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miryum · 3 months ago

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An arranged marriage with James Potter

Something had happened over the summer that made James Potter the most love-sick fool in all of Hogwarts. Purebloods being purebloods, it wasn’t uncommon for children to be paired up early on to secure the bloodline. While this happened mostly between the old-arching Slytherin families, an example being Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black, every once in a while, the other houses would participate too.

Such was the case with James Potter and Y/n L/n. The L/n’s had spanned generations, stretching back to even the Gaunt’s time. But, such as the Gaunt family, the L/n family had run into some bad luck. Stocks didn’t go the way they wanted or something of the sort and now they were in ruining trouble.

Euphemia Potter was usually one to scoff at arranged marriages, wanting the children to find love for themselves, blood status be damned. However, the L/n’s were good friends of hers and James had written home multiple times about their daughter. From his letters, it seemed as if the two were already dating. It was a perfect coincidence. Euphemia and Fleamont agreed instantly, lifting the weight of a thousand bricks off of the patriarch of the L/n household.

However, James and Y/n were not dating. Much to James’ annoyance, the only thing between them was his unrequited infatuation towards Y/n.

So that’s where the pair found themselves at the beginning of seventh year. Y/n L/n trying to fly under the radar and not draw any attention to herself or the new ring on her finger, and James Potter doing everything in his power to show off their relationship and spoil her in front of everyone.

It began at the start of the year feast. James had an arm around Y/n’s shoulder the entire time. When a third year nervously asked if the two were dating, staring reverently up at James, the boy grinned and looked to Y/n. “I don’t know, love, are we?”

Y/n pushed James’ arm off her shoulder and indelicately said, “no. Take him.” The third year blushed and mumbled their way out of the conversation as James clutched his wounded heart.

During classes, James would loudly correct the professors from Miss. L/n to Mrs. Potter. It earned him wry smiles from McGonagall and Sprout, chuckles from Slughorn and Flitwick, and a cold glare from Y/n. The students all looked a bit confused whenever this happened, but chalked it up to the usual antics of James Potter.

In the courtyard or by the Black Lake, James would lay his head on Y/n’s lap, even if she pushed him off or was sitting with her knees up. There were roses on her bed and notes in her bag and it got to the point where Y/n didn’t even question how James had snuck into her dorm.

If Y/n ever went to Hogsmead, James was sure to follow. No matter what she bought, he would pay for. Even if she got frustrated, he would slip the galleons up onto the counter, grinning at the cashier. He wanted to show her that he could provide for her and give her a nice home. As she would walk from shop to shop, he would point out colours of shops, saying, “oh, that would be a good colour for our bathroom. Look at that little cuckoo clock! Y/n, we have to get it.”

He would follow wherever she went, asking what seemed like meaningless questions. Have you ever had any pets? Do you like the country or city better? Any aspirations for your career? What’s a place you always wanted to visit? Y/n thought nothing of it, but to James, her answers were slowly sculpting his future. Would she want a dog or a cat in our home? Where should our house be? I would like the country so our kids could run around more, but we can easily make the city work if she wants. Should I be a stay-at-home dad? Or could we juggle two careers? Where should our honeymoon be?

Quidditch games were no better, because after every goal the chaser scored – and he scored a lot – he would look to the stands, find his fiancée, and blow her a kiss. Before every match, one of his spare jerseys would be laid out on her bed, a small note attached, begging her to wear it. She never did and he always gave her a pout when he realised it. And God forbid she didn’t go to the games. Once, she had been studying for an upcoming exam and hadn’t been able to make it. James had thrown a fit. Sirius had to drag him away from Madame Hooch before he secured an entire year of detention, but the boy still refused to get in the air. Madame Hooch threatened to start the game and make Gryffindor play a catcher down, but thankfully Remus and Peter had just found Y/n and dragged her to the pitch. The moment James saw her, he beamed and kicked off, broom now in the air. They had ended up winning. James spent the afterparty with his head on Y/n’s lap, arms reaching up to encircle her waist. He continuously reminded her how awful it would’ve been if she hadn’t shown up and only shut up when she began running her fingers through his hair.

And every night, no matter if he went to bed first or she did, James would always go over to Y/n and give her a soft kiss on the forehead and a whispered, “sweet dreams.” No matter where she was, this became a daily occurance in Y/n’s life. At first, she tried to avoid it by sneaking off to the library whenever James began yawning and tossing around the idea of going to bed. But he would find her. She tried the kitchens, hoping he didn’t think to look for her there. But he would find her. She tried being in a group with her friends, in animated conversations. But he would weave his way through the group, step in front of her, and still say goodnight. It was like he had this magical map that told him where she was at all times. It was bloody infuriating.

Much to James’ dismay, no progress seemed to be made. At least she was staying faithful to her fiancé, the Marauders reassured him as James griped and moaned. He would sling himself onto a common room chair, conveniently in the earshot of his dearest. Y/n would just roll her eyes.

The majority of Hogwarts didn’t know what to do with them. The girls would swoon when they heard the new thing James Potter had come up with to woo Y/n L/n. The boys would huff and grumble about needing to step up their own game when it came to their girlfriends. James was setting the bar too high. The teachers would sit around, taking time to sip a well-deserved drink, as they complained how if L/n didn’t soon see the boy that was right in front of her, helpless to his love, then Potter was going to have a breakdown.

Yet, Y/n continued to push him away. James could be patient. He had been waiting practically seven years – he could wait a little more, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t hurt whenever she brushed him off. She could’ve said no to the engagement. She could’ve punched or hexed him. It didn’t seem like she truly hated him, more like she was embarrassed and tired of him.

“I don’t get it,” James said finally one night. He laid out on his bed, long limbs stretching over the place as Peter and Sirius played Exploding Snap on the floor.

Remus was reading on his own bed. The werewolf sighed, knowing where this was going. “What don’t you get, Prongs?”

“Why doesn’t Y/n like me?” James murmured, looking at his friends with large, hurt eyes.

“Mate,” Sirius said. One of the cards exploded, making Peter flinch. “Listen. She likes you, yeah? How else are you able to get close to her? I swear, you were practically on top of her a couple days ago.” He scoffed and laid down a card.

James groaned loudly and exclaimed, “but I’ve tried everything! Hell, we’re literally engaged! I can’t go through an entire marriage like this. Especially not with the woman I love.”

Peter piped up, smiling sincerely at James. “Hey, I’m sure she’ll realise it soon enough. I think she loves you back. She’s just scared.”

“But I’m me!” James shouted out. “I’m not scary!” He looked around wildly at his friends. “Am I?” he asked pathetically.

“I think if you have to ask if you’re scary,” Remus pointed out, “then you’re not scary.”

Sirius grinned. “Excellent point, as always, Moony.”

Remus sighed and gave James a pointed look. “Perhaps, the best thing to do is talk to her. Since she is your future wife, after all.”

“I do talk to her!” James argued. “I ask her about her day and tell her about our pranks. She- she responds. She’s very sweet, you know, but she never shows any affection.”

“Maybe you’re pressuring her,” Peter commented. “By being all lovey-dovey. You could try being her friend first?”

James didn’t think he could do that. He already thought of Y/n as his wife. He already thought of her as one of his best friends. But what else could he do to get her to feel the same way?

The next week, James took Peter’s words into consideration. Instead of leaving flowers in her dorm, James asked if he could join her in the library for a study session. Instead of blowing her kisses during Quidditch games, he just waved. Instead of envisioning their future, he focused on the present.

It wasn’t until three weeks had passed that James noticed the results. Y/n began coming to him with some questions on schoolwork. Y/n waved back at Quidditch games, shooting him a thumbs up in encouragement. Y/n wouldn’t fiddle with her engagement ring nervously, as if worried someone would spot it.

The girl noticed her changed behaviour too. On a random Thursday, when James came to kiss her goodnight, she paused her conversation and whispered back, “sleep well,” angling her body so he wouldn’t have to reach as far to kiss her temple. Soon after, she excused herself from her friends, flustered. Y/n paced around her dorm, twisting the ring back and forth.

A knock came at the door. “Hey,” James murmured as he pushed open the door. “Are you okay?”

Y/n turned to face him. “You actually care about me, don’t you?” she whispered.

James couldn’t help but laugh. “Of course,” he replied. “Why on earth would you think otherwise?”

She shrugged. “It seemed fake, you know? Like this one big prank to single me out. But then you actually seemed excited and willing to marry me, James. Marriage. This is the rest of our lives and we haven’t even kissed!”

James cracked a smirk. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I can fix that really easily.”

“But you think you’re in this for the long run?” Y/n asked desperately. “For- for the fights? The late nights? The chores? And we haven’t even talked if we want kids or not!”

“Love,” he interrupted her spiral. “Have you thought about the waking up every morning in my arms? The dancing in the kitchen for no reason? The anniversary dinners where I profess my love over and over again?” He stepped forward, placing his warm hands on her arms soothingly. “And if you want, I would love to have mini replicas of us running around, waking us up in the middle of the night because of a night terror. I would love for them to disrupt our dancing in the kitchen by demanding they want to dance too. And I would love for them to groan when they see me being all sappy towards my wife.”

How could any girl say no when James Potter was standing before her, promising her endless devotion? The kiss was slow, James’ lips slowly moving against hers. He revelled in the warmth of her body and how her head tilted to him as he cupped her cheek gently. All short and lovely and sweet, the kisses were exactly how James had dreamed.

The couple parted and the boy stared down at her. His finger went up to brush her bottom lip before murmuring, “will you marry me?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

#james potter x reader #james potter #harry potter #harry potter fanfic #marauders #maraders era #sirius black #remus lupin #peter pettigrew #james fleamont potter #the marauders #the maraunders map #euphemia potter #fleamont potter #james potter fic #james potter x you #hp #hp marauders #hp fanfic

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theonottsbxtch · 3 months ago

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THE OTHER GUY PT.4 | FC43

part one | part two | part three |

an: only a couple more to go out! lmk if there is anything in particular you'd like to see and if you'd like to be added to my tag list :)

ynpiastri

liked by oscarpiastri, logansargeant, landonorris and 34,244 others

city boy summer, can't keep the hoes away

*tap to load more comments*

logansargeant: you are not a city boy

ynpiastri: or am i?

oscarpiastri: i, for the record am happily taken and will not engage in this tomfoolery

ynpiastri: @/lilyznimer i will pay you double what he's paying you to date him if you break up with him

userone: girl we all know franco is there too.

When you’d woken up this morning, the last thing you’d expected was a pounding at your door. It couldn’t have been housekeeping because you had it scheduled for 3 p.m., and it couldn’t have been a crazy fan because you made sure never to post near your door, ever. So when you opened it and were attacked by a flurry of blonde hair, your heart dropped. As per usual, whenever you saw the blonde mess, you knew your sheepish brother wasn’t far behind.

It was a welcome surprise, though. While you were enjoying the peace of the resort, it had been a while since you’d seen Logan or Oscar.

After catching up over breakfast and hearing their latest stories from home, you all had agreed to spend the day at the beach. The morning had been light and easy, filled with laughter and jokes, mocking how Oscar couldn’t tan and how Logan always managed to find an American flag, no matter what country he was in.

“You’ve been quieter than usual,” Logan said, nudging you with his elbow. He grinned, a knowing look in his eyes as he adjusted his sunglasses. “What’s on your mind?”

You shake your head, trying to brush it off. “Nothing, just thinking.”

Oscar, who was stretched out beside you with his arms behind his head, let out a chuckle. “Thinking about what?” Tilting his head to the side, he gave you a teasing glance. “You’ve been acting weird since you got here last week.”

There was no escaping it now. Of course it was going to be noticeable that you’d been quieter, but that was because the thoughts swirling around in your head weren't exactly ones you were ready to share. Still, you couldn’t ignore the topic forever.

“I don’t know,” you started, the words slow and careful. “I guess… I’ve stopped looking at him with so much hatred.” The words were out before you could even clarify who he was.

It felt strange admitting it out loud. You’d spent so long disliking him—publicly, even. But now? After spending more time here, after getting to know him in ways you hadn’t expected… things had changed.

Oscar raised an eyebrow. “Wait. Are we talking about who I think we’re talking about?” He leaned in, clearly intrigued.

Glancing out at the ocean, you avoided eye contact with either man. “Yeah.”

Logan stayed quiet for a moment, and you almost regretted your words. Staying quiet for a beat longer, he sighed. “You know, he never did anything wrong.”

Turning around to face him, surprised, you lifted your sunglasses to look at him properly.

“He fought his way into the sport the same way I did,” Logan continued, his tone firm but not harsh. “You can’t hate him for something he can’t control.”

You felt your chest tighten. He was right. Deep down, you’d always known that. Franco didn’t choose to replace Logan—it wasn’t personal. He was just doing what any of them would do. Fighting for a place in a sport where nothing is guaranteed.

“I know,” you admitted softly. “It’s just… hard. I wanted to blame someone.”

Oscar sighed, giving you a sympathetic look. “We get it. But honestly, you’ve got to let it go. Holding on to that anger—it’s not going to do you any good.”

For a second, you wanted to laugh because you couldn’t recall the last time in your life Oscar and Logan had agreed on something.

Just as you were about to say something else, you noticed movement in the distance. Out of the corner of your eye, you see him— Franco —walking along the shore. His head turned in your direction, and when his eyes met yours, he lifted his hand in a casual wave.

At first you thought he may be waving to Oscar, but when a shy smile graced his lips your heart skipped a beat. He wasn’t not doing it for show, not trying to get under your skin. It was just a wave. Simple, friendly.

Before you could think too much about it, you waved back. And then, almost without realising it, a small smile tugs at your lips.

Both Oscar and Logan caught the interaction and raised an eyebrow, though Oscar didn’t say a word. Logan nudged you again, his voice teasing. “Well, look at that.”

You rolled your eyes at him but can’t help feeling a little lighter. Maybe you really were wrong about him. Maybe there’s more to him than the guy who replaced Logan.

You were still thinking about that smile when Logan gave you a sly nudge. “So… are you going to talk to him?”

Your head whipped around to his eyes wide. “What? No! Absolutely not.”

Oscar laughed, clearly enjoying your sudden panic. “Why not? You’ve already smiled at him, waved and everything. Just go over there and talk to the guy. It’s not like he’s some stranger.”

You shook your head, feeling your face heat up. “It’s not that easy! I can’t just walk up to him like it’s nothing.”

“Oh, come on,” Logan said, rolling his eyes playfully. “You’ve been trash-talking him for months, and now you’re scared to ask him out for a drink? Seriously?”

Opening your mouth to protest, your face flushed as no words came out. You were flustered, and they both knew it.

Oscar sat up, shrugging nonchalantly. “What’s the worst that could happen? He says no? So what. But I don’t think he will.”

You glanced back towards where Franco was standing, now leaning against the railing, gazing out at the ocean. He looked relaxed, completely unaware of the internal chaos you were going through just a few feet away.

Your heart was pounding, and you felt a nervous knot in your stomach. “I can’t just… I mean, what would I even say?”

Logan gave you an encouraging smile. “Just be yourself. Ask him if he wants to grab a drink tonight. You’ve already softened up to him, right? This is your chance.”

You hesitated, glancing between Oscar and Logan, who both gave you looks that said go on, you’ve got this.

Finally, you exhale, standing up and wiping the sand off your legs. “Fine. I’ll do it. But if this goes horribly wrong, it’s your fault.”

Oscar grinned at you. “We’ll take full responsibility. Now go.”

With your heart still racing, you took a deep breath and started walking across the sand toward him. Each step feeling heavier than the last, your mind racing with all the things you could say—or worse, all the ways this could go wrong. But you were already halfway there, and there was no turning back now.

When you were just a few feet away, he noticed you approaching and turned around, his expression shifting from casual surprise to something more… interested. You could see it in his eyes, the way they lit up as you stopped in front of him.

��Hey,” you managed to say, hoping you didn’t sound as nervous as you felt.

“Hola,” he replied, a slow smile spreading across his face. “I wasn’t expecting you to come over.”

You bit your lip, suddenly feeling shy. Why did this feel so much harder than anything else you’d ever done? “Yeah, well… Oscar and Logan kind of persuaded me. They said I should talk to you.”

He raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Oh? What about?”

Your mind went blank for a second, “I was, uh… wondering if you’d want to grab a drink with me tonight.”

The words came out in a rush, and you immediately felt your cheeks flush, but you managed to hold his gaze. You couldn’t believe you just said that. Your heart was thumping so loudly you were sure he could hear it.

Franco didn’t answer right away, but the smile on his face grew wider. “You’re asking me out?”

You nodded, trying to keep your cool. “Yeah. If you’re free, I mean. It’s fine if you’re not, I understand.”

His eyes softened, and for a moment, the cocky driver you’d seen in interviews was gone. In its place was just a guy—surprised, maybe even flattered.

“I’d love to,” he said, his voice steady. “How about I pick you up around 8?”

Blinking, you took a minute to comprehend what he’d just said, relief and excitement flooding you all at once. “Really? Yeah, that works.”

“Great.” His smile was warm, and suddenly, the tension you were feeling melted away. “I’ll see you tonight, then.”

You nodded, still trying to process that you’d actually gone through with it—and that he had said yes.

“See you tonight,” you echo, then turn to walk back to Oscar and Logan before remembering he didn’t have your room number. “Uh, room 438.”

Franco nodded in your direction, “Room 438.”

ynpiastri

liked by logansargeant, oscarpiastri, francolapinto and 31,487 others

fit check, kind of nervous guys (📸 @logansargeant)

*tap to load more comments*

userone: FRANCO IN THE LIKES 🤭

usertwo: oh my god i want her

oscarpiastri: scared for what? i thought you were city boy summering rn

ynpiastri: @/lilyznimer PLEASE BREAK UP WITH THIS NERD

userthree: just seen franco in the hall of the same resort, looks quite dapper if you ask me

logansargeant: this isn't very city boy summer of you

ynpiastri: eat dirt 😍😍

userfour: franyn?

the end.

taglist: @iimplicitt @isaadore @iamred-iamyellow @justheretoreadthxxs @obxstiles @how-what-why-huh @raizelchrysanderoctavius @sainzzreputaticn @xxx-betty @dukeofjjune @dejavuontrack @littlegrapejuice @mxdi0

#f1 #f1 imagine #f1 smau #f1 fanfic #logan sargeant #williams #franco colapinto #franco colapinto x reader #franco colapinto x you #franco colapinto x yn #oscar piastri #oscar piastri sister #williams f1 #williams racing #williams formula 1 #logan sargeant angst #logan sargeant smau #f1 social media au #franco colapinto smau

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macfrog · 9 months ago

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san angelo | one shot

what happens when joel miller meets his star-crossed lover?

big love to @mrsmando and @5oh5 for cheering me on with this one, and @bageldaddy for being my eyes, my ears, and - only sometimes - my brain.

pairing: joel miller x fem!reader summary: it's the summer of two thousand eight. after two weeks following his little brother cross-country on the back of a harley, joel follows him through the doors of a dive bar - where fate delivers him to you. warnings: story is inserted into canon, so cordyceps outbreak happens, sarah dies (off-page), joel dissociates, doomed love, lots of mention of fate, alcohol consumption, reader is a smoker, cursing, drunken one-night stand, oral sex, unprotected piv, joel's cock is massive, a lot of angst, a lot of fluff, a lil smut to tie it all together. enjoy! word count: 9.8k

moodboard | main masterlist | playlist [in case you wanna vibe in sad] | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🤍

Palm lines.

It’s the first thing he thinks as soon as she stops moving in his arms. The second her little whimpers cease, the moment her chest stops heaving and her eyes glaze over. Suddenly, Joel’s little girl weighs more than he can bear.

Palm lines. And he has no fucking idea why.

He closes his eyes and there you are. The whir of the ceiling fan, the tinkling of bracelets loose on your wrist. You have sorta earth hands, you told him. Or, well – they could be water, if you look at ‘em this way. I don’t really know. I’m still learning.

You told him that air hands were long, spindly. And Sarah was always a lanky kid – tallest on the soccer team, head and shoulders above the other girls by the third grade. Her hands, he thinks, must be air. They must be.

Her fingers are still twisted around his right now. Lifeless, slippery with the blood still wet and quickly cooling.

Joel cradles her, squeezing so hard that he wonders whether he might be able to fuse their bodies together. Lock them in some white-knuckle grip so that he never has to let go of her – never has to leave this hill covered in dirt and blood.

His palms are ruined; a maroon river carving its way down his heart line, dirt deep in the groove of his life line. Why does he even fucking remember what they’re called?

Why the fuck are you what he’s thinking about, right now?

“Tommy,” he says, opening his eyes again. “We gotta…we gotta get to…”

She’s limp, draped over his thighs as though she’s nothing more than a stretch of crimson curtain. He looks down at her and begs her to come back, begs her to open her eyes and look up at him again.

But the night is passing and she’s still not breathing. Dawn is breaking and Joel’s daughter is dead.

He sucks in a shattered breath. “…to San Angelo, Tommy.”

The younger Miller stuffs his gun into the back of his jeans and paces over, soles coated thick in shit and grass. “I hear you, Joel.”

“You ain’t listenin’ to me, I –”

“I’m listenin’ fine, Joel.” Tommy hooks his hands under his niece’s arms. “Now, help me lift her. We can’t…” his voice strains, fighting the death grip his brother has on the girl, “…we can’t leave her here.”

Joel’s frozen to the spot; sinking further and further into the earth. Staring at his open hands, the stains like rust on his palms. He says to San Angelo again, and Tommy snaps.

“Jesus, Joel, enough! I’ve heard enough goddamn it! I see your hands, now – we gotta fuckin’ bury Sarah.”

Your fate line, your nail tickled, and Joel held his hand steady, It can change, if something big is coming.

Somethin’ big? he asked. A little younger, a lot more naïve. Still a healthy dose of belief in the world, an echo of the god-fearing faith that raised him.

His hand felt so light, cradled in two of yours. He half hoped he’d never have to let go – just lie there with you forever. Your legs tangled with his, the sheets disturbed; the room injected with amber from the streetlights outside.

You nodded. A big shift, or something.

And he scoffed. He actually scoffed, right there and then. Incredulous. The hell kinda big shift is comin’ our way? he asked, laughing.

You just smiled back, shrugging. You were so fucking casual, that whole night. It would’ve unnerved him, if he hadn’t been so swept off by the sparkle in your eye, the glowing cherry of your cigarette.

Guess we just gotta wait ‘n see.

It’s August thirtieth, two thousand eight.

Almost five thousand miles on the back of a Harley, and Joel just wants to go home.

He arches his aching back, palms flat against the crests of his hips, and blinks in the light from the food mart in front of him. Twenty-six, he thinks to himself, only twenty-fuckin’-six.

It’s ninety degrees out. An uncomfortable heat, for a man who feels ten years older than he really is. For a man who hasn’t had a decent shower in almost two weeks. For a man who’s spent the last six hours tailing the brake lights of his little brother’s bike.

The sweat gathers sticky between his shoulder blades, prickles along the nape of his neck. There’s dust spattered down his bare arms and buried in the grooves of his knuckles.

He’s tired. He’s tired, he’s dirty, and goddamn, he wishes he was back home.

He holds a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun, the yellow sky melting to a purple haze. Squinting, he follows the soar of two swallows overhead, looping through the sky, until he’s rubbing the image from his eyes with the back of his wrist.

He’s gotta remember to call Sarah before she goes to bed.

The door opens with the tinkle of a brass bell older and rustier than Joel feels. A swaggering figure splits the glow from the store in two – a figure with a pack of Marlboros in one hand and an already half-empty bottle of water in the other.

Tommy holds them both out to Joel, who swipes the water with a scowl.

“Ain’t killed you yet, brother,” Tommy scoffs, stuffing the cigarettes into his back pocket. He swings a frayed-denim leg over the seat of his Harley.

Joel drains the bottle, panting as he crushes the plastic in one fist. “Damn near tryin’,” he mutters, tossing it in the trash. He runs his tongue across his bottom lip.

“Where are we?” Tommy asks. He glances over his shoulder, staring from the cracked roads to the telephone wires overhead. A Syclone pulls into the lot; a dehydrated squeal as it rolls to a halt.

“San Angelo,” Joel says. “Only a few more hours to go.” He settles on his own bike, pulling his leather jacket over his shoulders. “We passed a Super 8 coming into town, if you feel like restin’ up. Or – we leave now, be home around midnight.”

Tommy chuckles. “What’s the rush? We ain’t gotta be anywhere anytime soon.”

And Joel agrees – for the most part.

His mom is watching Sarah while they’re gone, and he reckons she’s hardly missing him. Too smart for her own good, Joel’s realizing: plotting and scheming her way into staying up past her bedtime, drinking Pepsi at dinner, watching Curtis and Viper – and swearing that her dad lets her do it all, too.

But, still. He misses his kid.

It’s the most they’ve ever been apart – time or distance. The longest he hasn’t had her climbing up his back or hanging off his arm. The least he’s been called Dad since he was eighteen years old.

He just…misses his kid.

He sighs, drumming his fingers on the body of the bike. “Tommy, I gotta get back home to Sarah.”

“Look,” Tommy says, and Joel knows that the argument is lost already, “By the time we got back, she’d be asleep anyways. Let’s leave in the morning – first thing, I swear – and we’ll be home in time for breakfast. Deal?”

They stare at one another, a stand-off in the parking lot. Both waiting for the other to break. The swallows gather on the roof of the store, basking in the weak wash of flickering fluorescents.

“Come on, brother,” Tommy pleads, “It’s one more night.” He lifts his helmet, punching it over his mop of shaggy hair, and kicks the bike to life.

Joel growls to himself, watching it drift over to the side of the road.

He considers heading to the Super 8 alone, grabbing a room only to shower and get some food, then hitting the road and leaving his little brother in the dust. Waiting for him to stumble through the door tomorrow morning – tired, groggy, probably hungover – while Joel, fresh as a daisy, drizzles syrup over Sarah’s pancakes and pours her orange juice.

He’s a pragmatic man. He’s a grown-up. Scares away the ghosts and ghouls and monsters of his daughter’s nightmares. Shushes her back to sleep in the crook of his arm, tiptoes as lightly as he can out of her room so as not to wake her.

Things like God, like the universe, things like horoscopes and laws of attraction…for the most part, Joel can do without them. Has done his whole life.

But then – the glow of indigo overhead, and the mysterious shadows lurking behind the buildings. The birdsong tittering in his ears, the twinkle of the sun in Tommy’s helmet – something distant in the dusty sphere.

Something, someone, winking at him from far away.

Something a little heavier than the breeze nudges at his spine, and Joel’s arms lift – fitting his own helmet over his head. He swings the heel of his boot into his kickstand and revs the bike, Harley roaring as it joins Tommy’s out on the boulevard.

Murphy’s is a small, green bar on the corner of an intersection. All peeled paint lettering and buzzing fluorescents – the y burnt out and pulsing.

Joel doesn’t think Tommy picked it for any reason other than the huge Lone Star mural on the side of the goddamn building, the way he tosses his thumb to it as they park up. A squint smirk on his face, muttering something like ‘s good to be home, big brother, as they hook helmets over handlebars.

Tommy leads Joel inside, their boots tacky on the wooden floor. Walls paneled by aged frames and sun-bleached photographs; air hanging thick with a smell like vinegar. The babble of slurred conversation is pierced by the sharp crack of pool balls breaking.

Metal-plate belt buckles snaked through strained jeans; low eyes which shift to size-up the two strangers. They all turn back to their fingerprinted glasses when Joel and Tommy settle into an empty booth.

It feels hotter in here than it is outside, stuffier. A thick humidity which clings to Joel’s bones, humming like the string lights draped from beams above his head.

Tommy reclines between the creaking leather cushion and the wall. He pokes at a yellowing poster of some Western, hums to himself, and then looks across the table.

Joel’s eyes loop once around the room before they meet his brother’s. “What?” he asks.

“First round is yours, old man.”

“Oh, is it, now?” He cocks an eyebrow. “Thought this was your idea?”

A weedy grin stretches across Tommy’s lips. He needs to fucking shave, Joel thinks. Whiskers poking from around his small mouth like pine needles. “’s my birthday trip,” he reasons.

And can Joel argue with that? Does he have the fucking energy? Will it get him out of here and back to Austin any quicker?

“Goddamn it,” he grumbles. He pushes himself to his feet, heels of his palms against the tacky wood.

He wanders over to the bar, tugging on the front of his tee to unstick it from his damp chest. Slots in beside an ivory cowboy hat with a pair of jeaned legs. The man fixes his bolo tie and watches Joel’s hand as he flags the bartender down.

And then he feels it.

You.

Then he feels you.

First, the weight of you – crashing some into his back. He shunts forward from the suddenness of it, knocking his ribs against the bar, and lifts a hand to brace himself on the ledge.

And then – heat, like an iron. Like every hair and freckle on your skin is branded into his the second you come into contact with him. A feeling like the roll of a wave against his spine, a hand hooked around his forearm when he begins to turn.

“Shit,” you hiss, steadying yourself on the curve of his shoulder. You glance down at your feet, clicking between your black boots. “I’m sorry, that was…that was my bad.”

“’s alright,” Joel says instantly. He holds his arm still until you let go and he sidesteps – though only a little. He watches, dumbstruck, as you rest your elbows on the bar and lean forward. His eyes linger on your back, trailing the crisscross straps wrapped tight over your spine.

You squint up at the menu pinned above shelves of crystal bottles. Your eyes move back and forth across the chalkboard, slowly descending until they’re meeting his in the speckled mirror opposite – a sweet smile growing on your lips.

It runs like whiskey through Joel’s veins: warm and dangerous.

And the way his head spins, the way the world blurs for a moment into one swipe of color around you; the way your cooing laugh echoes between his ears long after he’s heard it –

Joel’s already intoxicated.

He’s still staring when you pull back and motion to the bar. “You can go first, by the way,” you say, waving a hand. “I wasn’t cuttin’ in line. Just trying to read the drinks.”

“I’ll wait,” he replies, remembering how to be polite, how to be charming. Old cogs long out of use jerking to life inside him again. “Can’t read any of ‘em, either, anyways.”

It draws from you that same little laugh, a puff of air from your nostrils. You nod, biting your bottom lip.

He’s quickly forgetting why he’s stood in this room, why he’s in this city. He’d probably forget his own fucking name if you asked him right now what it was.

“’nother drink, darlin’?” a low voice interrupts, and you’re turning away.

Joel’s eyes follow you – a moth chasing something golden and radiant – as you face the wiggle of a snow-white mustache poking from beneath the brim of that ivory cowboy hat.

You shake your head, lifting two fingers with a bill slipped between them. “I’m good, thanks, George. Maybe next round.” You wave to the kid behind the bar – some name that Joel’s too fucking mindless to hear. Too distracted by the glint in your eye, the sparkle of your crescent moon earrings in the light.

If only he knew this feeling. If only he could put a name to it. As familiar as the sun and yet, brand new like dawn. His stomach swirls in a fleet of butterflies – as though he’s fifteen again, bumping elbows with his high school crush.

You nudge him, thumb pointing in the direction of the bartender.

Joel shakes his head. “Ladies first,” he says, heart skipping when you hold his stare.

“Nuh-uh,” you shake your head, “Told you I ain’t jumping in.”

He asks the guy for two beers, barely taking his eyes off you. “Alright,” he leans in, lowering his voice, “Then let me buy you a drink. Make up for gettin’ in your way just then.”

You prop your chin on your knuckles, grinning as you push your twenty around the wooden bar top, dodging pooled rings of alcohol like it’s an arcade game. “I don’t do that,” you say, eyes tracing the slick trail left by the bill.

“Do what?”

“Accept drinks from strange men in bars.”

His tongue presses against the back of his teeth, the taste of humor honey-sweet. “Yeah? ‘n how long have you known…” he nods to the – what is he, sixty? Sixty-five? – year-old on your right, “…George?”

Your gaze lifts, eyes wide. Apparently as impressed by Joel’s confidence as he is himself. “We’re actually in a very serious relationship. Marriage proposal imminent.”

“Damn,” he mutters as the bartender reappears with two Coors, “And here I thought I had half a chance.”

You hum to yourself, studying him. Looking from his jaw across the span of his shoulders, his wide-knuckled hands and then back to his lips. Curious and wary, judging the strange animal stood before you.

And he knows he’s weathered from the weeks on the road, and all the years before that. Dirt under his nails and the light sheen of sun on his forehead. The flecks of gray through his thick, brown beard.

You take a deep breath, eyes twinkling, and tell him, “I’m here with my friend.”

“Ain’t that lucky?” Joel glances at Tommy. “I’m here with my brother.”

You look across to the dirty blond, sat tilting a glass candle in his hand. “He single?”

Joel nods. “Is she?”

You nod.

“Alright. You wanna come sit with us?”

Your smirk answers his question. You take the beers, rings clinking off the glass. “Rum,” you call over your shoulder, wandering off, “I drink rum.”

Joel’s gaze lowers to the sway of your hips. “Rum it is,” he says, turning back to the bar.

“So…a cross-country bike trip, and you wound up in San Angelo?”

You’re on your fourth drink, the first one Joel hasn’t paid for – and he only allowed it because it’s a Diet Coke (and maybe you got to the bar first, held his wrists with one hand so he couldn’t stop you from slapping your own money down).

“Yep,” Joel replies, pinching the lime from his drink and dropping it onto a napkin. “Just passin’ through. Shower, sleep, then head on home.”

“Where’s that, then? Home?”

“Austin.”

“Austin,” you pout, “Nice.”

Joel smirks, licking citrus from his fingertips. “Is it?”

“I’ve never been to Austin,” Brooke chirps, fiddling with the umbrella in her piña colada. She twirls the paper canopy and glances up to Tommy.

He snaps out of his slack-jawed gaze when he realizes what she’s implying. “Oh – yeah, well…” his head wobbles as he stutters, “…you two ever come down that way, we’d be happy to, uh…show ya ‘round, huh, Joel?”

Joel doesn’t reply, staring back at his brother with the same amused expression you are.

You’ve been an inch apart all evening – doused in the dive bar darkness, the shrouded conversations and muffled TV static. The tip of your nose and curve of your shoulders lit only by the luminous signs dotting the walls.

Tommy and Brooke are already deep in conversation again about the best car Tommy ever owned. Joel watches as your eyes flit between the pair, entertained by the way they trip over each other’s sentences. Your cheeks lift when Brooke lays a hand over Tommy’s, and he squeezes her fingers back.

Where did you come from? Joel’s thinking. He takes a swig of his whiskey, feeling your eyes on him. As he lowers his glass, you lift yours. When he turns in his seat towards you, you’re already facing him, back against the wainscotting. He smiles, and so do you.

Every movement feels choreographed, some merry dance only you two know. You’re in your own little world.

Where did you come from, again, and where have you been my entire fucking life?

“So, what about you?” Joel asks instead, swallowing – all warm-bellied and brave. “You grow up here?”

You shake your head, taking another sip. “Nope. Just liked it enough to hang up my coat for a few months. I grew up in Phoenix.”

“You travel a lot?”

“I’ve been around. This is the longest I’ve stayed in one place since I was a kid.”

He thinks of home: of Austin and its silver-snake river, burnt-orange jerseys and the pleated bunting lining Sixth Street. He thinks of late nights on lawn chairs, nursing a beer and shooting the shit with his brother. Keeping their voices lower than the buzz of the cicadas, looking more at the dusky sky than at each other.

“You don’t ever get tired of it?” Joel asks. “Of moving around so much?”

You scoff, breath clouding the inside of your glass. “Three weeks on a motorcycle starting to get to you, huh?”

He breathes a laugh, loose again. The cicadas fade from his ears.

Your head tilts in a shrug. “I don’t know. I guess the universe keeps on surprising me.”

Joel doesn’t do this. At least, he hasn’t done this since he was a teenager – crate of beer under his arm and a chest full of courage. He’s long forgotten the feeling of heat blooming in his cheeks, the twitch of his heart anytime you look at him.

But fuck, if there isn’t something about you. Something in the way you move, the way you look at him. Something in the way you play with your straw, knocking ice cubes around and chewing on the plastic once you’ve drained the glass.

Something – though it’s a little too early and Joel’s a little too tipsy to tell just what. He tries to remember that he’s pragmatic. A grown-up. He chases away the monsters in his daughter’s –

“Oh, shit,” Joel says suddenly, scrambling to pull his cell from his pocket. It’s nine thirty. He was supposed to – “I forgot…”

A miserable tone from his Motorola cuts him short. The screen flashes an empty battery before fading to black. He jams a thumb into the keypad a couple more times, cursing at the winking symbol.

“Someone you gotta call?” you ask.

He meets your eye and winces. “Yeah, I’m…I said I’d call an hour ago.”

“You wanna use mine?” You twist around, fishing in your purse for your own. “We can go outside.”

“No, no, it’s…it’s alright, I’m sure she won’t mind, she –”

You shake your head. “Shut up. Come on, let’s go. I could use some fresh air, anyways. Be back in a minute,” you tell Brooke – who nods and turns straight back to Tommy.

Joel extends his hand to help you out of the booth, then follows you to the door. The cool air tugs every nerve in his body to attention, pin-sharp when he steps out of that lazy heat. Under the emerald glow of the Murphy’s sign, he settles his glass on a window ledge. “Next round’s on me, alright?”

You roll your eyes, pushing the phone against his chest. “Just call, Joel.”

One last apologetic glance, and then he’s dialing. He makes to wander along the curb, the tone already pulsing in his ear, when he notices –

“You ain’t brought a jacket?”

You’re sitting on the ledge, clutching your elbows. Swatting midges from the light you’re bathed in, charms on your bracelets jingling. “Hm?”

He tuts. “A jacket. Here.” He shrugs his own off, sitting it around your frame. It’s warm from the bar and from Joel’s body heat, and you sink into it – letting the dark leather drown you as you rummage through your purse again.

“Nice,” Joel’s eyes narrow, “Fresh air.”

You hum into your hands, flicking your lighter. The cigarette trembles when you murmur, “We all got our skeletons, I guess.”

He turns on his heel when a familiar voice picks up.

“Hey, hey, M–Yeah, sorry it’s late…Yeah, we got held up. My phone died, so I’m using…Is she still–? Can I–? Oh, Sarah. Hi, baby.”

His little girl begins chattering down the line immediately, telling Joel everything she’s been up to since they last spoke this morning.

“…and then, Emily thought I was one of the Armadillos – I don’t even know how, ‘cause they play in red, remember Dad? – but she did, and she slide tackled me so bad that Coach Thomson had to sub in Akari for me so I could ice my ankle. Grandma was kinda mad about it, but she took me to Burger King after to cheer me up, and…”

Joel wanders back and forth, smiling to himself and scuffing the heel of his boot along the concrete – barely able to squeeze more than two words between her chirping. It’s all, Yeah, baby? and Wow, sweetheart; all uhuhs and mhms until she finally quietens, excitement plateauing again.

“Alright, well. You know what time it is, right?”

“Yeah,” Sarah groans. She knows it all too well.

Bedtime.

“…But you didn’t call when you said you would, Daddy, and it’s Saturday, it’s –”

“I know, baby, I know. I’m sorry. Just…somethin’ came up. But I’ll see you tomorrow, right? We’ll be back before you know it.”

“Where’s Uncle Tommy? Can I talk to him?”

Joel turns to face the bar. “He, uh…I’m not with him right now, sweetheart. I’ll tell him you asked after him, though.”

Sarah concedes, and then begins asking questions Joel knows she’s only asking to stay on the line a little longer – to stay awake a little later. But still, he answers each one – humoring her and, at the same time, letting himself listen to her voice just a little more before he has to let her go.

He thinks of scooping her up in the morning; thinks of being slumped on the couch after dinner with her head on his stomach – fast asleep with whatever movie she chose droning on in the background.

Despite the thousands of miles and close to two weeks between them – she makes him feel closer to home. She always does.

When Sarah asks where he is, he glances your way. Clocks your flat expression, the half-burnt cigarette hanging from your fingers.

You flick ash to the ground. Eyes unreadable beneath low brows, a tiny crease between them that Joel’s only just seeing for the first time.

“Uh…” he clears his throat, “…just a little – a little north of you, baby. Home first thing, I promise.”

He tells her he loves her and she says it back, and he tells her to sleep well and she says that back, too. And then he’s hanging up – Alright, see you soon, bye, Sarah, bye-bye, byebyebye – and pressing his thumb into the red button.

He wanders back over to you – ears flat like a guilty dog, though he isn’t quite sure why. He mumbles a quiet thanks as he passes the phone back, then stuffs his hands in his pockets.

You lean back, ankles crossed, studying him. Swirling what’s left of the cigarette in your fingers – the smoke lifting like a winding snake to the dark sky. “So,” you pout, “What are you doing flirting with me, if you got a wife and kid back home?”

His jaw ticks, a hand coming up to scratch his beard. “I don’t have a wife,” he says.

You stare blankly, filter back against your lips. “Okay, then – a girlfriend. Does she know you’re out tonight with us?”

He shakes his head. “No wife, no girlfriend. I don’t have an anything.”

“But you have a kid.”

Joel nods once, tongue in his cheek. “Uhuh.”

And then the penny seems to drop. A small oh; your jaw slack and eyes wide. The cigarette smolders between your fingers. “Fuck,” you whisper, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“No, hey,” Joel steps closer, “You didn’t know. It’s alright.”

He straightens the jacket on your shoulders. When you finally look at each other again, you snort.

“Sorry,” you repeat, shaking your head. “Is she okay? Your daughter – is she…?”

“Sarah,” Joel says. “She’s…she’s fine. Thanks.”

You look down, stubbing your cigarette against the brick. Voice quiet, you ask, “Her mom’s not around anymore?”

Relief settles in his chest: you’re softening to him again.

Joel slots onto the ledge at your side. Shoulder to shoulder. He reaches behind and lifts his drink. “Not since she was a year old.”

Your mouth pulls in a wince. “Jesus. That’s rough.”

He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t have to – you’re not asking him to explain – and he doesn’t want to, either.

You’re not stupid – you’ve seen enough of the world to hear what he’s really saying. The darkest, dustiest corners of it – all the places no one ever wants to look.

You don’t seem disturbed, barely even moved by the reality that…well, shit happens. People leave, families break; a two-car driveway is suddenly taken up by just a pick-up truck and a little pink bike with tassels.

He figures you get it. You don’t need to know how can that be? – you just…know that it can.

“So, uh…” you look up at him again, “…my apartment is, like, five minutes away if you wanna…you know. You can charge your phone, can shower – if it’s bugging you that much.”

Joel’s eyebrows lift. “Oh, really?”

You simper, eyes thin. “Really.”

“Charge my phone ‘n shower?” He stands, palm flat against the wall above your head, and leans in. His face is inches from yours.

You look up, mirroring his expression. “Yes,” your voice curls in a half-truth, “What’s the big deal?”

“What a goddamn line,” Joel says, smirking. “How long you been sittin’ on that one for?”

His blood thrums faster, harder, louder in his veins when you stand up, hands on your hips.

“It’s not a line, I’m serious –”

“I didn’t take you as the type, baby, I really didn’t – but if that’s how you wanna play this, then –”

He feels you before he sees you moving, like he’s stood at that bar all over again. Your hands on his jaw, your chest pressed to his. Your lips – soft as satin, with a tinge of sweet rum and smoke – against his.

Joel barely misses a beat. He closes his eyes and lifts a hand to the back of your head, kissing you back. It’s dizzying, the taste and feel of you so close; the wet of your tongue on his. The little scratches of your nails in his beard, the moans caught in your throat.

Dizzying – and fucking perfect.

You break apart and lean in to each other, catching your breath. Joel’s hands slip beneath the heavy leather of his jacket onto your waist.

“Unless…” you whisper, pulling away from him, “…you don’t want to. In which case, I’ll just…” You twirl back towards the door, batting your eyelashes.

Joel smiles. He catches your wrist and reels you back into his body. “I want to,” he breathes, kissing you again. “I want to.”

“Let’s go.”

You make it to your apartment door, fumbling with your keys – and Joel’s hands are glued to your waist.

You miss the lock over and over as he kisses your neck, grazing the skin with his teeth. Anything to satiate the hunger quickly taking over, the tightening in his jeans.

He pulls you against his hips – rough denim grinding into the curve of your ass. He can smell your flowery perfume, a strange melding of peony and menthol sharp in his nostrils.

It’s the hungriest he’s ever felt, he thinks – a starved animal pinning his prey to her flecked apartment door. He pauses, bottom lip damp against your neck; breathing a liquor-laced laugh over your skin.

You jam the key into the lock. The door finally shunts open and you spill inside, dragging Joel with you.

Your place is dark. Angled strips of streetlight thrown high up the bare walls and across the ceiling, splintered by tilted shades. The spill of a blanket draped over an empty couch; a pair of sneakers left on the rug. Joel’s knees brush by a houseplant guarding the door – heavy leaves which pfft when they sway out of his way.

It’s half-decorated. Temporary. Caught somewhere between home and away. Little fragments pieced together into something the shape of home: a mosaic vase that scatters light across the surface of the coffee table; a beaded curtain pinned around the closet doorway.

Like you’re a little magpie, collecting trinkets of silver and gold until your nest feels like yours. Bags dropped long enough to keep a Monstera plant alive, not to put nails in the wall for the frames propped against the skirting board.

You shrug Joel’s jacket off, dropping it over the back of the couch. When you spin back around to him, he lifts your chin with two fingers and presses his lips to yours. You lead him down the hallway, tumbling into your room.

He follows you over to your bed, collapsing onto a tousled mess of sheets with his hips between yours. The hem of your dress rides up your thighs, bunching around your hips and revealing a flash of pink lace underneath.

The world around him seems to sober up for a second, sharpens into focus. It begins to seep in: the realization that he has you – some girl he met no more than two hours ago in a bar – pinned to your mattress. A slick gathering in your underwear and a weight building in his.

Right now, he should be sinking into squealing bedsprings in a Super 8. Bathing in the flicker of a television set twenty years too old. He should be showered and rested – ready to head home at sunrise, if not sooner.

But then something led him to you, and – well.

There’s no fucking helping him now, is there?

Joel’s fingers hook around your panties. He pulls down, leaving a trail of kisses along your bare leg, until that same pink lace is dripping from your ankle.

His eyes flash up to yours, love-drunk and sparkling. He pushes your knees apart, watching your velvet folds open for him, and – oh, he thinks, staring at the glistening arousal smeared around your cunt. Such a slick little mess for him already.

“Goddamn, darlin’,” he licks his lips, “She’s so pretty.”

You hum, hands lowering. Your fingers separate, spreading your pussy for him. Your middle finger swirls around your clit, dips along your seam. And the n, silky and shining, you lift your hand again and slip your fingers into your mouth.

“Tastes even better than she looks,” you murmur, dappling your fingertip along your bottom lip.

Joel growls. He pushes down on your thighs, ignoring your little yelp, and drags the tip of his tongue through your slit.

“Oh, shit,” you gasp, back arching. Your fingers knot in his hair, twisting and tightening. “Shitshitshit.”

“Mhm,” he hums against you, tongue pushing inside.

Fuck, you’re just so perfect: so soft and warm and fucking dripping for him. He laps at your sweet center, wet already spreading all over his mouth and beard.

A dampness blooms in his boxers. He’s throbbing, fucking aching the longer he goes untouched. He grinds against the mattress, denim rough against his solid erection.

He lifts his chin, panting – satisfied by the way you squirm under the weight of him. “You like that, huh?” he asks, a sodden kiss to your mound. “Fuckin’ love it.”

He spits a thick bead of saliva, watching it dribble down your folds to your ass. His tongue swipes it back up, circling your clit, all slippery and swollen.

“Fuck, Joel,” you moan, tugging on his hair. Your legs spasm, hips lifting.

He loves the sound of his name when you say it. Broken in two, a lilt to it as it rolls from your tongue and down his spine. Like it’s yours as much as it is his, now.

He sucks hard on your clit, his tongue flicking. And he can tell you’re close; can feel your hips starting to lose rhythm, see your back desperately arching higher and higher.

Joel groans, pushing up to hover over you. He cups between your legs, dabbing two thick fingers at your entrance, and pushes in.

Your pussy draws him in knuckle-deep. Your chest lifts, the loose neckline of your dress exposing more and more. You grab your breast, pinching your nipple – a roll of pebbled flesh between your fingertips.

He lowers his lips to your ear – watching as you toy with yourself. “Come on, baby,” he grits his teeth, “Give me one. Let me feel this pretty cunt.”

Your head rolls back into the pillow; a high sob as your orgasm crests. Clamping tight around him; a warm flood down his fingers.

Joel kisses you as you come. You look so pretty, he thinks, with ecstasy behind your eyes and his fingers between your legs.

Christ, he wants to be inside you so badly. Wants to feel your cunt do all this around his cock instead.

The blood rushes between his hips.

His fingers slip in and out, bringing you back around. Joel’s lips are on your neck, murmuring, “Good girl, that’s my girl,” as you resurface.

Your eyes open again – glossy, glazed with the aftershock of your high. “Fuck,” you breathe, playing with the hem of his shirt.

He pulls his fingers out and sucks them clean. Whips the tee over his head in one motion; another kiss tucked under your chin as you peel your dress from your body. He tosses it to the floor.

Still dazed, your body still trembling, you ask, “Do you have a condom?” All dreamy and distant, your hands trailing along his belt.

Joel pauses. Tilts his head, frowning. “I’m on a road trip with my brother, baby – the hell would I bring condoms for?”

You roll your eyes, sighing. It’s the cutest thing Joel thinks he’s ever seen. You thread the belt through the loops of his jeans. “In case you meet a really cool girl at a bar and wanna take her home, maybe?”

He lifts his eyebrows, impressed. He slips his salty tongue over yours again.

You moan at the taste. “It’s just I’m…I’m all out.”

His belt drops to the floor; buckle clinking against hardwood.

“Well, shit,” Joel whispers.

It’s not exactly a scenario he predicted, setting off from Austin. Meeting you wasn’t on the bucket list for the trip. It’s another three, four, probably five things to add to the list of shit he doesn’t do, shouldn’t do, wouldn’t fucking do if it hadn’t been for you.

No, Joel thinks, groaning as you palm the solid shape of him – he didn’t bring a goddamn condom. Jesus, the most he has in his pockets right now is fifteen bucks and a stick of gum.

You unzip his pants, shrugging the denim loose. “We can just do it…without,” you offer.

Joel stares down at you. “You sure?”

You nod, biting your lip. “Just pull out, right?”

“Just pull out…” he echoes. Your hands are cold on his heated skin, but he’s not about to fucking stop you.

You tug his underwear down with his jeans, following the darkening hair from his navel down. Another quiet pull out passes your lips – your voice dissolving when you spot the thick base of his dick.

Joel’s shaft springs free, heavy against the inside of his thigh.

“Holy shit.” You push yourself up on your elbows, eyes flooding black.

His tongue runs along the bottom of his teeth. He thrusts forward into your hand, a glassy drop of precome dribbling from his slit.

Your thumb swipes across his flushed tip, fingers wrapping around his width. You roll his balls in your other palm, massaging and squeezing just the right amount.

“Easy, easy,” Joel whispers. Too much, too soon. He can’t come yet, not until he feels your fluttering cunt around his cock.

Instead, you reach up – snaking an arm around his neck. You pull him back down, his naked body flush against yours, and hike a knee over his hip.

He grinds into you, his cock nudging between your legs. They fall apart for him – pliant and keen, like petals unfolding. He covers himself in your slick, his tip catching below your clit.

“Pl-ease,” you whine, scratching at his shoulders.

Joel nips at your damp neck. “Please, what?” he taunts.

Your breath is hot against his cheek – a stifling request which curls up in the shell of his ear. “F-fuck me.”

And his hips roll into yours.

“Jesus f…” your face buries into his chest, “…you’re…you’re so fucking big, Joel, I can’t –”

He nudges between your walls, groaning into your skin. You’re even tighter around his cock, even cozier. “I know,” he pants, “I know. Take it, baby, know you can take it.”

You stretch around him, opening up the deeper he pushes. “Fuckfuckfuck,” you pant, the thick hair at his base finally brushing against your clit. “Fuck, Joel.”

“Look at me,” he taps your jaw, “Hey. Look at me. Breathe.”

You exhale, hot and shaky across his lips.

“Good, that’s good.” Joel nods. He holds you by the waist, lets you adjust to his size.

He pulls back, your cunt clamping around him. Halfway out, and then in again. Feeling you open up, inch by inch, until he builds a steady rhythm.

“Jesus, baby, she’s so…” he moans, “…she’s so goddamn tight.”

You drape an arm over his shoulders, a hissing pain where your nails dig into his skin. Yelping each time he bottoms out, your leaking cunt wrapped snug around him. “So – goddamn – big,” you whine, a ruined smile on your lips.

He slams his body into yours again, watching the way your tits bounce. Nipples hard, skin tacky and shining with sweat. Your pussy pinches, and he starts to unravel.

Fuck the road trip, Joel thinks, fuck all of it. This is where he should be: in the middle of your bed, burrowed deep between your legs. This is the only place he wants to fucking be, right now.

So he fucks you harder; the headboard hammering against the wall. A fistful of the pillow, his knuckles whitening. He guides his cock when he slips out – a filthy sound as your clutch sucks him back in.

“Fuck,” he growls, gripping your hips so hard he worries he might bruise you. His thrusts become sloppy – quick and desperate.

“So close,” you gasp. You’re squeezing him so tight that he sees stars. “I’m gonna – I’m…”

Perfect, Joel thinks, watching you bloom. You’re so fucking perfect.

He coaxes you through it. Slows enough to feel you come around his cock, your warmth as it gushes all over him. “That’s it, baby, I got you. Shit, you’re gonna make me come.”

He pulls out just in time to coat your stomach; a throaty groan as he comes. He pumps his shaft, covering from your sternum to the plush of your tummy. It dribbles down your waist, spurts between your breasts.

He collapses over you, pressing his forehead to yours. His dick, soaked and softening, smears the ejaculate across your skin.

You giggle, leaving sticky kisses along his beard.

“You okay?” he asks, breathless.

You nod, and his tongue dabs at the inside of your lips. You taste like sex and sweat – sweet and salt.

Joel shifts to the edge of the bed. He feels you follow, your lips featherlight on the curve of his shoulder.

You make to stand – going to clean yourself up, he reckons, your tummy dripping with his semen – and he locks a hand around your bare thigh.

“Stay,” he says, voice low and rough – sex still smoldering. “Let me get you a towel.”

You smile, resting your chin on his shoulder. Your fingers link around the other side of his waist. “I’ll get it. Just relax.”

And for a minute or two, you stay like that. Hooked onto one another, tired eyes closing over, breathing in rhythm. Your cheek on his shoulder, your knee brushing against his tummy.

It’s simple; quiet and still. Joel feels like half a person – the other half tracing her chipped nails along his bare thigh. Eyelashes fluttering, teeth holding back a grin that she thinks might give her away.

Eventually, you move. Shimmy yourself down the mattress, swipe a crinkled tee from the ottoman – and slink off to the bathroom.

Joel lies back against the headboard, body sticky hot. He watches the shadow of your figure stretch across the open door. His eyes drift upwards to the looping ceiling fan – only half as dizzying as the sound of your humming in the next room.

And just when he starts to think he might be fucking missing you, you reappear in the doorway. Leant against the frame, some worn band tee hanging from your shoulders. Arms crossed; smiling back at him.

A rush of words floods to the tip of his tongue. You look beautiful. Your makeup’s smudged, chains of your necklace twisted; your shirt is frayed and splotched with faded stains – and you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on.

He holds his arms out and you prance over.

You crawl over his figure, kissing your way up to his lips, and then turn in his lap. Cradled against his broad chest, your head nuzzling into the dark threads of hair between his pecs. You clasp one of his hands in two of yours.

“Offer’s still there for a shower, if you want it,” you whisper, kissing the pads of his fingers.

Joel tilts his head, mumbling against your temple, “Will you be in there with me?”

You answer something shaped like a tease, just as sharp with wit – but he’s too busy watching your nails trace his open palm. Too distracted by the sweet scent of your skin: a fresh burst of fruit, singed with the edge of tobacco.

“What do you do for work?” you ask.

He makes some sort of sleepy sound – a grunt, a hm? into your skull. “Oh, uh – I’m a contractor,” he says.

Your chin lifts. “That why your palms are all…?” Your thumb strokes light as lace against his worn skin.

“Probably,” Joel admits. He draws shapes on your thigh with his free hand.

“Do you sand the wood with your bare hands, or somethin’?”

Joel scoffs. “Alright, alright. You liked my hands plenty, twenty minutes ago.”

Your cheeks lift, a low hum caught in your throat. You angle your head to let his lips trail along your shoulder, pressing into the hinge of your jaw. A dark nail following the landscape of Joel’s skin – each score and divot, the callused pads at the bottom of each finger.

“You have sorta…earth hands, I think.”

It sits in the air for a few seconds before Joel turns to you. “What?”

“Earth hands. Or, well – I guess they could be water, if you look at ‘em this way.” You open up his hand, fingers stretched. “I don’t really know. I’m still learning.”

He looks down at you. Feels the now-steady pulse of your heart on his sternum. “Learnin’…hands?”

You snort. “Palm reading, Joel.”

His brows draw tight. He licks the inside of his whiskey-stained cheek. “You’re into all that hippie sh…stuff?”

You knock your knuckles against his chest, still staring at his hands. The hills and their valleys, the ravine-like lines; the worn skin and hatch marks.

“Let’s see…Your heart line,” you whisper – more to yourself than Joel, but he’s listening all the same. “It’s pretty deep, which means the relationships you’ve had have been…important. But it’s kinda…it tails off right here, see? It’s broken. So…I guess they didn’t end too good.”

Joel raises an eyebrow – playful, encouraging your timid smile. Keep figuring me out, he thinks, stoking the curious flame behind your eyes. “Alright,” he says, “Now tell me something you didn’t already know about me.”

You gawk, holding his wrist up. “You don’t see that? The way it breaks up? I’m not bullshitting you, Joel, it’s –”

“Naw, I see it,” he nods, squinting a little at his palm, “Just – tell me more. What’s all these other lines mean?”

“Well,” you adjust between his hips, “you got your life line right here. Short, which means –”

“Don’t tell me that part.”

“No,” you roll your eyes, “It just means you’re independent. You never needed much from anyone. And it runs past this mount – these are called mounts – right here. Venus: all to do with love and sexuality.”

Joel holds your open palm next to his, comparing them. He takes less than a second’s look, lines his lips to your ear and says, “Seem like a pretty good match to me.”

You wriggle when he tickles your ribcage, trying to twist out of his grasp. You’re laughing again – the same laugh he’s been hearing all damn night. The same giggle that’s had his stomach somersaulting since he first heard it.

The room seems to light with it, this glow he feels from you – as if you’re the sun. Spent and still half-drunk; lazing with a stranger in the middle of her bed. Tracing the lines and scars on his palm, telling him how logical and grounded he’s supposed to be.

As if the world orbits around you – everything you touch turning to molten gold. And for what feels like the hundredth time tonight, Joel looks at you and wonders: Where the hell did you come from?

You hold your hand against his, folding your fingers perfectly together. The evidence of your night flaking from Joel’s knuckles; sweat still simmering on the nape of his neck.

He hasn’t done this for years. Hasn’t felt this gentle aftermath. It’s usually a rush, a hastened zip and clink of his pants. An awkward dance, plucking clothes from the bedroom floor and pacing back to his truck.

It’s never like this. Talking and laughing, holding and kissing. Questions about his parents and yours; his biggest dream as a kid, or the time you broke your arm falling out of a tree.

He tells you stories about growing up with Tommy; tells you Sarah’s favorite flavor of cake. He tells you about the time they tried to make it for a school bake sale, forgot to turn the oven off, and almost burned the damn kitchen down.

You snicker and tell him that never would’ve happened if you were there.

Yeah, well, Joel smiles, I wish you were.

He notices you’re drifting off, despite your slurred protests and your weak grip on his wrist. He pulls you under the covers, curving his body around yours, praying that the quickening drum of his heartbeat won’t wake you.

His nose nuzzles into the curve of your skull, his hands link in front of your tummy. And he wonders whether his body was made with yours in mind.

He glances out at the sky – light starting to bleed from the horizon – and wills the turn of the sun to slow. Only a little; just let him stay here a little while longer.

Just a little while.

Dawn forces her way in eventually – more unwelcome than ever before.

There’s a throb between his temples which swells to life when the light floods past his pupils. “Jesus Christ,” he grumbles, face turning back into the pillow. He gives you a gentle squeeze and then pushes up from the mattress.

You roll to the middle of the bed, still sound asleep. The sun spills golden all over the valleys and crests of your body. The bedsheets carve pathways up to your hips, dipping at your waist.

Last night, there was something so mystical about you – so otherworldly. Joel felt himself drawn towards you like a compass needle shooting north, the second he felt your weight crash against his spine.

A figure behind a cloud of smoke, like the mountaintops disappearing into a thick mist. And now, blood drained of alcohol, you’re just you.

Your shirt is twisted around your shoulders. Your lips puffy, mumbling to yourself in your doze. Makeup smudged like chalk under your eyes, and still – just as beautiful. Just as radiant as you were ten hours ago.

Joel rubs his eyes, sitting on the edge of the bed. He blinks down at his bare feet, the morning sharpening into focus. As he lifts his phone from the nightstand, the cable drops – hitting the wooden floor with a snap.

He pauses, shoulders hunched. Hears you stir over his shoulder, and turns around.

The earth of your body shifts beneath cotton hills, clouds of sleep clearing from behind your eyes. “Hey,” you whisper, voice pretty and broken.

A little bird in the palm of his hand – that magpie curled up in her nest of gems and trinkets.

“Hey.” He leans down and kisses your cheek. “Sorry, darlin’, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

You wrap your arms around his wrist, tugging. “Are…are you…leaving?”

Joel feels a pang in his chest, and he doesn’t know why. He takes a deep breath. Your scent fills his lungs and steadies his heart. “I…” he sniffs, “…I gotta go home, baby.”

You give a slow and heavy nod. “S-Sarah…”

He strokes your head with his thumb. “Yeah. Shh, go back to sleep. It’s still early.”

He glances at his phone – it’s just after six. He knows Tommy will be waiting for him, parked outside the Super 8 and wondering where the hell Joel is. He knows Sarah will be, too – sat by the living room window, listening for the rumble of their bikes.

And still, he thinks – How do I fucking leave you? Leave this?

He shouldn’t even be entertaining the thought. He has a kid waiting for him back home; soccer practice, packed lunches, homework and bedtime stories. He has work to do, bills to pay, a roof to keep over their heads. It’s all waiting in Austin, two hundred miles away.

As though you can see the question flipping in his mind, you pull him closer. A weak finger in the palm of his hand, drawing circles. Your bleary gaze meets his, and you whisper, “In the next life.”

Joel smiles. Twelve hours ago, he’d have laughed at the idea of it. Now, he’s not so sure. He kisses your knuckles, muttering, “Promise.”

Another wave of sleep washes over you, and you’re gone again.

Joel pushes himself from the bed, reaching for his clothes. His back twinges as he stretches, pulling his T-shirt over his shoulders. He steps into his jeans; pinches his belt between two fingers and lifts it from the floor.

He leans over and tilts your shades the opposite way, dulling your bedroom. He unplugs the charger, neatly winds the cord, and sits it on your nightstand. He fixes his side of the sheets: folds them over the mattress, tucks them in at your back.

With a deep breath, he makes for the door.

His jaw turns, eyes still low. Your dress is in a heap at the foot of the bed; a tube of lip gloss lying next to it. He looks up, following the landscape of sheets – the slope from your ankle to your hip. Your hunched shoulders, your cheek smushed into the pillow.

If he looks too long, he’ll never leave.

The image burns golden into his eyes. He hopes for half a heartbeat that you’ll wake again and pull him back into bed. Kiss him all over, whisper something sharp and sweet in his ear. Touch him and graze him and wrap yourself around him – anchoring him right here and now.

But you don’t.

And Joel slips out of the room.

Jackson stirs to life over his shoulder.

A white lump in the snow-covered valley, the settlement seems so far away now. Tommy sets off up ahead, leading the way to the outpost. The blizzard is picking up – it almost swallows the silhouette of him whole.

Joel had tried to warn him: the weather would be too bad to see five feet in front of them, never mind any infected. But Tommy argued with the same determination that dragged the pair of them into that dive bar thirty years ago, and Joel didn’t have half the energy nor the will to argue back.

He’s thinking about you. He always is.

Your searing gaze over the rim of your glass; the weight of you against his chest. The tickling of your nail on his palm, severing each line and changing him forever. You and your palm lines.

You were just learning to read them. Joel didn’t know a thing about any of it, and he told you so. You took his hand in yours and said, Here. Let me see.

He runs a thumb down his fate line, swaying in time with his horse. And he shakes his head with a little smile – he still remembers which one is fate and which is heart.

He still remembers all of it. He has earth hands. All salt and soil and solid as stone. His earth hands have gotten him this far, right? Twenty-five years and he’s still here. Gray and grown; stiff joints and sewn-up scars.

His head line has channeled more strangers’ blood than Joel can count. Mounts that’ve stopped breath in the throat of any man who crossed him. He doesn’t think you’d recognize his hands anymore, if your fingertips traced over them again. Broken and bruised and bloody.

And he doesn’t think he’d want you to – doesn’t want you to meet the shadow of the man you knew back then. He’d prefer you remember that same brown-eyed, soft-touched stranger with enough charm and naivety to survive anything. No need for bone-breaking fists or bloodstained hands.

Where are you, he wonders?

The answer knots deep in his stomach: the same old rope twisting into the same old shape. A fist of anger, of guilt. Some terrible cocktail of both, spilling poison through his veins.

He’s terrified to wonder what might’ve happened if he had ever made it back there. What he might’ve found in your apartment – what he might not.

Where would you have gone, that day? Would you have fled, or would you have stayed?

You were smart, he knows that much. He saw the cogs of your mind turning right in front of him, standing opposite each other in that bar. Barely thirty seconds in and he could’ve sworn you had him all figured out.

But – oh, Jesus, you were kind. Open and willing to help a stranger with a dead phone and a tired smile. Would that kindness still glow as bright against the flicker of a world on fire?

A lone hawk swoops down before him, shooting straight between the pines. Joel slips his glove back over his freezing hand.

He thinks about you every day. Every fucking day, and it never eases. Never loosens. It keeps him up some nights – the truth he’s too afraid to look square in the face.

You live now in the back of his mind like a little ghost. His little ghost – still floating around that dusty city; the warm light of life and innocence still bright in your eyes.

Tommy glances over his shoulder. He gestures ahead as if to say, Would you take a look at this goddamn storm?

And Yeah, Joel thinks, I’m lookin’, brother.

All he wants is to go home. Jackson, Austin, the bedroom of your apartment in San Angelo. Just let me go back.

He blinks, and the snow melts to cracked asphalt under a lilac sunset. Tommy’s holding handlebars instead of reins. The horses’ hot puffs of breath darken to clouds of smoke, choking from the exhaust pipes of the Harleys.

You’re somewhere on the other side of town, waiting for him in the faint glow of a jukebox. Sipping what’s left of your rum and Coke, fishing a twenty from your purse for the next round.

Just let me go back home.

He tugs on his horse’s reins and pulls off after his brother.

#joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller x reader #the last of us #tlou #tlou fic #joel miller smut #joel miller one shot #fic: san angelo

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cartierre · 9 months ago

Text

FORZA FERRARI, SEMPRE | op81

SOCIAL MEDIA!AU oscar piastri x male!italian!reader (fc: lorenzo zurzolo)

side note: reader is the son of famous italian actress monica bellucci side note pt2: i missed doing smaus and i've missed you guys!

♡ liked by charles_leclerc, monicabellucciofficiel, scuderiaferrari and 124,293 others

tagged: carlossainz55, charles_leclerc, ferrari, scuderiaferrari

y/n_bellucci i bleed red quite literally

view all 1,293 comments

user1 i'm so glad y/n finally attended an f1 race ⤷ user2 i only got into f1 because he cannot shut up about ferrari for life

user3 he's one of the few celebs i allow to be invited to f1 races

scuderiaferrari forza ferrari, sempre ❤️ ⤷ y/n_bellucci ❤️🏎️

user4 he will never shut up about this

user5 i just know my babyboy was blushing when talking to charles and carlos

♡ liked by y/n_bellucci, danielricciardo, carlossainz55 and 384,938 others

lando.jpg afterparty chaos

view all 1,182 comments

user6 is this y/n?

user7 y/n attending one race and becoming friends with the drivers is so wattpad coded

user8 the comments being full of y/n is so real ⤷ y/n_bellucci stealing the show wherever i go

user9 i need more silly, goofy content of the drivers

user10 just once in my life i wanna party with them

♡ liked by landonorris, monicabellucciofficiel, oscarpiastri and 178,384 others

y/n_bellucci what's scarier: my costume or you not knowing anything about my dating situation?

view all 1,018 comments

user11 i'm glad you're having fun trolling us but we're in desperate need of some clarification ⤷ user12 in dire need fr

user13 nah cuz i can't blame the mclaren driver you're hot omg

landonorris since i know about your dating life, i'd say dating life ⤷ y/n_bellucci ouch :(

user14 lando's comment is taking me out

user15 smash

♡ liked by charles_leclerc, monicabellucciofficiel, oscarpiastri and 201,238 others

y/n_bellucci glad to know someone who lives in a country where it's summer while the rest of the world is freezing ;)

view all 1,738 comments

user16 UHM OSCAR? what a twist omg

user17 omg oscar being the boyfriend has me in tears i'm so happy!

user18 no like i'm actually crying over my two babies i'm so proud of you!!! <3

oscarpiastri so now i'm just "someone you know" ⤷ y/n_bellucci i mean we haven't really discussed the terms yet...

user19 omg are my new parents already fighting over their relationship titles? ⤷ user20 if this ends before it started i'm gonna cry

♡ liked by landonorris, logansargeant, oscarpiastri and 203,172 others

tagged: oscarpiastri

y/n_bellucci glad to have a boyfriend who lives in a country where it's summer while the rest of the world is freezing ;)

view all 1,829 comments

y/n_bellucci better now? oscarpiastri ⤷ oscarpiastri better

user21 who would've thought that oscar is so sassy i love it ⤷ y/n_bellucci i'm victim of the sassy men apocalypse

user22 i'm already in love with the two

user23 aaaaaahhhhhh

landonorris now i don't have to keep it a secret anymore ⤷ y/n_bellucci cuz you had it so hard hiding our relationship

user24 y/n and oscar both being sassy men... i love the chaos already

user25 i'm just thinking about y/n's mum having social media as well so who knows if she saw the whole oscar saying he'd smash her... like why is no one talking about that?

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luveline · 4 months ago

Note

can we please have more coworker JAMES 💜

james calls you something he maybe shouldn’t | fem

You’re feeling at a James-given mark when Sirius appears.

You don’t know Sirius half as well as you know James nor Remus, but you’re ninety five percent sure he’s a good guy. He’s funny at lunch, whenever Remus has managed to convince you to go with them. He’s like James in terms of scandal. They like making bad jokes. Sirius really likes making Remus laugh, so he must be nice.

“Hey,” he says, “where are they?”

You nod toward the boss’ office. “Presenting the last of the Lang and Co.”

“Oh, right.” Sirius moves in to James’ desk. He knocks one of his figurines over purposefully, then moves one to have its face in the other’s backside.

“I’ll have to tell him that was you,” you say.

“Rat. Why?”

“He’ll think it was me otherwise, and then–” He won’t kiss me later, you’d been about to say. James has grown suddenly and enthusiastically fond of withholding affection whenever you mess with him. As a joke, of course, but you refuse to risk your lunchtime kiss. “You know what he’s like with me.”

Sirius smiles oddly. “I do.”

He sits at James’ desk. Ever since you and James… started whatever it is you’re doing, things have been raw for you. Maybe you’re stupid, it’s only kisses, but you’re sort of thinking it isn’t. Like, this is dating. You might not be boyfriend and girlfriend, but you’re exclusive.

James is too good, and some small part of you doesn’t like admitting it, but the bigger part (the part that wants to kiss him and be kissed by him) knows it surely. How could you have grown to fancy him otherwise?

“Doing anything fun this weekend?” you ask.

“Not likely,” Sirius says, tucking hair behind his ears. “We’re all helping Remus’ dad paint the house. It’s a tiny thing n’ it won’t take long, but he lives in Aberystwyth. S’gonna take hours to get there and he wants to stay up there ‘cos his dad gets lonely.” Sirius scratches his jaw. “His dad’s nice, mind. I don’t mind going up there. Just hate being stuck in the car when James is driving.”

You won’t see James this weekend, then. He hadn’t mentioned it. “It’s beautiful in Aberystwyth. Maybe you can go to the beach,” you say.

“That’s what I’m trying to convince them to do.” Sirius grins.

“Not the best weather.”

“It’s always nicer up there. We spent a lot of time up there, you know, in the summers. We ping-ponged between Remus’ house and James’ parents.”

“Do they live there too?” you ask.

“Nowhere near.” Sirius laughs, a deep, rich sound. “You think I’d be used to long drives.”

“Where’s James from?”

“My parents live deep in the West Country,” James says, his hands sudden on the back of your chair.

Fuck, you think. You had no idea he was coming, distracted by Sirius and the patter of rain against the window. “You creeper.”

“You’re the creeper. Grilling dear Siri for details on my personal life.” James dives for a biscuit from the plastic packaging laid out on your desk and then away from you. “If you want to know where to send your fan mail, just ask me, sweetheart.”

“How do you sneak up on me like that?” you ask.

The space between your chair and the wall isn’t super tight, but it’s still weird to think he’d approached from the right and you hadn’t noticed. Just, James isn’t generous with details about himself and you’re too timid in your standing with him to ask.

“Practice… Sirius, what have you don’t to my little women!”

“I thought they were boys?” Sirius says.

“That gives you no right to knock them over and make them do frankly obscene things to one another. This is a workplace.” James knocks Sirius out of the way, desk chair and all, to set each of his little green figurines onto their feet. The ones that are standing, that is. The sleeping one he puts back in pride of place underneath his computer’s monitor.

“She told me not to,” Sirius says, not looking at anyone now, peering backward toward the office. “But I didn’t listen, don’t blame our sweet Y/N.”

“I wasn’t going to.” James sends you a secret smile.

“She wouldn’t physically withheld me if I weren’t so devilishly fast.” Sirius’ voice warms. “Hello, darling.”

Remus huffs as he sets down a huge binder of paper. “Hi.”

“You okay?”

The tone he uses is so tender, so soft, you aren’t jealous of Remus but you’re not far from it, either. Remus’ frowning is quick to turn up at the sight of his meddling boyfriend. It must be nice to see someone and have them make a bad day good.

You look up, finding James paused with a hand on his desk. He’s looking at you, impassive.

“You okay?” you ask him.

He squints, wrinkles his nose. “Fine. Got shouted at a bit for the reports. Bet you’re glad you have a twisted ankle.” You’re confused at first, then caught. James’ wrinkled face darkens to glare at you. “You lied?”

“I really didn’t wanna see him today.” Your boss sucks.

“And we did? Remus, we’ve been betrayed.”

“James, I knew she was lying, I just don’t care.” Remus rubs his face. “Why shouldn’t one of us escape him?”

Sirius takes Remus’ empty hand hanging at his side, picture of a concerned lover.

James, on the other hand, steals another biscuit despite your laughing protesting and nimbly switches off your monitor.

“Had enough,” James says. Turned away from the boys, he smiles at you playfully, hand twitching at his side like he wants to give you a squeeze. Or a shove. “Your betrayal is noted.”

“Mm.” You take a third biscuit from your pack to offer him.

He takes it, letting his knuckles brush under your arm before pulling away. “And filed away for a later date.”

When Sirius has pulled Remus away for another early lunch, James retakes his chair and slides as close to you as he can be. He looks for your hand under the desk. You pretend it’s just casually there on your knee and not waiting for him to hold.

“My dad’s family is very well off,” he says, rubbing your index finger with his thumb, “so the estate is huge. They own a lot of land, but he’s not, like, a lord or anything. You’d love it down there though, it’s nice.”

“I bet I would.”

“Don’t look so surprised.”

“No, I’m not, I know you’re rich.”

“Not that sort of surprise. It would be nice to go down there together.” He can tell he’s getting ahead of himself and backtracks. “Well, this weekend I’m going to gorgeous Aberystwyth and you’re…”

“Doing laundry.”

“Well,” he says quietly, “maybe you can make some time Sunday night after all of that and we can get a late dinner.”

“I thought I was in trouble over the twisted ankle.”

“Who could be in trouble for an injury?” James sandwiches your hand in his.

“Fake injury.”

“Oh, my girl,” he murmurs, almost inaudible, “so honest. No punishment on account of owning up to it.”

Great. My girl and he’s going away for the weekend. James Potter’s your personal nightmare.

—

james coworker au

#james potter #james potter x reader #james potter x fem!reader #james potter x y/n #james potter x you #james potter fic #james potter fluff #james potter blurb #james potter drabble #james potter imagine #james potter fanfic #james potter fanfiction #james potter scenario #james potter oneshot #the marauders #marauders era #marauders

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kumkaniudaku · 3 months ago

Text

Stay A While (3)

Summary: Terry get's a lesson in love and shares it with Patrice.

Pairing: Terry Richmond x Black!OC

Word Count: 5,049

Part: 3 of ??

Warnings: Smut (18+)

One. Two.

"Well, James, how you been?"

"Honestly, Pop. I don't know where to start."

Wooden spoons banged and scraped across pots on the stove while Marvin scooped red beans and rice into a small ceramic bowl. He'd long shed his work coveralls for an open flannel shirt and khakis to spend some quality time with his only son.

James was their shared middle name in a long line of Richmond men dating back to their family migration from New Orleans to Fayetteville in the 50s. Marvin was a proud, honorable man. He never said a bad word about anybody, and no one had a bad word to say about him. He taught Terry how to play football, make a pot of dirty rice to perfection, and the importance of ensuring a lady never touched a doorhandle in his presence. He was the reason Terry joined the Marine Corps after a career in the NFL looked unlikely. He was the reason his boy spoke softly and carried a big stick. And he was one of only two people Terry trusted with his heart.

With two bowls and spoons on a serving tray, Marvin made his way to the kitchen table. He stopped short to get a good look at his son with blue green eyes even more captivating than Terry's. He noted the new frown lines developing on his brow and the lone grey hair sprouting in his goatee. His boy was stressed and confused. He didn't need a conversation to tell him that but welcomed it anyway.

After sliding one bowl across the table, he took a seat with his signature grunt. "Start at the top. Plenty of time still left in the day."

Terry quietly thanked his father for his generosity and avoided the question by eating the first bite of his meal. They ate in silence for several seconds until Terry took a deep breath.

"I think I've been okay. More ups than downs lately, but the downs are pretty damn low. I'm having a tough time sleeping. I'm barely working. I feel like a burden for Treece more than I feel like a man who can actually do something for her."

"Being a man is about more than what you can do."

"Yeah, but…" Terry trailed off, trying to gather his thoughts. "It's just - things weren't supposed to be this hard. I gave this country a lot of my time, and I guess I expected to say my goodbyes and roll into my next chapter. Now, my plan b needs a plan b, and I'm out of options."

"You're not out of options. You don't like askin' for help. Proud like your grandaddy."

"And you too."

Marvin chuckled and shook his head as he took another spoonful of food. "This ain't about me."

The two men shared a laugh, their voices sounding nearly identical as they bounced off the walls. He was the spitting image of his father, both in stature and moral compass.

"What do you need, James?" Marvin had grown serious again, making Terry avert his eyes to focus on his food. "I'll save you the stress of asking, but you gotta tell me what I need to offer. Is it money?"

"Not much. Enough to pay some bills until the end of the month, and I can have it back to you. I think I have a shot at this job on base if I can get through the second interview."

"How you getting back and forth? I know y'all do the Lyft and Ubom thing these days. Ridin' around with strangers like we didn't spend a whole decade tell y'all not to."

Terry laughed. "It's Uber, Pop. But, no. Treece is out for the summer, so I'm…using her car when I need it. I don't wanna take advantage of her."

"Those some of the bills you need help paying?" Marvin's question was answered with a silent head nod and eyes filled with shame. He softened his voice as he reached into his wallet for the cash he had on hand. "It's what you're supposed to do. Ain't no shame. That money is for yourself. Give me til tomorrow afternoon to have more. Five grand enough?"

"Ah, Pop, I don-"

"We didn't work as hard as we did for nothing. Plus, it's your college fund money we never withdrew. You're lucky your mother hasn't used it for renovations. She's been eyeing your sister's old room for an indoor she-shed or whatever the hell it's called."

Marvin sounded exasperated by the concept of his wife's latest project, which amused Terry. They hadn't changed since the day he left. They were just two people who had been in love since the day they met and remained committed to supporting each other through the ebbs and flows of life.

Standing from the kitchen table, Marvin shuffled around the corner to the garage entrance and returned with a ring of keys and a pile of mail. He tossed them at Terry and returned to his seat.

"What's this?"

"Keys to GMC outside. Take it. You might need to run it for a little bit and change the oil, but it works fine. The rest is your mail." Terry opened his mouth to protest and received a glare from his father in return. "I gave you my best speech about askin' for help, and here you go ruining things. Take the truck before I tell your mama."

"Alright, alright," Terry laughed as he raised his hands. "I love you, Pop."

"Love you, man. I'm proud of you." Not ones for the warm fuzzies of hugs, the two extended their arms across the table for a quick fist bump before returning to their meals. Marvin let his son eat in peace for a few moments before the corner of his lips curled in a knowing smile. "So…Patrice Ellis, huh? That little love letter you wrote in 10th grade finally coming true?"

"Pop."

"Ah, come on. It's alright to be in love, son. She's a good girl. Got good folks, too. What's the holdup?"

In love? The more Terry attempted to negotiate the gravity of the phrase within himself, the more he had to reckon with the idea that his father may not be that far off base.

Terry slowed his eating and looked at his father for help. "You think I'm in love?"

"Oh, I know you are. You didn't come back to Fayetteville for me, did you?"

"How would I know, though? How did you know?"

Marvin stopped eating to sit back in his chair. A fond smile crossed his face as he thought of his younger years.

"I knew I was in love when I wanted to show up every day and do the work to be with her. It didn't matter if she pissed me off or if we disagreed about decisions. At the end of every day, I can look at her and know I'm where I want to be forever. Plus, I still get a little fired up when she walks through the door all these years later. I ain't much to look at, but your mother is…"

Marvin let his sentence drop to whistle at the mention of his wife. Terry pretended to take exception but eventually laughed at his father's antics. He quickly relaxed into a contemplative state.

"I wanna be the best I can for her," he spoke softly. "I get…sad when she's gone for too long. Sometimes, I find myself forcing conversation just to make her look at me because the light in her eyes is the only thing keeping me grounded most days. What does that mean?"

"You don't need me to answer that, son. Go with what you know."

Before Terry could seek more advice, the mechanical roar of the garage door made Marvin nearly spring out of his seat to greet his one true love.

Outside, Patrice was nearly doubled over from laughter in the front seat.

Diedra "DeeDee" Richmond was the quintessential Southern black woman. Like a prim and proper belle, she wore her color-treated blonde hair big to match an even bigger personality. She wore heels with every outfit and never left the house without earrings, but she could also drink and cuss like a sailor.

When she offered Patrice the chance to tag along for her monthly Sister Circle meeting, there was no chance she'd miss the opportunity to ditch Terry and kick it with the upper crust of Black women.

"And, girl, Rita thinks we can't tell that she took every one of those appetizers out of the damn freezer section. At least go to the Publix bakery. Finger sandwiches ain't that expensive."

Amid their gossip session, the garage door's chime caught Dee Dee's attention, effectively ending her one-woman show in favor of giving her husband the eye. Behind him, Terry stood with a nervous smile and puppy dog eyes that he directed at Patrice.

"Marry a Richmond, child. You'll never lift a finger for the rest of your life. Lord knows I love me some him. Hey, baby!" DeeDee advised as she watched Marvin nearly float to the driver's side to open her door.

Patrice watched Marvin and DeeDee fawn over each other like teenage lovers until the faint pop of her door opening brought her back to life.

Terry stood in the gap with his hand out to offer assistance. She accepted without protest, letting him gently pull her from the passenger side with her bags in tow and close the door behind her.

"I missed you."

Terry's admission came in a sweet voice as he dipped his head to place two chaste kisses on Patrice's lips. Only the knowledge of his parents 10 feet away kept her from turning an innocent display of affection into something vulgar.

Patrice chased his lips once he pulled away, earning a deep chuckle that vibrated her chest.

"We kissing in front of the parents now?"

"Too much," he asked, suddenly embarrassed.

She used her thumb to wipe lip gloss from his bottom lip before rising to her tip toes to kiss his nose. "No. You're perfect."

Dee Dee and Marvin watched the young couple giggle at nothing in particular with broad smiles and full hearts.

"Treece, when's the last time you had some of my red beans and rice?"

Marvin's question made both of them jump like children caught in the act with the realization that they weren't alone.

"Way too long," Patrice answered, her stomach almost growling at the mention.

"Then have dinner with us. We'd love to have you."

Patrice looked toward Terry for confirmation, making Dee Dee cackle as she started up the stairs into her home. "Child, forget him. Terrence don't run nothing 'round here! Come get this food."

Terry's eyes grew wide at his mother's dismissal while Patrice dissolved into an uncontrollable fit of laughter at his expense on her way into the house.

"Oh, that's funny," he asked, following her lead. "That's the last time I let y'all hang out unsupervised."

Three extra hours at Terry's parents' house wasn't enough for the tandem to abandon their new night routine.

Patrice stood at her bathroom sink, scrubbing the day from her face while Terry made himself comfortable on her closed toilet lid. Sometimes, he read something from Patrice's bookshelf, both preferring to simply exist in the same room. Other times, he watched baseball on his phone and attempted to provide color commentary despite Patrice not showing interest. This time, though, he sat with relaxed shoulders and low eyes while she moved through her beauty routine.

Something about the sleepytime body wash had him laser-focused on how her legs looked a mile long beneath her nightshirt, oiled to perfection and glistening under the warm vanity lights. He wanted to reach out and touch her. Maybe pull her closer by her thighs and whisper every single nasty thought on his mind below her navel until she promised never to leave his side.

But, he shook his inner man loose and leaned forward to re-engage with her as she called his name.

"You know you should use a gentle exfoliant every once in a while. It'll help your breakouts. Use some of my sunscreen, too. It's dangerous for you to let the sun hit your face with no protection."

Blah, blah, blah. Everything she said sounded like a chorus of 1000 angels to him. She could've revealed the cure to cancer, and he would be too lovestruck to notice.

Knowing his restraint was dwindling, he stood abruptly and stretched his arms above his head with a yawn as she added moisturizer to her face.

Patrice watched him take up space behind her through the mirror, shifting so he could leave something to remember him by on her shoulder and neck.

"Good night," he spoke between kisses, the words muffled against her skin.

"Already? It's not that late, is it?"

"I promised Corey I'd help him with football practice at Francis tomorrow morning."

"He'll run you ragged if you don't speak up."

"I'll speak up. I promise."

Using what little space she had, Patrice turned to rest her backside on the counter and face Terry. She used her index finger to hook his gold herringbone chain and bring him down for a kiss. Or kisses. It'd been so long since they could have each other in this way. Time and experience, both together and separately, had them maneuvering like professionals. Each kiss was teasing and sensual in equal measure. A tangible mastery of retreating and aggression made the pursuit of one another worth the wait.

They'd lost track of their exhibition until Terry's phone buzzing against the toilet seat jolted them back into reality.

Patrice flattened her palms against his chest to create some separation and end what would surely turn into blurred lines if they weren't careful. "Good night, TJ. Grab that exfoliant out of my shower before you leave. It's in the caddie."

Terry took the gentle redirection in stride, smiling at her through the mirror before turning to do as she had asked. Patrice used what little focus she could muster to secure her headscarf to her head, desperate to extend her box braids for one more week.

"What's this?"

"What's what?" She didn't bother to look away from her task until the low hum of her vibrator caught her attention. She whipped her body around, too stunned to reach for the bright pink toy that had Terry smirking as he examined its buttons. "That is my personal property for personal and private use."

"When's the last time you used it?"

"It's been a while. A month or so." Mostly true. She couldn't say she hadn't thought about it more recently.

"Since I've been here?"

She shrugged. "Kinda hard to get comfortable when there's a person on the other side of the wall."

The mere sound of the only thing to touch her in two years made the hair on her arms stand at attention. Her eyes darted between the toy and Terry, who made himself familiar with each speed and pattern, cycling through dirty thoughts and intrigue as he held the device against his arm to get a feel for the intensity,

Setting one? Bearable. A softball. Setting three? Maybe she'd call out his name from the pleasure? Setting seven? Surely, she'd hang on to him like a wet t-shirt on a Playboy model while she rode the crest of her orgasm.

The possibilities excited him to no end. He needed to test each and every theory.

In two clicks, he returned the toy to its original setting and then off completely, holding it in one hand while taking slow steps to close the gap between him and the only person on his mind.

She shifted her weight nervously as he approached, unsure how to respond until he towered over her with a look she knew all too well.

Desire.

Their senses were heightened. Everything felt surreal, almost as if one misstep could send them flying through a portal back to a more disappointing reality.

Terry could smell the faint hint of mint on Patrice's breath before dipping his head to nip at her bottom lip with his teeth. She responded like he knew she would by making him work for his prize. Patrice never let him intimidate her. Not for their first time together all those years ago, certainly not now.

He chuckled before leaning in again, this time leaving a trail of short kisses from her jaw to her clavicle. He inhaled deeply, breathing in vanilla and the subtle spice of his cologne from moments earlier.

Suddenly, Patrice felt weightless. Her feet dangled briefly and without warning as Terry took her from standing to sitting on the cold, hard counter before she could protest.

Patrice fought for stability, using the peaks and valleys across the expanse of his muscled arms as her anchor in the dizzying experience that was his affection. Her lips parted to draw in sharp breaths and release airy sighs of approval in a feeble attempt to remain present. At the same time, he kissed his appreciation wherever his lips saw fit. Her legs acted under their own power to spread wider and make room for whatever came next.

Her hands left a trail of tingles as she dragged them from his arms to the back of his head, down the sides of his face, over his tank top, between his pecs, and, finally, into the waistband of his shorts.

Surprised by her touch, he lurched forward to grab her wrist. "Not this time," he whispered, unsure he meant what he was saying.

Patrice nodded in understanding, earning a sloppy kiss for her obedience.

There was no discerning where his mouth ended, and hers began. They were on one accord, hungrily tasting, exploring, and consuming each other without holding back.

Then, the low hum returned. This time, it was closer than Patrice remembered.

Cold silicone soon caressed her inner thigh. A low whimper escaped past her lips as she made eye contact with Terry. He leaned close enough to speak against her mouth.

"You trust me?"

"Mhmm," she answered, fighting to keep her eyes open as he moved further up her leg.

"Let me take care of you, then. Take these off for me."

Trembling fingers latched onto her boyshorts, pushing them to mid-thigh for Terry to take care of the rest. As quickly as he was gone, he'd returned for another taste of her tongue. Languid and unhurried, he used the time to relax her while slowly inching the vibrator to her center.

Initial contact made her hips buck forward, and her head softly hit the mirror behind her. Terry chased her with sloppy kisses at the base of her neck.

The slow and steady setting was enough to get her wet and sticky. Terry'd be lying if he said the thought alone didn't have him wanting to renege on his early statement and dive in with reckless abandon. But, he remained steadfast in his pursuit of her pleasure.

Once the initial shock had worn off, Patrice ground her hips slowly, making small circles while the vibration worked to settle her nerves. Terry took a break from leaving praises in the form of kisses on her throat to smile at his girl.

"You're beautiful. You know that?"

She gripped his chin and pulled him closer for a fiery kiss that he let her lead. "Yeah. But, I love to hear you say it."

"Good," he answered, grinning at her confidence as he upped the intensity on her vibrator. Her eyes clamped shut as her entire body tensed. "Stay with me."

A deep, steadying breath turned into a silent scream as Patrice gave in to the natural urge to hold her breath. Terry used his free hand to sneak up her tank top and grope one breast while pressing his lips to her ear.

"Breathe, baby. In and out." He modeled the behavior until she found the strength to match his tempo. "There you go. You feel good?"

"Yes, yes," she whisper-chanted to the ceiling, her head thrown back in unimaginable euphoria.

"I want you to feel this good every day. You deserve it, right?"

A twisting, turning feeling at the pit of her stomach forced her to draw in a deep breath to steady herself. Her answer came in a soft moan. "Right."

"Damn right." Pressing his forehead to hers, he zeroed in on each of her features twisted in unthinkable pleasure.

She kept her mouth open to sigh and moan as she saw fit. Her nostrils flared in a rhythm as she tried to force herself to breathe through every peak and valley of the moment. Her brows were knitted, and her eyes closed as if she were too afraid to look at him. He wondered what she was thinking.

Did she want him inside of her as much as he wanted the same for himself? Was she yearning for more pressure? Could she feel how much he loved her?

"Don't get quiet on me. I want everything. Let 'em hear you. You need more?"

A quick glance down helped him reposition the vibrator on her already sensitive bud, earning a guttural curse as appreciation for his good deed.

"Fuck! Don't move. Please don't move."

Terry obliged for the moment, too entranced by his view of her flower on full display for his viewing pleasure. Glistening. Wet. Beautiful. Appetizing like nothing he'd ever seen before. He pulled the toy away and replaced its presence with his thumb. Slow circles and firm pressure made her want to close her legs to escape the overwhelming stimulation, but her attempt was futile. She was at his mercy.

"Damn," he whispered to himself, enamored by the way her body reacted to his touch.

Every revolution around her clit brought with it more wetness at her entrance and indentations in his arms from her nails gripping for dear life.

It wasn't enough to touch her. He needed to taste.

Using his middle and ring fingers, he teased his introduction with gentle brushes against her inner lips. She keened for more against his mouth as she held his face close. He granted her wish and pushed into her slowly, immediately feeling her warmth envelop his long digits.

Their mouths hung open, breaths being traded between the two as he set a slow pace. Not enough to bring forth a release. Just enough for Terry to get what he came for.

Removing his fingers left him with a coating of clear arousal nearly dripping to his knuckles. Patrice watched him as he smirked at the sight, examining it like a jeweler appraising precious diamonds.

When he'd seen enough, he put both fingers into his mouth and closed his eyes to savor the taste. Patrice's mouth hung open as if waiting for her turn to experience the wonders of her juices.

Had she closed her eyes for even a second, she would have missed Terry extending his tongue from his mouth to allow a mixture of his saliva and her essence the chance to slide from his tongue in anticipation of a new host.

Something profound and hungry within her made her lean her head back and hold her tongue out to receive all that he had to give. It excited her, delighted her, and aroused her like never before.

Like a lewd work of art, spit connected their tongues in what would otherwise be seen as an infraction among more proper circles. But fuckin' wasn't proper, and all forms of affection were welcomed in their home.

Almost immediately, Terry rushed to reward her with a wild and frenzied kiss that nearly surprised him.

Primal. Carnal. Intense. Fucking disgusting. He loved every minute of it.

The race was on. Terry kept their lips connected as he returned the vibrator to her clit, dialing up the settings to a level below their max.

Patrice's moans and his couldn't be distinguished from one another. Her hips bucked wildly. Her fingernails left marks in their wake as they scratched at his arms and back. Her body twitched and seized in anticipation of the inevitable.

"Oh my - fuck!" Satisfied tears slid from the corners of her eyes and down her cheeks to her man's awaiting lips. "Terrence!"

Terry remained locked in. A man possessed. A one-track mind focused on nothing other than completing the mission.

The first stage of her orgasm came without a warning. Heat washed over her as if she'd stepped outside at high noon, making her skin almost unbearable to live in. Her toes curled, her voice caught in her throat despite the intense desire to release a scream from the depths of her soul into the atmosphere.

She thanked Terry and God in Heaven for blessing her with the opportunity to touch the moon and the stars without ever leaving her home. Terry used his free hand to grip and massage her thighs, knowing that the best was yet to come.

Patrice's voice began to climb as the main event approached. Shallow breaths gave way to loud gasps for air, which came rapidly while she did the same. She was suspended in a beautiful bliss and already sad about the prospect of coming down.

Her lover reveled in the opportunity to see her unraveling at the seams.

"I'll always come back to you, beautiful. No matter what, okay? Look at me." His request earned intense focus from Patrice under hooded eyes. "You're so pretty. Say it back to me. Tell me you're pretty."

"I'm so pretty!" Impending release sent all her words out in one breathless sentence.

He smiled at her compliance. "I know you're close. Hold my hand."

Her fingers scrambled against the counter, filling the spaces between his fingers and gripping with enough force to turn her knuckles a lighter shade of brown.

"That's my girl. I love you," was all he could manage before Patrice let out something akin to a squeal, turning his declaration into background fodder.

Sensitive, overstimulated, and completely spent, the after-effects of her release had her panting to recover. Her ears rang with a heady feeling that could only be compared to a few puffs of homegrown bud.

Terry held her through it all, propping her up while her body sagged against him for stability. He put aside the vibrator to run his palms up and down her legs while he showered her temple with whispered praises and sweet kisses.

He waited until her breathing was even before gingerly pressing his forehead to hers. "You good?"

His smirk was incredibly smug. He was proud of himself, and for good reason. She was open to giving credit where credit was due.

"You can never leave this house without me again. I hope you're happy."

"That's the whole point. My granny taught me some things during them summers down in New Orleans, you know?"

"Oh, so this is some magic shit?"

"Family business, baby. Gotta have the last name to find out." A playful glint in his eyes and a squeeze to her waist made Patrice's stomach feel butterflies that she thought would never return. Terry tapped her nose with his index finger and stepped back. "Stay put. I'll clean you up."

Patrice scoffed. Stay put. As if she could go anywhere. As if she wanted to go anywhere.

Like the perfect gentleman, Terry was tender with his care. A warm towel to soothe sore muscles and ensure a thorough cleanup was mandatory. The extra loving was complimentary for only his favorite lady.

"Stay with me tonight," Patrice requested as he slid her panties back up her legs.

He shook his head and smiled while prompting her to lift her hips. "I don't know if that's a good idea, Treecey."

"I just wanna be next to you. Nothing more."

Terry regarded her doe-eyed plea with a small smile as he helped her off the counter. He pulled her into an embrace, fiending for one more kiss. She obliged happily until he'd had his fill.

His hands slid from her sides to her ass for a generous squeeze before answering.

"Okay. Whatever you want. Let me handle something real quick, and then I'll meet you there."

Patrice accepted her victory with a silly happy dance before turning to make enough room in her bed for an extra person. Terry sent her on her way with a light tap to her ass, amused by how something as simple as sleeping next to each other was exciting for her.

Once she was safely out of the bathroom with the door shut behind her, he finally found time to take a deep breath and compose himself. The actual test of his strength was in the next room, and he couldn't risk the trust he'd worked so hard to build.

After adjusting his shorts, he picked up his phone and sat on the toilet lid, hoping that watching dog videos or Nationals highlights would clear his mind.

He had every intention of opening the web browser on his phone until he noticed a series of messages from an old friend.

From: McBride

You check your mail?

Trial against chief starts in two weeks. Gonna need you to testify to take him down

Know you said you weren’t coming back

Do it for Mike

---

TAGS: @planetblaque @wvsspoppin @thatone-girly @oniccah @avoidthings @slutsareteacherstoo @eilujion @amyhennessyhouse @yaachtynoboat711 @jenlovey @pinkpantheris @blowmymbackout @deja-r

#terry richmond #terry richmond x oc #rebel ridge #aaron pierre

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coff33andb00ks · 5 months ago

Text

world around us

summary: you're a candle in the window on a cold dark winter's night word count: 1k pairing: lando norris x oscar piastri x driver!reader (lilli. it's lilli) warnings: just pure fluff, slightly suggestive language(?) a.n.: final installation of my I need Lilli to have an amazing birthday series! this is once again for @maxlarens HAPPY BIRTHDAY LILLI MY LOVE!!! playlist: completely unhinged songs that fit the vibe

"No no no no no no no! You can't do that! You fuckin' muppet!"

Oscar mirrors your eye roll as Lando protests you placing a house on one of your properties. "She owns it though?" he says tentatively.

Lando scoffs, snatching up the guide and snapping it open. "The rules say–"

"I refuse to follow rules when you rolled twice so you wouldn't go to jail," you say with a huff, snatching the guide from him.

"I had to! One of the dice landed on the floor!"

"Oh but when we play golf I have to play no matter where my ball lands?"

"Yes." Lando gives you a look of disbelief, as though the idea of breaking a golfing rule is akin to murder. "It's not my fault you can't hit a ball straight."

"Just for that–" You slap more brightly colored money in front of Oscar - Oscar has to be the banker he's the most honest one among us - and grab a hotel to replace the house. "Suffer."

Lando groans, throwing up his hands. "You're cheating. I hate games night."

Oscar's grin shifts and he begins to chuckle. "We could play Trivial Pursuit?"

"No," Lando whines, picking up the dice to take his turn. "That game makes me feel stupid."

"Uno?" you suggest sweetly.

"No, we'll finish this. Capitalism is good to me, I'll make a comeback." Lando nods to himself as he shakes the dice. "Just shut up so I can focus."

And then, twenty minutes later–

"What d'you mean I owe you double the rent?!"

The rules are checked - well this is fucking bullshit - and he counts out all of his money to pay up. Suddenly capitalism sucks and he's clinging to his one property block and his cash like they're his lifeline.

You'll never know how (he probably cheated) but he wins. Monopoly money rains down as he celebrates and you fall back with laughter when Oscar flips the board in disgust.

You love games night. The silly playlist Lando put together plays, Disney movies play, muted, on the tv, and you've got them.

Lando and Oscar. Your biggest rivals on the track and your closest friends off. You're celebrating Oscar's first win this week now that summer break is here, enjoying the lazy days before you each take off in different directions to visit family and recuperate from an exhausting first half of the season.

"Loser cleans up," you remind Oscar and he groans as he gives you a kiss then begins picking up the mess. Lando's singing along to the latest country song he's obsessed with - Is it your heart or mine? Is it whiskey or wine? Is it somethin' in the night Makin' us wanna cross that line? - and he follows you into the kitchen to get more drinks.

"You sure you don't want to come along with me?" he asks, reaching around you to get a beer from the fridge.

"Let me see... Golfing with a bunch of men versus beach time with my best friends…" You hum thoughtfully, squealing when loops an arm around you.

"That can't be right. Me and Osco are your best friends," he says.

"Let me rephrase. Best women friends."

He's holding you close, swaying a little to the song playing - you think Oscar's the one who added ABBA, or maybe it was you - and you smile a little as you sway with him. He hums songs without realizing it and it's one of his more endearing habits.

"But I'll miss you," he murmurs, tucking his chin on your shoulder.

"I'll miss you too." And you will. This season you've grown closer to him. Literally, considering he finally talked you - and Oscar - into moving to Monaco. But also figuratively. You're just as rough on yourself as he is on himself, and with all the macho bravado that surrounds you every race week, it's nice to have someone who understands your being upset over missing out on a podium due to your own failings as a driver, your miscommunication with the team. It's rarer to have someone who understands shouldering the blame of the team's missteps – if I was better at this, they would trust my judgment but I'm not so they don't and that means—

"Not getting sappy on me are you?" Lando teases.

"You started it," you mutter. Turning, you wrap your arms around him. "We can live a few weeks without each other."

"I mean… You'll text right? Call?" he asks softly.

"FaceTime too," you promise.

It's tentative and new and so fucking scary but he gives you a soft kiss. Not your first with him, but it still makes your heart do that weird little flutter that it's only ever done with one other person.

"Jenga?" Oscar calls from the living room and Lando perks up instantly, nearly knocking you down in his haste to get back to the only other person he's going to miss during break.

Jenga with your boys is impossible. They're too competitive, know too many things they can say that make the other break and send the blocks flying.

"Oh of course he's going for the bottom, man loves to be at the bottom," Oscar mutters to you and Lando's giggling, covering his face with his hands as the tower collapses.

The games are abandoned, and you're squished on the couch between them, Oscar's lips on your ear, Lando's head on your stomach as the three of you, tipsy and relaxed, begin making plans for the last days of break while a Studio Ghibli movie plays. It's not said by either of you, but you already know that the three of you will find each other long before the break is over.

The world is easier to bear when it's the three of you together. It's still new, still tentative, still scary as hell, but it feels oh so right.

#f1 #f1 imagine #oscar piastri #formula 1 #lando norris #f1 fanfic #formula 1 imagine #lando norris x reader #oscar piastri x reader #landoscar x

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imaginesig · 5 months ago

Text

Left my heart in SoCal

Arthur Leclerc x Surfer!reader

What happens when you add surfer + racer?? Oh and Danny Ricc is there too

Doesnt line up with reality, whoops

yourusername

liked by outerknown, bff_username, user5, and 374,839 others

yourusername: Outerknown not only has my back for the summer, but warm SoCal winters as well #sponsored

tagged outerknown

outerknown stunning!!

yourusername 🫶☀️

user1 girl as much as I wanna shop this collection I cannot afford

user2 fr fr

bff_username get that bank girlie!!

yourusername gotta afford competition somehow

user3 ugh she's drop dead gorgeous

user4 loml

yourusername

liked by bff_username, user45, user94, and 443,948 others

yourusername: quick solo trip to the Netherlands before winter 🇳🇱 let's all thank the nice stranger who offered to take my photo at the beach and didn't kidnap me

tagged: no one

bff_username you had me stressing on the phone

yourusername thats why I didn't tell you til after

user1 LMAO GIRLIE YOU'RE IN A FOREIGN PLACE ALONE AND LET A STRANGER NOT ONLY TAKE YOUR PHONE (where they could've easily run away with it) BUT ALSO TURN YOUR BACK

yourusername he had a cute French accent it was fine

bff_username Y/N NO

user2 omg did you go to the GP??

user3 imagine if she was ever a celebrity guest

user4 I'd cry but also the chances an American surfer (despite the fact she's pro) is on F1's radar

user5 why am I not surprised that you went to another country entirely and still managed to find and post a beach

youusername 🤭

arthurleclerc posted a story!

caption: 📍 Zandvoort

yourusername

liked by user54, user4, Arthur_leclerc, and 283,849 others

yourusername: California Christmas, 1954

tagged: bff_username

bff_username our apartment has never looked better

yourusername ugh the laughter from our party still echos!!

user1 I love that you guys went with retro aesthtic

user2 im in love with the tinsel tree!!!

user3 it still throws me off every time you post and there's no snow

user4 am I seeing that right?? Arthur leclerc in the likes??

Charles_leclerc @/maxverstappen1 @/carlossainz55 @/lorenzotl this is her I'm sure of it

maxverstappen1 everything else checks out

carlossainz55 updating the gc right now

yourusername oh hello! can I help you?

Charles_leclerc check your dms

lorenzotl please

user5 lmao who are these guys?? Y/n blink twice if you need help

arthur_leclerc

liked by yourusername, user45, lorenzotl

Arthur_leclerc: Joyeux Noël🎄

tagged: Charles_leclerc, lorenzotl

lorenzotl I See you were in the sprit of family Arthur

Charles_leclerc so glad to know our short time together was spent disappearing for a girl

Arthur_leclerc so dramatic, both of you!!

user1 not Arthur soft launching

user2 awww baby Charles and Arthur

user3 what are the possibilities its that surfer user was talking about on twitter

user4 what?

user5 who?

user6 OMG WHAT IF???

yourusername

liked by bff_username, Danielriccardo, lorenzotl, and 673,838 others

yourusername I could get used to this ✈️🇦🇺🇲🇨

tagged danielriccardo

visacashapprb what a social offseason!!

yourusername give me a seat next year 🙏

visacashapp only if you teach me to surf

user1 soft launch??

user6 how do you know Danny ricc??

yourusername I have connections

user2 maybe we were wrong and somethings happening with Daniel and not Arthur

user5 but she put Australia and Monaco

danielriccardo hope the Aussie oceans didn't disappoint 🤙

yourusername never ever!! 🤙

bff_username no you don't get to get used to this- stop galavanting across the world with drivers and come home!! The kids miss you!!

yourusername otw 🏃‍♀️💨

user3 drivers?? as in plural?? this soft launch is getting more and more confusing as we go

user4 girlies has a busy off season

yourusername

liked by danielriccardo, sexwax, user4, and 623,838 others

yourusername: back to Cali and I'm proud to announce my newest sponsor Sex Wax!! My favorite brand for keeping my board grippy 🫶🤙

tagged: sexwax

sexwax lookin bitchin'

yourusername 🤭🤭

Arthur_leclerc 😳🥵

yourusername 💋💋

Charles_leclerc Arthur Leclerc.

yourusername oop

user1 what is happening

user2 im so confused

user3 right girlie we need clear signs as to who you're dating

user3 my timeline has been blessed

bff_username well hey there

yourusername heyyyyyyyy

Arthur_leclerc

liked by yourusername, Charles_leclerc, user2, and 271,823 others

Arthur_leclerc: Left my heart in SoCal 🩷

tagged: no one

yourusername bit obvious no??

Arthur_leclerc I was sick of assumptions 🤷‍♂️

user1 Arthur said Daniel?? Really??

user2 ok soft (hard) launch

user3 no way ive officially lost Arthur

Charles_leclerc glad to see its been a nice trip

Arthur_leclerc bringing you back a seashell

user4 LMAO WHAT

yourusername

liked by Arthur_leclerc, bff_username, user4, and 823,983 others

yourusername: preseasons going great!!

tagged no one

Arthur_leclerc "bit obvious no??"

yourusername dont make me delete this Leclerc

user1 OMG OMG STOP

user2 you're telling me this actually went somewhere

bff_username still not happy you trusted him in a foreign country alone

yourusername but the accent ☺️

user3 after todays results I can't wait for how the first competitions gonna go

yourusername

liked by Charles_leclerc, user5, Arthur_leclerc, and 748,384 others

yourusername Ferrari is my red flag

tagged: Arthur_leclerc

Arthur_leclerc im very much a green flag thank you

yourusername that jealousy streak says otherwise but ok...

Arthur_leclerc doest exist

user1 Y/N IN THE PADDOCK!!!!!

bff_user bring me home a hot driver

yourusername yes ma'am 🫡🫡

user2 ditto

user3 not Arthur roping her into a lifetime of disappointment and false hope

user4 Forza Ferrari ✊😔

Arthur_leclerc

liked by yourusername, user3, danielriccardo, and 839,938 others

Arthur_leclerc: no need for Red Bulls of any form here

tagged: Charles_leclerc, yourusername

danielriccardo "and I was like what he'd say fuck me for"

user1 lmao Arthur said "fuck the rumors"

yourusername "doesn't exist" my ass

Arthur_leclerc 🙄

user2 the matching jackets 😭

user3 as a long time Y/n fan, its been nice to see how their relationship has brought her out of her shell and out of the small bubble that is SoCal

yourusername

liked by user5, bff_username, user66, and 883,739 others

yourusername: I love you more than a California sunset 💛

tagged: Arthur_leclerc

bff_username more than a cali sunset?? what spell are you under

bff_username @/Arthur_leclerc I need to know your secret

Arthur_leclerc 🤫

user1 not her teaching him to surf 😭😭

scudaraferrari please keep out driver safe!!

yourusername always admin 🫶

Arthur_leclerc

liked by user4, yourusername, Lorenzotl, and 803,938 others

Arthur_leclerc: I take my job as a wag very seriously

tagged: yourusername

yourusername and what a wonderful job you've do!!

Arthur_leclerc ❤️❤️

comments have been limited

yourusername

liked by bff_username, user89, Arthur_leclerc, and 837,847 others

yourusername: my good luck charm has brought me so much support, confidence, and many wins!! I'm so sad I have to give him back to @/scuderiaferrari. Arthur, je t'aime

tagged: Arthur_leclerc

Arthur_leclerc Je t'aime aussi

comments have been limited

#f1 imagines #formula 1 imagine #formula 1 imagines #f2 #formula 2 #f2 x reader #formula 2 imagine #formula 1 smau #f1 #f1 imagine #arthur leclerc #arthur leclerc x reader #arthur leclerc x y/n #arthur leclerc imagine #arthur leclerc fanfic #arthur leclerc fluff

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javierpena-inatacvest · 1 month ago

Text

Chapter 4- The Chase

Summary: You can only keep running from Frankie Morales for so long. At some point, he'll catch up to you, whether you like it, or not.

Word Count: 3.5K

Pairing: Frankie Morales x f!reader (reader has a name/nickname)

Warnings: Do I spy a hint of... ✨feelings✨??? Yearning, a hint of teenage violence (Santi deserves it, it's okay), the appearance of the Miller Brothers, Frankie basically looking like this 🥺 for the last half of this chapter, banter because I live for it

A/N: I'm convinced that teenage Frankie and the Frontier Boys are the best characters to write for, period 😭 I never thought I would live to see the day where my chapters are less than 5K (?!?) but I'm really trying to be better about posting on a schedule- If you would rather have them be longer and wait two weeks between chapters instead of once a week, let ya girl know 🤷🏼‍♀️ Thank you for all of your kind words about this story, your kind comments literally fuel me and make my heart explode, ily 🥹💛

All The Things We Never Said Masterlist

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Frankie, Fall of 2005, Age 16

For as much as he hates school, there will be two classes Frankie knows he’ll always pass with flying colors- Gym and Math.

When he and Santi went to pick up their 11th grade class schedules before the start of the school year, you would have thought they’d won the lottery when they looked down on the crinkled half sheets of paper to find they were both in the same 6th period gym class.

Five weeks into the start of Junior year, Frankie’s now convinced that Santi and his new friends, Will and Benny Miller, are in on some sort of scheme to make him fail the one class he’s guaranteed an “A” in.

“Jesus Christ, Frankie, for the love of God, will you please slow down?!”

Santi’s all but huffing at the pace Frankie had set for the four of them to run the two miles they’re supposed to finish by the end of class, only three of the eight laps they need to run around the track completed.

“We’re not even going that fast, Santi, you’re fine.”

Frankie can’t help but laugh at the way his friend is laboring behind him. Sure, Santi’s got football to thank for keeping him looking less like a gangly string bean than Frankie does, but even at 16, the boyish satisfaction of knowing he’ll always be faster than his friend is undeniable.

“Do you do like, cross country or somethin’, Frankie?”

“Yeah man, I thought Santi said you swam not ran.”

The Miller Brothers were a new addition to his and Santi’s long standing friendship duo. Will and Benny moved from North Carolina over the summer and had befriended Santi after a few weeks of preseason football camp that the high school held before the start of the school year. Of course, that meant Frankie became friends by proxy shortly after.

Frankie was fond enough of the two, but the group was still stuck in the awkward dating phase of friendship where everything was just enough of a pissing match to prove that they were worthy enough of each other’s company.

“Yeah, I’m on the swim team, I don’t do cross country or anything like that.” Frankie shrugs, rounding the curve of the track with ease as he leads the pack to their halfway point.

“Then how the hell did you get so fast?” Benny pants, the straw blonde hair matted to his forehead with sweat scrunching as he pinches his brows in a mixture of confusion and unadmitted pain.

“‘Cause he likes to go running with MacKenzie.”

Santi’s lips curl to a devious smile as he watches Frankie’s face grow red from his sing-songy taunting. At least with the Millers, Frankie could pretend to chalk the hot, pink sting in his cheeks to the mile he’s been running. Unfortunately, he can’t assume the same with Santi.

“Shut up, Santi.” Frankie grumbles, picking up his pace to the point he knows it’ll make Santi’s lungs strain just enough to keep him from rambling.

“Oh shit, like, MacKenzie Anderson, MacKenzie?” Will’s face lights up, his less than lengthy friendship making him blissfully unaware of the history between you and Frankie, “She’s hot.”

“Ew, n- no, she’s not. That’s weird.”

The other three are surprised Frankie’s pants have yet to set on fire after such a bold lie.

“They go run together every weekend.”

At this point, it’s pure mockery the way Santi is teasing him, pushing Frankie to his limits to see how much he can get away with before his friend breaks.

“So like, are you guys, dating or something?”

“What?! No! No- She’s like, my best friend. I just- She plays soccer, so I go run with her to help her train and stuff. It’s good cardio, anyways.”

Frankie doesn’t mean to snap at Benny for his question. It’s a secondary response to the way his chest is tightening and heart is racing as the eyes of all his friends stay peeled to him, like a guilty suspect in a courtroom everyone is waiting to catch in the midst of their lie.

“Running’s not the only kind of cardio he wishes he was doing with MacKenzie, huh Frankie?”

The boys are too busy snickering at each other to realize that Frankie’s completely stopped in his tracks ahead of them, turning around with arms outstretched to greet Santi with a brute shove to the ground as they collide.

“I said shut UP, Santi!”

Frankie doesn’t intend for it to draw as much attention as it does, how the way he’s practically screaming at his friend he’s pushed to the ground has garnered the attention of everyone else in his gym class.

“Jesus, Frankie, it was just a joke! Chill out!”

Will and Benny help Santi off the rubber of the track, leaving him and Frankie in a silent stare down of flared nostrils and gritted teeth, bodies boiling with teenage testosterone.

Despite his rage, Frankie has enough self control to keep from saying (or doing) anything else he’ll regret, forcing himself to take off running in a frustrated huff of silence, heart in his throat and fists clenched, leaving behind his group of friends.

“Shit. Is he always like that when you talk about her?” Will asks, still slightly stunned by the altercation he’s just witnessed, considering Frankie’s usual calm and quiet demeanor.

“Yup.” Santi replies, popping the “p” at the end of his answer, “Well, not always this bad, but still, ya know?”

“Why?” Benny chimes in, the three of them slowly beginning their trot back around the track, lengths behind their fuming friend.

“‘Cause they’re like, secretly in love with each other. They say they’re just friends, but they act like they’re fucking married.” Santi pretends to gag as he forces his eyes to roll as far back in his head as they possibly can. “He’s been extra pissy because yesterday he found out this guy, Nick Walsh, who’s some senior on the boy’s soccer team, tried to ask her to Homecoming.”

“Did she say yes?”

“No! That’s the thing! I don’t know why he’s got his fucking granny panties in a knot about it. Whatever, man. Not my problem.”

The Miller brothers exchange intrigued glances, wondering how much more they can pry out of Santi as they mope around the track, hoping they can at least make the second half of their two miles entertaining.

“If he’s mad about it, why didn’t he just ask her?” Will shrugs, offering up what seems like a reasonable solution to his new friend’s problem.

“Ask him, dude. I have no fucking clue. They’re going with the same group of friends, so they’re gonna spend the whole night together, anyways. Honestly, if you want my opinion, I think he knows he doesn’t have the balls to nut up and ask her himself ‘cause he’s worried she’s gonna say no.”

Despite the 23 other kids in the class who are also being forced to run circles around the track, there’s only one who makes the three of them freeze as he passes by, feeling the hole he’s burning through the back of their heads. Santi knows he’s too loudmouthed for his own good, and that there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that Frankie didn’t make out what he had to say as he snuck up behind him.

And he's right. Frankie hears every word.

If he wasn’t at school, he wouldn’t think twice about punching Santi so hard in the gut it would knock the wind right out of him. But right now, all he can do is keep running, faster and faster, one foot in front of the other.

Maybe if he runs fast enough, no one will be able to see the tears welling in the corners of his eyes, or the disappointment that’s drained every ounce of color he’s got left in his face.

Maybe if he runs fast enough, he can outrun the cold, hard truth of the way Santi’s words ring in his ears and put bricks in his chest.

Maybe, just maybe, if he runs fast enough, somewhere along the worn high school track he’ll find the courage to prove himself wrong.

You, Present

You’re convinced he’s following you. He has to be.

All you wanted to do this morning was to go for a run to clear your head, to blow off some steam after the shit show that had been yesterday’s first interaction with Frankie in the past three years. You were confined to your room for the better half of the day, your dad keeping Frankie hostage in your home far too long for your liking.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to deny a dying man whatever he wants, even if it’s Frankie Morales’s unwelcome presence in your living room. It also meant having to listen to your dad ramble about Frankie for the next several hours after he’d left, politely nodding at all the compliments and praise your father had to give him while your blood boiled in silence.

Now, all you wanted to do was to run until your head was free of Frankie for just a little while.

It seemed like Frankie had other plans.

You gave him the benefit of the doubt the first quarter mile, hell, you even tried to just play it off as unlucky timing at the half mile point. But now, you’re a mile into your run, turning on to Fuller Street with Frankie still trotting behind you. It’s clearly not an accident he’s chosen the same path for his morning jog.

“There are other ways you can go run, you know.” You shout at Frankie without even turning your head over your shoulder, thinking that maybe he’s assumed you hadn’t noticed him and your not so subtle suggestion will get him to turn around.

“It’s a free country. I can run where I want.”

Part of you wishes you would have turned to look back at him so he could see the way your eyes met the back of your skull from rolling them so hard, but you keep your gaze glued to the pavement in front of you. You won’t give him the satisfaction of acknowledging his presence.

“Can you please just go run somewhere else? I’m just trying to enjoy my morning and you’re not helping, Frankie.”

“Not trying to bother you, just trying to run. I didn’t have anything to say until you started talking to me.”

You know if you turned around right now, he’d have that stupid little smug grin hiding in the corner of his cheeks. A battle of wits is his favorite game to play. He’s learned how to strategize, to stay calm, cool and collected in the midst of your chaos, waiting until you hit the breaking point of his crazy you can’t bear to tolerate anymore. Your jaw tenses with the long exhale you take as you prepare to go head to head.

“I wouldn’t have said anything if you hadn’t been following me the past mile.”

“How do you know I’m following you?”

“You’ve literally been running ten feet behind me for the past twelve minutes.”

“Who says I wasn’t planning on running this way to begin with but you just got a head start?”

“Jesus Christ, Frankie, please just go pick a different way to run.”

“Who put you in charge of the running police? Do I have to sign a permit before I go jog now?”

“Go. Run. Somewhere. Else.”

“No. You don’t get to tell me where to run. This is the way I wanna go, so I’m gonna keep going until-”

“No! I know you don’t want to go this way!” You’ve accepted defeat, swinging around to storm towards Frankie, stopping dead in his tracks as he realizes the ferocity you’re approaching him with, “I know for a fact you don’t wanna run this way. You know how I know? Because you hate running down Fuller Street. You would run five miles out of your way before you even considered running down this street on your own free will. There hasn’t been a single time we’ve ever run down this street where you haven’t complained the entire way because of how much you hate the hill at the end of the road before we turn onto Wilson way! That’s how I know, Frankie! So stop pretending like you just happened to choose the same way as me by accident, and just leave me alone! Ugh!”

You’re positive there’s a trail of steam streaming behind you with the way you’re absolutely fuming, turning back around to take off as fast as your body will let you. You can’t bring yourself to look anywhere but straight ahead, too afraid that if you turn around, those stupid, sad brown eyes will make you feel guilty enough to give him the last word he doesn’t deserve.

Your feet are flying so fast across the pavement, you’re convinced he’s given up, shocked into submission by your anger that he’ll at least let you finish the rest of your run in peace. Your eyes are still locked on the horizon ahead. It’s the arrogance of your self-reassurance that doesn’t even let you contemplate the thought that several yards behind you, Frankie lets out a quiet “fuck me” before letting his hands drop from their place on his hips to chase behind you at full speed.

“What the fuck are you doing!?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

It’s a stupid question. It’s obvious Frankie has said a prayer to hope his knees don’t give out on him as he runs as fast as possible to try and catch up to you. The rhythmic thump of his sneakers pounding against the concrete catches your attention enough to see how quickly he’s gaining on you. It only makes you run faster.

“Jesus- fuck this hill- MacKenzie, will you fucking slow down?”

You won’t admit you’re probably just as exhausted as Frankie from the way you’ve been sprinting up the steep incline at the end of the road, but his exasperated huffs are enough to keep you pushing through the pain, mental and physical.

“No. Run faster.”

You’re hopeful it’s early enough that no one is awake to see the comedic game of cat and mouse you and Frankie are playing in the middle of the road, chasing each other like you’re on the playground in a childish round of tag. You’d never admit to his face that you know he’s stronger, even faster than you, but the grip he settles around your arm as he finally catches up to you lets you know you’ve lost.

“Let go of me, Frankie!”

If the street wasn’t already awake from your wild game of chase, your scream certainly would have gotten their attention.

“Jesus Christ, MacKenzie, will you just let me talk to you for two fucking seconds?! Please, just- fuck- please just let me fucking talk to you, okay? Please.”

Even if you wanted to keep running, there was no use. Truth be told, it wasn’t the grasp he had around your arm that was the thing keeping you from sprinting off into the distance. What had you frozen in place was that pathetic pout you knew was splayed across his face, burning a hole in the back of your head. What’s worse, was that you could feel it burning a hole through your chest, too.

The all too familiar pain that came with holding onto the same, shriveled shred of hope that maybe this time, he’d prove you wrong. Maybe this time, he wouldn’t let you down.

“Fine.” You barely mutter the word loud enough to hear as you turn around to face him, eyes still looking everywhere but directly at him.

“I’m sorry, Kenz. I'm sorry, okay? I fucked up.”

Somehow, his second apology stings worse than the first. It still doesn’t mean you won’t deny how much it hurts.

“Yeah, no shit.”

You let your gaze lift just enough to see the way he’s gnawing at his bottom lip, chewing at it like he’s trying to digest his own thoughts before they come out of his mouth.

“What I said that night at Santi’s wedding, I just-” He pauses, knowing you can hear it clear as day in your head too.

“Fuck you, MacKenzie. Fuck you for ruining my life. It’ll be better off without you fucking in it.”

“I- I- Fuck. I didn’t mean it. Any of it. I regret ever saying it. I think all the time about how much I regret it. I just, I was in a bad place.”

You’re not sure what to say. Fuck, you’re not even sure what to feel. Part of you wants to scream at him, kick him in the crotch and berate him for how badly the past three years have hurt you. Part of you just wants to stand there and cry, to say nothing and let your tears flow and spill your emotions down your cheeks. Part of you wants to hug him, to believe him, to have him hold you so tightly against his chest that his apology seeps into your skin until you’ve forgiven him.

But none of those parts are strong enough to win out alone. Instead, they’ve formed together to create a strange sort of storm that brews in your belly, swirling it so violently, it makes you want to vomit.

“But you still said it, Frankie. You still said it. If my dad weren’t dying, would you even be here? Would you have ever apologized? Or are you just choosing to apologize now because it’s convenient and you feel like you have to?”

It’s the first time you can bring yourself to look him in the face. You can see how his brain is churning with the same type of vicious waves that are in the pit of your stomach, drowning out the brown of his eyes. You both are lost in the midst of the storm, but you’ve got a lifeboat. He’s sinking below the thrashing tides, looking for you to let him board your ship. You won’t let him on unless he fights his way through the current to get to you.

“I should have apologized a long time ago.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I don’t- I don’t know. I was scared you’d never forgive me.”

You swear you feel the grip he still has on your forearm tighten just for a moment. Now that he has you, he’s too scared to let you go.

“Just- Jesus- Just because you apologized doesn’t mean I have to forgive you now, Frankie.”

“Will you ever?”

“Ever, what?”

“Forgive me?”

Your brain wants to say no. God, with everything in you does it want to say no. But that same stupid pain in your chest that lives and dies by that stupid shred of hope you’ll always hold onto just won’t let you.

“I don’t know. I- I don’t know, Frankie.”

You can’t ignore the way he’s still holding your arm. The shred of hope doesn’t want him to let go, even when you scowl at the way his fingers wrap around your skin. You scowl because of how his touch burns your skin, the way it ignites a fire in your gut from how tenderly he touches you. It makes you scrunch your face in frustration and confusion, trying to block out all the times he’s touched you like this before, fingers grazing against your skin in a desperate plea for affection, not forgiveness. He’s holding onto your arm to see if you’ll let him in the lifeboat- if you’ll offer him a chance to save himself.

“I get it. I’m sorry, Kenz. I hope you at least know I mean it.”

“I do.”

You’re not sure what makes you want to offer him a last chance at survival. You’ve been separated by different sides of the same storm for so long- You can’t attest to the way he’s had to fight through it to stay alive, but if it’s anything like the side of the squall you’ve been stuck on, there’s a strange relief in finding in finding someone who knows the hell you’ve faced to keep from drowning in the undertow. You can’t seem to bear letting him drown right in front of you without even trying to help.

“I still hate you, ya know.” You sigh, a defiant cry to prove to him you’re not happy about the path you’ve chosen.

“Yeah, that’s fair. I deserve that.”

It’s the first time you’ve heard him laugh in so long. Even though it’s a muffled huff, trying to hide behind the raise of his eyebrows and nod of his head at the ground, you know it’s there, in that same corner of his smirk he gets when he knows there’s no point in arguing with you- there’s no denying it’s there.

There’s no denying it makes you do the same.

“You gonna let me finish the rest of my run in peace, Morales?”

“Yeah, I guess. Only ‘cause I still hate this fucking hill.”

@chaotic-iguana @bbiophiliaa @pertinentpostmortem @angelofsmalldeath-codeine

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@kungfucapslock

@javierpena-inatacvestnotifs

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gguk-n · 11 days ago

Text

The moment (Zhou Guanyu x Reader)

Summary- In a world where soulmates exist. Some people's world is black and white till they meet their soulmate. Guanyu has found a way to make things work in Formula One with his world in grey scale.

Being a Formula One driver with your world in grey scale was a tough task. Yet, Guanyu navigated these challenges with ease. For someone who had never seen colour, it never bothered him. It was another Sunday on the track. He did wonder how ugly his team colour was when people kept saying that the green was atrocious but to him the hue didn't seem as bad.

Y/N was a vet by profession. She loved animals big and small and had just moved to the city from the country side to be closer to her parents. Working with large animals was always fun but she did want to experience what it was like to treat small cute house pets.

It was the summer break in 2024 and Guanyu was back home with his family and his cute pet cat, da zhang (sweetcorn). Guanyu was lounging around when he saw his cat jump down from the corner of his eyes and leap up to swallow a small piece of shiny metal on the floor. Guanyu wasn't sure how it got there or what it was and what he was supposed to do. He leapt up and tried to pry her mouth open to no avail. He quickly grabbed the carrier and raced to the vet. He wasn't sure what his cat had consumed or how it got there.

At the vet, his regular vet was on leave and the receptionist said she would have someone else come in and look at da zhang soon and to wait in a separate room. Guanyu was pacing the room while muttering something with his cat still in the carrier staring at her dad. Than he heard the door of the waiting room click open. He looked up to start telling the doctor what happened when his eyes felt like they hurt, his head hurt and suddenly the whole world was bright and colourful. He was shocked to say the least. It seemed like so was the vet, but she quickly composed herself and proceeded to pet the cat.

Y/N felt like her world was spinning till it wasn't. She had never seen colour before but everything seemed so perfect now they she could, even though she had never wondered what it would be like before. She was happy to see a distressed pet parent for the first time, making her feel guilty for the glee she felt. "What seems to be the problem?" she asked, trying to calm her racing heart. Guanyu explained the events of an hour before while she nodded along, she was staring and probably drooling, but who wouldn't if their soulmate was this cute. She examined the cat, "I'll run a few tests on her just to be sure. But I think she swallowed whatever it was and it's in her stomach probably. So, I'll be right back" she said and disappeared with da zhang who had become very friendly with her dad's soulmate.

An hour later, the vet, his soulmate, who's name he forget because he was too preoccupied came back with da zhang in tow. "It's all good. She swallowed a coin, it in her tummy. You should give her plenty of water and a lot of fibre so that she can pass it out soon. There's nothing to worry about" she reassured. "Thank you. Dr..." Guanyu trailed off. "Y/N Y/L/N" she smiled, "You already forgot my name" she laughed. "Sorry, I couldn't focus" he replied, was it because of da zhang or Y/N, the world will never know. He took the cat in his arms and started petting her, "You scared me there. But I got to meet your mom" he mumbled making Y/N blush at those words. "So, when do you get of?" he asked now looking at Y/N expectantly. "In a few hours" she replied. "There's a lot we have to catch up on, soulmate" Guanyu said, slowly. "yeah there is, soulmate" she replied.

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callooopie · 5 months ago

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CALLOOOPIE‼️❗️‼️❗️‼️❗️‼️❗️‼️❗️

DROP A MODERN!CREGAN HEADCANON LIST. AND MY LIFE, IS YOURS. 🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶

Modern!Cregan Stark headcannons (pt. 1)

Forgive my northern attitude, oh I was raised on little light — Northern Attitude // Noah Kahan

okay… we did not get much Cregan.. so these modern vibes might be a little off. I looked long and hard (🤨) at a photo of him and these were the vibes I conjured up.

This man.. is so serious. Whenever you look at Cregan he looks like he’s going to pop a blood vessel with how tense he is. He’ll tell you not to worry, this is his natural state (“natural state?!?!”) you don’t think you’ve ever seen him relaxed… although there are times he lets loose, it’s reserved and calm. If he does relax it’s still oddly tense or as if he’s on edge. He’s mastered the art of being both chill but perceptive of his surroundings to a headache inducing degree. “Hm? Yeah I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, honest. One of us needs to be alert here.”

Immediately dipped after college. He got his degree in environmental engineering, he’s out of there. You, Jace, and Davos once planned a summer trip to Cregan’s cabin way up north. Now, way up north? Think like the Yukon or the bush of Alaska—that’s where Cregan would make his home. It’s secluded, no one bothers him, and he can live off the land in relative peace. You three get lost, of course. It’s like you have to take a seaplane, and then hike for a bit to the nearest town, and then you’ll have to wait for him to pick you all up. “You guys kept running around town. It took me forever to find you. Texts? I don’t get those traveling from the cabin… oh well—you’re all here now. The air will do you idiots some good.”

Dog dad. Dog dad. Dog dad. Cregan’s got big dogs, he’s got little dogs. A livestock dog to care for his chickens, some other big dogs for hunting, and a lap dog for emotional support purposes. It’s a hearty mix of Labrador, Pyrenees, mountain dog, maybe even a shepherd of sorts. But the little dog? I feel like it’d either be a dachshund or a corgi. A corgi is a reliable herd dog on top of being just a little guy. But a dachshund would be something he would hold as he walked around the perimeter of his land. Or even better he would have both. But this is his herd, his squad. “Hey!—settle down everyone. Sit down.. down now! Sorry about them, they’re just excited to see you. They’re usually pretty lax, except around you it seems.”

Terrible driver. But not because he’s bad at it, but because he’s literally in the wilderness, there are no traffic laws to obey. He’s driving down a hill full speed no braking. You’re in the passenger seat holding on for dear life as the car literally shakes and jolts you around. But Cregan? He’ll be holding a simple conversation with you, voice not even shaking from the sudden movements of the jeep or truck as he navigates the country road. I cannot figure out if he has more truck vibes or more Jeep vibes. I feel like either would work—as long as they got the job done. And either way, both cars would be muddied and somewhat damaged—filled with survival gear, winter gear, more things tied down on top with bungie cords and hooks. “What do you need? Oh, yeah that should be in the back.. somewhere. Probably in one of the bags—lemme go check for you. Hang tight, be right back.”

This man fishes. Not like “leaving my bitch wife to go fishin’ with my boys” more like “I’m catching the radioactive catfish of Chernobyl and no one’s stopping me” type fishing. He gets into it, he goes crazy. Cregan’s out on a boat at sea looking for Cthulhu. Y’all know the show River Monsters? That’s Cregan’s type of fishing. Sure he does more ‘relaxed’ fishing once in a while, he enjoys the mix of adventure but also the quiet and the patience of the fish. He will talk about how beautiful the fish is, like Steve Irwin levels of talking to fish (and animals in general). Cregan’s a catch and release king, but if he does choose to use the fish he will use all of it from the head to the bones. Everything’s getting used and processed into something. “Let’s see what you caught.. oh nice, that’s a chinook salmon. A beauty too, look at the size of that thing. You caught that beast yourself without my help? It’ll taste better on an open fire, c’mon I’ll teach you how to gut it… don’t frown at me.”

Master chef I would think. It’s not Michelin star cooking, but cooking with the freshest ingredients possible? Cregan makes a mean salad from the veggies in his garden (a pretty big garden too, he built those wooden garden beds himself) and when he hunts he uses all the meat and bones from the animal as said before with the fish. He’s not overly hunting either, he gets enough for you and him to last a while. “Good harvest today, real good—everything was ripe and ready. What do you think? It all looks good? ..that’s.. that’s good. I’m glad.. save room for dessert too then. Have you ever had acorn cake?”

You know what? He’s a park ranger. Or a state ranger. He’s got a job where he can take care of the land and teach people about the environment and how to respect it. Cregan’s all about teaching little kids what plants are poisonous and then on the next call he’s busting folks for throwing litter into a river. He is the type that if he spots you maybe hiking or doing something while he’s on duty he will pretend to bust you over for something heinous or embarrassing. Bonus if there’s people around you, now you’re getting arrested for leaving a dildo attached to a tree. But usually? It’s silly reasons laced with compliments that make you blush or smile. “..Whatcha doing out here? Hiking? Suuure. Y’know we heard some reports about a.. a very um—beautiful person wandering looking lost.. just saying, I know my way around..”

Such a good listener. Cregan is for the people who just need an ear to listen to them. If something’s bothering you, upsetting you, or you’re just not feeling like yourself; he’ll lead you out to the back porch, gesturing for you to sit down on the step beside him. It’ll be quiet, except for the sounds of nature surrounding the cabin and the woods. You can see mountain ranges in the background, the midnight sun casting a hazy glow over the land. And the next thing you know is you’re pouring your heart out to him. Cregan would remain silent, unless you ask him for advice or support. He’s the type to not want to impose on you if you don’t wish to hear unsolicited opinions or comments on a matter—so you’ll need to tell him you want to hear his advice.

Busted ass cabin. It’s so good. There’s a nearby lake, there’s mountains in the distance. The woods are thick and beautiful. The people yearn for such a place. It’s such a relaxed vibe too, take off your shoes in the house though. There is a lot of cleaning that goes on however on account of the dogs around the home. But the cabin is lived in and homey. It’s cool and refreshing in the summers with the windows open, and it’s warm and cozy in the winters with the fireplace roaring. It’s not too big, but it’s not too cramped either. “Not too warm? Too cold maybe? …well if you’re cold there’s a good way to fix that—“

Cregan loves teaching you how to live off the land. It’s basically a part of what he does for his job. But with just you? It feels more special, more intimate. You’re eager to learn, and he’s more than happy to show you how to start a fire in an emergency, how to skin an animal and use all its parts for different things. What to do if you’re in a bind in the woods and what you should do first. It’s good advice honestly. Pure survival skills. His hands would be over yours, guiding them through the motions of something. His chin resting atop your head or on your shoulder as he explains each step or how something can be utilized to its fullest potential.

Don’t take his silence or his lack of reactions as something negative. Cregan’s just the type to silently revel in your presence first and foremost, no talking required. Most of your fishing or hunting trips are filled with silence, save for the sound of music from an old portable radio and the occasional sound of a beer can opening. Sometimes you read, sometimes you fish alongside him. But know that he does enjoy your company heavily, and if you do say something don’t worry he’ll respond. Sometimes he does worry maybe he’s a little too aloof or reserved when it comes to you. Reassure him that words aren’t always needed, and sometimes it’s good to just be next to one another without adding anything to it.

With you he can get a little silly. Cregan would lean against your side of the truck, a stupid smile on his face as you talk to him. If you’re hiking and there’s a muddy spot, he will pick you up and carry you over it. He’s the type to serve you food first before him, and if he’s having a snack he’s the type to share it without needing you to ask him. It’s like the phrase to be loved is to be seen. Fresh flowers for you every day, he wakes up early to make you coffee in bed. If you’re the squeamish type about hunting/fishing, he won’t go into the details of your dinner. And if you’re with him, he’ll take care of the food far off from you so you don’t need to see it.

#cregan stark x reader #cregan x you #cregan fanfiction #hotd season 2 #hotd x reader #hotd cregan #house of the dragon #cregan stark

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motorsportbarbie13 · 2 months ago

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What's A Soulmate? Part 3

In which your best friend comes back to you. But is it too late?

Warnings: oof the angst. swearing. that's it. Pairing: Lando Norris X SainzSister!Reader Word Count: 2.5k words

(a/n: this is how i cope after that hot mess of a race today. i hate everything and everyone except for my pookie bear lando norris)

- What's A Soulmate? - Part 1 - What's A Soulmate? - Part 2 - What's A Soulmate? - Part 2.5 - Master List

2021 You keep your promises.

2022 And then he started dating her.

2023 Silence.

March, 2024Australia

“We are so excited to have you join the team.” Your new boss beams back at you as you follow her through the corridor. “Thank you for making the flight at such short notice. Had we known Summer was going to quit so abruptly, we would have had you come out with the team earlier in the week.”

You nod, adjusting the collar of your new papaya and black polo. “Of course, I’m just happy it all worked out.”

The heat of the Australian sun beats down outside the McLaren hospitality building, but inside the air is cool and dry. You’d landed in the country last night after what felt like the longest flight you’ve ever taken from New York into Melbourne but were so happy to be back in the paddock after what felt like ages.

“Like we discussed earlier in the month, you’ll be working with Oscar as his primary press officer. I’m sure you know what that entails and everything, not much has changed since Carlos was with the team, but if you have any questions you have my number.” Brenda smiles down at you as she hands you your new McLaren issued iPhone.

Three weeks ago, you had graduated from NYU with a double degree in public relations and business management. One week later, you had accepted a job offer from McLaren to join the communications team working with Oscar. Between your dual degree and experience working in the paddock with your brother, the job had been a slam dunk for you.

“The boys are just finishing up some filming up stairs. Let’s go up and introduce you to Oscar. You already know Lando.” She says, with a bit of a smile. Your friendship with the Brit was well known back during the years you were still working with Carlos. No one knew how much it had changed since though.

Nerves fluttered around in your stomach as you follow Brenda up to the second floor where you could hear Oscar and Lando loudly laughing at something. As far as you knew, Lando was unaware that you had taken a job with McLaren. You had asked Carlos and Charles to keep your new job quiet around the paddock, not wanting to create drama before it was necessary. This was certainly going to be a shock, you knew that.

The last time you saw him flashes through your memory, quick and painful, as Brenda approaches where Oscar and Lando stand each holding dry erase boards.

Early 2022

“What do you mean she doesn’t want me around?” You nearly laugh, the absurdity of what your best friend is telling you not fully computing.

Lando grips the back of his neck, eyes looking everywhere but at you. “Our friendship makes her uncomfortable.”

Now you really do laugh. “What friendship, Lan? I’ve barely seen you this year!”

It was the truth. Ever since you had started classes in New York last year, your time to see your best friend had dwindled down into nearly nothing. You went to as many races as you could but going from spending nearly 24/7 with your brother and Lando to barely seeing them once every few months was more painful than you had anticipated. It hurt so much to watch him continue on, seemingly so unbothered by losing you, but this? This was the last straw.

He had been dating the Portuguese model for a bit now and you had to admit, she was pretty and wonderfully nice. You truly had no issue with her, having met her once at a Grand Prix you had attended before classes had started this year. She was quiet, sweet, and obviously adored Lando so her being with him was fine with you. You wanted to see your best friend happy. But now? Now she was threatened by someone who wasn’t even a second thought in Lando’s head?

You had spent the last few months desperately trying to believe that Lando wasn’t pulling away, that he wasn’t purposefully putting distance between you and him. Texts would go unanswered, calls went unreturned. You had chalked it up to him being busy and adjusting to having a new teammate but now you guess you had the truth: he was avoiding you.

“If that’s what you want, I’ll respect your wishes.” You murmur, taking a step away, suddenly wanting nothing more than to retreat back into the Ferrari motorhome where you could nurse your embarrassment in peace.

“It’s not…” Lando fumbles, but you know what he’s about to say isn’t true. This is exactly what he wants.

“No, I get it Lan. She’s threatened by me. I respect that and I’ll make myself scarce this weekend. You and her won’t have to worry about me anymore.”

The pain of your words slices through Lando. He hadn’t wanted to do this, far from it. But the fight that she had started last night when she had seen you in the pit lane laughing with Carlos and Charles had put him in a tight spot. You were his best friend, but she was his girlfriend. He owed her the respect, right? Even if he knew that nothing was going on, nothing could happen. It wasn’t in the cards for the two of you.

“I’m sorry.” He says.

“Me too, Lan.

You blink rapidly, erasing the painful memory from your brain as your boss steps towards Oscar and Lando, who are watching you approach. The look on Lando’s face sends your pulse skyrocketing. It’s a look that’s somewhere between surprise, confusion, and maybe even a bit of betrayal and you hate every bit of it.

“Oscar, I wanted to introduce you to your new press officer. She just landed last night so I’m sure she’s a bit jet lagged but she insisted on getting to work straight away. She’ll be taking you around for media duties after FP2 today so be nice, okay?”

“I’m always nice.” The Aussie says, soft smile on his lips. “It’s nice to meet you. Lando talks about you all the time.”

Your eyes dart towards Lando, who is still somewhat glaring at you like he can’t believe you’re in front of him. He talks about you? Still? Your stomach does an involuntary somersault at this bit of information, blush creeping its way high up on your cheek bones.

The phone in your hand chimes with a reminder. Oscar is due to an Australian media outlet in ten minutes for an interview. “Well, that’s my cue.” You turn to the girl that had been filming the segment with a friendly smile. “Is he good to go?”

“He’s all yours!”

With permission to leave, you turn on your heel and walk towards the staircase, Oscar in tow. Lando watches after you, still struggling to process what just happened. You worked for McLaren now? As Oscar’s press officer? He had just played padel with Carlos this fucking morning and he hadn’t said a single word about this. Surly Carlos had known about your taking the job so why hadn’t he told him? Did you not want him to know? Did you hate him so much that you didn’t even care if he knew or not? How had the most important person in his life become someone he just used to know once?

That last fight before he…said some of the the most shameful thing he’s ever said flashes through his mind as he wanders down to his drivers room, suddenly needing a break.

“You literally never shut up about her. ‘She does this.’ And ‘she does that’. Jesus Christ, Lando you could not be more obvious about it.” The anger in her voice had set his teeth on edge. “And now I have to sit and watch the, what did they call you guys? The Chaos Gremlins? Now I have to sit and watch The Chaos Gremlins be reunited for the entire fucking weekend and just sit back and take it?”

“There is nothing going on between us.” Lando insists, running his hands through his curls. “I haven’t seen her in months. Months!”

“But there would be if she was here, right?”

He had no answer for her. Because she was probably right in her assumption. If you had stayed, Lando had no idea what would’ve happened.

“It’s her or me, Lando.”

The rest of the day passes in what feels like the blink of an eye. By the time Oscar is done with all of his interviews at the end of the evening, you feel dead on your feet. You’ve lost all sense of time, feeling like you’ve been hit with a truck and you want nothing more than to get back to your hotel room and sleep for the next 5 to 10 business days. Or the last free practice tomorrow afternoon.

The Uber to the hotel takes far too long but just as your eyes are about to shutter closed in the back seat, you arrive and drag your near lifeless body up to your room. A quick shower is all you have the energy for, desperately needing to get the germs of the day off and then, you’re in bed, blissfully tucked between soft white cotton sheets watching some weird Australian soap opera.

Your eyes are heavy when the alert dings and you nearly ignore it, assuming it’s Carlos checking in. He could wait until you saw him tomorrow. But a quick glance shows you it isn’t Carlos.

You don’t fully understand why you gave him your room number. Not when the only thing on your mind is going to sleep. This is probably a really bad time to have such an important conversation too but a part of you, that part of you that never stopped hoping that maybe one day your best friend would come back to you, that part of you wanted to get this out of the way so you could move on, with or without him.

Ten minutes later, there’s a soft knock on the door and you haul yourself out of bed, still bone numbingly tired but also strangely keyed up with nervous energy. This would be the first time you had really spoken to Lando since that night two years ago. Sure, you two had exchanged pleasantries when you found yourself in the paddock for a race weekend but most of the time you kept to yourself in the Ferrari garage and motorhome, making sure your presence wasn’t noticed by anyone outside of your brother and Charles.

Tugging on your favorite NYU crewneck, you pad towards the door while willing your racing heart beat to slow. This is fine. This is going to be okay. You two needed to talk if you were going to be working closely this year so this had to happen sooner or later.

The door swings open and Lando stands in front of you looking just as exhausted and devastated as you feel.

“Hi.” He breathes, hands wringing together.

“Hi Lan.” You sigh.

His smile widens at the nickname and you open the door a bit wider to allow him in. You cross the room, settling on the king size bed before staring up at him. “You wanted to talk?”

The pain in his eyes cuts such a deep slice through you, it’s a wonder you don’t start bleeding out on the bedspread.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back?” He crosses the room towards you, setting every nerve ending in your body firing. He’s too close and you can’t control yourself when he’s like this.

You shrug, wondering how you’re still able to hold yourself together at this point. “I didn’t think you’d care.”

Lando drops his gaze away from you then, shame and anger surging across his handsome features. “Of course I’d care.”

“You didn’t when you chose her over me.”

He drags a hand over his face, the look of misery that sits on his face is reminiscent of the night you told him you were moving to New York City all those years ago. The memory brings a surge of white hot pain that cuts you so deeply it steals the breath from your lungs. If you had known that this was where you’d end up, you didn’t know if you would have made the same decision.

“And listen, that was fine, I guess. You had to respect your relationship with her but the most confusing thing was afterwards. Why the radio silence after?” You fold your hands into your lap, unable to meet the gaze that you feel so heavy on your skin. He’s practically begging you to look at him but you simply can’t.

“I was ashamed.” He admits and you feel the tears prick at the back of your eyes, a hot and painful sting that reminds you of how much you’ve lost. “I was ashamed at how I treated you and couldn’t face it.”

“Rightfully so.” You mutter, rolling your eyes.

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs while reaching for your hand. “I’m so sorry for how I treated you. I should have told her to fuck off for making me choose between her and you. I should have chosen my best friend and I’ve regretted that decision every day of my life since.”

The fact that you’re finally hearing the words you’ve been dreaming of hearing for nearly two years hits you like a ton of bricks. Here he was, your best friend, finally apologizing and owning up to his mistakes and for some reason, it felt like it was all just too little too late. How many nights had you stayed up, sobbing on your living room couch with your roommates over the stupid boy who was mean to you? Wondering what you had done to make him treat you like this? Hadn’t your friendship meant more than what it had ended up being?

And now, here you were, back in his orbit again and it just…didn’t matter. You had spent so many nights wishing this would come and now that he was finally taking responsibility and owning up to his actions, it just didn’t feel like it was enough.

“I think you should go.”

“What?” He stutters, fingers gripping yours almost desperately.

“I am exhausted and need some time to process this Lando. And you have quali tomorrow, you need to be focusing on racing, not on our issues.”

“I don’t give a fuck about racing.” He bites out, blue eyes turning stormy gray with anger. “I want to fix this.”

“This isn’t something that can be fixed with a single conversation.”

You didn’t even know if it could be fixed at all, if you were being honest with yourself.

“Then I’ll keep going until it is fixed, I promise.”

“Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep, Lando.” You warn, rising from the bed. “I need to get some sleep, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Lando feels like his heart is being ripped from his chest. He had never intended for your friendship to end up like this. It just…slipped away from him and he was so swept away by his lifestyle the last year that he convinced himself you were both better off where you were instead of together like the universe intended. He had been so scared to admit how wrong he had been, choosing her over you that night that he had allowed it to spiral so out of control it might never come back to him. You might never come back to him.

Tag List: @anilovessadbooks, @shelbyteller, @formulaal, @martygraciesversion381, @longhairkoo, @samantha-chicago, @stelena-klayley @dark-night-sky-99 @luckylampzonkland, @chlmtfilms , @inarabee @aykxz98 @forensicheart @cheer-bear-go-vroom @charlesgirl16 @lieutenantchaos @willowsnook @sltwins @linnygirl09 @powerfulmess @technicallypleasanttree @meglouise00

#f1 #formula 1 #lando norris #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #lando norris x you #lando norris x reader #lando norris imagine #lando norris angst

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cottonlemonade · 4 months ago

Text

A Night In The Country

word count: 3626 || avg. reading time: 15 mins.

pairing: University AU!Sakusa x chubby!Reader

genre: fluff with a pinch of spice

warnings: mdni

request: medium custom peach lemonade for Sakusa!♡ Custom: You thought your crush was one-sided little did you know... || fluffy-spicy, getting stranded with seemingly one-sided crush Sakusa

Sakusa leaned back in his seat. His long legs elegantly crossed, he took a sip of his iced hazelnut americano, tapping and scrolling aimlessly on his phone, his mask tucked neatly under his chin.

The lecture hall was filling slowly and the chatter of the dozen or so students that already waited just like him was quietly buzzing in the air.

Sakusa didn’t pay much attention to any of it. He already scanned the room and saw that you hadn’t arrived yet.

But only a moment later, his shoulders tensed slightly when your voice wafted over to him, like the sweet smell of a craving he’d had. He didn’t turn around but he angled his phone a little to catch your reflection. You were laughing with a friend as you walked down the steps, trying to decide where to sit. He was lucky today. You shuffled through the benches behind him and settled a few seats away.

“So it’s not gonna be fixed in time?”, he heard your friend ask somberly.

“I mean, it could be probably, but I don’t have the money right now. New brakes are so expensive, I’ll have to at least pull two extra shifts at the store to afford them. I was looking into some buses but because we live so far out there is no direct route and I’d arrive at the station some time after midnight and then would have to wait until morning for another bus and yeah… I’ll make it work somehow, but it sucks.”

“And asking your parents to chip in for a taxi?”

“Nah, that defeats the whole purpose of a surprise.”, you replied with a sigh, “Plus I don’t think they have any signal at their cabin so they couldn’t even send it until they get back on the road home.”

“Maybe I could ask my brother to take you?”, the friend offered.

He listened to you ponder. The thought of you spending possibly a couple of hours with some other guy alone in a car was unacceptable.

“I can drive you.”, he heard himself saying.

“Hm?” Both girls looked at him when he turned in his seat, casually waving with his coffee, the ice cubes rattling softly as he did.

“I can drive you.”, he repeated, “I was planning to drive home tonight anyway (lie), so it wouldn’t be a problem to take you. You live close to Nakagawa, right? I have to head in that direction, too (lie), so it wouldn’t be too far out of my way (lie).”

“Uhm. Are you sure?“ You only ever talked to Sakusa for questions on notes or when you were too short to get a book down from a shelf at the library. You definitely weren‘t close enough that you would have felt comfortable asking him for a ride.

“Yeah, no problem. I have training tonight but it ends around 8 if that‘s not too late for you.“

“No! 8 is perfect! Thank you so much!“

You checked the clock on your phone for the third time in as many minutes. You looked around, grabbing the handle of your old travel bag with both hands and rolling back and forth on your feet.

It wasn‘t quite dark yet but the parking lot next to the gym was already illuminated by street lamps. The sky was a pretty blueish gray and the cicadas were busy telling the world that summer was not over yet.

You smoothed out your linen shorts and adjusted the tuck of your shirt. Deciding on an outfit appropriate for a road trip had taken way longer than it should have. Especially since Sakusa was only doing you a favor. It didn’t mean anything so there was no reason to overthink it.

Of course, it was unsurprising that you found him attractive. Half the class was crushing on the anti-social volleyball star and the other half was just slightly better at hiding it.

But when you spotted him in the group spilling from the opening gym doors a few minutes later, your heart stumbled despite your better judgment. Sakusa split from his teammates walking towards the bus stop and lengthened his stride when he saw you.

“Hey, did you wait long?”, he asked and led you towards a sleek black car that most likely cost more than your tuition. You shook your head No as he clicked a button on his car keys to open the trunk, neatly placing his gym bag inside and reaching out his hand to get yours as well.

Somehow, even though freshly laundered, your clothes looked dirty next to his. Aside from the questionable neon yellow and green of his old training jacket, flung onto the backseat, he looked like he was ready to go to a dinner party. His hair was still damp from the post-training shower (his teammates had shrieked in surprise when he joined them for the first time ever in “those germ-infested stalls“) and the car quickly filled with the refreshingly cool smell of his shower gel. It made you feel cozy and light-headed at the same time. It had you imagine for a split second, how Sakusa would take you for a ride after training to grab some late night ice cream and watch the city lights dance on the river while holding hands and talking in his car. The sudden rumbling of the engine pulled you out of your little daydream and you also may have forgotten to breathe when his hand came up to hold the back of your seat as he turned to reverse out of the parking lot. This was going to be a long drive.

Sakusa kept one hand on the steering wheel, the other was propped against his temple, his elbow resting on the door. The road was smooth and barely traveled once you got out of Tokyo traffic. Nakagawa was about two and a half hours south and according to his GPS your house was another 20 minutes further out. All throughout training he had tried to listen in on casual conversations his team members had with each other to get some kind of indication what smalltalk he could bring up but it was mostly concerning volleyball or workout routines or an extensive ranking of protein shake flavors - not much he could use with you.

“Cow.“, he said, pointing out the window to a ruminant-shaped blob that practically blended into the meadow with how dark it had gotten by now.

You followed his eyes and confirmed it was indeed a cow, then smiled politely and went back to selecting music on your phone.

Sakusa felt like an idiot. You lived in a rural town. Cows were nothing novel to you. So back to square one.

He tried a few different approaches.

“Are you reading anything currently?”

And thinking he wouldn’t exactly be interested in the fantasy romance series that was splashed all over your social media, you just shook your head.

Meanwhile, Sakusa didn’t want to readily admit that he had picked up the books after the fourth time you posted about them and even less that he genuinely enjoyed the story. He pursed his lips and just kept his eyes on the road.

“What does your family do?”, he’d ask a few minutes later.

“They’re apple farmers. They also make everything from cider to wine to applesauce.”

He nodded, trying to find an angle to keep you talking.

You on the other hand didn't want to “bore” him with anecdotes about what it was like growing up on a farm. So you fell silent once more.

Sakusa wondered if he was doing something wrong. Usually, when he snatched a seat near you in the lecture halls, you were very talkative and could easily hold a conversation - in most cases ending your stories on a completely different topic than where you started. It was one of your most ridiculously entertaining and endearing qualities that made him notice you in the first place. Who, after all, could ignore a girl that talked knowledgeably about autapomorphies of any given taxon and then wondered in her next breath if crocodiles had a concept of friendship.

“Do you… like food?”, he asked and resisted the urge to bonk his head on the steering wheel. He had meant to be a lot more specific but it worked!

You had frowned at him for a moment, then chuckled, then laughed and said, “Yes, I do enjoy food. How about you?”

“Half an hour to go.”, he informed you when he turned off onto a bumpy dirt road between two rice paddies. The past hour he had talked and laughed more than he had all semester and even though his voice was getting hoarse, he was disappointed that the drive was nearing its end. Sakusa winced when he hit a pothole in his attempt to miss another. The car shook. It really wasn’t meant for off-roading, but it soldiered on. Until it didn’t.

After a couple more hits from rocks and uneven terrain, the engine sputtered and then stopped.

“Huh.” Sakusa turned the key in the ignition once, twice but never got more than a - described generously - weak little stutter.

“I’m so sorry.”, you said earnestly, but at the same time tried to suppress a snort at his incredulous expression.

“It’ll be fine.” He plucked his phone from the holder on the console and began searching for car workshops nearby.

You waited patiently for the realization to hit.

“Oh.”

And there it was.

“Should have figured that there are no 24h auto shops in the countryside.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

You two looked at each other, then broke into laughter, still giddy from your pre-pothole conversations.

“Looks like we’re walking.”

With a flourish, you opened the door and got out.

“Walking?” He followed your example and met you at the trunk.

“Yup!” Your village-born “get to work” attitude sprung to life when you waited for him to push the button so you could retrieve your bag, “We’re only a few minutes out of Nakagawa. We can walk there and ask for help. And if all else fails, we can at least find a place to spend the night.”

Spend the night? Sakusa felt his heart stop and then pump hard to make up for lost time.

You shouldered your bag and grinned.

“Let’s go!”

Holding your phones aloft to illuminate the pitch dark a little, you hiked along the dirt road, always switching between checking your next steps and zeroing in on the few town lights that dappled the not too distant horizon. You picked up the conversation where you left off and learned about his high school years and the team he used to play with. You yourself were part of the archery club at university and had played a bit of softball in high school. Sakusa was asking question after question, feeling relaxed whenever you talked for a long time. He listened intently as you recounted key moments from your childhood and the one softball tournament you played in your first year, how you got hit in the face by a curveball once and then decided that maybe a different sport would be more suited for you.

“Oh, don’t you wanna call your folks?”, you asked suddenly, when the dirt road finally turned to asphalt and a large sign announced the entrance of Nakagawa.

In the dim cone of light from your phone you saw him frown.

“Why?”

“Cause you said you were headed my way today to go home. They must be worried sick by now.”

“Oh.”, he averted his eyes and felt his ears burn in embarrassment. “No, they’re not.”

“Hmm, I bet they are.”, you smiled, then obviously got an idea, “Oh! Maybe they can come pick you up! Where do they live?”

“Aoyama.”, he said it innocently and quickly as if ripping off a bandaid.

“Ao- wait, isn’t that in Shibuya?”

“Uh huh.” He walked past you, reaching the still surprisingly lively main road of town, feigning interest in a pub to his left.

“That’s the north of Tokyo.”, you noted.

“Yes.”, he agreed simply.

Your stomach flipped. Of course you didn’t want to assume anything but if his behavior tonight was any indication then…

He turned around, ripping you from your thoughts. “We should find a place to sleep first.”, he said, typing on his phone, “And then we can grab something to eat.”

“Right.”, you said, still wondering if the puzzle pieces in your head fit together or if you were just delusional.

“Seems like it’ll be difficult to find two single rooms on such short notice.”, he muttered, scrolling, then standing next to you so you could check the screen as well.

“These are all double beds.”, you so keenly observed.

“Right.”, he said slowly. Your proximity made his head swim. “Then we should probably look somewhere else.”

“Right.”, you agreed, clearing your throat.

“Or we could book two double bedrooms.”, he suggested, his calm tone not matching the excited panic rising his chest at all. Sakusa really hoped you would say No.

Being quite a bit taller allowed him the privilege to have you look up at him with your big (e/c) eyes.

“That seems reasonable…”

Were you disappointed? He searched your face for any hint. You were fairly open about your feelings, carrying your thoughts on the tip of your tongue and heart on your sleeve. It was another entrancing quality he felt himself drawn to.

He didn’t want to be the pervert who pushed for sleeping in one bed. You might end up thinking he tricked you somehow.

“But-“, you began, biting your lip for a moment before continuing, “maybe it’ll be okay to share for one night?”

“Right…”

“Just if it’s alright with you.”, you hastily added.

An image formed in his mind. He was sitting on a freshly made bed, when the door to the bathroom opened and you stepped out enveloped in a cloud of steam. A towel would be tightly wrapped around you, not quite big enough to cover your curves - a slid on the side teasing more of your plush thigh. You’d sit down next to him, applying lotion to your legs and he’d be mesmerized by the little water drops still clinging to your skin. In his head you’d ask if he could help you with the lotion because you were worried your towel would slip and he was nothing if not helpful.

Back in reality he tore himself away from staring at your reddening cheeks and his finger hovered over the booking button.

“Y/n-chan?!” A booming voice from up ahead made you two look up.

A woman with a graying perm stuffed under a bright green bandana came up to you with determined steps, a wide smile on her face and she embraced you without hesitation.

“In town for your mom’s birthday, I guess? You’ve certainly grown a lot. Must be all that good food in Tokyo. You look more like your parents every day. I remember when you were still that round-faced little thing stealing strawberries from my garden!”, she tsk’ed her tongue playfully, “Is your brother coming, too? Haven’t seen him in a while as well, but that’s to be expected when he is always so busy. But you should make time for family at least. - And who do we have here? My, my. I don’t know the last time you brought a boyfriend home but he is certainly a handsome one, isn’t he? What’s your name?”

You didn’t even know where to start, feeling like most of her questions were rhetorical. And although you definitely wanted to tell her that Sakusa was certainly not your boyfriend, you also knew that that would bring on a whole new wave of interrogations.

“Sakusa Kyoomi.”, he just said with a deep bow and an even deeper blush on his ears which the night and warm lights from the surrounding restaurants gratefully hid.

Maybe he also figured it would be easier to just play along, you thought.

Meanwhile, Sakusa was just happy someone put the idea in your head.

The woman was only about half his height and took her time taking in every inch of his appearance, no doubt making mental notes to tell all her friends about it first thing tomorrow.

Your situation was quickly explained and the friendly neighbor just waved it off.

“Don’t worry, dearies. I can take you home, no problem. The truck’s this way.” You exchanged a look with Sakusa who just kind of stood there, unsure of what to do. “Well, come on, you two. No one is getting any younger here.”

The beige banged up pickup was only a few hundred meters away. The back was stacked full of large baskets holding different vegetables.

“Don’t mind ol’ Momo, but I think you two have to squeeze in the back.”

“Ol’ Momo” was a giant white Akita snoozing on the passenger seat. He lifted his head when they opened the doors and only gave a deep tired woof as a greeting, his tail wagging lazily when the women scooted in next to him behind the wheel.

Sakusa tried his hardest not to touch anything. The backseat was covered in dust and sand and housed more big plastic colanders with precariously stacked daikons, still dirty from the field’s soil. If the car wasn’t his worst nightmare he would have greatly enjoyed having you so close to him. Your thigh was pressed against his and he had flashbacks to his little daydream excursion from earlier. He was still pretty disappointed that he was robbed of the opportunity, however miniscule his chance with you might have been in the first place.

Off the truck went. Of course more dirt roads meant more potholes but unlike his fancy city car the sturdy little pickup truck had no problems trundling along. Apparently in no need of an actual conversation partner, the neighbor just kept on talking, bringing you up to speed on how her fields were doing, what her sons were up to and gave an exact play by play of how her husband managed to strike a bargain on new seeds for the following year. You nodded politely or asked an occasional question to keep her attention away from Sakusa, while he watched you being thrown around like a ragdoll during more turbulent road maneuvers. He at least had the luxury to hang on for dear life on the grab handle above the car window. You, sitting in the middle of the backseat with a non-functioning seatbelt, either dealt with your bumpy fate or tried to steady yourself elsewhere. The truck’s cabin jumbled again and you jerked forward, barely holding onto the back of the driver’s seat. His arm shot out almost automatically to wrap around your waist, pulling you back to him.

“Thank you.”, you murmured so the woman wouldn’t hear, “I’m sorry, I know you hate touching people.”

“I don’t mind.”, he replied.

Your eyes grew to the size of dinner plates when he unhurriedly let you go and looked out the window into the pitch blackness of the country night. Sakusa had forgotten how dark it could get without the constant neon lights of the city. In the reflection of the window he still saw you staring for a moment, then turning your head back to the front, answering some question of the neighbor. He stretched his fingers, your softness now seemingly imprinted in his memory.

Another minute or so passed before you were thrown forward once again. This time, his arm remained around you. “If you don’t mind.”, he said under his breath, “Just until the road gets better.”

You nodded slowly and robotically looked to the front again.

It was difficult not to milk this opportunity. Having Sakusa holding you close like this sparked all kinds of ideas of snuggling up against his broad frame, drawing patterns on his thighs and asking dreamily if he also thought spring was the perfect season for a wedding.

Sakusa hid a smirk behind his hand when your head lulled against his shoulder as soon as the truck reached a smooth road. He adjusted his seat so you would be comfortable and didn’t stop grinning until the truck pulled up to a farmhouse.

“There we are.”, the neighbor announced and then hushed her voice when she saw you in the rear view mirror, “Oh, look at that. Well aren’t you just the cutest love birds. You wake her up, I’ll get her bag.”

He really didn’t want to lose your warmth despite the remaining summer heat. You felt so perfect in his arms like this.

“Y/n.”, he said softly, “Y/n, you’re home.”

Carefully brushing a strand of hair out of your face he poked your cheek with his finger. No reaction. He poked again. You mumbled something and cuddled closer. His body was about to explode from cuteness overload.

His door opened. “No luck?”, the woman asked.

He shook his head and began to think. Making sure to pull you along with him, he stepped out of the truck and slid his other arm underneath your knees.

“Oh you’re not picking her up, sweet boy. You’ll break your neck trying to lift this one.”, she warned but Sakusa already brought you close to his chest. He would ask his trainer to add extra sets for muscle gain in his workouts from now on, but at this moment he was just way too satisfied with himself to carry you across the courtyard up the few steps to the front door. The cool night air made you stir in his arms. “Sakusa?”

“Great timing. Do you have the keys?”

art: @KUM07474_V on Twitter

a/n: so uhm, yeah this one just kept on going xD thank you so much for your request and continued kindness @melimelisworld, I hope you enjoyed it 🌟

#sunnys lemonade stand #sakusa x chubby reader #haikyuu x chubby reader #chubby reader #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu x reader #hq fluff #haikyuu x curvy reader #sakusa kyoomi x reader #sakusa x you #sakusa x y/n #sakusa fluff #sakusa x reader #hq sakusa #sakusa kiyoomi #haikyuu sakusa

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