nobody is surprised when it seems to blanket you almost overnight. In the beginning, once you got over how you looked physically and accepted your injury and your new reality, you had been happy to see people and chat and have visitors. It made you feel good, made things seem a little better getting to laugh and smile with people. And then pretty much overnight that stopped. And now it doesn’t anymore. Now almost nothing makes you feel good anymore. You just exist. Spend your days counting down the minutes until you can go back to sleep. 

You pull away and revert into yourself, block nearly everyone out. Absolutely no visitors with the exceptions of Robby, Jack and Dana. You don’t want to see anyone. You don’t even let people in your room just to turn them away. Robby stops them at the door. You don’t respond to texts. You ask Robby not to tell anyone anything about you or where you are with your recovery, even if they ask. 

You let Dana and Jack visit, but that’s for Robby really because it’s not fair of you to cut him off from the world just because you want to cut yourself off from it, and you know he wouldn’t leave you to go talk with them elsewhere. So you let them visit. You don’t say much when they’re visiting, mostly you just let the three or two of them chat and look out your window or drift in and out of sleep. 

You don’t pull that far away from Robby in that you let him be around, still want him to be around. But you barely talk to him a lot of the time. You don’t react when something goes well in physical or occupational or speech therapy. He’s worried you’re going to slowly stop wanting to even do them. That you’re going to slide from this kind of sadness to apathy where you just don’t care what happens to you, don’t feel like working on anything. 

Robby hates it, you feeling like this and his inability to fix it. It’s hard to see you this depressed. But he’s going to stay with you through it. Your struggle with depression isn’t going to push him anywhere. He knows this is a part of your recovery.  

He knows there’s only so much you’re able to give him right now and for the most part he accepts that, is okay with it, doesn’t push you for more, something both of you know he’s learning and working on in his therapy. He takes whatever you’re able to give and holds onto it, holds on to each rare little smile he pulls from you, each time you reach out to hold his hand, each time you pat the bed for him to get in, each time you kiss him. Each time you tell him you love him. 

That type of depression is where you’re at about ten days after Robby told you about what happened in the supply closet. Your memory still hasn’t returned. You know that’s normal but you hate it. It’s difficult in general to cope with not being able to remember, but it’s made all the worse by knowing that your inability to remember is playing a role in the strain between you and Robby. You feel like if you could just remember what happened and how it made you feel then you’d be able to actually truly start to work through it and move on. But you can’t. You can’t remember. 

You’re having a very good day for you, physically and emotionally. You and Robby are cuddled together in your hospital bed together watching the TV show you started binging recently. You chat sometimes as you watch, even flirt with him a little and laugh. It doesn’t feel like that thing is there between you right now and while you both know it’s unlikely, you’re still praying you’ve finally turned some corner. Robby swears you’ve said more words to him all of today than you have all of the last ten days combined. He’s high on the sound of your voice and laugh. 

Both of you are particularly irritated when there’s a knock on your door. 

“No,” you say immediately as you pause the show. “Not unless it’s Jack or Dana.” 

“Alright, Kid. I’ll be right back.” He lingers for just a second and you know what he’s waiting for, waiting to see if you’ll offer. You tilt your head up at him and push your lips out. Robby’s face lights up as he leans down and steals a couple of kisses from you before getting out of bed and going to the door. 

“Sorry, not up for-” Robby cuts himself off when he gets the door open enough to see that it’s not someone either of you know. 

“Dr. Robinavitch? They said you’d be up here with her.” Robby nods and the guy introduces himself as the detective investigating your assault. “Can I speak with her?” 

“Um.” Robby rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, I don’t think now is really a great time. Her memory of the assault hasn’t come back either, so I don’t know what she’d be able to tell you.”

The guy gives Robby a tight smile. “Well then she can tell me that herself.” 

Robby lets out a single dry laugh. “She’s not up for visitors right now.” 

“I’m not just a visitor. I’m the detective trying to find the person who assaulted her and put her in the hospital.” He cocks his head at Robby. “So why don’t you go ask her if she’ll entertain me for a few minutes.”

Robby senses it’s probably going to be easier and get the guy out quicker if you tell him you don’t remember yourself. “Wait here.”

You’re confused why it’s taking Robby so long to get rid of whoever it is. You have no idea who would try to be pushing their way in this hard. You raise your eyebrows when you see him and sit up a little so he can get back in bed. 

He shakes his head. “It’s the detective assigned to your assault. I told him you don’t remember anything but he doesn’t seem to care. I know you don’t want anyone in right now but it might be easier to get him to leave if you just tell him yourself that you don’t remember.”

“Fine,” you sigh, your irritation at the detective clear in your tone. 

Robby nods and walks back over to the door and opens it. “Come in.”

“I don’t remember anything related to the assault,” you tell the detective as he walks in before he can even open his mouth to introduce himself. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.” 

He introduces himself anyway. “Even the smallest detail could help.”

“I’m sorry, but I promise you I can’t remember any of it. My memory stops several hours before the assault. I don’t remember.” You shrug at him. You were irritated the second the guy knocked but that irritation is growing exponentially with each passing second because you can tell he doesn’t give a shit about you or your feelings or your need for this conversation to be over. 

“Do you remember what they were wearing? The color? If it was a jacket or a hoodie?” the detective presses. 

“No.” You shake your head. “I don’t remember anything. I had to ask what even happened to me because I don’t remember any of it. Nothing about it exists in my mind, I can’t picture it or anything. I’d like you to go, please.”

“Well, now, just wait a second, maybe it’ll come back. Anything shoe wise? Boots? Tennis shoes?” He steps closer to your bed and Robby moves in a little closer in turn, between you and the detective because Robby’s already done with how the guy is treating you. 

“I don’t remember. There is just a void where the memory of it should be. I get it. It’s frustrating. Believe me, I get it. I’d like my memory to come back too.” You’re starting to hit anger levels of irritation. “I’ve been waiting for it to come back for over two weeks now. You being here isn’t going to make it come back. You’ve done your job and asked. I’m telling you I don’t remember. So please leave.”

“She doesn’t remember. She had a very traumatic brain injury, okay? Retrograde amnesia is common.” Robby holds an arm out in front of the detective and motions to the door. “She’s asked you to leave, so please respect her and go.” 

He doesn’t. “Anything. Anything at all, the direction the assailant came at you from, skin color, were they wearing a ski mask-”

Something in you breaks when he won’t leave and keeps asking you questions. Something that feels like it’s going to take a while to heal. 

“No,” you cut him off. “See now I’m fucking done. I’ve been trying to be polite and nice. But I’m fucking done. I get that you have a job to do and I appreciate you trying to find whoever did this to me, but you still need to respect me. I’ve asked you to leave. I was having a great day for the first time in too long and you’ve ruined it,” you snap at him. Robby hasn’t seen you this angry and irritated in a long time and something about the way it’s settled in your face and body makes his stomach sink.

“I have run out of ways to tell you that I don’t fucking remember. I have no idea how else to phrase it or communicate it to you. I don’t know how to make you understand it, it’s not a difficult concept. I do not remember anything about what happened. You sitting here repeating the question and asking if I remember specific little things is simply not going to change the fact that I don’t fucking remember. Any of it. As I’ve said what feels like seven thousand times in this conversation,” you seethe. “So get the fuck out of my room and don’t come back. Leave your card and if and when I remember something I’ll make sure you’re the first person I call.”

“I don’t know, Jack. I think she’s the one.” Robby can’t fight off the small smile that forms on his face at the thought of you.

The two are out having a couple of drinks together at a bar not far from work, Robby just getting off and Jack not on tonight. They’re watching the game on TV and chatting about whatever comes up. Jack is unsurprised when the conversation turns to you.

Jack finishes taking a sip of his beer and sets the bottle back down on the bar top. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah, man. I can’t imagine life without her.” Robby shrugs and looks at Jack. “I know it’s crazy because we haven’t said I love you yet, but I just feel it. Like she’s it. She’s the one.”

“No, I get it.” The smile Jack gives him is a little wistful. “When you know, you know.” 

Robby grimaces. “I’m sorry-”

“Hey, no. Don’t be.” He gives Robby a seriously look. “I’m happy for you. I want you to be happy.”

Robby nods, smile creeping back up. “I am.”

“I know.” Jack smirks. “Everyone knows.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, everyone knows you’re down real bad Robinavitch,” Jack laughs teasingly.

“Shut up.” Robby rolls his eyes but knows Jack is telling the truth. He knows he can’t hide how he feels about you. From anyone. “I see a future with her. I want to marry her one day. Maybe get a townhouse or a house, something with a yard. Maybe have a kid.”

Jack’s eyebrows raise. “Wow, I’ve never heard that from you before.” He takes another sip of his beer. “You thought about telling her that you love her?”

“Of course,” Robby sighs. “All the fucking time. It’s just scary, honestly. And it never feels perfect.”

Jack clicks his tongue at Robby. “It’ll never be perfect.”

“I know, yeah.” Robby looks up at the TV. “Just what if she doesn’t say it back? What if it freaks her out and is too much too soon?”

Jack breathes a small laugh through his nose. “Well, I can’t promise you that she’ll say it back, but seeing the two of you together, I’d be pretty fucking floored if she didn’t. And I think the absolute last fucking thing you telling her is going to do is freak her out or be too much too soon. She’s down just as bad, Michael.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Listen.” Jack waits for a second for Robby to look at him and tilts his head and leans in just a touch. “Just, tell her before you can’t anymore, yeah? Tell her all the time. Don’t wake up one day regretting not telling her enough. And I know it’s scary and it’s hard and it’s easy for me to say and a whole different thing to actually do. But try. It’ll be worth it to hear it back from her and have her know exactly how you feel.”

“Yeah. I will. Soon.” Robby takes a drink of his beer and looks at Jack. “I will soon.”  

A few days later you and Dana have a similar conversation. 

“So,” Dana drawls, ducking into the room where you’re suturing an inebriated unconscious patient, “how are things with Robby?”

“They’re good.” You smile at her. You can hear how syrupy your voice is. She gives you a knowing smile in return. “I think he might be the one Dana.”

“Yeah?”

You bite your lip and nod at her. “He’s just always there, you know? Like when I think about the future, future plans, he’s always there with me. Ten years down the road, fifteen. I see a house and marriage and maybe kids. And I know we haven’t said I love you yet, but I know I love him, and I’m pretty sure he loves me. Even if he doesn’t say it, I can feel it. In how he treats me and the things he does for me.”

“I knew my husband was the one before we said the l word too. Sometimes it just takes longer to say it.” She raises her eyebrows at you. “But when are you gonna tell him?”

You shrug as you tie off your knot. “I don’t know. I haven’t because I don’t want it to be too soon for him and have him freak out or pull away. Especially now with the anniversary in two days and him working on it. Sometimes I feel like he’s the kind of guy who needs to say it first, but I can’t decide if that’s true or an excuse I’m creating.”

“Well, it’s good you can recognize that might be what it is,” Dana laughs. “You didn’t ask for advice but the advice I’m going to give you anyway is that if you keep waiting for the perfect moment to tell him, you’ll never end up telling him. Because no moment will ever seem perfect enough. And he’s going to end up falling into that same trap of waiting.”

“I know,” you sigh. You glance up at her in between stitches. “I just don’t want to lose him.” 

“You won’t, Hon. You make him happy. He’s crazy about you. Has been for a long time.” Dana smirks before growing more serious. “I’ve known Robby for a long time. I’ve never seen him as happy as he is when he’s with you. And it’s not just when he’s with you. He’s happier in general.”

You finish cutting your last suture and look up at her. “Good. He deserves to be happy.”

“And who are we chatting about today ladies?” Robby smirks as he walks in the room. He seems very proud of himself for discovering the two of you talking.  

You exchange an amused look with Dana before looking at your boyfriend. “You.” 

“Ha!” Robby laughs. “You’re so funny.” Neither your nor Dana’s facial expressions change and he realizes you meant it. “What about me?” He asks with mock upset. 

You shake your head at him. “We were just talking about the future. Naturally you came up.”

“Naturally?” The smirk pulls back on his face. 

“I’m out.” Dana holds up her hands and walks out of the room. 

Robby steps closer to you as you stand up. “Naturally? What does ‘naturally’ mean?”

“It means we can talk about it tonight at home.” You smile saccharinely at him as you take your gloves off and throw them away. 

He shakes his head. “No, no. I want to hear about the future and me naturally coming up now.” 

“We don’t always get what we want.” You tilt your head at him.

“I know,” he nods. “For example, you don’t want to talk about this until we get home tonight, but you’re not going to get what you want because we’re going to talk about it now.” 

You scoff though there’s nothing really behind it. You hate how attractive the self-satisfied grin he’s wearing is and how it makes you want to jump him, except you don’t hate it at all. But if he really wants to play this game then you’re happy to. “Fine. She asked how things were going with you and I told her that when I thought about the future you’re always there with me and that I even see rings on fingers and sometimes I see a couple little mini-Michaels running around the house we buy together, okay?”

It makes him glitch out and go still and silent for a second like you figured it would and you smirk as you walk out the door and start to quickly make your way to the hub to find a patient to get involved with so he can’t pull you away. 

Rings? Robby thinks to himself. Mini-Michaels. Plural. A couple. More than one. Marriage. Kids. You see that with him. A huge smile pulls onto his face because he sees it with you but has always wondered if you saw it with him. Because he’s older and insecure about it and whether you’d really consider having kids with him because of that and if you wouldn’t would that end up being a deal-breaker. 

Robby turns and walks out of the room. “Hey!” he calls after you as he watches you giggle to yourself and damn near fucking scamper to the hub when you hear his voice.

“Hey, Javadi and McKay are with a patient in central 2 looking to present if you’re free,” Dana greets you as you walk up to the hub. 

“Oh,” you smirk to yourself and nod, “I am so free and available for them right now.” 

“Hey, hey, hey!” Robby gets to you just before you can get away. His hand wraps loosely but just tightly enough to remind you he’s your boyfriend around your upper arm and he pulls you to the side and then releases you. “You do not just get to drop that and run.” He shakes his head at you. 

You see McKay pop her head out of the room and look at Dana who points at you. You wave at her. “I’ll be right there!” 

“No you-”

“Yes, I will Dr. Robinavitch. Dr. McKay needs to present so that her patient can get the care they need. And she can present to me. That’s just one of those things I get to do,” you emphasize the word with a smirk and a slight bob of your head at him, “now that I’m an attending. So, our conversation will naturally have to wait.” You get to give him your own self-satisfied grin now as you walk off to central 2. 

The rest of the shift is busy. A rough busy. You and Robby barely see each other until you’re gathering your stuff to leave. You’re both quiet as you walk home holding hands. You’re not upset with each other or anything, you’re both just using the time to decompress a little. 

“You know,” Robby says as the two of you walk into his bedroom, “today was the closest I’ve gotten to hauling you into the on-call room and fucking you on shift.” 

You stop walking at his words and he nearly runs into you. “No, I did not know that. Why didn’t you?”

He steps in front of you and turns your hips, walks you backwards until you’re pressed against the wall, cages you in a little. He smirks at you. “I needed you to be able to walk to finish your shift.”

“Oh,” you laugh a little, mostly just a breath out, “you are talking an awfully big game right now, Michael.” 

His eyes sparkle as he nods. But he gets a bit more serious, almost a little shy or nervous. “Were you serious earlier? About marriage and kids and a house with me?”

Now you’re the shy one, but just like his, your eyes still sparkle. “Yeah. None of those are a dealbreaker for me, though. If you don’t want any of them. I see those things, or I can see those things with you, I want those things with you if you want them. Because really it’s just you. Whenever I think about my future, however many years down the road, you’re always with me, right there by my side.”

Robby beams at you and nods.“That’s funny because whenever I think about my future, however many years down the road, you’re always right there by my side. I’ve talked to Jack about it before.”

“Really?” you whisper, a huge smile of your own pulling onto your face.

“Mhm.” He nods. 

“Would you want any of that?” You’re a little breathless at the thought. And at Robby and how handsome he looks right now smiling at you like you’re perfect and the living embodiment of everything he could ever need and then some. “Buying a house together or marriage or kids?”

“I want all of that with you. None are a dealbreaker for me either, but I want all of that with you. I want everything with you, Kid.” He pauses and tilts his head. “Though if we have babies, I’d like there to be a bunch of mini-yous running around our house as opposed to a bunch of mini-mes.” 

You bite your lip and shake your head, watch Michael’s eyes blow a little more. “Nah, I want mini-Michaels.”

“Well, seeing as we can’t really control that, we’ll just have to see what happens.” Robby leans down and closer to you. “But I do want that with you. To marry you and buy a house and have some kids. I want that a lot.”

You nod. “I want that a lot too.” 

“Good,” he murmurs before leaning in and kissing you. 

He’s teasing about it, taking his time devouring you and leaving your hips canting against his before he pulls away and smirks at you, walks over towards the dresser. 

“And just so you know,” Robby says as he pulls his scrub top and under shirt off and looks at you. “It was the thought of fucking a baby into you, my wife, in our house that nearly had you getting fucked in the on-call room today.”

“Oh yeah?” You smirk, pulling off your own top. “You hiding a breeding kink from me Dr. Robinavitch?”

“Maybe.” Robby takes off his cargo pants and steps closer to you. Like he knew they would, your eyes drop down and you lick your lips when you see how hard he is under his boxer briefs. “You want to find out right now?”

You nod as you unhook your bra and let it drop to the floor. “Maybe I do.” Like Robby you take off your scrub pants but leave your underwear on and take a few steps closer to him. “And maybe you better put your money where your mouth is and I better not be able to walk after, Michael.” 

You’re different after speaking with that detective. The depression remains, the apathy and sadness and numbness are still there but anger and irritability start to take over. At first it seems to be more of a dynamic situation. One where you wake up every day not knowing how you’re going to feel. One where Robby wakes up every day and has no idea what you’re going to be like. That fact just feeds into the depression because it makes you hate yourself, hate the way Robby’s damn near walking on eggshells around you at times because he doesn’t know what you’re going to be like today.

He reacts by getting a little clingier, trying harder to be there for you, trying harder to anticipate your every need. You love him and you truly do appreciate all he’s doing but with each passing day you’re settling more into irritation and anger and his constant hovering and touching and offering you things and doing things for you starts to get suffocating. 

You’re both aware that speaking to the detective is what really set off your shift into the irritability and anger side of your depression and there’s a part of you who holds it against Robby. Because he was the one who didn’t just tell the guy no for however long it took to get him to leave. He was the one who told you it would just be easier if you spoke to the guy. And if you hadn’t spoken to him it’s likely you wouldn’t be this angry and irritable.

Your resentment about that slowly becomes some resentment about everything and he starts to agitate you more and more. You know it’s not him and it’s the depression so you fight it off hard for a while, but it’s fucking exhausting and eventually you’re not able to as much. You start to snap at him. Especially when it starts to feel like he’s here doing all these things for you and hovering and smothering you because he’s trying to make what he did in the supply closet all better just by being here for you. Like if he helps you get through this all will be forgiven and it’ll just be like the supply closet thing never happened. 

You don’t kick him out or tell him to leave. You let him be here with you. Let him do whatever he wants and thinks helps you even when it doesn’t. Because the few times you’ve gotten snappy and told him to stop and that he wasn’t helping and needed to stop hovering he looked like a kicked puppy with those big brown wide eyes and you immediately hated yourself. So you keep trying to bury your feelings down when you know you shouldn’t be. You know if you talked to him kindly about it then he’d probably adjust and things would be better but you’re constantly too irritated to want to engage in any prolonged conversation with him, or anyone else for that matter. 

Robby can feel it, despite how much you try to hide it. He can feel how irritated and annoyed he makes you. But he doesn’t know what to do about it, doesn’t know what you want from him. And so again, as you slip further into irritation and anger he holds on tighter, clings more, because he’s so afraid of losing you. The colder and more off with him you grow the more he does to show his worth and that he loves you and just wants to help you. It’s a never ending cycle for the two of you. 

It kills him inside knowing he upsets you. He slips into a depression of his own. He keeps going to therapy but it’s hard to make much progress right now. Once you woke up, being here with you all the time and helping you and doting on you, let him ignore everything else that happened on the day of the PittFest MCI. But it gets harder not to think about, to ignore all of the guilt weighing on him, when you really start to pull away from him and the two of you spend most of the time you’re not in some form of therapy in complete silence with you not even looking in his direction, sometimes turning in bed so that your back is to him. 

He hates himself. For all of it. Every single thing. Adamson. Langdon. Leah. You. All the people he either killed or failed or both.

The more angry and irritable with him you get, the more he feels like him being here isn’t actually helping you, the more he thinks he should just go. That you’d be better off without him. That the world would be. That it would be the kind thing to do to kill himself. That it would actually help you. That then neither you nor he would have to continue to suffer.  

Physically, you have good days and bad ones. Generally it depends on how tired you are. And the more you swallow down your feelings the more tired you are. The depression sucks all of the energy out of you too. You still have all kinds of therapy, but you start to stall out in terms of progress because of how tired you are. It makes it difficult for your body to maintain where it has recovered to, let alone make gains. 

They won’t let you go to a rehabilitation facility and be out of the hospital because they’re slowly weaning you off the heavier anti-seizure medications and they’re concerned about a delayed CSF leak causing you to develop meningitis and they’re worried if you do end up seizing that you’ll have another brain bleed and don’t want you to be at a facility far away and get delayed treatment. You know those are all technically legitimate concerns, but you also know they’ve definitely discharged patients where you’re at in recovery to rehab facilities and that really they won’t let you leave because Robby is asking them not to because he’s scared of you not being in the hospital. You learn to let that one go because you’re not sure what difference it really makes at this point. A rehab facility wouldn’t be home. 

Your memory is slowly starting to come back and the more you remember taking care of patients and wrapping up the MCI after pedes the more you and Robby know that eventually you’re probably going to remember him breaking up with you in the supply closet and things are likely to change between the two of you. It’s unclear whether it’ll be for the better or worse, whether remembering will help you process and heal and move on or whether it’ll be too much and you’ll end up telling him you can’t forgive him for it and work through it with him. 

One day little flashes start to come through. Nothing that’s enough to really give you much insight as to what happened and how it made you feel. You don’t tell Robby it’s starting to come back. You worry it’ll make him somehow even clingier, though you’re not sure how that would be possible at this point. 

And then one day it does come back fully. You can see the whole thing from start to finish. You can feel all the feelings you felt then. In fairness to him, Robby had done a good job of explaining what happened and just how severely he spoke to you and yelled at you when he broke up with you in the supply closet. But nothing he said or could have said or any way he could’ve explained compares to the memory. Robby couldn’t remind you of how it made you feel in the moment, of how he looked at you.

It’s mid-afternoon and you’ve just finished some therapy and settled into bed when it really comes back. You let it play through in your mind a couple of times before looking at Robby for a couple of seconds. He catches you looking and raises his eyebrows in a silent ask of what you need. 

You don’t ask for anything, immediately turning yourself over so your back is to him. You can’t look at him. Tears start to stream down your face and you clamp your hand over your mouth to stifle some of the noise. You wouldn’t be able to handle him trying to get into bed with you right now. 

So you force yourself to cry quietly. Force the dry heaves down. He thought so little of you and that hurts. It hurts more than anything you’ve been through during all of this. He didn’t trust you, he thought you’d breach his trust that egregiously. He wouldn’t even listen. How could he? How could he so easily dispose of you and throw you away without even hearing you out? It was just over for him. You were nothing. 

The walls your mind starts to build up around it are built subconsciously. You’re far too tired already today to really deal with this. You can’t let yourself feel any of this. But then heartbreak doesn’t really work like that does it? You try as hard as you can to pull it together and put it in a box and shove it away but you can’t. The sadness is overwhelming. It’s like you’re drowning in it. 

You can’t even begin to try and think of how to forgive him. How to heal this massive wound he’s inflicted on your heart and soul. You don’t know what the two of you even are anymore. He’s here acting like he’s your boyfriend but he never asked you to take him back. There hasn’t been any real conversation. 

The sorrow settles into your bones. It feels like you’ll never love again. Like you could never possibly feel any kind of romantic love towards anyone but him and so you’re destined for a lifetime without it. And it feels like nobody will ever love you again. Not like he did. Or not like how you thought he did, because you’re not sure anymore. That he ever did. Not when he could throw you away so easily. 

“Kid?” Robby’s voice is gentle as he calls to you and gets out of the chair. He knows you’re crying. He can see it in the way your body shakes and how you curl in on yourself, can hear the sniffles you try to muffle. It breaks his heart. It’s the first time in a good while now that he’s seen you show some real emotion other than various forms of anger and irritation. He wants to hold you. He wants so badly to make it all better. “What’s wrong?”

You hear him growing closer, you know he’s going to try and get in bed behind you. So you automatically adjust yourself and spread out a little so that there’s no room for him to. So that he’d have to ask and you could make up an excuse and say no. 

“I’m fine,” you sniffle. 

“Please talk to me,” he whispers, his hand finding your side and rubbing up and down in what he incorrectly thinks is a soothing manner. 

“I’m just tired and am going to try and sleep,” you mumble, pulling the covers further up you. 

Robby wants to push you, get you to talk to him. But he doesn’t. He knows you don’t need that right now. “Okay,” he murmurs, walking back over to his chair.

Eventually you wake up. You say even less to Robby than usual the rest of the day. You don’t eat the dinner he gets you, just say you’re not hungry. Which is true because you’re far too nauseous to feel hungry right now. And then you go back to sleep for the night without him in bed with you. 

In the morning you don’t feel better but you’re at least rested and not as tired. You have some breakfast because you know you need your blood sugar to be okay. The rest and food will make it easier to control your emotions and you’re going to need to because you’re going to talk to Robby and do your best to set aside your anger and irritation and hurt and sadness for this conversation. 

“Hey,” you say softly. “Can we talk?”

“Of course.” Robby nods from his chair at the side of your bed. “What’s up?”

You let out a shaky breath. “More of my memory has come back. So, um, I remember now. The supply closet. You breaking up with me. It’s a little hazy in places still but, yeah.” You let out a long breath. “I remember it.” 

You do your best to keep your voice neutral, to keep any emotions from taking you over, to keep from crying. It’s almost worse for him in a way. He’d rather have you express emotion so he could know where you are with it.

Robby swallows thickly and nods. He’d been expecting this. Thought the last afternoon and night might be about it. “I wondered. But I didn’t want to push you or something by asking.”

You give him a strained smile. “I appreciate that.” 

“I’m sorry,” he offers quietly. “I know it doesn’t change anything or make it better, but I truly am sorry.” 

You nod. “I know Michael. I know you are. Trust me, I know. And I see how bad you feel and I don’t want you to hate yourself for this. I think we can get through it, I’m just not sure how right now. And I don’t know where exactly this leaves us.” You shrug. “But I don’t want to lose you and not be with you if you don’t want to lose me. I’m just telling you now that I’m struggling with it, now that I can remember, and I’m struggling with how to process it and where we even start and how we work through it and heal. My brain is still…you know?” 

Robby nods but stays quiet to see if there’s more you want to say, trying to be better at listening and hearing you. Trying to show you he’s not who he was that day in the supply closet. Trying not to push when you don’t want to be pushed.

“But it’s not just better, things aren’t repaired and fixed.” You know you’re repeating yourself a little. You just want to communicate all the thoughts your brain can put together so that Robby knows where you’re at with things, even though you don’t really know. You want him to know you don’t know. “So I don’t really know exactly where we are right now, what we are exactly. I’m just, we’re just going to kind of have to take it day by day and I know in a way that’s not fair to you, not fair for you to be here taking care of me and helping me but not knowing exactly what and where we are and maybe doing all of this for me just for us not to end up together.”

He’s shaking his head before you even finish speaking. “No. No, I don’t care about that for a second. I mean I do in the sense that I care about whether we’re together or not but not, I don’t think it’s unfair is what I mean, or even if it is, I don’t mind. Like even if we definitively weren’t together and you wanted or needed or even were just okay with me being here helping you I would be. Because I love you and I care about you and I always will. Even if we’re not together. I will always love you.” He pauses and rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t know if that made sense or made things worse.” The way he seems so scared to get your reaction makes you sad. 

“I know what you mean.” You nod at him. “And I love you too, always will.” You give him a small smile.

Robby returns your small smile with a big one of his own. All he ever wants to do is make you laugh and smile. “Okay, good.” He lets out a breath. “I don’t want to lose you. That’s the last fucking thing I want. I thought I was going to and I…” He looks away from you for a second to pull it together. “I couldn’t handle it. So I’m going to try to follow your lead with this and meet you where you are with it and try and help us figure out a way to heal.” He looks down. “From me.”

“I appreciate that and think that will be very helpful.” You’re surprised at the course of this conversation. You were fully expecting Robby to push you and bombard you with questions or try to keep the conversation going and try to sit on the bed next to you and fluff your pillows so he’d feel like he was helping you. Because that’s what he’s been doing a lot as of late when you do talk casually about whatever. 

You know it’s probably because he’s desperate for you to talk to him and so once you start he doesn’t want the conversation, good or bad, to end. And that he likes to feel helpful and like he’s doing things that really help you and wants to show you he’s taking care of you. 

Your physical therapist knocks and comes in. Robby’s distracted during it, normally far more involved. You’re hopeful it’s a sign that he’s stepping back a little and not going to hover and be in your space and trying to do everything for you as much. 

But really he’s just thinking. About what you said. About how you don’t know what the two of you are. About how that conversation went far better than he thought it would. He expected your irritability and anger to come out hard because that’s where you seem to live lately. He was prepared to accept it, whatever it was you needed to say, however you needed to say it, as long as it helped you heal. If you needed to be mean and yell at him like he had done to you to heal from this and be able to move on and still be with him then he’d let you. He’s hoping your irritability and anger not showing themselves too much is a sign you’re not going to be living there anymore. 

Unfortunately neither of your hopes turn into reality. Things are just awkward over the next two days. Robby still hovers and is suffocating at times and you’re right back to irritability and anger as you try to deal with your broken heart and how to heal it. 

There’s a bit of a change, though. Your irritation and anger and depression in general manifest in extreme apathy. It builds slowly over those two awkward days after you and Robby talk, but by the third it’s almost total apathy. You stop pushing yourself during any of your therapies. Everyone can tell you’re mentally checked out the entire time and just doing whatever you’re told without any real thought. 

And over the next three days while you’re checked out and not pushing yourself and trying to figure out what to do about Robby a more complete apathy sets in. You stop doing your various therapies. Physical therapy comes and you say no. Speech therapy comes and you say no. Occupational therapy comes and you say no. 

You say no when Robby reminds you to do all your various exercises they leave you with. You say no thanks when he brings you food. You get irritated and are quick to snap at him if he tries to persuade you into doing things for too long. 

At first everyone agrees to let it go. Nobody is happy about it but you’ve been working very hard for a good chunk of time now and so they agree to let you have a couple of days of rest. Everyone that is except for you. 

Because once those couple of days pass, you’re still saying no. And Robby can’t take it anymore. 

“You need to do speech therapy.” He gives you a look. “You had a break. It’s time to get back to it all.”

“I don’t even need it anymore. My speech is fine. I very occasionally have trouble with some words but I probably did before this anyway.” You shrug at him. 

Robby shakes his head. “You know there are some words you consistently struggle with. They can help with that.”

“Why do you fucking care? What does it matter? Is it because I might embarrass you one day when I struggle with a word in front of someone? Just stop. I’m not doing it.” You let out an irritated sigh and shake your head at him. 

Robby lets out a slightly irritated sigh of his own that makes you bristle a little. Today is really not the day for him to do this with you. Your irritability is particularly bad, you’re tired and just want to sleep and be left alone.

“Alright, how about some physical therapy then? We don’t need to call them. I can help you.” You ignore him and make no effort to sit up so that you can do some exercises. “I’m just worried, Kid. I know it’s tiring and it’s hard but if you don’t keep up with it you’re going to lose everything you’ve worked for.”

“I didn’t realize I suddenly wasn’t a doctor anymore and didn’t know that,” you deadpan. 

“Kid,” he sighs again. 

“I know,” you huff, “I know and I’m still choosing to not do it. Not today. Let it go.” You take a deep breath to try and let out some of your irritation and tension because when it builds up you snap at him and you hate that, hate snapping at him.

“You have to,” he says simply, starting to walk closer to your bed. If you’re not going to do it when he asks nicely then he’s going to take a tough love approach because he can’t let you lay here and lose all of your progress and waste away in front of his eyes. 

“No I don’t.” 

“Yes.” He throws your blankets off you. “You do.” Robby adds to your rapidly growing irritation when he goes to grab at you to get you sitting up.

“Fucking stop, Michael.” You bat his hands away. “I really don’t. So please stop. I really can’t do this right now. You can try asking again in a bit.”

“You really do.” He’s unperturbed by you batting his hands away, continuing to try and get ahold of you enough to get you sitting up. 

“No. Stop. Michael, I’m so fucking serious right, stop touching me please. It’s too much. I need you to get out of my personal space right now.” You shove at his arms as best you can to try and get him to back off, the increasing tension and irritation clear in your voice. “I can’t do it, okay? And I’m not going to.” 

“No. You don’t want to.” He doesn’t mean for it to but it comes across like he’s scolding you to you. “You can and you are going to.” His hand manages to wrap around your upper arm and that’s it. You’re done.

You snap. 

“Oh my fucking god, Robby!” You half yell. He freezes instantly. “I need some space, I need you to go.” 

Robby doesn’t freeze because you half yelled. He freezes because you called him Robby. You haven’t called him that in years now. And it doesn’t even look like a fully conscious choice, more something that just slipped out and for some reason that panics him even more. He pulls his hand from you and takes a few steps back from your bed. 

“What?” he whispers.

You take a second to let out a breath and bring yourself back down. “I need some space, please Michael. I’m too overstimulated and irritated right now, I don’t care if you don’t understand why, you don’t need to. I just need some space. Please.”

“What is this really about? Because I know it’s only about me trying to get you to do exercises to an extent.” He shakes his head, mouth set. “I’m sorry I didn’t stop when you asked and tried to keep going and take the tough love route. That was wrong of me. I should’ve stopped as soon as you asked. But something else is driving this, this anger and irritation that you have, that gets so high you snap and now apparently makes you need to be alone. And I need you to talk to me. Like really talk to me honestly. So we can work things out and I can know what to do and not do.” 

You stay quiet, hoping he’ll take the hint and let the conversation go and give you the space you desperately need. Neither of you are at your best right now. Neither of you are perfect. And you don’t want to continue to hurt each other with this conversation.

“If this is about what happened that day in the supply closet you need to just say that so we can talk about it. Because we haven’t. Not really. Not since you remembered. We ignore it.” He shrugs at you. “We can’t keep ignoring it.”

“Michael,” you let out a long breath, “right now I just need some space, a little time to be alone. We should not have this conversation right now while we’re both this escalated. I don’t want to.”

“I’m not escalated. I’m just saying we can’t keep ignoring it.” The thought of this conversation ending and leaving you even just to give you some space terrifies him. 

You clench your jaw, give into the irritation and anger a little. 

“Fine, you want to talk about it now of all fucking times? Now when I’ve asked you to leave and give me some space because I’m overstimulated and irritated and too escalated? Fine. Whatever you want, Robby!” You scoff a laugh at him because it feels so fucking typical. His breath hitches because you’re back to calling him Robby. “I haven’t been ignoring it. Somedays it’s close to all I think about. I’ve been trying so hard to let it go and to forgive you and try and move on, and figure out how to do all of that. But I still don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?” he asks. Doesn’t agree to stop the conversation. Just asks a follow up question. He knows he shouldn’t. He knows he should just give you the bit of space you’re asking for and not push you. 

“Anything! I don’t know how to do any of this and deal with it. I don’t know about us. Where and what we are. You broke my heart! You shattered my trust! You thought I’d just betray you. You didn’t, maybe don’t, trust me. So I don’t really know why you even want to be with me. And right now I am so physically fucked up everywhere and my brain is a mess. I just…” You let out a long breath and try to regain some semblance of composure but it’s getting increasingly difficult. 

“Honestly, you’re hovering, constantly, and suffocating me. I never get any fucking alone time. You schedule your therapy at the same time as one of mine so someone’s with me. You’re here with me all the time, and yes I appreciate it, and I love it and you so very much, I promise I do. Even when it feels like I don’t and when I’m irritated. I do. But it feels so much like you think that if you’re here and helping me through this and doing whatever I need and hovering and showing me you’re here for me then it’ll all be fine and work out like nothing happened and that’s just not true. So I just need some space right now in this moment. I’m getting overwhelmed and I just need to be alone. I really don’t want to continue this conversation. Now is not the time.” You shake your head at him.

“I am sorry, you know. I really am.” Robby wraps his arms around himself. “And I want to do whatever you need me to so that we can fix this and get through it. So please just tell me.”

He still won’t end the conversation. He’s still pushing you. Because Robby would rather be feeling your anger than feeling nothing from you. But it’s winding you up again, the way he won’t stop. And you know if you try and shut down he’ll just keep talking at you and hover near you which will be just as bad. 

“I know. I know you are. And I remember understanding in the moment. Understanding why you did it, how bad of a day it had been, how emotionally fried you were. I know what the day was but you were so ready to just throw me away. And I know you want to fix this. But I still don’t know what exactly I need from you. It is hard for me to be around you sometimes. I’ve never asked you to leave because I know how much it would hurt you. I know how bad it would be for you. But it’s hard to look at you. Because I look at you and all I can see is the man who thought so little of me that he wouldn’t even give me a chance to ask questions or explain and wouldn’t listen to me. It’s like I was nothing to you. And you’re always here and so I’m thinking about that a lot. I just…” 

You pause for a second. It’s getting harder to organize your thoughts and keep them on topic and not tangential and rambling. “Please. I’m not even asking you to leave, Robby. I’m asking for some space. For like an hour or so. You say you’ll do anything for me, then do this. Give me some space.”

Everything Robby’s learned at therapy is sliding right out the door during this conversation. He needs to walk away because you aren’t able to and you’re asking for space. And he knows that as calm as you’re trying to keep yourself and your voice, he’s winding you up every time he won’t do as you ask, won’t give you space. But he can’t stop. Eventually you guys will talk your way out of this, just like you always do. That’s what he tells himself. 

“You weren’t nothing to me.” He shakes his head, face screwing up in worry that you still think that. “You aren’t nothing to me. You’re everything, you always have been, even when I was being a full on piece of shit and horrible to you.”

You look away from him for a second before shaking your head to yourself and looking back at him. “You say that Robby but sometimes actions are so much louder than words.”

“And what about now?” He scoffs at you a little because what the fuck do you mean actions are louder than words. He’s here and trying so hard and that’s apparently nothing to you. All it does is make you pissed off with him. “What about all this, everything I’m doing now? You have to be able to see that you’re not nothing to me, that you’re everything, that I’d do fucking anything for you! I’ve stayed through it all, through the depression, through feeling like you don’t want me here, through you snapping at me and not talking to me and nearly ignoring me. I’m still here. I’m still here even when you make it difficult to be! And you’re telling me that counts for nothing?”

Robby can see you grow more upset and irate, can see it building up again. You tense further, your chest starts to heave just slightly, jaw grinding. Your eyes show it too, look at him sharper. 

“Oh,” you draw out your laugh of the word. “When I make it difficult to be here you push through and stay, okay. Don’t fucking act like you’re doing me some goddamned favor by staying and being here Robby! It shouldn’t be a fucking favor. It shouldn’t be something you lord over me. It should be you here because you love me and you want to be here and you don’t feel like you need recognition for being here because that’s just what people who love each other do. If you don’t want to be here, if I make it too fucking difficult, then fucking leave and don’t come back.” 

“I didn’t mean it like that and I don’t want to leave and not come back,” he starts to interject. But you keep going.

“And of course you being here and staying counts, for a lot, I never said it didn’t. I literally just fucking told you I appreciate you being here but that doesn’t change what happened. It doesn’t just magically fix what you broke!” You shake your head and shrug at him, let out a breath of a laugh. “How do I know this isn’t just some manifestation of you feeling guilty and responsible and like you have to fix me? How do I know it’s not the guilt that’s keeping you here? How do I know you don’t really want to still be broken up but feel so guilty that you’re here and pretending? Because you were fine with not having me until something happened to me that you blame yourself for.” 

“No! No. I was never fine with not having you, even when I still stupidly thought you had gossiped about it. I wasn’t fine. I was destroyed!” He shakes his head at you, takes a step forward because he needs you to believe him about this. “Do I feel guilty? Yes. I’m not going to lie to you or myself. Of course I feel guilty. If I had been there or if you had stayed at the hospital this wouldn’t have happened to you. But you’re not going to get better and then I’m going to be like oh yeah actually I don’t want to be with you and just fuck off and leave you. I’m fighting for you. For us. For that future we talked about. Marriage and a house and kids. Please let me fight for us. Please fight with me for us.” 

He knows you are fighting for the two of you, that you are everyday, and that you asking for space doesn’t mean you’re just giving up. It’s a healthy thing to do. He should respect it. He knows he’s making things worse by continuing the conversation. 

“Don’t.” The coil of anger and irritation Robby’s winding up in you is getting tighter and tighter. “Don’t act like I’m not. Don’t act like me asking for some space means I’m not fighting for us. I could’ve told you to get the fuck out the second you told me what happened or the second I remembered. Believe me there have been times the irritation and depression or the sheer hurt from what you did have overwhelmed me and I’ve wanted to make you leave. There still are those times. But I didn’t and I don’t make you leave. Because it would hurt you deeply and because I want to fix this and make it work. So I fight for us. I fight for us every fucking day. And me needing an hour of space doesn’t change that.” You stare at him intensely as you try to use the silence to drive it all home. 

“I don’t want to lose you.” Robby rubs the back of his neck. He’s terrified. You can see it. His face is furrowed, lips pulled down and eyes wide and glassy and reflecting the anxiety and self-loathing you know he’s drowning in. “I can’t lose you.” 

He still won’t stop and give you what you need, what you’re begging him for and you’re a hair’s breadth away from reaching a point of no return.

“Staying doesn’t mean you won’t lose me, Robby! You really need to see that! The simple fact of you being here and trying to help me and supporting me doesn’t mean everything’s going to be okay.” You rub your face as you let out a long sigh and look at him pleadingly. “Please Robby, I’m literally begging you for some space right now. I really need it. I really need you to go because I don’t want to end up completely snapping at you and saying a bunch of shit I regret and damaging things further when I get totally overwhelmed and I’m headed there really fast. And I know you want to help. Right now what would help me is if you gave me some space.” 

“I think we should do couple’s therapy.” You nod at him, hoping that at this point in the conversation your silence will at the very least get him to be quiet. “I can start looking for someone and-” 

“Robby,” you interrupt him. But he speaks before you can say anything else.

“Please don’t call me that.” He shakes his head at it. “Why are you suddenly calling me that? What happened to Michael?” 

You let out a slow and shaky breath. “I really need space and this conversation to be over.” 

“But I love you. I want to work this out.” He’s pleading with you now just as much as you’ve been pleading with him. 

“I know. I know that. And I love you. I genuinely do, Michael. Unfortunately though, despite what many people say, sometimes love alone isn’t enough. I need you to respect me right now. I am asking you for space please. Just please give me some time to myself right now. An hour. Just an hour for right now. If we keep going I’m going to snap and say shit I regret, I really can’t take anymore, so please,” you’re begging him, “please give me some space.” 

You’ve hit the point and you know it. This conversation is either going to end and Robby is going to give you the space you need, or he’s going to try and continue the conversation and you’re going to lose it on him and end up hurting him. 

Robby is fully aware that he’s not going to get the answer he wants to the question he’s about to ask. It’s not going to make you calm down and slip into reassurance mode and end this argument or whatever this is. He knows it’s just him pushing you further and he tries to stop himself but it slips out anyway. 

“You don’t need me? To help you.” 

And that’s it for you. The way that question seems like it’s about you but is really about him. The way he kept pushing. You’re too tired and totally overstimulated and overwhelmed and he has just kept pushing and pushing you, kept winding you up and adding to your overwhelm and irritation and overstimulation. So you snap again. 

But you snap much, much harder this time. 

“God damn it Robby just get the fuck out, okay?” you seethe at him. You’re fucking livid. He has never seen you like this before. “Get out! I’m fucking done! Is that what you wanted? Me to totally snap and come unglued and say I’m done so you could get out of all this and not be to blame in your mind? Because congrats, you got me there! You fucking pushed me there! I’m done right now. Done. I asked for space and you can’t do it. You just had to keep fucking going. So yeah, now I am kicking you the fuck out!” 

You let out a shaky breath as tears of anger and frustration start to stream down your face. “You are making it so fucking hard right now to want to keep fucking fighting for us and I hate it. I hate it. I get you’re scared about losing me either physically or emotionally, but jesus fucking christ I just asked for some space Robby! But you still don’t trust me, you don’t trust me to take the space I need and not go anywhere! You don’t trust me to not just give up on us!” 

“I didn’t want to have to kick you out. I just wanted a little bit of fucking space. And you can’t give me it and you’re making this about you! Like you always do. Everything is about you! Do you even see it?” You throw your hands up at him and give him a look. “I asked not to have this conversation because I was too escalated and upset and exhausted and overwhelmed but no, you wanted to fucking have it so here we are. Both of us hurt and upset. Do you see that you not leaving is making this about you and what you need to quell your fears? To be here with me constantly. But it’s not about you and what you need!” 

“In the hospital right now, this shit is about me! I’m the one who has been relearning to walk and feed myself and everything fucking else. I’m the one who has problems speaking at times. I’m the one who can’t get her brain to think sometimes, who just forgets how to get her brain to do anything.” You wipe at your face. The tears of frustration and anger haven’t stopped. “You have no fucking idea what that’s like, what it’s like to feel like a toddler again in some ways, even with how far I’ve come. I’m the one who might never be able to practice medicine again, who might have my entire career ripped away from me as it was literally just fucking beginning.” 

“And you know what, actually, yeah.” You nod at him with a sardonic laugh. “To answer your question. I do. I do need you. I need your help with all of this, your support and your respect, but not on your terms. Not you doing what helps you. Not you doing what you think is helping me and supporting me and respecting me. On my terms.” You point at yourself. “On what is actually doing or will do those things for me. I need you but you have now stopped me from having you by not giving me some simple space when I asked. You’re my partner, or you were my partner, I guess. I don’t even know if you are anymore. You broke up with me. You told me to call you Dr. Rob-, Dr. Rob- fuck.” 

You let out an acerbic scoff at your inability to get out his name. It strikes you as exceedingly poetic in the moment. “You told me to call you by your title. The one I can’t even fucking say now so I guess it’s a good job you decide to let me call you something else. You broke my fucking heart Robby! You shot a fucking bullet right through my heart and that bullet tore through it, just like what happened to Leah!”

Neither of you breathe for a couple of seconds and the room is pin drop silent. Robby’s chin trembles and he tilts his head at you for a second in a look of total heartbreak before looking down as his tears start to fall. He can’t believe you just said that. That you went there. It’s pain on multiple levels. Pain because of what happened with and to Leah, because of what it did to Jake, because he should have been there instead of her, and because you just threw it in his face. 

You know how low of a blow that was. You know you could hardly go any lower than that. You know that you just broke his heart in a way. You hate yourself for saying it. But you are so overstimulated and angry and exhausted and irritated and just fucking done that it’s difficult to find it within you to care. So you go on, you don’t let up at all, don’t calm at all. You just keep going. 

“Sure mine wasn’t physical but it was emotional. You managed to do that with words, tear right through my heart with your words.” You sneer at him. “And it’s really fucking hard to figure it all out, Robby, how to do this and heal my heart and us. Especially with a very traumatic brain injury that’s not healed. We weren’t even fucking together when this happened, not to you! I don’t know what we are! I don’t know what I want!” 

“I am so far fucking beyond overwhelmed and overstimulated right now, Robby. You have made me that far beyond overwhelmed and overstimulated by not giving me the little bit of fucking space I asked for over and over again! You have gotten us here!” Your head is killing you and it’s getting substantially harder to form coherent thoughts that aren’t just essentially repetitions of things you’ve already said. 

“Everything hurts, thinking hurts. Being with you hurts! It hurts way the fuck too much. You need to leave me alone and go and not fucking be here because it’s too much! It’s too much and I can’t do this anymore. I cannot fucking do it. You need to fucking go,” you fully snarl at him. “And if you don’t I will call my nurse and have her get security. I can’t do this anymore, okay? So get the fuck out and don’t come back until I want and ask you to.” 

Robby’s still looking at the floor as he sniffles and nods. He’s not sure how he hasn’t thrown up already or started audibly sobbing. “Okay,” he whispers. He pushed you way too far and he knows it. And he might have permanently pushed you too far, might have destroyed everything because he was so terrified of losing you. Might have created a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

He grabs a couple of his things and his backpack as he makes his way to the door. He stops with hand on the door handle and looks back at you. “Are you ever going to want me to come back?” 

It’s a loaded question. He asked ‘are you ever going to want me to come back’ but what he really means is ‘are you ever going to want me back’ and both of you know it.

You look over at him, still just as livid as when you threw Leah in his face and told him to get the fuck out. Your voice is ice cold when you answer. 

“I don’t know.”

😶 I have very little to say for myself, but please do not hate me lol. I tried to make the vignettes fluffy for some balance. 😭 There will of course be a Part 3.

I hope it was okay and enjoyable! I really enjoy hearing your thoughts and comments, they give me so much motivation and inspiration!! Liking, replies and reblogging are always so so appreciated! My inbox and DMs are always open for thoughts, comments, and general screaming (or (lovingly) screaming at me again)! 🙂♥️

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[finelinevogue]

i had a thought for a part 2 for the 'ridiculous' lando fic (obvs don't have to do it if it's crap) but maybe you could write about them being together like a year later at the next monaco gp and her friends who were being horrible to her like trying to get back in touch with y/n so they could get gp tickets because shes going out with lando

i genuinely love all your fics though, i've been here for timeeee ahhaha

makes sense to be with you

yesss let’s do it my love!! and don’t you worry, i know you’ve been here with me since the beginning <33 i never forget a name!

pairing - lando norris x girlfriend!reader

word count - ~2k

It’s race day.

The nerves were high for everyone. Sometimes you felt like your nerves were even higher than Lando’s - which was a silly thing to think.

Lando had driven you to the Monaco Grand Prix this morning, spare hand on your thigh the entire journey. You had gotten ready together this morning and Lando had calmed your nerves with a few soft morning kisses in between stolen moments.

Pulling up outside the venue though, the tension felt high.

Lando stopped the car and sat with you for a moment.

“You good?” He asked, not letting your hand go.

“Yeah. Just thinking about this time last year.” You rested your head on the back of the headrest and turned to face your boyfriend.

He watched you with a handsome smile.

“A lot’s changed since then.”

“I know.”

He chuckled which caused you to laugh back.

“I’m nervous but I’m excited for this weekend.” He told you honestly.

“You’re going to be amazing.”

He looked from you to the crowds outside the car, snapping photos and recording videos of the two of you. It was busy out there, but nothing that the two of you couldn’t handle.

It had been difficult the past year trying to fit in beside Lando and keep up with his pace of life, but he had been so patient and caring with you. Because of him the last year had been easier than it could’ve been.

Your phone beeped.

You chuckled to yourself as you opened the WhatsApp notifications.

“Who is it?” Lando asked, peering over your shoulder because he knew you’d have nothing to hide. “Oh they can fuck right off.”

“Lando!” You laughed.

It was from your ex friends and their whole group. They had added you to their group chat last minute, knowing they needed you for what they wanted.

Rochelle : How are we supposed to get tickets for the Monaco GP?

Eva : Let’s ask Y/N now she’s with Lando

Jemima : so true

Rochelle : OMG yes!!!!

[ Y/N has been added to the chat ]

Eva : Hey Y/N! Long time no speak!

“Do they realise that you can see all the conversations above?” Lando scoffed beside you.

“Probably not.”

“Bunch of….” Lando started to mutter.

“Hey, don’t,” You stopped him before he could say something he would later regret, “I’m okay.”

You deleted the group chat from your phone and left it alone, placing your phone in your lap as you squeezed Lando’s hand tightly. You used your other hand to guide his face to yours.

“I’m okay.” You promised him.

He nodded.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t like them though.”

“Enough now. Don’t let them ruin your day.” You softly brushed your thumb over his cheek and he leant into it a little more.

“Don’t want them to ruin yours either.”

“They can’t.” You shook your head.

Lando was confident with your answer and leaned in to give you a soft kiss. Neither of you noticed the influx of camera flashes as you kissed because both of you were too into each other.

He had this very special, unique, talent of making you feel like the only girl in the world.

“I love you.” He whispered close to you.

You kissed him again quickly this time, “I love you too. Now go win.”

“Don’t give me too much to do.” He joked, pulling away from you to continue the day and win this damn race for you.

• 🏎️💨 •

He fucking won.

He actually did it.

You had a pair of headphones wrapped around your neck as you cupped your hands over your mouth. You were in a state of shock and wonder.

Your Lando had done it. He had won Monaco and part of you liked to believe he had done it for you.

Engineers and teammates alike were all cheering in the garage. This was a huge win for them too.

Everyone swarmed outside to go and meet Lando and congratulate him. You weren’t sure whether to follow or to meet him later.

Your phone beeped in your pocket.

[ Y/N has been added to the chat ]

Rochelle : Congrats on Lando’s win Y/N 🍾

Eva : Yeah totally! Any big plans for tonight?

Jemima : OMG yesss we should all totally meet tonight & celebrate!

Rochelle : YEASSSS

You sighed, biting your lip as you questioned how to respond.

They had really texted at the wrong moment because this was supposed to be your time celebrating with Lando, not feeling bad for people who used to be horrid to you that you still sort of felt bad for.

You texted back, wanting this to be done.

You: hi :) thank you for congratulating lando! still not ready to be friends with you guys yet, but thanks for thinking of me.

A minute later you had been removed from the group chat.

You shook your head in disappointment.

Yes, they had been the ones to get you an invite onto a Monaco yacht party where you had first met Lando but that’s all they had ever done for you. The rest of the time they had been the type of friends to bring you down. You had often been the ‘one of these friends is not like the others’ friend.

Lando had helped you realise that you didn’t need them in your life and had supported you when you’d cut them out of your life.

It stung that now all they wanted you for was your connection to Lando and his fame.

It made you feel used.

No doubt Lando often felt the same. Hopefully never from you.

You pocketed your phone, remembering you were missing all the celebrations outside.

Before you could leave the garage to walk around to the podium, you heard Lando call your name.

He was jogging down the road and dodging people who were trying to give him a hug or a congratulatory handshake. His eyes were dead-set on you.

His hair was sweaty and his face was beet-red.

He looked so good though, with his jumpsuit folded over at his waist and his black fireproofs on underneath. He ran a hand through his messy hair as he approached you.

You took off the headphones around your neck, dropping them onto the table.

Lando reached you first, picking you up around your waist and spinning you around excitedly. Your arms held tightly around his neck with your face smushed into his head. He smelt of sweat and hair products.

You could feel him laugh into your chest and you couldn’t help but let the few tears that wanted to fall soak into his hair.

“I’m so proud of you.”

He squeezed you tighter, slowly stopping the spinning to put you safely back on the floor.

“You did it. You fucking did it.”

“I did it.” He smiled so big.

You untucked your head from where it had been hiding, but keeping your arms securely around his neck for closeness. His stayed around your waist.

You used one hand to brush some loose curls back into formation.

“Knew you could do it.”

“It’s ‘cause my lucky charm was watching on.” He nodded his head to you.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”

“The Monaco Grand Prix, honey.” You whispered excitedly like you couldn’t quite believe it. “What more could you want?”

He raised his eyebrows at you like that was a stupid question. You rolled your eyes before he could say something ridiculously lovely.

You tucked your head under his chin and moved your arms down so you could hug him around his waist. He hugged you closer, kissing the top of your head a few times before letting the moment sink in with his favourite person stood beside him.

“Lando! We need you for the podium!”

“Two minutes!”He shouted back, not giving you up.

“No… Now!”

Lando sighed loudly. You untucked yourself.

“Go. I’ll be right there. Enjoy this moment, okay?” You cupped both of his cheeks and brought his face down to kiss him softly. He deserved it.

liked by charlesleclerc, lewishamilton and 294,937 others

yourinstagram enjoy this moment 🍯🧡

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fan1 INSANE!!!!!

fan2 we 🧡 you y/n

oscarpiastri Well done mate!

fan3 🍯 because y/n calls lando honey?!!?????

♥️ by the author

fan4 LANDO FOR THE WIN

fan5 i love them ur honour

rochelle0110 Congrats 🥂 Let’s celebrate?

fan6 I WANT TO CELEBRATE WITH THEM

yourinstagram @/fan6 ur very welcome to xo

lando Going to enjoy this one for a long time to come (especially with you) 🧡

♥️ by the author

• 🏎️💨 •

Lando opened the door for you and held a hand out to help you leave his car.

He passed the car keys off to a valet and then returned his attention to you. He had already watched you get ready and had litterally sat next to you in the car on the way here, but seeing you step out of his car in that black dress made him want to drop to the floor and pray.

The paparazzi went crazy for you both, begging for a photo.

Unfortunately Lando wasn’t interested in giving them the time of day as he was still angry about previous things the tabloids had said about you and him.

He held onto you hand as you walked past everyone and into the club venue.

It was celebration night, post-race, and it was going to be a big one.

You didn’t need to show ID upon entry because everyone, especially bouncers, knew who the F1 people were in Monaco.

Lando gave the bouncers a handshake and wished them a goodnight whilst still holding on to you. He also slipped them a piece of paper and asked them to read it carefully.

“What was that?” You asked as you followed behind him.

“My ‘no entry’ list.”

“What?” You stopped short, your high heels digging into the floor as you did so. Lando bounced back towards you.

“I’ve asked that certain people are denied entry.” He shrugged.

“Like who?”

“Does it matter?” He asked.

“Yes. I don’t want to start some sort of feud.”

“Well, they started it when they decided to sell a story to the tabloids last year which made our relationship difficult for a while.” He was growing frustrated you could tell.

“Oh my God, will you let it go?” You stressed, dropping his hand to which he looked visibly offended by.

“No, Y/N, I won’t. They’re a bunch of arseholes and what? You want them to be a part of my celebration? I don’t think so.” He scoffed.

“I just don’t want this to be a big thing for us forever. Just let it go.”

He shook his head again before heading into the club. Without you.

Fuck.

You didn’t mean to get into an argument about it, but ever since your ex friends sold a story about Lando being a misogynist prick to the tabloids there had been a rift between everyone.

You had immediately dropped your friends and Lando had done damage control for weeks after.

You’d never believed the tabloids, but it was Lando that felt like he had to prove that he was nothing like what they were saying he was. Lando thought he had to make it up to you, as if he’d done something wrong. So it was easy to understand why they still got under his nerves.

You just wished they didn’t still taunt him.

You wanted him you find peace from all of this now like you had.

You followed him into the club a few minutes later, trying to calm your nerves after your stupid argument.

The club had cheered and roared when Lando had stepped into the main room, leaving you to slip in from the side unnoticed.

The room was dimly lit with orange strobe lights dancing around. A layer of smoke filtered through the air, along with the smell of vapes and sticky alcohol on the floor.

The music was all for Lando. The playlist included all his favourite songs.

You walked around the edge so you could go and grab a quick drink from the bar.

“Limoncello spritz please.” You asked the bartender.

A couple minutes later you had your drink in hand and slipped back into the corner of the room, a standing table available for you to rest your drink on.

All of Lando’s friends, family and fellow F1 mates were here celebrating. Lando was so loved and it was amazing to see.

He was currently stood on a raised platform with Oscar by his side. They were both bopping and singing out of tune to one of his favourite songs. You smiled as you watched on.

Then Lando caught your eyes.

He made his way off the platform and walked over to you. The crowd easily parted for him.

He didn’t stop until he was right in front of you.

“I’m sorry.” He said.

You nodded.

“I’m a dickhead sometimes.”

You pursed your lips to stop from smiling.

“But I love you too much to fight over something so boring.”

You nodded in agreement.

“So will you accept my apology and come dance with me? I did win the Monaco Grand Prix for you after all.”

You held out your hand like it was a white flag.

He took it was a grin, only to be shocked by the force of you pulling him closer so you could give him a proper kiss.

Your arms snaked around his neck and his felt their way across your waist, both of you sinking into each other and letting the rest of the room drift away.

You tilted your head to let him have a little extra room to kiss you and he followed. You could feel him smirking into the kiss, but he didn’t pull away. Not when he had you like this.

You tugged on his curls a little and his mouth opened with a gasp, allowing you to kiss him deeper. He tasted like some sort of berry flavoured alcohol, because it was known he was still a kid at heart. It made the kiss all the more delectable.

He pulled away breathlessly.

You tried to go in for another, still in a love haze.

“Later.” He whispered against your lips, but giving you another kiss all the same.

“Now.” You argued.

“Dance with me first.”

“Okay.” You tucked your face into his neck and gave him a kiss. He felt like home when you held him like this. Safe and comforting, even though you were in the middle of a club.

“Love you.” He spoke softly but loud enough for you to hear.

“Love you right back.”

“We okay?” He double checked.

“We’re okay.” You nodded. “Now let’s celebrate!”

liked by yourinstagram, mclaren and 1.7 million others

lando We won 🏆

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fan1 no lando, y/n won fr

fan2 THAT SHOULD BE ME

fan3 the hand placements… oh i’m dead

yourinstagram go go lando!!! so proud 🍯

♥️ by the author

lando @/yourinstagram My no 1 fan 🧡

lewishamilton 🧡

oscarpiastri Where did you & Y/N go….??

lando @/oscarpiastri 👀

fan4 deserved 👏

fan5 not y/n and lando flirting in the commentd

fan6 those are literally my parents wdym

[cheftsunoda]

hiii :) when you get the chance, can you make a kimi antonelli x chubby/plus sized reader fic where the reader struggles with insecurities?

perfect — ka12

written blurbs

kimi antonelli x reader

you’ve always loved quietly — in little ways, in soft moments. holding your breath when someone takes a photo of you. tugging at your sleeves when the room gets loud. smiling through compliments you don’t quite believe.

dating kimi antonelli wasn’t part of the plan. you weren’t the kind of girl you thought f1 drivers fell for. you weren’t sculpted out of marble or camera-ready at every angle. but then he looked at you like you’d hung the stars. like you were something rare. like you were his favorite place to be.

and for the first time in a long time, you started to wonder if maybe—just maybe—there was more to you than what you saw in the mirror.

(a/n) : love love loved writing this. ive been insecure my whole life so i def understand what it is like. up until my break up last year where i forced myself to become a gym girly, i had been pretty chubby my entire life and it drained me because it was all i thought about. but i hope you love this and i hope you know that you are perfect to me!

—

—

The hotel room is quiet, lit only by the fading London skyline through the windows. Your suitcase is half-unpacked, clothes strewn across the bed like a battlefield of self-doubt. You’ve tried on four different outfits, maybe five — you lost count somewhere between the black satin dress that hugged your thighs too tightly and the tailored suit that made you feel like an imposter.

You sigh and sit on the edge of the bed in nothing but a robe, hair half-curled and makeup abandoned halfway through. Your phone buzzes with a message from the team’s PR reminding Kimi of his arrival time. A second one comes through — a paparazzi article already circulating about his “first public appearance since signing with Mercedes,” with speculations on whether his “mystery girlfriend” will be in attendance.

You feel a pang deep in your stomach. You know people will talk. Compare. Pick you apart.

You press your forehead into your palms. Maybe you just shouldn’t go.

“Babe?” Kimi’s voice floats in from the hallway. You hear the soft shuffle of his shoes on the carpet, then a pause when he steps into the room.

He takes in the scene — the clothes on the bed, the robe clutched tightly around your body, the way your shoulders are curved inwards. You don’t even need to look at him to know he’s frowning.

“I can’t pick,” you mutter. “Everything looks stupid on me.”

You hear his footsteps cross the room. The bed dips as he sits beside you.

“Nothing could look stupid on you,” he says gently.

You scoff, bitter around the edges. “That’s very sweet, Kimi, but I feel like I’m trying to dress a body that doesn’t belong. Nothing fits right. My thighs feel… huge. I keep thinking about how I’m going to look standing next to you in pictures, and—”

Kimi doesn’t interrupt. He just listens, head tilted, eyes soft. When you fall quiet, he brushes a hand against your knee.

“Do you want me to help?” he asks.

You hesitate, then nod.

He stands up, taking a long look at the options scattered across the bed. After a moment, he picks up a silky forest green dress you’d packed at the last minute. You’d bought it on a whim months ago and never had the courage to wear it.

“This one,” he says. “Can you try it on for me?”

You fidget with the hanger. “It’s really clingy…”

He smiles, tilts his head. “Please?”

You give in with a sigh and disappear into the bathroom to change. When you come out, the dress shimmers faintly under the warm light. It hugs you in places that you’d normally try to hide — your stomach, your hips, your thighs. You keep your eyes on the carpet, bracing for the wave of discomfort that always follows.

But when you finally glance up, Kimi’s looking at you like he’s seeing the sun for the first time.

He doesn’t say anything at first. He just walks over, hands finding your waist with such a careful reverence it makes your heart ache. He turns you slowly toward the mirror.

“Look,” he murmurs, standing behind you. His arms wrap around you from behind, one hand resting on your stomach, the other smoothing over your hip.

You try not to flinch at the reflection. “I look—”

“Beautiful,” he says, instantly. “You look like magic.”

You lean back into him slightly, but you still can’t stop your eyes from picking at yourself. “My thighs look—”

Kimi cuts you off by pressing a kiss just below your ear. “Perfect. I love your thighs.” He squeezes them gently through the fabric. “They’re strong. They’re soft. They’re you. And I love all of you.”

Your breath catches.

He kisses your shoulder. “Your stomach?” His hand moves up slowly. “I love it. It’s where I rest my head when we watch movies. It’s soft and warm and mine to hold.”

Another kiss, this time to the corner of your jaw. “Your arms?” His fingers trace down to yours. “They hold me when I need comfort. They anchor me.”

He finally moves to your face, turning you to face him, cupping your cheeks in both hands.

“And these eyes,” he whispers. “You have the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen. I see home when I look at you.”

You blink, and your vision goes a little blurry.

“I don’t want you to hide from me,” he says, voice almost trembling with how sincere he is. “Not tonight. Not ever. I want you to come with me and let the whole world see what I see. Because I’m proud of you. I’m proud to be with you.”

You swallow the lump in your throat and nod.

He smiles, forehead leaning against yours. “Wear the green. Please. I think I might pass out if you don’t.”

You laugh, finally, and he kisses you — soft, slow, certain.

In the mirror, you still see the parts of yourself you’ve spent years trying to shrink. But for the first time, they don’t feel like flaws. They feel like… you. And being loved in this body, without condition, feels like the beginning of something healing.

You reach for your earrings, and Kimi watches you like you’re the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. Because to him, you are.

—

The venue is buzzing by the time you and Kimi arrive — glass chandeliers, velvet ropes, the hum of cameras, and the sleek gloss of high fashion. F1’s elite is gathered for the F175 event, and this is your first time walking into a room like this not just as Kimi’s girlfriend, but as the girlfriend of a Formula 1 driver.

You grip his hand a little tighter.

He squeezes back, gently. “I’m right here,” he murmurs, his lips brushing your temple as you step out of the car. “You’ve got this, amore.”

The flash of cameras is immediate. You feel their eyes — on your body, your smile, your dress — and for a second, it all threatens to rise again: the doubt, the urge to shrink, to blend into the floor.

But Kimi holds you like you’re the most precious thing in the world. Not like he’s posing. Like he’s grounding you.

And when he leans in and whispers, “You’re stealing the show,” it doesn’t feel like a line. It feels like the truth, just as he sees it.

Once inside, it’s a sea of familiar faces — drivers in sleek tuxedos, champagne glasses clinking, ambient lighting casting golden halos over everything. Kimi is quickly swept into a conversation with Toto and some Mercedes execs, but not before giving you a final kiss on the cheek and promising, “Five minutes. I’ll be right back.”

You nod, even though your fingers feel twitchy and your stomach is tight again. You’re mid-scan of the room, unsure of where to stand or who to talk to, when a familiar voice calls out from your left.

“There she is.”

You turn just in time to see Carmen Mundt walking toward you, her smile warm and her arms already open.

“Carmen!” you breathe, surprised but so relieved as you fall into her hug.

She pulls back to look at you properly, hands on your shoulders. “You look stunning, babe. I saw the pictures already and—wow. You and Kimi are glowing. Like… couple-of-the-year glowing.”

You laugh, but it comes out a little fragile. “I was so nervous. I almost didn’t wear this.”

Carmen frowns, taking a step back to give you the full once-over. “Are you kidding me? This dress was made for you.”

“I just… don’t always feel like I fit in,” you admit quietly. “Not in rooms like this. I keep thinking people are staring and comparing.”

Carmen softens, looping her arm through yours. “Listen to me. Every woman in this room is too busy wondering if they fit in to judge anyone else. And honestly? You’re the one making everyone else insecure. I heard a woman in the bathroom whisper to her friend that you look like a damn movie star.”

Before you can even fully process that, Alexandra floats over with her usual elegance, holding a half empty glass of white wine.

“Did I hear someone call you a movie star?” she smiles, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Because they weren’t wrong.”

You blink. “Hi…”

“I’ve been dying to meet you,” she says, kissing your cheek. “I was watching from across the room and thought, wow, Kimi’s girl is breathtaking. And now that I’m standing here? Even more true.”

Your throat tightens. You look between them — Carmen with her perfect hair and golden glow, Alexandra with her cool-girl beauty — and they’re both just… so kind.

“You don’t have to say that,” you mumble.

“We’re not saying it to be nice,” Carmen says, gently tugging your hand. “We’re saying it because you need to hear it.”

“You belong here,” Alexandra adds. “And Kimi? He looks like he’s in a trance every time he looks at you.”

You blink rapidly, tears threatening the edges of your lashes.

“I think I might cry,” you admit with a watery laugh.

Carmen links arms with you again. “We cry all the time at these things. It’s the heels and the existential dread and the champagne. It’s normal.”

Just then, Kimi returns — like he’s been tracking you from across the room the whole time. His eyes soften immediately when he sees you between Carmen and Alexandra, your expression tender and a little overwhelmed.

“You okay?” he murmurs, wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you into his side.

You nod, smiling now. “Yeah. I’m good.”

He kisses your temple again and says, low and proud, “You’re my everything, you know that?”

And with his hand in yours, the warmth of friendship on either side, and the soft hum of music in the air — for the first time in a long time, you don’t feel like shrinking.

You feel seen. And safe. And maybe, just maybe… a little radiant.

—

The car ride back to the hotel is quiet. Too quiet.

Kimi has his hand on your thigh, thumb tracing soft circles the way he always does when he’s content. He’s humming something under his breath, half-glowing from the buzz of the night, but every few minutes he glances over at you — and his smile falters just a bit.

Because you’re looking out the window like the night hurt you. And it did. The photos had come out fast. Even before dessert was served at the gala, your phone buzzed with the first ping— a photo of you and Kimi walking in, his arm around your waist, your green dress catching the light like liquid emerald. You looked beautiful. You even felt beautiful — for a moment. Until the comments started.

She’s pretty, but definitely not the usual F1 girlfriend look.

Kind of brave to wear that cut with her body type.

Soft launch? This can’t be serious.

No hate but Carmen and Alexandra would never.

They wormed their way under your skin. You tried to pretend it didn’t bother you, but somewhere between the fourth plate of criticism and the tweet comparing you to Kimi’s own mother — you shut down.

Now you sit, spine stiff, stomach twisted, and every time Kimi looks at you, you force a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes.

When you reach the hotel, you go straight to the bathroom and peel the dress off like it’s suffocating you. You stare at yourself in the mirror for a long time. You don’t cry. Not yet. But it’s there, lingering. An ache under your ribs.

Kimi waits a bit before knocking gently.

“Can I come in?”

You open the door.

His expression softens instantly. “Hey,” he says, reaching out to tuck your hair behind your ear. “Talk to me?”

You shake your head. “It’s nothing. I’m tired.”

“Okay,” he says, without pressing. “Then… can you sit with me for a second?”

You follow him back to the bed, expecting silence. Maybe sleep.

Instead, Kimi pulls out his laptop and opens a folder on his desktop title— “For when you forget.”

You blink. “Kimi…”

He clicks play.

It’s a PowerPoint. A real, actual PowerPoint.

Slide One is a picture of you mid laugh on the couch, cheeks rosy, eyes squinting, holding a mug half spilled in your lap. The title reads…

Why My Girlfriend Is the Prettiest Human Being on Earth

You laugh — the sound breaking and surprised — and glance at him.

“I made it a while ago,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “You never saw it because… I was waiting for when you’d need it.”

Slide Two is a collage—your thighs tangled with his on the couch, your arms hugging his neck, your hands painting on his back in the sun. All captioned.

Strong. Soft. Safe. Everything I never knew I needed.

Slide Three is just a single photo. You, asleep on his chest, his hand in your hair.

When I saw this, I knew I’d never want anyone else.

Slide Four: a comparison of your eyes beside a photo of the Monaco coastline.

These are my favorite views in the world. Guess which one I get to come home to.

By Slide Eight, you’re crying. Silent, overwhelmed tears.

Kimi closes the laptop and turns toward you. “They don’t know you,” he says softly. “They see five seconds of a picture. They don’t see how you hold me when I can’t sleep. Or how you sit with my sister when she’s having a meltdown. They don’t know that when I think about the future, you’re the only part that’s clear.”

You wipe your cheeks, voice cracking. “But they’re so cruel.”

“I know,” he whispers, kissing your forehead. “But I’m louder.”

He pulls out his phone. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but now I will.”

You watch him type. It’s quick. Confident. A public Instagram post with your gala photo and a caption that reads: she’s the most beautiful person i’ve ever known. inside, outside, always. if you think otherwise, you’ve never met her. and you’d be lucky if you did.

Within minutes, Carmen comments:

you’re both glowing. the dress? ICONIC. and she’s the kindest soul in the room always.

Alexandra follows with:

she lit up the whole event. if you’re hating, just know you weren’t invited for a reason.

George Russell adds:

your girlfriend made my girlfriend cry (in a good way). protective fan club forming now.

You curl into Kimi’s chest, heart aching but softening. You’re still hurting — that’s okay. But you’re also held. And that is enough.

—

Italy suits Kimi in a way that nothing else does. He walks differently here — barefoot, relaxed, his curls still damp from the sea, eyes crinkled in the golden sun. And with his hand in yours, the rhythm of the coast gently lapping against your ears, the weight in your chest finally feels like it’s beginning to melt.

The Antonelli family had insisted you come down for the weekend. Just a quiet escape from everything. No cameras, no comments. Just sun, salt, and the people who love Kimi the most — and, it turns out, love you just as fiercely.

The beach house is nestled on a private cove near Ravenna, tucked between olive trees and sky. There are towels spread across the sand, a cooler full of peach tea and homemade focaccia, and Maggie — Kimi’s ten year old sister — chasing crabs like her life depends on it.

You’re sitting beneath a big striped umbrella, oversized sunglasses on and your legs stretched out across a beach chair. You’re still in your cover up, watching the sea glint and sparkle, half listening to the distant laughter of Kimi and his dad wading into the water with ball.

“YN!” Maggie calls, running toward you with her sunhat flying behind her like a cape. “Come look at the shell I found!”

You smile and hold out your hands as she plops down beside you, her knees covered in sand and her arms full of treasures.

She holds up a small, pale blue shell. “It’s shaped like a heart. Like a real one. You can keep it.”

You blink, touched. “Thank you, Mags. That’s so sweet.”

She beams, then leans into your side without hesitation. “Also, I just wanted to tell you… I hope I look like you when I grow up.”

You pause. “What?”

“You’re so pretty,” she says seriously, picking at the sand. “All the other drivers have girlfriends who look the same. But you look soft and happy. Like you’d give the best hugs.”

You have to bite your lip to stop from crying.

“You already do look like me,” you whisper, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. “You’re beautiful.”

Maggie shrugs, embarrassed, and tucks her head under your arm.

A little while later, Kimi jogs back up from the water, dripping and sun-kissed, flopping down dramatically beside you and Maggie.

“You’re stealing my sister,” he accuses with a grin, flinging his arm over both of you. “Seems like she loves you more than she loves me..”

“Obviously,” Maggie says with a giggle. “She’s nicer.”

You laugh and lean into his side. “You’re both my favorites.”

Kimi presses a kiss to your temple and whispers, “You okay?”

You nod. “Better than okay.”

He smiles. “Good. Because mamma has been trying to sneak a photo of you all day and papa already told me to marry you.”

“Oh god.”

“I told them they had to wait until I made you breakfast in bed at least ten more times,” he teases.

Just then, his mom calls out from the porch, waving a tray of lemon gelato.

Maggie jumps up instantly, yelling, “GELATO!” and dragging you by the hand before Kimi can even move.

You glance back at him, laughing, and he just watches you — your wind-blown hair, your sun-warmed cheeks, the way you let yourself be for the first time in days.

And in that moment, Kimi thinks he’s never seen anything more beautiful than you smiling in the Italian sun with his family already wrapped around your heart.

—

The sun has dipped low over the coastline, setting the sky on fire in streaks of lavender and gold. The beach is quiet now, Maggie tucked into bed after a full day of sandcastles and sea glass, and Kimi is inside helping his dad wash the last few dishes from dinner. From where you sit on the porch swing, the warm breeze carries the scent of salt and lemons.

You’re wrapped in one of Kimi’s sweatshirts, legs tucked beneath you, a cup of tea cupped in your hands. It’s peaceful.

Still, something gnaws quietly at the edge of your thoughts. A weight you’ve been carrying even through the laughter, the sun, the sweetness of it all. A whisper of self doubt that’s hard to shake.

You don’t hear her at first, not until the door creaks open and you glance up to see her—Kimi’s mother—stepping out onto the porch, a soft smile on her face and a shawl around her shoulders.

“Can I join you?”

You nod quickly. “Of course.”

She eases into the swing beside you, settling in with the ease of someone who’s always known how to listen. You sit in silence for a while, watching the waves flicker in the fading light.

Then she speaks, voice gentle. “You’ve been a light in this house. You know that, right?”

Your throat tightens. You didn’t expect her to say that.

“I… thank you. That means a lot.”

She glances over at you, her eyes kind and knowing. “Kimi’s always been a good reader of people, but he’s never brought someone home like this. Never looked at someone the way he looks at you.”

You try to smile. “He’s very easy to love.”

“You are too,” she says, without hesitation.

And just like that, something cracks open in your chest.

You don’t mean to speak—honestly, you hadn’t planned to say anything at all—but it tumbles out before you can stop it.

“I’ve just… been scared,” you admit quietly. “Being with him in public, around the other girlfriends, at events. I don’t look like them. I don’t have that model look, or the perfect clothes, or the body everyone expects.”

You pause, your fingers tightening around your mug.

“I see the comments. People always comparing. Saying he could be with someone more… polished. I know I shouldn’t let it get to me, but sometimes I can’t help but wonder if I’m enough.”

The silence after feels thick, almost suffocating. You almost regret saying anything at all.

But then she turns toward you fully, reaching over to take your free hand in hers. Her grip is warm, firm, motherly.

“Listen to me, sweetheart,” she says, and there’s steel beneath the softness in her voice. “You are more than enough. You are exactly what he needs.”

You blink quickly, willing the sting in your eyes to go away, but she doesn’t let up—not in a harsh way, but with a kind of fierce honesty only a mother can offer.

“I’ve seen every phase of Kimi’s life. I’ve seen him win and lose, seen him crumble and rebuild. But I’ve never seen him at peace the way he is with you.”

She squeezes your hand.

“You may not look like the women the media puts on covers, but you love my son like no one else could. You make him laugh from his belly. You ground him. He looks at you like he’s found home.”

A tear rolls down your cheek before you can catch it. She gently brushes it away with her thumb, just like your own mother used to do.

“You don’t need to fit into someone else’s mold to be worthy,” she says softly. “You are beautiful, you are kind, and you have given my son a happiness I didn’t even realize he was missing.”

You finally speak, your voice trembling. “Do you really think so?”

She smiles, eyes sparkling. “I know so.”

You lean into her shoulder without thinking, and she wraps her arm around you, holding you close like you’ve always belonged there.

“Kimi is so proud to be with you,” she murmurs. “And we’re all proud to know you. Please never let the noise out there drown that out.”

And in that moment—sitting on the porch swing in the fading warmth of the Italian evening, wrapped in Kimi’s sweatshirt and his mother’s arms—you feel something shift. The ache doesn’t vanish entirely, but it quiets. Softens. Because being loved by Kimi is one thing. But being loved and seen by the people who made him? That’s a kind of healing you didn’t know you needed.

—

The house is dark by the time you tiptoe back inside. You lingered on the porch swing long after your conversation with Kimi’s mom ended, cradled by the hum of cicadas and the rhythmic crash of the tide. Her words still echo softly in your mind, leaving behind a comfort you didn’t even realize you were aching for.

You move quietly through the house, past the faint glow of the kitchen nightlight, up the creaky stairs and into the bedroom you’ve been sharing with Kimi. It smells like sunscreen and clean linen and him — like home.

He’s already in bed, lying on his side with one arm folded under his pillow. He’s reading something on his phone, the glow casting soft shadows over his face. But when the door creaks open, he looks up instantly.

His eyes meet yours.

You don’t say anything at first. You just walk over, your bare feet soundless against the floor, and slide under the covers beside him. Kimi immediately shifts, tugging you close until your head is nestled against his chest and one of his legs wraps gently around yours.

You feel his lips brush your hair. Once. Twice.

“You were out there a while,” he murmurs. “Everything okay?”

You nod against him, arms curling around his waist. “Yeah. I talked to Mamma.”

He stills for just a moment — then exhales softly, hand moving up to trace lazy circles along your back. “She told me.”

You glance up, just enough to see his expression. “You knew?”

“I saw you two on the porch.” He smiles faintly. “Didn’t want to interrupt.”

“She’s… amazing,” you whisper.

He nods. “She is.”

You fall quiet again. His fingers keep moving gently, tracing over the dip of your spine, your shoulder blades, every line he’s memorized a thousand times.

“She said you’ve never looked at anyone the way you look at me.”

At that, Kimi lifts his head just enough to meet your gaze properly. His expression shifts — soft, but so serious. “Because I haven’t.”

You swallow, cheeks flushing. “It’s just… hard to believe sometimes.”

“I know,” he whispers. “But you don’t have to believe it all at once. Just… let me keep showing you.”

And then he leans in and kisses you. Not rushed. Not urgent. Just slow and warm and sure. Like you’re something sacred. Like kissing you is the only thing he’s ever known how to do right.

When he pulls back, his forehead rests gently against yours.

“I think about you all the time,” he says, voice low and earnest. “Even when I’m in the car, even when I’m in meetings. You’re always there. The way you laugh, the way you say my name, the way you take care of everyone else before yourself.”

He pauses, brushing a strand of hair from your cheek.

“I want this with you,” he says. “Not just now. Not just for a season.”

Your breath hitches.

“I want all of it,” Kimi continues, his voice trembling just slightly. “I want a future with you. Waking up next to you every day. Building a home. Having kids who crawl into our bed at night because they had a bad dream and you’re the only one who can calm them down.”

Your heart flips.

“I want to cook you breakfast and walk the dog and argue about what color to paint the nursery. I want every boring, beautiful, ordinary day with you.”

Tears well in your eyes, full and silent.

“You want all of that with me?” you whisper, your voice breaking.

“I’ve only ever wanted it with you,” he says, cupping your face. “Since the very beginning.”

And then he’s kissing you again — slower this time, even softer. Like a promise. Like something old and true. His thumb brushes your cheek as he kisses away the tears you didn’t know had fallen.

“I don’t need a timeline,” he murmurs against your skin. “I just need you to know that I’m in this. All the way.”

You nod, burying your face into the crook of his neck. “I’m in it too. So much more than I’ve ever been.”

You lay like that for a long time, his arms wrapped tight around you, your legs tangled under the covers, your heart tucked safely into the space between his ribs.

Eventually, you feel him press a kiss to your shoulder and whisper, “Maggie asked if you’d braid her hair tomorrow.”

You smile into his chest. “Of course.”

“And mamma is already planning the next trip.”

You laugh, sleepy and content. “Tell her I’m not going anywhere.”

Kimi tightens his arms around you, lips pressed to your temple.

“Good,” he whispers. “Because this is it for me. You’re it.”

And in that quiet Italian bedroom, wrapped in the boy who dreams of forever with you, you finally believe it.

—

[formulafanfics13]

Could we maybe some poly! Lando/Oscar/plus size Reader like Landoscar are already a thing and trying to get with reader but she is not getting the hint? Like maybe it's because she knows they where with girls before but they where all the model type like skinny and heteronormative pretty ore maybe cuz she thinks they don't like girls at all...

Smut if u cann

Thankuuuu

sweet thing, we want you - LN4 & OP81 🔥

Masterlist

summary: lando and oscar have been a couple for years. quiet, lowkey, devoted. and lately? they've both been obsessed with you. but you don’t get it — not really. you’ve seen the girls they used to hook up with: models, influencers, picture-perfect. you? soft, round, curvy in every way. so you think the flirting is just teasing. until one night, you ask why they’re being so sweet. and they show you. warnings: poly relationship, established lando/oscar couple, plus size!reader, smut, body worship, praise kink, vaginal sex, oral sex (reader receiving), spit, soft dom vibes, reader insecurity, filthy reassurance, unprotected sex, light jealousy mention, emotional vulnerability, reader cries a little, aftercare implied, long and indulgent

You always figured it was a joke. The way Lando slung his arm around your shoulder and called you “gorgeous” every time you walked into the room. The way Oscar stared at you when he thought you weren’t looking, cheeks flushed, jaw clenched. The way they always saved you the middle seat on the couch between them. The way they’d bicker about who got to carry your bags. The way Lando kissed your cheek, always your cheek. and Oscar lingered in the kitchen while you were bent over in leggings.

But you thought- No, you knew - They liked girls like that.

Girls like the ones they used to bring to races. Tall. Skinny. Instagram-coded. The kind of beauty that came with filters and designer shoes and flat stomachs. The kind of girls that didn’t make jokes about their thighs chafing or shirts riding up when they reached for the top shelf. Girls who didn’t get insecure stepping into hotel pools or strip out of jeans only when the lights were off.

So when they turned their full attention on you , you figured it was just the way they were. Flirty. Stupid. Sweet. But never serious. And that’s why, tonight, when Lando hooks his fingers in the belt loops of your jeans and says you’re driving me crazy, you know that?, all you can do is laugh and shove his hand off your waist.

“I’m not stupid, Norris.”

He looks confused. Oscar freezes behind him.

You sigh, glancing at the kitchen tiles, trying not to let your voice shake. “I get that you two are close. That you’re… open or whatever. But you don’t have to tease me just because I’m around. I know the kind of girls you actually go for.”

Silence. Like dead, horrible silence.

Until Lando steps closer. Hands gentle, suddenly serious. “What kind of girls do you think we like?”

You scoff. “Come on. Look at the girls you’ve been seen with. Models. Skinnier than my arm. Conventionally hot.”

Oscar steps in too. Closer. Closer. The two of them caging you against the kitchen counter now. Lando leans in. “You think we’re flirting with you for fun?”

You blink. “Aren’t you?”

Oscar speaks up, quiet but sharp. “We want you.”

Your chest pulls tight.

Lando hums, voice low. “Been wanting you.”

“But-”

Lando shuts you up with a kiss. Not just a peck. Not a tease. A real kiss. Deep. Slow. Open-mouthed. Tongue against yours.

Oscar watches for a moment, then grabs your hand and guides it to his crotch. He’s hard. Through his sweats. So hard. Your eyes widen.

Lando pulls away, breath hot against your lips. “Still think we’re kidding?”

Oscar presses a kiss to your jaw. “Come with us.”

Their hotel room is warm. Clean. Familiar. You’ve been here before. But never like this. Lando’s behind you, unzipping your jeans with shaking hands while Oscar kisses your throat from the front. Their touches are soft. Reverent. Like you’re something holy.

You make a noise when your shirt comes off, a small, embarrassed sound, and immediately try to cover your stomach.

Oscar stops you. “Don’t,” he whispers. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

Lando palms your tits from behind, squeezing gently. “You don’t know how many nights I’ve thought about these.”

You gasp when he kisses your shoulder, then your back.

Oscar kneels. Kisses your stomach like it’s sacred. Like you’re carved from marble. “You make me feel hot,” he murmurs. “You make me feel starved.”

He hooks your panties down. Lando helps. And when you’re bare, Oscar just stares. Then leans in and licks a slow stripe up your pussy.

You whine.

Lando chuckles. “Told you she’d be loud.”

Oscar’s tongue is perfect. Gentle. Deep. Firm where it counts. He keeps eye contact when he sucks your clit into his mouth.

Lando’s hands are on your breasts, squeezing, massaging, pinching your nipples until you’re trembling.

You come with a cry. Body arching. Legs nearly giving out. But they don’t stop. They can’t.

Lando lifts you like you weigh nothing and lays you across the bed.

Oscar’s eyes are wild now. “Please let me fuck you.”

Your heart pounds. You nod. “Yes-fuck, please.”

Lando kisses you while Oscar pushes in slow. You gasp. He groans. “You’re so wet, baby.”

Lando strokes your hair. “Look at her, taking you so well.”

Oscar thrusts in deeper. You moan. Loud.

“You’re perfect,” Lando whispers. “Every inch of you.”

Oscar picks up the pace. Fucking into you like he’s dreamt about it for years. Lando kisses you through every moan. You cry a little. They don’t laugh. They kiss your cheeks. Your eyelids. Your thighs.

“You’re everything,” Oscar says. “Everything.”

Lando strips and kneels beside you, cock in his hand. You take him into your mouth without even thinking, moaning around him while Oscar drives into you from below.

It’s filthy. Beautiful. All of you shaking. Whimpering. Gasping into each other’s skin. You come again, clenching hard around Oscar, sobbing into Lando’s lap. Oscar follows with a broken groan, hips jerking, coming deep inside you.

Lando pulls out of your mouth, lets you breathe, kisses you so gently it makes your chest ache. And then he fucks you too. Slow. Sweet. Deep. You’re wrecked. Full. Loved.

And finally, you believe them.

[batsandbirdbrains]

dick getting de-aged and everything is in a chaos for a little bit but then the batfam is finally settling in when dick goes “hey b, where’s uncle harvey?” and now everyone is like “wtf??” bc they weren’t aware of the lore™️. bruce tries to explain that “uncle harvey is sick” but dick insists on visiting him and giving him presents to make him feel better. bruce keeps saying no. dick eventually finds out harvey’s location (Arkham) from the bar computer and decides to deliver his cards and presents in person. harvey is just “wtf???” but ends up rolling with it.

Stop I love Dick originally having a good relationship with Harvey before he becomes Two-Face 😭 it makes Two-Face beating him half to death with a baseball bat all the more devastating.

But imagine little de-aged nine year old Dick sneaking into Arkham, a backpack full of Alfred’s cookies, Capri Suns, homemade get well soon cards he made with fancy art supplies he found in Damian’s room, and a stuffed animal he thinks Uncle Harvey would like. It’s a penguin, because Uncle Harvey always makes jokes about the Penguin when they see Ozzy at an event.

“Uncle Harvey! Pssst!!” Dick whispers as he unlocks the door to the room Harvey is supposed to be in. “Uncle Harv? Are you here? B said you’re sick.”

“What the hell?” a baffled voice asks, and the light turns on to reveal Two-Face in all his glory staring down at the boy who used to be his favorite nephew. Who still is, really, but he hasn’t seen Dick in ages. But he knows for damn certain the kid isn’t a little kid anymore.

“Uncle Harvey?” Dick asks, his voice shaking as he looks at the burnt half of Harvey’s face. “You’re hurt! Why aren’t you at a real hospital?”

Dick is scampering over to him, and Harvey falls back on his bed, and Dick is fluttering at his bedside with his hands hovering around, unsure of what to do. He has a very concerned look on his face, his lower lip trembling.

And something inside Harvey snaps. Because his little nephew is tearing up and going through the contents of his backpack and decorating the bedside table with homemade cards with silly drawings, shoving juice pouches in his hands, and opening a container of fresh cookies he knows must have been made by Alfred.

“You brought all this for me?”

“Yeah, B said you were sick, I wanted you to feel better.”

Harvey pulls the kid to sit on the bed with him, making sure Dick stays on his good side, not wanting to scare him. Then the kid pulls out a stuffed penguin, and Harvey has to laugh.

“I knew he’d make you feel better,” Dick tells him proudly, shoving the penguin under Harvey’s arm. “You always laugh when we make penguin jokes.”

“Does the penguin have a name?” Harvey asks, remembering how Dick always named every stuffed toy he ever got.

“Ozzy, of course.”

Harvey barks out a laugh, pulling Dick close to him.

“You really have made me feel better, kid.”

“I knew I could. B didn’t believe me, he didn’t wanna let me come see you.”

“You wanna tell me why you’re a pipsqueak again?”

Dick fiddles with his fingers, looking away from Harvey.

“I dunno,” Dick shrugs. “He said a bad guy hit me with something. Maybe I got kidnapped again? He didn’t say.”

Harvey hums, because that does sound like something that would happen to Richie Grayson, but he hadn’t seen anything about it in the news or heard any underground chatter. Arkham really does keep him out of the loop.

But he sees how Dick shrinks in on himself, and he tries to coax him back out of the shell he’s about to retreat into.

“B has lots of other kids now,” Dick whispers, tucking himself deeper under Harvey’s arm. “He wouldn’t play with me at all, and he always tells me a stupid story before bed but he wouldn’t do it even when I asked him to, and he…” Dick hesitates, because he can’t let Harvey know he’s Robin or that Bruce is Batman, but something has been bugging him and upsetting him since he woke up in this weird world where Bruce has a million other kids. “…he calls them chum, too. I thought I was the only one he called chum. He said it was special.”

He hasn’t actually heard Bruce call anyone else chum, but he knows three of the others have been Robin. That one of them is Robin right now. And it made Dick’s skin crawl and made him feel like he couldn’t catch his breath.

“Bruce Wayne is a moron at best,” Harvey tells him without hesitation. “You were always the best of his bunch, though. Always.”

“Why did Bruce say you were sick if you’re not sick? You’re hurt, that’s different. Are you in pain?”

Harvey is quiet for a moment, squeezing his arm around Dick in what he hopes is a comforting manner. It’s been a while since he’s had any physical contact with someone that wasn’t meant to be threatening.

“I’m not in pain right now, no,” he lies to the kid, because there’s no point in worrying him. “Bruce said I’m sick because getting hurt made me go a little crazy, that’s all.”

“Oh. But you’re okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“Do I visit you when I’m big?”

“Of course you do,” he continues to lie.

“Oh, good,” Dick says with a smile.

They’re quiet again for a while, munching on cookies, until something sparks in Harvey’s mind.

“Wait a minute, how did you get in here?”

“Security guards don’t usually look down.”

Harvey laughs, and Dick grins at him.

When Batman and all his little birds rush in an hour later, Dick puts up a hell of a fight. He kicks and screams and bites, and Harvey is laughing up a storm as the Bat is nearly thwarted by a little kid.

“I’ll come visit you later!” Dick promises him from where he’s thrown over Batman’s shoulder.

“No you won’t,” Batman growls at him.

“I don’t have to listen to you!” Dick snaps, tugging at one the ears on Batman’s cowl. But then he turns to smile at Harvey, waving as he calls, “Bye, Uncle Harvey! Feel better!”

“Bye, Dickie!”

Harvey is cackling in delight even as the other bats hold him down. Not that he was trying to escape. This was the best time he’s had in years.

[hoonstrology]

i saw you were looking for asks!! how would error 404 sunghoon react to sleeping with reader for the first time? i don't mean sleeping as in sex but like he's over at her place or vice versa and they sleep in the same bed. or what if one of them struggles to sleep and is constantly moving too in the bed lol

＃ surprise sleepover .ᐟ

   ⤷  ꒰ an e404-boyfriend!sunghoon drabble. ꒱

⤷  can be read as a stand-alone. ┆ for context, read e404 here! ⤷  contains — 1.4k words. suggestive content. (mdni.) est. relationship. loser bf!sunghoon. (we cheered!) kind-of-perv!hoon comeback. fluff. not proofread. ⤷ main masterlist.  ┆ series masterlist.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ reblogs and replies are highly appreciated! 𐔌՞. .՞𐦯

the most you two have done was kiss.

sure, sunghoon's hands wandered to the curve of your ass or to your inner thigh during especially steamy make-out sessions, but you've never actually done the deed. 

not yet, at least.

so when you told him to stay over for the night for the first time ever, he froze in the middle of packing his bag.

eyes wide, half bent down, hand clutching on a book to ground himself.

he'd like to think that he's been a respectful boyfriend. though your friendship has lasted for more than a year, your relationship was still fragile. young. barely 3 months old. 

you've never asked for anything more than a kiss, and he never crossed that line despite dreaming of what it would be like on the other side. 

maybe tonight would change that.

"so is that a yes?" you half-shout from your bedroom, footsteps pattering on the wooden floor and your bare face peeking out from behind the door frame.

"huh?" 

"i said you should just stay over tonight." you spoke like it was just a casual offer. like it wasn't making sunghoon's heart rattle inside his ribs. 

because at the end of the day, he's just a man. one full of hormones— of need. 

"w-why?" his voice came out like that of a kid who doesn't know whether he's getting rewarded or punished. and that's pretty much how it is right now. 

"are you crazy? i'm not going to make you drive through the storm. auntie would kill me." you laughed, sauntering over to gently lay a stack of clothes on the coffee table.

oh. 

oh, okay. 

you didn't want sex, you were just making sure your boyfriend stayed safe. 

right. 

"my brother left some of his clothes here. i'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind if you borrowed it for a night." 

you stepped out of your bathroom door in an adorable pajama set to see sunghoon running his fingers through his freshly dried hair. you didn't even notice he was wearing jeonghan's clothes because they look so different on him. 

the gray wife-beater was a tighter fit, making his muscular arms look even bigger than how they feel whenever you held them. and the gray sweatpants were hung low on his hips, showing you just a sliver of his smooth and fair skin.

good lord did he look like sin personified.

if only he didn't look so goofy with his back practically pressed against the wall.

"what are you doing?" you asked.

"i... uh— i was waiting.. i was— w-where's the spare blanket?" he stammered, and you raised an eyebrow in confusion. 

"what for?" 

"for the couch?" 

"why would you put a blanket on a couch?" 

“angel, it’s for me.”

"i thought it was for the couch?” 

"no, i mean— i’m gonna use it when i sleep there."

no one spoke while you two exchanged befuddled looks. 

"you have to be insane." you finally scoffed, pulling him towards your bed and grunting out his name when you felt him resisting. eventually, you managed to push him to lie down on your bed, throwing the duvet over his body and pointing a finger.

"you'll sleep here. with me. understood?"

he meekly nodded, flashing you those damn puppy eyes that you know could guarantee him a way out of any crime— and you almost gave in. but you turned around to dry your hair, replacing the silence with the loud wheeze of your blower. 

he's been in your bedroom. he ate chinese takeouts with you on the floor, has sat on this same vanity seat, and napped on the same damn bed stomach down on multiple occasions. 

for him to even imply that you'll let him sleep on your cheap couch was a blow to your sunghoon-loving ego. 

the linen-colored walls turned a shade warmer from the soft glow of your lamp after you turned off the big lights. you head to bed and closed your eyes, letting the song of rain and rumbling thunder lull you to sleep. 

but you're only afforded a few minutes of true rest when you feel your body dip from your boyfriend shifting. 

a few more minutes and then another one. 

again.

you heard another squeak and you’ve had enough.

you sat up and sighed, arms crossed over your chest. "have you never slept over a girl's house before?" 

"what? of course i have!" he's laid on your sheets, blanket covering his lower half, brows furrowing at your words like you've accused him of murder. “i don’t mean to brag but i’ve slept in a lot of girl’s houses.”

you snort. "okay, mister popular. why are you so antsy then?" 

"'m not." 

"sunghoon." you flashed him a look and he sighs, pulling the blanket up higher to cover half his face, grumbling. "i don't know. it's my first time sharing a bed with you... it feels weird. in a good way. but also in a weird way." 

how your boyfriend can switch from looking like an irritated sex god to an absolute cute fluff ball within a second is beyond you.

you wanted to snap back but he’s always been a very sentimental person, always caring for the firsts he shared with you, always cooing when you let him in on new information about yourself. 

it does nothing but make your voice soften.

"baby, it's fine. you don’t have to be nervous. it's not like we're gonna fuck."

he’s quiet but you felt the bed dip when he squirmed, and suddenly, it all made sense. 

"oh my god. you thought we were going to fuck when i asked you to sleep over, didn't you?" you say with a wicked smirk tugging on a corner of your lips. 

"n-no!" 

"you totally did!" 

he narrowed his eyes at you and clicked his tongue, his body bouncing a little as he turns around to face the wall with a huff. you can’t help but chuckle at his childishness. you laid down again, wrapping your arms around him from behind, chin hooked on his shoulder before pressing a kiss on the soft skin of his neck.

“you've been thinking about that all night, huh?”

"angel, ask any man my age what 'stay over for the night' means and they'll all say the same shit i would." he sighed. 

you let out a loud laugh, your hand resting over his abdomen to give it a pat. "i'm sorry if i gave you that impression, my love." you muttered, tracing shapes on the thinly clothed skin before hugging him tighter.

he relished the feeling of being the little spoon— a first, among the many firsts you’ve taken from him. the warm lamps you had adorning your room was no match for the naturality of the one he gets from your touch. but your apology made the loving hold you had on him feel a little too suffocating. 

sunghoon turned around to look at you with an expression you’ve grown familiar with: guilt. 

he wrapped you around his arms, bringing your head to his chest so he could press a kiss on your hair. “don’t be sorry, angel. i should be the one apologizing. you don’t owe me anything, mm? if you want to take your time before wanting to do… it with me,—” he clears his throat. “then i’ll be fine waiting.”

you leaned back and stretched just enough for you to place a peck on the corner of his lips. “i’m not opposed to doing it right now," you mock. "but it’s so cozy and warm like this. i like being held by you. makes me feel fuzzy.” 

you giggled and did a little restrained dance in his hold. you let your head rest on his bicep, letting out a soft sigh as you snuggled against him further, tangling your legs with his and whispered a soft ‘i love you’ before closing your eyes.

the words, no matter how much time has passed or how much they’ve been repeated, still made his cheeks warm.

sunghoon softened, squeezing you in his hold and returned the same words to you, sealing it with a kiss on your forehead.

"good night, pengoo."

"good night, my angel."

he decided, at this very moment, that no amount of mind-blowing sex, no amount of intimacy, could make him feel as fulfilled as he does being the one to hold you and keep you safe as you drifted to sleep.

꒰ from ! 🐰 yan ꒱⠀⠀ eep !!! still very new to writing so i'm sorry if this isn't as good. i also dunno if this is what anon meant, but i hope it's good enough. sigh. as much as i love perv!hoon, my heart just beats a little stronger for wholesome loser bf!hoon. (ᵕ—ᴗ—) send your drabble requests in my ask! i'm accepting e404!hoon ideas or just general ideas for any enha members. ♡

⌗ taglist (open) — @zerocoded

© hoonstrology 2025. please don't translate, plagiarize, steal, or repost any of my works.

[earpskeeper]

Kim little x age gap reader

trigger warnings - secret relationship, arguing

wordcount - 3.7k

Dating your captain ten years older than you was never going to be easy. And when the captain in question was Kim Little, the word ‘complicated’ felt like an understatement. Reserved, respected, and razor sharp both on and off the pitch, Kim didn’t let her guard down for anyone. She didn’t believe in distractions. She believed in order.

And yet, you had become the exception. The rule she let slip through her fingers when the world wasn’t watching. 

It crept in quietly but never meaningless. The latest encounter between you two started with a late night knock on your door, no words were spoken as she slid beneath the sheets, her presence a balm you hadn’t known you needed. She never said it but the way her hand curled around your waist in the dark, in the silence that felt like safety, she was choosing you.

When you were alone, Kim was different. Soft, careful and yours. But only in private. You understood why but understanding didn’t stop the ache. You didn’t need a grand gesture. Just proof you weren’t invisible in daylight. That you were more than a secret kept behind closed doors.

"You coming to Caitlin's tonight?" Steph asked after training, towel slung around her neck. "She's hosting movie night. Half the team already agreed. Should be fun."

You glanced at Kim across the gym. She wasn't looking at you. She rarely did when others were around. Instead, she was talking to one of the coaches, arms crossed, brows furrowed in that familiar analytical way. You knew that posture well, it was her default when she wanted to seem occupied. Too distant, too professional.

You hesitated for a second too long. "Dunno," you said with a shrug. "Maybe."

Steph tilted her head. "You okay? You seem off."

You tried to pull your expression into something passable. "Just tired," you lied. The words tasted bitter in your mouth. It wasn't a full lie (your body ached from training, sure) but the heaviness dragging at your chest had nothing to do with fatigue.

Steph gave you a look like she wanted to press further, but she let it go. "Alright. Hope you come. Could use your taste in movies, Caitlin's idea of horror is Hocus Pocus."

You forced a chuckle, before offering a half hearted smile. "Might drop by later."

"Alright. Don't bail completely," she said, disappearing through the door.

And just like that, it was only you and Kim left in the room. She was now sat in her locker, scrolling through her phone, clearly trying to look busy. But she hadn't left yet. And neither had you.

"Can we talk?" you asked finally.

She didn’t look up. "About training?"

You tried to hide the hurt in your voice before muttering, "It’s just us."

Kim hesitated, then set her phone down slowly. Her expression didn’t shift.

"I think we should tell them," you said, keeping your voice low. "I’m not saying make a scene. I’m just saying, maybe we stop pretending this isn’t real."

Kim's jaw tensed. "Why now?"

"Because I’m tired," you said, voice cracking just slightly. "I’m tired of being your secret. It’s exhausting, pretending like I don’t love you."

She looked down, her fingers curling in her lap. "It’s not about not loving you."

"Then what is it?"

Kim stood up, slowly pacing a few steps before turning to face you. "They’ll treat you differently," she said quietly. "They’ll doubt you. They’ll think I play favorites. I’ll lose their respect."

You blinked. "You would lose their respect? Is that all you care about?"

"Of course not," Kim said, sharper now. "But that matters too. I've spent over a decade building trust with this team. If they think I'm compromised, that I don't put the club first, it changes everything. For me. For you."

You sat back, arms crossed, trying to steel yourself against the sting of it. "So I keep pretending. Keep pretending this doesn’t mean as much as it does."

Kim's eyes flickered with something. Guilt perhaps or fear? She stepped a little closer. "I know it’s not fair. I know it hurts. But I’m trying to protect you. Protect us. This team, it’s my responsibility. But I do love you."

Your throat tightened. You hated how much that softened you, even when it didn’t fix anything.

She added, more quietly "Please. Just give me a little more time."

You stared at her for a long moment, searching her face, hoping for something more. Something braver. But all you saw was that same wall she always kept between herself and the world.

You sighed, defeated. "Fine," you said, too quietly. "Not yet."

You stood, grabbed your bag, and forced a smile that felt like it would break your face in two. "I’ll see you at Caitlin’s."

You arrived halfway through the night. Laughter spilled out from Caitlin's living room before you even touched the door handle. The warmth of it made your chest twist painfully. Inside, the team was draped over couches and cushions, a chaotic sprawl of limbs and comfort. Snacks littered the table. Drinks were half finished. Kyra had somehow ended up wearing a blanket like a cape. It was everything you used to love about nights like this.

And Kim was right in the middle of it. Sitting cross legged on the sofa between Katie and Leah, her laugh cutting through the room like music. Her head was tilted back, eyes crinkled, completely at ease.

You froze.

She looked radiant. Happy. Untouched by the conversation you’d had barely hours ago. As if she hadn’t asked you to keep swallowing your feelings for the sake of her image. Something burned in your chest. Jealousy maybe or anger. You took a breath and forced your legs to move toward the kitchen. A drink. Just one. Just enough to stop your hands from shaking.

The drink helped. So did the chatter in the background and the way nobody really noticed you had arrived. You smiled at Steph, dodged a teasing remark from Caitlin, and tried to settle into the noise. But Kim hadn’t looked at you once.

Hours passed. A movie flickered on the screen, casting dim light over the room. Bodies had rearranged themselves into blanket piles, the sound of popcorn crunching occasionally interrupting the plot. You’d ended up on the edge of the couch, Kim beside you, her posture guarded, arms tight across in her lap.

You weren’t drunk. Not really, just tipsy. Your thoughts fuzzy enough that your longing started to spill over the cracks. You leaned in. Close, and then closer. Your fingers found her thigh, tentative but deliberate.

Kim stiffened beside you. Her hand covered yours - not rough nor angry. Just firm, a warning.

You didn’t stop.

Your fingertips traced small, almost imperceptible circles. The way her body tensed only pushed you further, your stubbornness mixing with the haze. You weren't trying to expose her. You just wanted to feel chosen. Even for a second.

Her jaw clenched. She didn’t look at you.

And then she stood.

"I need to go," Kim said abruptly, reaching for her coat. Her voice was too casual. Too practiced. “I have an early morning meeting tomorrow with Renee.”

The movie paused. Conversations cut off. Everyone turned to look at her. You sat frozen, hand half buried in the blanket between you. Your heart pounded against your ribs, sharp and uneven. But Kim didn’t look back.

And as the door shut behind her, a wave of shame and heartbreak crashed over you. You had always known what this was. But for the first time, it felt like you truly understood just how invisible she needed you to be.

The next morning, your nerves were already frayed before you even stepped into the changing room. You hadn’t slept. The memory of Kim pulling away from you, of her walking out like you meant nothing, looped in your mind with brutal clarity. And now, you had to see her. Train with her. Pretend like nothing had happened.

As you entered, the room was buzzing with light chatter, the team in various states of gearing up for the session. Kim was already there, standing by her locker, lacing her boots with the same sharp, practiced focus she brought to everything.

You hesitated, then walked up slowly. "Kim. Can we just…"

She stood abruptly, not sparing you a glance, and walked right past you. No words. Not even a flicker of recognition.

Your stomach dropped.

Around you, conversation slowed. A few teammates exchanged looks. You caught Leah raising an eyebrow in your direction. Caitlin frowned. Nobody said anything, but the silence after Kim's exit was heavy. You swallowed, kept your head down, and moved to your own locker. The ache in your chest was sharp and familiar. Still, you weren’t going to fall apart here.

Not in front of them.

You followed the rest of the squad outside, the morning chill biting at your skin as you stepped onto the pitch. The session began like any other, light warm ups, passing drills, rondos. But it didn’t stay normal for long.

Renee had to step away, leaving Kim temporarily in charge of a new drill focused on high-press recovery. It was intense. Fast paced and demanding.

Kim barked orders with the usual precision, but there was a sharper edge in her voice today.

"Again!" she snapped after your group fumbled a sequence.

You reset quickly, brushing it off. She was strict with everyone. You knew that. But then it kept happening. Every time it was your turn, she was harsher.

"Come on, that touch was awful! Reset!"

"Too slow! You’ll get punished in a real match if you don’t fix that."

"Pay attention! This isn’t Sunday league."

You caught Katie shooting you a questioning look. Steph's brow furrowed. Even Kyra glanced your way with confusion.

You kept your head down, jaw clenched. Took all of it.

But then, during one of the final reps, you came off a high intensity run, breathless and burning. You bent slightly, trying to catch your breath, when Kim’s voice cut through the air again.

"Maybe you’re just not built for the big leagues."

The words were like a slap. Calculated but incredibly cruel. She knew exactly how out of place you felt most days. You had opened yourself up to her, confessed the fear that you weren’t good enough, not for the team and not for the league. You'd laid those insecurities bare, letting her see the parts of you that you tried so hard to keep hidden from everyone else. And she'd held you gently. Under the safety of night, she'd whispered reassurances whilst stroking your hair. Back then, you believed she understood. But now, now you couldn’t have been more wrong. 

You straightened, heart pounding.

"What the hell is your problem?" you snapped, voice carrying louder than intended. "You wanna humiliate me in front of everyone? Fine. But don’t pretend it’s about the drill."

The pitch went dead quiet.

Kim's expression didn’t change, but her eyes flashed.

"I think you should head in," she said flatly. "Get changed. You’re clearly not in the right headspace to be training."

Your mouth opened, but nothing came out. The sting of humiliation settled into your bones. No one stopped you as you turned and walked off the pitch. Just watched you as you charge back inside. 

You stormed back into the locker room, not caring who was watching. Your chest was tight, throat burning as you shoved your boots into your bag with angry, shaking hands. Zipping it up with unnecessary force, you slung it over your shoulder and left without a word.

You got in your car, jamming the keys into the ignition, ready to drive home and crawl under the covers until the world stopped spinning. But your subconscious had other ideas. Somewhere between the ache in your chest and the fury in your gut, your hands turned the wheel without conscious thought. The roads blurred into a familiar rhythm, your mind elsewhere entirely.

By the time you parked, it took you a second to realise where you were. The small, isolated beauty spot. The hills stretching out ahead. The crooked bench nestled beneath the tree.

Yours and Kim's place.

The only place she had ever let the two of you be seen together. The only place she let her guard down long enough for the truth to breathe.

You exhaled, slow and bitter, stepping out of the car.

As you sat on the bench, silence wrapped around you like a blanket. You didn’t cry. You didn’t scream. You just sat and as the sun began to set, bathing the hills in gold and violet, you felt the ache of everything she’d given you and everything she had taken away.

Eventually, you stood. You hadn't meant to stay that long, hadn't meant to get caught in memories. But you couldn't go home. Not yet. Not like this. Before you could think twice, you found yourself behind the wheel again.

This time, you knew exactly where you were going.

Kim's place.

You pulled up to her building, the nerves in your stomach tangled and restless. You didn’t knock gently when you reached her door. You knocked like someone who was tired of being ignored. When she opened it, she looked surprised but tired.

"What the hell do you want?" she asked.

"To talk," you said, forcing your voice steady as you walked inside. "You can’t just treat me like that and expect me to disappear."

She scoffed, crossing her arms. "You think I care about how you feel? After what you pulled?"

You blinked. That one landed deep.

"Are you serious? You humiliated me in front of everyone. You made me feel like nothing. Made me feel worthless!"

"You think I didn’t feel like nothing? When you started touching me like that in front of the team? I had to walk out because I couldn’t fucking breathe."

"You didn’t have to make a show of it! You could’ve talked to me, but instead, you…"

"Instead I what? Tried to keep my captaincy? Keep the team from seeing what a mess I became over you?"

"You’re the one who made this messy, Kim. You let this happen. You let me believe you cared."

"I did care! I still do, but you don’t get to just waltz in, act like we’re still something, and ignore what that costs me!"

"Costs you? Jesus Kim. I gave you everything I had. My time, my heart, my silence. All to protect your precious secret."

She faltered, jaw clenched. "Don’t you dare make this about me being ashamed."

"Then what is it about? Because all I ever did was love you, and you’ve made it perfectly clear I was just a problem."

Her face twisted. "You think I wanted to fall for you? You think this was easy for me?"

"No. But I thought you’d at least be honest about it."

The air between you felt like fire.

"Go fuck yourself, Kim."

You turned on your heel and walked away, slamming the door shut behind you. What you didn’t see (what you couldn’t see) was the way Kim's heart visibly broke just behind the door, eyes glassy, breath uneven. But you drove off convinced she didn’t care, not the way you cared about her.

Over the next few days, things didn’t get better. If anything, they got worse.

You came to training. You went through the drills. You listened in meetings. You spoke only when spoken to. You avoided Kim and she returned the favour. But it wasn’t just the silence between you that felt unbearable. It was the weight of it. The tension so thick it bled into everything. The team felt it, you knew they did. 

It started with small things. Her gaze lingering on you longer than usual. The way she’d sit next to you in meetings without saying much, but never left your side. During one gym session, she handed you a bottle of water and said, quietly, “You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

You shrugged. “I’m fine.”

She didn’t buy it. Leah rarely did. Later that afternoon, after training, she cornered you again, this time in the corridor near the showers.

“Alright,” she said, arms crossed, her tone all business. “What the hell is going on with you and Kim?”

You blinked. “Nothing. Just leave it.”

“I’m not stupid,” she said. “And neither is the team. You’re both walking around like someone died. And if it gets any more awkward out there, someone actually might.”

You looked away, trying to swallow the lump in your throat. Leah stepped closer, lowering her voice.

“Did she hurt you?”

That question. So simple. So loaded. It almost broke you.

You shook your head. “Not on purpose.”

Leah sighed, running a hand through her hair. “You need to talk to her. Or end it. But this in between? It’s ripping you apart.”

You hesitated. Then finally, you whispered, “She meant more to me than she knows.”

Leah nodded slowly. “Then tell her. Before it’s too late.”

​It took you another day to work up the nerve.

The hours dragged, each one heavier than the last. Kim wasn’t just in your head anymore; she was under your skin, lodged in the spaces between your ribs, in every song on the radio, in every silence that felt just a second too long. You couldn’t go on like this. Not without trying.

The nerves didn’t settle even as you walked up the familiar path to Kim’s place. Your hands trembled as you knocked, softer this time. Not because you weren’t angry anymore, but because now, more than anything, you were scared.

Scared she wouldn’t open the door. Scared she would.

When it swung open, Kim stood there, her eyes tired, her mouth slightly parted like she hadn’t expected you to really show up. She didn’t speak. Neither did you. Until finally, your voice cracked through the silence. “Can we talk?”

Kim studied you for a second that felt like a lifetime before stepping aside.

Inside, everything looked the same. But it felt different, like you’d stepped into the remnants of something that used to be whole. You sat across from each other, guarded and vulnerable all at once.

Kim broke the silence first. “I’m sorry.”

The words hit harder than they should have.

“What?”

She took a breath. “I was scared. Scared of losing control. Of feeling too much. I pushed you away because I didn’t know how else to protect myself.”

You stared at her, something tight pulling in your chest.

“You didn’t protect yourself,” you said. “You just hurt me.”

Kim nodded slowly, as if each word you spoke landed right where it was meant to. “I know. And I hate myself for it.”

You hesitated, then reached out. Not a grand gesture. Just enough to let your fingertips graze hers.

“I thought you didn’t care,” you whispered. “I left thinking I meant nothing.”

Her hand closed over yours, gently. “You mean everything. That’s what terrified me.”

Tears threatened to blur your vision. Hers too.

You both sat there, quiet again. But this time, it wasn’t painful. It was necessary. It gave space for everything you weren’t ready to say.

Then Kim gave a soft, shaky laugh. “Leah gave me an absolute bollocking.”

You blinked. “Wait, what?”

“Yeah,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “Cornered me in the gym like some kind of emotional hitwoman. Told me to stop being a coward and sort my shit out.”

You let out a breath of disbelief, a half laugh escaping your lips. “She got to me too. Cornered me in the corridor, looked at me like she could see right through me.”

Kim smiled faintly. “Typical Leah.”

“We can never tell her how much she helped,” you said firmly. “Her ego’s big enough already.”

Kim grinned. “Agreed.”

There was still so much to say. So much damage to undo. But for now, the wall between you had cracked just enough for light to come through.

As Kim leaned forward and rested her forehead against yours, you let yourself believe that maybe this wasn’t the end. Maybe it was the beginning.

A few minutes later, Kim reached for her phone without warning.

You frowned. “What are you doing?”

She didn’t answer right away, just turned slightly and pulled you into her side, and pressed a kiss to your cheek as the shutter clicked. You blinked, still half-processing, as she tapped away at the screen.

“Kim…?”

She looked up with a mischievous smile. “Just making it official.”

You glanced at her phone. She’d posted the photo to the team group chat, captioned: “I love this one”

Within seconds, reactions started pouring in; hearts, fire emojis, Katie sending ten ‘finally’s in all caps, and a very smug Leah replying with a single gif of someone wearing a crown, which you thought was in reference to her.

Then the chaos truly began.

Lotte messaged "Beth, pay up. I told you it was real."

Beth: "No way, I said they'd post something by this week. That was my bet."

Vic: "Wait, I thought Caitlin had the closest guess?"

Caitlin: "Nah, mine was 'they’ll never admit it'. Which was fair, but not accurate."

Stina: "I think three people owe me now. I had photo proof within the month.'"

Of course, Katie had taken charge of it all. She'd been collecting bets like it was her side hustle, keeping spreadsheets, making announcements, and declaring odds like she was a fully fledged loan shark. She even stole a whiteboard from the tactical analysis room just to write everything down. It had columns, colour codes and a ranking system. Renee had asked where it went once, to which Katie had responded by saying it had been ‘repurposed for morale purposes!'

The group chat spiraled from there into a full on argument over who owed who, screenshots of the original bets flying around, people accusing others of changing their predictions last minute.

Kim watched it all unfold, sighed heavily, and turned her phone off with a shake of her head.

"They are actual chaos," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

You laughed, leaning into her side. "Yeah, but they’re our chaos. Our family."

Kim smiled, kissing the top of your head. "Unfortunately."

But there was a warmth in her voice now, a steadiness, and for the first time in a while, you felt it too. Because after everything; through the heartbreak, silence and doubt. 

You had your girl.

[tw1sters]

Refire (Part Two)

When Luca left four years ago, he took your heart with him and left you with a decision that changed your entire life. When he finally returns, rebuilding what you had is a little harder when you have a daughter he doesn't know about. A daughter who belongs to him.

▸ PAIRING: Chef Luca x F!Reader ▸ WARNINGS: NSFW 18+ mostly due to making out (no explicit sex scenes), hurt/comfort, reader is a big scaredy cat, some angst, amelia's personality inspired by morgan stark (marvel) but race is neutral/ambiguous <3 ▸ WORD COUNT: 10.5K ▸ A/N: second and last part!! i love luca sm i hope you've enjoyed this heavily self indulgent story. let me know if there are additional snippets you want to see from this lil family! Read part one here

—

Courage is admittedly not part of your list of best personality traits. Dodging Luca becomes a sport when he’s constantly blowing up your phone after you blow him off over texts. His requests to talk are met with sorry, busy or let me find some time only to never return with a time. It’s childish, you know, but you don’t know how you’re going to deal with these questions. 

The man knows where you live too. 

Your parents are tasked with picking Amelia up from Pre-K everyday so you successfully avoid him at the house by camping out at your parents’ until a late enough time or sometimes even staying over. Your mother questions this – in all her years raising Amelia, you’ve never wanted to burden them more than necessary, which means taking Amelia home almost immediately once you get off work. But now you’re practically half moved in as you look at your phone in paranoia. 

Amelia doesn’t mind it. She loves her grandparents because they spoil her rotten and she lets them do it. She is sharp enough not to raise the fact that you only started doing this when she met Luca. She likely knows that Luca isn’t a bad man, her mom is just a fucking coward. 

It’s ridiculous at this point. You can’t avoid your home forever, nor should you. You just need to figure out what to say to Luca that doesn’t make you seem completely insane for not telling him all these years that you have a daughter. 

By the second week, you’re exhausted with this attempt. The calls have dwindled down and the texts are far enough apart that you think you’ve finally worn him down. But just like a lion waiting to jump on its prey, Luca catches you when you least expect it.

When you realize on Tuesday night that you’re out of work clothes for the week, you have to make a pit stop at home. Your car slows to a quiet roll in your neighborhood as your eyes look around, trying to spot Luca’s car. The vehicle isn’t in sight. Maybe it’s safe now. 

You hold your breath all the way to your door and only let out a sigh when you’re past the threshold. The house is quiet. Ever since your pregnancy, this place has been filled with constant noise. First, it was the nonstop screaming at the early hours of dawn, then it was the excited chattering the moment Amelia began to speak. It’s eerie without all the chaos. 

Making your way towards the stairs, you walk slowly but screech to a halt when you see two figures in your living room. What the fuck. 

“Bec?” You squint and the second person turns around, sending your heart straight through to the ground. “Luca?” You squeak a little quieter. 

“Told you she would be back at some point,” Rebecca smirks. 

“Thanks for letting me in,” Luca says, sounding doubtful still. The two have never met. He just blindly trusted a stranger who might’ve broken into your home. 

Rebecca gets up and approaches you, patting you on your shoulder. “Before you get upset, you two need to talk. I’m sorry for throwing you under the bus here but I think he genuinely cares about you and just wants an honest conversation.”

“Bec,” you hiss, “a little warning would’ve been nice.”

“I know, but this had to happen sooner or later. You can’t avoid him forever.”

You could try. 

“I’m just a phone call away if you need to chat, but honestly, he seems like a good guy. You’re in good hands.”

He is. You know he is. That’s why you can’t do this. Rebecca offers one last reassuring smile before she’s out the door, clicking it shut behind her. Silence bathes the room as Luca stares at you and you’re staring at the dead television screen. 

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Luca points out the obvious. “Why?”

Your tongue darts out to wet your lips. Suddenly, your throat feels scratchy, your mouth dry. “I didn’t know how to talk about it.”

Luca mulls over this before continuing. “Because you were worried about what I was going to say?”

“Yes. Or what you were going to make me explain to you.”

He rises to his feet, his movements abrupt enough to make you take a step back, ready to run again. Luca looks slightly hurt by that reflex, staying glued to his spot a mere few feet away from you. “If it helps, I can start.” 

You purse your lips and nod. 

“At the risk of sounding like a toxic man and making this about me, I was surprised, yes, that you have a daughter that you never told me about. All those years over the phone, you could’ve told me, but you didn’t. You don’t owe me anything, you don’t have to tell me anything – I understand that. I just… wish you did.” He takes a deep breath. “And it’s not that you lied, because technically you didn’t. I was a little hurt, if I’m honest. Actually, more than a little. What I don’t understand is that how— how do you still consider me your friend when you didn’t tell me this? When you couldn’t tell me this? When you couldn’t trust me with this big part of your life?

“At the end of the day, you shared what you were comfortable with and maybe you just weren’t comfortable enough with me to share the news.”

You sigh, rubbing your arms and gesturing for him to take a seat. You seat yourself next to him. There is enough distance between you that he can’t reach you. Luca would try to comfort you, reassure you that it’s okay, but him doing that may be the final straw that has you breaking down in tears. “It’s not that I wasn’t comfortable – technically. It just didn’t feel like the right time. You were off to do this big, beautiful thing and I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

“I’m always going to be worried about you. That comes with the territory of being a friend.”

“But I didn’t want you to,” you press.

“What if I wanted to? Isn’t that my choice to make?”

“I wanted you to focus on chasing those dreams because I loved to hear how well you’re doing, how it was all worth it to pick up your life to go there.”

Luca runs his hand through his hair. “It was — worth it for a while. At the end of the day, a restaurant is a restaurant.” 

“You were at the restaurant.” 

A bitter laugh bubbles up his throat. “Yeah so what? What’s the point in making it there if my best friend can’t even trust me?”

You wince and he immediately looks remorseful.

“I just— I wish you told me. I can’t turn back time and that’s fine. Now that I do know, I want to know if you’re comfortable sharing more with me. If you’re willing to trust me with it. And if you don’t trust me… or want anything to do with me really, that’s—” he pauses, breath hitching in his throat as he looks at you and swallows. “I’ll accept whatever your terms are. I care about you, I just want you to know that.”

There are no words that you can use to make up for all the lost time. You suffered in silence but you had people around you who held you up and carried you forward. Luca could’ve been one of those people but you chose for him. You chose to exclude him so his feelings are understandable. 

“Luca, it’s not that I don’t trust you,” you say softly, placing a hand on top of his. “I do. You’re one of my best friends, I hope you know that. Honestly, it was just such a tough time for me. My parents weren’t too happy but they came around. Obviously, Rebecca you’ve now met. She’s fucking fantastic, god knows I wouldn’t be here without her. But it was just so hard during that time. It’s a lot easier now. There are always ups and downs but it’s been good. Amelia’s been good. Great even.”

“Let me help you then. I’ve missed out on so much already with you. Amelia seems— she seems absolutely wonderful. I want to know more about her, about you.”

Laughing under your breath, you nod. “I can do that. What do you want to know?”

“We’ll start with how old she is.”

“She’s four.” He does the math in his mind and you can see the realization begin to sink in with how wide his eyes are and how his lips part.

You quickly blurt out, “She’s from someone else. I mean, it was after you left.” The lie tastes bitter on your tongue, but you can’t drop that bomb on him tonight. Not now. Maybe not ever. 

His shoulders sag slightly. There’s a look on his face you can’t comprehend but, before you can process it, he’s already continuing. 

“And the father, he—”

“He’s not around.” 

“What a proper git.”

You laugh again. “No, it’s not on him. I wanted to keep her. It was my call and it’s the best decision I’ve made.” 

“Must be a lot to do it yourself.”

“Takes two villages to raise this one. I’m not all alone. My parents help a lot and Rebecca is officially Amelia’s favorite aunt four years in the running.”

“No favorite uncle yet? Think I could campaign for that spot.”

You can only smile.

He returns it softly. “I’m happy to take part in this village. I’m not fully working right now and have plenty of time.”

“No, don’t even worry about it. I’ve managed so far.”

“Yes, but I’m offering you help. You’ve already done such a great job with her.”

You preen at the praise. “Thank you, but it’s everyone.” 

Then Luca looks at you like he’s memorizing the features on your face. The intensity of his gaze has you stiffening. But his voice is gentle when he says, “I always had a feeling you’d make a great mother someday if you chose to do it.” 

You blink at him in surprise. “What makes you say that?”

“You were constantly fussing over everyone. You were the one who made sure I ate enough and drank enough water. Don’t think I’d be alive today if it weren’t for you.”

“Now you’re just being dramatic.”

“No, really. I owe a lot to you, I hope you know that. Now that I’m back, I’m hoping I can make it up to you.” 

A snort of disbelief escapes you. “You have nothing to make up to me. I’m just glad to have you back, you know. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this much ego in the room.”

Luca leans over this time, laughing. The sound is deep, straight from his belly. It’s rich and it’s attractive. Even more so when you know you’re the reason for it. He’s close enough to you that you get a whiff of him – and he smells like home. 

–

Introducing Luca properly to Amelia isn’t too difficult. She knows him as your friend back from your restaurant days and he floods her with stories of how you were when you were young. 

“She was rebellious but also extremely responsible, a giant contradiction your mother.” 

“Cont— contra— what is that word?” Amelia tilts her head.

“Contradiction. It’s like when two things that don’t usually go together are paired together. Like someone being naughty and nice at the same time.”

She nods, letting out a small ‘ooh’, which draws a smile from Luca. 

With all his free time, he becomes a regular visitor. You don’t mind it in the least, especially when you know Luca can assist you in the kitchen. Usually, it would be you and four other taste testers just waiting for dinner. Now, you’re working side by side, moving around the space just like you used to. 

Luca quickly learns where everything in your kitchen is located – spices, utensils, plates, and cups. It comes easily to a man who’s lived and breathed in various ones for years. He navigates the space as naturally as you do. 

It’s even more helpful when work hits busy season. At quarter end, you’re constantly getting pulled into meetings and last-minute review sessions. 

When your phone rings in the middle of dinner prep, you groan. “I have to take this. Um, feel free to pause until I wrap up. We can finish it then.”

Luca only shoos you away from the kitchen. “Don’t worry, Amelia and I can handle it, right?”

Amelia nods excitedly. She’s been even more ecstatic recently with more people to torment. Luca’s height and build mean he’s been giving her piggyback rides whenever she wants and pushing her guilt-trip eyes to get him to give her more sweets under your nose. And since Luca is four years behind on kissing her ass, he folds like a cheap suit. 

At least it gives you some reassurance that Luca does well with Amelia.

Sometimes, when you look at the two of them, you wonder if this is what your life could’ve been. It could’ve been the two of you raising this beautiful, brainy little girl. He would’ve been right next to you at parent-teacher conferences, you shaking your head at some of her antics and he would just beam proudly. It could’ve been two, but instead Amelia only got one. 

But it’s all meaningless thinking. You don’t have any regrets. Amelia still turned out wonderful and now they’re building their relationship. He doesn’t need to know the truth. He doesn’t need to live with what-ifs that he doesn’t have control over – and that’s just the way you want it. 

You would rather he have this what-if rather than wonder if it was worth it to give up everything he loved for you. 

You push these thoughts away from your mind as you dive into this work fire drill. There’s been plenty of these lately. With you hunkered down with your laptop, Luca keeps Amelia company – and safe because that girl has been a little too curious about the stove lately. 

By the time you crawl out of your cave, you catch the delicious whiff of custard in the air. Your mouth immediately waters because you know exactly what’s baking in your oven. When you reenter the kitchen, the two of them are on the floor, staring at the lit-up oven. 

“This is – maybe was – your mom’s favorite. She wouldn’t ever order anything else. I used to make this for her after work whenever she was feeling tired. It would cheer her up.” You hear Luca share. 

It’s true. You remember the late nights after a long day of grunt work. The ingredients are always in the kitchen and the process simple enough that Luca would have them ready by the time you finish cleaning up the station. The two of you would sit side by side, spooning the sweet treat into your mouth as you chatted about the day. 

Amelia chimes in this time, “She’s still the same! We always get crème brûlée. I like cheesecake, so we always get two desserts.”

“Do you now? Well, I make a delicious berry cheesecake. I’ll have to make you one and bring it over.”

“We can make one together!” She jumps. “How about tomorrow?”

And this is where you step in. “Amelia, Luca might be busy. We can aim for a weekend, okay?”

Luca gets to his feet then, placing his hand on top of Amelia’s head. She leans into his touch. “I can do tomorrow, no problem. I’ll pick up the ingredients on the way here.”

“You really don’t have to. You’re already helping me tonight.”

“I want to. I can do tomorrow.” Luca grins down at Amelia. “Seems only fair since you’re getting your favorite dessert tonight that Amelia gets hers tomorrow.”

She lets out a cheer. You pin her with a look that does nothing to scare her. “Alright, but only if you get all your homework done. Are you all packed for tomorrow?”

“I’ll finish packing my bag now,” she smiles. “Thanks, Uncle Luca!” With one last hug around his legs, she’s dashing off to her room.

You shake your head, sighing. “You spoil her too much. Her dentist will have a field day on her next visit.”

“I’m not above bribing children with desserts. It’s what all those years in restaurants have culminated into,” Luca cheekily grins, completely unapologetic. 

Once the ramekins are out of the oven, Luca waits for Amelia to return before he layers the sugar on top and torches it. She watches in fascination and Luca even offers to help her try it. “Don’t do this without your mum around, promise me,” Luca says. The stern warning in his voice is appreciated. 

And attractive. 

Shit. You dismiss that assessment and turn your attention back to the two. Amelia is focusing intently on how the sugar browns as her small hands wrap around the tool, Luca’s own larger hands covering hers. If you had a camera, you’d capture this moment to remember. 

Three of you are huddled around the dining table with your respective bowls. Amelia does a dramatic first crack through the sugar, thrilled when she finds that it isn’t as thick as it usually is in restaurants. You stick a spoonful into your mouth and nearly melt on the spot. It’s the right creaminess with a sweetness that isn’t excessive. The brittle is crisp, falling apart at the touch of your spoon, but provides a balanced change in texture. The flavor is familiar, one that you’ve tasted time and time again in the Ever kitchen, but somehow it tastes even better. Luca’s perfected this recipe. 

This is the perfect crème brûlée.

“Good god.” The words are out of your mouth before you can stop them. “This is even better than I remember.”

“I’ve tweaked it a little bit since you last had it. I’m glad you like it.”

Luca offers to do the dishes while you tuck Amelia into bed, which you are grateful for. “Goodnight, Uncle Luca,” she yawns, rubbing her eyes as Luca bends down to accept her hug. 

“Goodnight, baby,” Luca smiles against her head. The term of endearment makes her smile curl just a tad bit bigger.

She waves sleepily before dragging her feet towards her room. You pull the blanket up to her chin. For once, she has no complaints about going to sleep at the designated time. The dessert must’ve done a number on her, not to mention running around with Luca all afternoon. 

“Night, sweetheart,” you mumble, kissing her on the forehead.

“Mommy?”

“Hm?”

“I like Uncle Luca.”

Your lips twitch, threatening to shift into a grin. “Yeah? He’s great, isn’t he?”

“You never talked about him before, but you’re friends. Why?”

You rub her forehead thoughtfully, smoothing out the small creases of her frown. “He wasn’t here. I didn’t think he was going to come back so I didn’t think you would ever get to know him.”

She hums thoughtfully as her eyelids begin to flutter. She’s resisting sleep as best she could but you cover her eyes and she doesn’t fight. “I’m glad he did,” she mumbles before her soft snores fill the room.

“Me too,” you whisper quietly to her. It’s a quiet admission, one you can only make in the safety of this room. 

You’ve lived years without him, but now that he’s back, you can’t imagine what it was like before he returned. It’s as if he had been here all along, integrated into every aspect of your life. He’s etched into every page of every chapter of your book. 

Luca is staring at a wine bottle in the living room when you find him next. He perks up, lips stretching wide. “She’s asleep?”

“Out cold. Thanks for wearing her out. Usually it takes me an hour to put her down.”

He chuckles. “My age is catching up to me. I already feel it in my back.”

“Sounds like you’ve been slacking on working out,” you tease, sliding into the space next to him. “Thinking of drinking?”

“My only responsibility tomorrow is making cheesecake for a four-year-old, so I think I’m good to suffer through a hangover.”

Smirking, you grab him a wine opener and let him do his thing. He expertly pours out two glasses and hands one to you. The cabernet is rich and delicious. The warmth of the alcohol immediately spreads through your systems and your muscles relax into the couch. Just what you needed. 

Somehow, your conversation strays to dating. 

Perhaps it’s the wine, or perhaps it’s you being soft from a day spent with both Luca and Amelia, but you find yourself being more truthful than you’d like.

“You haven’t gone a single date?”

You laugh and groan simultaneously, head thrown back to the couch. “Don’t say it like that. It’s hard to even think about mustering up the energy to get to know someone when you’re raising a kid.”

“I’m just surprised Rebecca never tried to trick you into going on one. She looks like the type to plot that behind your back.”

“Oh, trust me. She has. Except I had to bring Amelia along so my blind date made himself scarce when he saw his promised date show up with a child.”

Luca scoffs, “Sounds like she has terrible taste in men. For you at least.”

“Oh, yeah? Who would you set me up with then?”

The question catches him by surprise. His lips thin as his eyes dart away. The wine on your tongue suddenly tastes sour. “Don’t think I have any good mates to set you up with.”

“That’s unfortunate,” you grin, “though, I don’t think they would take too kindly to our friendship anyway. At the rate you’re going, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amelia accidentally calls you dad.”

You don’t realize the gravity of your words. They were said in jest. They were meant to be lighthearted. But the look on Luca’s face says otherwise. It’s a combination of shock and awe and bashfulness. 

“A-accidentally, you know,” you try to emphasize. 

“Would it be so bad though?” Luca murmurs quietly, his hand inching closer on the back of the couch towards you. His fingers ghost your bare shoulder, decorated only by the thin strap of your dress. “For her to call me that.”

Your heart beats so hard in your chest, it feels like it’s going to spill out. No words could even come to mind in that moment, not when Luca’s touching you. Not when he’s leaning closer. Especially not when you feel the softness of his lips against yours. 

He tastes saccharine sweet, the gentle kind like a candy that soothes your aching throat. You barely hear him shift towards you until the pillow next to you dips. Then his hand is wrapping around the back of your neck and pulling you closer. His fingers climb to bury in your hair as he lets out a small moan against your lips. His touch, his smell, everything about him overwhelms your senses. 

The Luca you knew before was a little clumsy, a little hesitant. But the man before you today is confident. He’s sure of his movements as his teeth catch your bottom lip, drawing a whimper from your throat. His tongue swipes over the bite before he presses in. 

Luca’s large hands then slide down to your hips to pull you on top of him, trapping his legs in between yours. Your arms wind around his neck to pull him even closer until your bodies are pressed flush together. Your breasts push against his firm chest as his thick arms circle your body, holding you tight. 

You only part to gasp in a little bit of air before he’s slanting his lips over yours again. “You’re fucking gorgeous,” Luca mutters as he begins moving his mouth along your jaw and down your neck. His lips are hot against your sensitive skin, leaving wet, open-mouthed kisses that have you shivering. With only your panties and his jeans separating the two of you, you could feel the strain of his erection growing against your core. 

“God, you taste so good. Missed kissing you like this,” he mumbles as he makes his way back to your lips, keeping his mouth on your skin the entire time. 

“Luca, please,” you whine, hands tentatively playing with the hem of his shirt. You sneak your fingers up his abdomen, feeling the solid torso underneath. Your palms stretch over the planes of his abs, toned and firm. 

“When’s the last time, love? Tell me.”

“I don’t know, years,” you mutter. It’s been years. The last time was… 

It’s as if the glass between your past and present cracks. The splinters cut through the haze as you realize where you are. Your daughter is in the next room, sound asleep, while you’re out here on the lap of her father, who doesn’t even know he’s—

You’re quick to scramble off him with your rattling heart, standing away from the couch with your fingers pressed against your lips. They still tingle from where Luca’s kissed you. You can still taste him on your tongue. The shame settles in swift and heavy in the pit of your stomach. 

With his frazzled hair and shirt slightly bunched up, Luca looks at you in confusion. The fog in his eyes is slowly dissipating. “What's wrong?”

“Shit, Luca. I can’t. I can’t do this. I—”

He bounds to his feet and approaches you slowly, hands sliding up your arms to take hold of your shoulders. He pulls you in for a hug when you don’t protest. This feels safe. You feel protected. But you know it’s all a mirage. Temporary. 

“Hey, deep breaths, sweetheart. Tell me what you’re thinking about. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” you swallow, “my daughter’s right there for god’s sake. I’m a terrible mother.”

“No, you’re not. She’s asleep. She’s fine.”

You jerk back, extracting yourself from him. “What if she walked out and saw us? Oh god, how would I explain that to her?”

“Okay, I understand. But she didn’t. You’re fine. If she did, we would’ve sat her down and talked to her.”

“And what would I say? What could I even say to make it better?”

“Sweetheart—”

“Don’t.” The word is sharp. Hard enough to actually have Luca stop in his tracks. “Amelia is everything to me. Everything I do is for her. I shouldn’t have— this was a mistake.”

A mask of hurt settles on his face. “Don’t say that. You can’t tell me you don’t feel it too.”

“It doesn’t matter what I feel. I’m all she has, Luca. I can’t have anyone leave her. You’re— she already likes you too much. And if you leave again, I don’t know what I would tell her.”

Luca frowns, stepping towards you. “I’m not leaving. I told you I’m here for a while.”

“A while is not forever, Luca,” you whisper. “You’re still out there pursuing this big dream of becoming a chef. You’ve worked in some of the greatest places in the world. This home – it’s so small and it’s nothing compared to what you’ve built out there.”

“Don’t say that. You’ve created such a wonderful home. The only thing that gets me up in the morning these days is coming here, coming to you and Amelia. You don’t know how much this place means to me.”

For now. This place means something for now. The same way Ever meant something then. The same way you may have mattered in the past. But things are different now – you’re different now. It’s no longer just you. You’re not on your own anymore, and you’re not going to saddle him with your choices. You’re not going to have Amelia suffer from your choices. Not when he still has so much to offer the world. Not when he’s likely to leave again for the next big thing. 

It’s one thing to long for something you’ve never had. It’s another to lose something you’ve always wished for – after you’ve had it.

“I can’t do this,” you shake your head. “I’m sorry. It’s complicated.”

“Why is it complicated? Help me understand. What can I do to uncomplicate it?”

Your breath is shaky as you inhale. “There’s nothing you can do.”

His eyes slide shut as he swallows thickly, his arms falling limp by his side. “So what now then? Are you going to cut me out of your life again?”

“I never cut you out of my life.”

“You practically did. I saw how distant you were during those calls, how you could barely even look at me. For a while, I thought I had done something wrong – if leaving had been a mistake. Now I understand why and there’s no fault on anyone’s side. But now I’m also here. I’m here with you and I want to stay here – if you’ll let me.”

And you know it’s too late now. You should’ve thought through the consequences to the end. Amelia has grown fond of Luca. She’s attached to him. You can’t possibly be the person to strip her of that happiness. 

“I want you to stay. For Amelia,” you clarify. The light in his eyes flickers, dimming slightly. “I don’t think I’m ready for… whatever this is, Luca. When you decide to leave again, chase the next thing, I already have to prepare Amelia for that.”

“You don’t know if I’m going to leave again,” he murmurs quietly.

“I think the risk itself is enough,” you say with a sympathetic smile. He understands, it’s clear from the way he looks at you. He’s conflicted, his fingers itching to reach out to you again and go back to minutes ago when he was wrapped around you. But he also understands why you’re concerned. 

So he nods. “Yeah, that makes sense. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“Please do not apologize,” you laugh, “I enjoyed it – while it lasted. Plus it makes me feel pathetic when you pity me.”

“I definitely do not pity you. Pretty sure I’m pitying myself for messing it up with someone as wonderful as you.”

Your lips twitch, breath huffing in a laugh. “You’re cheesy when you’re drunk." A beat of silence before you say, "You should stay tonight. It’s late and you’ve had too much to drink. I’ll get you some clothes.” The reluctant look on Luca’s face means that he has a question and you already have a feeling what it is. “It’s not… they’re your clothes. You left a few things here last time.”

“Right, thanks.”

When you leave Luca to sleep last night, you drag your feet to your room with a heavy heart. 

You’ve lost him once. You don’t think you can survive a second time.

–

Things are as they should be after. The dynamic between you and Luca returns, Amelia is none the wiser. However, you note that there is slightly more tension in the air now. It’s in the way he chances glances at you, sneaking peeks whenever he thinks you’re not looking. You do the same to him, your eyes trailing over the way his arms move when he’s working in the kitchen. 

It’s easier since Luca started staging at The Bear. It’s a temporary opportunity – he’s not even sure how much longer the restaurant will be around, judging by what their funder said. But he likes the team and the menu, so he’s taking it one day at a time. 

Amelia isn’t too pleased that her time with Uncle Luca is reduced. He apologizes profusely for only being able to come around on Sundays when the restaurant is closed. There are some days that he comes over at night, tired down to his bones, but he still puts on a smile for her. Most of the time, Amelia is fast asleep, but he leaves traces of himself behind for her – a slice of leftover pie, a cheesecake, and even a new stuffed animal in the shape of a cheesecake. She hugs that one to sleep every night now. 

Your parents swoop in. They’ve been wondering why you haven’t been bringing Amelia around as much. 

“Had a little help,” you only say. Your dad doesn’t think much of it but your mom has always been the more observant one. 

“What kind of help?” She prompts.

“A friend.”

“That’s not Rebecca?”

You shrug. “Sure.”

“Are you seeing someone?”

“Mom! No,” you sputter, heat crawling up your neck as you focus on stirring the soup for dinner. 

“Then why are you being so coy about it?” She teases, poking your side. “You have no problem talking about any of your other friends, but here you are – getting all fussy when I ask you such simple questions.”

The warmth only grows and you duck your head, lest she realize how hard you’re blushing. “He’s an old friend. Back from my cooking days.”

“Oh? I didn’t realize you still spoke to any of them.”

Chewing on your bottom lip, you shake your head. “I don’t. He’s – he was gone for a while. He was in Copenhagen and now he’s back.”

“That’s nice. I’m happy you have someone else supporting her.” 

“Me too.”

“So is this the Uncle Luca that Amelia won’t stop talking about? Pretty sure your dad’s upset that he’s no longer her favorite man.”

You laugh, switching off the stove and calling the rest into the dining room to eat. “Yes, I’m surprised she’s already talking about him.”

“We call her too, you know. I’m a little worried about her teeth based on how many desserts he’s bringing her.”

“He’s trying not to spoil her too much, but that comes with the territory of being a pastry chef. He’s very good, though. I almost forgot how good he is.”

“That good, huh?”

The implication in her words is not lost on you. “Dinner’s ready.”

Dinner is lively. Amelia spends all that time catching them up on things they’ve missed, which really isn’t a lot. Your parents adore Amelia and would spend hours listening to her talk on the phone. However, with every mention of Luca, you could feel irritation rising in your dad. Jealousy is foreign territory to him.

In the middle of dinner, your phone rings and you step away from the table. It’s Luca. 

“Hey, I stopped by the house, but you weren’t here.”

“Oh, yes. We’re at my parents’ today.”

“Got it.”

“Did you need something?”

“No, no. Marcus and I were experimenting with a new cheesecake recipe so I wanted to bring some samples by before I headed home. I could drop it off at your parents’ if you’d like.”

Your eyes fly to your family at the table. While your dad’s attention is still focused on Amelia, your mom’s curious eyes are trained on you. “Um, no, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it. You can keep it.”

“It’s no problem at all. Let me know the address?”

You confirm with him and send the address over. Luca does live closer to your parents than he does you, so it works out that he can drop it off on his way home. When you return to the table, your mom doesn’t press for answers. She just takes another spoonful of her soup.

However, when the doorbell rings, she’s the first one on her feet – as if she anticipated this all along. You’re a second too late to intercept when your mom is at the door, greeting Luca who – even after a full day in the kitchen – still looks delicious. He smells delicious too. 

“You must be Luca,” your mom immediately says.

Great. Now he’s going to think that you’ve been talking about him. His gaze shifts to you in question. “Amelia,” you say to clarify. “She’s been raving about your company. I think she’s breaking my dad’s heart.”

His laugh is delightful. Your mom seems to think so too when she smiles a little wider. “I am Luca. It’s wonderful to meet you.” He extends his hand, holding a full cheesecake in the other. You’ll only admit to yourself how sexy it is that he holds these massive pastries like they weigh nothing. 

“Why don’t you come in? We’re having dinner right now.”

Luca – knowing full well you eat dinner at seven on the dot – sends you a questioning look at the fact that you’re having dinner at ten. A time in which Amelia should be in bed too. You shrug, “My parents eat late and Amelia takes every opportunity to not sleep when she’s not supposed to. It’s Friday anyway.”

He only nods. “I don’t want to intrude and—”

“You wouldn’t be intruding. Come on in.”

You grasp your mom’s arm. “Luca’s just being polite. He’s exhausted and he’s still working tomorrow. Pastry starts very early over there.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” your mom relents. “We must have you over for dinner next time then.”

“That would be lovely, thank you for the invitation. I’m here to drop off dessert.”

“What a sweet boy. It’s been a while since my daughter has brought anyone around. In fact, I think this is the first time.”

You groan as Luca pinks. “Mom, please don’t start. Luca, please ignore her.”

“A woman can still dream, you know,” your mom grins. 

Before either of you can respond, Amelia is barreling down the hallway and throwing herself around Luca’s legs. You’re quick to take hold of the dessert so that he can bend down to embrace her. “Uncle Luca, I didn’t know you were coming! Are you hungry? Mommy made chicken noodle soup.”

“Did she? That sounds delicious.”

“You smell really good.”

“I was baking your favorite dessert.”

Amelia looks up at the platter in your hand. “Cheesecake! Thank you, Uncle Luca.”

“You’re welcome, sweetheart. I can’t stay for dinner but I’ll come by on Sunday and we can learn how to make bread. How does that sound?”

“With cheese?”

“Lots of cheese. I’ll bring at least three kinds.”

Amelia hums in excitement and eagerly agrees. Your dad stands behind my mom, eyeing Luca with suspicion. And envy. Luca only smiles politely at him and introduces himself. It doesn’t appear to appease him, but it’s a start. 

“Anyways, I’ll let you folks get back to it. Hope you enjoy dinner.” Luca says to the group who say their own farewells. He turns to you, gaze softening a fraction. The edges of the emerald chipping away. “See you Sunday?”

You smile, “Sunday.”

As you’re putting away dishes with your dad that night, he keeps throwing looks your way. He wants your attention and you have a feeling of what he’s going to ask, so you would rather avoid this conversation altogether. 

“So,” he starts and the sigh that leaves you is involuntary. “Luca then?”

“What about him?”

“He seems nice.”

“He is.” 

Your dad is silent for only a moment before he delivers words that have you choking on air. “Honey, you know your sex life is none—”

“Nope, oh god, no. We are not talking about this.”

“I just want to make sure you’re being safe. You already have Amelia and we do want more grandkids but maybe once you’re fully prepared.”

You’re practically wheezing, closing your hands around your ears. “I don’t want to hear this from you, Dad. I’m an adult. I’m good. I know about the birds and the bees.”

“Oh, dear,” your mom’s voice interrupts as she bumps her husband by the hip. “Go do the final tuck-in for Amelia. I can finish up here.”

Your dad opens his mouth to protest but the look your mom sears him with has him scampering out of the kitchen. 

“Your dad means well.”

“I’m aware, he just needs to work on his delivery. There are probably better ways to say don’t get knocked up a second time.”

Your mom laughs as she closes the dishwasher. “I don’t think your dad or I would mind another grandchild. We’re only saying to be responsible about it. We can see you’re fully capable of raising children on your own but it doesn’t hurt to have an extra pair of hands. Especially when they come attached to a tall, British man who already adores Amelia as much as you do.”

“Mother,” you say in exasperation. Only your parents could make baby-making sound so unsexy. 

“And I know you wouldn’t tell us who Amelia’s father is but… I can’t help but see the resemblance.”

You wet your lips, your eyes going everywhere except to meet your mom’s. “Pure coincidence.”

“Does he know?”

“Mom.”

“Does he? Because he doesn’t seem like the type to up and abandon his daughter.”

Sighing, you shake your head. “No, he doesn’t. I’d like to keep it that way.” Your mom tilts her head in question. “It’s complicated, but he was headed to Copenhagen for work. It was a big opportunity. If I told him I was pregnant, he would’ve stayed.”

Your mom hums in understanding. She doesn’t confirm whether or not what you had done was a mistake. Instead, she only kisses you on the forehead. “You’re too good a kid, you know that.” 

“Think that’s mostly from dad.”

She laughs and flicks your cheek. “I take it back. Go get some sleep. Before the ogre gets you.”

“I’m not five anymore, Mom.”

“You always are in my eyes, honey. Goodnight.”

–

All good things must come to an end. Or so they say. 

When you hit rock bottom back then, you had been drowning in your own misery. Looking at your pregnancy test all those years ago felt like your entire life was crumbling down around you. The castle you had built cracking from the inside. 

While your parents came around at some point, it was Rebecca who really held your hand through it all. She was the one who held your hair back in the bathroom time and time again. She let you bawl through the emotional rollercoasters on her shoulder. She stood by you as you explained to your parents why they should support you. She was your rock. 

But the best thing about her is that she keeps you grounded. She’s never afraid to be honest, to push you out of your comfort zone. There are a lot of things that you’re scared about but it’s a lot easier with your best friend by your side. 

And you know that sometimes you take her for granted. It’s hard to spend time with your friend Rebecca instead of Aunt Rebecca with Amelia. Of course, you love it when the two are together and obviously Rebecca would take a bullet for Amelia, but it’s different when it’s just the two of you. 

Nights like this one – Amelia at your parents and it’s you and her on the couch with tubs of ice cream and Hugh Grant on television attempting to murder these two girls –  are rare to come by. Hugh Grant is nothing compared to the story Rebecca is telling in great detail about her most recent client. As a PR director, she works with the coolest people. Celebrities, influencers, huge corporations. Everyone wants a piece. You always listen to her in awe.

“So what happened when you told this A-list actress no?”

Rebecca rolls her eyes. “The tantrum that she threw. At least one glass furniture broke in my office that day. We have it all on camera. If I were a terrible person, I’d threaten to sell it to TMZ.”

“Jesus, the diva. This is why you can’t trust anyone these days.”

“Well, not just anyone,” Rebecca says with a pointed look. 

You know what she’s getting at. That’s the first comment she makes on the topic that night. She’s baiting you into giving her more intel. There are occasions where Rebecca and Luca overlap but for some reason, they really haven’t seen each other much since that first night when she forced you to talk to him. 

When you don’t bite, she’s on to her next story. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t say yes,” you tell her in disappointment. “You could’ve been dating a billionaire. We could’ve shared the perks.”

Rebecca snorts, “No amount of money could’ve convinced me to date that man. He’s all bark and no bite. Actually, I did hear a rumor that he bites people.”

“For a billion dollars, I might let him. Just introduce us,” you giggle, bumping her shoulder.

Rebecca laughs, “Unfortunately, you’re taken.”

A blush surfaces on your neck. “I am not.”

She gives you a look as she digs her spoon deep into the half-finished pint of Neapolitan. “Who are you kidding? You’re basically dating.” 

Well… “I might’ve forgotten to tell you something,” you start, wincing when she cocks an eyebrow in question. “We made out the other day.”

“What? When?”

“Um, he was here and I had put Amelia into bed. This was before he started staging.”

A gasp slips past her pink lips. “You’re telling me this now? So what happened? What do you mean you’re still not taken? Was he not as good as you remembered?”

No, he was better. You groan, dropping your own tub onto the table before you inhale the entire thing to distract yourself from the pain that persistently tugs at your heart. “I told him we shouldn’t.”

“What? Why would you do that?”

“Look, I don’t know how long he’s going to stick around. When he leaves, I have to pick up the pieces with Amelia. I can’t also be dealing with being heartbroken a second time.” 

Rebecca inhales deeply. You know that look. She’s trying to be patient with you. This is the look she gives you whenever you do something she disapproves of – which, considering you’re a coward, is a lot of times. 

“Let me get this straight. You have this gorgeous man with a hot, posh accent who’s wooing you and who wants to be with you and your daughter? Oh, and he’s also the father. And you’re saying no? The math isn’t mathing, babe.”

You sigh. “It’s not that easy. What if one day he finds out that he’s the father and I didn’t tell him all this time?”

“Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

“I don’t want him to hate me for keeping something so big from him.”

“So instead, you would rather have him have nothing to do with you?”

“We can stay friends.”

“News flash, you guys aren’t friends. He was in your home practically every day. If he weren’t working, he would’ve likely already moved in here. Amelia is so fond of him. I wouldn’t be surprised if she called him dad at some point.”

“Fuck, that’s what I said.”

“Yeah, fuck. Don’t be an idiot. Luca is fantastic. He’s great with Amelia and your parents. Why would you not want him?” 

“Because I would just hold him back.”

Rebecca turns her entire body to face you now. “Hon, you know I love you. But you’ve got to stop playing this martyr. It’s frankly getting ridiculous. Stop using him as an excuse to avoid doing things you’re scared of doing. It’s okay to admit that you’re worried about getting your heart broken again. It’s okay to admit that you’re terrified of this big, beautiful thing you could have. But you can’t live in a world of what-ifs forever.”

It’s a harsh truth that burns. She’s right. For years, it’s been easy to blame what had happened for your forgotten dreams. But it had ultimately been your choice – to have Amelia, to lie to Luca, and to rely solely on yourself. With Amelia growing up, you know that you have the opportunity to turn things around. You could go back to pursuing your dreams of being a chef. You could go out and date again. You could do things for you. 

“I love you so much. You’ve given your everything to Amelia. You’ve made her your everything. Maybe it’s time to give yourself that grace as well.” 

With Luca, you know that you can never move forward until you tell him the truth. It’s going to be a secret that hangs over your heads. For any future with him – or to potentially even lose it forever, you have to finally share who he is to Amelia. 

A big part of you is hopeful – that he would be thrilled to find out and that he would welcome it with open arms. The next hurdle would be telling Amelia, but you’re hoping that’s something you can wait a little longer to overcome. 

However, a small part of you – the one that Rebecca points out – is still living that fearful what-if scenario. What if he gets upset and leaves? What if he never comes back? 

And the answer to those is another question: what’s the worst that can happen?

He decides that he doesn’t want this and moves on. So you yourself would also learn to move on. You would tell yourself down the line that you dodged a bullet. You’ve raised Amelia for four years, you can do it for the rest of your life without the support of a man. 

So you rip off the band-aid. 

On Sunday, after a long day of sun and desserts, Amelia is finally out cold. She had actually fallen asleep in Luca’s arms in front of the TV and he carried her to bed before rejoining you on the couch. For someone who hates being told to go to sleep, she’s been falling asleep on her own more so recently. It’s a nice change. 

Now to the situation at hand. It’s now or never. 

“We need to talk,” you start nervously. Your palms are clammy and you can feel sweat collecting in your hairline at the thought of this conversation. Luca probably noticed that you’ve been slightly distracted all day, but you didn’t want to wait too long. The fear that your fear will come back is too big. 

“Sounds serious,” Luca says, shifting his body so his arm is draped on the back of the sofa and he is turned to you entirely. All his attention on you. 

“I’m going to tell you something and I just need you to keep an open mind and try not to hate me at the end of this.”

His eyes go soft again, like they always do when he’s with you. It makes you hope even a little that things will turn out fine. “I could never hate you.”

A strained laugh escapes your lips. “Don’t speak too soon.”

“Tell me,” he urges. 

It’s his quiet confidence in you that finally has you spilling everything. Starting from the moment you found out, to your decision to keep it from him, and to today. How you never meant for him to find out. 

Then Luca is on his feet and your biggest fear may have materialized. He’s going to leave. 

But he only paces the length of the room, brows furrowed in deep thought. He’s not looking at you but your eyes are stuck on him, tracing his every movement, following him in case he disappears. 

“So she’s mine” is what he opts to start with.

“In the technical, genetic sense, yes.”

“Why—” he seems to be stuck in this loop of disbelief. His words keep getting caught in his throat and he ends up looking puzzled on how to even address the situation. You’re surprised – but grateful – that he’s more confused than upset. Or at least he appears to be. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want to be a regret. Not to you.” 

Your answer only appears to confuse him more. “Why— why would you think that you’d be a regret?”

“Luca, you’re so talented. You’re meant to do great big things out there. I’ve seen how you work, the passion and heart you put into every single one of your dishes. With a baby – I couldn’t imagine what that life would be like for you. I know you. You would’ve given up Copenhagen, you would’ve stayed.”

“Of course, I would have.”

“And I didn’t want you to!” You exclaim, your fingers pushing through your hair. “Copenhagen was your everything. If I told you about the baby, you would’ve left your dream – and what then? What if you resent me for the rest of your life because of my choice?” 

Luca shakes his head. “I told you I could never resent you.”

You smile weakly at him. “You don’t know that.” 

“You’re my best friend,” Luca says softly. “I would’ve been there for you, no questions asked. Any restaurant can be the greatest in the world. But you – there’s only one of you and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.” 

“That’s just stupid,” you mutter dumbly through your tears. 

Luca laughs and reaches up with both hands to dry your eyes. “It’s not stupid. It’s the truth. You’re so important to me. I don’t know if you know that. You were the reason why I stayed at Ever as long as I did. Your faith in me was what kept me in Copenhagen. Noma was hard, even harder knowing the shit pay I was getting. But every time I talked to you about it, you would light up – and all I could think about was how I should stay so I could keep telling stories that make you smile.”

The confession has your mind reeling, your heart lodging in your throat. “I didn’t know that. You just – you looked so happy to be there.”

He offers a small smile. “It got better.”

“I’m glad it did because it would’ve been ridiculous if you only stayed to tell me stories.” 

With a shrug, he easily says, “I would’ve. For you.” 

A quietness falls between the two of you. Two revelations. This isn’t how you expected the evening to go, yet you don’t mind it in the least. 

It’s Luca who breaks the silence first. He looks hesitant at first but decides to ask anyway, “Can I ask you something?” You nod. “Her last name—”

“It’s mine,” you blurt out. “I mean, it felt more natural. Since it was just going to be me and her.” 

A flicker of hurt crosses his eyes, a look so brief that you nearly miss it. It’s unmistakable. He looks away before you can see it, but you did. “Makes sense,” he murmurs under his breath. 

“Luca, I don’t— I need to be clear that I’m not expecting anything from you. I made this decision on my own. It’s not your responsibility.”

“She’s my daughter,” he says, a sharpness to his words that you didn’t expect. Your surprise must be clear on your face because he quickly softens. “I’m not trying to step on your toes. When I came back to Chicago, I wasn’t expecting this. I mean, I certainly was not expecting you to have a child. But I also wasn’t expecting her to be mine.”

You’re not sure what to say to that. Your fingers are laced together on top of the table and you pick at the dry skin on your thumb to distract yourself from your heart threatening to hurtle out of your chest. You try to keep your voice steady as you speak. “I know this comes as a surprise. I just want to reassure you that she’s my daughter first and foremost. She’s my responsibility. I don’t want you to think that you have to do anything.”

“That’s frankly the most absurd thing I’ve heard you say all night.”

You immediately look up, your eyes finding his with confusion written all over them.

“The fact that you think I wouldn’t want to do anything. She’s— she’s perfect, sweetheart. You raised her to be strong, smart. She has all the best parts of you and thank god none of me,” he chuckles. “Even if I were here, I don’t think I could’ve done what you did. And for that I’m grateful to you.”

Honest. Raw. Genuine. Your throat feels like sandpaper now, the words lost somewhere in the abyss. 

“About Noma, I don’t even know where to start.”

“I still don’t fully understand why you left. You said it got better. That was your dream.”

“It was,” he says softly, “I had reached it. But it didn’t feel… right. There was something always missing and I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

Nodding slowly, you take your time to digest his words. That had been his entire life. When the two of you were at Ever, all he ever talked about was making it at Noma. It’s every chef’s dream. And he had achieved it. 

“Until now.”

This is the second time you whip up in surprise. “What are you saying?”

“I missed you,” he says, almost a whisper. He says it like a secret. A secret he is sharing for the first time with you. “Gods, I missed you so much. Copenhagen was beautiful. I had a wonderful time but the whole time I was there, all I could think about was— it was being here with you. How we probably could’ve built an equally or even more beautiful life in Chicago. Or I imagined what it would be like for you to be there with me – the two of us cooking and baking like the old days. Sneaking around and eating desserts at the worst hours. Just talking.” 

“Luca…”

“And I’m not expecting you to reciprocate my feelings. I know you were worried about me leaving but I hope I’ve made it clear that I’m not going anywhere. I want to be here with you and with Amelia. I’ve already missed out on four years with her, I have a lot to make up for. But I’ve lost that same number of years with you. You’ve spent so long taking care of others. I want to be here now, I want to take care of you.” 

“I can’t possibly ask you—”

Luca shakes his head. “I want to be very clear. You’re not asking, I am.” 

“But Copenhagen and the restaurants there. You have a life there.”

“I could have a life here too. A better one. The one I want.” Luca inches closer, one of his hands stroking your hair as the other wraps around yours. There’s a comfort to his touch, one that you’ve so desperately missed. “I can work anywhere in the world. I’m constantly learning from every restaurant I’ve worked in. Chicago has some of the best food spots in the world, and even better people who run them. There’s no shortage of that. But in the world, there is only one you and one Amelia, and I’d love it if you granted me the opportunity to be in your lives.”

You swallow thickly. This is exactly what you feared would happen. But here he is — asking this of you as if you hadn’t taken away that option from him to begin with. Here he is telling you that he is choosing this. He wants this with you and with Amelia. 

“Of course you can,” you choke out, laughing lightly through the tears. 

“Oh, love, don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“Happy tears, I promise.” You smile at him and squeeze his fingers reassuringly. “As for what you said, I missed you too. So much. I don’t even think I realized how much until you came back. And, while I do want something with you, I want to take baby steps. I want to make sure Amelia is okay with all this first.”

“Definitely. I want her to be comfortable with me – being her father but also being around. Once I get her blessing, that’s when I’ll really start to court you.”

A laugh bubbles up your throat. “Court me?”

“Court you,” he grins devilishly.

Your cheeks are beginning to hurt from how much you’re smiling, but you can’t help it. It’s so easy with him. “Thank you for understanding, Luca.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I might just be the worst influence on our daughter.”

The word our makes your heart jump. Our daughter.

You chuckle. “Pretty sure the menace in her comes from my side.”

“You’d be surprised.”

With a deep breath, you sigh and look at him. This gorgeous, beautiful man is all heart. A heart that belongs to you. “Amelia already loves you, being a bad influence might make her love you even more. My dad is already quite disappointed that he’s no longer the favorite man in her life.”

Luca grins unapologetically. “As unfortunate as that is for your father, I am thrilled to hear that. You have no idea. Though, that just means that I also have to win over your parents. I don’t know how pleased they are that I wasn’t around for the first years.”

“I’ll make sure they understand that it wasn’t your fault—”

“I still should’ve known.”

You pin him with a look. “You couldn’t have known. I did everything possible to hide it from you. It’s not on you. They know that to a certain extent. Plus, judging from my mom’s encouraging comments, I don’t think you’ll have to work too hard.”

“Well, still, I hope I don’t disappoint.” 

His fake modesty – which actually is not fake at all because he’s just that humble – is irritatingly sweet. “Luca, you are 6’2” of pure muscle and soft heart. You’ve worked in the coolest places in the world. You’ve been there for Amelia since you found out about her – even when you didn’t know you were the father. You have nothing to be worried about.”

“If you say so,” he smirks and scoots even closer. Your knees are touching and his eyes drop to your lips. “I know you said we’ll go slow but – would you mind if I kissed you every once in a while? No pressure again. Feel free to say no—”

So you do the second brave thing you’ve done today – you lean over and press your lips against his. It’s slow and sweet, sparks compared to the fireworks that one night. Still, you enjoy it all the same. He’s surprised only momentarily before he returns the attention. 

When you finally separate, he leans his forehead against yours. You whisper, “I could really get used to this.”

Grinning, he gives you another peck. “Can’t say I’ll have any complaints about that.”

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[colossrat]

Marvel is stressbaking

Miss Marvel (Mary) with her lunchbox, not at all happy: Yay, brownies again…

Kid Flash: You don't want it??? They look delicious, why are u sad???

Mary Marvel: Sure, i mean, yes, they are delicious. It's just that I've been eating nothing but bakery stuff all month. Ever since the League and Fawcett problems started happening at the same time, Caps is so anxious and stressed that he is baking nonstop in his free time…

Kid Flash: So... Want my sandwich for those brownies?

Anyway, Kid Flash will gossip with Flash about Marvel's stress baking situation, Flash will tell Hal that Marvel is really anxious right now because hes not really taking time off and is using the kitchen to relieve stress. And Hal will gossip with Superman that Marvel is so tired of so many problems that hes stressbaking so hard that his whole family has diabetes right now

Of course, Superman will say the same to Trinity, and they'll call a meeting to talk about how good it is to take breaks, to stop for a while when everything gets overwhelming, and to let the league know why they are a team

In the end, Captain Marvel says, "Yes, yes, I totally agree"

Superman: Oh, really…? You agree that those with bad workaholic habits should take a break?

Marvel: Yes! Of course, we are a team, we will continue to be here to protect people so that those who need it can rest without worries!

Batman: "we"?

Marvel: Yes, indeed. I know Superman was being very subtle, but I think everyone here knows that a break would help you a lot, Mr. Batman!

Wonder Woman: Actually, we called this meeting to persuade you to take a break, brother. But now that you mention it, rest would do great things for both of you

Marvel: Yeah! --Um, actually, excuse me? Me? I don't need a break. I don't get tired

Batman: Even if you're not physically tired, everyone gets overwhelmed by constant work

Marvel: Does that include you?

Batman: No

Marvel: Yeah, I'm not taking a break. I'm fine, guys! I don't even know where you got that, that i needed a break

Flash: You may look fine, but we know that when you're at home, you cant stop stressbaking to a point where your family can't even think about sugar anymore!

Wonder Woman: You're one of the most dedicated members of the League. You always show up for your monitor duties, you never ask anyone else to take over, in fact, you're one of those who always accepts to cover for others

Superman added: At one point, we had to make a rule to limit the number of monitor duties someone could take. You pulled almost a week of night shifts in a row!

Marvel looked a little embarrassed by that.

Marvel: Well, what can I say? I enjoy what I do… yeah, okay, it's been a lot lately. With league obligations, Fawcett has some new villains, drug gangs, and drug trafficking to keep an eye on… And I also help Zoom (Darla) and Circuit (Eugene) with the housework… I walk Thunder(Pedro) to his baseball practices and games… I deal with Junior (Freddy's) school problems… and I've been wanting to go shopping for new clothes with Miss (Mary) for a while now… I also got a new job… a civilian job… on top of the freelance work I started to help with the bills…

JL:

Marvel: actually i think I'll take a break. Yeah, it's not as bad as it could be

JL:

Marvel: But only If Batman takes a week to rest too!!

Just to recap some of the hcs here.

Billy is 15 years old and was homeless like all the other kids (except Mary, who lives with the Brombofiled)

The kids were adopted, and Billy still keeps in touch

He visits Darla and Eugene's backyard to chat and help with their homework with Solomon's wisdom.

He walks with Pedro to practice and never misses a game.

He waits for Freddy after school every day to defend him from bullies if they try anything

And occasionally hangs out with Mary as civilians to keep in touch with his sister

He works as a freelancer selling photos for the Whiz and was recently hired as an internthere too. Now he's even have a roof!! and a kitchen and money to bakestress, always making and sharing desserts with his siblings